There are two no-change objections that can be raised against the B-theory of time. One stems from the observation that in a B-theoretic scenario changes of determinations can only be represented by propositions which have eternal truth values. The other derives from the principle that nothing can vary over a period of time if it doesn’t instantiate a state of change at all the instants of time which compose it. Here I argue that both objections apply to all comparative conceptions (...) of change, regardless of whether they take tense seriously or not. It follows that, contrary to what is widely believed, A-theoretic accounts of time are not immune to no-change objections, just in virtue of being realist about tense. A-theorists must either accept the conclusion that time, according to their account, does not flow, or put forward an account of flow that is not comparative. A number of difficulties with both of these options are discussed. (shrink)

The view from inside maintains that not only to study and understand, but also to profit from financial markets, it is necessary to get as much knowledge as possible about their internal ‘structure’ and machinery. This view maintains that in order to solve the problems posed by finance, or at least a large part of them, we need first of all a qualitative analysis. Rules, laws, institutions, regulators, the behavior and the psychology of traders and investors are the key elements (...) to the understanding of finance, and stock markets in particular. Accordingly, data and their mathematical analysis are not the crucial elements, since data are the output of a certain underlying structure of markets and their actors. The underlying structure is the ultimate object of the inquiry. This chapter examines how the view from inside raises, and deals with, critical issues such as markets failure, information disclosure, and regulation, the notion of data, performativity, and the study of micro-structures. (shrink)

We develop a conceptual and formal clarification of notion of surprise as a belief-based phenomenon by exploring a rich typology. Each kind of surprise is associated with a particular phase of cognitive processing and involves particular kinds of epistemic representations (representations and expectations under scrutiny, implicit beliefs, presuppositions). We define two main kinds of surprise: mismatch-based surprise and astonishment. In the central part of the paper we suggest how a formal model of surprise can be integrated with a formal model (...) of belief change. We investigate the role of surprise in triggering the process of belief reconsideration. There are a number of models of surprise developed in the psychology of emotion. We provide several comparisons of our approach with those models. (shrink)

The causal theory of action is widely recognized in the literature of the philosophy of action as the "standard story" of human action and agency -- the nearest approximation in the field to a theoretical orthodoxy. This volume brings together leading figures working in action theory today to discuss issues relating to the CTA and its applications, which range from experimental philosophy to moral psychology. Some of the contributors defend the theory while others criticize it; some draw from historical sources (...) while others focus on recent developments; some rely on the tools of analytic philosophy while others cite the latest empirical research on human action. All agree, however, on the centrality of the CTA in the philosophy of action. The contributors first consider metaphysical issues, then reasons-explanations of action, and, finally, new directions for thinking about the CTA. They discuss such topics as the tenability of some alternatives to the CTA; basic causal deviance; the etiology of action ; teleologism and anticausalism; and the compatibility of the CTA with theories of embodied cognition. Two contributors engage in an exchange of views on intentional omissions that stretches over four essays, directly responding to each other in their follow-up essays. As the action -oriented perspective becomes more influential in philosophy of mind and philosophy of cognitive science, this volume offers a long-needed debate over foundational issues. Contributors: Fred Adams, Jesús H. Aguilar, John Bishop, Andrei A. Buckareff, Randolph Clarke, Jennifer Hornsby, Alicia Juarrero, Alfred R. Mele, Michael S. Moore, Thomas Nadelhoffer, Josef Perner, Johannes Roessler, David-Hillel Ruben, Carolina Sartorio, Michael Smith, Rowland Stout The hardcover edition does not include a dust jacket. (shrink)

(ENG) The paper examines the main approaches developed in the XIX and XX century to account for the way scientific discover unfolds. -/- (ITA) L'articolo esamina le principali teorie filosofico-scientifiche elaborate nell'800 e nle '900 per render conto dei processi di scoperta scientifica.

Las valoraciones estéticas de György Lukács sobre Franz Kafka han generado tanto un interés genuino por su análisis como circunstanciales polémicas. En este sentido, el presente artículo indaga fundamentalmente las lecturas del filósofo húngaro y las del teórico brasileño Carlos Nelson Coutinho sobre la obra del artista praguense. A partir del análisis detallado de las apreciaciones estéticas de ambos teóricos, el trabajo se propone disipar las aparentes controversias y hallar puntos de encuentro teóricos en la ponderación artística del literato.

