The suggestion has been made that future advanced artificial intelligence (AI) that passes some consciousness-related criteria should be treated as having moral status, and therefore, humans would have an ethical obligation to consider its well-being. In this paper, the author discusses the extent to which software and robots already pass proposed criteria for consciousness; and argues against the moral status for AI on the grounds that human malware authors may design malware to fake consciousness. In fact, the article warns that (...) malware authors have stronger incentives than do authors of legitimate software to create code that passes some of the criteria. Thus, code that appears to be benign, but is in fact malware, might become the most common form of software to be treated as having moral status. (shrink)

Bernard Williams is a sceptic about the objectivity of moral value, embracing instead a qualified moral relativism—the ‘relativism of distance’. His attitude to blame too is in part sceptical. I will argue that the relativism of distance is unconvincing, even incoherent; but also that it is detachable from the rest of Williams's moral philosophy. I will then go on to propose an entirely localized thesis I call the relativism of blame, which says that when an agent's moral shortcomings by our (...) lights are a matter of their living according to the moral thinking of their day, judgements of blame are out of order. Finally, I will propose a form of moral judgement we may sometimes quite properly direct towards historically distant agents when blame is inappropriate—moral-epistemic disappointment. Together these two proposals may help release us from the grip of the idea that moral appraisal always involves the potential applicability of blame, and so from a key source of the relativist idea that moral appraisal is inappropriate over distance. (shrink)

Careful examination of the arguments used in the De aeternitate mundi attributed to Boethius of Dacia shows that this is not a work of radical Aristotelianism, but a teaching text aimed at showing students how to approach the question of the eternity of the world in their disputations. A comparison of the text with some of the articles condemned in 1277 demonstrates that the articles do not originate from the text and that the work was not targeted by Tempier. What (...) is learned from the text about disputations on the eternity of the world is then used to show another way of reading these articles which is consistent with Tempier’s assertion that they were put forward by students during disputations and to some extent enables one to reconstruct the debates as they happened. This also shows how the students distorted the arguments of their masters for their own ends, which in turn suggests how the so-called ‘double truth’ may have been inspired by the De aeternitate mundi or a text like it. Finally, this helps explain the apparent reaction against the arguments used in the De aeternitate on the part of a number of philosophy teachers during the 1270s. (shrink)

Fricker shows that virtue epistemology provides a general epistemological idiom in which these issues can be forcefully discussed.

In this paper I respond to three commentaries on Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing. In response to Alcoff, I primarily defend my conception of how an individual hearer might develop virtues of epistemic justice. I do this partly by drawing on empirical social psychological evidence supporting the possibility of reflective self-regulation for prejudice in our judgements. I also emphasize the fact that individual virtue is only part of the solution – structural mechanisms also have an essential role (...) in combating epistemic injustice. My response to Goldberg principally concerns my perceptual account of the epistemology of testimony, which I defend as being both well-motivated and best categorized as a species of non-inferentialism. I also explain its relation to the reductionism/non-reductionism contrast, and defend my resistance to casting it as any kind of default view. In response to Hookway, I contrast discriminatory with distributive forms of epistemic injustice, and defend the basic taxonomy I present in the book, which casts testimonial and hermeneutical injustice as the two fundamental discriminatory forms of epistemic injustice. (shrink)

Resumen:Para nadie debe ser tan difícil reconocer que Chile transita por un período de profunda incertidumbre respecto de su destino. Los resultados del pasado 4 de septiembre del año 2022 y 7 de mayo del 2023 son tan erráticos respecto de los anteriores que pareciera que el curso de nuestra política nacional no estuviese gobernado por ningún principio discernible. Al intentar explicarlos, los apasionados culpan a los excesos de la izquierda y otros, al sabotaje de la derecha. Pero esta clase (...) de posturas que intentan reducir el problema a una sola causa autoevidente no permiten ponderar ningún significado posible de lo que ocurrió. Lo mismo aplica para aquellas descripciones de escenarios líquidos donde la multiplicidad de causas se vuelven ininteligibles, diluyendo cualquier explicación como si se tratara de agua escurriendo entre los dedos. Bajo tales condiciones, es imposible afirmar que nos encontramos perdidos o no, pues carecemos de un norte, una dirección, un estándar por el cual evaluar las acciones individuales y colectivas. Y esta situación no solo es aplicable para quienes han intentado ofrecer explicaciones cultas al problema, pues tanto la anomia cada vez más extendida en la población como la confusión de la élite son evidencia de que todos carecemos de una adecuada apreciación del significado de los eventos que han transcurrido durante los últimos años. (shrink)

She was to a degree the tool of her husband. However, despite the fact she was under his influence to a degree she cannot escape if the Bank took all reasonable steps to ensure that she had appreciated and understood what she was signing. It may be that Mrs Wright-Bailey did not have an adequate comprehension of the nature of the charge... [E]ven if she did not, the Bank did take all reasonable steps.

