The focus of this paper is the prima facie plausible view, expressed by the principle of Counter-Closure, that knowledge-yielding competent deductive inference must issue from known premises. I construct a case that arguably falsifies this principle and consider five available lines of response that might help retain Counter-Closure. I argue that three are problematic. Of the two remaining lines of response, the first relies on non-universal intuitions and forces one to view the case I construct as exhibiting a justified, true (...) belief to which none of the usual diagnoses of knowledge failure in Gettier cases apply. The second line involves claiming that Fake Barns and its ilk are misdiagnosed by epistemological orthodoxy as Gettier cases. We are thus confronted by a trilemma: either the case I discuss undermines the first-blush plausible principle of Counter-Closure; or the case I discuss instantiates a novel kind of Gettier case; or a popular conception of a key range of alleged Gettier cases must be rejected. No matter which horn we choose, the case points to a philosophically curious conclusion. (shrink)

Epistemic injustice is a widely discussed phenomenon in many sub-disciplines (including epistemology, ethics, feminist philosophy, social and political philosophy). Yet, there is very little literature on its connection to the philosophy of sports. Here I explore the intersection between epistemic injustice and sports, focusing on testimonial injustice. I argue that there exist clear-cut cases of testimonial injustice in sport that arise when athletes attempt to communicate information. After highlighting the theoretical connections between various cases, I explore the more ambitious claim (...) that sport performances themselves carry linguistic content. This claim allows us to see the biased negative judgment of sport performances in a new light, as constituting a further and distinctive form of testimonial injustice. I show how the case of figure-skater Surya Bonaly can be understood as a real-life instantiation of this form of testimonial injustice. I conclude by explaining why it is philosophically fruitful to understand these wrongs through the lens of testimonial injustice. (shrink)

Recordando a Bachelard a medio siglo de su muerte (2011) -- Filosofia de la relatividad (2011) -- La proliferación de los conceptos de especie en la biología evolucionista (2010).

According to the received view in epistemology, inferential knowledge from non-knowledge is impossible – that is, in order for a subject to know the conclusion of their inference, they must know the essential premises from which that conclusion is drawn. In this book, Federico Luzzi critically examines this view, arguing that it is less plausible than intuition suggests and that it can be abandoned without substantial cost. In a discussion that ranges across inference, testimony and memory he analyses the (...) full range of challenges to the view, connecting them to epistemological cases that support those challenges. He then proposes a defeater-based framework which allows the phenomenon of knowledge from non-knowledge across these three epistemic areas to be better understood. His book will be of interest to a wide range of readers in epistemology. (shrink)

According to the principle of Knowledge Counter-Closure , knowledge-yielding single-premise deduction requires a known premise: if S believes q solely on the basis of deduction from p, and S knows q, then S must know p. Although prima facie plausible, widely accepted, and supported by seemingly compelling motivations, KCC has recently been challenged by cases where S arguably knows q solely on the basis of deduction from p, yet p is false or p is true but not known . I (...) explore a view that resolves this tension by abandoning KCC in the light of these challenges, and which acknowledges their force but also their limits. Adopting this view helps identify the epistemic constraints that operate on the premises of knowledge-yielding deduction, clarifies the epistemic role of deduction, and allows us to distil the kernel of truth in the motivations that are standardly taken to support KCC. (shrink)

Miranda Fricker has influentially discussed testimonial injustice: the injustice done to a speaker S by a hearer H when H gives S less-than-merited credibility. Here, I explore the prospects for a novel form of testimonial injustice, where H affords S due credibility, that is, the amount of credibility S deserves. I present two kinds of cases intended to illustrate this category, and argue that there is presumptive reason to think that testimonial injustice with due credibility exists. I show that if (...) it is denied that ultimately these cases exemplify testimonial injustice without credibility deficit, then either they must be taken to exemplify a novel kind of epistemic, non-testimonial injustice, or they bring to light a significant exegetical result. (shrink)

