In this paper we present a new framework of idealization in biology. We characterize idealizations as a network of counterfactual and hypothetical conditionals that can exhibit different “degrees of contingency”. We use this idea to say that, in departing more or less from the actual world, idealizations can serve numerous epistemic, methodological or heuristic purposes within scientific research. We defend that, in part, this structure explains why idealizations, despite being deformations of reality, are so successful in scientific practice. For illustrative (...) purposes, we provide an example from population genetics, the Wright-Fisher Model. (shrink)

In this paper we present a new framework of idealization in biology. We characterize idealizations as a network of counterfactual and hypothetical conditionals that can exhibit different “degrees of contingency”. We use this idea to say that, in departing more or less from the actual world, idealizations can serve numerous epistemic, methodological or heuristic purposes within scientific research. We defend that, in part, this structure explains why idealizations, despite being deformations of reality, are so successful in scientific practice. For illustrative (...) purposes, we provide an example from population genetics, the Wright-Fisher Model. (shrink)

In this paper we present a new framework of idealization in biology. We characterize idealizations as a network of counterfactual and hypothetical conditionals that can exhibit different "degrees of contingency". We use this idea to say that, in departing more or less from the actual world, idealizations can serve numerous epistemic, methodological or heuristic purposes within scientific research. We defend that, in part, this structure explains why idealizations, despite being deformations of reality, are so successful in scientific practice. For illustrative (...) purposes, we provide an example from population genetics, the Wright-Fisher Model. (shrink)

In this article we defend the inferential view of scientific models and idealisation. Models are seen as “inferential prostheses” (instruments for surrogative reasoning) construed by means of an idealisation-concretisation process, which we essentially understand as a kind of counterfactual deformation procedure (also analysed in inferential terms). The value of scientific representation is understood in terms not only of the success of the inferential outcomes arrived at with its help, but also of the heuristic power of representation and their capacity to (...) correct and improve our models. This provides us with an argument against Sugden’s account of credible models: the likelihood or realisticness (their “credibility”) is not always a good measure of their acceptability. As opposed to “credibility” we propose the notion of “enlightening”, which is the capacity of giving us understanding in the sense of an inferential ability. (shrink)

In this article we defend the inferential view of scientific models and idealisation. Models are seen as “inferential prostheses” (instruments for surrogative reasoning) construed by means of an idealisation-concretisation process, which we essentially understand as a kind of counterfactual deformation procedure (also analysed in inferential terms). The value of scientific representation is understood in terms not only of the success of the inferential outcomes arrived at with its help, but also of the heuristic power of representation and their capacity to (...) correct and improve our models. This provides us with an argument against Sugden’s account of credible models: the likelihood or realisticness (their “credibility”) is not always a good measure of their acceptability. As opposed to “credibility” we propose the notion of “enlightening”, which is the capacity of giving us understanding in the sense of an inferential ability. (shrink)

Our main aim is to discuss the topic of scientific controversies in the context of a recent issue that has been the centre of attention of many epistemologists though not of argumentation theorists or philosophers of science, namely the ethics of belief in face of rational disagreement. We think that the consideration of scientific examples may be of help in the epistemological debate on rational disagreement, making clear some of the deficiencies of the discussion as it has been produced until (...) now. Another central claim of our paper is that the common view according to which beliefs (and changes of beliefs) may exhibit and commonly exhibit a deontic status can be clarified in the light of Brandom’s approach to normative pragmatics and the pragmatic theories of argumentation that also have a normative character (here our example is van Eemeren’s pragma-dialectics). Our article highlights the similarities between both projects, similarities that to our knowledge were not noticed before. Finally, an important point of the article is that we need to take contextual elements into account in order to develop an adequate theory of disagreement. (shrink)

Goodman’s style may be elusive sometimes, so that it may result difficult to interpret what he really has in mind. This is a consequence of his masterful use of irony and metaphorical language. This difficulty of interpretation affects important parts of his philosophical thoughts and had led to misunderstandings. In the present article, I discuss the significance of Goodman’s pluralism, one of his most relevant theses. I try to show that Goodman’s pluralism does not lead to skepticism or the relativism (...) of “anything goes”. One of the most common arguments directed against Goodman’s pluralism is that his attempt to provide a genuine standard of “rightness” fails, leaving us without a conception of truth or an appropriate substitute. I will argue that the conclusion of this argument is false, trying to show that Goodman’s aim of defending an irrealist pluralism is perfectly coherent and defensible against the common interpretation of his critics. (shrink)

In the light of partial understanding, we examine the thesis that concepts are individuated in terms of possession conditions and show that adherents face a fatal dilemma: Either concept-individuating possession conditions include cases of partially understood concepts or not. If yes, possession conditions do not individuate concepts. If no, the thesis is too restricted and lacks a minimally satisfactory level of generalization.

