Paul Silva has recently argued that doxastic justification does not have a basing requirement. An important part of his argument depends on the assumption that doxastic and moral permissibility have a parallel structure. I here reply to Silva's argument by challenging this assumption. I claim that moral permissibility is an agential notion, while doxastic permissibility is not. I then briefly explore the nature of these notions and briefly consider their implications for praise and blame.

Given plausible assumptions about the nature of evidence and undercutting defeat, many believe that the force of the evidential problem of evil depends on sceptical theism’s being false: if evil is...

Existe un consenso general en torno a la condena de los textos de Foucault sobre la revolución iraní, a los que se considera un error manifiesto, ya sea debido a que el entusiasmo por la revolución islámica lo habría alejado imprudentemente de sus verdaderos intereses teóricos, ya sea debido a que ellos revelan un trasfondo totalitario, ingenuo y hasta misógino de su filosofía, lo cual, por supuesto, ahorra a los comentadores un trabajo hermenéutico sobre la inserción de tales escritos en (...) una obra cuya apuesta general aún es objeto de disputa académica. En este trabajo proponemos una vía alternativa de comprensión que no toma estos textos como un error, sino como parte de un diagnóstico al que se busca echar luz a través de la dimensión del viaje, el periodismo radical y la heterotopología como elementos fundamentales de una apuesta filosófica por la alteridad. There is consensus in disapproving the journalistic articles written by Foucault about the Iranian revolution. They are considered clear mistakes. Some say that this is so because the enthusiasm of Foucault towards the Islamic revolution moved him away from his true theoretical interests; others say that what those texts reveal is a totalitarian, naive, and even misogynistic background of his philosophy. By doing this, commentators spear themselves a hermeneutical work on the incorporation of those texts into a work whose general bet remains the subject of academic discussion. In this paper, we propose an alternative approach to the issue; one in which the texts are not considered a mistake but rather they are seen as part of a diagnosis that can get some light from the ideas of travel, radical journalism and heterotopology. These considered as fundamental elements of a philosophical bet on alterity. (shrink)

Deontological evidentialism is the claim that we ought to form and maintain our beliefs in accordance with our evidence. In this paper, I criticize two arguments in its defense. I begin by discussing Berit Broogard’s use of the distinction between narrow-scope and wide-scope requirements against W.K. Clifford’s moral defense of. I then use this very distinction against a defense of inspired by Stephen Grimm’s more recent claims about the moral source of epistemic normativity. I use this distinction once again to (...) argue that Hilary Kornblith’s criticism of Richard Feldman’s defense of is incomplete. Finally, I argue that Feldman’s defense is insensitive to the relation between normative requirements and privileged values: values that have normative authority over us. (shrink)

The aim of the essay is to analyze the passages of the Cartesian oeuvre which could be related to the problem of other minds. After a brief presentation of the problem and what is known as the argument from analogy, we show that what we will call the automata passage is not an acknowledgement of the problem. Next, we raise a way of generating the problem, to show how it could be approached from Descartes’s works.

Deontological evidentialism is the claim that S ought to form or maintain S’s beliefs in accordance with S’s evidence. A promising argument for this view turns on the premise that consideration c is a normative reason for S to form or maintain a belief that p only if c is evidence that p is true. In this paper, I discuss the surprising relation between a recently influential argument for this key premise and the principle that ought implies can. I argue (...) that anyone who antecedently accepts or rejects this principle already has a reason to resist either this argument’s premises or its role in support of deontological evidentialism. (shrink)

Deontological internalism is the family of views where justification is a positive deontological appraisal of someone's epistemic agency: S is justified, that is, when S is blameless, praiseworthy, or responsible in believing that p. Brian Weatherson discusses very briefly how a plausible principle of ampliative transmission reveals a worry for versions of deontological internalism formulated in terms of epistemic blame. Weatherson denies, however, that similar principles reveal similar worries for other versions. I disagree. In this article, I argue that plausible (...) principles of ampliative transmission reveal a worry for deontological internalism in general. (shrink)

This paper defends a novel account of how to determine the intrinsic value of possible worlds. Section 1 argues that a highly intuitive and widely accepted account leads to undesirable consequences. Section 2 takes the first of two steps towards a novel account by clarifying and defending a view about value-contribution that is based on some of W. D. Ross’ claims about the value of pleasure. Section 3 takes the second step by clarifying and defending a view about value-suppression that (...) is based on Ross’ claims about the interplay between prima-facie duties. Section 4 states and defends the account that I call Rossian Totalism. According to this account, the atoms of intrinsic value within a world only sometimes contribute their intrinsic value to the value of that world. (shrink)

