This book offers a philosophical account of memory. Memory is remarkably interesting from a philosophical point of view. Our memories interact with mental states of other types in a characteristic way. They also have some associated feelings that other mental states lack. Our memories are special in terms of their representational capacity too, since we can have memories of objective events, and we can have memories of our own past experiences. Finally, our memories are epistemically special, in that beliefs formed (...) on the basis of our memories are protected from certain errors of misidentification and justified in a way which does not rely on any cognitive capacity other than memory. The aim of the book is to explain these features of memory. It proposes that memories have a particular functional role which involves past perceptual experiences and beliefs about the past and suggests that memories have a particular content as well; they represent themselves as having a certain causal origin. The book then accounts for the feelings associated with our memories as the experience of some of the things that our memories represent; things such as our own past experiences, or the fact the memories originate in those experiences. It also accounts for the special justification for belief afforded by our memories in terms of the content that memories have. The resulting picture is a unified account of several philosophically interesting aspects of memory. (shrink)

The purpose of this essay is to account for privileged access or, more precisely, the special kind of epistemic right that we have to some beliefs about our own mental states. My account will have the following two main virtues. First of all, it will only appeal to those conceptual elements that, arguably, we already use in order to account for perceptual knowledge. Secondly, it will constitute a naturalizing account of privileged access in that it does not posit any mysterious (...) faculty of introspection or "inner perception" mechanism. (shrink)

I offer an account of thought insertion based on a certain model of self-knowledge. I propose that subjects with thought insertion do not experience being committed to some of their own beliefs. A hypothesis about self-knowledge explains why. According to it, we form beliefs about our own beliefs on the basis of our evidence for them. First, I will argue that this hypothesis explains the fact that we feel committed to those beliefs which we are aware of. Then, I will (...) point to one feature of schizophrenia that suggests that subjects with thought insertion may not be able to know their own beliefs in that way. (shrink)

Although most consumers are positive about socially responsible companies, in order to benefit from CSR efforts, effective and clear CSR communication is important. However, due to the constantly rising profusion of eco-labels, based on either own claims from the organization or claims made by an external third party, consumers may encounter difficulties in identifying truly responsible firms, which could result in less effective CSR initiatives, even for those responsible firms. Therefore, building on attribution theory, this study seeks to identify how (...) uncertified internal CSR claims and external third-party CSR labels should be used in order to deter greenwashing and increase positive consumer evaluations. Within a 3 × 2 design, respondents are exposed to different coffee product packages measuring their attitude toward the brand, corporate credibility, purchase intention, and scent perception, as well as perceived attributional CSR motives. Overall, findings indicate that especially an external CSR label affects consumer responses toward the firm. Moreover, perceived CSR motives serve as a mediator between an external CSR label and corporate credibility and brand attitude, respectively. These findings warrant further consideration of introducing an external multilevel rating systems by governmental law. (shrink)

Four distinguished authors have been brought together to produce this elegant study of a much-neglected figure. The book is divided into three sections: Neurath's biographical background and the economic and social context of his ideas; his theory of science; and the development of his role in debates on Marxist concepts of history and his own conception of science. Coinciding with the emerging serious interest in logical positivism, this timely publication will redress a current imbalance in the history and philosophy of (...) science. (shrink)

In this paper I offer a novel interpretation of Wittgenstein's claim that ‘ethics is transcendental’. Initially, I set out to offer said interpretation by resorting to both Wittgenstein's understanding of ethics and his understanding of the transcendentality of logic—which entails taking Wittgenstein as endorsing a Kantian understanding of the notion ‘transcendental’. This leads to the claim that ethics is transcendental insofar as it is the condition of a certain ethical experience. Nevertheless, this interpretation involves some inadequacies due to certain incompatibilities (...) between the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus and the aforementioned Kantian understanding of the notion ‘transcendental’. I identify the peculiarities of Wittgenstein's understanding of the notion ‘transcendental’, and on this basis, I set forth a novel interpretation of 6.421. Specifically, I argue that ethics is transcendental insofar as it is internal to or constitutive of a certain mystical view: viewing the world sub specie aeterni as something valuable. (shrink)

