Nota editorial: En su encíclica Laudato Si nº 139, nota 117, el Papa Francisco cita el apartado 2.1 de un artículo del jesuita argentino Juan Carlos Scannone, aparecido en el libro del Equipo Jesuita Latinoamericano de Reflexión Filosófica Irrupción del pobre y quehacer filosófico. Hacia una nueva racionalidad, Buenos Aires, 19931 con el título: «La irrupción del pobre y la lógica de la gratuidad». Como la obra está agotada y, por lo tanto, es de difícil acceso, Pensamiento presta (...) el servicio de reeditarlo, junto con otro trabajo de dicho autor, aparecido unas páginas antes del mismo libro, a saber: «La irrupción del pobre y la pregunta filosófica en América Latina»; pues es el fundamento para la intelección del trabajo citado por el Papa. (shrink)

RESUMENLa teoría representacional de la mente, basada en el concepto de representación, ha sido muy criticada, especialmente por recientes enfoques en la ciencia cognitiva, provenientes de la Biología y la Inteligencia Artificial. En este trabajo me centro especialmente en el punto de vista de Francisco Varela, quien sugiere la exclusión del término representación en la explicación de los sistemas cognitivos. Muestro que ello no es necesario, y que hay razones para hablar de representaciones en la relación que tenemos con el (...) mundo en términos de conocimiento, por tanto, el antirrepresentacionalismo de Varela es inadecuado. En ese sentido me parece más afortunada la apreciación que hacen de la ciencia cognitiva y la filosofía de la mente Andy Clark y Pascual Martínez-Freire, y ésta es la postura que defenderé en contra de Varela.PALABRAS CLAVEMENTE, REPRESENTACIÓN, COGNITIVISMO, CONDUCTA, SISTEMAABSTRACTThe representational theory of the mind, based on the concept of representation, has been very criticized, specially by recent approaches to cognitive science, originated from Biology and Artificial Intelligence. In this work I focus my attention specially on the point of view of Francisco Varela, who suggests the exclusion of the term representation in the explanation of cognitive systems. I show that it is unnecessary, and that there are reasons to talk about representations in the relation that we have with the world in terms of knowledge, and therefore, Varela’s antirepresentacionalism is inadequate. In that connection the appreciation that Andy Clark and Pascual Martínez-Freire do of cognitive science and the philosophy of the mind seems more fortunate to me, and this is the position that I will defend against Varela.KEYWORDSMIND, REPRESENTATION, COGNITIVISM, BEHAVIOR, SYSTEM. (shrink)

Gilbert Ryle claimed that intelligent actions and activities are not merely the external signs of inner mental workings but rather that such actions and activities are the workings of the mind itself. In this thesis I propose an interpretation and defence of sich claim, against a common an, in my view, mistaken way of understanding Ryle's position. In chapter [1]. I introduce the argumentative thread of this thesis and a more detailed overview of the chapters. In chapter [2], I criticise (...) Stanley and Williamson's understanding of Ryle's argument and position. In chapters [3]-[5] I examine Ryle's position and provide a way of understanding his view against what I take his main opponent, INTELLECTUALISM, to be. Chapter [6] offers an argument against INTELLECTUALISM as a way of motivating a Rylean account intelligent actions and activities. I conclude in chapter [7] with a response to purported counter-examples to the view I propose. (shrink)

Elizabeth Barnes and Robert Williams have developed a theory of metaphysical indeterminacy, via which they defend the theoretical legitimacy of vague objects. In this paper, we argue that while the Barnes–Williams theory supplies a viable account of genuine metaphysical vagueness, it cannot underwrite an account of genuinely vague objects. First we clarify the distinction between these two key theses. Then we argue that the Barnes–Williams theory of metaphysical vagueness not only fails to deliver genuinely vague objects, it in fact provides (...) grounds for rejecting them. (shrink)

The ‘participatory turn’ in science and technology governance has resulted in the growth of initiatives designed to engage lay people in consultation and decision-making on controversial matters. Almost from the start there has been both enthusiasm and serious critique of these exercises, from scholars and activists. The gaps and challenges are well known. In this paper we indicate the limitations of deliberative mechanisms as regards how they cope with familiar forms of people’s engagement with a given matter. We examine how (...) this phenomenon unfolded at the Barcelona Citizen Conference on the Digitalization of Society; a participatory exercise inspired by the model of consensus conferences that took place in 2014 in Barcelona. Our perspective on the topic is inspired by Sociology of Engagements. Focusing on how participants and organizers deal with individual anecdotes, worries and testimonies reported during the conference, the analysis shows how these formats are ignored, externalized, banned and re-formed during deliberations. This phenomenon is seen as supporting a civic-liberal regime of engagement. (shrink)

