Logic arguably plays a role in the normativity of reasoning. In particular, there are plausible norms of belief/disbelief whose antecedents are constituted by claims about what follows from what. But is logic also relevant to the normativity of agnostic attitudes? The question here is whether logical entailment also puts constraints on what kinds of things one can suspend judgment about. In this paper I address that question and I give a positive answer to it. In particular, I advance two logical (...) norms of agnosticism, where the first one allows us to assess situations in which the subject is agnostic about the conclusion of a valid argument and the second one allows us to assess situations in which the subject is agnostic about one of the premises of a valid argument. (shrink)

In this paper I present reasons for us to accept the hypothesis that suspended judgment has correctness conditions, just like beliefs do. Roughly put, the idea is that suspended judgment about p is correct when both p and ¬p might be true in view of certain facts that characterize the subject’s situation. The reasons to accept that hypothesis are broadly theoretical ones: it adds unifying power to our epistemological theories, it delivers good and conservative consequences, and it allows us to (...) assess processes of reasoning involving attitudes of suspended judgment. (shrink)

How does rationality bind the agnostic, that is, the one who suspends judgment about whether a given proposition is true? In this paper I explore two alternative ways of establishing what the rational requirements of agnosticism are: the Lockean–Bayesian framework and the doxastic logic framework. Each of these proposals faces strong objections. Fortunately, however, there is a rich kernel of requirements of agnosticism that are vindicated by both of them. One can then endorse the requirements that belong to that kernel (...) without thereby committing oneself to the problematic implications that stem from either of the aforementioned proposals. (shrink)

This is a correction to: Luis Rosa, Coherence and Knowability, The Philosophical Quarterly, 2022, pqab076, https://doi.org/10.1093/pq/pqab076.

In this paper I deal with epistemological issues that stem from the hypothesis that reasoning is not only a means of transmitting knowledge from premise-beliefs to conclusion-beliefs, but also a primary source of knowledge in its own right. The idea is that one can gain new knowledge on the basis of suppositional reasoning. After making some preliminary distinctions, I argue that there are no good reasons to think that purported examples of knowledge grounded on pure reasoning are just examples of (...) premise-based inferences in disguise. Next, I establish what kinds of true propositions can to a first approximation be known on the basis of pure reasoning. Finally, I argue that beliefs that are competently formed on the basis of suppositional reasoning satisfy both externalist and internalist criteria of justification. (shrink)

In this paper, I offer two counterexamples to the so-called ‘Uniqueness Thesis.’ As one of these examples rely on the thesis that it is possible for a justified belief to be based on an inconsistent body of evidence, I also offer reasons for this further thesis. On the assumption that doxastic justification entails propositional justification, the counterexamples seem to work.

In this paper I explore alternative ways of addressing the infinite regress problem of inference, as it was depicted in Lewis Carroll’s ‘What the Tortoise said to Achilles’. Roughly put, the problem is that if a claim to the effect that one’s premises give support to one’s conclusion must itself be part of one’s premises, then an infinite regress of reasons ensues. I discuss some recent attempts to solve that problem, but I find all of them to be wanting. Those (...) attempts either require the reasoner to believe that her premises give support to her conclusion, or to take her premises to give support to her conclusion, where taking is not a doxastic attitude. I conclude that, on the face of the failure of those attempts to solve the problem, there is a strong prima facie case for allowing inference to be blind. (shrink)

Why should we avoid incoherence? An influential view tells us that incoherent combinations of attitudes are such that it is impossible for all of those attitudes to be simultaneously vindicated by the evidence. But it is not clear whether this view successfully explains what is wrong with certain akratic doxastic states. In this paper I flesh out an alternative response to that question, one according to which the problem with incoherent combinations of attitudes is that it is impossible for all (...) of those attitudes to be simultaneously knowledgeable. This alternative response explains what is wrong with akratic combinations of attitudes using commonly accepted epistemological theses. The paper still shows how this proposal is able to explain the badness of incoherent combinations involving the absence of attitudes, suspended judgment and credence. These explanations deploy the notions of knowledge and being in a position to know, instead of the notion of responding properly to the evidence. Finally, I suggest that this picture can be generalized to the realm of practical rationality as well. (shrink)