Este número monográfico pretende contribuir a la reflexión sobre el interés de las relaciones fiduciarias en varios sentidos. En primer lugar, quiere coadyuvar a aclarar las ventajas y las limitaciones conceptuales y normativas del principio fiduciario para la reflexión filosófico-política y para la política práctica contemporáneas. En segundo lugar, aspira a enriquecer nuestra apreciación de los hilos entrecruzados de la constitución fiduciaria del mundo moderno mediante el examen de los desarrollos de esta idea en Europa y Estados Unidos. En tercer (...) lugar, pretende refinar nuestra comprensión del potencial que tiene su aplicación a diversas áreas interconectadas de la filosofía, la economía, la sociología y el derecho. Finalmente, se pretende proponer discusiones histórico-conceptualmente informadas sobre la relación entre el republicanismo y los principios fiduciarios. This monographic issue aims to contribute to the reflection on the interest of fiduciary relationships in several ways. Firstly, it wants to help clarify the conceptual and normative advantages and limitations of the fiduciary principle for contemporary philosophical-political reflection and practical politics. Secondly, it aspires to enrich our appreciation of the interlocking threads of the fiduciary constitution of the modern world by examining the developments of this idea in Europe and the United States. Thirdly, it seeks to refine our understanding of the potential of its application to various interconnected areas of philosophy, economics, sociology, and law. Finally, it is intended to propose historically and conceptually informed discussions on the relationship between republicanism and fiduciary principles. (shrink)

My analysis of the military campaign carried out by the armies of the Upper Mesopotamian Kingdom in the lands of Qabra and Nurrugum centers on the different treatment allotted by the armies of Samsi-Addu and Išme-Dagan to the populations defeated during that campaign. While the inhabitants of Nineveh were captured and some even incorporated into the army of Išme-Dagan, the tribe of Ya’ilanum was annihilated. This drastic action was the result of deep-seated prejudices of the leaders of the Upper Mesopotamian (...) Kingdom against non-urban populations, who were frequently perceived as subhuman and dangerous beings meriting annihilation. (shrink)

Déconstruire les thèses révisionnistes et réactionnaires du postmodernisme en utilisant leurs armes théoriques. Si ces thèses s'imposent par une gestion performante des simulacres, Vidal leur oppose un contre-simulacre qui cherche à ruiner durablement l'idéologie constitutive du postmodernisme.

Epistemologists have developed a diverse group of theories, known as hinge epistemology, about our epistemic practices that resort to and expand on Wittgenstein's concept of ‘hinges’ in On Certainty. Within hinge epistemology there is a debate over the epistemic status of hinges. Some hold that hinges are non-epistemic (neither known, justified, nor warranted), while others contend that they are epistemic. Philosophers on both sides of the debate have often connected this discussion to Wittgenstein's later views on mathematics. Others have directly (...) questioned whether there are mathematical hinges, and if so, these would be axioms. Here, we give a hinge epistemology account for mathematical practices based on their contextual dynamics. We argue that 1) there are indeed mathematical hinges (and they are not axioms necessarily), and 2) a given mathematical entity can be used contextually as an epistemic hinge, a non-epistemic hinge, or a non-hinge. We sustain our arguments exegetically and empirically. (shrink)

Algunas formulaciones de la filosofía política reciente han descuidado el carácter históricamente indexado de conceptos como libertad política, propiedad o soberanía, propiciando un uso anacrónico e impreciso de su significado. No obstante, su posición académica y social dominante informa el «sentido común» filosófico- político de nuestra época. Locke constituye un ejemplo de cómo la coyuntura interpretativa liberal, que se desplegó en el siglo XIX y se consolidó en el XX, ha oscurecido una parte de la complejidad y pluralidad de las (...) tradiciones intelectuales y normativas que heredó. La reconstrucción de la filosofía política lockeana a partir de su concepción fiduciaria de la libertad política contribuye a hacer de nuevo visible el significado de algunas concepciones fundamentales para la teorización normativa presente. (shrink)

