This article surveys different philosophical theories about the nature of truth. We give much importance to truth; some demand to know it, some fear it, and others would even die for it. But what exactly is truth? What is its nature? Does it even have a nature in the first place? When do we say that some truth-bearers are true? Philosophers offer varying answers to these questions. In this article, some of these answers are explored and some of the problems (...) raised against them are presented. (shrink)

This paper explores two persistent questions in the literature on presumptions: the place and the nature of presumptions in law and legal argumentation. These questions were originally raised by James Bradley Thayer, one of the masters of the Law of Evidence and the author of the classic chapter devoted this subject in A preliminary treatise on Evidence. Like Thayer, I believe that these questions deserve attention. First the paper shows that the connection between presumptions and argumentation is a constant feature (...) in the literature on presumptions, since its foundation in the Middle Ages to modern times. James Bradley Thayer was probably the last jurist who clearly saw that presumptions belong to argumentation. Second, the paper examines two sources of controversy in the language of presumptions. First, “presumption” is an ambiguous word in the legal discourse. As a result, it is almost impossible to provide a clear and succinct answer to the question “What is a presumption?”. Second, there are at least four reconstructions of the concept of presumption whose merits and shortcomings are relevant to explore. The analysis presented here may be of interest for legal and non-legal scholars and, hopefully, it may help to shed light on the possibilities and limits of an interdisciplinary dialogue about presumptions. (shrink)

Plato's Dialogues One by One interprets and contextualizes each of Plato's dialogues. Victorino Tejera analyzes and explains the content and intellectual quality of the dialogues, highlighting their dramatic aliveness and historico-political allusiveness. He treats each dialogue according to its own integrity, not imposing any system outside of their individual composition, and with an even-handedness that does not place too much emphasis on any aspect or neglect any included concept. With this approach, Tejera seeks to free Plato from the constraints (...) constructed by Academia and to treat him as the open-minded intellectual son of Socrates, releasing the free-flying swan that in the myth became the home of the soul of the master. (shrink)

The notion of rationality is crucial to Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence, Economics, Law, Philosophy, Psychology, Anthropology, etc. Most if not all of these disciplines presuppose the agent's capacity to infer in a logical manner. Theories about rationality tend toward two extremes: either they presuppose an unattainable logical capacity, or they tend to minimize the role of logic, in light of vast data on fallacious inferential performance. We analyze some presuppositions in the classical view of logic, and suggest empirical and (...) theoretical evidence for the place of inferential heuristics in a theory of rationality. We propose (1) to outline a new theory of rationality that includes the key notion of logical capacity as a necessary but realistic factor, (2) to expand the notion of inference to include non-deductive inference, specifically non-monotonic, and (3) to emphasize the logical role of inferential heuristics and constraints such as cognitive economy. (shrink)

Este trabalho analisa a influência tributária na definição do modelo constitucional de atribuição dos resultados econômicos da exploração do petróleo offshore, no Brasil. Além da abordagem constitucional do tema, destaca-se a participação dos entes federativos estaduais nas rendas da produção de petróleo, sua federalização e, em decorrência, a redução das rendas dos entes federativos subnacionais, implicando num movimento compensatório pela via da utilização de elementos de natureza tributária, tais como o extinto Imposto Único sobre Minerais e o regime constitucional especial (...) de cobrança na origem do ICMS devido nas operações de combustíveis e derivados de petróleo. (shrink)

Tejera examines how Platonism--a philosophy imported from outside Plato's dialogues--changed our understanding of the dialogues.