Our purpose in this paper is to contribute to a practice-based characterization of scientific inference. We want to explore whether Brandom’s pragmatist–inferentialist framework can suitably accommodate several types of ampliative inference common in scientific reasoning and explanation (probabilistic reasoning, abduction and idealisation). First, we argue that Brandom’s view of induction in terms of merely permissive inferences is inadequate; in order to overcome the shortcoming of Brandom’s proposal, we put forward an alternative conception of inductive, probabilistic reasoning by appeal to the (...) notion of degrees of commitment. Moreover, we examine the sorts of inferential commitments operative in other types of ampliative inferences, such as abduction or reasoning involving idealizations and assumptions. We suggest that agents engaging in these forms of reasoning often undertake restricted inferential commitments, whose scope and reach are more limited that in the case of the commitments associated with full beliefs. (shrink)

In recent years, there has been a lot of interest in scientific understanding. There was already a consensus in the philosophy of science about the fact that science provides understanding of the world, but until the 70s there was not a proper and systematic investigation of the matter. This investigation has been notoriously incremental in the last two decades. Nevertheless, there is still no agreed upon way of how to understand “understanding” . Faye’s contribution to the debate proves to be (...) a departure from the previous standard works on explanation and scientific inference. The author’s main purpose is, in his own words, describing “how our human cognitive capacities allow scientists to acquire an understanding of nature by means of representation, interpretation, and explanation” . He starts from a D .. (shrink)

Our purpose in this paper is to contribute to a practice-based characterization of scientific inference. We want to explore whether Brandom’s pragmatist–inferentialist framework can suitably accommodate several types of ampliative inference common in scientific reasoning and explanation (probabilistic reasoning, abduction and idealisation). First, we argue that Brandom’s view of induction in terms of merely permissive inferences is inadequate; in order to overcome the shortcoming of Brandom’s proposal, we put forward an alternative conception of inductive, probabilistic reasoning by appeal to the (...) notion of degrees of commitment. Moreover, we examine the sorts of inferential commitments operative in other types of ampliative inferences, such as abduction or reasoning involving idealizations and assumptions. We suggest that agents engaging in these forms of reasoning often undertake restricted inferential commitments, whose scope and reach are more limited that in the case of the commitments associated with full beliefs. (shrink)

In the light of partial (mis)understanding, we examine the thesis that concepts are individuated in terms of possession conditions and show that adherents face a fatal dilemma: Either concept‐individuating possession conditions include cases of partially (mis)understood concepts or not. If yes, possession conditions do not individuate concepts. If no, the thesis is too restricted and lacks a minimally satisfactory level of generalization.

In this paper we present a new framework of idealization in biology. We characterize idealizations as a network of counterfactual and hypothetical conditionals that can exhibit different “degrees of contingency”. We use this idea to say that, in departing more or less from the actual world, idealizations can serve numerous epistemic, methodological or heuristic purposes within scientific research. We defend that, in part, this structure explains why idealizations, despite being deformations of reality, are so successful in scientific practice. For illustrative (...) purposes, we provide an example from population genetics, the Wright-Fisher Model. (shrink)

In this paper we present a new framework of idealization in biology. We characterize idealizations as a network of counterfactual conditionals that can exhibit different degrees of contingency. We use the idea of possible worlds to say that, in departing more or less from the actual world, idealizations can serve numerous epistemic, methodological or heuristic purposes within scientific research. We defend that, in part, it is this structure what helps explain why idealizations, despite being deformations of reality, are so successful (...) in scientific practice. (shrink)

We begin by highlighting some points related to Kuhn’s later thoughts on the incommensurability thesis and then show to what extent the standard version of the thesis given by the structuralist metatheory allows us to capture Kuhn’s ideas. Our main aim is to establish what constitutes the basis of comparability between incommensurable theories, even in cases of incommensurability with respect to theoretical and non-theoretical terms. We propose that comparability between incommensurable theories requires some connection between their respective ontologies that can (...) be captured by means of an ontological non-reductive relation. At this point, the structuralist notion of “echeloned partial substructure” may be of help. When the incommensurability is very drastic, the existence of ontological connections between the theories involved may only be evident by common terms of their non-characteristic vocabularies. So, this notion of non-characteristic vocabulary becomes relevant in our proposal. (shrink)

