This paper develops a new account of reference-fixing for proper names. The account is built around an intuitive claim about reference fixing: the claim that I am a participant in a practice of using α to refer to o only if my uses of α are constrained by the representationally relevant ways it is possible for o to behave. §I raises examples that suggest that a right account of how proper names refer should incorporate this claim. §II provides such an (...) account. (shrink)

Here is one argument against realism. (1) Realists are committed to the classical rules for negation. But (2) legitimate rules of inference must conserve evidence. And (3) the classical rules for negation do not conserve evidence. So (4) realism is wrong. Most realists reject 2. But it has recently been argued that if we allow denied sentences as premisses and conclusions in inferences we will be able to reject 3. And this new argument against 3 generates a new response to (...) the antirealist argument: keep 1 and 2, avoiding 4 by rejecting 3. My aim in this paper is to see how much work in the fight against anti-realism this new response can really do. I argue that there is a powerful objection to the response: 2 is in tension with the claim that denied sentences can be premisses and conclusions in inferences. But I show that, even given this objection, the new response has an important role to play. (shrink)

This book is an introduction to aesthetics, from the perspective of analytic philosophy. It traces aesthetics from its ancient beginnings through the changes it underwent in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and the first half of the twentieth century. The responses in the 1960s of the cultural theories to these earlier developments are discussed in detail. Five traditional art evaluational theories, Beardsley's and Goodman's evaluational theories, and the author's own evaluational theory are presented. Four miscellaneous topics are discussed - internationalist criticism, symbolism, (...) metaphor, and expression. (shrink)

: ‘Sortalism about demonstrative reference’ is the view that the capacity to refer to things demonstratively rests on the capacity to classify them according to their kinds. This paper argues for one form of sortalism. Section 1 distinguishes two sortalist views. Section 2 argues that one of them is false. Section 3 argues that the other is true. Section 4 uses the argument from Section 3 to develop a new response to the objection to sortalism from examples where we seem (...) to succeed in referring even though we get sortal classification wrong, or do not attempt to classify at all. (shrink)

The question as to the existence of laws in history has frequently been discussed. A new a discussion may yet be useful, since some mis- conceptions based on incorrect comparisons with the natural sciences have been brought forward by both advocates and opponents of historical laws. We shall try to clarify the problem by applying a few ideas familiar to physicists and astronomers to the condi- tions peculiar to history. Physics is the most mature of all empirical sciences as to (...) method. In physics the law-concept has been used for three hundred years. It may be assumed, therefore, that most of the difficulties in its application to other fields have their physical counterpart and can be clarified most easily with the help of physical concepts. A few preliminary examples of historical laws will be given towards the end of the article. (shrink)

This paper is about the claim that, necessarily, a subject who can think that a is F must also have the capacities to think that a is G, a is H, a is I, and so on (for some reasonable range of G, H, I), and that b is F, c is F, d is F, and so on (for some reasonable range of b, c, d). I set out, and raise objections to, two arguments for a strong version of (...) this claim (Gareth Evans' generality constraint). I present a new argument for a weaker version of the claim, and sketch some directions of enquiry which this new argument opens up. (shrink)

Study was born in the construction of problem concepts in the deployment of a governance strategy in institutions under digital environments, a technical position of understanding from South America is raised, the initial hypothesis of knowing aspects and determining requirements, an efficient model of governance can be achieved from the use and application of ICT, which allow to argue the as of the process, The use ICT, TAC, TEP as change managers in virtuality, to interact in a disruptive way, the (...) most important achievements of research to recognize the legal, digital and technological resource environment. (shrink)

Este artigo apresenta, em primeiro lugar, uma reconstrução conceitual das razões que levam Leibniz, em sua correspondência com Arnauld, a introduzir o conceito de decretos divinos possíveis. Em um segundo momento, o artigo desenvolve alguns argumentos para demonstrar que a introdução desse conceito torna inconsistente a arquitetônica global da metafísica leibniziana.

De acordo com o Princípio da Continuidade, adotado por Leibniz, toda mudança ocorre gradativamente, havendo sempre um grau intermediário entre dois estados quaisquer. Esse princípio parece ser, contudo, incompatível com a doutrina leibniziana acerca da natureza da autoconsciência, uma vez que Leibniz, ao menos prima facie, sustenta haver uma diferença de natureza – e não apenas de grau – entre percepções inconscientes e conscientes, fornecendo esta distinção a base para a diferenciação ontológica das mônadas entre puras enteléquias, almas e espíritos. (...) O objetivo principal do presente texto é sugerir uma forma de compatibilização do Princípio da Continuidade com a doutrina leibniziana da autoconsciência. (shrink)

This paper is a continuation of a debate between Noël Carroll, who defends intentionalism, and Kent Wilson and myself, who argue that the intentions of artists are not relevant to the interpretation of works of art.