The purpose of this chapter is to determine what is to remember something, as opposed to imagining it, perceiving it, or introspecting it. What does it take for a mental state to qualify as remembering, or having a memory of, something? The main issue to be addressed is therefore a metaphysical one. It is the issue of determining which features those mental states which qualify as memories typically enjoy, and those states which do not qualify as such typically lack. In (...) sections 2 and 3, I will discuss the two main existing conceptions of the conditions that a mental state must satisfy to count as an episode of remembering. The first of these approaches is backward-looking. It puts forward conditions that strictly concern the aetiology of the mental state. I will argue that the conditions offered by the backward-looking approach are both too strong and too weak: They rule out mental states which, intuitively, count as memories while including mental states which, intuitively, do not qualify as memories. The second approach is forward-looking. It puts forward conditions that only concern the use that the subject makes of the mental state while forming beliefs about their own life. I will argue that the conditions proposed by the forward-looking approach are both too weak and too strong as well. However, the discussion of the two approaches will allow us to extract some helpful lessons on the constraints that any proposal about the nature of remembering should respect. An alternative approach aimed at incorporating those lessons will be offered in section 4 by drawing on the literature on functionalism. In section 5, I will argue that this approach can, on the one hand, accommodate as memories those mental states which indicate that the backward-looking approach and the forward-looking approach are too strict while, on the other hand, excluding those mental states which suggest that the two alternative approaches are too permissive. Accordingly, I will conclude that construing memory along functionalist lines is a satisfactory approach to the nature of remembering. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to defend the view that judgments based on episodic memory are immune to error through misidentification. I will put forward a proposal about the contents of episodic memories according to which a memory represents a perception of a past event. I will also offer a proposal about the contents of perceptual experiences according to which a perceptual experience represents some relations that its subject bears to events in the external world. The combination of the (...) two views will yield the outcome that the subject is always an intentional object of her own memories: In episodic memory, one remembers being the subject whose extrinsic properties were experienced in some past perception. For that reason, one cannot misidentify oneself in memory unless one is having an inaccurate memory. Thus, the source of immunity to error through misidentification in memory lies in the nature of mnemonic content. (shrink)

In this paper I examine the notion and role of metaphors and illustrations in Maxwell's works in exact science as a pathway into a broader and richer philosophical conception of a scientist and scientific practice. While some of these notions and methods are still at work in current scientific research-from economics and biology to quantum computation and quantum field theory-, here I have chosen to attest to their entrenchment and complexity in actual science by attempting to make some conceptual sense (...) of Maxwell's own usage; this endeavour includes situating Maxwell's conceptions and applications in his own culture of Victorian science and philosophy. I trace Maxwell's notions to the formulation of the problem of understanding, or interpreting, abstract representations such as potential functions and Lagrangian equations. I articulate the solution in terms of abstract-concrete relations, where the concrete, in tune with Victorian British psychology and engineering, includes the muscular as well as the pictorial. This sets the basis for a conception of understanding in terms of unification and concrete modelling, or representation. I examine the relation of illustration to analogies and metaphors on which this account rests. Lastly, I stress and explain the importance of context-dependence, its consequences for realism-instrumentalism debates, and Maxwell's own emphasis on method. (shrink)

Memories are mental states with a number of interesting features. One of those features seems to be their having an intentional object. After all, we commonly say that memories are about things, and that a subject represents the world in a certain way by virtue of remembering something. It is unclear, however, what sorts of entities constitute the intentional objects of memory. In particular, it is not clear whether those are mind-independent entities in the world or whether they are mental (...) entities of some kind. The purpose of this chapter is to map the different positions on this issue, and to highlight the virtues and difficulties for each of the options. In Section 2, I will specify the question of what the intentional objects of memory are by clarifying the relevant notions of memory and intentional object. In Section 3, I will motivate the significance of identifying the intentional objects of memory by exploring the relations between, on the one hand, the intentionality of memory and, on the other hand, the phenomenology and the epistemology of memory. In Section 4, I will consider two natural candidates for being the intentional objects of memory, namely, worldly entities and mental entities, and I will raise some concerns for each of the two candidates. A promising alternative will emerge, in Section 5, as preserving the virtues of the two original candidates while avoiding their difficulties. The alternative will concern a certain combination of worldly and mental entities; a combination that involves both causal and truth-making relations. I will conclude by sketching how the alternative candidate can shed some light on the phenomenological and epistemological issues raised in the third section. (shrink)

