This paper analyzes two different proposals, one by Ellis and Brundrit, based on classical relativistic cosmology, the other by Garriga and Vilenkin, based on the DH interpretation of quantum mechanics, both concluding that, in an infinite universe, planets and beings must be repeated an infinite number of times. We point to possible shortcomings in these arguments. We conclude that the idea of an infinite repetition of histories in space cannot be considered strictly speaking a consequence of current physics and cosmology. (...) Such ideas should be seen rather as examples of «ironic science» in the terminology of John Horgan. (shrink)

A world without individual entities? An advice to not to extract immediate ontological consequences from quantum theory. Should we assume a world without individual entities? I pledge not to extract immediate ontological consequences from quantum theory. My intention is to focus on the complexity of ontological concepts commonly associated with quantum theory. Using as an example the compatibility of EPR correlations with the existence of individual entities, it is shown that an absolute rejection of an ontological category, based on some (...) aspects of the formalism of quantum theory, does not seem reasonable. A consequence of this argument is that the common sense view - the world is composed of individual entities-can be maintained, despite of the particularities of quantum mechanics. (shrink)

This paper analyzes two different proposals, one by Ellis and Brundrit, based on classical relativistic cosmology, the other by Garriga and Vilenkin, based on the DH interpretation of quantum mechanics, both concluding that, in an infinite universe, planets and beings must be repeated an infinite number of times. We point to possible shortcomings in these arguments. We conclude that the idea of an infinite repetition of histories in space cannot be considered strictly speaking a consequence of current physics and cosmology. (...) Such ideas should be seen rather as examples of «ironic science» in the terminology of John Horgan. (shrink)

The objective of this paper is analyzing to which extent the multiverse hypothesis provides a real explanation of the peculiarities of the laws and constants in our universe. First we argue in favor of the thesis that all multiverses except Tegmark’s “mathematical multiverse” are too small to explain the fine tuning, so that they merely shift the problem up one level. But the “mathematical multiverse" is surely too large. To prove this assessment, we have performed a number of experiments with (...) cellular automata of complex behavior, which can be considered as universes in the mathematical multiverse. The analogy between what happens in some automata (in particular Conway’s “Game of Life") and the real world is very strong. But if the results of our experiments can be extrapolated to our universe, we should expect to inhabit—in the context of the multiverse—a world in which at least some of the laws and constants of nature should show a certain time dependence. Actually, the probability of our existence in a world such as ours would be mathematically equal to zero. In consequence, the results presented in this paper can be considered as an inkling that the hypothesis of the multiverse, whatever its type, does not offer an adequate explanation for the peculiarities of the physical laws in our world. (shrink)

A world without individual entities? An advice to not to extract immediate ontological consequences from quantum theory. Should we assume a world without individual entities? I pledge not to extract immediate ontological consequences from quantum theory. My intention is to focus on the complexity of ontological concepts commonly associated with quantum theory. Using as an example the compatibility of EPR correlations with the existence of individual entities, it is shown that an absolute rejection of an ontological category, based on some (...) aspects of the formalism of quantum theory, does not seem reasonable. A consequence of this argument is that the common sense view – the world is composed of individual entities – can be maintained, despite of the particularities of quantum mechanics. (shrink)

En este libro el profesor Soler Gil nos brinda una interesante y actualizada filosofía de la cosmología, a modo de manual breve y enjundioso. Partiendo de los datos que nos proporcionan las distintas ciencias relacionadas con la cosmología, tenemos ante nosotros un cuadro complexivo de los problemas más acuciantes de la cosmología.