Las críticas contra Martin Heidegger por su supuesto suprahistoricismo o el desarraigo empírico de su ontología fundamental han sido abundantes y de diverso tipo. El presente artículo pretende confrontarlas con el estudio minucioso de la analítica del acontecer del Dasein, por cuanto el autor encuentra en ella justo la base teórica de una filosofía consciente de los límites infranqueables de la existencia histórica y de la forma como la realidad empírica articula significados, valores, pautas de comportamiento, narrativas… en definitiva, un (...) sentido. De esta forma encontramos en la analítica del acontecer del Dasein el suelo teórico sobre el que cabe pensar el proyecto de una ontología del presente. En favor de esta segunda tesis, se desarrollan algunas reflexiones sobre lo específico de nuestra realidad contemporánea buscando medir el alcance de las tesis heideggerianas. Lo que este artículo halla finalmente es la existencia de un componente crítico inherente a la filosofía heideggeriana, a partir del cual puede comprenderse sin misticismos la idea del Destino. (shrink)

The present paper intends to place “Lo que queda de Auschwitz” in the Homo Sacer’s proyect started by Giorgio Agamben in 1995. In order to do so, we must point out, in the first place, the need of understanding this proyect as a political ontology, then the relation between this proyect and the philosophy of language of his youth, along with its ethical claims, and, finally, we must identify some of his fundamental moves, as the formation of ontological categories created (...) from historical figures which are able to show the “arcanum imperii” of the political system to which they belong. As a result, the paper shows the metaphysical foundation of the analysis of the subject carried out in “Lo que queda de Auschwitz”, and the way it affects the author’s ideas on ethics, leading to a open way to critics and posible reformulations. (shrink)

Conceito oriundo do debate a respeito do movimento, o conatus, entendido como inclinação ou esforço, será um dos temas centrais da física seiscentista. Este artigo pretende explicitar o contexto de elaboração do conceito de conatus no século XVII, ou pelo menos na obra de três de seus principais filósofos: Descartes, Hobbes e Espinosa. Em Descartes, o conceito de conatus ainda se separa do conceito de movimento propriamente dito. Tal separação desaparece em Hobbes, para quem o conatus será apresentado como um (...) movimento ínfimo, com consequências não só para a Física, mas também para a Ética e a Política. Com Espinosa, por sua vez, o conceito ganhará contornos nitidamente ontológicos, tornando-se a chave para entender a essência das coisas singulares. (shrink)

The present article review some implications of the second order research in Social Sciences. Through the concepts of ambivalence, otherness and paradox, challenges that the new paradigm demands to the social researcher are discussed.

What I call the Doxastic Puzzle, is the impression that while each of these claims seems true, at least one of them must be false: (a) Claims of the form ‘S ought to have doxastic attitude D towards p at t’ are sometimes true at t, (b) If Φ-ing at t is not within S’s effective control at t, then it is false, at t, that ‘S ought to Φ at t’, (c) For all S, p, and t, having doxastic (...) attitude D towards p at t is not within S’s effective control at t. All three natural replies to the puzzle have been pursued. Some have claimed that doxastic attitudes like believing that p are, in fact, within our effective control, or sufficiently so. Others have claimed that doxastic ought-claims, strictly speaking, are always false. And some have denied that effective control is required for the adequacy of doxastic ought-claims in general. I here pursue and examine a different strategy. In the first part of this paper, I argue that these claims are not only each true but actually not in tension with each other in the first place. Instead of attempting to dispel the puzzle, this solution proposes to evade it instead: to solve it by properly understanding, and by thereby accepting without contradiction, all of its constitutive claims. In the second part of the paper, I argue that the evasive strategy forces us to re-think our understanding of the place of normative reasons in epistemology. More exactly, it seems to come at the cost of one central way of thinking about our reasons for having doxastic attitudes, one where such reasons are good-standing exemplars of normative reasons in general. The evasive strategy, that is, threatens to lead us very quickly to a deflationary picture of epistemic normativity: it rescues normative talk, but sacrifices normative substance. I conclude by explaining why I think this is more consequential than some have made it out to be, and by suggesting that these consequences are welcome nonetheless. (shrink)

Sustainable development is often framed as a social issue to which corporations should pay attention because it offers both opportunities and challenges. Through the use of institutional theory and the resource-based view of the firm, we shed some light on why, more than 20 years after sustainable development was first introduced, we see neither the adoption of this business model as dominant nor its converse, that is the total abandonment of the model as unworkable and unprofitable. We focus on multinational (...) corporations (MNCs) because they were among the organizations first called to take action. In order to illustrate the institutional pressures MNCs face and their strategic response to these pressures, we analysed four major oil and gas multinationals subject to similar sustainable development pressures – climate change, biodiversity, renewable energy development and social investment. We argue that normative and coercive isomorphism does not occur at the global level because sustainable development is largely a stakeholder-driven rather than a broad social pressure. That is, host country interpretation of sustainable development pressures varies across an MNC’s subsidiary network. Based on the analysis of the four major MNCs’ annual reports from 2000 to 2005, we argue that mimetic isomorphism may occur, but since it implies the use of complex and intangible resources, mimetic processes are slow, rare and discretionary. (shrink)

W.K. Clifford’s famous 1876 essay The Ethics of Belief contains one of the most memorable lines in the history of philosophy: "it is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence." The challenge to religious belief stemming from this moralized version of evidentialism is still widely discussed today.