Epistemologists often describe subjects as being capable of adopting a third kind of categorical doxastic stance regarding whether something is the case, besides belief and disbelief. They deploy a variety of idioms in order to ascribe that stance. In this paper, I flesh out the properties that the third kind of categorical stance is supposed to have and start searching for the best ways to ascribe it. The idioms ‘suspends judgment about whether’ and ‘is agnostic about whether’, among others, are (...) found to be unfit to play the desired role. In the end, I suggest that ‘is in doubt as to whether’ is our best choice among the alternatives surveyed here. (shrink)

In this paper, I deal with a version of the epistemic regress problem. After rejecting foundationalism as a solution to it, I consider two versions of infinitism. The first one is found to be unacceptable, for it fails both to cohere with certain attributions of justification and also to maintain its internal coherence. The second one avoids both problems, and it is found to be the best way of addressing the epistemic regress problem. As the successful version of infinitism makes (...) use of the notion of a rational disposition to form and deploy reasons, I also manage to explicate that notion. (shrink)

There are many ways in which a speaker can confuse their audience. In this paper, I will focus on one such way, namely, a way of talking that seems to manifest a cross-level kind of cognitive dissonance on the part of the speaker. The goal of the paper is to explain why such ways of talking sound so twisted. The explanation is two-pronged, since their twisted nature may come either from the very mental states that the speaker thereby makes manifest, (...) or from how the speaker chooses to express themselves (even if there is nothing wrong with their mental states). So-called ‘Moore-paradoxical’ utterances are but one example of the phenomenon, and the explanation of what is wrong about them is subsumed under a more general explanation here—one that captures also the twisted-ness of utterances whereby questions are raised or intentions expressed. (shrink)

This book concerns the nature and the norms of inquiry. It tackles not only philosophical issues regarding what inquiry is, but also issues regarding how it should and should not be executed. Roughly put, inquiry is the activity of searching for the true answers to questions of our interest. But what is the difference between empirical and armchair inquiry? And what are the right and the wrong ways to inquire? Under what conditions should one start inquiring? Which questions are such (...) that one should not inquire into them? The book offers answers to these questions. It argues that competent armchair inquiry only makes explicit what was already implicit--the inquirer already had the answer to her question before inquiring into it, though this was not explicit to her. It also argues that we should avoid inquiring into questions whose answers are unknowable to us, in the instrumental sense of 'should', and that different modes of inquiry are called for, depending on which type of information is available to the subject. These answers are rigorously argued for, and they stem from a unified framework for modeling the activity of inquiry. (shrink)

This thought-provoking book explores the multifaceted phenomenon of objectivity and its relations to various aspects of the law and practical reasoning. Featuring contributions from an international group of researchers from differing legal contexts, it addresses topics relevant not only from a theoretical point of view but also themes directly connected with legal and judicial practice. Beginning with an introduction from the editors proposing a new account of the meaning of objectivity, the book is then divided into three broad themes illuminated (...) by this account. Chapters first address a range of problems linked to the relationship between objectivity and jurisprudence, before turning in the second part to an analysis of the functions of objectivity in legal interpretation. The final part then deals with the function of objectivity in practical reasoning. Offering a spectrum of scholarly insights within a coherent intellectual framework, this book will be a crucial read for scholars and graduate students of legal philosophy and legal theory. Its discussion of objectivity as it relates to legal practice and practical reasoning will also be of interest to practitioners such as judges, arbitrators and lawyers. (shrink)

I reinforce my defense of permissivism about the rationality of doxastic attitudes on the face of a certain body of evidence against criticism published in this journal by Anantharaman. After making some conceptual clarifications, I manage to show that at least one of my original arguments pro-permissivism is left unscathed by Anantharaman's points.

