El trabajo expone el significado de la obra de Marsilio de Padua, la primera teoría medieval no clerical del Estado. Marsilio se propone combatir la doctrina de la plenitudo potestatis papal, porque la considera causa de la guerra civil en Italia a principios del siglo XIV. Se basa para ello en la unidad de la soberanía, frente al dualismo que caracteriza a otros defensores del poder secular, como Juan de Paris, Ockham o Dante. Sostiene que no existe fundamento espiritual (...) para un poder diferente del poder del legislador humano y que el único poder supremo o plenitudo potestatis no corresponde al Papa sino al gobernante secular. De lo cual se sigue la completa absorción de la Iglesia por el Estado y la atribución al gobernante temporal de toda la organización eclesiástica. La filosofía marsiliana representa un esfuerzo sin precedentes por dar al poder un fundamento racional, pero está lejos de la idea moderna de soberanía, así como del liberalismo y de la voluntad general de Rousseau. No tuvo éxito en su tiempo, pero influyó en la reforma anglicana y en el erastianismo de Hobbes. (shrink)

The Idea of the World offers a grounded alternative to the frenzy of unrestrained abstractions and unexamined assumptions in philosophy and science today. This book examines what can be learned about the nature of reality based on conceptual parsimony, straightforward logic and empirical evidence from fields as diverse as physics and neuroscience. It compiles an overarching case for idealism - the notion that reality is essentially mental - from ten original articles the author has previously published in leading academic journals. (...) The case begins with an exposition of the logical fallacies and internal contradictions of the reigning physicalist ontology and its popular alternatives, such as bottom-up panpsychism. It then advances a compelling formulation of idealism that elegantly makes sense of - and reconciles - classical and quantum worlds. The main objections to idealism are systematically refuted and empirical evidence is reviewed that corroborates the formulation presented here. The book closes with an analysis of the hidden psychological motivations behind mainstream physicalism and the implications of idealism for the way we relate to the world. (shrink)

The present framing of the cultural debate in terms of materialism versus religion has allowed materialism to go unchallenged as the only rationally-viable metaphysics. This book seeks to change this. It uncovers the absurd implications of materialism and then, uniquely, presents a hard-nosed non-materialist metaphysics substantiated by skepticism, hard empirical evidence, and clear logical argumentation. It lays out a coherent framework upon which one can interpret and make sense of every natural phenomenon and physical law, as well as the modalities (...) of human consciousness, without materialist assumptions. According to this framework, the brain is merely the image of a self-localization process of mind, analogously to how a whirlpool is the image of a self-localization process of water. The brain doesn’t generate mind in the same way that a whirlpool doesn’t generate water. It is the brain that is in mind, not mind in the brain. Physical death is merely a de-clenching of awareness. The book closes with a series of educated speculations regarding the afterlife, psychic phenomena, and other related subjects. (shrink)

Political theory is a field that finds nourishment in others. From economics, history, sociology, psychology, and political science, theorists have drawn a rich repertoire of schemas to parse the social world and make sense of it. With each of these encounters, new subjects are brought into focus as others recede into the background, ushering a change not only in how questions are tackled but also in what questions are thought worth asking.

Why it is increasingly evident that ideas, not matter, are the sole object of all sciences.

Several alternatives vie today for recognition as the most plausible ontology, from physicalism to panpsychism. By and large, these ontologies entail that physical structures circumscribe consciousness by bearing phenomenal properties within their physical boundaries. The ontology of idealism, on the other hand, entails that all physical structures are circumscribed by consciousness in that they exist solely as phenomenality in the first place. Unlike the other alternatives, however, idealism is often considered implausible today, particularly by analytic philosophers. A reason for this (...) is the strong intuition that an objective world transcending phenomenality is a self-evident fact. Other arguments—such as the dependency of phenomenal experience on brain function, the evidence for the existence of the universe before the origin of conscious life, etc.—are also often cited. In this essay, I will argue that these objections against the plausibility of idealism are false. As such, this essay seeks to show that idealism is an entirely plausible ontology. (shrink)

I argue for an idealist ontology consistent with empirical observations, which seeks to explain the facts of nature more parsimoniously than physicalism and bottom-up panpsychism. This ontology also attempts to offer more explanatory power than both physicalism and bottom-up panpsychism, in that it does not fall prey to either the ‘hard problem of consciousness’ or the ‘subject combination problem’, respectively. It can be summarized as follows: spatially unbound consciousness is posited to be nature’s sole ontological primitive. We, as well as (...) all other living organisms, are dissociated alters of this unbound consciousness. The universe we see around us is the extrinsic appearance of phenomenality surrounding—but dissociated from—our alter. The living organisms we share the world with are the extrinsic appearances of other dissociated alters. As such, the challenge to artificially create individualized consciousness becomes synonymous with the challenge to artificially induce abiogenesis. (shrink)