In this paper, we bring into focus the level of thought or content in the elucidation of disagreement. We set out the view that disagreement at this level involves a specific form of noncotenability, namely, noncotenability as captured by sense or intension as opposed to reference. We present the challenge that nourishes the alternative referential view and suggest, through examples, that (i) only intensional disagreement is apt to adequately accommodate basic rationality constraints on disagreement, and (ii) it can meet the (...) aforementioned challenge insofar as we discriminate between noncotenability affecting one's concepts, intensionally conceived, and noncotenability affecting merely one's particular understanding of those concepts. We conclude that intensional disagreement is our best choice for an account of disagreement at the level of thought. (shrink)

In the present paper, I try to defend a coherent interpretation of Goodman�s relativism by responding to the main objections of the critics. I also discuss the significance of his pluralism by relating it to the notion of construction. This will show the relevance of Goodman�s philosophy for the present days.

My aim in this paper is to discuss Mill’s notions of logic and argument and to highlight the epistemic dimension that for Mill has every argument and that, it is in the light of this epistemic dimension, that an argument should be assessed. By taking into account these considerations, I focus on his criticism against deductive arguments to the effect that they commit the fallacy of begging the question. I try to show that this idea relies on his radical empiricism (...) and argue that he is wrong. He particularly fails to recognize how we can gain knowledge from deductive arguments, though their conclusions are already contained in the premises. Finally, I point out the fact that, by his insisting in the epistemic dimension of arguments, Mill’s ideas are closer to those of argumentative theorists. (shrink)

En el presente artículo, se examinan y discuten dos argumentos con consecuencias reduccionistas debidos a Jaegwon Kim y a Theodore Sider respectivamente. De acuerdo con el argumento de Kim, la superveniencia fuerte implicaría la coexistencia necesaria de propiedades (es decir, tal y como normalmente se interpreta, la reducción). De acuerdo con el de Sider, ocurriría lo mismo con la superveniencia global. Uno y otro hacen un uso esencial de sendas nociones de propiedad maximal, las cuales son discutidas aquí a la (...) luz de una interpretación natural e interesante de la teoría de las propiedades implícita en sus argumentos. Bajo esta nueva interpretación, en términos modelo-teóricos (véase apartado 4), obtenemos diversas posibilidades de relaciones formales entre las tesis de supervivencia y la reducción, según la lógica utilizada. Al menos bajo una interpretación interesante, los argumentos de Kim y Sider no son correctos, quedando demostrado así que dichos argumentos no son válidos en general. (shrink)

We discuss and analyze two reductive arguments due to Jaegwon Kim and Theodore Sider respectively. According to the first one, strong supervenience would imply necessary coextension of properties. According to the second, this would be also the case of global supervenience. Kim and Sider make essential use of their respective notions of maximal properties, which we analyze here in the light of a natural and interesting interpretation of the underlying theory of properties. Under this interpretation, in terms of model theory, (...) we obtain different possibilities of formal relations between the superveniencie theses and reduction, depending on the logic we use. Under at least one interesting interpretation, the arguments of Kim and Sider are not correct and we become the conclusion that these arguments are not valid in general. (shrink)

In this article we defend the inferential view of scientific models and idealisation. Models are seen as “inferential prostheses” (instruments for surrogative reasoning) construed by means of an idealisation-concretisation process, which we essentially understand as a kind of counterfactual deformation procedure (also analysed in inferential terms). The value of scientific representation is understood in terms not only of the success of the inferential outcomes arrived at with its help, but also of the heuristic power of representation and their capacity to (...) correct and improve our models. This provides us with an argument against Sugden’s account of credible models: the likelihood or realisticness (their “credibility”) is not always a good measure of their acceptability. As opposed to “credibility” we propose the notion of “enlightening”, which is the capacity of giving us understanding in the sense of an inferential ability. (shrink)

After a brief comparison of Aliseda’s account with different approaches to abductive reasoning, I relate abduction, as studied by Aliseda, to idealization, a notion which also occupies a very important role in scientific change, as well as to different ways of dealing with the growth of scientific knowledge understood as a particular kind of non-monotonic process. A particularly interesting kind of abductive reasoning could be that of finding an appropriate concretization case for a theory, originally revealed as extraordinarily success-ful but (...) later discovered to be strictly false or only approximately or ideally true. I try to show this with the example of the Kepler-Newton relation. At the end of the paper, I give criteria in order to construe abduc-tive explanations in correspondence with a reasonable account of empirical progress. (shrink)