A proposição expressa por “Deus existe”, se é verdadeira ou falsa, ela é ou necessariamente verdadeira/falsa ou não necessariamente verdadeira/falsa. Em outras palavras, se G é capaz de ter um valor de verdade v, então ela é ou necessariamente v ou contingentemente v. por “Deus” eu quero significar um ser sobrenatural, com uma mente poderosa e imaterial que supostamente criou o universo. Certamente existem outros significados que estão vinculados a esse termo em certos contextos, mas os argumentos que eu irei (...) avaliar aqui só fazem sentido sob essa interpretação. (shrink)

In the first part of this paper, we argue that the claim that a subject S believes that ϕ on the basis of good reasons cannot be the only type of explanation why S rationally believes that ϕ. Explaining attributions of rationality only by means of the notion of a belief being based on good reasons generates one version of the problem of regress of reasons. In the second part we flesh out a hypothesis according to which some beliefs are (...) rationally held by a subject S in virtue of the fact that S knows how to produce good reasons for holding them. In the third part we offer reasons for accepting the relevant hypothesis, and we argue that it is more successful than foundationalist, coherentist and infinitist theories in explaining the truth of some attributions of epistemic rationality. In the last part we address the problem of the regress of reasons and sketch a solution for it based on our hypothesis. (shrink)

In this paper, I flesh out an account of the inferential basing relation using a theory about how humans reason: the mental models theory. I critically assess some of the notions that are used by that theory to account for inferential phenomena. To the extent that the mental models theory is well confirmed, that account of basing would be motivated on empirical grounds. This work illustrates how epistemologists could offer explications of the basing relation which are more detailed and less (...) empirically risky. (shrink)

The paper is concerned with the rational requirements for suspended judgment, or what suspending judgment about a question rationally commits one to. It shows that two purported rational requirements for suspended judgment cannot both be true at the same time, at least when the entailment relation between questions is understood a certain way. The first one says that one is rationally required to suspend judgment about those questions that are entailed by the questions that one already suspends judgment about. The (...) second one says that one is rationally required to believe the presuppositions of the questions one suspends judgment about. Two plausible solutions to the problem are discussed. One of them explicates the relation of entailment between questions in an alternative manner, and the other one rejects the presupposition requirement. Either way, a closure requirement for suspended judgment can be maintained which is analogous to the closure requirement for belief. Whereas belief is ideally closed under entailment between propositions, suspended judgment is ideally closed under entailment between questions. (shrink)

Este artigo abre espaço para discutir a relação entre teologia e ontologia, a partir da ética da alteridade de Emmanuel Lévinas. Trata-se de analisar e compreender o movimento de êxodo ou de evasão ética em relação à força ontológica, ao peso do ser, que impacta também à teologia. O sujeito, exposto à aventura do ser, é alguém cativo de si mesmo. Por outro lado, cabe refletir sobre algumas possíveis repercussões teológicas que emergem da epifania do rosto do/a Outro/a. Pois, embora (...) Lévinas trilhe mais pelo caminho da filosofia, sua obra se deixa conduzir pela sabedoria bíblico-talmúdica. De modo que há, na ética levinasiana, um ressoar do teológico, uma espécie de ferida que lateja e testemunha um vestígio, um eco do Infinito no rosto da viúva, do órfão e do estrangeiro. A entrada de um/a Outro/a anuncia o tempo da esperança quando aparentemente já não há mais esperança. Então, o milagre que salva o mundo, anúncio de uma boa-nova que comunica o Verbo que se fez carne. Essa é também possibilidade do bem, da exposição – hospitalidade – do eis-me aqui e, então, envia-me. (shrink)

Epistemologists take themselves to disagree about whether there are situations where it is rational for one to believe that p and rational for one to believe that one’s evidence does not support p (rational akrasia). The embedded sentence ‘one’s evidence does not support p’ can be interpreted in two ways, however, depending on what the semantic contribution of ‘one’s evidence’ is taken to be. ‘One’s evidence’ might be seen as a sheer indexical or as a descriptive singular term. The first (...) interpretation makes the relevant kind of rational akrasia impossible, whereas the second one makes it possible. But the proposition that is taken to be expressed by ‘one’s evidence does not support p’ by each of these interpretations is not the same. We thus have a rational reconstruction of views that are labeled as being for and against the possibility of rational akrasia according to which they do not really contradict each other. (shrink)

Neste artigo trato da questão sobre o que torna uma dedução confiável. Uma resposta satisfatória a tal questão nos ajudaria a entender como dedução pode expandir ou gerar conhecimento. Eu exploro duas respostas a tal questão. A primeira faz uso da noção de acarretamento lógico-formal, enquanto que a segunda faz uso da noção de acarretamento metafísico. A última é superior à primeira, pois nos permite explicar a confiabilidade de uma classe mais ampla de deduções.