Turing’s much debated test has turned 70 and is still fairly controversial. His 1950 paper is seen as a complex and multilayered text, and key questions about it remain largely unanswered. Why did Turing select learning from experience as the best approach to achieve machine intelligence? Why did he spend several years working with chess playing as a task to illustrate and test for machine intelligence only to trade it out for conversational question-answering in 1950? Why did Turing refer to (...) gender imitation in a test for machine intelligence? In this article, I shall address these questions by unveiling social, historical and epistemological roots of the so-called Turing test. I will draw attention to a historical fact that has been only scarcely observed in the secondary literature thus far, namely that Turing’s 1950 test emerged out of a controversy over the cognitive capabilities of digital computers, most notably out of debates with physicist and computer pioneer Douglas Hartree, chemist and philosopher Michael Polanyi, and neurosurgeon Geoffrey Jefferson. Seen in its historical context, Turing’s 1950 paper can be understood as essentially a reply to a series of challenges posed to him by these thinkers arguing against his view that machines can think. Turing did propose gender learning and imitation as one of his various imitation tests for machine intelligence, and I argue here that this was done in response to Jefferson's suggestion that gendered behavior is causally related to the physiology of sex hormones. (shrink)

Departing from Anderson’s (2016) suggestion that there are three communities in Peirce’s thought corresponding to his three normative sciences of logic, ethics, and esthetics, I argue that these communities partake in a relationship of dependence similar to that found among the normative sciences. In this way, just as logic relies on ethics which relies on esthetics, so too would a logical community of inquirers rely on an ethical community of love, which would rely on an esthetic community of artists. A (...) community could conduct inquiry together only if it pursued the same goal; and it could pursue the same goal only if it first imaginatively construed it. Any logical or ethical community requires a shared imaginative repertoire of ideal ends. (shrink)

I propose an idealist ontology that makes sense of reality in a more parsimonious and empirically rigorous manner than mainstream physicalism, bottom-up panpsychism, and cosmopsychism. The proposed ontology also offers more explanatory power than these three alternatives, in that it does not fall prey to the hard problem of consciousness, the combination problem, or the decombination problem, respectively. It can be summarized as follows: there is only cosmic consciousness. We, as well as all other living organisms, are but dissociated alters (...) of cosmic consciousness, surrounded by its thoughts. The inanimate world we see around us is the extrinsic appearance of these thoughts. The living organisms we share the world with are the extrinsic appearances of other dissociated alters. (shrink)

The Turing test has been studied and run as a controlled experiment and found to be underspecified and poorly designed. On the other hand, it has been defended and still attracts interest as a test for true artificial intelligence (AI). Scientists and philosophers regret the test’s current status, acknowledging that the situation is at odds with the intellectual standards of Turing’s works. This article refers to this as the Turing Test Dilemma, following the observation that the test has been under (...) discussion for over seventy years and still is widely seen as either too bad or too good to be a valuable experiment for AI. An argument that solves the dilemma is presented, which relies on reconstructing the Turing test as a thought experiment in the modern scientific tradition. It is argued that Turing’s exposition of the imitation game satisfies Mach’s characterization of the basic method of thought experiments and that Turing’s uses of his test satisfy Popper’s conception of the critical and heuristic uses of thought experiments and Kuhn’s association of thought experiments to conceptual change. It is emphasized how Turing methodically varied the imitation game design to address specific challenges posed to him by other thinkers and how his test illustrates a property of the phenomenon of intelligence and suggests a hypothesis on machine learning. This reconstruction of the Turing test provides a rapprochement to the conflicting views on its value in the literature. (shrink)

This paper defends the relevance of philosophy in the contemporary study of concepts. With the advent of cognitive science, naturalistic and interdisciplinary theorizing about concepts has gained momentum. In this context, it has been recently argued that philosophers’ theories of concepts are not aimed at answering the issues that psychologists are interested in, thus dismissing the mentioned philosophical contribution as scientifically otiose. We present and discuss two cases in point suggesting otherwise, as an attempt to vindicate the crucial role of (...) philosophy in the development of empirical theories of concepts. (shrink)

This article makes a positive case for an ethnographic sensibility in political theory. Drawing on published ethnographies and original fieldwork, it argues that an ethnographic sensibility can contribute to normative reflection in five distinct ways. It can help uncover the nature of situated normative demands (epistemic argument); diagnose obstacles encountered when responding to these demands (diagnostic argument); evaluate practices and institutions against a given set of values (evaluative argument); probe, question and refine our understanding of values (valuational argument); and uncover (...) underlying social ontologies (ontological argument). The contribution of ethnography to normative theory is distinguished from that of other forms of empirical research, and the dangers of perspectival absorption, bias and particularism are addressed. (shrink)

