order to defend Putnam’s conceptual pluralism. Finally, the paper defends the compatibility between conceptual pluralism and the idea of convergence in a final opinion. Consequently, I conclude that objectivity depends on the particular vocabularies employed. This paper examines the concept of objectivity as a point of view without perspective. This sense of objectivity is present (among others) in Williams’ works (particularly in its notion of absolute conception of reality). The structure of the paper is the following: first, Williams’ physicalist program (...) is described. Secondly, the article presents some objections to Williams’ physicalism. Thirdly, some reasons are given against the notion of objectivity as a point of view without perspective in. (shrink)

No cartesianismo contemporâneo, devido à retomada da teoria da livre criação das verdades eternas, alguns intérpretes trazem ao debate internacional um interessante viés interpretativo do pensamento de Descartes. Segundo eles, ao apresentar a indiferença da vontade como atributo de Deus, Descartes instaura uma concepção totalmente perigosa, da qual derivam a incompatibilidade entre a indiferença divina e o sistema cartesiano, deflagrando, enfim, um irracionalismo radical.

O texto fala a respeito do debate entre Searle e Rorty sobre “irracionalismo” de Rorty. Ele tenta mostrar que a posição de Rorty está fora do campo “realismo versus anti-realismo” e o “irracionalismo” não é um bom adjetivo. Searle estaria sobre uma linha incorreta em sua abordagem do tema da verdade em Rorty.

The article talks about debate between Searle and Rorty on a "irrationalism" of Rorty. The text tries to show that the Rorty's position is out of the field "Realism versus Anti Realism" and the "irracionalism" is not a good adjective. Searle would be on a incorrect line in his account of the Rorty's theme of truth.O texto fala a respeito do debate entre Searle e Rorty sobre "irracionalismo" de Rorty. Ele tenta mostrar que a posição de Rorty está (...) fora do campo "realismo versus anti-realismo" e o "irracionalismo" não é um bom adjetivo. Searle estaria sobre uma linha incorreta em sua abordagem do tema da verdade em Rorty. (shrink)

El vínculo postmodernidad tecnológica/comunicación humana tiene en los mass-media, la TV, el cine, el internet y sus derivados; en las publicaciones sin censura y en la publicidad, herramientas de distorsión educativa y de salud comunitarias. La postmodernidad impacta en la organización social y en la cultura con su dicotomía de racionalismo vs. irracionalismo. La visión kantiana de la ciencia, la moral y el arte en pro de una sociedad más justa, libre y feliz, se desmorona en el intento (...) de «superar la modernidad».La sociedad cibernética burocratiza e impide la libertad del hombre. Los mass media y la sociedad de la comunicación no han generado una sociedad más «transparente» o consciente de sí misma, sino más compleja y caótica. Las dicotomías sujeto-objeto y público-privado hacen al individuo ajeno a su vida, un elemento de ciencia ficción, inmerso en un proceso virtual que lo desplaza a mundos electrónicos. En el éxtasis de la comunicación el medio predomina con su dispersión sobre el mensaje; el saber científico se orienta al desarrollo tecnológico y al poder, destacando su aspecto lingüístico, que no impide que cada vez más se hable y se escriba peor. El impacto de los mass media impulsa conductas antisociales y una «búsqueda de sensaciones intensas», para aplacar estados emocionales derivados del vacío existencial, de la frustración e insatisfacción vital de ciertas poblaciones.La persistencia de la divulgación enajenante, alienadora de la autoconciencia y falseadora de la realidad, no fomenta el desarrollo de una función personal, vincular y social saludables. (shrink)

José Ortega y Gasset (Madrid, 1883-1955), doctor en Filosofía y Letras, amplió estudios en las universidades de Leipzig, Berlín y Marburgo, consiguiendo a los veintisiete años la cátedra de Metafísica de la Universidad Central de Madrid. En 1923 funda Revista de Occidente, una de las publicaciones culturales de mayor prestigio internacional. ¿Qué es filosofía? nació en 1929 en la Universidad de Madrid. La suspensión de las actividades académicas por causas políticas y la dimisión de Ortega le obligaron a continuar el (...) curso en un teatro. ¿Qué es filosofía? contiene un análisis radical de la actividad filosófica y es la mejor vía para conocer el pensamiento orteguiano. A ello nos ayuda en su Introducción Ignacio Sánchez Cámara, mostrando cómo Ortega persigue una radical reforma de la filosofía, que consiste en la superación del idealismo y en la crítica de la modernidad. Ortega nos marca el rumbo, sin duda fértil, por donde pueden evitarse los escollos del racionalismo moderno sin recaer en el irracionalismo ni en el relativismo. (shrink)