Esta obra se concentra en cuatro temas cruciales de la formación de docentes, tanto antes como durante el servicio y en la enseñanza en diferentes áreas y niveles educativos. En primer lugar, se aborda el asunto de las creencias que los docentes tienen sobre el proceso educativo, las cuales parecen influir en la práctica profesional que estos desarrollan y, por lo tanto, deberían recibir la atención explícita de los procesos de formación de docentes que deseen promover prácticas específicas. El segundo (...) tema de la obra es la relación entre la formación de docentes y la política pública que la rige. En particular, se analizan las reformas curriculares implementadas por varias licenciaturas en universidades privadas colombianas, en respuesta a reformas a la normatividad sobre las condiciones de calidad que a las que deben ajustarse todas las licenciaturas del país. El tercer tema analizado es en qué medida los docentes en educación superior van más allá del dominio de su saber disciplinar atribuyendo importancia a la pedagogía, la didáctica y la práctica reflexiva en su propia práctica docente. Finalmente, se discuten aspectos de la formación de docentes relacionados con los procesos vividos y los retos encontrados por los docentes al entrar en la profesión, su socialización en la comunidad docente, sus identidades como maestros y su motivación para ser docentes. Vale la pena señalar que las contribuciones a este libro comparten el uso de metodologías cualitativas y presentan los resultados de historias de vida, entrevistas, observaciones, y análisis documentales, entre otros. (shrink)

Let T be any logical truth. Does the subject know that T (any random subject)? It is not rational for any subject to believe that they don’t, whoever they are. Similarly, it is not rational for them to believe that their evidence doesn’t support T, and it is not even rational for them to believe that they don’t believe that T. It is not rational for anyone anywhere at any time to believe that they don’t know that T. Such are (...) the conclusions arrived at in this paper. (shrink)

In this paper, we offer an alternative interpretation for the claim that ‘S is justified in believing that φ’. First, we present what seems to be a common way of interpreting this claim: as an attribution of propositional justification. According to this interpretation, being justified is just a matter of having confirming evidence. We present a type of case that does not fit well with the standard concept, where considerations about cognition are made relevant. The concept of cognitive algorithm is (...) presented and explained. Finally, the new reading of ‘S is justified in believing that φ’ is fleshed out. According to this interpretation, being justified in believing that φ is not just a matter of having evidence in favor of φ, but also of having a cognitive algorithm available such that it allows one to form belief in φ on the basis of the relevant evidence. (shrink)

Se realizó una revisión sistemática de la literatura localizada en Scopus sobre la competencia digital (CD) del profesorado universitario; con ayuda de la metodología PRISMA y operadores se delimitó la investigación a través de tesauros de Eric. Los autores/entidades españolas resaltan en la temática, existen esfuerzos orientados al diseño, validación y aplicación de rúbricas a nivel mundial. Los abordajes predominantemente son cuantitativos. La investigación fortalece el entendimiento sobre la CD, existe un efecto positivo otorgado por las CD docentes en la (...) formación de estudiantes, se requiere desarrollar planes de formación y emprender esfuerzos similares en otras bases de datos científicas. (shrink)

The Proceedings of the Brazilian Research Group on Epistemology is an annual publication of research in contemporary analytic epistemology (both traditional, social and formal approaches), organized and edited by members of the Brazilian academia. It aims mainly at publishing the work of Latin-American epistemologists to the international community, in an attempt to create a new channel of debate with researchers from other parts of the globe.