Resumo Plotino é um pensador estranho para o filósofo contemporâneo: nas suas Enéadas, ele discute experiência mística e prática filosófica como se fosse uma mesma coisa. De fato, no pensamento plotiniano, o ápice da vida filosófica é a contemplação mística: não pensamento irracional, mas uma forma supra-racional de consciência que é alcançada pela prática ascética e pelo procedimento dialético. Este artigo tenta entender o que é a experiência mística em Plotino. Na verdade, uma leitura atenta dos textos das Enéadas que (...) tratam do assunto mostram que não existe apenas um, mas dois tipos de contemplação mística supra-racional: a experiência da alma humana unida ao Intelecto divino e a experiência da alma humana unida ao Um, o princípio supremo da realidade de acordo com a filosofia plotiniana. Ambos são tipos de intuição intelectual interior, mas, se a experiência mística do Intelecto é a contemplação da totalidade do mundo inteligível, a contemplação do Um é a intuição da identidade pura, além de toda a diferença. Palavras-chave: Plotino; Neoplatonismo; Mística.Plotinus is a strange scholar to the contemporary philosopher: in his Enneads, he discusses mystical experience and philosophical practice as if they were the same thing. Indeed, according to his thoughts, the summit of philosophical life is mystical contemplation: not irrational thinking, but a supra-rational form of consciousness achieved through ascetic practice and dialectical procedure. This paper attempts to understand the mystical experience in Plotinus. In fact, a close reading of the texts of the Enneads on the subject demonstrates that there are not only one, but two kinds of supra-rational mystical contemplation: the experience of the human soul united to the divine Intellect and the experience of the human soul united to the One, the supreme principle of reality according to Plotinus's philosophy. Both are kinds of interior intellectual intuition, but if the mystical experience of the Intellect is the contemplation of the whole of the intelligible world, the contemplation of the One is the intuition of pure identity, beyond all difference. Key words: Plotinus; Neo-Platonism; Mysticism. (shrink)

Este artículo defiende la relevancia de la filosofía en el estudio contemporáneo de conceptos. Con el desarrollo de la ciencia cognitiva, la teorización naturalista e interdisciplinaria acerca de los conceptos ha cobrado impulso. En este contexto, se ha argumentado recientemente que las teorías filosóficas de conceptos no son acerca del tipo de cosas que interesan a los psicólogos, descartando así la pertinencia científica de la contribución filosófica mencionada. Presentamos y discutimos dos casos que sugieren lo contrario, como un intento de (...) reivindicar el papel crucial que tiene la filosofía en el desarrollo de teorías empíricas de conceptos. (shrink)

AFINAL, PARA QUE SERVE A PENA? A TRAGÉDIA DA AUTORIDADE?

In 2005, an essay was published in Nature asserting that the universe is mental and that we must abandon our tendency to conceptualize observations as things. Since then, experiments have confirmed that — as predicted by quantum mechanics — reality is contextual, which contradicts at least intuitive formulations of realism and corroborates the hypothesis of a mental universe. Yet, to give this hypothesis a coherent rendering, one must explain how a mental universe can — at least in principle — accommodate (...) (a) our experience of ourselves as distinct individual minds sharing a world beyond the control of our volition; and (b) the empirical fact that this world is contextual despite being seemingly shared. By combining a modern formulation of the ontology of idealism with the relational interpretation of quantum mechanics, the present paper attempts to provide a viable explanatory framework for both points. In the process of doing so, the paper also addresses key philosophical qualms of the relational interpretation. (shrink)

Analizamos las relaciones no siempre presentes entre deportes, barrios y políticas públicas en Chile en el marco de las vinculaciones entre Estado y sociedad civil en la que el barrio y los clubes deportivos, pese a su gran presencia y aporte a la sociabilidad, han estado ausentes. Hasta antes del golpe de Estado de 1973, la sociedad civil tenía una gran fortaleza, y muchas de sus instituciones, como los clubes deportivos, gozaban de buena salud institucional y sobre todo de autonomía. (...) El colapso institucional del año 1973 quebró las confianzas y tras un proceso muy largo, las instituciones deportivas volvieron a reconfigurarse. Las políticas neoliberales también alcanzaron al mundo del deporte. El Estado subsidiario, a través de proyectos concursables, presta ayuda al desarrollo de estas instituciones de base. (shrink)