En el presente artículo, se examinan y discuten dos argumentos con consecuencias reduccionistas debidos a Jaegwon Kim y a Theodore Sider respectivamente. De acuerdo con el argumento de Kim, la superveniencia fuerte implicaría la coexistencia necesaria de propiedades (es decir, tal y como normalmente se interpreta, la reducción). De acuerdo con el de Sider, ocurriría lo mismo con la superveniencia global. Uno y otro hacen un uso esencial de sendas nociones de propiedad maximal, las cuales son discutidas aquí a la (...) luz de una interpretación natural e interesante de la teoría de las propiedades implícita en sus argumentos. Bajo esta nueva interpretación, en términos modelo-teóricos (véase apartado 4), obtenemos diversas posibilidades de relaciones formales entre las tesis de superveniencia y la reducción, según la lógica utilizada. Al menos bajo una interpretación interesante, los argumentos de Kim y Sider no son correctos, quedando demos-trado así que dichos argumentos no son válidos en general. We discuss and analyze two reductive arguments due to Jaegwon Kim and Theodore Sider respectively. According to the first one, strong supervenience would imply necessary coextension of properties (i.e., reduction). According to the second, this would be also the case of global supervenience. Kim and Sider make essential use of their respective notions of maximal properties, which we analyze here in the light of a natural and interesting interpretation of the underlying theory of properties. Under this interpretation, in terms of model theory (see § 4), we obtain different possibilities of formal relations between the superveniencie theses and reduction, depending on the logic we use. Under at least one interesting interpretation, the arguments of Kim and Sider are not correct and we become the conclusion that these arguments are not valid in general. (shrink)

En el presente artículo, se examinan y discuten dos argumentos con consecuencias reduccionistas debidos a Jaegwon Kim y a Theodore Sider respectivamente. De acuerdo con el argumento de Kim, la superveniencia fuerte implicaría la coexistencia necesaria de propiedades (es decir, tal y como normalmente se interpreta, la reducción). De acuerdo con el de Sider, ocurriría lo mismo con la superveniencia global. Uno y otro hacen un uso esencial de sendas nociones de propiedad maximal, las cuales son discutidas aquí a la (...) luz de una interpretación natural e interesante de la teoría de las propiedades implícita en sus argumentos. Bajo esta nueva interpretación, en términos modelo-teóricos (véase apartado 4), obtenemos diversas posibilidades de relaciones formales entre las tesis de superveniencia y la reducción, según la lógica utilizada. Al menos bajo una interpretación interesante, los argumentos de Kim y Sider no son correctos, quedando demos-trado así que dichos argumentos no son válidos en general. We discuss and analyze two reductive arguments due to Jaegwon Kim and Theodore Sider respectively. According to the first one, strong supervenience would imply necessary coextension of properties (i.e., reduction). According to the second, this would be also the case of global supervenience. Kim and Sider make essential use of their respective notions of maximal properties, which we analyze here in the light of a natural and interesting interpretation of the underlying theory of properties. Under this interpretation, in terms of model theory (see § 4), we obtain different possibilities of formal relations between the superveniencie theses and reduction, depending on the logic we use. Under at least one interesting interpretation, the arguments of Kim and Sider are not correct and we become the conclusion that these arguments are not valid in general. (shrink)

We prove strong completeness of the □-version and the ◊-version of a Gödel modal logic based on Kripke models where propositions at each world and the accessibility relation are both infinitely valued in the standard Gödel algebra [0,1]. Some asymmetries are revealed: validity in the first logic is reducible to the class of frames having two-valued accessibility relation and this logic does not enjoy the finite model property, while validity in the second logic requires truly fuzzy accessibility relations and this (...) logic has the finite model property. Analogues of the classical modal systems D, T, S4 and S5 are considered also, and the completeness results are extended to languages enriched with a discrete well ordered set of truth constants. (shrink)