Are those judgments that we make on the basis of our memories immune to error through misidentification? In this paper, I discuss a phenomenon which seems to suggest that they are not; the phenomenon of observer memory. I argue that observer memories fail to show that memory judgments are not IEM. However, the discussion of observer memories will reveal an interesting fact about the perspectivity of memory; a fact that puts us on the right path towards explaining why memory judgments (...) are indeed IEM. The main tenet in the account of IEM to be proposed is that this aspect of memory is grounded, on the one hand, on the intentionality of perception and, on the other hand, on the relation between the intentionality of perception and that of memory. (shrink)

: The distinction between science and philosophy plays a central role in methodological, programmatic and institutional debates. Discussions of disciplinary identities typically focus on boundaries or else on genealogies, yielding models of demarcation and models of dynamics. Considerations of a discipline's self-image, often based on history, often plays an important role in the values, projects and practices of its members. Recent focus on the dynamics of scientific change supplements Kuhnian neat model with a role for philosophy and yields a model (...) of the evolution of philosophy of science. This view illuminates important aspects of science and itself contributes to philosophy of science. This interactive model is general yet based on exclusive attention to physics. In this paper and two sequels, I focus on the human sciences and argue that their role in the history of philosophy of science is just as important and it also involves a close involvement of the history of philosophy. The focus is on Gestalt psychology and it points to some lessons for philosophy of science. But, unlike the discussion of natural sciences, the discussion here brings out more complication than explication, and skews certain kinds of generalizations. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Nietzscheforschung Jahrgang: 23 Heft: 1 Seiten: 271-294.

Tradicionalmente se ha considerado a la antroponimia como la vía prioritaria de acceso al conocimiento de la piedad popular en el marco de las culturas del Próximo Oriente Antiguo. Sin embargo, determinados problemas asociados a la utilización de este tipo de material limitan sus posibilidades. En el presente trabajo, junto a la recopilación de la antroponimia fenicio-púnica hallada en la Península Ibérica, se ha intentado proceder a su contextualización en el marco de la religión cananea del primer milenio y su (...) expansión hacia el Mediterráneo occidental. (shrink)

This paper discusses the meta-ethical implications of Wittgenstein’s later moral philosophy. According to Lovibond and Brandhorst, Wittgenstein provided a novel conception of moral facts, properties and objects by adopting deflationism. Lovibond argues that Wittgenstein’s seamless conception of language together with his non-foundational epistemology and non-transcendent understanding of rationality involves a change of perspective towards a plausible and non-mystificatory moral realism. Meanwhile, Brandhorst argues that Wittgenstein’s provides a deflationist conception of moral truths from which we obtain a deflationist conception of moral (...) facts. This paper argues, on the contrary, that the attribution of deflationism does not do justice to Wittgenstein’s later work. It is concluded, therefore, that the appeal to deflationism does not afford or substantiate the exegetical claims made by Lovibond and Brandhorst. (shrink)

I offer a model of self‐knowledge that provides a solution to Moore's paradox. First, I distinguish two versions of the paradox and I discuss two approaches to it, neither of which solves both versions of the paradox. Next, I propose a model of self‐knowledge according to which, when I have a certain belief, I form the higher‐order belief that I have it on the basis of the very evidence that grounds my first‐order belief. Then, I argue that the model in (...) question can account for both versions of Moore's paradox. Moore's paradox, I conclude, tells us something about our conceptions of rationality and self‐knowledge. For it teaches us that we take it to be constitutive of being rational that one can have privileged access to one's own mind and it reveals that having privileged access to one's own mind is a matter of forming first‐order beliefs and corresponding second‐order beliefs on the same basis. (shrink)

In jurisprudential literature, the adjective ‘defeasible’ appears as a predicate of many terms: concepts, laws, rules, reasoning, justification, proof, and so on. In this paper, we analyze the effects of some versions of the thesis of the defeasibility of legal norms on the reconstruction of the notion of legal validity. We analyze some possible justifications of this thesis considered as a claim concerning validity, and enquire into two possible sets of problems related to the defeasibility of the criteria of identification (...) of a legal system. We also provide a formalization of some options regarding defeasible criteria of identification, which can be used as a tool for meta-jurisprudential analysis. Finally, the thesis according to which defeasibility is better conceived of as a feature of legal application is examined and questioned. (shrink)

