This book provides an up to date, high-level exchange on God in a uniquely productive style. Readers witness a contemporary version of a classic debate, as two professional philosophers seek to learn from each other while making their cases for their distinct positions. In their dialogue, Joshua Rasmussen and Felipe Leon examine classical and cutting-edge arguments for and against a theistic explanation of general features of reality. The book also provides original lines of thought based on the authors’ own (...) contributions to the field, and offers a productive and innovative inquiry into on one of the biggest questions people ask: what is the ultimate explanation of things? (shrink)

It’s constitutive of classical theism that there is a necessarily existent personal god who is also the creator of the universe, where the latter claim includes at least the following three theses: (i) God is wholly distinct from the natural world; (ii) God is the originating or sustaining cause of the natural world; and (iii) God created the natural world ex nihilo, i.e., without the use of pre-existing materials. Call this tripartite component of classical theism the classical view of creation. (...) In this paper, I offer a new argument against classical theism. In particular, I argue that creation ex nihilo is prima facie impossible, and that since the doctrine of creation ex nihilo is constitutive of classical theism, classical theism is false. (shrink)

In this article, we offer a rebuttal to a key thesis in Chapter 5 of Engelhardt’s After God: namely, that there exists an “unbridgeable gap” between the dominant secular culture and traditional religious believers. Contra Engelhardt, we argue that it is possible to bridge the gap by employing a strategy that includes, but is not limited to, methods for cultivating understanding and respect and a sense of solidarity. Our argument proceeds in three steps. First, we elucidate Engelhardt’s thesis in light (...) of some of the key concepts he discusses elsewhere in After God. Second, in the hope of developing understanding and respect, we elucidate the history and teachings that form the consciences of traditional Christian medical professionals concerning abortion, euthanasia, and disfiguring surgeries. Third, in the hope of developing a sense of solidarity, we explain the broad scope of the dominant secular culture’s attempt to limit people’s freedom of conscience rights, showing that it includes not only traditional Christians but also members of other traditional religions, members of mainline religious groups, people with alternative conceptions of secularity, and even faithful members of the dominant secular culture. (shrink)

This chapter provides an overview and critical discussion of cosmological arguments for theism, with special focus on the Kalam argument and arguments from contingency.

The primary aim of this chapter is to evaluate whether considerations about a priori domains and abstract objects favor atheism over theism.

Selected Bibiliography and Overview of Japanese Philosophy by reference to major Japanese Anthologies of Traditional and Modern Japanese Thought / Philosophy, listing a wide range of Japanese philosophers and thinkers from ancient times to the present.

If mathematics is regarded as a science, then the philosophy of mathematics can be regarded as a branch of the philosophy of science, next to disciplines such as the philosophy of physics and the philosophy of biology. However, because of its subject matter, the philosophy of mathematics occupies a special place in the philosophy of science. Whereas the natural sciences investigate entities that are located in space and time, it is not at all obvious that this is also the case (...) with respect to the objects that are studied in mathematics. In addition to that, the methods of investigation of mathematics differ markedly from the methods of investigation in the natural sciences. Whereas the latter acquire general knowledge using inductive methods, mathematical knowledge appears to be acquired in a different way, namely, by deduction from basic principles. The status of mathematical knowledge also appears to differ from the status of knowledge in the natural sciences. The theories of the natural sciences appear to be less certain and more open to revision than mathematical theories. For these reasons mathematics poses problems of a quite distinctive kind for philosophy. Therefore philosophers have accorded special attention to ontological and epistemological questions concerning mathematics. (shrink)

El proceso de aprehensión de lo cognoscible, en la filosofía contemporánea, ha sido tratado desde diversas perspectivas, entre ellas la fenomenológica y la analítica. Cada una de estas perspectivas aportan unos presupuestos filosóficos y procesos metodológicos que nos proporcionan marcos de trabajo para indagar en las vías de aprehensión del conocimiento; sin embargo, empleadas por separado son insuficientes y limitadas. En absoluto se trata de procurar un método universal, sino de integrar e indagar sobre diversos presupuestos, procesos, patrones y estructuras (...) para avanzar en la indagación de la aprehensión del conocimiento. En este sentido, en la primera parte, abordaremos la necesidad de tener reglas (definitorias y estratégicas) para ser parte y avanzar en cualquier «juego», en especial el del conocimiento. En la segunda y tercera, describiremos los «métodos» desarrollados por José Ferrater Mora (operaciones filosóficas) y Nicolai Hartmann (pensar sistemático), los que pueden ser un punto de partida, vías a considerar en este proceso. En la parte final, a modo de contraste, se ofrece en un gráfico un esquema metodológico de los dos métodos analizados. (shrink)

