Los servidores públicos no siempre actúan en función del interés de la comunidad a pesar de las amenazas y sanciones establecidas en el derecho; es necesario encontrar nuevas vías de actuación para resolver tan importante problema. En ese sentido, este artículo busca fundamentar los principios que deben regir la actuación de los mismos. Para ello, en primer lugar, se intenta establecer un método que permita la creación de estos principios, basándose en la teoría del valor de Luis Villoro y en (...) la ética de Immanuel Kant. Posteriormente, se identifica el interés público como aquel valor que se busca por él mismo sin necesidad de acudir a otros valores para cuyo fin esté dispuesto. A continuación, se derivan los valores de responsabilidad, objetividad, imparcialidad, razonabilidad, publicidad, solidaridad, prudencia e instrumentalidad, a partir de los cuáles se construyen principios éticos que puedan, posteriormente, ser positivizados en el derecho. (shrink)

Contemporary debates concerning warrant transmission take for granted this thesis: when warrant transmission fails the argument fails. I challenge this thesis. An argument with conclusion C, addressed to subject S, can be cogent in the sense that recognition that the premises entail (or make highly likely) C can rationally foster in S the belief in C, without the warrant for C necessarily being gained (or reinforced) by such recognition. A key idea is to accept that some arguments should be understood (...) in a way that involves the abandonment of two characteristic idealizations imposed on rational thinkers by Bayesian modelling. (shrink)

Algunos autores estamos interesados por cierto ámbito o enfoque de la actividad filosófica usualmente denominado “filosofía experimental”. El objetivo fundamental de este artículo es analizar los rasgos principales que caracterizan a dicha especialidad, conforme al sentido en que comenzó a utilizarse esa etiqueta. Entre otras consideraciones, se constatará que la denominación “filosofía experimental” es parcialmente acertada, pero también parcialmente equívoca debido a dos razones. Una razón queda de manifiesto en discusiones contemporáneas que localizan antecedentes de ese enfoque en conexiones entre (...) la filosofía y las ciencias empíricas a través de los siglos. La segunda razón tiene mayor importancia; para identificarla será conveniente evaluar las funciones de la experimentación, tanto en las ciencias empíricas como en la filosofía. De especial relevancia será reflexionar sobre cierto tipo de experimentos: los experimentos mentales. (shrink)

RESUMEN Algunos autores estamos interesados por cierto ámbito o enfoque de la actividad filosófica usualmente denominado "filosofía experimental". El objetivo fundamental de este artículo es analizar los rasgos principales que caracterizan a dicha especialidad, conforme al sentido en que comenzó a utilizarse esa etiqueta. Entre otras consideraciones, se constatará que la denominación "filosofía experimental" es parcialmente acertada, pero también parcialmente equívoca debido a dos razones. Una razón queda de manifiesto en discusiones contemporáneas que localizan antecedentes de ese enfoque en conexiones (...) entre la filosofía y las ciencias empíricas a través de los siglos. La segunda razón tiene mayor importancia; para identificarla será conveniente evaluar las funciones de la experimentación, tanto en las ciencias empíricas como en la filosofía. De especial relevancia será reflexionar sobre cierto tipo de experimentos: los experimentos mentales. ABSTRACT Some of us are interested in a certain field or approach to philosophical activity usually called "experimental philosophy". The primary goal of this article is to analyze the main features that characterize this specialty, according to the sense in which the label began to be used. Among other considerations, we will see that the description "experimental philosophy" is partially correct, but also partially wrong, due to two reasons. The first can be tracked in contemporary discussions that locate antecedents of that approach in connections between philosophy and the empirical sciences through the centuries. To identify the second, more important reason, it will be convenient to evaluate the functions of experimentation, both in the empirical sciences and in philosophy. To reflect on certain types of experiments, mental experiments, will be crucially relevant. (shrink)

