The Critique of Pure Reason—Kant’s First Critique—is one of the most studied texts in intellectual history, but as Alfredo Ferrarin points out in this radically original book, most of that study has focused only on very select parts. Likewise, Kant’s oeuvre as a whole has been compartmentalized, the three Critiques held in rigid isolation from one another. Working against the standard reading of Kant that such compartmentalization has produced, The Powers of Pure Reason explores forgotten parts of the First (...) Critique in order to find an exciting, new, and ultimately central set of concerns by which to read all of Kant’s works. Ferrarin blows the dust off of two egregiously overlooked sections of the First Critique—the Transcendental Dialectic and the Doctrine of Method. There he discovers what he argues is the Critique’s greatest achievement: a conception of the unity of reason and an exploration of the powers it has to reach beyond itself and legislate over the world. With this in mind, Ferrarin dismantles the common vision of Kant as a philosopher writing separately on epistemology, ethics, and aesthetics and natural teleology, showing that the three Critiques are united by this underlying theme: the autonomy and teleology of reason, its power and ends. The result is a refreshing new view of Kant, and of reason itself. (shrink)

Abstract: Research on the nature and varieties of the format of cognitive representations in philosophy and cognitive science have been partly shaped by analogies to external, public representations. In this paper, we argue that relying on such analogies contributes to framing the question of cognitive formats in problematic, potentially counterproductive ways. We show that cognitive and public representations differ in many of their central features, making analogies to public representations ill-suited to improving our understanding of cognitive formats. We illustrate these (...) points by examining two case studies in which analogies to public representations may have had a negative impact on research: the 80’s-90’s debate about compositionality and cognitive architecture between symbolicists and connectionists; and contemporary discussions about the nature of visual demonstratives. Finally, we outline an alternative, computational account of formats that does not share the shortcomings of appeal to public representations. (shrink)

Philosophers of perception frequently assume that we see actual states of affairs, or facts. Call this claim factualism. In his book, William Fish suggests that factualism is supported by phenomenological observation as well as by experimental studies on multiple object tracking and dynamic feature-object integration. In this paper, I examine the alleged evidence for factualism, focusing mainly on object detection and tracking. I argue that there is no scientific evidence for factualism. This conclusion has implications for studies on the phenomenology (...) and epistemology of visual perception. (shrink)

Timothy Williamson supports the thesis that every possible entity necessarily exists and so he needs to explain how a possible son of Wittgenstein’s, for example, exists in our world:he exists as a merely possible object, a pure locus of potential. Williamson presents a short argument for the existence of MPOs: how many knives can be made by fitting together two blades and two handles? Four: at the most two are concrete objects, the others being merely possible knives and merely possible (...) objects. This paper defends the idea that one can avoid reference and ontological commitment to MPOs. My proposal is that MPOs can be dispensed with by using the notion of rules of knife-making. I first present a solution according to which we count lists of instructions - selected by the rules - describing physical combinations between components. This account, however, has its own difficulties and I eventually suggest that one can find a way out by admitting possible worlds, entities which are more commonly accepted - at least by philosophers - than MPOs. I maintain that, in answering Williamson’s questions, we count classes of physically possible worlds in which the same instance of a general rule is applied. (shrink)

For more than a century, the historiography of Mexican independence had reached a consensus. There were, of course, debates, but the core of the interpretations seemed to be the same: the Mexican people, dominated by a foreign power, fought for their independence under the leadership of a group of enlightened Creoles, influenced by French revolutionary ideas and Americans. This consensus could not be sustained in the light of research on the social history of the colonial period. In the1990s, the new (...) historiography framed the process of independence in the Hispanic revolutions. They approached the social groups that participated in that civil war. Although there is a plurality of historiographical themes and interests, in the 21st century, appeared a new consensus that, perhaps, should be broken as happened with the previous one. (shrink)