The claim that ordinary ethical discourse is typically true and that ethical facts are typically knowable seems in tension with the claim that ordinary ethical discourse is about features of reality friendly to a scientific worldview. Cornell Realism attempts to dispel this tension by claiming that ordinary ethical discourse is, in fact, discourse about the same kinds of things that scientific discourse is about: natural properties. We offer two novel arguments in reply. First, we identify a key assumption that we (...) find unlikely to be true. Second, we identify two features of typical natural properties that ethical properties lack. We conclude that Cornell Realism falls short of dispelling the tension between ethical conservativism and ethical naturalism. (shrink)

It is generally accepted that, around the turn of the century, GIBBS and EINSTEIN independently developed two equivalent formulations of statistical mechanics. GIBBS version is taken as genuine and rigorous, while EINSTEINs, despite some features which are characteristic of him, is usually considered a not totally satisfactory attempt.It will be shown in the present work that such a picture is oversimplified and requires further nuancing. In fact, there are significant differences, with important implications which have not been sufficiently examined, between (...) the two formulations. Several issues relating to the impact of the two versions will also be addressed. (shrink)

O trabalho investiga o conceito de contemplação no livro II da Ética de Espinosa, levantando os usos do termo, bem como seu sentido preciso, nos contextos de cada um dos gêneros de conhecimento propostos pelo filósofo. A análise destes casos indica que Espinosa utiliza o termo para indicar o conhecimento de singulares, seja no terreno da inadequação ou da adequação. As aparições do termo nas proposições sobre o segundo gênero não comprometem a hipótese, pois não visam ao objeto propriamente dito (...) deste gênero de conhecimento, mas a uma etapa prévia deste. (shrink)

Em sua correspondência com Arnaud, Leibniz mostra como o recurso à vontade divina é fundamental para garantir o espaço da contingência no interior de uma metafísica que não permite a indeterminação. No entanto, ainda resta perguntar se a bondade divina, uma das perfeições incluídas na noção de Deus, não torna necessário aquilo que Leibniz chamara de contingente. Por isso faremos um exame da concepção leibniziana de vontade divina, sobretudo a distinção entre vontade antecedente e vontade consequente, visando determinar até que (...) ponto a bondade divina implica ou não um necessitarismo universal. (shrink)

Este artigo pretende expor a estrutura argumentativa do famoso fragmento pascaliano sobre a aposta, cujo intuito principal é mostrar a maior razoabilidade da vida do cristão em comparação com a do não cristão. Partindo da indemonstrabilidade da existência ou inexistência de Deus, o fragmento desenvolve uma argumentação racionalmente aceitável para justificar que se aposte no incerto, sobretudo quando o infinito está em jogo.

O problema da corporalidade em Leibniz se vincula necessariamente à discussão sobre o estatuto da matéria em uma Metafísica cuja base são as mônadas imateriais. Veremos que, neste contexto, o material deverá ser fenomênico, mas nem por isso ilusório. O objetivo deste trabalho é mostrar como o campo fenomênico, cujo caso exemplar é o corpo, pode ganhar um suporte metafísico e racionalmente justificado, constituindo o que Leibniz chama de fenômenos bem fundados. Para tal, deverá ser feito um exame cuidadoso da (...) natureza das Forças no pensamento leibniziano e de como elas apresentam o vínculo procurado entre Física e Metafísica. Leibniz on Phenomenon and CorporalityThe problem of corporality in Leibniz is necessarily attached to the discussion on the nature of matter in a Metaphysics whose basis are the immaterial monads. We will see that, in this context, although the material must be phenomenic, it is not necessarily ilusory. The aim of this paper is to show how the phenomenic domain, whose exemplar case is the body, may be metaphysically founded and rationally justifyed, constituting what Leibniz calls well founded phenomena. In order to do it, it is necessary to examine Leibniz's conception of the nature of the Forces and how they could present the link between Physics and Metaphysics. (shrink)

Resenha da tradução da Ética, de Baruch de Espinosa, da Editora Relógio d'Água.

In this introductory article to the special issue on Multi-level semiosis we attempt to stage the background for qualifying the notion of “multi-levelness” when considering communication processes and semiosis in all life forms, i.e. from the cellular to the organismic level. While structures are organized hierarchically, communication processes require a kind of processual organization that may be better described as being heterarchical. Theoretically, the challenge arises in the temporal domain, that is, in the developmental and evolutionary dimension of dynamic semiotic (...) processes. We discuss the importance of this fundamental difference in order to explain how levels, domains and orders of magnitude, on the one hand, and synchronic and diachronic processes, on the other, contribute to the overall organization of every living being. To account for such multi-level organization, semiotic freedom is assumed to be a scalar property that endows living systems at different levels and domains with the capacity to ponder selectively the overall structural coherence and functional compatibility of their heterarchical processing, which is increasingly less conditioned by the underlying molecular determinism. (shrink)