RESUMEN El pensamiento y las prácticas sociales de los atenienses de la Época Clásica se hallaban jerarquizados en favor de los varones, que se consideraban superiores naturalmente y con capacidad y derecho a gobernar en la polis y en la casa. Se muestra cómo el Agamenón de Esquilo cuestiona la naturalización de esta superioridad mediante el personaje de Clitemnestra, quien actúa, piensa y habla como varón, y muestra que matar a un familiar, cambiar de pareja, luchar por el mando se (...) justificaban si lo realizaba Agamenón. ¿Por qué se condenaban estas acciones cuando eran llevadas a cabo por Clitemnestra? ABSTRACT The thought and social practices of Athenians during the Classical period were hierarchized in favor of males, who were considered naturally superior and endowed with the capacity and right to rule the polis and the home. The article shows how Aeschylus' Agamemnon questions the naturalization of that superiority through the character of Clytemnestra, who acts, thinks, and speaks like a man, and shows that killing a family member, changing partners, and fighting for power were justified if Agamemnon did those things. Why were such actions condemned if Clytemnestra carried them out? (shrink)

En el presente artículo se analizan los tres ejes del debate en la polémica que hace unos años han mantenido Antonio Diéguez Lucena y Francisco José Soler Gil: i) la causación mental y su posible explicación en clave naturalista, ii) los méritos y límites explicativos de una posible alternativa teísta y iii) la conveniencia o no de una metodología naturalista en filosofía.

The volume is a collection of essays devoted to the analysis of scientific change and stability. It explores the balance and tension that exist between commensurability and continuity on the one hand, and incommensurability and discontinuity on the other. Moreover, it discusses some central epistemological consequences regarding the nature of scientific progress, rationality and realism. In relation to these topics, it investigates a number of new avenues, and revisits some familiar issues, with a focus on the history and philosophy of (...) physics, and an emphasis on developments in cognitive sciences as well as on the claims of “new experimentalists”. The book constitutes fully revised versions of papers which were originally presented at the international colloquium held at the University of Nancy, France, in June 2004. (shrink)

In the 1980s, philosophical, historical and social studies of science underwent a change which later evolved into a turn to practice. Analysts of science were asked to pay attention to scientific practices in meticulous detail and along multiple dimensions, including the material, social and psychological. Following this turn, the interest in scientific practices continued to increase and had an indelible influence in the various fields of science studies. No doubt, the practice turn changed our conceptions and approaches of science, but (...) what did it really teach us? What does it mean to study scientific practices? What are the general lessons, implications, and new challenges? This volume explores questions about the practice turn using both case studies and theoretical analysis. The case studies examine empirical and mathematical sciences, including the engineering sciences. The volume promotes interactions between acknowledged experts from different, often thought of as conflicting, orientations. It presents contributions in conjunction with critical commentaries that put the theses and assumptions of the former in perspective. Overall, the book offers a unique and diverse range of perspectives on the meanings, methods, lessons, and challenges associated with the practice turn. (shrink)

Unquenched desire, the dividing up of the drives, repetition, and symptom are the keywords for the effects that the unconscious, as deciphered by Freud, has on the body. Harmony is not on the agenda, but rather the discordance, unlinking, and arrogance of cynical jouissances. It seems that the discourse of capitalism is today increasing their deleterious consequences - with all of these demonstrative suicides, but also suicides as diverse as those of terrorists, Tibetan monks, those beleaguered by the capitalist enterprise, (...) and all the hopeless of our time. Hence the question that Lacan posed concerning the possible "humanisation" of this denatured animal, about whom Freud did not hesitate to say that he is a wolf to man, even though he has always made community. What will the psychoanalyst say about possible solutions, he whose act excludes the call to norms of any kind? Humanisation? is the 2013-2014 volume of the annual seminar held by the author at the Clinical College of the Lacanian Field in Paris. (shrink)

Available corpora for Argument Mining differ along several axes, and one of the key differences is the presence (or absence) of discourse markers to signal argumentative content. Exploring effective ways to use discourse markers has received wide attention in various discourse parsing tasks, from which it is well-known that discourse markers are strong indicators of discourse relations. To improve the robustness of Argument Mining systems across different genres, we propose to automatically augment a given text with discourse markers such that (...) all relations are explicitly signaled. Our analysis unveils that popular language models taken out-of-the-box fail on this task; however, when fine-tuned on a new heterogeneous dataset that we construct (including synthetic and real examples), they perform considerably better. We demonstrate the impact of our approach on an Argument Mining downstream task, evaluated on different corpora, showing that language models can be trained to automatically fill in discourse markers across different corpora, improving the performance of a downstream model in some, but not all, cases. Our proposed approach can further be employed as an assistant tool for better discourse understanding. (shrink)

