Una de las bifurcaciones en el debate contemporáneo sobre la legitimidad de la democracia explora si ésta ofrece ventajas distintivamente epistémicas frente a otras alternativas políticas. Quienes defienden la tesis de la democracia epistémica afirman que la democracia es instrumentalmente superior o equiparable a otras formas de organización política en lo que concierne a la obtención de varios bienes epistémicos. En este ensayo presento dos (grupos de) argumentos a favor de la democracia epistémica, que se inspiran en resultados formales: el (...) teorema del jurado de Condorcet [TJC] y el teorema ‘diversidad supera habilidad’ [DSH]. Pese a su gran atractivo, sostengo que estos argumentos son incapaces de respaldar dicha tesis: no brindan razones para considerar que la democracia es epistémicamente superior (o equiparable) a algunas alternativas políticas no democráticas. En su lugar, sugiero que, sin requerir un cambio radical en nuestras formas de organización política, la epistemología democrática –el estudio de las ‘circunstancias epistémicas de la democracia’– puede ofrecer valiosas lecciones de sobre cómo optimizar, en nuestra situación, instituciones y procedimientos de toma de decisiones. Para ello, primero distingo entre varias maneras de evaluar procedimientos de toma de decisión colectiva. Argumento que, al considerarlos como formas de organización política, un factor importante en la evaluación de tales procedimientos involucra asuntos fácticos sobre los cuales puede aspirarse a obtener o promover algunos bienes epistémicos. En este contexto, presento algunos de los argumentos más importantes a favor de la democracia epistémica. A continuación, reúno algunas de las objeciones sobre la aplicabilidad de dichos argumentos y ofrezco razones independientes para dudar de que ofrezcan apoyo a la tesis de la democracia epistémica. Finalmente, defiendo que la epistemología democrática puede desempeñar un papel significativo en la legitimación de formas de organización colectiva que podrían denominarse ‘democráticas’. (shrink)

Our philosophical understanding of mental illness is being shaped by neuroscience. However, it has the paradoxical effect of igniting two radically opposed groups of philosophical views. On one side, skepticism and denialism assume that, lacking clear biological mechanisms and etiologies for most mental illnesses, we should infer they are constructions best explained by means of social factors. This is strongly associated with medical nihilism: it considers psychiatry more harmful than benign. On the other side of the divide, naturalism and reductionism (...) are on the look for failures in the biological functioning of the organism whenever a genuine mental illness occurs. Psychiatry as currently practiced, accordingly, exhibits the gaps of an ongoing research programme; a yet to be completed neuroscience would link mental illnesses with identifiable biological mechanisms. Both sides of this divide claim to be fostered by scientific discoveries and advances in neuroscience, when taken at face value. Against this background, we argue instead for a modest view. To that end, we draw attention to some nuances in the scientific realism debate. While contending that neuroscientific theories and models aim to provide true representations of their target systems, and can justifiably claim to have attained some, we argue that our confidence should not be placed beforehand in specific features of these scientific representations. Hence, it would be unwarranted to extract morals for psychiatry from posits (or their absence) in neuroscientific explanations of mental illnesses. To illustrate our position, we examine some recent discoveries in neuroscience concerning bipolar disorder. We conclude by linking our topic to a broader issue in the philosophy of medicine: insofar as psychiatry is a biomedical specialty, its classifications of health and disease are guided by pragmatic concerns, as well as by scientific discoveries. (shrink)

En décadas recientes se ha considerado que una formulación adecuada del autoconocimiento (AC) debería ser consistente con la tesis del externalismo (E). Michael McKinsey es uno de los personajes que ha enfatizado con mayor ahínco que la conjunción de ambas posturas es inconsistente. En este trabajo defiendo la idea de que las objeciones presentadas por McKinsey no afectan de manera importante la formulación davidsoniana de la autoridad de la primera persona (AC3) en conjunción con (E); señalo, además, que si no (...) pudiera hacerse una reconstrucción à la Davidson de (AC3) desde la postura de McKinsey sería en virtud de las diferencias metodológicas, semánticas, epistemológicas y ontológicas entre ambos autores, y no debido a que esta reconstrucción en sí misma sea incompatible con el externalismo. (shrink)

En el presente artículo, el autor se ocupa de esbozar una caracterización general del autoengaño desde algunas de las principales perspectivas en la materia, señalando los problemas centrales que involucra y haciendo énfasis en la línea intencionalista. Luego analiza la relación que el autoengaño guarda con la autoridad de la primera persona y qué imagen resulta de una conjunción teórica de ambos problemas.