El llamado “pacto de postguerra” fue una de las mayores transformaciones institucionales de la historia europea que delimitó los cauces por los que discurrió su política durante varias décadas. En este artículo se ofrece, primero, una descripción de los fundamentos básicos del pacto que ahonda particularmente en el caso británico. En segundo lugar, se aborda el debate socialista británico que generó esta reforma del capitalismo. El desafío del ala derecha del laborismo fue replicado por los miembros del Partido Comunista de (...) Gran Bretaña y de la primera New Left. Se reconstruyen aquí los argumentos del debate prestando especial atención a los disputados conceptos de “democracia”, “propiedad” y “socialismo”. (shrink)

This book offers a systematic interpretation of the relation between natural science and metaphysics in Husserl's phenomenology. It shows that Husserl's account of scientific knowledge is a radical alternative to established methods and frameworks in contemporary philosophy of science. The author's interpretation of Husserl's philosophy offers a critical reconstruction of the historical context from which his phenomenological approach developed, as well as new interpretations of key Husserlian concepts such as metaphysics, idealization, life-world, objectivism, crisis of the sciences, and historicity. The (...) development of Husserl's philosophical project is marked by the tension between natural science and transcendental phenomenology. While natural science provides a paradigmatic case of the way in which transcendental phenomenology, ontology, empirical science, and metaphysics can be articulated, it has also been the object of philosophical misunderstandings that have determined the current cultural and philosophical crisis. This book demonstrates the ways in which Husserl shows that our conceptions of philosophy and of nature are inseparable. Philosophy's Nature will appeal to scholars and advanced students who are interested in Husserl and the relations between phenomenology, natural science, and metaphysics. (shrink)

We argue that the view that we misperceive time as passing is self-undermining.

The results of Cubitt et al. on the spectral gap problem add a new chapter to the issue of undecidability in physics, as they show that it is impossible to decide whether the Hamiltonian of a quantum many-body system is gapped or gapless. This implies, amongst other things, that a reductionist viewpoint would be untenable. In this paper, we examine their proof and a few philosophical implications, in particular ones regarding models and limitative results. In more detail, we examine the (...) way these theorems model many-body quantum systems, and we question what, if anything, is the physical counterpart of the models used by Cubitt et al. We argue that these models are non-representational and that, even if they are so artificial that it is hard to imagine a physical system arising from them, they nonetheless offer an opportunity to learn about the world and the relation between mathematics and reality. On this basis, we draw the conclusion that their results do not undermine the reductionist viewpoint in a strong sense but leave the question open in a weak sense. (shrink)

Managers often ask why their firm should have an ethics program, especially if no one has complained about unethical behavior. The pursuit of business ethics can cost money, they say. It can lose sales to less scrupulous competitors and can drain management time and energy. But as Harvard business professor Francis Aguilar points out, ethics scandals (such as over Beech-Nut's erzatz "apple juice" or Sears's padded car repair bills) can severely damage a firm, with punishing legal penalties, bad publicity, (...) and irreparably injured customer relations. Equally important if less obvious, unethical behavior can undermine a firm's organizational spirit. On the other hand, Aguilar argues, in a well run firm, ethical programs can actually enhance corporate performance, strengthening the company at every level and supercharging employee risk taking and innovation. In Managing Corporate Ethics, Aguilar shows managers how to create ethical programs within their organizations that not only discourage large-scale wrongdoing, but can contribute substantially to the achievement of corporate excellence. Aguilar's program is down-to-earth and comprehensive, and based on his extensive research on highly successful, ethical companies, both large and small. He recommends action on three fronts: first, get senior management to provide effective ethical leadership; second, set up an ethics program that promotes concern for the interests of people affected by the firm's operations and that provides safeguards against corrupting business pressures; and third, staff the company with ethical people and surround the organization with ethical advisors (including legal, financial, accounting, tax, and marketing consultants). To illuminate this three-step program, Aguilar incorporates the lessons learned in his in-depth study of ten prominent firms with proven successful ethics programs--among them Hewlett-Packard, Johnson & Johnson, Nucor Steel, Cray Research, ServiceMaster, and Texas Instruments. He examines Lincoln Electric's attention to compensation and job security to ensure quality products and to reduce the pressure or temptation to act unethically. He shows how General Mills, while pushing product line managers to compete aggressively, uses corporate staff units to guard against illegal or unacceptable claims (testing cake recipes, for example, to see if a product's quality fails under the less-than-perfect conditions of a normal kitchen). And he details how Armstrong World Industries uses pep talks, inspirational stories, role models, and ready access to management to promote ethical standards among employees. Throughout, Aguilar demonstrates convincingly that an ethical program pays dividends: that employees, suppliers, customers, and the community at large know when they are being treated in a positive and constructive manner, and are likely to respond in kind. Packed with real life examples of successful (and failed) ethical programs, Managing Corporate Ethics is a valuable roadmap to an often overlooked source of business success. (shrink)