Central banks have accumulated unparalleled power over the conduct of macroeconomic policy. Key for this development was the articulation and differentiation of monetary policy as a distinct policy domain. While political economists emphasize the foundational institutional changes that enabled this development, recent performativity-studies focus on central bankers’ invention of expectation management techniques. In line with a few other works, this article aims to bring these two aspects together. The key argument is that, over the last few decades, central banks have (...) identified different strategies to assume authority over “expectational politics” and reinforced dominant institutional forces within them. I introduce a comparative scheme to distinguish two different expectational governance regimes. My own empirical investigation focuses on a monetarist regime that emerged from corporatist contexts, where central banks enjoyed “embedded autonomy” and where commercial banks maintained conservative reserve management routines. I further argue that innovations towards inflation targeting took place in countries with non-existent or disintegrating corporatist structures and where central banks turned to finance to establish a different version of expectation coordination. A widespread adoption of this “financialized” expectational governance has been made possible by broader processes of institutional convergence that were supported by central bankers themselves. (shrink)

Giving an essential and accessible overview of social theories of space, this books shows why it matters to understand these theorists spatially.

The hard problem of consciousness is about how we could explain in physicalist terms why we are conscious. The meta-problem of consciousness is about how we could explain why we have a hard problem of consciousness. In this note I argue that the phenomenal concept strategy can in principle provide a satisfactory solution to the meta-problem.

Christopher Hom has recently argued that the best-overall account of the meaning of pejorative terms is a semantic account according to which pejoratives make a distinctive truth-conditional contribution, and in particular express complex, negative socially constructed properties. In addition, Hom supplements the semantic account with a pragmatic strategy to deal with the derogatory content of occurrences of pejorative terms in negations, conditionals, attitude reports, and so on, according to which those occurrences give rise to conversational implicatures to the effect that (...) the pejorative terms are non-empty, which explains the offensiveness of those occurrences. In this paper, I aim to defend this semantic strategy from several recent objections, and I will also present a novel objection, which in my view shows that we should understand the semantic account as a version of inferentialism, rather than radical externalism. (shrink)

One of the main strategies against conceivability arguments is the so-called phenomenal concept strategy, which aims to explain the epistemic gap between physical and phenomenal truths in terms of the special features of phenomenal concepts. Daniel Stoljar has recently argued that the phenomenal concept strategy has failed to provide a successful explanation of this epistemic gap. In this paper my aim is to defend the phenomenal concept strategy from his criticisms. I argue that Stoljar has misrepresented the resources of the (...) strategy, which can indeed accomplish the required explanatory task, once it is properly understood. (shrink)

What does it mean to say that some features, such as gender, race and sexual orientation, are socially constructed? Many scholars claim that social constructionism about a kind is a version of realism about that kind, according to which the corresponding kind is a social construction, that it, it is constituted by social factors and practices. Social constructionism, then, is a version of realism about a kind that asserts that the kind is real, and puts forward a particular view about (...) the nature of the kind, namely, that it is constituted by social factors and practices. Social constructivists about human kinds such as gender, race and sexual orientation often make an additional claim, namely, that these kinds are social constructions but they are typically believed to be biological kinds (that is, people are typically wrong about the nature of these kinds). Ron Mallon (2017) calls social constructions that are (falsely) taken to be biological kinds covert social constructions. This paper is about how we could have terms in our natural language that come to refer to covert social constructions. (shrink)