We verified moral distress related to organ shortage for transplantation in nursing students. This quantitative pilot study analyzed data from 104 nursing undergraduate students. Data were collected through a survey composed of four questions and two sociodemographic items. The chi-squared test was used to examine categorical variables, whereas continuous variable data were analyzed using ANOVA and the Pearson Product Moment correlational test for determining the existence of moral distress regarding the availability of one heart for four individuals susceptible to heart (...) transplantation. A high level of moral distress was identified with regard to the hypothetical decision-making process, which justifies the need for further studies on the subject. Given the hypothetical scenario, moral distress was observed among the students, reaching severe distress in some cases. Approval CEP-University of Alberta Pro00068610. (shrink)

Victorino Tejera combines an American naturalist approach to Aristotle's modes of knowing with new applications of Justus Buchler's systematic metaphysics. Bridging the gap between classical and modern, Tejera reveals a cohesive revitalization of metaphysical naturalism for contemporary scholars.

We look at two fundamental logical processes, often intertwined in planning and problem solving: inference and update. Inference is an internal process with which we uncover what is implicit in the information we already have. Update, on the other hand, is produced by external communication, usually in the form of announcements and in general in the form of observations, giving us information that might not have been available (even implicitly) before. Both processes have received attention from the logic community, usually (...) separately. In this work, we develop a logical language that allows us to describe them together. We present syntax, semantics and a complete axiom system; we discuss similarities and differences with other approaches and mention how the work can be extended. (shrink)

The principle of overlap of classes holds that when two entities interface, the effect is a blurring of boundaries between conceptual territories. In this paper, this question is in order: Is Folk Catholicism an instance of overlap of classes? If Folk Catholicism is not construed as such, these fallacies – using Robin George Collingwood’s perspective in his An Essay on Philosophical Method, may unfold: the fallacy of precarious margins, the fallacy of identified coincidents, and the fallacy of false disjunction. The (...) first fallacy holds that the ‘Folk’ in Folk Catholicism has no contribution to how ‘Catholicism’ unfolds. The second fallacy maintains that the extensions of both ‘Folk’ and ‘Catholicism’ are clearly delineated. The third fallacy underscores that Folk and Catholicism are mutually exclusive terms. When such fallacies are accepted, this paper holds that Folk Catholicism as a construct may be a contradiction of terms on what it means to be Folk and Catholic. This is the illogical consequence given that the truth of what it means to be folk necessitates the falsity of what it means to be Catholic and vice-versa. However, when recognized from the lens of the overlap, Folk Catholicism is construed as a term that evolves and is historically conditioned. (shrink)

This year we celebrate Raimon Panikkar’s centenary; one of the most important Spanish thinkers and, undoubtedly, one of those who had the widest international repercussion, together with the other three big philosophers of the 20th century: Unamuno, Ortega and Zubiri. The present work explores the relationship between his thinking and Xabier Zubiri’s, a well-known thinker in the History of Spanish Philosophy, and that of Amor Ruibal, a Galician thinker not so wellknown outside specialized circles. This connection among the three thinkers (...) lies particularly in a conception of reality marked by the relation, reaching its culmination in the Catalan-Hindu thinker: The cosmotheandric perspective of Raimon Panikkar, Zubiri’s respectivity and radical relativity, and the ontological relativity or universal correlationism of Amor Ruibal. (shrink)

First published in 1984, this revised edition is designed to meet the needs of students and teachers of classical political philosophy. The two chief differences between the present revised edition and the first are the addition of a section on Solon's ethics in Chapter II, and the more frontal approach taken to the discourse of the visitor from Elea in Plato's Politicusóan approach which allows the reader to capture better and trace more easily his systematic equivocation between "the political man" (...) and "the kingly man." Contents: On the Nature of Reflective Discourse in Politics; Solon's Political Judgement and his Poetry; Thucydides's Reflective Discourse and Politics; The Politics of a Sophistic Rhetorician: Applied Pythagorism Scrutinized; Plato's "Republic" or the Remedial Constitution; Aristotle's Political Philosophy; Dante and the Recovery of City-State Rationality about Politics; On the Unity of Machiavelli "The Prince" with the "Discourses"; Biography; Index. (shrink)