Although Husserlian phenomenology appears to require that practitioners bracket all metaphysical questions and claims, this requirement runs against the evidence of experience in which objects themselves are presented as constituents of experience. Moreover, to completely bracket metaphysical considerations would suggest that phenomenology is compatible with metaphysical views it should in principle deny. Nonetheless, permitting metaphysical claims threatens to contravene the critical limits of phenomenology, to invite claims that would require a perspective different in kind than our own to verify. These (...) tensions raise an important question, namely, what are the metaphysical implications of the phenomenologically intuitive claim that objects themselves are constituents of experience? To answer this question, I draw on a broad swath of thought on transcendental idealism and phenomenology. I argue that a modest metaphysics of appearance is warranted within the critical limits of Husserlian phenomenology. Through discussing and addressing the problems that typically plague transcendental arguments, I show that Husserlian phenomenology permits stronger claims about objects of experience than deflationary accounts allow but does not permit claims about intrinsic properties allowed by some forms of transcendental idealism. (shrink)

We present a modal logic called (logic of intention and attempt) in which we can reason about intention dynamics and intentional action execution. By exploiting the expressive power of , we provide a formal analysis of the relation between intention and action and highlight the pivotal role of attempt in action execution. Besides, we deal with the problems of instrumental reasoning and intention persistence.

In this paper we discuss Priest’s account of change and motion, contrasting it with its more orthodox rival, the Russellian account. The paper is divided in two parts. In first one we take a stance that is more sympathetic to the Russellian view, arguing that Priest’s arguments against it are inconclusive. In the second part, instead, we take a more sympathetic attitude towards Priest’s objections. We argue, however, that if these objections pose insurmountable difficulties to the Russellian account, then they (...) pose the same difficulties also to Priest’s favoured Hegelian account, and for the same reasons. (shrink)

reasoning is a risk-aversion strategy: it aims at minimizing as much as possible the possibility of doing mistakes, but in order to reach this goal it pays a cost, that is the fact that the novel epistemic gain it offers is small or negligible.

According to A-theories of time, the metaphysical ground of change and dynamicity is provided by a continuous shifting in which events are past, present and future (A-determinations). It is often claimed that these theories make better sense of our experience of dynamicity than their rival, the B-theories; according to the latter, dynamicity is grounded solely in the irreducible earlier-than relations (B-relations) which obtain between events or states of affairs. In this paper, I argue that the experience of time's dynamicity, on (...) the contrary, cannot be accounted for solely in terms of representations of irreducible A-determinations, because any representation which is adequate to ground these experiences must itself involve representation of irreducible B-relations, while it needs not involve representation of A-determinations. Even if, as a matter of contingent fact, our experiences of dynamicity consisted of representations of successions of A-determinations, what would account for them being experiences of dynamicity would be solely the B-theoretic relations of succession, rather than the irrelevant A-theoretic nature of the relata. (shrink)

La pensée de Georges Canguilhem (1904-1995) connaît un regain d'intérêt dans les lieux académiques et de recherche. Ainsi, eut lieu à l'Université Paris-1 un colloque international intitulé «Un nouveau Canguilhem? » pour la parution des Oeuvres complètes jetant une nouvelle lumière sur des écrits de jeunesses peu connus. Mais que peut-on apprendre de ces manuscrits privés? Ces écrits inédits confirment-ils l'opinion vague qui lie le philosophe aux sciences naturelles? Ce livre privilégie un autre angle: Canguilhem en philosophe de l'action.