The thought experiment is a seemingly indispensable tool in the armchair philosopher’s toolbox. One wonders, for example, how philosophers could come to think that justified true belief isn’t knowledge, that reference isn’t determined by an expression’s associated description, or that moral responsibility doesn’t require the ability to do otherwise, without the use of thought experiments. But even if thought experiments play an integral role in philosophical methodology, their legitimacy is at least initially puzzling: one would think that significant knowledge of (...) the world requires extensive empirical investigation. But since thought experiments are done from the armchair, how can they tell us about the world? -/- A standard account of the nature and utility of thought experiments provides an answer to this question, and in a way that fits naturally with a standard picture of the nature of the facts philosophers investigate: Philosophers are about the business of investigating the essences of things and kinds. But a thing’s essential and accidental properties are modal properties. Thus, one can discern a thing’s essence by discovering its modal profile. But if so, then thought experiments are naturally suited as tools for the armchair philosopher. For thought experiments shed light on modal facts. Therefore, since philosophers investigate essences, facts about essence are modal facts, and the thought experiment is one of the few tools they have for discerning such facts, thought experiments play a legitimate and indispensable role in philosophical methodology. In my dissertation, I argue that the standard account of the nature and utility of thought experiments is inadequate, and sketch a more promising account. -/- First, I argue that our knowledge of possibility is restricted to the relatively humdrum. And if so, then since the standard account ties the utility of thought experiments to our knowledge of possibility, too many thought experiments will be ruled out as useless, which raises serious concerns about the significance, and perhaps even the legitimacy, of armchair philosophy. Thus, there is pressure for armchair philosophers to reject the standard account. -/- Second, I sketch an alternative picture of the nature of facts philosophers investigate – one that’s more fine-grained than the standard modal-profile picture. Relatedly, I sketch a correspondingly fine-grained semantics for claims about such facts. This alternative picture underwrites the legitimacy of a hitherto underappreciated sort of thought experiment, which I call the non-modal thought experiment. Such thought experiments shed light on facts about the world that are more fine-grained than what can be discerned by merely examining their modal profiles. I argue that non-modal thought experiments often succeed at just the points where the more familiar modal thought experiments fail, and thus that the two are naturally suited to complement one another in the philosopher’s practice. -/- Finally, I exploit the points mentioned above to sketch an account of the variety and utility of thought experiments that’s much more nuanced than that of the standard account. I then illustrate some of its virtues by indicating its ability to account for a wide range of epistemically forceful thought experiments – both humdrum and exotic –, and by demonstrating how it can be used to make progress in debates that have reached a stalemate due to conflicting modal intuitions. -/- . (shrink)

It is shown that quantum mechanics cannot be formulated as a stochastic theory involving a probability distribution function of position and momentum. This is done by showing that the most general distribution function which yields the proper quantum mechanical marginal distributions cannot consistently be used to predict the expectations of observables if phase space integration is used. Implications relating to the possibility of establishing a "hidden" variable theory of quantum mechanics are discussed.

We propose that observables in quantum theory are properly understood as representatives of symmetry-invariant quantities relating one system to another, the latter to be called a reference system. We provide a rigorous mathematical language to introduce and study quantum reference systems, showing that the orthodox “absolute” quantities are good representatives of observable relative quantities if the reference state is suitably localised. We use this relational formalism to critique the literature on the relationship between reference frames and superselection rules, settling a (...) long-standing debate on the subject. (shrink)

This note is a critical response to Kentaro Fujimoto’s new conservativeness argument about truth, which centres on the notion of finite conjunction. We argue that Fujimoto’s arguments turn on a specific way of formalizing the notions of finite collection and finite conjunction in first-order logic. In particular, by instead formalizing these concepts in a natural way in set theory or in second-order logic, Fujimoto’s new conservativeness argument can be resisted.

New epistemic principles are formulated in the language of Shapiro's system of Epistemic Arithmetic. It is argued that some plausibility can be attributed to these principles. The relations between these principles and variants of controversial constructivistic principles are investigated. Special attention is given to variants of the intuitionistic version of Church's thesis and to variants of Markov's principle.