Martínková et al provide an overview of a tendency to use gender terms in key sports contexts, including eligibility criteria and testing, where gender is unintended. They argue that to avoid conceptual confusion and aid clarity, we should disentangle gender and sex, acknowledging that often gender talk should be interpreted as talk of sex. One of their recommendations is that the labels of competitive categories ‘women’s’/’men’s’ should change to ‘female’/’male’. I first make their argument against gendered labelling more precise by (...) showing that important yet neglected moral and practical reasons support their abandonment. I then argue that in the case of WA regulations, those moral reasons also cut against Martínková et al.’s relabelling proposal ‘female’/’male’. I sketch a testosterone-based proposal which circumvents the problem and which WA itself should accept. More generally, I argue we should be more mindful of the risk that competitive category labels unnecessarily harm athletes. (shrink)

I argue that patients who suffer genital surgery to ‘disambiguate’ their sexual anatomy, a practice labelled ‘intersex genital mutilation’ by intersex advocates, can be understood as victims of hermeneutical injustice in the sense elaborated by Miranda Fricker. This claim is clarified and defended from two objections. I further argue that a particular subset of cases of IGM-based hermeneutical injustice instantiate a novel form of hermeneutical injustice, which I call deception-based hermeneutical injustice. I highlight how this differs from central types of (...) hermeneutical injustice in the literature and trace its harms. (shrink)

Volume 19, Issue 9, September 2019, Page 37-39.

A critical survey of the main philosophical theories about events and event talk, organized in three main sections: (i) Events and Other Categories (Events vs. Objects; Events vs. Facts; Events vs. Properties; Events vs. Times); (ii) Types of Events (Activities, Accomplishments, Achievements, and States; Static and Dynamic Events; Actions and Bodily Movements; Mental and Physical Events; Negative Events); (iii) Existence, Identity, and Indeterminacy.

In this paper I argue that Fricker’s influential account of testimonial injustice (hereafter ‘TI’) should be expanded to include cases of TI from mutually neutralising countervailing prejudices. In this kind of case, the hearer is given due credibility by the speaker. I describe a relevant case, defend it from objections, highlight how it differs from extant cases of due-credibility TI and describe its distinctive features. This case demonstrates how paying attention to the way multiple prejudices operate in concert leads to (...) expanding the repertoire of cases of TI and casts light on the harms of TI. (shrink)

This paper is concerned with certain ontological issues in the foundations of geographic representation. It sets out what these basic issues are, describes the tools needed to deal with them, and draws some implications for a general theory of spatial representation. Our approach has ramifications in the domains of mereology, topology, and the theory of location, and the question of the interaction of these three domains within a unified spatial representation theory is addressed. In the final part we also consider (...) the idea of non-standard geographies, which may be associated with geography under a classical conception in the same sense in which non-standard logics are associated with classical logic. (shrink)

Neste artigo, temos como objetivo perscrutar o funcionamento da verbo-visualidade de uma perspectiva dialógica do discurso, utilizando, como material de análise, uma videomontagem humorística acerca do ator político Dilma Rousseff, durante a campanha presidencial brasileira do ano de 2010. Primeiramente, procuramos refletir acerca de alguns pressupostos teórico-metodológicos de Bakhtin e de Brait, qual seja, o de verbo-visualidade, alicerçado na concepção bakhtiniana de linguagem. Em um segundo momento, detivemo-nos na análise do texto objeto do artigo, que se pautou na seguinte indagação: (...) como contribuem e funcionam os elementos verbais e visuais para produção e direcionamento de sentidos na videomontagem? Nossa hipótese é a de que os discursos carregados pela montagem criam uma trilha ideológica de sentido que leva os interlocutores a interpretar a então candidata como uma pessoa sem discurso, manipulável. Diante do exposto, tentaremos demonstrar a hipótese que sustentamos. (shrink)

In this paper, we extend the expressive power of the logics K3, LP and FDE with anormality operator, which is able to express whether a for-mula is assigned a classical truth value or not. We then establish classical recapture theorems for the resulting logics. Finally, we compare the approach via normality operator with the classical collapse approach devisedby Jc Beall.