The notion of recognition is an ethically potent resource for understanding human relational needs; and its negative counterpart, misrecognition, an equally potent resource for critique. Axel Honneth’s rich account focuses our attention on recognition’s role in securing basic self-confidence, moral self-respect, and self-esteem. With these loci of recognition in place, we are enabled to raise the intriguing question whether each of these may be extended to apply specifically to the epistemic dimension of our agency and selfhood. Might we talk intelligibly—while (...) staying in tune with Honneth’s concepts and their Hegelian key—of a generic idea of epistemic recognition? Such an idea might itself be seen to apply at the same three levels to indicate: first, basic epistemic self-confidence; second, our status as epistemically responsible; and third, a certain epistemic self-esteem that reflects the epistemic esteem we receive from others. The papers in this volume surely sound a chord in the affirmative, and together they steer us towards a multifaceted conception of how epistemic injustice is related to epistemic misrecognition, and indeed how we might construe a positive relation of epistemic recognition. (shrink)

Este artigo visa analisar a narrativa (auto)biográfica de estudantes de Pedagogia em uma universidade pública da região do Vale do São Francisco, localizada no território de Petrolina-PE em contexto de pandemia da COVID-19. Para refletir sobre a formação a partir da escrita de si, pautamo-nos, teórica e metodologicamente, em Heidegger, Josso, Freire, Ribeiro, Passeggi, Sousa e Lima. Neste artigo, comtempla-se respostas referentes à como os estudantes se sentiram no processo de formação docente em meio a pandemia e o que esperavam (...) do futuro. A turma do curso de Pedagogia era composta por 19 estudantes, deste total, 17 participaram da atividade da escrita da carta a si. Como estratégia de análise, utilizou-se o método do círculo hermenêutico “heideggeriano”. Assim, as informações foram organizadas em três temas de sentido, sendo: saúde mental na pandemia; ensino remoto versus ensino presencial; e planejamento de carreira. Percebeu-se, por meio das cartas, a preocupação quanto ao ensino remoto, assim como os planos de futuro, com intenção contribuir socialmente para uma educação humana e facilitadora de aprendizagens. Notou-se, ainda, que os estudantes refletiram sobre o bem-estar na profissão, buscando o sentido de suas ações, além de demarcarem o suporte financeiro, emocional, familiar e formativo. (shrink)

When we hope to explain and perhaps vindicate a practice that is internally diverse, philosophy faces a methodological challenge. Such subject matters are likely to have explanatorily basic features that are not necessary conditions. This prompts a move away from analysis to some other kind of philosophical explanation. This paper proposes a paradigm based explanation of one such subject matter: blame. First, a paradigm form of blame is identified—‘Communicative Blame’—where this is understood as a candidate for an explanatorily basic form (...) of blame. Second, its point and purpose in our lives is investigated and found to reside in its power to increase the alignment of the blamer and the wrongdoer's moral understandings. Third, the hypothesis that Communicative Blame is an explanatorily basic form of blame is tested out by seeing how far other kinds of blame can reasonably be understood as derivative, especially in respect of blame's point and purpose. Finally, a new and quasi-political worry about blame is raised. (shrink)

My overarching purpose is to illustrate the philosophical fruitfulness of expanding epistemology not only laterally across the social space of other epistemic subjects, but at the same time vertically in the temporal dimension. I set about this by first presenting central strands of Michael Williams' diagnostic engagement with scepticism, in which he crucially employs a Default and Challenge model of justification. I then develop three key aspects of Edward Craig's ‘practical explication' of the concept of knowledge so that they may (...) be seen to resonate positively with Williams's epistemological picture: the admixture of internalist and externalist features; the proto-contextualism; and, finally, the distinctively genealogical antisceptical impetus. In this way I aim to support and augment the socialized anti-sceptical case mounted by Williams, and so to show that expanding epistemology in the temporal dimension can be a productive move in central debates in epistemology. (shrink)