The sensorimotor theory of vision and visual consciousness is often described as a radical alternative to the computational and connectionist orthodoxy in the study of visual perception. However, it is far from clear whether the theory represents a significant departure from orthodox approaches or whether it is an enrichment of it. In this study, I tackle this issue by focusing on the explanatory structure of the sensorimotor theory. I argue that the standard formulation of the theory subscribes to the same (...) theses of the dynamical hypothesis and that it affords covering-law explanations. This however exposes the theory to the mere description worry and generates a puzzle about the role of representations. I then argue that the sensorimotor theory is compatible with a mechanistic framework, and show how this can overcome the mere description worry and solve the problem of the explanatory role of representations. By doing so, it will be shown that the theory should be understood as an enrichment of the orthodoxy, rather than an alternative. (shrink)

Abstract: Research on the nature and varieties of the format of cognitive representations in philosophy and cognitive science have been partly shaped by analogies to external, public representations. In this paper, we argue that relying on such analogies contributes to framing the question of cognitive formats in problematic, potentially counterproductive ways. We show that cognitive and public representations differ in many of their central features, making analogies to public representations ill-suited to improving our understanding of cognitive formats. We illustrate these (...) points by examining two case studies in which analogies to public representations may have had a negative impact on research: the 80’s-90’s debate about compositionality and cognitive architecture between symbolicists and connectionists; and contemporary discussions about the nature of visual demonstratives. Finally, we outline an alternative, computational account of formats that does not share the shortcomings of appeal to public representations. (shrink)

This text is an interview given by Prof. Dr. Alfredo Pereira Jr. to Leonardo Ferreira Almada, on the occasion of the call for publication of interviews with different Brazilian philosophers. In response to the goal of the Trans/Form/Ação journal call, we sought to carry out an interview in which a PhD professor with an established career presents some elements of his personal and academic stories, as well as clarifies important points of his research, some of his theses and vision (...) of the world based on questions asked by another professor, a historical research partner, and in-depth knowledge of the interviewee’s career. (shrink)

Throughout the following analysis we propose a reflection on the reasons and causes that motivated the appearance and development of “revolutionary terrorism” or of the extreme left in Latin America and Western Europe. We review the role played by some of its main reference organizations and the response offered by the States in which they acted. As fundamental axes, we consider two. On the one hand, the role played by violence in these organizations. On the other hand, the causes that (...) motivated his defeat/disappearance. (shrink)

El objetivo del presente texto es llegar a una descripción clara y comprensiva de la forma budista de abordar la cuestión cognitiva. La palabra cognición se refiere aquí al proceso por el cual se desenvuelve la convicción de que algo es "verdadero". El examen budista de la cognición puede, a su vez, ser encarado como una forma de buscar mayor libertad y distanciamiento frente a los pensamientos, opiniones y tendencias propios.

Whoever has even a superficial familiarity with recent, and not so recent, philosophical debates knows that in the last few decades philosophy of mind has been dominated by physicalist naturalism, and that philosophers of mind who are willing to seriously consider the possibility that materialism might be false are still quite rare. This being the situation, it is somewhat surprising that in the philosophical literature the pro-materialist conviction often seems to float free of the defence of any specific argument in (...) its favour. Yet, some arguments for physicalism have actually been put forward, and in this paper I examine three: the argument from the success of science, the argument from methodological naturalism, and the argument from the causal closure of the physical. They may not exhaust all that has been said to uphold physicalism in the metaphysics of mind, but they do offer, I think, a fair survey of the sorts of reasons that are given in this kind of discussion. If I am right on this point, and if I am right that the arguments I consider are weak and unconvincing, then the most popular form of naturalism concerning the mind cannot be viewed as being well backed up, contrary to what many of its supporters usually think. (shrink)