In this thesis, I elaborate and defend Donald Davidson's account of knowing one's own mental states that exhibit first-person authority. To that end, I place Davidson's account among others in the philosophical landscape concerning self-knowledge. Next, I examine his response to philosophical challenges that arise from mental content externalism and self-deception. Finally, I draw some insights froms Davidson's account to the broader aims of epsitemology.

I offer an explicit account of the underdetermination thesis as well as of the many challenges it poses to scientific realism; a way to answer to these challenges is explored and outlined, by shifting attention to the content of theories. I argue that, even if we have solid grounds (as I contend we do) to support that some varieties of the underdetermination thesis are true, scientific realism can still offer an adequate picture of the aims and achievements of science.

Algunos críticos de la ciencia afirman que es sólo un punto de vista entre otros, sin alguna autoridad epistémica especial. No obstante, en este artículo se defiende que la idea de que la investigación científica involucra una perspectiva o punto de vista no impone una restricción a su ideal de objetividad. Primero se presentan algunas aclaraciones sobre la noción de punto de vista, luego se atiende al concepto de objetividad científica, y por último se enfrentan algunos desafíos que se desprenden (...) de la noción de punto de vista y amenazan rasgos de la objetividad científica vinculados con su autoridad epistémica. -/- Some critics of science claim that it is only a point of view among others, lacking any special epistemic authority. However, this paper contends that conceiving scientific inquiry as something that involves a perspective or a point of view does not pose a constraint on its ideal of objectivity. We first put forward some clarifications on the notion of point of view, followed by some observations on scientific objectivity; finally, we face some of the challenges that rise from the notion of point of view and threaten features of scientific objectivity tied to its epistemic authority.]. (shrink)

At work a characterization of the sins of word, i.e., those transgressions in which predominated orality, to understand what was the place that was assigned occurs within a legal framework that tended to control activities individuals and the reason why he was persecuted. At first, it shows what modifications of Christian thought that allowed for specific classifications of sins were, as a result of the emergence of Thomism, and the predominance of an ethical supported by the Decalogue, he began to (...) speak of sins in thought, word, and deed. In researching the mechanisms that the Catholic Church used to control the use of the word they are also presented. The aim was to have strict control of the word to avoid misconceptions, ideas that could break the building and doctrinal belief system from spreading. Freedom of thought, doubt or disbelief were not permissible in a scheme that sought to impose their world view and, therefore, could not allow dissent or questioning of paradigms. (shrink)

Les entretiens de Dominique Berthet avec Marc Jimenez qui composent ce volume ont paru initialement dans la revue Recherches en Esthétique entre 1999 et 2014, publiée par le Centre d'Études et de Recherches en Esthétique et en Arts plastiques (CEREAP). Placés en ouverture, ils constituaient une première approche permettant de cerner les enjeux et les implications de chaque thème.0Critique, hybridation, métissage, audace, errances, ailleurs, utopies, rencontre, lieu, fragment, imprévisible, insolite, trouble, transgression, engagement : autant de " fragments d'un discours (...) esthétique ". (shrink)

To End the “End of Art” Topos While a scrupulous attention to the multiple dimensions of contemporary artistic creation remains indispensable, the predominantly optimistic vision which, a few years ago, sought to counter the strident contempt of the censors of “contemporary art” no longer constitutes the adequate response. Nor does it remain self-evident that the idea of an “iconoclastic” and “autophagic” art still encloses a kernel which is recalcitrant to any institutional or commodifying recuperation, or that it is is anything (...) other than the symptom of a residual and stubborn idealism, devoid of any bearing on the current status, social, economic, economic and political, of contemporary art. True, there is still room for personal strategies and there are still some lingering possibilities for individual acts of micro-resistance to the dominant artistic networks. These can develop on the margins of the general commodity logic and its speculative excesses. However one has only to take a walk in the aisles of the numerous international art fairs to grasp the extent to which such forms of resistance are, indeed, marginal. (shrink)