Insight into animal biology and development provided by classical genetic analysis of the model organism Drosophila melanogaster was an incentive to develop advanced genetic tools for this insect. But genetic systems for the over one million other known insect species are largely undeveloped. With increasing information about insect genomes resulting from next generation sequencing, RNA interference is now the method of choice for reverse genetics, although it is constrained by the means of delivery of interfering RNA. A recent advance to (...) ensure sustained delivery with minimal experimental intervention or trauma to the insect is to exploit commensal bacteria for symbiont‐mediated RNA interference. This technology not only offers an efficient means for RNA interference in insects in laboratory conditions, but also has potential for use in the control of human disease vectors, agricultural pests and pathogens of beneficial insects. (shrink)

I shall first briefly revisit the broad idea of ‘epistemic injustice’, explaining how it can take either distributive or discriminatory form, in order to put the concepts of ‘testimonial injustice’ and ‘hermeneutical injustice’ in place. In previous work I have explored how the wrong of both kinds of epistemic injustice has both an ethical and an epistemic significance—someone is wronged in their capacity as a knower. But my present aim is to show that this wrong can also have a political (...) significance in relation to non-domination, and so to freedom. While it is only the republican conception of political freedom that presents nondomination as constitutive of freedom, I shall argue that non-domination is best understood as a thoroughly generic liberal ideal of freedom to which even negative libertarians are implicitly committed, for non-domination is negative liberty as of right—secured non-interference. Crucially on this conception, non-domination requires that the citizen can contest interferences. Pettit specifies three conditions of contestation, each of which protects against a salient risk of the would-be contester not getting a ‘proper hearing’. But I shall argue that missing from this list is anything to protect against a fourth salient threat: the threat that either kind of epistemic injustice might disable contestation by way of an unjust deflation of either credibility or intelligibility. Thus we see that both testimonial and hermeneutical injustice can render a would-be contester dominated. Epistemic justice is thereby revealed as a constitutive condition of non-domination, and thus of a central liberal political ideal of freedom. (shrink)

The concept of ‘the Canadian identity’ is a topic which has received much attention in recent decades, stimulating discussions on the topic of what makes a Canadian a Canadian? Today, being Canadian might suggest a love of hockey and poutine. However, a century ago, being “Canadian” was an emphasis on adapting or conforming to British norms. This paper will focus on one important theme in debates around ‘Canadianization’, specifically its reflection over time in the domestic structure of the early Ukrainian (...) settlers. Canadian identity studies can especially benefit from this trace of identity formation, by its application to a broader, multi-ethnical context. (shrink)

Durante los últimos cinco años, un tema principal de discusión en el área epistemológica ha sido el rol de las intuiciones como una guía confiable para el conocimiento, o como una forma de justificación de alguna creencia. Se asume que si no existe tal función de las intuiciones (intuiciones racionales específicamente), entonces son gratuitas, irrelevantes y una guía poco confiable para el conocimiento o la creencia. El papel de las intuiciones en el área práctica no simplifica el problema: si un (...) sujeto (S) toma una decisión fundado (incluso parcialmente) en algunas intuiciones, entonces es difícil negar la relevancia de ellas en esta arista práctica. Por lo tanto, surge el dilema: ¿cómo puede una intuición guiar la acción de un sujeto S, si S ni siquiera está justificado en tener esa intuición? Para responder a esta cuestión, propongo una defensa híbrida (a priori - a posteriori / teórica - práctica) de la intuición racional (IR), a través de dos roles (diferentes de los roles probatorios o justificatorios): un rol propedéutico (también llamado rol ejemplificador contrafactual) y un rol de guía de la acción en la toma de decisiones. Al mismo tiempo, se afirma que una IR tiene un rol de transmisor (diferente del rol justificatorio) que es relevante con respecto al vínculo inferencial entre premisa-conclusión. Se discute una conexión similar sobre el nexo concebible-posible. De esta manera, se propone un racionalismo moderado, que sostiene la falibilidad de IR, la relevancia de la evidencia a posteriori y la confiabilidad a priori. (shrink)

There are two kinds of forgiveness that appear as radically different from one another: one presents forgiveness as essentially earned through remorseful apology; the other presents it as fundamentally non-earned—a gift. The first, which I label Moral Justice Forgiveness, adopts a stance of moral demand and conditionality; the second, which I label Gifted Forgiveness, adopts a stance of non-demand and un-conditionality. Each is real; yet how can two such different responses to wrongdoing be of one and the same kind? This (...) paper explains how, by showing that the basic role each plays in moral-social life is the same; and that one is conceptually and therefore historically prior to the other. The result is pluralism, with each kind of forgiveness represented as distinctive in both its psychology and its normativity; and yet an ordered pluralism—with Moral Justice Forgiveness revealed as the root kind, and Gifted Forgiveness a culturally contingent iteration. (shrink)