Contrary to what many interpretations claim, according to Bayle faith does not completely eliminate reason. It intervenes to reveal factual truths that can only be known through revelation (for example, that God allowed Adam and Eve to sin). To these factual truths can be applied a rational principle (an axiomatic and evident one, according to Bayle, which he calls a "common notion"), namely, that "what God does is well done." God allowed sin, so we must think it was justified, even (...) if we don't understand why. This approach is what I call, cum grano salis, Pierre Bayle's theodicy. (shrink)

The starting point of this essay is that there is a contradiction at the heart of our current and hyperbolic understandings of life. To be more precise, on the one hand there is the historical novelty of biology as a modern science and set of technologies. On the other hand, life is simultaneously understood according to biological protocols that seem void of history.

Has Jacques Lacan's impact on psychoanalysis really been assessed? His formulation that the Freudian unconscious is "structured like a language" is well-known, but this was only the beginning. There was then the radically new thesis of the "real unconscious". Why this step? Searching for the Ariadne's thread that runs throughout Lacan's ever-evolving teaching, this book illuminates the questions implicit in each step, and sheds new light on his revisions and renewals of psychoanalytic concepts. In tracing these, the author brings out (...) their consequences for the clinic, and in particular, for the subject, for symptoms, for affects, and for the aims of treatment itself. The last section of the book examines the political import of these developments. If many analysts since Freud have dreamt of reinventing psychoanalysis, the author shows the ways in which Lacan succeeded in this reinvention. (shrink)

Towards Identity in the Psychoanalytic Encounter addresses the theme of identification and identity in the psychoanalytic clinic as elaborated by Jacques Lacan over the course of his teaching. In psychoanalysis the subject who is summoned "to speak himself", is by definition lacking in identity. His question is "What am I?" but, as he is only represented by his words, his being is "always elsewhere", within other words that are yet to come. Thus a paradox: one seeks via speech the identity (...) of a being who, through his speech, is not identifiable. Yet the fact remains, he has a body, and he is riveted to sufferings that psychoanalysis, from Freud to Lacan, identified, which are not accidental, which we call repetition and symptom, and which shift the question of identity, because a One, real, is at play in them. Towards Identity in the Psychoanalytic Encounter will be key reading for the study and research of Lacanian psychoanalysis and all practitioners interested in Lacan's teaching, as well as other discourses such as philosophy, art, literature and history. (shrink)

No es nuestro propósito relatar el trabajo de Hegel en sus Lecciones de la Historia universal, por el contrario, queremos aprehender el concepto de desarrollo de la historia a partir de la acción (tat) del espíritu, en tanto la historia -dice Hegel- es “la sustancia del espíritu”. Y esta temática la desarrolla tanto en la Enciclopedia, como en la Fenomenología del espíritu, así como en las Lecciones de filosofía de la religión (especialmente en 1828) y en su Filosofía del derecho. (...) Si no se concibe la historia sino por la acción del espíritu que deviene movimiento y deviene libertad y racionalidad. De tal modo, que puede decirse que la razón dirige la historia. Pero si califica la historia de divina es porque en ella la razón se historiza y pierde su condición abstracta. Pues en la historia, dice Hegel, el espíritu se encuentra en casa. Debe entenderse ese proceso de movimiento, como sustancia espiritual y el fin absoluto en el mundo, de ahí que no pueda hablarse de fin de la historia. El saber absoluto no implica un cierre al proceso infinito de un despliegue a través de las determinaciones finitas. Debe subrayarse la importancia de la eticidad y de la Filosofía del derecho, pues el Estado en cuanto sustancia ética no anula los derechos de los sujetos que devienen a través de la historia. Pudiendo considerarse a los mismos sujetos y los estados formas de objetivación del espíritu en su movimiento. No puede por ello entenderse el saber absoluto siquiera como un cierre de la historia ni como una superación de las figuras que en su movimiento produce. Más bien es lo que Hegel sostiene como Teodicea de la historia. Y en ella, la religión ya manifiesta la asunción de la negatividad y la superación de la muerte de Dios por el espíritu en la comunidad. Ahora bien, la comunidad alcanza su máxima expresión en el Estado, no es la pretensión de Hegel la exaltación del estado, sino que tiene muy en cuenta que los ciudadanos son sujetos de derecho dentro del Estado. (shrink)