Jusqu’à récemment, les deux textes écrits par Georges Canguilhem sur l’écologie restaient peu connus. Aujourd’hui, ils sont réunis dans le tome V des Œuvres complètes. Chez Can-guilhem, le sujet de l’écologie est intrinsèquement lié aux concepts de technique et de milieu, dont la généalogie théorique remonte à ses premiers ouvrages des années 1930. Ce qui éclaire ces questions : l’être humain doit-il renoncer aux techniques pour restaurer un équilibre supposé avec la nature, ne serait-il pas plutôt nécessaire de rendre à (...) ses besoins leur priorité sur les intérêts économiques? (shrink)

We continue the work initiated in Herzig and Lorini (J Logic Lang Inform, in press) whose aim is to provide a minimalistic logical framework combining the expressiveness of dynamic logic in which actions are first-class citizens in the object language, with the expressiveness of logics of agency such as STIT and logics of group capabilities such as CL and ATL. We present a logic called ( Deterministic Dynamic logic of Agency ) which supports reasoning about actions and joint actions of (...) agents and coalitions, and agentive and coalitional capabilities. In it is supposed that, once all agents have selected a joint action, the effect of this joint action is deterministic. In order to assess we prove that it embeds Coalition Logic. We then extend with modal operators for agents’ preferences, and show that the resulting logic is sufficiently expressive to capture the game-theoretic concepts of best response and Nash equilibrium. (shrink)

I examine the role that mathematics plays in understanding and modelling finance, especially stock markets, and how philosophy affects it. To this end, I explore how mathematics penetrates finance via physics, constructing a ‘financial physics’, and I outline the philosophical backgrounds of this process, in particular the ‘philosophy of equilibrium’ and that of critical points or ‘out-of-equilibrium’. I discuss the main characteristics and a few weaknesses of these mathematizations of financial systems, notably econometrics and econophysics, and I compare the two (...) ways, top-down and bottom-up, of building mathematical approaches to finance. The top-down approach is the most used and the most conservative. I argue that it guarantees a mathematical account, but it is less effective than the more difficult bottom-up approach, which is more appropriate and which may end up without a mathematical account of financial phenomena. I then consider two important issues raised by a mathematical approach to finance, that is, the performative and the reversing side of mathematics, and an ethics of mathematics. In the first case I argue that mathematics not only can be a performative device, but it also enables ‘reversing’ dynamics, that is, a mathematical model may become not a representational tool, but a device of social engineering—a mathematical way of investigating what are the initial conditions and processes needed to obtain an intended result. In the second case I argue that this specific relation between mathematical modelling and prediction raises an ethical question in finance, namely, a responsible construction and use of the mathematical models provided by a financial physics. (shrink)

The way scientific discovery has been conceptualized has changed drastically in the last few decades: its relation to logic, inference, methods, and evolution has been deeply reloaded. The ‘philosophical matrix’ moulded by logical empiricism and analytical tradition has been challenged by the ‘friends of discovery’, who opened up the way to a rational investigation of discovery. This has produced not only new theories of discovery, but also new ways of practicing it in a rational and more systematic way. Ampliative rules, (...) methods, heuristic procedures and even a logic of discovery have been investigated, extracted, reconstructed and refined. The outcome is a ‘scientific discovery revolution’: not only a new way of looking at discovery, but also a construction of tools that can guide us to discover something new. This is a very important contribution of philosophy of science to science, as it puts the former in a position not only to interpret what scientists do, but also to provide and improve tools that they can employ in their activity. (shrink)

As the world economy has for better or worse become more and more dependent on the financial markets, a rethinking of the role of finance in both theory and practice is necessary. I argue that such a rethinking requires a new look at the theories of finance that is philosophical in kind. In effect, as Martha Nussbaum claims, if the absence of philosophy in economics is arguably one of the main reasons for the flaws in certain economic theories, the absence (...) of philosophy in finance is one the main reasons for the flaws in our theories on financial systems. In this paper I discuss the mutual relations and benefits between finance and philosophy. First, I examine the contribution that philosophy can offer to finance by analyzing a few critical issues in financial ontology, financial methodology and financial mathematics. I argue that philosophy is essential to enabling finance to achieve the goals for which it was designed, not only because it is a valuable external addition, but also internally, since philosophy is the proper tool for bringing about new theories and approaches. Then, I examine the contribution that finance can offer to philosophy by analyzing the relationship between theory and practice, data and hypothesis, and prediction, description and control in the context of financial systems. I argue that finance can help us to rethink some philosophical tenets on these issues. (shrink)

La Habana es una ciudad vieja que en algún momento fue moderna. Para muchos estudiosos, las ciudades, al igual que sus habitantes, nacen, se desarrollan y mueren. Sucumben cuando en ellas no se producen acciones que las rescaten, las conserven arquitectónicamente y las hagan vivir. Visualmente, nuestra ciudad hoy fallece. Más allá de los propósitos de un grupo de obras en el Centro Histórico, custodiadas por la memoria del historiador de la ciudad, La Habana es mucho másque ese perímetro declarado (...) por la Unesco, en 1982, Patrimonio de laHumanidad y Ciudad Maravilla, en el 2016. Desde entonces, poco a poco, sus luces se han ido apagando en un mar de oscuridad grande, que urge restablecer con una política que, verdaderamente, refuerce las estructuras existentes, antes de que sea demasiado tarde. (shrink)