Este artículo analiza el problema de la integración latinoamericana, que ha sido abordado a lo largo de dos siglos por distintas generaciones de pensadores, sean éstos intelectuales o políticos, generando un rico pensamiento que tiene un valor en si mismo. Sin embargo, el proyecto político no ha podido concluirse. Enfrentado además este pensamiento (desde 1989 en adelante) a una realidad internacional mucho más compleja, surge la pregunta por su vigencia. Se propone aquí una re-lectura de dicho pensamiento latinoamericano con arreglo (...) a las corrientes intelectuales y disciplinarias que han emergido en (o sobre) América Latina en las últimas décadas. Ya iniciado el siglo XXI nos encontramos con un gran volumen de obras de pensadores integracionistas elaborados en la región, pero que no son equivalentes a la realidad socio-política de América Latina. Si bien han surgido acuerdos políticos, donde los más relevantes han sido ALALC, Pacto Andino, ALADI, MERCOSUR, UNASUR, éstos no han podido transformarse en una comunidad continental efectiva. Esta contribución se adentra en la búsqueda de un nuevo pensamiento latinoamericano, que considere los actuales fenómenos internos de la región (producto de los procesos globalizadores y descentralizadores) y las nuevas formas de actuación internacional. (shrink)

We hypothesise that the sarcolemma of an actively growing myofibre has different properties to the sarcolemma of a mature adult myofibre. Such fundamentally different properties have clinical consequences for the onset, and potential therapeutic targets, of various skeletal muscle diseases that first manifest either during childhood (e.g. Duchenne muscular dystrophy, DMD) or after cessation of the main growth phase (e.g. dysferlinopathies). These characteristics are also relevant to the selection of both tissue culture and in vivo models employed to study such (...) myopathies and the molecular regulation of adult myofibres. During growth, multinucleated myofibres increase enormously in size and volume with dramatic increases in length (up to ∼600 mm). This is in striking contrast with most mononucleated cells such as fibroblasts, that remain at a relatively small size (∼10–20 µm diameter). The consequences of a dynamic, expanding sarcolemma during growth, compared with that of an adult myofibre of a fixed length, are discussed with respect to various aspects of muscle biology. (shrink)

Discute-se aqui as aproximações e distanciamentos sobre o cuidado via as contribuições do pensamento de Heidegger e de Foucault. Interessa-nos saber sobre as ideias de autocuidado articuladas por Martin Heidegger e de cuidado de sí, conforme Michel Foucault, analisando as convergências e as divergências. Lançou-se mão da sistematização contrastiva de modo a ressaltar os encontros e desencontros entre os pensadores. Há aproximações no que se refere a importância dada a questão do cuidar como algo constituidor do ser humano, mas os (...) distanciamentos se dão pelo modo como os sentidos de cuidado são concebidos. As aproximações e distanciamentos quanto a autocuidado e cuidado de si pensados por Heidegger e Michel Foucault nos lança a refletir que cada pensador fora atravessado por singularidades, processos históricos, sociais e culturais, desdobrando em compreensões específicas em torno do cuidado. (shrink)

The poetic … would be that which you desire to learn, but from and of the other, thanks to the other and under dictation, by heart. Derrida, “Che cos’è la Poesia?” 227 I dare not pretend to be any...

The poetic … would be that which you desire to learn, but from and of the other, thanks to the other and under dictation, by heart. Derrida, “Che cos’è la Poesia?” 227 I dare not pretend to be any...

Summary This paper reports on the perspectives of elite athletes on anti-doping work in general and on the whereabouts system in particular, and uses a figurational perspective to explore the unintended consequences of the planned introduction of the whereabouts system. A cross-sectional survey of all the athletes in the Norwegian registered testing pool was carried out in 2006, using a structured questionnaire. Overall, 70.6% of the athletes agreed that doping was a problem in elite sport in general, but paradoxically only (...) 17.5% agreed that doping was a problem in their own sport. However, more than four in ten of the athletes agreed that the whereabouts information system made a contribution to a “cleaner” sport. Some athletes thought the system was unfair. The whereabouts information system had, despite all good intentions, outcomes other than those planned and intended by the WADA. Thus, athletes’ views might fruitfully be integrated with other perspectives when anti-doping work is developed further. (shrink)