A new proof style adequate for modal logics is defined from the polynomial ring calculus. The new semantics not only expresses truth conditions of modal formulas by means of polynomials, but also permits to perform deductions through polynomial handling. This paper also investigates relationships among the PRC here defined, the algebraic semantics for modal logics, equational logics, the Dijkstra???Scholten equational-proof style, and rewriting systems. The method proposed is throughly exemplified for S 5, and can be easily extended to other modal (...) logics. (shrink)

Philosophers readily talk about merely verbal disputes, usually without much or any explicit reflection on what these are, and a good deal of methodological significance is attached to discovering whether a dispute is merely verbal or not. Currently, metaphilosophical advances are being made towards a clearer understanding of what exactly it takes for something to be a merely verbal dispute. This paper engages with this growing literature, pointing out some problems with existing approaches, and develops a new proposal which builds (...) on their strengths. (shrink)

We present a distributed control modeling approach for an automated manufacturing system based on the dynamics of one-dimensional cellular automata. This is inspired by the fact that both cellular automata and manufacturing systems are discrete dynamical systems where local interactions given among their elements can lead to complex dynamics, despite the simple rules governing such interactions. The cellular automaton model developed in this study focuses on two states of the resources of a manufacturing system, namely, busy or idle. However, the (...) interaction among the resources such as whether they are shared at different stages of the manufacturing process determines the global dynamics of the system. A procedure is shown to obtain the local evolution rule of the automaton based on the relationships among the resources and the material flow through the manufacturing process. The resulting distributed control of the manufacturing system appears to be heterarchical, and the evolution of the cellular automaton exhibits a Class II behavior for some given disordered initial conditions. (shrink)

There is a New Idea in epistemology. It goes by the name of ‘knowledge first,’ and it is particularly associated with Timothy Williamson’s book Knowledge and Its Limits. In slogan form, to put knowledge first is to treat knowledge as basic or fundamental, and to explain other states—belief, justification, maybe even content itself—in terms of knowledge, instead of vice versa. The idea has proven enormously interesting, and equally controversial. But deep foundational questions about its actual content remain relatively unexplored. We (...) think that a wide variety of views travel under the banner of ‘knowledge first’ (and that the slogan doesn’t help much with differentiating them). Furthermore, we think it is far from straightforward to draw connections between certain of these views; they are more independent than they are often assumed to be. Our project here is exploratory and clarificatory. We mean to tease apart various ‘knowledge first’ claims, and explore what connections they do or do not have with one another. Our taxonomy is offered in §2, and connections are explored in §3. The result, we hope, will be a clearer understanding of just what the knowledge first theses are. We conclude, in §4, with some brief suggestions as to how we think the various theses might be evaluated. (shrink)

By considering the irreducible representations of the Lorentz group, an analysis of the different spin-2 waves is presented. In particular, the question of the helicity is discussed. It is concluded that, although from the point of view of representation theory there are no compelling reasons to choose between spin-2 waves with helicity σ=±1 or σ=±2, consistency arguments of the ensuing field theories favor waves with helicity σ=±1.

This chapter attempts to put structure on some of the different philosophical uses of ‘intuition’. It argues that ‘intuition’-hood is associated with four bundles of symptoms: a commonsensicality bundle; an a prioricity and immediacy bundle, and a metaphilosophical bundle. Tentatively suggesting that the word ‘intuition’ as used by philosophers is best regarded as ambiguous, the chapter offers a much simpler view concerning the meaning of ‘intuition’ in philosophy. With some of the attacks on ‘intuition’ as an epistemic source explored, the (...) chapter concludes that one significant kind of philosophical ‘intuition’, related to a prioricity and conceptual truth, can be defended against a range of typical epistemological challenges. (shrink)

In this paper we investigated how justifications for price increases are associated with risky decision making and emotional responses. Across two studies with paired lottery choices and sequential decisions, we found that participants presented with a justification for price increases based on increasing demand decided to invest in a comparatively riskier asset more often than participants presented with a justification for price increases based on increasing tax or those presented with no justification at all. We also found that participants presented (...) with justifications for price increases based on increasing demand also reported more arousal displayed higher galvanic skin response than people in the other two justification conditions. Together, these studies provide evidence that the sole increasing demand underlying a price increase of a risky asset can influence the decision to buy it and suggests that emotional activation is involved in such a decision process. (shrink)

In this paper, we explore the traditional conception of a prioricity as epistemic independence of evidence from sense experience. We investigate the fortunes of the traditional conception in the light of recent challenges by Timothy Williamson. We contend that Williamson’s arguments can be resisted in various ways. En route, we argue that Williamson’s views are not as distant from tradition as they might seem at first glance.