ABSTRACT The philosophical tradition approaches to morals have their grounds predominantly on metaphysical and theological concepts and theories. Among the traditional ethics concepts, the most prominent is the Divine Command Theory (DCT). As per the DCT, God gives moral foundations to the humankind by its creation and through Revelation. Morality and Divinity are inseparable since the most remote civilization. These concepts submerge in a theological framework and are largely accepted by most followers of the three Abrahamic traditions: Judaism, Christianity, and (...) Islam: the greatest part of the human population. Holding faith and Revelation for its grounds, the Divine Command Theories are not strictly subject to the demonstration. The opponents to the Divine Command conception of morals, grounded in the impossibility of demonstration of its metaphysical and religious assumptions, have tried for many centuries (albeit unsuccessfully) to devalue its importance. They held the argument that it does not show material evidence and logical coherence and, for this reason, cannot be taken into account for scientific nor philosophical purposes. It is just a belief and, as so, should be understood. Besides these extreme oppositions, many other concepts contravene the Divine Command theories, in one or another way, in part or in full. Many philosophers and social scientists, from the classic Greek philosophy up to the present date, for instance, sustain that morality is only a construct, and thus culturally relative and culturally determined. However, this brings many other discussions and imposes the challenge to determine what is the meaning of culture, which elements of culture are morally determinant, and finally, what are the boundaries of such relativity. Moral determinists claim that everything related to human behavior, including morality, is determined, once free will does not exist. More recently, modern thinkers argued that there is a strict science of morality. However, the scientific method alone, despite explaining several facts and evidence, cannot enlighten the entire content and full meaning of ethics. Morals’ understanding requires a broader perception, and an agreement among philosophers, which they have never achieved. All of these questions have many different configurations depending on each philosophical strand, and start complex analysis and endless debates, as long as many of them are reciprocally conflictive. The universe and the atmosphere involving this thesis are the dominions of all these conceptual conflicts, observed from an objective and evolutionary standpoint. Irrespective of this circumstance and its intrinsic importance, however, these questions are far distant from the methodological approach of an analytical discussion on objective morals, what is, indeed, the aim and scope of this work. We should briefly revisit these prominent traditional theories because this thesis shelters a comparative study, and its assumptions at least differ profoundly from all traditional theories. Therefore, it becomes necessary offering direct and specific elements of comparison to the reader, for the right criticism, dispensing interruptive researches. However, even revisiting the traditional theories, for this comparative and critical exposure purpose, they will be kept by the side of our main concerns, as “aliena materia.” Irrespective of the validity of any or all of the elements of this discussion, and their meaning as the philosophical universe of this thesis, the purpose of this work is demonstrating and justifying the existence and meaning of prehistoric moral archetypes arisen directly from the very first social needs and efforts for survival. These archetypes are the definition of the essential foundation of ethics, its aggregation to the collective unconscious and corresponding logic organization and transmission to evolutionary stages of the human genome and different relations space-time, irrespective of any contemporary experience of the individuals. The system defined by these archetypes composes an evolutionary human social model. Is this a metaethical position? Yes, it is. Moreover, as in any metaethical reasoning, we should look carefully for the best and coherent routes, as the Analytical Philosophy offers them. Thus, this work should reasonably demonstrate that morals are not a cultural product of the civilized men or modern societies and that despite being subject to several cultural relative aggregations and subtractions, its essential foundations are archetypal and have never structurally changed. This reasoning induces that morality is an original attribute of the “homo sapiens”; it is not a property and nor an accident: it integrates the human essence and belongs to the realm of the ontological human identity. The human phenomena is a continuing process, playing its role between random determination and free will, and we need to question how morality began and how did it come to us in the present. (shrink)

Fricker has proposed that a hearer’s knowledge that p acquired through trusting a speaker requires the speaker to know that p, and that therefore testimonial knowledge through trust is necessarily second-hand knowledge. In this paper, I argue that Fricker’s view is problematic for four reasons: firstly, Fricker’s dismissal of a central challenge to the second-handedness of testimonial knowledge is based on a significant misrepresentation of this challenge; secondly, on closer scrutiny an important distinction Fricker wants to draw is compromised by (...) her account of trust; thirdly, Fricker’s conception of trust is at odds with our natural understanding of this notion; fourthly, the reasons Fricker cites in support of her view are not sufficient to single out her view as the correct one, since rival views can also accommodate the relevant data. (shrink)

I argue that DeRose's attributor contextualism cannot straightforwardly preserve the widespread view that, when a subject believes q solely on the basis of competent deduction from p, knowledge of q requires knowledge of p. I present a novel challenge to the compatibility of this widespread view with DeRose's contextualism, then argue that the tension can be resolved in only one of two ways: if DeRose rejects the widespread view or if DeRose accepts the existence of a range of contextualism-specific Gettier-style (...) cases. (shrink)