Dreaming can be explained as the product of an interaction among memory processes, elaborative processes, and phenomenal awareness. A feedback circuit is activated by this interaction according to the associative links and the requirements of the dream scene. Recently, it has been hypothesized that a partial similarity exists between dreaming and mind wandering and that these two processes may involve the same neural default network. This commentary discusses the differences and similarities between phenomenal consciousness during dreaming and phenomenal consciousness during (...) mind wandering from the perspective of the “continuity” of engagement of cognitive systems. The greatest difference consists in the lack of reality testing during dreaming. Dream imagery is hallucinatory by nature. Consequently, the simulated world in dreams makes dream imagery more akin to perception. In contrast, the imagery of mind wandering is more similar to imagination. The level of meta-awareness is preserved more frequ... (shrink)

Our ideas about forgiveness seem to oscillate between idealization and scepticism. How should we make sense of this apparent conflict? This paper argues that we should learn something from each, seeing these views as representing opposing moments in a perennial and well-grounded moral ambivalence towards forgiveness. Once we are correctly positioned, we shall see an aspect of forgiveness that recommends precisely this ambivalence. For what will come into view will be certain key psychological mechanisms of moral-epistemic influence – other-addressed and (...) self-addressed mechanisms of moral social construction – that enable forgiveness to function well when it is well-functioning, but which are also intrinsically prone to deterioration into one or another form of bad faith. Thus forgiveness is revealed as necessarily containing seeds of its own corruption, showing ambivalence to be a generically appropriate attitude. Moreover, it is emphasized that where forgiver and forgiven are relating to one another in the context of asymmetries of social power, the practice of forgiveness is likely to be further compromised, notably increasing the risk of negative influence on the moral-epistemic states of either the forgiver or the forgiven, or both. (shrink)

Background We investigated the personal philosophies of eight persons with a tetraplegic condition (four male, four female), all living in Sweden with a chronic spinal cord injury (SCI) and all reporting a good life. Our purpose was to discover if there is a philosophical mindset that may play a role in living a good life with a traumatic SCI. Methods Two rounds of in-depth qualitative interviews were performed by the same interviewer, a philosophical practitioner by training (de Miranda). The (...) second round systematically covered the following elements: bodily sense, sense of self, sense of belonging, sense of the possible, sense of purpose and philosophical sense. This six-step method developed by de Miranda is called SMILE_PH, an acronym for Sense-Making Interviews Looking at Elements of Philosophical Health. Results All the interviewees, as a consequence of their trauma, reported having gone through a reinvention of themselves which implied questioning the meaning and purpose of their life in particular and life in general. A philosophical rather than realistic sense of the possible was abstracted toward teleological growth. All interviewees developed a sense of purpose based on self-interested altruism and solidarity with disabled peers. Conclusions To reinvent a good life with SCI, in addition to physical training and willpower, one needs to consider philosophical questions about the self and life, what Kant called the cosmic interests of reason: What may I hope? What must I do? What can I know? Our results indicate that we should, in the future, explore what the philosophical health approach may bring to rehabilitation processes in the months or years that follow the trauma. (shrink)

This text corresponds to Lectio Inauguralis of our Faculty in the first academic semester of 1988. Its aim is to show, from theoretical consciously assumed suppositions and through concrete achievements, some lines of research that can make intelligible the process followed in Latin America by the philosophy of explicitly Christian inspiration. It seeks, first of all, to bring to light what is theoretical and vitally at stake in each of the most significant moments of this process. Some philosophical figures are (...) also highlighted as illustrative examples. After some brief reflections that try to define the meaning of the terms “Christian Philosophy in Latin America”, the development of this philosophy is exposed from the 18th century up to the present time. The text preserves its original form, with no references and subtitles. Only a summary bibliography has been added. (shrink)

Entre 1990 y 2011 se constituyó una subjetividad que toleró un incremento significativo de malestar sin mayores expresiones políticas del mismo. Una sociedad despolitizada privatizó los problemas públicos y los asumió a nivel individual. En ese marco, el disenso de los ciudadanos con el orden político al cual debían responder, no sólo no tuvo nunca representación institucional, sino que más bien fue la institucionalidad su principal obstáculo. Las instituciones funcionaron como dique de contención del malestar y protegieron así a la (...) clase política. La latencia del malestar tuvo su final, o al menos una suspensión significativa, durante 2011, a partir de un proceso de movilización social de gran envergadura que ancló la energía del malestar en los problemas de la educación chilena. La ilegitimidad anterior de la protesta pública invirtió su signo y el acto de protesta pasó a ser parte fundamental del modo en que las demandas ciudadanas lograron, legítimamente, escalar hacia las autoridades, mientras éstas reducían su ya menguada aprobación. El presente artículo expone el carácter transformador de la mera posibilidad de procesar politizadamente el malestar, constituyéndose este hecho en condición suficiente para incrementar el grado de deliberación social sobre los problemas públicos, reconfigurando la textura del espacio público e incluso modificando radicalmente las condiciones hegemónicas imperantes. (shrink)