Featuring contributions from the world’s leading experts on the subject and based partly on several detailed case studies, this volume is the first comprehensive analysis of the scientific notion of robustness as well as of the general ...

Thomas Gil und Wolfgang Mack befassen sich aus der Perspektive zweier unterschiedlicher Disziplinen –Philosophie und Psychologie – mit der Frage nach den Funktionen der Seele. Aus der Sicht der Philosophie wird untersucht, was unter psychischen Funktionen zu verstehen ist. Aus der Sicht der Psychologie wird der Begriff der Seele historisch-kritisch diskutiert. Ist für die Psychologie die Seele als wissenschaftlicher Begriff möglicherweise (wieder) geeignet? In gemeinsamer Diskussion beantworten die Autoren die Frage danach, was das Psychische ist.

Downward causation exercised by emergent properties of wholes upon their lower-level constituents’ properties has been accused of conceptual and metaphysical incoherence. Only upward causation is usually peacefully accepted. The aim of this paper is to criticize and refuse the traditional hierarchical-vertical way of conceiving both types of causation, although preserving their deepest ontological significance, as well as the widespread acceptance of the traditional atomistic-combinatorial view of the entities and the relations that constitute the so-called ‘emergence base’. Assuming those two perspectives (...) with no reserves, we are condemned to confine our debate to the question of whether reified wholes can have the power to downwardly change or influence their lower-level parts, a question which seems profoundly misleading to me. I therefore propose an alternative relational ontological view, assuming a straightforward horizontal and intra-level way of representing those putative cases of cross-level causation. I finally confront two recent replies to Kim’s well-known objections to DC—Craver and Bechtel and Kistler :595–609, 2009)—, emphasizing their global positive approaches, as well as the reasons why their accounts still seem insufficient to me. I conclude arguing that both Kim’s principle of the causal closure of the physical domain and its allegation of an overdetermination in cases of DC can be surpassed by the new relational ontological perspective presented here. (shrink)

We propose a new approach to positive modal logics, hereby called anodic modal logics. Our treatment is completely positive since the language has neither negation nor any falsum or minimal particle. The elimination of the minimal particle of the language requires introducing the new concept of factual sets and factual deductions which permit us to talk about deductions in the actual world. We start from a positive fragment of the standard system K, denoted by K⊃, ∧, ◊, which is a (...) bimodal system with □ and ◊ as primitive. This system is then extended to a class of fragments of the Lemmon and Scott systems (cf. (Lemmon et al., 1977)), denoted by K⊃, ∧, ◊ + Gk;l;m;n + Gm;n;k;l. It is shown that such classes of systems are characterized with respect to the usual Kripke-style semantics. The proof is by way of a Henkin-style construction, with “possible worlds” being taken to be prime theories as introduced in the modal context by J. M. Dunn in (Dunn, 1995). We also obtain a surprising limiting result showing that the incompleteness phenomenon in modal logic is independent of negation. (shrink)

A system is classified as multimodal if its language has more than one modal operator as primitive, and such operators are not interdefinable. We extend the anodic and cathodic modal systems, introduced in Bueno-Soler and Bueno-Soler , to a class of the so-called basilar multimodal systems generating, in this way, the classes of anodic and cathodic multimodal logics. The cathodic multimodal systems are defined as extensions of positive multimodal systems by adding degrees of negation plus consistency operators. In (...) this way, cathodic multimodal systems are logics of formal inconsistency [the paraconsistent LFIs, as treated in Carnielli et al. ] enriched with multimodal operators. We focus the attention on models for such classes of systems and discuss how modal possible-translation semantics, as well as possible-worlds , can be defined to interpret basilar cathodic multimodal systems. While anodic systems are modeled by Kripke models only, we introduce the modal possible-translation models for cathodic systems. Such models, given by combinations of three-valued modal logics, besides their own interest, explain the role of non-trivializing contradictions in multimodal environment. (shrink)