Crispin Wright has articulated and defended the view that by incorporating non-evidential entitlements into our theory of knowledge, we can achieve a satisfactory reply to key skeptical challenges. Crucial to this view is the thesis that regions of thought are underpinned by ‘cornerstone’ propositions— propositions for which warrant is antecedently required in order for ordinary beliefs in that region to be supported by experiential evidence. Critics have noted that because cornerstone propositions are entailed by ordinary propositions, Closure delivers two unwelcome (...) results: (i) one can acquire evidential justification for cornerstones via deduction (alchemy); and (ii) the epistemic risk involved in accepting cornerstone propositions impugns the evidential justification we are supposed to have for ordinary propositions (leaching). It is argued here that leaching has been misdiagnosed by Wright and his critics as relying essentially on a Closure principle. Instead, it relies on a Counter-Closure-style principle. Once this point is recognized , Wright’s own solution to the leaching problem becomes unsatisfactory. However, a guiding maxim from the extant literature for demarcating true from false Counter-Closure-style principles can be usefully applied to identify a successful resolution to the leaching worry on Wright’s behalf. (shrink)

The principle of Counter-Closure embodies the widespread view that when a proposition is believed solely as the conclusion of single-premise deduction, it can be known only if the premise is also known. I raise a problem for the compatibility of Jason Stanley's Interest-Relative Invariantism (IRI) with Counter-Closure. I explore the landscape of options that might help Stanley resolve this tension and argue that a trilemma confronts Stanley: he must either (i) renounce a key intuition that lies at the foundation of (...) his view; or (ii) admit into his epistemology an IRI-specific novel brand of Gettier case; or (iii) abandon Counter-Closure. (shrink)

Roberto Esposito is one of the most prolific and important exponents of contemporary Italian political theory.

This high-level study discusses Newtonian principles and 19th-century views on electrodynamics and the aether. Additional topics include Einstein's electrodynamics of moving bodies, Minkowski spacetime, gravitational geometry, time and causality, and other subjects. Highlights include a rich exposition of the elements of the special and general theories of relativity.

This unique textbook states and proves all the major theorems of many-valued propositional logic and provides the reader with the most recent developments and trends, including applications to adaptive error-correcting binary search. The book is suitable for self-study, making the basic tools of many-valued logic accessible to students and scientists with a basic mathematical knowledge who are interested in the mathematical treatment of uncertain information. Stressing the interplay between algebra and logic, the book contains material never before published, such as (...) a simple proof of the completeness theorem and of the equivalence between Chang's MV algebras and Abelian lattice-ordered groups with unit - a necessary prerequisite for the incorporation of a genuine addition operation into fuzzy logic. Readers interested in fuzzy control are provided with a rich deductive system in which one can define fuzzy partitions, just as Boolean partitions can be defined and computed in classical logic. Detailed bibliographic remarks at the end of each chapter and an extensive bibliography lead the reader on to further specialised topics. (shrink)

"A pleasure to read. Gracefully written by a scholar well grounded in the relevant philosophical, historical, and technical background. . . . a helpfully clarifying review and analysis of some issues of importance to recent philosophy of science and a source of some illuminating insights."--Burke Townsend, Philosophy of Science.

Volume 1 of Politics, a work in constructive social theory. Newly available, the complete work of Politicsa program for a comprehensive progressive alternative to the dominant ideologies of social democracy and neo-liberalismfrom one of the worlds leading social and political thinkers. False necessity is the central theme in the three-volume series Politics. It presents both a way of explaining society and a program for changing it. The explanation develops a radical alternative to Marxism, showing how we can account for established (...) social arrangements without denying their contingency or our freedom. The program offers a progressive alternative to the now-dominant ideological conceptions of neoliberalism and social democracy: a set of institutional innovations that would democratize markets, deepen democracy and empower individuals. For this new edition, Unger has written a comprehensive introduction that explores the limits of our understanding of society and our practice of politics, and reconsiders proposals contained in the book as special cases of a larger family of untried political possibilities. (shrink)