The purpose of the article, based on a documentary analysis, is to review the dynamics of the relationships form the perspective of liquid love and find out how to take advantage of the crisis, difficulties, and problems to overcome the logic of liquid love through the category of viable utopia. The dynamics of love within relationships have been the research object of several fields. Thus, the contributions of the French philosopher and sociologist Zygmunt Bauman when he refers to the liquid (...) modern world, which is but only one feature of social reality, cannot go unnoticed or set aside due to the social consequences of accepting that relationships are subject to instability, uncertainty, and erosion of commitment. Liquid love is one of the elements that shape the throwaway culture. Just like Pope Francis warned in his encyclical Laudato si’ about the relation between unwanted items and unwanted people, which are both discarded as waste; the same might be also the case with relationships: In many situations there is no intention of long-term relationships due to the fear of failing. Today, virtual, disposable relations that satisfy the overwhelming reality of loneliness are more attractive. The viable utopia of love is possible when we acknowledge that in the crisis and problems there is opportunity to grow thanks to the love in couple. (shrink)

The green economy redefines the function of economics as the study and management of sustainability for solving economic crisis. This article suggests the existence of economic paradigms, arguing they have no solution. They are the same ones of complexity; in other words, around all living beings who study the system, within the various biological levels: in the bioeconomy. The study of these paradigms is based on the contemporary scientific method conditioned to classical logic. A view towards the non-classical logic particular (...) to the sciences of complexity is proposed as well. (shrink)

In this paper I argue for a notion of conversion in Kant’s critical philosophy by drawing a connection between the conversions to be found in Kant and the intellectual, moral, and religious conversions of Augustine. I liken Augustine’s Platonic metaphysics of God to Kant’s antinomy of Pure Reason as an intellectual conversion. I link Augustine’s moral conversion with Kant’s meta-maxim to commit to a use of reason that is free from the influence of inclination. I connect Augustine’s religious conversion with (...) Kant’s recognition of God as the postulated condition for the highest good. There are advantages to understanding the conversions in Kant for understanding how his critical philosophy views faith more generally. The conversions in Kant point to the practical necessity of faith as Kant understands it. Such an interpretation also unifies Kant’s contribution to the conversation on the relationship between faith and reason. For Kant faith, much like knowledge, is a form of holding true and as such is reasonable. (shrink)

What is the relationship of history to the phylogenetic evolution of man? Historians, like all specialists, are wont to restrict themselves to their own problems and, therefore, do not deal with this question. Only some popular books on the history of the world cross the dividing line between social and natural science. They start with the origin of the solar system, describe the development of the crust of the earth and of life, turn to prehistoric civilization and ancient Egypt, and (...) eventually finish with the history of present times. It is striking that those expositions become more and more detailed the nearer they come to their end. Near the beginning one page describes ten million years, near the end ten months. (shrink)

When phenomenology was introduced as a new science by Husserl its methods were applied first to objects of logic. Later phenomenological investigation expanded gradually to the fields of psychology, ethics, esthetics, and sociology. More rarely, objects of the natural sciences have been treated phenomenologically. Scattered indications of this kind are to be found in authors who do not belong to the most intimate circle of Husserl's school. Extensively, however, the phenomenological method has been applied to objects of the natural sciences (...) once only, namely by Hedwig Conrad-Martius, a favorite pupil of Husserl's, in her Realontologie and Farben. Yet this less known branch of phenomenology is particularly interesting. Husserl stressed the basic difference between phenomenological ideation on the one hand and psychological introspection and description of the immediate data of awareness on the other. The peculiarity and scientific productivity of phenomenological method, therefore, can be studied best in a field which is as far removed from psychology as possible. We shall try to analyze the papers of Conrad-Martius more fully and shall refer to other authors occasionally as illustrations. (shrink)

Fully developed, science is to be found only in modern European-American civilization. As its development began in early capitalism we shall have to study the period from the end of the Middle Ages until 1600. Results obtained by ancient mathematicians, astronomers, and physicists and by medieval Arabic physicians have greatly influenced the beginning of science in modern Europe. We shall discuss not this influence, but the social and economic conditions which made it possible.

If we consider human thought as the, so far, ultimate, if not supreme, stage in the evolution of life on Earth, we must also try to understand the evolutionary conditions that allowed it to emerge, and that leads us to look again at living organization.Whatever the origins of life (cf. the text of Jacques Reisse, p. 53), it is clear that the oldest living organization, that of a protobacteria, is extremely complex in its functional and complementary association of extremely diverse (...) macro-molecules, and that this complexity includes in particular: a) the organization of exchanges with an environment from which it draws both matter-energy and organization ; b) a permanent process of self-reorganization through the replacing of molecules that have deteriorated and through the production of new ones; c) the organization of the self-reproduction of the creature through division. An organization of this kind includes a quasi-informational dimension (the hereditary message inscribed in the genes and the capacity to extract information from the environment), a quasi-computational dimension (the processing of data, via indices or quasi-signs from the interior and exterior), and a communicational dimension (internal RNA-protein communication and external communication with its congeners). In short, from the beginning, a living being is the product/producer of a self-eco-organization the nature of which is at the same time computational, informational, and communicational. In other words, within every living organization, there is a cognitive dimension, but this cognitive dimension is undifferentiated within it. (shrink)

James Shelley claims that Hume's principles of taste have value-neutral subjects rather than value-laden ones that, for example, refer to aesthetic properties. I try to rebut his claim. I argue that Hume's essay on taste contains the conceptual means for recognizing the problem of the interaction of aesthetic properties with other properties in artworks, even if he does not explicitly make this point. I also deny Shelley's contention that I claim that principles are used as part of a temporal process (...) to infer evaluational conclusions. Against Shelly's attack, I defend my use of the isolation clause in formulating evaluational principles. Finally, I show a way to formulate evaluational principles without the isolation clause by substituting an interaction clause. (shrink)

Haydar claim that Frank Sibley offers a criterion for distinguishing aesthetically valenced from non-aesthetically valenced properties. I argue that they have misunderstood what Sibley was doing and that he never even intended to offer any such criterion. They also argue that Sibley was wrong to claim that inherently aesthetic merits are reversible. They claim that aesthetic merits—for example, elegance—are irreversible and offer some arguments for their view. I produce a counterexample to their claim about elegance and suggest that such counterexamples (...) involving aesthetic merits are not difficult to come by. (shrink)