Neste livro, o autor percorre seis séculos de história da civilização ocidental em busca dos momentos decisivos da luta intelectual entre dominados e dominadores. Atento às formulações da tradição hegeliano-marxista e sem descartar os clássicos da Sociologia, Alfredo Bosi investiga a dinâmica de antagônicos, discursos que moldaram a feição da sociedade, bem como suas singularidades culturais. Na primeira parte, Alfredo Bosi discorre sobre alguns autores das áreas de filosofia, política e literatura universais, destacando as estratégias contraideológicas que utilizaram (...) para combater o pensamento hegemônico. Em seguida, volta-se para o Brasil analisando as interseções com a cultura ocidental e detendo-se em figuras, como Joaquim Nabuco e Celso Furtado. O capítulo final tenta desatar o nó ideológico que reconhece na obra de Machado de Assis. (shrink)

L'analyste des discours qui surgissent au sein de conflits sociaux, de controverses, de débats publics, a souvent le sentiment qu'il n'observe pas des 'camps' correspondant à des groupes d'individus, mais des agencements qui doivent être considérés indépendamment des intentions, des stratégies ou des opinions de ceux qui y sont impliqués. Pour décrire les processus dans lesquels se constituent ces configurations conflictuelles, on fait alors appel à des combinaisons conceptuelles plus ou moins heureuses. À partir de l'hypothèse selon laquelle les conflits (...) sociaux évoluent par le renforcement/affaiblissement de la disponibilité de types d'actions, ce livre se propose de construire une théorie sémantique qui permette d'éclairer les mécanismes à l'œuvre dans les dynamiques sociales structurées par des tensions, d'interroger les liens entre discours et actions humaines, et d'explorer les conditionnements de la formation sociale du politique"--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

Many artists, art critics, and poets suggest that an aesthetic appreciation of artworks may modify our perception of the world, including quotidian things and scenes. I call this Art-to-World, AtW. Focusing on visual artworks, in this paper I articulate an empirically-informed account of AtW that is based on content related views of aesthetic experience, and on Goodman’s and Elgin’s concept of exemplification. An aesthetic encounter with artworks demands paying attention to its aesthetic, expressive, or design properties that realize its purpose. (...) Attention to these properties make percipients better able to spot them in other entities and scenes as well. The upshot is that an aesthetic commerce with artworks enlarges the scope of what we are able to see and has therefore momentous epistemic consequences. (shrink)

The objective of this study is to provide insight into culinary systems. Each culture expresses its own identity through the way in which it transforms food into an elaborated cuisine. The phases of a cooking process start with the choice of ingredients, their preparation, their processing, how they are served, and how they are eaten. Each of these phases makes it possible to understand the semiotic and social behavior of a human group in the moment they choose to prepare and (...) eat a particular food. Therefore, this article contains a contrastive analysis of how Mexican, Texan, and Italian cuisines show how spicy and hot food is interpreted depending on the values that ​​are given to it in regards to being considered a dish, a spice or a vegetable. It bases its analysis on the mechanisms built around the meaning of chile in order to express cultural characteristics and differences. The recipes and their narrative processes, in addition to the use of color, allow the identification of parameters to describe the various cuisines through recipes books. (shrink)