When discussing around his Gödel-Schmidt case, Kripke implicitly invoked our intuitive judgements about reference to argue against descriptivism on proper names. E. Machery and some collaborators have used survey data to attack Kripkean theses. In this article, I raise a new objection to this kind of criticism of anti-descriptivism. The participants in the surveys were presented with two possible answers to a determinate question. I show that the answer that Machery and his collaborators presuppose to be descriptivist is in fact (...) ambiguous, and it can be interpreted according to a reading that is perfectly compatible with anti-descriptivism. To argue for this thesis, I describe two ambiguities in the experimental setup that inspires their claims. Both ambiguities relate to the distinction between counterfactual and actualist readings of certain hypotheses, questions or statements. (shrink)

In his outstanding book Knowledge and its Limits, Williamson claims that we have inductive evidence for some negative theses concerning the prospects of defining knowledge, like this: knowing cannot be defined in accordance with a determinate traditional conjunctive scheme; defends a theory of mental states, mental concepts and the relations between the two, from which we would obtain additional, not merely inductive, evidence for this negative thesis; and presents an alternative definition of knowledge. Here I consider these issues and extract (...) two relevant conclusions: Williamson's theory of states and concepts only supports the negative thesis because this theory would explain too much, since it imposes implausible necessary limitations on possible uses of concepts and linguistic expressions. So, there is no appropriate non-inductive evidence for the negative thesis. Williamson's own definition of knowledge is at risk. (shrink)

The relationship between students and higher education is seen to have become increasingly transactional. We approach the study of the student–HE relationship in a novel way, by focusing on students’ behaviour post-university, rather than on student narratives. Conceptually, the article builds on multidimensional views of student engagement and the differentiation between psychological transactional contracts – where students who achieve better academic results are more likely to donate – and relational contracts – where students donate more following engagement in social experiences. (...) Making use of longitudinal data on donation behaviour from over 50,000 alumni from an English university over two decades, we find that while students who get better degree outcomes are more likely to donate, the association between participation in social experiences and donations is much stronger. This questions prevalent transactional models of HE and underlines the limitations of purely consumerist views of the relation between students and higher education institutions, even in the marketized UK context. (shrink)

Necessitism about individuals claims that necessarily every individual necessarily exists. An analogous necessitist thesis attributes necessary existence to properties and relations. Both theses have been defended by Williamson. Furthermore, Williamson specifically argues against the hybrid conjunction of first-order contingentism and higher-order necessitism; a combination that would bring about additional drawbacks. I work out a defence of the hybrid combination, including some replies to Williamson’s additional objections. Considerations of ontological parsimony and pre-theoretical intuitions favour the hybrid view over necessitism at all (...) orders. (shrink)

Hume argued that inductive inferences do not have rational justification. My aim is to reject Hume’s argument. The discussion is partly motivated by an analogy with Carroll’s Paradox, which concerns deductive inferences. A first radically externalist reply to Hume (defended by Dauer and Van Cleve) is that justified inductive inferences do not require the subject to know that nature is uniform, though the uniformity of nature is a necessary condition for having the justification. But then the subject does not have (...) reasons for believing what she believes. I defend a moderate externalist account that seeks to partly accommodate that objection to the radical externalist proposal. It is based on an extension of Peacocke’s theory of concepts: possession conditions for predicative concepts standing for natural properties include (fallible) dispositions to project them to new cases in accordance with inductive inferential patterns. (shrink)

We describe the role of morphosyntactic categories and syntactic dependencies in the process of semantically interpreting composite expressions. Special attention will be paid to the combinatorial properties conveyed by morphosyntactic categories such as nominals and verbs, as well as by syntactic dependencies like subject, direct object, or nominal modification. The semantic characterisation of these grammatical structures is based on cognitive abilities and abstract conceptualisations. This will provide us with theoretical arguments to review and extend some basic assumptions of Cognitive Grammar (...) and related work. (shrink)