As interpretações referentes ao relacionamento entre Blaise Pascal e Renné Descartes costumam situar-se entre dois extremos. Algumas vezes, o autor dos Pensamentos é interpretado como uma espécie de cartesiano indeciso, incapaz de separar o seu discurso religioso das investigações científicas e filosóficas. Outras vezes, Pascal é estereotipado como uma espécie de anti-cartesiano empedernido, um apologista cuja fé não pode evitar o racionalismo. O presente busca evitar estas duas compreensões, tentando encontrar um Pascal que foi cartesiano em certa medida, mas, (...) ao mesmo tempo, crítico de Descartes, sem que, contudo, tal crítica justifique a acusação de irracionalismo. (shrink)

José Ortega y Gasset (Madrid, 1883-1955), doctor en Filosofía y Letras, amplió estudios en las universidades de Leipzig, Berlín y Marburgo, consiguiendo a los veintisiete años la cátedra de Metafísica de la Universidad Central de Madrid. En 1923 funda Revista de Occidente, una de las publicaciones culturales de mayor prestigio internacional. ¿Qué es filosofía? nació en 1929 en la Universidad de Madrid. La suspensión de las actividades académicas por causas políticas y la dimisión de Ortega le obligaron a continuar el (...) curso en un teatro. ¿Qué es filosofía? contiene un análisis radical de la actividad filosófica y es la mejor vía para conocer el pensamiento orteguiano. A ello nos ayuda en su Introducción Ignacio Sánchez Cámara, mostrando cómo Ortega persigue una radical reforma de la filosofía, que consiste en la superación del idealismo y en la crítica de la modernidad. Ortega nos marca el rumbo, sin duda fértil, por donde pueden evitarse los escollos del racionalismo moderno sin recaer en el irracionalismo ni en el relativismo. (shrink)

José Ortega y Gasset (Madrid, 1883-1955), doctor en Filosofía y Letras, amplió estudios en las universidades de Leipzig, Berlín y Marburgo, consiguiendo a los veintisiete años la cátedra de Metafísica de la Universidad Central de Madrid. En 1923 funda Revista de Occidente, una de las publicaciones culturales de mayor prestigio internacional. ¿Qué es filosofía? nació en 1929 en la Universidad de Madrid. La suspensión de las actividades académicas por causas políticas y la dimisión de Ortega le obligaron a continuar el (...) curso en un teatro. ¿Qué es filosofía? contiene un análisis radical de la actividad filosófica y es la mejor vía para conocer el pensamiento orteguiano. A ello nos ayuda en su Introducción Ignacio Sánchez Cámara, mostrando cómo Ortega persigue una radical reforma de la filosofía, que consiste en la superación del idealismo y en la crítica de la modernidad. Ortega nos marca el rumbo, sin duda fértil, por donde pueden evitarse los escollos del racionalismo moderno sin recaer en el irracionalismo ni en el relativismo. (shrink)

José Ortega y Gasset (Madrid, 1883-1955), doctor en Filosofía y Letras, amplió estudios en las universidades de Leipzig, Berlín y Marburgo, consiguiendo a los veintisiete años la cátedra de Metafísica de la Universidad Central de Madrid. En 1923 funda Revista de Occidente, una de las publicaciones culturales de mayor prestigio internacional. ¿Qué es filosofía? nació en 1929 en la Universidad de Madrid. La suspensión de las actividades académicas por causas políticas y la dimisión de Ortega le obligaron a continuar el (...) curso en un teatro. ¿Qué es filosofía? contiene un análisis radical de la actividad filosófica y es la mejor vía para conocer el pensamiento orteguiano. A ello nos ayuda en su Introducción Ignacio Sánchez Cámara, mostrando cómo Ortega persigue una radical reforma de la filosofía, que consiste en la superación del idealismo y en la crítica de la modernidad. Ortega nos marca el rumbo, sin duda fértil, por donde pueden evitarse los escollos del racionalismo moderno sin recaer en el irracionalismo ni en el relativismo. (shrink)

José Ortega y Gasset (Madrid, 1883-1955), doctor en Filosofía y Letras, amplió estudios en las universidades de Leipzig, Berlín y Marburgo, consiguiendo a los veintisiete años la cátedra de Metafísica de la Universidad Central de Madrid. En 1923 funda Revista de Occidente, una de las publicaciones culturales de mayor prestigio internacional. ¿Qué es filosofía? nació en 1929 en la Universidad de Madrid. La suspensión de las actividades académicas por causas políticas y la dimisión de Ortega le obligaron a continuar el (...) curso en un teatro. ¿Qué es filosofía? contiene un análisis radical de la actividad filosófica y es la mejor vía para conocer el pensamiento orteguiano. A ello nos ayuda en su Introducción Ignacio Sánchez Cámara, mostrando cómo Ortega persigue una radical reforma de la filosofía, que consiste en la superación del idealismo y en la crítica de la modernidad. Ortega nos marca el rumbo, sin duda fértil, por donde pueden evitarse los escollos del racionalismo moderno sin recaer en el irracionalismo ni en el relativismo. (shrink)