The Transcendental Reading of the Tractatus argues that Wittgenstein endorses, under the notion of ‘metaphysical subject’, the existence of a willing subject as a transcendental condition of ethics and representation. Tejedor aims to reject this reading resorting to three criticisms. The notion of ‘willing subject’ does not appear explicitly in, nor can it be deduced from, the Tractatus, the metaphysical subject and the willing subject are not synonymous or analogous notions and, finally, Wittgenstein abandons the notion of ‘willing subject’ at (...) the end of the Notebooks. The aim of this article is twofold. Firstly, it analyzes the critique introduced by Tejedor and presents three problems that demonstrate that Tejedor’s critique cannot adequately reject the Transcendental Reading. Secondly, it sets forth an alternative reading of the Tractatus that overcomes the issues that stem from the Transcendental Reading. This alternative reading conceives the metaphysical subject as an ethical subject and a willing subject. Additionally, it advances an alternative account of the transcendental character of ethics that does not defend the existence of a transcendental subject understood as a condition of ethics and representation in the Tractatus. (shrink)

All paradoxes of self-reference seem to share some structural features. Russell in 1908 and especially Priest nowadays have advanced structural descriptions that successfully identify necessary conditions for having a paradox of this kind. I examine in this paper Priest’s description of these paradoxes, the Inclosure Scheme (IS), and consider in what sense it may help us understand and solve the problems they pose. However, I also consider the limitations of this kind of structural descriptions and give arguments against Priest’s use (...) of IS in favour of dialetheism. IS fails to identify sufficient conditions for having a paradox of self-reference. That means that, even if we identified a problem common to any reasoning satisfying IS, that problem would not explain why some of those reasonings are paradoxical and some others are not. Therefore IS cannot justify by itself the claim that some particular theory offers the best solution to the paradoxes of self-reference. We still need to consider aspects concerning the content and context of occurrence of every paradox. (shrink)

Episodic memory has a distinctive phenomenology. One way to capture what is distinctive about it is by using the notion of mental time travel: When we remember some fact episodically, we mentally travel to the moment at which we experienced it in the past. This way of distinguishing episodic memory from semantic memory calls for an explanation of what the experience of mental time travel is. In this paper, I suggest that a certain view about the content of memories can (...) shed some light on the experience of mental time travel. This is the view that, when a subject remembers some fact episodically, their memory represents itself as coming from a perception of that fact. I propose that the experience of mental time travel in memory is the experience of representing one of the elements in this complex content, namely, the past perceptual experience of the remembered fact. In defence of this proposal, I offer two considerations. Firstly, the proposal is consistent with the idea that memories enjoy a temporal phenomenology (specifically, a feeling of pastness). Secondly, the proposal is consistent with the possibility that some of our other cognitive capacities might yield an experience of mental time travel which can be oriented towards the future. I argue that the received conception of mental time travel is in tension with those two ideas. (shrink)

My purpose in this essay is to clarify the notion of explanation by computer simulation in artificial intelligence and cognitive science. My contention is that computer simulation may be understood as providing two different kinds of explanation, which makes the notion of explanation by computer simulation ambiguous. In order to show this, I shall draw a distinction between two possible ways of understanding the notion of simulation, depending on how one views the relation in which a computing system that performs (...) a cognitive task stands to the program that the system runs while performing that task. Next, I shall suggest that the kind of explanation that results from simulation is radically different in each case. In order to illustrate the difference, I will point out some prima facie methodological difficulties that need to be addressed in order to ensure that simulation plays a legitimate explanatory role in cognitive science, and I shall emphasize how those difficulties are very different depending on the notion of explanation involved. (shrink)

Studies of food waste claim that its main causes are technological and logistical deficiencies in the first stages of the agri-food chain. The present article discusses this statement using a specific case as a starting point: the production of fruit in Lleida (Catalonia, Spain). Since the 1980s, fruit production in this region has undergone a process of innovation and development. However, the agents who participate in the sector claim that the wasted volume of edible foodstuffs is greater than in previous (...) times. This article argues that studies of food waste do not consider the power relations existing within the agri-food chain. When these relations are asymmetrical, technological innovation and logistics optimisation do not improve the efficiency of the system; rather, they help the hegemonic players to monopolise the commercial margin and transfer some of their running costs to the weaker agents. The ethnographic data for the study were obtained between 2017 and 2019 using qualitative research techniques. (shrink)