Diverse epistemologists have proposed this Discriminability Postulate : If S knows that p, then S can discriminate between the case that p and other relevant alternatives. I propose that DP derives from other, more basic postulate, that sees knowledge as providing some Warrant Against the Risk of Error : If S knows that p, then this knowledge confers on S’s belief that p a warrant against the risk of error. The kind of error mentioned in WARE is the error consisting (...) in mistaking the case that p for some of its relevant alternatives. But the possibility of mistaking in that sense entails that the subject has appropriate representational access to the two items that have to be distinguished. The fact that DP derives from WARE provides grounds to think that if DP is true, then the discriminative capacities than it involves are not jeopardized when the subject cannot have representational access to one of the corresponding items. A corollary of this idea is a weakening of DP and a subsequent reduction of its potential to raise sceptical doubts against claims of knowledge. (shrink)

For Williamson, knowing and believing are mental states, but believing truly and justifiedly-and-truly believing are non-mental states. This discriminatory approach is relevant to his epistemology: his main negative epistemological thesis and his main positive epistemological thesis depend on his metaphysical theory about the demarcation of the mental. I present here a problem for Williamson’s theory of the mental: it imposes implausible restrictions on possible uses of concepts and linguistic expressions. I will describe some options that Williamson would have at his (...) disposal to evade the problem; but I maintain that these options carry some degree of arbitrariness. (shrink)

E. Machery and some collaborators have used survey data to criticize Kripke’s anti-descriptivism about proper names. I highlight a number of drawbacks in the tests of Machery et al. Some of my objections concern their ambiguity. In particular, the responses that —according to them— reveal descriptivist intuitions can be interpreted as anti-descriptivist responses, for reasons that —as far as I know— have not been pointed out so far. Furthermore, their vignettes are apparently inconsistent. I also discuss other issues related to (...) the role of intuitions in philosophy; Machery et al.’s theses depend on an unjustified assumption: there is not expertise regarding intuitions. (shrink)

A common view about Moore’s Proof of an External World is that the argument fails because anyone who had doubts about its conclusion could not use the argument to rationally overcome those doubts. I agree that Moore’s Proof is—in that sense—dialectically ineffective at convincing an opponent or a doubter, but I defend that the argument (even when individuated taking into consideration the purpose of Moore’s arguing and, consequently, the preferred addressee of the Proof) does not fail. The key to my (...) defence is to conceive the Proof as addressed to subjects with a different epistemic condition. To sustain this view I formulate some hypothesis about the common general purpose of arguing and I defend that it can be fulfilled even when the addressee of an argument is not someone who disbelieves or doubts its conclusion. (shrink)

The main goal of this paper is to contribute to the clarification of the dialectics between compatibilists and incompatibilists on free action. I describe a new incompatibilist position that has been neglected in the literature. I also provide a proper rationale for such a position. First, I present a justification for incompatibilism that is composed of an old idea and a new one. The old idea is the FRAP principle: freedom requires alternative possibilities. Compatibilists and incompatibilists alike usually share a (...) Key Assumption about how the open alternative possibilities allowed by indeterminism are supposed to support the libertarian case: the existence of alternative possibilities should make a metaphysically relevant difference concerning the control and/or the authorship of the agent over the action. The other component in the justification for incompatibilism is the rejection of the Key Assumption. Why to preserve FRAP when the Key Assumption is dropped? The answer has three parts: we have a strong pre-theoretical intuition in favour of FRAP; a crucial anti-libertarian argument, known as the Luck Argument, can be interpreted as showing that FRAP and the Key Assumption cannot both be true; the Luck Argument doesn't work when directed against FRAP itself. (shrink)