Crise de l'art ou consensus culturel? Aujourd'hui, l'important n'est plus, semble-t-il, que la critique esthetique ait encore a dire sur Josef Beuys mais que le Centre Pompidou puisse faire croire qu'il dit tout de lui. Le culturel, dans son mecanisme institutionnel et mediatique bien huile, apparait comme l'ultime parade que l'ordre social ait su trouver pour conjurer sa peur - ou sa haine - de l'art. Cependant la critique n'a pas a se laisser abuser ni intimider par l'artifice du consensus (...) culturel qui regne actuellement. Il lui revient de continuer a evaluer les oeuvres, pour autant que le jugement sur l'art engage aussi la societe et l'epoque dans lesquelles cet art se deploie. La reflexion esthetique ne se reduit pas au jugement de gout, elle commence avec lui et se poursuit apres lui. (shrink)

Il est devenu banal de déclarer que les images virtuelles et le mondes fictifs crées par les nouvelles technologies donnent à repenser le rapport de l'homme au réel, et le rapport de l'homme à lui-même. Il conviendrait aujourd'hui de regarder les oeuvres d'art comme des dispositifs fictionnels, non pas seulement comme de pures et simples fictions, mais comme des virtualités qui aiguisent nos yeux, affûtent nos oreilles, engendrent les fantasmes que nous projetons dans le futur comme autant d'espoirs d'émancipation.

Un hommage à l'œuvre d'Emmanuel Levinas avait été organisé à la Sorbonne, peu après la mort du philosophe, certaines communications ont été publiées dans un numéro de la revue Rue Descartes. Celles-ci déclinent, selon un modèle propre à chaque auteur, un moment de ce que Levinas appelle " l'altérité d'autrui ". Deux directions caractéristiques de la pensée de Levinas sont privilégiées, l'une encline à l'exégèse et à l'étude du Talmud, dérangeant la souveraineté de la raison, l'autre, la philosophie, permettant d'accéder (...) à une réflexion partagée sur la vérité. Présentés par Danielle Cohen-Levinas, les textes sont signés par Miguel Abensour, Pierre Bouretz, Catherine Chalier, Simon Critchley, Marc de Launay, MarieLouise Mallet, Jean-Luc Marion, Stéphane Mosès, Silvana Rabinovich, Jacques Rolland, Shmuel Trigano. Le lecteur trouvera également dans la collection Quadrige, Le tempe et l autre, ouvrage regroupant quatre conférences d'Emmanuel Levinas faites au Collège de philosophie. (shrink)

If a potential person would have a good life if he were to come into existence, can we regard his coming into existence as better for him than his never coming into existence? And can we regard the situation in which he never comes into existence as worse for him? In this paper, we argue that both questions should be answered affirmatively.

Ouija board sessions are illustrious examples of how subjective feelings of control – the Sense of Agency - can be manipulated in real life settings. We present findings from a field experiment at a paranormal conference, where Ouija enthusiasts were equipped with eye trackers while using the Ouija board. Our results show that participants have a significantly lower probability at visually predicting letters in a Ouija board session compared to a condition in which they are instructed to deliberately spell out (...) words with the Ouija board planchette. Our results also show that Ouija board believers report lower SoA compared to sceptic participants. These results support previous research which claim that low sense of agency is caused by a combination of retrospective inference and an inhibition of predictive processes. Our results show that users in Ouija board sessions become increasingly better at predicting letters as responses unfold over time, and that meaningful responses from the Ouija board can only be accounted for when considering interactions that goes on at the participant pair level. These results suggest that meaningful responses from the Ouija board may be an emergent property of interacting and predicting minds that increasingly impose structure on initially random events in Ouija sessions. (shrink)

In this article we present a new approach to practical artificial intelligence (AI) ethics in heavy industry, which was developed in the context of an EU Horizons 2020 multi partner project. We begin with a review of the concept of Industry 4.0, discussing the limitations of the concept, and of iterative categorization of heavy industry generally, for a practical human centered ethical approach. We then proceed to an overview of actual and potential AI ethics approaches to heavy industry, suggesting that (...) current approaches with their emphasis on broad high-level principles are not well suited to AI ethics for industry. From there we outline our own approach in two sections. The first suggests tailoring ethics to the time and space situation of the shop floor level worker from the ground up, including giving specific and evolving ethical recommendations. The second describes the ethicist’s role as an ethical supervisor immersed in the development process and interpreting between industrial and technological (tech) development partners. In presenting our approach we draw heavily on our own experiences in applying the method in the Use Cases of our project, as examples of what can be done. (shrink)