Dennett elabora una concepción del “yo” entendido como un centro de gravedad narrativo. Uno de los obstáculos principales para valorar esta propuesta radica en que resulta dificultoso entender cuál es la naturaleza del concepto dennettiano de “yo”: concretamente, cuáles son los compromisos ontológicos y epistemológicos que cabe atribuir al fenómeno en cuestión. En este artículo defendemos que el mejor modo de realizar una reconstrucción interpretativa de su noción de “yo” es apelando a la distinción elaborada por Reichenbach entre tres clases (...) de entidades, Concreta,a e Illata, y entendiendo a los centros de gravedad narrativos como un caso de Abstracta reichenbachiano. Sostenemos que resulta pertinente e iluminador entender los centros de gravedad narrativos como Abstracta en el sentido de Reichenbach, apoyándonos en que: i) aunque no la aplica directamente al problema de la naturaleza del “yo”, Dennett sí emplea la distinción de Reichenbach en otras partes de su obra; ii) Dennett traza explícitamente una analogía del “yo” con los centros de gravedad que son, justamente, uno de sus ejemplos de Abstracta; iii) este modo de entender al “yo” permite dar sentido y entender mejor ciertos aspectos de la teoría narrativista dennettiana. Además de permitirnos clarificar las metáforas empleadas por Dennett en la elaboración de su teoría narrativa, dicha elucidación conceptual permite comprender mejor la distinción entre las tres clases de psicología intencional trazada por Dennett y es útil para sugerir a cuál de estos tres tipos pertenece el concepto de “yo”. Dennett's theory of personal identity argues that the “self” is no more than a center of narrative gravity. One of the main hurdles to assessing this proposal lies in the fact that it is difficult to understand what the nature of Dennett's concept of "self" is; specifically, what are the ontological and epistemological commitments that can be attributed to the phenomenon in question. In this article, we claim that the best way to make an interpretative reconstruction of his notion of "self" is appealing to the distinction elaborated by Reichenbach between three classes of entities, Concreta, Abstracta, and Illata, and understanding the narrative centers of gravity as a case of Reichenbachian Abstracta. We defend that understanding the narrative centers of gravity as Abstracta in the sense of Reichenbach is pertinent and illuminating given that: i) although he does not apply it directly to the problem of the nature of the "self", Dennett does use Reichenbach's distinction in other parts of his work; ii) Dennett explicitly draws an analogy of the "self" with the centers of gravity that are, precisely, one of his examples of Abstracta; iii) this way of understanding the "self" allows us to give sense and better understand certain aspects of Dennett’s narrative theory. Besides allowing us to clarify the metaphors used by Dennett in the elaboration of his narrative theory, such conceptual elucidation allows us to better understand the distinction between the three classes of intentional psychology drawn by Dennett (1987) and is useful in suggesting to which of these three types the concept of "self" belongs. (shrink)

An epistemic formalization of arithmetic is constructed in which certain non-trivial metatheoretical inferences about the system itself can be made. These inferences involve the notion of provability in principle, and cannot be made in any consistent extensions of Stewart Shapiro's system of epistemic arithmetic. The system constructed in the paper can be given a modal-structural interpretation.

We critically discuss Cleland''s analysis of effective procedures as mundane effective procedures. She argues that Turing machines cannot carry out mundane procedures, since Turing machines are abstract entities and therefore cannot generate the causal processes that are generated by mundane procedures. We argue that if Turing machines cannot enter the physical world, then it is hard to see how Cleland''s mundane procedures can enter the world of numbers. Hence her arguments against versions of the Church-Turing thesis for number theoretic functions (...) miss the mark. (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the article “The Plasticity of the Bodily Self: Head Movements in Bodily Illusions and Their Relation to Gallagher’s Body Image and Body Schema” by Marte Roel Lesur, Michael Gaebler, Philippe Bertrand & Bigna Lenggenhager.: In my commentary, I raise some questions about the applicability of Gallagher’s distinction between body image and body schema to the experimental research reported and discussed in the target article. I suggest that the distinction between body image and body schema is of (...) limited help in this context, and that Gallagher’s distinction between sense of ownership and sense of agency provides a more natural and fruitful theoretical framework to discuss that research. (shrink)