Desarrollo varias hipótesis sobre los propósitos de la argumentación racional, parcialmente inspiradas en el análisis de Jackson sobre el concepto de petitio principii. Destaco como especialmente relevante entre tales propósitos la referencia a los potenciales destinatarios de una argumentación. Ilustro la discusión con un caso concreto: el argumento elaborado por Putnam para demostrar que no somos cerebros en una cubeta. Presento una versión de ese argumento y lo defiendo frente a una posible crítica que lo acusa de prejuzgar la cuestión.I (...) work out some hypothesis on the purposes of rational arguing, partly inspired by Jackson’s analysis of the concept of petitio principii. It is especially relevant among such purposes the reference to the potential intended addressee of an argument. The discussion is illustrated with a concrete example: Putnam’s proofthat we are not brains in a vat. I present a version of Putnam’s proof and defend it from a possible criticism which accuses it of begging the question. (shrink)

I deal here with one of Boghossian’s arguments against content externalism, related to ourinferential rationality(to use his term). According to his reasoning, the apriority of our logical abilities is inconsistent with certain externalist assumptions. Nevertheless, the problem constitutes an important challenge foranytheory of content, not just for externalism. Furthermore, when we examine what internalists may propose to solve the problem, we see that externalists have at their disposal a more promising repertoire of possible replies than internalists. In that sense, insofar (...) as Boghossian’s scenario is relevant to the debate externalism/internalism, it can be seen (against Boghossian’s original intention) as providing additional evidence for content externalism. (shrink)

En este artículo abordo uno de los problemas que pone de manifiesto la presunta incompatibilidad entre el externismo y el conocimiento que posee un sujeto sobre el contenido de sus pensamientos. El problema se basa en algunas supuestas consecuencias del externismo concernientes a la existencia de sustancias u objetos externos al sujeto pensante: si el externismo es a priori, entonces un sujeto puede saber a priori que existe el agua, meramente conociendo a priori su pensamiento sobre el agua. Las dos (...) respuestas compatibilistas principales que desarrollo explotan el papel desempeñado por la experiencia en el conocimiento a priori. Una vez se tiene en cuenta la experiencia requerida para poder tener los pensamientos relevantes resulta menos sorprendente que un sujeto pueda adquirir conocimiento a priori sobre la existencia del agua, o sobre una condición similar pero más débil que efectivamente se seguiría del externismo. I approach in this article one of the problems which purportedly would show the incompatibility of externalism and authoritative self-knowledge. The problem is based on some alleged consequences of externalism regarding the existence of substances or objects external to the thinker: if externalism is a priori, then a subject can know a priori that water exists by knowing a priori his thought about water. The two main compatibilist responses I work out exploit the role played by experience in a priori knowledge. Taking into account the experience required to entertain the relevant thoughts makes less puzzling that a subject could acquire a priori knowledge about water's existence, or about a weaker related condition which is the real commitment of externalism. (shrink)

. There are many types of artistic representations of the legend of Don Juan, i.e. the universal archetype of the seducer who, through deception, conquers a woman and, once she succumbs to his charms, he boasts of his triumph, despises her, and shifts his interest towards another lady. In this work, I compare three of the most famous versions don Juan: The Trickster of Seville and the Stone Guest by Tirso de Molina, Don Giovanni by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Lorenzo (...) Da Ponte, and Don Juan Tenorio by José Zorrilla. The first and third are theatrical pieces, while the second is an opera. The myth of Don Juan is essentially the same in all three, but the message and the moral vary according to the cultural movement the works belong to, namely the Baroque, the Enlightenment and the Romanticism, respectively. Key words: The Trickster of Seville and the Stone Guest, Don Giovanni, Don Juan, Tirso de Molina, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Lorenzo Da Ponte, José Zorrilla, sin, redemption, sociopath. Resumen. Son muchos los tipos de representación artística —teatro, música, ópera, ballet, literatura, cine, televisión, pintura, escultura, etc.— de la leyenda de Don Juan, el arquetipo universal del seductor que, mediante engaños, conquista a una mujer y, una vez que ella sucumbe a sus encantos, se jacta de su triunfo, las desprecia y reenfoca su interés en otras damas. En este trabajo, comparo a tres de los don Juanes más famosos: El burlador de Sevilla y convidado de piedra de Tirso de Molina, Don Giovanni de Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart y Lorenzo Da Ponte, y Don Juan Tenorio de José Zorrilla. La primera y la tercera son piezas teatrales, en tanto que la segunda es una ópera. El mito de Don Juan es, esencialmente, el mismo en estas tres obras, aunque varían el mensaje y la moraleja según el movimiento cultural al que pertenecen: Barroco, Ilustración y Romanticismo, respectivamente. Palabras clave: Burlador de Sevilla, Don Giovanni, Don Juan, Tirso de Molina, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Lorenzo Da Ponte, José Zorrilla, pecado, redención, sociópata. (shrink)