The ontological abyss that separates real objects from sensual objects is one of the central principles of Object-Oriented Ontology (OOO), which has its most explicit and profuse modulation in Timothy Morton’s notion of rift. This article argues that, despite succeeding in explaining the radical difference that inhabits every object, Morton’s rift fails to explain the object’s unification, rendering the overall theory inconsistent. An alternative approach that accounts simultaneously for disjunction and conjunction between essences and appearances can be found in Eugenio (...) Trías’s philosophy of the limit, a term widely ignored in OOO despite its deeply non-relational conception of the reality of things. The article further argues that the reinterpretation of Trías’s twofold liminal approach in light of OOO successfully addresses the inconsistencies found in Morton’s rift, paving the way for a theory of limits within Harman’s ontological framework. (shrink)

This study shows that firms respond in strategic ways to institutional pressures that stem from social scandals. Through the formal analysis of the historical narrative of events, the authors studied how seven pharmaceutical companies reacted over the years to accusations of being socially irresponsible in dealing with the HIV virus in Africa. The analysis shows that institutional and task environmental factors interact to precipitate pharmaceutical companies' reactions. Although firms' behaviors were indeed affected by institutional pressures exerted by activist groups and (...) the media, they did not passively adapt to these pressures. Instead, they decoupled their core technical activities from their policy announcements (by delaying the implementation of promised concessions) and used institutional pressure in the organizational field as a way of pursuing their own economic interests. (shrink)

The ’microcausality’ condition in quantum field theory is typically presented and justified on the basis of general principles of physical causality. I explore in detail a number of alternative causal interpretations of this condition. I conclude that none is fully satisfactory, independent of further and controversial assumptions about the object and scope of quantum field theories. In particular the stronger causalreadings require a fully reductionist and fundamentalist attitude to quantum field theory. I argue, in a deflationary spirit, for a reading (...) of the ‘microcausality’ condition as merely a boundary condition, inspired by Relativity, that different possible formulations of quantum field theory must obey. (shrink)

After September 11, Sullivan wrote that while he wasn’t worried about the heartland, “decadent coastal liberals may well mount a fifth column.†This in response, as is well known, to a thoughtful New Yorker essay by Susan Sontag. Sullivan, who Eric Alterman—not usually a sharp wordsmith—memorably calls “Young Roy Cohn†later issued “Sontag awards.†His attitude and his popularization of a sort of Lynne Cheneyist position on what “Views†are improper and thus should not be publicly aired, probably did far (...) more damage to civil liberties than Joe McCarthy’s pal Roy, who at the very least didn’t take himself seriously. (shrink)

The original version of the article missed to include an acknowledgments. The missing information is provided below.

In this paper we argue for the existence of a critical analysis of capitalism on Hannah Arendt's work, more specifically in some fragments belonging to the book on Imperialism, from The origins of totalitarianism, and even more specifically in a certain interpretation of Hobbes. According to Arendt's understanding, with differs in some fundamental positions from the classical Marxist view, the fact of believing that capitalism is a global and necessary logic is in itself a social illusion promoted by the political (...) hegemony of bourgeoisie. Capitalism, according to Arendt, is not a systemic logic: it's politics of force. (shrink)

La hipótesis de este ensayo es que la fundación de la filosofía política, disciplina que Arendt definió como el intento de una huida completa de la política, puede entenderse como uno de los momentos decisivos de la conformación progresiva de lo que Foucault llamó la historia de la voluntad de saber occidental. A partir de esa suposición, examinamos en una lectura cruzada el análisis arendtiano del paso de la acción al gobierno en Platón y la lectura foucaultiana de la exclusión (...) del sofisma en Aristóteles. Mostramos finalmente en qué la arqueología del mundo de la acción anterior a la filosofía política que Arendt propone, en torno a cierta figura ambigua de Sócrates, se diferencia de la teoría estratégica del discurso que Foucault encuentra en la sofística, y nos interrogamos por las implicaciones políticas de esta diferencia, especialmente en lo que apunta a repensar hoy las relaciones entre el pensamiento y la acción. (shrink)