I argue for an idealist ontology consistent with empirical observations, which seeks to explain the facts of nature more parsimoniously than physicalism and bottom-up panpsychism. This ontology also attempts to offer more explanatory power than both physicalism and bottom-up panpsychism, in that it does not fall prey to either the ‘hard problem of consciousness’ or the ‘subject combination problem’, respectively. It can be summarized as follows: spatially unbound consciousness is posited to be nature’s sole ontological primitive. We, as well as (...) all other living organisms, are dissociated alters of this unbound consciousness. The universe we see around us is the extrinsic appearance of phenomenality surrounding—but dissociated from—our alter. The living organisms we share the world with are the extrinsic appearances of other dissociated alters. As such, the challenge to artificially create individualized consciousness becomes synonymous with the challenge to artificially induce abiogenesis. (shrink)

Presentación de las seis ediciones del libro procesional publicadas por los dominicos en España entre 1494 y 1609. En una primera parte, se estudia el contexto, las características y el contenido de cada edición, y se compara la evolución de los textos de una edición a otra. Una segunda sección analiza las prácticas procesionales, tal como vienen reflejadas en las sucesivas impresiones del libro procesional, y su implantación y desarrollo hasta principios del siglo XVII.This is an exposition of the six (...) editions of the processional book published by the Dominicans in Spain from 1494 to i609. In the first part, the context, characteristics and content of each edition are studied and the tests evolution from an edition to the other are compared. A second part analyses the processional practices as they are seen in the successive printings of the processional book, its establishment and development until the beginning of the 17th century. (shrink)

Building a civilization of love -- The practice of values in various settings -- The superiority complex of Filipino women -- The value of doing good business -- The value of living the virtues -- The virtues of icons, role models and personalities -- The value of spirituality -- Filipino values, yesterday, today and tomorrow.

In order to perceive the world, we need more than just raw sensory input: a subliminal paradigm of thought is required to interpret raw sensory data and, thereby, create the objects and events we perceive around ourselves. As such, the world we see reflects our own unexamined, culture-bound assumptions and expectations, which explains why every generation in history has believed that it more or less understood the world. Today, we perceive a world of objects and events outside and independent of (...) mind, which merely reflects our current paradigm of thought. Anomalies that contradict this paradigm have been accumulated by physicists over the past couple of decades, which will eventually force our culture to move to a new paradigm. Under this new paradigm, a form of universal mind will be viewed as nature’s sole fundamental entity. In this paper, I offer a sketch of what the new paradigm may look like. (shrink)

In 1950, Alan Turing proposed his iconic imitation game, calling it a ‘test’, an ‘experiment’, and the ‘the only really satisfactory support’ for his view that machines can think. Following Turing’s rhetoric, the ‘Turing test’ has been widely received as a kind of crucial experiment to determine machine intelligence. In later sources, however, Turing showed a milder attitude towards what he called his ‘imitation tests’. In 1948, Turing referred to the persuasive power of ‘the actual production of machines’ rather than (...) that of a controlled experiment. Observing this, I propose to distinguish the logical structure from the rhetoric of Turing’s argument. I argue that Turing’s proposal of a crucial experiment may have been a concession to meet the standards of his interlocutors more than his own, while his construction of machine intelligence rather reveals a method of successive idealizations and exploratory experiments. I will draw a parallel with Galileo’s construction of idealized fall in a void and the historiographical controversies over the role of experiment in Galilean science. I suggest that Turing, like Galileo, relied on certain kinds of experiment, but also on rhetoric and propaganda to inspire further research that could lead to convincing scientific and technological progress. (shrink)

In this article it is defended that the notion known as “The mark of the cognitive” is better characterized as a process that performs the function of generating intelligent behavior, in a flexible and adaptive way, capable of adapting to circumstances, given it is a context sensitive process. For that, some relevant definitions of cognition are examined. In the end, it is pointed out that the definition of the mark of cognition as a context-sensitive process takes into account several factors (...) that were added as constitutive parts of cognitive phenomena over the years, especially the 4E Cognition, which cannot be satisfactorily accommodated alongside the preceding notions of cognition. Accordingly, this essay shouldn’t be mistaken merely as an exercise in intellectual history, but as a brief and accessible attempt to advance the debate. (shrink)

A broad pattern of correlations between mechanisms of brain function impairment and self-transcendence is shown. The pattern includes such mechanisms as cerebral hypoxia, physiological stress, transcranial magnetic stimulation, trance-induced physiological effects, the action of psychoactive substances and even physical trauma to the brain. In all these cases, subjects report self-transcending experiences o en described as ‘mystical’ and ‘awareness-expanding,’ as well as self-transcending skills o en described as ‘savant.’ The idea that these correlations could be rather trivially accounted for on the (...) basis of disruptions to inhibitory neural processes is reviewed and shown to be implausible. Instead, this paper suggests that an as-of-yet unrecognized causal principle underlying the entire pattern might be at work, whose further elucidation through systematic research could hold great promise. (shrink)