This work addresses the objections to analyticity and meaning atribution to single sentences included in Quines Two Dogmas of Empiricism. First, an interpretation of Two Dogmas is provided which implies that the strongest argument against the analytic/synthetic distinction is based on epistemic holism. Then, two possible rejoinders to Quine are presented. They rely on the following thesis: (i) semantic holism that follows from the conjunction of Quines epistemic holism and verificationism is compatible with assignation of meaning to single sentences, which (...) in turn paves the way for a characterization of analyticity; (ii) epistemic holism and the related thesis that every true sentence is empirically revisable are objectionable if we accept criteria of individuation for truth bearers different from those assumed by Quine. (shrink)

El objetivo de este trabajo es defender la presencia del pensamiento jesuítico en Argentina después de la independencia. La muestra a la que se ha sometido este interrogante se sitúa en los siglos XIX y comienzos del XX. El pensador elegido es Joaquín V. González político y jurista argentino de gran prestigio. Compararemos el pensamiento de este autor, símbolo de su época, con las ideas de la filosofía jurídica de los jesuítas, ejemplificando con el pensamiento de Francisco Suárez, sin duda (...) una de los pensadores más importates de la Filosofía Jurídica Española de todos los tiempos. (shrink)

Karczmarczyck evalúa y critica algunas tesis centrales defendidas en mi libro Vericuetos de la filosofía de Wittgenstein en torno al lenguaje y el seguimiento de reglas, centrado en las ideas del segundo Wittgenstein. Debato aquí sobre diversos puntos examinados por Karczmarczyck. En particular: rechazo su concepción antirrealista de la intencionalidad, según la cual factores posteriores a una acción pueden determinar que dicha acción sea o no una acción deliberada; exploro otros aspectos de la contraposición realismo/antirrealismo, vinculándolos con la lectura antirrealista (...) que Kripke, Karczmarczyck y otros autores hacen de Wittgenstein; explico por qué no es circular mi solución disposicional-teleológica al enigma sobre seguir una regla. (shrink)

Empiricist philosophers like Carnap invoked analyticity in order to explain a priori knowledge and necessary truth. Analyticity was “truth purely in virtue of meaning”. The view had a deflationary motivation: in Carnap’s proposal, linguistic conventions alone determine the truth of analytic sentences, and thus there is no mystery in our knowing their truth a priori, or in their necessary truth; for they are, as it were, truths of our own making. Let us call this “Carnapian conventionalism”, conventionalismC and cognates for (...) short. This conventionalistC explication of the a priori has been the target of sound criticisms. Arguments like Quine’s in “Truth by Convention” are in our view decisive: the truth of conventionalismC requires that the class of logical truths and logical validities be reductively accounted for as conventionally established; however, no such reduction is forthcoming, because logic is needed to generate the entire class from any given set of conventions properly so-called. Granted that conventionalismC is untenable, we want to take issue with a different, usually made criticism. Although the argument uncovers some difficulties for the way conventionalist claims are defended by some of its advocates, we will try to show that it fails. The criticism thus stands in the way of a proper appreciation of why the Carnapian account of the a priori is not correct. We will try to illustrate this by showing that the criticism we will dispute would dispose of conventionalist claims not only regarding philosophically problematic cases – logical and mathematical truths –, but also regarding cases for which they have some prima facie plausibility. One such case is that of truths that follow from mere abbreviations, “nominal” definitions; ‘someone is a bachelor if and only if he is an unmarried adult male’ can serve at this point for illustration. We will try to articulate a clear sense in which the contents of assertion such as this can be truths by convention. We do not need to prove that a conventionalist claim is true in those cases; it is enough for us to show that it is intelligible, for the arguments we will confront question even this. (shrink)