Theologians are split into two groups: those who embrace prosperity theology and those who oppose it; both sides on scriptural grounds. Those criticising it embrace cessationism in its diversity, while its supporters are mainly found among Pentecostals and Charismatics, who are continuationists. Continuationists believe and teach that all gifts of the Spirit are still available to the church today, therefore should be practised by the church just as they were operative during the apostolic era. Therefore, it is clear that prosperity (...) preachers are continuationists. They believe and practice healing and miracle gifts today. A review of the literature, biblical texts, historical teachings, and Pentecostal and Neo-Pentecostal (also referred to as charismatic and neo-charismatic) form the basis of this article. It addresses the positive features of prosperity teachers’ beliefs and methods as well as how they exploit the dreams, fears, and aspirations of people living in poverty. The theology of sharing, as articulated by Nicholas B.H. Bhengu, is proposed as a solution to creating parity between the rich and the poor.Contribution: This article seeks to balance opposing theological approaches with the prosperity gospel. It does this by introducing a theology of sharing as taught by Nicholas Bhengu based on the philosophy of Ubuntu, a way of life among African people. The challenge for theologians on both sides of the argument is finding a way to accommodate the other side’s contributions. (shrink)

A correct observation to the effect that a does not exist, where ‘a’ is a singular term, could be true on any of a variety of grounds. Typically, a true, singular negative existential is true on the unproblematic ground that the subject term ‘a’ designates something that does not presently exist. More interesting philosophically is a singular, negative existential statement in which the subject term ‘a’ designates nothing at all. Both of these contrast sharply with a singular, negative existential in (...) which the subject term is a name from fiction. I argue that such singular, negative existential statements are false. My account of fictional characters differs significantly from Kripke’s. It is shown that an objection to my account rests on a serious misunderstanding. Finally, a crucial aspect of the account is emphasized. (shrink)

When do two sentences say the same thing, that is, express the same content? We defend two-component (2C) semantics: the view that propositional contents comprise (at least) two irreducibly distinct constituents, (1) truth-conditions, and (2) subject-matter. We contrast 2C with one-component (1C) semantics, focusing on the view that subject-matter is reducible to truth- conditions. We identify exponents of this view and argue in favor of 2C. An appendix proposes a general formal template for propositional 2C semantics.

A number of recent papers or monographs have examined Susan Stebbing’s criticisms of Arthur Eddington’s scientific-philosophical writing. These papers focus on Stebbing’s critique of Eddington’s attempt to infer philosophical conclusions from developments in modern physics, his view that there is a discrepancy between the world of science and the world of common sense (best encapsulated by his famous ‘two tables’ metaphor), and his use of “inexact language” to try and convey modern scientific insights to his readers. On November 10th, 1938, (...) Eddington presented a paper at the Moral Sciences Club in Cambridge entitled “Prof. Stebbing’s ‘Philosophy and the Physicists’.” Eddington did not go on to publish this paper and it is not discussed in relevant scholarship. However, the details of Eddington’s talk are outlined in the minutes of that meeting. I argue that these minutes provide new insights into both the Stebbing-Eddington debate and developments in Eddington's late philosophical views. A full transcription of the minutes are included as an Appendix to this paper. (shrink)

Science progresses through debate and disagreement, and scientific controversies play a crucial role in the growth of scientific knowledge. However, not all controversies and disagreements are progressive in science. Sometimes, controversies can be pseudoscientific; in fact, bogus controversies, and what seem like genuine scientific disagreements, can be a distortion of science set up by non-scientific actors. Bogus controversies are detrimental to science because they can hinder scientific progress and eventually bias science-based decisions. The first goal of this paper is to (...) elucidate the distinction between bogus and genuine scientific controversies and provide a qualitative methodology, based on the literature on expertise, for distinguishing between the two. We will illustrate six epistemic criteria for distinguishing bogus from genuine scientific debates in science and medicine. This heuristic strategy applies directly to scientific reports, and it relies mostly on the social structure of science. We will then apply the above criteria to a case study: the controversy over statins, which are widely prescribed drugs for reducing the level of cholesterol and preventing cardiovascular disease. (shrink)