A comienzos de los años 70 del siglo XX se produjo una revisión crítica de los postulados metodológicos e historiográficos de las denominadas “grandes narraciones” creadas a los largo del siglo XIX como ejemplificaban las obras de Voltaire, Hegel o Spengler. De este modo se produjo una nueva moda historiográfica basada en los tópicos de la interdisciplinariedad, las microhistorias, o las metodologías fragmentarias. En este casillero fue colocada, entre otras, la arqueología de Foucault. La crítica de Manfredo Tafuri ataca dichos (...) juicios proponiendo a su vez una verda-dera metodología interdisciplinar radical. (shrink)

In this article we propose to carry out an examination of the notions of ‘other’ based on the philosophical proposals of Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Maurice Blanchot. It seeks to show the common point between both thoughts, from a proposal in which the other is understood as a dislocation, which manifests itself in the way of an opening. For this reason, the notion of opening becomes the central element of this analysis, from which the other manifests itself in an ambiguous way. (...) To this end, the proposals of both authors will be analyzed separately, however, highlighting and relating to each other their respective conceptions of opening and the implications they have regarding the question of the other. (shrink)

Deleuze’s work is certainly heterogeneous. Throughout his life he managed to deal with an amazing variety of subjects: history of philosophy, psychoanalysis, politics, literature, painting, cinema, among others. However, the author of A Thousand Plateaus did not address a particularly relevant area for the twentieth century configuration –photography. This absence is unsettling not only because of the cultural importance of photography, but also because his reflections concerning the concept of image are a recurrent theme throughout his work. This research will (...) not seek to determine the reasons why Deleuze did not explore the field of photography, because we believe that a question like this is, to say the least, idle. On the contrary, we will try to prolong his reflections in order to unfold the intuitions found in his philosophy that may help us to address the issue of the photographic. In this sense, our objective will be to develop a taxonomy of the photographic image from the distinction of two main types: the transparent image and the opaque image. (shrink)

In this work we’ll present a part of the debates that configured la indirect reception of the Hegelian philosophy through the second quarter of the XIX century. For this we’ll briefly describe the experience and path of the Verein in charge of the first edition of Hegel’s works; the, we’ll analyze the disputes over the hypothetical Hegelian republicanism; and, finally, we’ll focus on the interpretation that the Young Hegelians made of that same debate in the context of Schelling’s arrival at (...) Berlin. En este trabajo presentaremos una parte de los debates que configuraron la recepción indirecta de la filosofía hegeliana durante el segundo cuarto del siglo XIX. Para ello describiremos brevemente la experiencia y recorrido de la Verein a cargo de la primera edición de las obras de Hegel, luego, analizaremos las disputas en torno al hipotético republicanismo hegeliano y, finalmente, nos enfocaremos en la interpretación que los jóvenes hegelianos realizaron de esa misma disputa en el contexto de la llegada de Schelling a Berlín. (shrink)

A través de las preguntas sobre su trayectoria como filósofa feminista ilustrada, la relación entre la teoría y la práctica feministas, la situación del feminismo en la actualidad y sus metas y proyectos más urgentes, entre otras, Celia Amorós —máxima representante, junto a Amelia Valcárcel, de la teoría feminista filosófica de la igualdad— nos «ilustra» sobre los retos del feminismo como movimiento ilustrado, emancipador y radicalmente igualitarista. Al hilo de su narración van surgiendo temas fundamentales como la globalización, el multiculturalismo, (...) las políticas de igualdad, la alianza de civilizaciones, la necesidad de buscar «vetas de Ilustración», entre otros. Temas urgentes que nos exigen confrontarlos, pasarlos por el tamiz del feminismo, con la certeza de que «las mujeres nos lo jugamos todo» como internacionalismo porque, como se nos dice aquí, o la liberación de las mujeres se da en todas partes o no se da, pues siempre puede haber involuciones. (shrink)