Kripke argued for the existence of necessary a posteriori truths and offered different accounts of why certain necessary truths seem to be contingent. One of these accounts was used by Kripke in an argument against the psychophysical identity thesis. I defend the claim that the explanatory force of Kripke's standard account of the appearance of contingency relies on the explanatory force of one of the more general accounts he also offers. But the more general account cannot be used to undermine (...) the psychophysical identity thesis. Specifically, a crucial feature in Kripke's standard account, which is needed to argue for dualism, is explanatorily superfluous. Alternative accounts that are similar to Kripke's original one but lack that trait would also explain the phenomenon. Consequently, the Kripkean dualist argument is blocked. /// Kripke ha argumentado que existen verdades necesarias a posteriori, y ha ofrecido diferentes explicaciones de por qué ciertas verdades necesarias parecen contingentes. Una de esas explicaciones se usaba en un argumento con el que Kripke criticaba la tesis de la identidad psicofísica. En este trabajo sostengo que la fuerza explicativa de la explicacion kripkeana estándar de la apariencia de contingencia depende de la fuerza explicativa de una de las otras explicaciones que Kripke también propone. Pero esa otra explicación, más general, no sirve para rechazar la identidad psicofísica. Con-cretamente, un rasgo crucial de la explicación kripkeana estandar resulta explicativamente superfluo. Explicaciones alternativas, similares a la de Kripke pero que carezcan de ese rasgo, explicarían también el fenómeno. Como consecuencia, el argumento dualista kripkeano queda bloqueado. (shrink)

Igor Douven has offered an original reconstruction and defence of Putnam's model-theoretic argument against metaphysical realism. Douven's construal has notable exegetical virtues, since it makes sense of some assumptions in Putnam's argument which his opponents have considered question-begging or puzzling. In this article I provide an indirect defence of metaphysical realism, by showing why this new version of the anti-realist argument should also be rejected. The main problems in the Douven-Putnam argument come from ascribing to the realist a distorted view (...) of correspondence truth. The view entails that when no feature selects just one of all the possible interpretations of language the existence of an interpretation suffices to make true a theory. The sensible realist is not committed to this extreme conception of correspondence truth. /// Igor Douven ha presentado y defendido una reconstructión del argumento teórico-modelista de Putnam contra el realismo metafísico. Esta versión tiene ciertas virtudes exegéticas, pues hace inteligible algunos presu- puestos putnamianos que sus críticos han considerado injustificados o sorprendentes. En este artículo proporciono una defensa indirecta del realismo metafisico, mostrando por qué debe también rechazarse el argumento antirrealista bajo esta nueva forma. Los problemas principales del argumento Douven-Putnam proceden de atribuir al realista una concepción distorsionada de la idea de verdad como correspondencia. Conforme a esa concepción, la ausencia de factores que seleccionen una única interpretación del lenguaje de entre las muchas posibles conlleva que la existencia de alguna interpretación ya es suficiente para hacer verdadera a una teoría que sea consistente. El realista sensato no está obligado a aceptar esa tesis. (shrink)

In this article I analyze the justification of rawlsian anti-perfectionism, present in both A Theory of Justice and Political Liberalism. My aim is to show how justice as fairness, Rawls's conception of justice, lacks stability because of it. As an alternative to his anti-perfectionism, I propose, in the second part, the idea of progress as practical perfectionism by John Dewey. I argue that a perfectionist liberalism of this kind does not undermine reasonable pluralism as Rawls argued. Also I argue that (...) it is indispensable to establish a liberal society that is stable. In the end, I briefly show how the private sphere could be affected once the idea of progress is part of a conception of liberal justice. (shrink)