Previous research indicates that Euro-American women are more upset by imagining their male partners committing homosexual infidelities than heterosexual ones. The present studies sought to replicate these findings and extend them to two non-Western cultures wherein masculine men frequently engage in sexual interactions with feminine third-gender males. Across six studies in three cultural locales, women were asked to rate their degree of upset when imagining that their partner committed infidelity that was heterosexual in nature, as well as infidelity that was (...) homosexual. In two Canadian undergraduate samples, women reported greater upset at imagining partner infidelity with a female, whereas a community sample of middle-aged women reported equal upset across infidelity types. Samoan women reported substantially less upset at the thought of partner infidelity with a third-gender male than with a female. Istmo Zapotec women reported equal upset toward infidelity with a female or a third-gender male, whereas a second Zapotec sample reported slightly greater upset at the thought of infidelity with a muxe. Results illustrate how cultural contexts moderate the degree to which same-sex infidelity scenarios are upsetting to women. (shrink)

Several logical operators are defined as dual pairs, in different types of logics. Such dual pairs of operators also occur in other algebraic theories, such as mathematical morphology. Based on this observation, this paper proposes to define, at the abstract level of institutions, a pair of abstract dual and logical operators as morphological erosion and dilation. Standard quantifiers and modalities are then derived from these two abstract logical operators. These operators are studied both on sets of states and sets of (...) models. To cope with the lack of explicit set of states in institutions, the proposed abstract logical dual operators are defined in an extension of institutions, the stratified institutions, which take into account the notion of open sentences, whose satisfaction is parametrised by sets of states. A hint on the potential interest of the proposed framework for spatial reasoning is also provided. (shrink)

AI has become the poster child for a certain kind of thinking which holds that some technologies can become objective, independent and emergent entities which can evolve beyond the control of their creators. This thinking is not new however. It is a product of certain philosophical ideas such as materialism, a common-sense world of objective and independent objects, a correspondence theory of truth, and so forth, which are centered around the pre-eminence of science, epistemology, and logical reasoning, among others, as (...) the supremely valid modes of engaging experience. This paper aims to critically examine the synthesis of the development program for AI to be found in the writings of computer scientist John McCarthy (1927–2011). McCarthy has been called one of the founding fathers of AI. First, some of the main themes which recur in his writings from as early as the mid nineteen fifties in the Dartmouth proposal, up to his late writings, are considered. A discussion of the goals that such a program implies, follows, in terms of society’s relation with AI based technology and the nature and purpose of AI itself. These implications are arguably related to social control and are also moral. Ultimately, McCarthy’s idea that AI is and can be built upon a paradigm of reasoning and logic so as to simulate a perfectly rational abstraction of human thinking is shown to be motivated by his view that AI systems should be controlled, as servants. This understanding of human thinking is questionable, however, given current research on human irrationality, as well as on the argumentative role of reasoning. And yet, the process of development toward the unachievable goal of controllable, rational, logical AI systems, has handily come to serve as a blind for increasing techno-corporate control of society, with techno-corporate interests displacing blame for devaluations and harms caused by their push to develop the technology to AI systems which they can conveniently ‘lose control of.’. (shrink)

Stakeholder Theory combines the pursuance of business goals and responsibility toward a firm’s stakeholders. Despite the wealth of research on Stakeholder Orientation, we still have much to learn about specific measurements for several related constructs. In this study, we draw on two samples of 129 and 151 Spanish firms, respectively, to investigate CEOs’ perceptions on Stakeholder Integration (SI), leading to the identification of three dimensions of the construct. In this respect, our study suggests that Knowledge of Stakeholders, Interactions between a (...) firm and its stakeholders, and the adaptation of a firm’s behavior to stakeholders’ demands constitute the main dimensions of SI. This construct has the potential to connect the stakeholder and strategy literatures. (shrink)