Husserl on the Ego and its Eidos (Cartesian Meditations, IV) ALFREDO FERRARIN THE THEORY OF the intentionality of consciousness is essential for Husserl's philosophy, and in particular for his mature theory of the ego. But it runs into serious difficulties when it has to account for consciousness's transcendental constitution of its own reflective experience and its relation to immanent time. This intricate knot, the inseparability of time and constitution, is most visibly displayed in Husserl's writings from the 192os up (...) to the notion of the eidos ego in the fourth Cartesian Meditation. In this paper I want to dwell on the most problematic aspects of this theory. After a few preliminary remarks about the intentionality of consciousness (sec- tion 1), I try to place the theory of the substrate of habitualities in the context of Husserl's evolution on the issue of the reflection of the ego on itself (section ~). I briefly follow the threads of Husserl's shifting position from the Logical Investi- gat/ons and Ideas I to Ideas II, the Cartesian Meditations and the Cr/s/s. I indicate Husserl's works are quoted with the following abbreviations: CM = Cartesiani.~he Meditationen, Husserliana Bd. I, hrsg. v. S. Strasser (Den Haag, 195o); Carte- s/an M~, trans. D. Cairns (Dordrecht, 196o ) SW = Husserl, Shorter Works, ed. P. McCormick and F. Elliston (Notre Dame, 198a) IZ = Zur Phttnomenologie des inneren Zeilheun~tseim (z 893-z 917), Husserliana Bd. X, hrsg. v. R. Boehm (Den Haag, 1966 ) Ideen I = ldeen zu einer reinen Ph~nomenologie und ph~nomenologischen Philosophic, Husserliana Bd. III, hrsg. v. W. Biemel (Den Haag, t95o); Ideas I, trans. F. Kersten (The Hague, Boston, Lancaster, s983) ldeen// = ld., Hussefliana Bd. IV, hrsg. v. M. Biemel (Den Haag, 1952); Ideas I1, trans. R. Rojcewicz and A. Schuwer (Dordrecht, Boston, London, x 989) FTL = Forma/e und transzendenta~ Log/k, Husserliana Bd. XVII, hrsg. v. P. Janssen (Den Haag, t974) Kr/sh = Kr/s/s der europ~/schen W/ssen~haften, Husserliana Bd. VI, hrsg. v. W. Biemel (Den Haag, 1954) I wish to express my gratitude to Pierre Kerszberg and Alessandra Fussi for their helpful com- ments on an earlier draft of the paper, and to Graham Harman for checking the final version of my English text. [645] 646 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 32:4 OCTOBER 1994 some historical antecedents, in particular Aristotle, of Husserl's theory of abid- ing properties which, as far as I can see, have not been pointed out before. Husserl's Entwicklungsgeschichte on the topic of the pure ego has already been the object of important scholarly works, of which Kern's 1964 Husserl und Kant seems to me the best example. But what the secondary literature does not do is develop thematically the ambiguities of Husserl's definitions of consciousness and temporality in a unitary and comprehensive way. While I follow the lead of Berger, Broekman, Kern, Marbach,' and others, I find that their work does not sufficiently stress the difficulties at the core ofintentionality and reflective time- consciousness. Therefore, although section 2 is a necessary presupposition for drawing some critical conclusions in the final two sections, it does not exhaust my theme. After clarifying the peculiarity of the notions of essence, intuition, tran- scendental and apriori, as well as their irl:educibility to a Kantian meaning, I turn to the "de facto transcendental ego" resulting from eidetic variation (section 3) in order to introduce an examination of temporality. The difficul- ties in the twofold requirement, namely, that consciousness be the identical subject of its Erlebnisse and be synthetically unified in time, concern the unity, primacy, and mutual relation of time and consciousness in the constitution of our experience. They have been heady pointed out by Ricoeur in his commen- tary on the Cartesian Meditations. But what I want to argue in section 4, going beyond Ricoeur's text, is that the tension between temporally constituted and constitutive consciousness in the ego's reflection on its own retentions and protensions does not simply make the question of time ambiguous, but has crucial and problematic bearings on the very definition of consciousness as intentionality. In this respect... -/- . (shrink)

Partindo do pensamento de Platão, mas especificamente em sua obra A República, em que o filósofo argumenta que a música e a poesia dos gregos não podem ser apenas estudadas como um fenômeno estético, porque elas se articulam intimamente com a moral e com a visão de mundo daquela sociedade, pretende-se compreender a relação entre logos e mousiké na cultura grega.

Contiene una sección especial sobre Filosofía Latinoamericana, donde hay ponencias de los siguientes autores: Carlos Alemián, Abelardo Barra Ruatta, Alberto Buela y Oscar Wingartz Plata. Además, sobre Arturo A. Roig (dos artículos, uno de Estela Fernández y otro de Marisa Muñoz, Dante Ramaglia y Oscar Zalazar); sobre ensayo y fenomenología en América Latina (Clara Alicia Jalif de Bertranou); sobre Agustín Alvarez (Dante Ramaglia); y sobre Simón Rodríguez (Oscar Salazar). De otras secciones destacamos una ponencia de Arturo A. Roig sobre la (...) historia de las ideas y la filosofía latinoamericana, y otras dos, una sobre Mariátegui (Néstor Kohan) y la segunda sobre Andrés Mercado Vera (Isabel Luchetta)"--Handbook of Latin American Studies, v. 58. (shrink)