Every so often an experiment trying to give reliable evidence for a metallic hydrogen solid is reported. Such evidence is, however, not too convincing. As Eric Scerri has recently reiterated, “the jury is still out on that issue” . This search stems from the common spectroscopy shared by the hydrogen atom and all the alkali metal atoms, and perhaps is guided by a desire to place hydrogen atop the alkali metals, in Mendeleiev’s Table, reinforced by the fact pointed out by (...) Scerri that there is no other obvious place for hydrogen in said Table. But H2 is a light gas at room temperature, while Li, Na, K and the other alkali elements form solid metal crystals. At very low temperatures, of course, hydrogen solidifies, but it is formed by H2 molecules . Our purpose here is to use a new argument to break this impasse: “should H be grouped with the alkali metals with which it shares a common spectroscopy, but which solidifies in a completely different fashion?” This argument has been proposed before in a couple of papers in this journal to establish a similar question for He and the alkaline earths , as is discussed in “Precedents” section. (shrink)

Objective: To evaluate moral development as an indicator of the capacity to consent among two groups of patients from the Hospital de Clínicas in Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil.Method: Fifty-nine adolescents and 60 patients over 60 years of age participated in a cross-sectional study to assess moral development using Loevinger’s model of ego stages.Results: Age and moral development showed no association, with most participants in the two groups being in the conscientious phase.Conclusions: Age is probably not an adequate variable to measure (...) decision-making capacity, because questions of medical consent relate to participants’ own personal health. Decision-making capacity should be viewed as a continuous function. While the age of the person whose consent is needed should be considered, age alone, from a moral perspective, is not the main determinant of this capacity. (shrink)

This thesis analyzes from a philosophical perspective different models for nonmonotonic inference, belief revision and the handling of inconsistencies. ;The first chapter serves as an introduction to the subject, giving examples and analyzing the main concepts. As a result of these discussions, this thesis tries to: produce a refined map of the main notions related to this subject, maintain that there can be a fault tolerant logic that stands in support of fault tolerant reasoning, and defend the use of deductive (...) databases as models for changes of belief. ;The second chapter explores monotonic proposals to deal with uncertain reasoning. These include logics based on a classical notion of consequence, interpretations of defeasible reasoning as containing implicit premises, and systems in which temporal change is an integral part of the representation of states of affairs, via temporal indices or more elaborate devices. ;The third chapter explores quantitative approaches to nonmonotonic reasoning like dispositional logic, and theories of probabilistic reasoning including Bayesian, certainty factors, and Dempster-Shafer. ;The fourth chapter explores qualitative approaches. Here we mention conditional, default, and nonmonotonic logics, and the circumscription and autoepistemic formalisms. ;The fifth chapter studies different proposals to deal with contradictions. It starts with a review of the types of belief inconsistencies, and then it presents mechanisms to prevent, control or correct them. I explore paraconsistent logics, specially relevance logics, to "bracket" the area of conflict and allow inferences about non-related topics to continue unaffected. Then I examine different methods to get rid of the inconsistencies, including the use of dependency-directed backtracking and of relevance logic. ;Finally, I present my conclusions, and mention some of the open problems. (shrink)

An initial study of Robin George Collingwood's The Principles of Art and Benedetto Croce's Aesthetic: A Science ofExpression and General Linguistic gives an immediate impression that Collingwood appropriated and incorporated many elements in Croce's work to his own position. This is probably the main reason why Collingwood, in his correspondence with Croce, sincerely expressed his gratitude to the Italian Philosopher for laying the foundation of his art-theory. Collingwood's acknowledgement of Croce's influence and the apparentsimilarity in their theories on art disposes (...) us to wonder if Collingwood mayhave only extended, hence, reiterated the principles of Croce's position. Given this impression, the present article hopes to provide a study between Collingwood's and Croce's theories of art in the hope that we can tease out a crucial difference between their standpoints. If we can demonstrate a significant difference, then we may have provided ourselves with the cudgels to assert that Collingwood's theory of art is also unique. (shrink)