ABSTRACT:The paper begins by surveying a range of possible views on the metaphysics of romantic love, organizing them as responses to a single question. It then outlines a position, constructionist functionalism, according to which romantic love is characterized by a functional role that is at least partly constituted by social matters, although this role may be realized by states that are not socially constructed.

This paper builds on some important recent work by Amie Thomasson, wherein she argues that recent disputes about the existence of ordinary objects have arisen due to eliminiativist metaphysicians’ misunderstandings. Some, she argues, are mistaken about how the language of quantification works, while others neglect the existence and significance of certain analytic entailments. Thomasson claims that once these misunderstandings are cleared away, it is trivially easy to answer existence questions about ordinary objects using everyday empirical methods of investigation. She reveals (...) how two conflicting metaontologies can lead to different positions in the first-order debate. In this paper, I bring a third metaontological perspective to the table: one that enables us to maintain that ontological disputes about ordinary objects are not trivially easy to settle, even if we agree with Thomasson that they are merely verbal. These are serious verbal disputes. (shrink)

Prosocial behavior and its effects have been analyzed in times of crisis and natural disasters, although never before in the face of such exceptional circumstances as those created by the COVID-19 pandemic. This research analyzes the role of PsB on satisfaction with life in Colombia, considering the negative emotional impact of events that began in February 2020. We conduct an exploratory analysis using a sample of Colombia’s general population with an average age of 44.66 years. Using the Classification Tree technique, (...) we find that engaging in one or more PsBs enhances SWL and decreases the impact of negative emotions such as pessimism, indecisiveness, and irritability that have emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic. These findings are significant because they confirm the importance of life satisfaction as a personal resource for coping with complex situations and provide evidence of the benefits of PsB on one’s wellbeing. (shrink)

The initial stage for the discussion is the distinction between bona fide and fiat objects drawn by Barry Smith and collaborators in the context of formal ontology. This paper aims at both producing a rationale for introducing a hitherto unrecognized kind of object—here called ‘Interactive Fiat Objects’ (IFOs)—into the ontology of objects, and casting light on the relationship between embodied cognition and interactive ontology with the aid of the concepts of affordance and ad hoc category. I conclude that IFOs are (...) similar to fiat objects, affordances and ad hoc categories in a number of ways, yet they differ from these in important respects. Interaction is key to understanding the existence and peculiarities of IFOs. By adopting an embodied perspective on cognition, we can enrich our ontological typologies and highlight relevant features of our physical and symbolic environment that are otherwise overlooked. This should improve our understanding of object ontology and persuade us to include IFOs in our metaphysical inventories. (shrink)

The well-known algebraic semantics and topological semantics for intuitionistic logic (Int) is here extended to Wansing's bi-intuitionistic logic (2Int). The logic 2Int is also characterised by a quasi-twist structure semantics, which leads to an alternative topological characterisation of 2Int. Later, notions of Fregean negation and of unilateralisation are proposed. The logic 2Int is extended with a ‘Fregean negation’ connective ∼, obtaining 2Int∼, and it is showed that the logic N4⋆ (an extension of Nelson's paraconsistent logic) results to be the unilateralisation (...) of 2Int∼ via ∼. The logic 2Int∼ is also characterised by a Kripke-style semantics, a twist structure semantics and a topological semantics. (shrink)

David Lewis is associated with the controversial thesis that some properties are more eligible than others to be the referents of our predicates solely in virtue of those properties’ being more natural; independently, that is, of anything to do with our patterns of usage of the relevant predicates. On such a view, the natural properties act as ‘reference magnets’. In this paper I explore (though I do not endorse) a related thesis in epistemology: that some propositions are ‘justification magnets’. According (...) to the doctrine of justification magnetism, we have better justification for some propositions than for others solely in virtue of certain features of those propositions; independently, that is, of anything to do with evidential support or cognitive accomplishment. In the course of discussing an objection to justification magnetism I describe (though I do not endorse) a novel approach to epistemology akin to interpretationism in the theory of reference. (shrink)

Many philosophers and scientists rightly take hallucinations to be phenomena that challenge in a most pressing way our theories of perception and cognition, and epistemology in general. However, very few challenge the received views on the hallucinatory experience and even fewer critically delve into the subject with both breadth and depth. There are all kinds of problems concerning hallucinations—including conceptual, methodological, and empirical issues—that call for a multilevel analysis and an interdisciplinary approach which in turn provide the detail and scope (...) that the subject demands. In this paper, I present and briefly discuss four interrelated problems: (1) definitions, (2) dependence on perception, (3) two views on hallucinations, and (4) methodology. Neglect or underestimation of these problems, among other things, continue to prevent a proper understanding of the concept and the corresponding experience, giving rise to misconceptions and even plain myths on the subject. Hallucinations do occur; but in order to productively investigate them (for whatever end), we first need to get clear on the concept and develop a suitable epistemological framework for their analysis. (shrink)