What is a financial crash, and why does it happen? The answers to these fundamental questions require an investigation of the ontological and epistemic state of the financial markets which will identify the causes of a financial crash, the entities involved, and the relations between them.To this end, I examine several theories on financial systems which have conceptualized financial crashes. I analyze how these theories: a) identify different causes of a crash; b) deal with the basic entities and units of (...) analysis; c) define what we can know about those causes and entities, and what they can reveal about an impending crash. On this basis, I outline some ontological and epistemic preconditions that are necessary for a financial crash to occur. I also examine an example of a price drop on the stock market and the role played by the epistemic and ontic states of the market in that event. (shrink)

I present a variant of with time, called, interpreted in standard Kripke semantics. On the syntactic level, is nothing but the extension of atemporal individual by: the future tense and past tense operators, and the operator of group agency for the grand coalition. A sound and complete axiomatisation for is given. Moreover, it is shown that supports reasoning about interesting normative concepts such as the concepts of achievement obligation and commitment.

Many historical studies tend to underline two central Kantian themes frequently emerging in Georges Canguilhem’s works: (1) a conception of activity, primarily stemming from the Critique of Pure Reason, as a mental and abstract synthesis of judgment; and (2) a notion of organism, inspired by the Critique of Judgment, as an integral totality of parts. Canguilhem was particularly faithful to the first theme from the 1920s to the first half of the 1930s, whereas the second theme became important in the (...) early 1940s. With this article, I will attempt to show that a third important theme of technique arose in the second half of the 30s also in the wake of Kant’s philosophy, especially Sect. 43 of the Critique of Judgment. This section, which states that technical ability is distinguished from a theoretical faculty, led Canguilhem to a more concrete and practical conception of activity. I will then suggest that it was by considering technique that the concept of normativity, which characterizes Georges Canguilhem’s philosophy of life, also took shape. (shrink)

Husserl’s theory of types is most often associated with his account of perception. Here, types operate as pre-predicative frames of experience that guide the perception of objects. In this paper, I will argue that Husserl’s theory of types is also central to his account of intersubjectivity. More specifically, I will show that a foundational kind of typical subjectivity is entailed by his discussion of the sphere of ownness. It is by way of this type that even a solitary subject can (...) tacitly anticipate the possibility of other subjects. It is also this type that is enriched through interactions between actual subjects. (shrink)

We investigate the possibility of inducing the cosmological constant from extra dimensions by embedding our four-dimensional Riemannian space-time into a five-dimensional Weyl integrable space. Following the approach of the space-time-matter theory we show that when we go down from five to four dimensions, the Weyl field may contribute both to the induced energy-tensor as well as to the cosmological constant Λ, or more generally, it may generate a time-dependent cosmological parameter Λ(t). As an application, we construct a simple cosmological model (...) in which Λ(t) has some interesting properties. (shrink)

This article studies natural food packaging as enabling artifacts of the traditional material culture of Antioquia in Colombia. For this purpose, we consider artifacts as objective nodes that combine design and use intentions, functions, materials, histories, artifactual lineages, and cooperative relationships that stabilize ritualized practices of a human group. We take the example of natural packaging as artifacts that enablers and stabilizers of traditional cooking and food preparation practices. Natural packaging materials are here assumed to be leaves having some favorable (...) property to contain a food product. After providing a theoretical reflection, we analyze the data collected from fieldwork we conducted in two towns in Antioquia, Colombia (Santa Fe de Antioquia and Amagá), as well as from an interview with an expert in the field. Finally, we show that it is possible to postulate an analysis under a relational ontological description of a traditional practice with conceptual categories of the philosophy of technology. (shrink)

Broadly characterized, the philosophy of action encompasses a host of problems about the nature and scope of human action and agency, including, but not limited to, intention and intentional action, the ontology of action, reason-explanations of action, motivation and practical reason, free will and moral responsibility, mental agency, social action, controlling attitudes, akrasia and enkrasia, and many other issues. Philosophy of Action: 5 Questions is a collection of short interviews based on 5 questions presented to some of the most influential (...) and prominent scholars in this philosophical field. We hear their views on philosophy of action, its aim, scope, use, the future, and how their work fits in these respects. (shrink)