In this paper, I provide the first in-depth discussion of Susan Stebbing’s views concerning our experience of the passage of time – a key issue for many metaphysicians writing in the first half of the twentieth century. I focus on Stebbing’s claims about the passage of time in Philosophy and the Physicists and her disagreement with Arthur Eddington over how best to account for that experience. I show that Stebbing’s concern is that any attempt to provide a scientific account of (...) the passage of time will face problems, since the events described by physics are necessarily measured against the passage of time. I then identify views elsewhere in her philosophical corpus that can help shed light on this claim. Ultimately, I argue, Stebbing’s views on time should be construed as part of her wider commitment to ‘realism’. To be a realist, for Stebbing, is to accept a set of propositions which are a pre-requisite for even beginning to analyse the world around us. For Stebbing, I argue, part of what it means to be a realist is to accept our experience of the passage of time as something fundamental that cannot itself be subject to analysis. (shrink)

The platonism/nominalism debate in the philosophy of mathematics concerns the question whether numbers and other mathematical objects exist. Platonists believe the answer to be in the positive, nominalists in the negative. According to non-factualists, the question is ‘moot’, in the sense that it lacks a correct answer. Elaborating on ideas from Stephen Yablo, this article articulates a non-factualist position in the philosophy of mathematics and shows how the case for non-factualism entails that standard arguments for rival positions fail. In particular, (...) showing how and why non-factualists reject nominalism illuminates the originality and interest of their position. (shrink)

In computer simulations of physical systems, the construction of models is guided, but not determined, by theory. At the same time simulations models are often constructed precisely because data are sparse. They are meant to replace experiments and observations as sources of data about the world; hence they cannot be evaluated simply by being compared to the world. So what can be the source of credibility for simulation models? I argue that the credibility of a simulation model comes not only (...) from the credentials supplied to it by the governing theory, but also from the antecedently established credentials of the model building techniques employed by the simulationists. In other words, there are certain sorts of model building techniques which are taken, in and of themselves, to be reliable. Some of these model building techniques, moreover, incorporate what are sometimes called “falsifications.” These are contrary-to-fact principles that are included in a simulation model and whose inclusion is taken to increase the reliability of the results. The example of a falsification that I consider, called artificial viscosity, is in widespread use in computational fluid dynamics. Artificial viscosity, I argue, is a principle that is successfully and reliably used across a wide domain of fluid dynamical applications, but it does not offer even an approximately “realistic” or true account of fluids. Artificial viscosity, therefore, is a counter-example to the principle that success implies truth – a principle at the foundation of scientific realism. It is an example of reliability without truth. (shrink)

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders classifies “anorexia nervosa” as a mental disorder, yet individuals with anorexia often characterize it as an identity. The author describes the identity of being an anorectic and compares it with what it takes to have anorexia in the diagnostic sense. This furthers the existing scholarship on anorexia and identity, most notably by revealing a disconnect between being an anorectic and having anorexia: Some individuals inhabit the identity of being an anorectic but do (...) not have anorexia because they do not have a significantly low body weight. The author explores whether expanding the diagnostic criteria for anorexia would be beneficial for anorectics by examining the implications of classifying the identitive phenomenon of being an anorectic in terms of a medical concept of mental disorder. In the short term, the answer depends on whether being an anorectic calls for interventions that require a diagnosis. Either way, it would be beneficial to develop nonmedical frameworks for understanding anorexia that facilitate interventions that do not require a diagnosis. Understanding being an anorectic as an identity lays the scaffolding for a nonmedical way of conceptualizing anorexia that illuminates innovative approaches to assisting anorectics. (shrink)

The article discusses a fundamental problem that has to be faced if the general capability approach is to be developed in the direction of a theory of justice: the selection and justification of a list of capabilities. The democratic solution to this problem (defended by Amartya Sen) is to leave the selection of capabilities to a process of democratic deliberation, while the philosophical solution (defended by Martha Nussbaum) is to establish this list of capabilities as a matter of philosophical theory. (...) The article investigates the debate between these two different positions and argues in favour of the philosophical solution. First, it distinguishes political from epistemological reasons for (not) making capability lists. Second, it shows that the democratic position must incorporate at least some philosophical theorising in general and a theory of democracy in particular. Third, the article argues that the democratic position presupposes that the philosophical position will bypass the democratic process while actually it does not. The philosophical position is actually more respectful of democracy than the democratic position. Fourth, while philosophers may exercise caution and connect their capability lists to actual democratic debates and other empirical sources, this kind of epistemological virtue ironically may heighten the chance of receiving reproaches on the political level. (shrink)