In this article, we provide a description of the good in health promotion based on an empirical study of health promotion practices in New South Wales, the most populous state in Australia. We found that practitioners were unified by a vision of the good in health promotion that had substantive and procedural dimensions. Substantively, the good in health promotion was teleological: it inhered in meliorism, an intention to promote health, which was understood holistically and situated in places and environments, a (...) commitment to primary rather than secondary prevention and engagement with communities more than individuals. Procedurally, the good in health promotion arose from qualities of practices that they developed over time in respectful relationships, were flexible and responsive to communities, built capabilities in communities and were sustainable. We discuss our findings with reference to Martha Nussbaum’s normative list of functional capabilities for a good human life, David Buchanan’s vision for health promotion ethics and common concerns in health promotion ethics regarding the relationship between paternalism and freedom. Our thick, vague conception of the good in health promotion, founded in the values and practical reason of people engaged daily in health promotion work, contributes to the development of a more complete theory of health promotion ethics. (shrink)

Earp et al. offer a very interesting summary of, and ethical commentary on, recent multidisciplinary research suggesting that at least some cases of what we call ‘romantic love’ involve phenomena that physically and/or psychologically resemble cases of what we call ‘addiction.’ They draw a conceptual distinction between what they call ‘narrow’ and ‘broad’ concepts of addiction. On the narrow conception, only extreme, harmful, or abnormal cases of love would count as addiction. On the broad conception, even ordinary or normal cases (...) of love could qualify.After distinguishing the two conceptions over the course of the first half of their paper, the authors argue that for labelling and treatment purposes it does... (shrink)

A version of intuitionistic type theory is extended with opposite types, allowing a different formalization of negation and obtaining a paraconsistent type theory (⁠|$\textsf{PTT} $|⁠). The rules for opposite types in |$\textsf{PTT} $| are based on the rules of the so-called constructible falsity. A propositions-as-types correspondence between the many-sorted paraconsistent logic |$\textsf{PL}_\textsf{S} $| (a many-sorted extension of López-Escobar’s refutability calculus presented in natural deduction format) and |$\textsf{PTT} $| is proven. Moreover, a translation of |$\textsf{PTT} $| into intuitionistic type theory is (...) presented and some properties of |$\textsf{PTT} $| are discussed. (shrink)

Abstract This paper examines the kind of epistemic circularity which, according to Ernest Sosa, is unavoidably entailed whenever one has what he calls ?reflective? knowledge (that is, knowledge that p such that the knower reflectively endorses the reliability of the epistemic sources by which she came to her belief that p). I begin by describing the relevant kind of circularity and its role in Sosa's epistemology, en route presenting and resisting Sosa's arguments that this kind of circularity is not vicious. (...) Then I consider the somewhat complex relationship between Sosa's views on epistemic circularity and his response to the Problem of Easy Knowledge, arguing that (on one interpretation of Sosa, at least) a complete solution to that problem cannot be extracted from Sosa's work unless the aforementioned epistemic circularity can be proved non-vicious. (shrink)

Epistemological naturalism has often been taken to be inimical to a priori knowledge, armchair knowledge, and epistemic normativity. This chapter argues that the relationship between epistemological naturalism and these other commitments is in fact considerably subtler than it is widely assumed to be. The chapter begins with a brief classificatory sketch of different kinds of naturalism, then focuses on forms of naturalism that have been especially significant in epistemology. Finally, one form of epistemological naturalism (labeled “lightweight epistemological naturalism”) is singled (...) out for further examination, and found to be consistent with robust (nondeflated, noninstrumental) epistemic normativity, consistent with a priori knowledge, and noncommittal with respect to the prospects of negative experimental philosophy's critique of armchair knowledge. (shrink)

It is a wel known fact that the finite products of Hintikka-Fraissé types for sentences of quantifier rank n give rise to the set of atoms of a finite boolean algebra. In this paper we consider the class of (Lww)t-types introduced in [4], which caracterizes in a pure topological way the (Lww)t-equivalence for T3 spaces. We define for every nonempty family I of n-types a product xInai in such a way that if I is a family of T3 spaces, XIAi (...) denotes its product with the box topology and (ai)1ε XIAi we have that if the n-type of ai is ai (i ε I), then the n-type of (ai)I is xInai. We then prove that, for every n ≥ 1, it is possible to define a lineal order nI of satisfiable n-types and every J c I, we have xJαj ≤nxlnαi. We also prove that these results for Ziegler’s typescan be generalized, if we consider the class of (Lω1ω)t-types introduced in [6], which permits to characterize the (Lω1ω)t-equivalence for a wide class of T3 spaces. (shrink)