La contribution de la tradition luthérienne à l’élaboration d’un concept substantiel de personne est ici examinée au moyen d’une analyse d’une formule récurrente sous la plume de Luther : Fides facit personam. Après avoir mis en évidence le cadre conceptuel qui donne sens à cet énoncé (la doctrine de la justification par la foi), on étudiera la manière dont deux théologiens contemporains, G. Ebeling et E. Jüngel, ont investi cette structure de base et dont ils se sont approprié l’énoncé de (...) Luther. Il apparaîtra à partir de cette étude que l’un comme l’autre conçoivent l’être personnel de l’homme comme son mode d’être authentique, lequel consiste en un être relationnel. Dans un tel dispositif, c’est la relation que Dieu entretient avec chaque homme qui fait de lui une personne et c’est dans la foi, c’est-à-dire la conscience de son acceptation par Dieu, que chacun peut se vivre comme la personne qu’il est et entretenir des relations authentiques avec Dieu, soi-même et les autres. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn “Why Has Critique Run Out of Steam,” Bruno Latour wonders whether academia, particularly the humanities, can rethink its dedication to critique and cultivate an ethos that cares. I question whether Latour's commitment to enlightenment without modernity, particularly his allergy to transcendence, inhibits his ability to transform critique into care. For Latour, transcendence makes impossible the due process of his proposed collective and the corresponding practice of real world politics precisely because it dangles a truth beyond compromise. While Latour regards (...) notions of a transcendence in terms of a beyond as a precursor to terror, Levinas finds terror in the practice of philosophy without the disequilibrium transcendence can bring. Thus, I argue that Levinas offers Latour a way to uncross God that posits the beyond as something other than ineffectually and debilitatingly distant, as something that can inspire us to care. (shrink)

Bryan Norton proposes a "convergence hypothesis'* stating that anthropocentrists and nonanthropocentrists can arrive at common environmental policy goals if certain constraints are applied. Within his theory he does not, however, address the consideration ofnonconsequentualist issues, and, therefore, does not provide an argument for the convergence between consequentualist and nonconsequentualist ethical positions. In the case of biotechnology, nonconsequentualist issues can dominate the debate in both the fields of environmental ethics and bioethics. I argue that, the convergence hypothesis must be rejected when (...) tested against the case of biotechnology, and this limitation of convergence applies to any theory of reconciliation within the "health" concept because the achievement and preservation of "health "emphasizes a consequentualist outlook. I conclude that an inclusive ethics for ecosystem and human health should be explicit about this limitation. (shrink)

Between 1900 and 1925, the American economy witnessed a remarkably successful effort to upgrade competition through associations. Unlike the prevailing interpretation of American industrialization, in which associations fell prey to antitrust and collective action problems, we find many associations that reinvented themselves from cartels to developmental associations. This transition marked two previously unrecognized varieties in economic institutions. In the first, associations joined markets and corporate hierarchies to create variety in American capitalism. In the second, associations used deliberation, cost accounting, and (...) benchmarking to enhance productivity and create varieties of collective governance. This article explains the origins of developmental associations, outlines their principles, traces their implementation in the commercial printing industry, and surveys their distribution and performance effects across 344 industries. Based on these findings, we revise conventional institutionalist assumptions about order and agency to make room for institutional diversity and actors’ capacities for reflexivity and learning. (shrink)

The unorthodox life and ideas of Friedrich Nietzsche, the philosopher who defiantly claimed 'God is Dead', come alive in this documentary history. Here is a clear picture of the time in which the revolutionary philosopher lived as well as his famous love affairs, his theories of Superman, the Antichrist and nihilism. Nietzche's work had a major impact on the 20th century, including being manipulated and used by the Nazis to justify their cause during World War 2.

Since the late 1980s, the affinity between irony and postmodernity has been addressed in several studies that apply semiotic approaches to cultural postmodernity generally and to postmodern literature specifically. The following article contributes to the branch of semiotics of postmodern literature by proposing the notion of bi-paradigmatic irony as a special postmodern sign. Whereas mono-paradigmatic irony establishes its ironic contrast within the same paradigm, in bi-paradigmatic irony, said and meant meanings belong to two different paradigms. On the basis of two (...) semiotic paradigmatic perspectives and three semiotic paradigmatic ideologies , six types of bi-paradigmatic irony are possible. Two of the six types of postmodern irony are applied to theoretical-literary texts by Jacques Derrida and Roland Barthes as well as to literary texts by the Austrian writers Christoph Ransmayr and Hans Carl Artmann. (shrink)