This paper challenges Sosa’s account of the epistemic propriety of suspension of judgment. We take the reader on a test drive through some common problem cases in epistemology, to see how the account of suspension deals with them. Section 1 outlines Sosa’s account of accurate and apt suspension. Sections 2 and 3 focus on the skeptical scenario to argue that Sosa makes it too easy for suspension to be accurate and apt. Section 4 applies Sosa’s account of accurate and apt (...) suspension to BonJour’s case of Norman the clairvoyant. The upshot is that Sosa makes accurate and apt suspension not only too easy but also too hard. (shrink)

Positive Youth Development (PYD) is an approach that promotes resilience and focuses on youth strengths rather than their weaknesses as done by the traditional deficit-based perspective. Research in Europe and North America show that developmental assets are associated with school success, psychological well-being, and lower health risks among youth and young adults. However, not much research has been done on these associations in Latin American contexts. The purpose of this research study is to assess the association between substance use behaviors, (...) such as drunkenness and the use of illicit drugs, and mental health, together with the mediating role of developmental assets representing youth strengths (e.g., social competence) and contextual resources (e.g., social support at home or school). Cross-national data was collected from Colombian (n= 210; 70.4% females) and Peruvian(n= 349; 66.5% females) 1st year university students. Results shed light on the protective role of developmental assets regarding substance use behaviors and mental well-being. Specifically, the results showed direct negative associations between developmental assets and substance use behaviors and positive associations of developmental assets with mental health indicators. Internal assets appear to be a stronger predictor of social, emotional, and psychological well-being compared to external assets. We did not find any statistical significance in the association of substance use behavior and mental health. We discuss implications regarding research, policy, and practice. (shrink)

To practice environmental awareness is to leave a legacy for a better world and this will be achieved with the support of students and society, for this reason the main objective of this research is to describe and analyze the perspectives of environmental awareness in university students, for which the methodology of quantitative approach is used, correlational between its elements and predictive, in which 1324 university students who responded to a survey of 17 questions divided into four dimensions participated.

Transdisciplinary research knits together knowledge from diverse epistemic communities in addressing social-environmental challenges, such as biodiversity loss, climate crises, food insecurity, and public health. This paper reflects on the roles of philosophy of science in transdisciplinary research while focusing on Indigenous and other subaltern forms of knowledge. We offer a critical assessment of demarcationist approaches in philosophy of science and outline a constructive alternative of transdisciplinary philosophy of science. While a demarcationist focus obscures the complex relations between epistemic communities, transdisciplinary (...) philosophy of science provides resources for meeting epistemic and political challenges of collaborative knowledge production. (shrink)

La Universidad Nacional San Luis Gonzaga, Ica-Perú, debido al Covid 19 se adecuó a la virtualidad implementando el aula virtual Laureasea. Esta investigación se realizó durante el semestre académico 2021-1. Objetivo: analizar de qué manera la educación virtual mejora el desempeño docente. Participaron 430 docentes de las 24 facultades respondiendo una encuesta virtual. Resultados significativos: 80% dictó una clase virtual por primera vez, 60% tenía acceso a una aula virtual, 68% ha mejorado su desempeño y 75% prefiere las clases (...) presenciales. Conclusiones: La educación virtual mejora significativamente el desempeño docente y prefieren el dictado de clases presenciales. (shrink)

For the sake of universalism and against totalitarianism, discursive ethics has shown with Jürgen Habermas a practical deficit by denying moral philosophy the possibility of reflecting on the alienating conditions for dialogue through a specific ethos. This article examines how Hartmut Rosa's theory of resonance can revitalise the debate on the conditions that can undermine the motivation for dialogue in accelerated societies, based not on the concept of ethos, but on the concept of Modus der Weltbeziehung [Mode of world-relationship]. (...) En aras del universalismo y en contra del totalitarismo, la ética discursiva ha mostrado con Jürgen Habermas un déficit práctico al negar a la filosofía moral la posibilidad de reflexionar sobre las condiciones alienantes del diálogo desde un ethos concreto. El presente artículo analiza el modo en que la teoría de la resonancia formulada por Hartmut Rosa permite revitalizar el debate sobre las condiciones que pueden minar la motivación al diálogo en las sociedades aceleradas sin apoyarse en el concepto de ethos, sino en el de Modus der Weltbeziehung [modo de relacionarse con el mundo]. (shrink)