In October 2010, the German conservative ruling coalition and Free Democratic Party ) passed a law permitting the extension of contracts for Germany’s seventeen nuclear power plants. This policy amended a law passed in 2001 by a Social Democratic Party and Green Party majority to phase out nuclear energy by the early 2020s. The explosions in the nuclear reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power facility, however, resulted in a decision to speed up the phaseout of nuclear energy. The nuclear (...) meltdowns in Japan sent hundreds of thousands of protesters onto the streets. Angry voters made their disillusionment with the nuclear politics of the conservative government coalition clear in local elections. The federal government responded by setting up an Ethics Commission for a Safe Energy Supply, which recommended an end to nuclear energy and a shift to a renewable energy-based economy. Within months of the Fukushima disaster, the government had permanently shut down eight of the country’s oldest nuclear power plants and issued a schedule for the phased shutdown of the remaining nine plants by 2022. In addition, the government reaffirmed its climate change plans, which call for a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by around forty percent of 1990 levels by 2020 and eighty percent by 2050. Thus, out of a crisis, the German government is forging an opportunity to become a global leader in the promotion of new renewable energies, energy efficiency, and greenhouse gas emission reductions. In Japan, the nuclear crisis has also weakened support for nuclear energy, but with a strong industrial coalition calling for its continued use, both for energy stability and in response to climate change, a complete nuclear phaseout is less certain, at least in the short term. (shrink)

There is a need for person-centred approaches and empowerment of staff within the residential care for older people; a movement called ‘culture change’. There is however no single path for achieving culture change. With the aim of increasing understandings about cultural change processes and the promotion of cultural values and norms associated with person-centred practices, this article presents an action research project set on a unit in the Netherlands providing care for older people with dementia. The project is presented as (...) a case study. This study examines what has contributed to the improvement of participation of older people with dementia in daily occupational and leisure activities according to practitioners. Data was collected by participant observation, interviews and focus groups. The results show that simultaneous to the improvement of the older people’s involvement in daily activities a cultural transformation took place and that the care became more person-centred. Spontaneous interactions and responses rather than planned interventions, analysis and reflection contributed to this. Furthermore, it proved to be beneficial that the process of change and the facilitation of that process reflected the same values as those underlying the cultural change. It is concluded that changes arise from dynamic, interactive and non-linear processes which are complex in nature and difficult to predict and to control. Nevertheless, managers and facilitators can facilitate such change by generating movement through the introduction of small focused projects that meet the stakeholders’ needs, by creating conditions for interaction and sense making, and by promoting the new desired cultural values. (shrink)

This paper explores the relation between rational authority and social power, proceeding by way of a philosophical genealogy derived from Edward Craig's Knowledge and the State of Nature. The position advocated avoids the errors both of the 'traditionalist' (who regards the socio-political as irrelevant to epistemology) and of the 'reductivist' (who regards reason as just another form of social power). The argument is that a norm of credibility governs epistemic practice in the state of nature, which, when socially manifested, is (...) likely to imitate the structures of social power. A phenomenon of epistemic injustice is explained, and the politicizing implication for epistemology educed. (shrink)

I intend to show some of the limits of the decision-theoretic model in connection with the analysis of cognitive agency. Although the concept of maximum expected utility can be helpful for explaining the decision-making process, it is certainly not the primary motor that moves agents to action. Moreover, it has been noticed elsewhere that this model is inadequate to the analysis of single cases of practical reasoning. A theory is proposed that introduces a plan-structure as a basic idea. In order (...) to know its very conceptual scope, we need to accommodate that theory to a cognitive architecture whereby the rational and autonomous agent makes choices and deliberates between courses of action to achieve specific goals that are of its interest. The paper endeavours also to clarify the relationship between the different modules that should constitute the architecture of an agent to accomplish the requisites of efficiency and autonomy in a changeable and dynamic world. (shrink)