In previous works, we presented a modification of the usual possible world semantics by introducing an independent temporal structure in each world and using accessibility functions to represent the relation among them. Different properties ofthe accessibility functions have been considered and axiomatic systems which define these properties have been given. Only a few ofthese systems have been proved tobe complete. The aim ofthis paper is to make a progress in the study ofcompleteness for functional systems. For this end, we use (...) indexes as names for temporal flows and give new proofs of completeness. Specifically, we focus our attention on the system which defines injectivity, because the system which defines this property without using indexes was proved to be incomplete in previous works. The only system considered which remains incomplete is the one which defines surjectivity, even ifwe consider a sequence ofnatural extensions ofthe previous one. (shrink)

Argument evaluation, one of the central problems in argumentation theory, consists in studying what makes an argument a good one. This paper proposes a formal approach to argument evaluation from the perspective of justification logic. We adopt a multi-agent setting, accepting the intuitive idea that arguments are always evaluated by someone. Two general restrictions are imposed on our analysis: non-deductive arguments are left out and the goal of argument evaluation is fixed: supporting a given proposition. Methodologically, our approach uses several (...) existing tools borrowed from justification logic, awareness logic, doxastic logic and logics for belief dependence. We start by introducing a basic logic for argument evaluation, where a list of argumentative and doxastic notions can be expressed. Later on, we discuss how to capture the mentioned form of argument evaluation by defining a preference operator in the object language. The intuitive picture behind this definition is that, when assessing a couple of arguments, the agent puts them to a test consisting of several criteria. As a result of this process, a preference relation among the evaluated arguments is established by the agent. After showing that this operator suffers a special form of logical omniscience, called preferential omniscience, we discuss how to define an explicit version of it, more suitable to deal with non-ideal agents. The present work exploits the formal notion of awareness in order to model several informal phenomena: awareness of sentences, availability of arguments and communication between agents and external sources. We discuss several extensions of the basic logic and offer completeness and decidability results for all of them. (shrink)

In this paper, we focus on a logical approach to the important notion of closeness, which has not received much attention in the literature. Our notion of closeness is based on the so-called proximity intervals, which will be used to decide the elements that are close to each other. Some of the intuitions of this definition are explained on the basis of examples. We prove the decidability of the recently introduced multimodal logic for closeness and, then, we show some capabilities (...) of the logic with respect to expressivity in order to denote particular positions of the proximity intervals. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In this paper we present a new semantic approach for propositional linear temporal logic with discrete time, strongly based in the well-order of IN (the set of natural numbers). We consider temporal connectives which express precedence, posteriority and simultaneity, and they provide a family of expressively complete temporal logics. The selection of the new semantics and connectives used in this work was principally to obtain a suitable executable temporal logic, which can be used for the specification and control of (...) process behaviour in discrete time in a similar way to thai presented by D. Gabbay in [GAB 89], Our new approach has two advantages: firstly, the connectives are defined intuitively so that they have interpretations which relate to properties of interest in real systems; secondly, it provides a new semantics that facilitates simpler proofs of many valid formulas and metatheorems. To confirm this second advantage, we use our semantics to give a formal proof of the Separation Theorem for one of these logics (specifically LN3). The great interest of this Separation Theorem for the executable temporal logic is emphasised by D. Gabbay in [GAB 89], [GAB 88]. (shrink)

Combining modalities has proven to have interesting applications and many approaches that combine time with other types of modalities have been developed. One of these approaches uses accessibility functions between flows of time to study the basic properties of the functions, such as being total or partial, injective, surjective, etc. The completeness of certain systems expressing many of these properties, with the exception of surjectivity, has been proven. In this paper we propose a language with nominals to denote the initial (...) and final sets of each function in a model in order to obtain a complete system for reasoning about surjective partial functions. (shrink)