Ésta es una contribución al debate originado por Guillermo Hurtado y proseguido por Manuel García-Carpintero y Horacio Luján Martínez, con relación al sentido y a los objetivos de la filosofía analítica, especialmente en Iberoamérica. En ella se defiende que las tesis de Hurtado también se pueden aplicar al cultivo de filosofías no analíticas, pues en realidad conciernen a la filosofía profesional que se practica dentro y fuera de Iberoamérica. Se sostiene, además, que si bien la profesionalización y la masificación de (...) la filosofía son fenómenos en sí mismos positivos, tienen consecuencias colaterales negativas respecto de la calidad de la filosofía que se produce. También se aduce que el que una propuesta filosófica no tenga una inmediata relevancia existencial o política no la hace menos importante, siempre que en algún sentido amplíe las fronteras del conocimiento. This is a commentary on a debate originated by Guillermo Hurtado and followed up by Manuel García-Carpintero and Horacio Luján Martínez, in regards to the meaning and objectives of analytic philosophy, especially in Latin America. This paper holds that Hurtado's theses are also true about non analytic philosophy, since they are about professional philosophy, as practiced both inside and outside Latin America. Professionalization and popularization of philosophy, while positive phenomena in themselves, have negative collateral consequences on the quality of philosophy produced in the present moment. it is also held that the fact that a given philosophical proposal has no immediate existential or political relevance doesn't make it less important, as long as in some sense it widens the frontiers of knowledge. (shrink)

La crítica de Octavio Paz sobre el significado de la modernidad para los países latinoamericanos, sustentada en una visión poética y en una perspectiva otorgada por ser un autor proveniente de la otredad que postulaba la necesidad de que la Razón recuperará su espíritu crítico abandonado a raíz del intento de imponerla como forma hegemónica de pensar el presente, pasado y futuro de toda la humanidad, sentó las bases para lo que hoy en día conocemos como teorías de la decolonialidad. (...) Sin embargo, la reflexión del poeta mexicano es ignorada tanto por las capillas académicas que han pensado la modernidad, como por los pensadores que han asumido al decolonialismo como forma de imaginar el futuro de nuestras sociedades. El artículo presenta varias de las aportaciones de Octavio Paz a la discusión, concluyendo que su obra debería ser considerada como integrante de la genealogía del pensamiento decolonial. (shrink)

In the context of the end of life, many authors point out how the experience of identity is crucial for the well-being of patients with advanced disease. They define this identity in terms of autonomy, control, or dependence, associating these concepts with the sense of personal dignity. From the perspective of the phenomenology of embodiment, Kay Toombs and other authors have investigated the ways disease can impact on the subjective world of patients and have stressed that a consideration of this (...) personal world can promote understanding and recognition of their experience. Based on the findings of qualitative studies of the perception of dignity and autonomy in patients at the end of life, this analysis assesses concepts such as being-in-the-world in illness, embodiment, lived body versus objective body or the gaze of the other from a Toombsian phenomenological perspective. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Response to Elvira Panaiotidi, “The Nature of Paradigms and Paradigm Shifts in Music Education”Carlos Xavier RodriguezElvira Panaiotidi has delivered a very useful and appealing paper on the topic of how the music education community decides it is time to change the way it thinks and acts. Her primary focus is whether the concept of "paradigms" proposed by Thomas Kuhn in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions reasonably explains how (...) change occurs in music education theory and practice and, if not, whether it can be modified so that it does. Following Peter Abbs' account of paradigm shifts in arts education, she proposes that paradigm shifts occur when methods of inquiry change even if what is being analyzed does not change. More specifically, paradigm shifts involve gradual transformations such that certain principles and terminology are carried over from the previous paradigm to the new one, and change at a slower rate than the methodologies adopted to make sense of them. Such discrepancy creates the kind of communicative discord she alludes to in her introduction: the aesthetic/praxial debate. Her further analysis of Abbs' argument leads her to conclude that the paradigm shifts he describes in arts education are different in kind from those intended by Kuhn. They apparently lack conceptual modification, or "conversion experience," and seem motivated by the need for increasingly comprehensive explanations of artistic behavior and thinking.Panaiotidi's synopsis of Kuhn's original criteria for paradigms reminded me [End Page 108] that his Structure of Scientific Revolutions as my first college textbook, exerted a powerful influence on me by its power to explain how humans formulate and react to new and better ideas. Panaiotidi seems to share this feeling, and scrutinizes Kuhn's original intention to use paradigms as a way of delineating the natural sciences from the humanities. Kuhn himself cautioned that his characterization of change and progress in science is not readily applicable to the arts and, more importantly, that interpretive frameworks for understanding art are not paradigms because paradigms are not theories, a distinction he echoed throughout his career. I argue that Kuhn would not consider the aesthetic and praxial approaches to music education paradigms at all; rather they are more a search for "a more inclusive theory" as Panaiotidi states. However, the ready applicability of Kuhn's criteria for paradigms to the work of music education philosophers is apparent. Their writings have been "sufficiently unprecedented to attract an enduring group of adherents away from competing modes of scientific activity." They have become associated with new methodological strategies because their writings are "sufficiently open-ended to leave all sorts of problems for the redefined group of practitioners to solve."There is, however, quite a difference in the way that science and art communities function. As Ted Gracyk writes in his book, I Wanna Be Me: Rock Music and the Politics of Identity:Where a scientific community singles out one paradigm as the foundation for further research, artistic communities do not. Once Newtonian mechanics was accepted as a scientific paradigm, no other approach to mechanics counted as a rational basis for mechanics. "Unlike art," Kuhn observes, "science destroys its past." The artworld can admire multiple paradigms, representing different periods in art history, without risking incoherence: Picasso's success did not lead museums to put their Rembrandts into storage."1Perhaps, then, the discord noted by Panaiotidi between "aestheticians" and "praxialists" arises not from a shortcoming of music education theory to provide what she calls "tenacious theoretical footing which could help settle the dispute," but from a too-literal interpretation of Kuhn's original criterion that applies to the natural sciences: new paradigms must necessarily refute those that have preceded them. Indeed, the music education research community has grappled with this very issue in its polarized views of acceptable research practice, which is perhaps more fundamentally a misunderstanding regarding the nature of the sciences versus the nature of the humanities. We in arts education have long admired scientific inquiry for its relative stability, what Kuhn calls a "normal" versus "revolutionary" mode of activity. However, as Panaiotidi explains, "Normal science [End Page 109] is characterized by a broad consensus of the specialists and is not by its nature... (shrink)