In this paper we extend the anodic systems introduced in Bueno-Soler (J Appl Non Class Logics 19(3):291–310, 2009) by adding certain paraconsistent axioms based on the so called logics of formal inconsistency , introduced in Carnielli et al. (Handbook of philosophical logic, Springer, Amsterdam, 2007), and define the classes of systems that we call cathodic . These classes consist of modal paraconsistent systems, an approach which permits us to treat with certain kinds of conflicting situations. Our interest in this (...) paper is to show that such systems can be semantically characterized in two different ways: by Kripke-style semantics and by modal possible-translations semantics . Such results are inspired in some universal constructions in logic, in the sense that cathodic systems can be seen as a kind of fusion (a particular case of fibring) between modal logics and non-modal logics, as discussed in Carnielli et al. (Analysis and synthesis of logics, Springer, Amsterdam, 2007). The outcome is inherently within the spirit of universal logic, as our systems semantically intermingles modal logics, paraconsistent logics and many-valued logics, defining new blends of logics whose relevance we intend to show. (shrink)

The following essays are about what it is to believe something, how we make up our minds and decide, what it means that conflicts anddisagreements are not eliminable, and the fact that new technological developments are substantially changing the way we live.

James of Viterbio is one of the rare medieval authors to sustain a thoroughly innatist philosophy. He borrows from Simplicius the notion of idoneitas (aptitude, predisposition) so as to ground a cognition theory in which external things are not the efficient and formal causes of mental acts. A predisposition has the characteristic of being halfway between potentiality and actuality. Therefore, the subject that has predispositions does not need to be acted upon by another thing to actualize them. External things only (...) “incline” the mind to make use of a stock of cognitive schemes. Consequently, in order to avoid an infinite regress James must adopt innatism. Following the lead of late Neoplatonism, he goes as far as including, not only conceptual schemes, but also perceptual schemes among the inbuilt stock. As a result, James’s theory, while it echoes certain preoccupations and themes that are common in the thirteenth century, proves to be one of a kind. (shrink)

Nosso ensaio procura explorar as relações entre o cuidado de si e a experiência de uma ética originária no contexto da hermenêutica. Num primeiro momento apresentamos os desdobramentos do cuidado de si e os exercícios espirituais da filosofia antiga a partir das contribuições dos pensamentos de Foucault e Hadot. Esses dois intelectuais elaboram uma contextualização desse princípio como uma relação entre o cuidado de si e os exercícios espirituais compreendidos como um trabalho do sujeito sobre si mesmo no que se (...) refere à problemática a partir das correlações entre os processos de subjetivação e o acesso à verdade O segundo momento deste ensaio é dedicado a elaborar uma leitura sobre a hermenêutica compreendida como uma experiência de uma ética originária baseados nas contribuições de Gadamer, Heidegger e Schmidt. Nossas considerações finais são dedicadas a pensar um olhar sobre as relações entre o cuidado de si e a hermenêutica para explorarmos as nuances de uma retomada de uma ética originária a partir de uma analítica sobre o _ethos_ compreendido como a morado do Ser, desdobrada em novas formas ou processos de subjetivação. (shrink)

Philosophers of well-being have tended to adopt a foundationalist approach to the question of theory and measurement, according to which theories are conceptually before measures. By contrast, social scientists have tended to adopt operationalist commitments, according to which they develop and refine well-being measures independently of any philosophical foundation. Unfortunately, neither approach helps us overcome the problem of coordinating between how we characterize well-being and how we measure it. Instead, we should adopt a coherentist approach to well-being science.