A diferencia de la ciudad medieval y de la metrópolis decimonónica, la lógica de funcionamiento de las actuales postmetrópolis se basa en un incremento sin parangón de la movilidad de personas, mercancías y capitales. Frente a la división ciudad -campo, propia del medioevo, y a la división producción -consumo, característica de la metrópolis clásica, la postmetrópolis ha multiplicado exponencialmente la diversidad y transversalidad de sus principales divisiones. En consecuencia, el sujeto político hegemónico generado por la nueva condición postmetropolitana ya no (...) coincide con los desarrollados anteriormente. Este artículo indaga en los dos principales modelos concebidos por la filosofía contemporánea a partir de un análisis de las nuevas condiciones urbanas en las que se desarrollan esos sujetos: el concepto de multitud de Negri y el de emprendedor creativo descrito por Sloterdijk. Aunque sus concepciones y categorías sociopolíticas difieren, ambos autores coinciden en establecer una relación productiva bidireccional entre el medio y el sujeto. (shrink)

La crisis sanitaria mundial ha propiciado un fecundo debate iusfilosófico en lo referente a la protección de los derechos humanos. El nuevo escenario exige respuestas nuevas por parte de la filosofía del derecho. En este trabajo se somete a crítica la teoría del garantismo constitucional de Luigi Ferrajoli, cuestionándose su idoneidad como marco de referencia para afrontar los mencionados desafíos. La crítica se centra en la concepción ferrajoliana de la democracia y en su proyección cosmopolita. Se argumentará que la extensión (...) del constitucionalismo más allá del Estado debe realizarse a partir de un cosmopolitismo gradual y realista. (shrink)

Frente a las estéticas de la negatividad, tanto H. R. Jauss, como H. G. Gadamer reivindican la función institutiva del lenguaje artístico; de esta manera pretenden volver a vincular la estética y la praxis social. Jauss renegará de la autonomía del arte -desgarramiento del mundo social y del trabajo-, para conectar de nuevo la experiencia estética con la praxis social. Sin embargo, para Gadamer, la autonomía del arte -libertad con respecto a fines representativos- no está reñida con la vida social (...) y su urdimbre valorativa. La obra de arte, para Gadamer, es parte del proceso social en el que los seres humanos realizan su humanidad, reconociéndose en sus obras. En definitiva, Jauss y Gadamer rehabilitan, frente al puritanismo adorniano, la dimensión práctica de la experiencia estética. (shrink)

Allí donde Lacan afirmaba que la carta (mensaje, Ley) siempre llega, Derrida defiende la necesidad de su diseminación por el simple hecho de la iterabilidad del significante. Sus lecturas de Pascal, Baudelaire y Lacan son reflexiones sobre la imposibilidad de cerrar el círculo (fundamento místico) de la autoridad sociosimbólica. Este artículo utiliza esas lecturas para dar cuenta de las limitaciones gnoseológicas, basadas en la filosofía hegeliano-lacaniana desarrollada por Slavoj Žižek, de la hiperstición aceleracionista.

A diferencia de lo ocurrido con la lucha de clases, la mayor parte de las reelaboraciones teóricas (post)marxistas de las últimas décadas han evitado recuperar la dictadura del proletariado, si bien en su origen estaban indisolublemente unidas. Como consecuencia, su significado marxista originario sigue confundiéndose con el significado jurídico-burgués de dictadura como forma de gobierno. Frente a esta situación, el presente artículo expone la reelaboración teórica de la dictadura del proletariado realizada —desde posiciones claramente divergentes— por Slavoj Žižek y Antonio (...) Negri. En el primer caso, Žižek recupera el término explícitamente para oponerlo a la concepción liberal de democracia, por considerarla incapaz de erigirse como alternativa al capitalismo. En el segundo, si bien se elude el empleo explícito del término, se desarrolla una concepción de la democracia y lo común que recupera y adapta el significado marxista originario de la dictadura del proletariado como transición a un común(ismo) sin Estado. (shrink)

Mysticism denotes phenomena related with Divine experience. In religion it is perceived as a state in which a person seems to have passed beyond the normal parameters of human life and neither behaves nor expresses him/herself in the manner generally considered correct and acceptable in cultural or religious terms. I will approach the central theme of this paper from an ecumenical and multi-faith point of view. It entails demonstrating through the lives of certain figures, by no means conventional ones, that (...) female mysticism in the three big monotheistic religions contains a good degree of rebelliousness and transgresses, more or less openly, traditional doctrine. But it also goes beyond the platitudes of mystic experience itself. (shrink)