The book "Idealization XIV: Models in Science" offers a detailed ontological, epistemological and historical account of the role of models in scientific practice. The volume contains contributions of different international scholars who developed many aspects of the use of idealizations and models both in the natural and the social sciences. This volume is particularly relevant because it offers original contributions concerning one of the main topic in philosophy of science: the role of models in such branches of the sciences and (...) the humanities like comparative historical sociology, economics, history, linguistics and political philosophy. -/- Contributors are: Giacomo Borbone, Krzysztof Brzechczyn, Mieszko Ciesielski, Adam Czerniak, Xavier de Donato Rodríguez, José L. Falguera, Adolfo García de la Sienra, Lidia Godek, Igor Hanzel, Łukasz Hardt, Krzysztof Kiedrowski, Barbara Konat, Zenonas Norkus, Piotr Przybysz, Piotr Szwochert. (shrink)

La primera parte de este artículo expone la interpretación praxeológica del concepto noológico de “acto”. En la segunda, se muestra la crítica que Antonio González Fernández hace de esta. Su objeción consiste en que los actos no pueden ser considerados cosas reales, sino solo el surgir de estas. A partir de dicha observación a la noología, González Fernández no solo da surgimiento a su praxeología (también conocida como hiparqueología), sino que su sistema filosófico comienza a ser cuestionado por no explicar (...) qué son, en el mundo de los hechos, los actos, más allá de la suposición de que ellos están ahí a pesar de ser invisibles. En la tercera y última sección se presentan algunas hipótesis para procurar solucionar ciertas objeciones al concepto praxeológico de “acto”, tales como el anteriormente mencionado y las aparentes circularidades y posibles contradicciones que hay al interior del sistema praxeológico. (shrink)

This chapter is a discussion of Class and Resemblance Nominalism. According to the traditional versions of these theories, properties are classes of particulars. Thus, the property of being red is the class of red particulars, and the property of being square is the class of square particulars. Several objections have been advanced against these theories, and one of the most powerful of such objections is the so-called Coextension Difficulty, according to which Class and Resemblance Nominalism have to wrongly identify distinct (...) but coextensive properties. After discussing the nature of Class and Resemblance Nominalism, some problems of these theories and how they can be deal with, the superiority of Class and Resemblance Nominalism over other theories of properties and the superiority of Resemblance Nominalism over Class Nominalism, I concentrate on the Coextension Difficulty. With respect to this I argue that Class and Resemblance Nominalism can be developed in such a way that they admit properties without identifying them with classes, and this allows them to avoid the Coextension Difficulty, since such versions of these theories are not forced to wrongly identify distinct but coextensive properties. Thus the Coextension Difficulty is not a lethal problem for Class and Resemblance Nominalism. (shrink)