We distinguish two sub-types of each of the two causality principles formulated in connection with the Common Cause Principle in Henson and raise and investigate the problem of logical relations among the resulting four causality principles. Based in part on the analysis of the status of these four principles in algebraic quantum field theory we will argue that the four causal principles are non- equivalent.

Brian Cutter objected to the consequence argument due to its dependence on the principle that miracle workers are metaphysically impossible. A miracle worker is someone who has the ability to act in a way such that the laws of nature would be violated. While there is something to the thought that agents like us do not have this ability, Cutter claims that there is no compelling reason to regard miracle workers as metaphysically impossible. However, the paper contends that miracle workers (...) are indeed impossible according to well-known theories concerning the laws of nature. This result highlights the reliance of the consequence argument on a plausible premise, which is widely accepted by proponents of non-Humean views of laws. The paper also provides a way to explain away the intuition that miracle workers are possible, but this has the upshot that a recent, two-dimensional formulation of the consequence argument is unsound. (shrink)

One important objection to the Condition Of ReasonNable Epistemic Access (CORNEA) is that it is incompatible with inductive evidence. This objection, however, relies on a counterfactual interpretation of CORNEA, and Wykstra and Perrine have shown that CORNEA need not be interpreted in that way, but rather in terms of conditional probability. Here, we show that there is an important gap in this recent response to the counterfactual-based criticism of CORNEA. We argue that the main response to this criticism ultimately depends (...) on a specific semantics for counterfactual conditionals. More specifically, it ultimately depends on the denial of the conditional excluded middle principle. We then investigate and suggest a hitherto unknown defense of CORNEA’s counterfactual interpretation. (shrink)

El objetivo de este trabajo es ofrecer una explicación sistemática de por qué la teoría política animal desarrollada en el marco del rawlsianismo metodológico tiene dificultades para ajustarse a los estándares de la justificación pública. Argumento, más específicamente, que el problema radica en que nuestra cultura política dificulta que los ciudadanos puedan adoptar una perspectiva coherente para reflexionar sobre los términos a través de los cuales deben conducirse las relaciones entre especies. Para salir de esta situación, sostengo, hay que introducir (...) un giro metodológico, dándole mayor peso a la teoría social, lo que supone un paso del liberalismo a la teoría crítica. (shrink)

Special issue: "Henri Bergson. Creative Evolution and Philosophy of Life." -/- I read the genealogy of the concept of energy through Bergson's Creative Evolution to argue that, historically, energy and its proto-concepts are grounded in spatialized notions of time. Bergson's work not only demands that we rethink energy and its relation to time, it also allows us to see that the concept of energy as we know it depicts time and materiality as a numerical multiplicity, which effaces the differences in (...) kind which are characteristic of energy transformations and real duration. To make this case, I first provide an analysis of Bergson’s concept of the cinematographical mechanism of thought, which splits duration into a composition of distinct states strung together by the idea of an impersonal becoming. Bergson claimed that this is the epistemological model for both ancient philosophy and modern science, meaning that it is also the epistemological ground within which energy concepts in western philosophy and science have been theorized. I then show how Bergson offers a way to overcome this model of theorizing through his method of intuition, and how these conclusions might be extended to future energy concepts. Thus, I argue that 1) Bergson’s work on duration allow us to interpret the genealogy of energy as the history of attempts to provide an account of change in terms of spatialized notions of time; 2) that his work offers a way of incorporating historicity into our understanding of energy; and 3) that thinking energy in the context of duration offers the possibility of conceptualizing energy as change. (shrink)

O seguinte ensaio escrito em texto corrido é uma breve apresentação da Filosofia do Amor no Cristianismo e na Antiguidade Clássica. Partimos do pressuposto que a palavra ‘filosofia’ tem uma dívida não apenas etimológica, mas conceitual com as definições de Amor, de forma que se faz pertinente uma investigação mais detida sobre o assunto. Começamos então com a interpretação cristã de C.S. Lewis sobre a Afeição, Amizade, Eros e Caridade para em seguida introduzir a visão pagã greco-romana. Concluímos com a (...) indagação sobre o amor ser outra coisa que uma definição estanque ou indeterminação abstrata. (shrink)

Se discute el proyecto de la "naturalización de la filosofía de la ciencia", a través de las teorías de Ronald Giere y Philip Kitcher. Ambas tienen en común la atención preferente que prestan a los procesos de decisión de los científicos individuales y la defensa de una concepción realista y racionalista de la ciencia. La comparación se lleva a cabo desde una triple perspectiva: su consideración como teorías darwinianas del desarrollo científico, su referencia a los modelos de la psicología cognitiva, (...) y su posible coherencia con la "tesis de la simetría" defendida por los sociólogos de la escuela de Edimburgo. (shrink)

Lorenzo Sacconi and his coauthors have put forward the hypothesis that impartial agreements on distributive rules may generate a conditional preference for conformity. The observable effect of this preference would be compliance with fair distributive rules chosen behind a veil of ignorance, even in the absence of external coercion. This paper uses a Dictator Game with production and taking option to compare two ways in which the device of the veil of ignorance may be thought to generate a motivation for, (...) and compliance with a fair distributive rule: individually-as a thought experiment that should work as a moral cue- and collectively-as an actual process of agreement among subjects. The main result is that actual agreement proves to be necessary for agents to be led towards a fair distributive principle and to generate a significant amount of compliance in absence of external authority. This conclusion vindicates the role of actual agreements in generating motivational power in correspondence with fair distributive rules. (shrink)

O presente artigo pretende resumir e interrogar o conceito de “pessoa” na filosofia de Paul Ricœur (1913-2005) a partir do texto _Note sur la personne _(_Nota sobre a pessoa_). Esse texto foi publicado em 1936 na revista teológica _Le Semeur _(_O Semeador_), um pequeno ensaio no qual Ricœur visa apontar o valor conceitual que a noção de pessoa possui, além de apresentar as características constituintes dessa noção.

This article, The ontological argument in Plato: the problem of immortality, discusses the interpretation of Socrates’ last demonstration of the immortality of the soul in the Phaedo as an ”ontological argument” and tries to refute this interpretation through an examination of the concept of immortality in Plato and its implications on the central relation soul/life. At the same time, it argues that the ontological argument should be seen as the very back-bone of Plato’s ontology, a point of view which will (...) be developed in a forthcoming paper. (shrink)

I analyze an argument by Aquinas on God’s will mutability (Summa Theologica), which presupposes the collective predication on the term ‘man’. This explains why God repents of having made the collection of men, but not some men. The argument is valid, but its second premise and its conclusion are false.

O presente ensaio resulta de uma indagação introdutória e parcimoniosa acerca da transformação da mundividência científica e epistemológica no século XX. Em primeira instância, são analisados os conceitos fundacionais da Relatividade Restrita e da Relatividade Geral, visando elencar as principais dissonâncias entre a proposta científica de Albert Einstein e a cosmovisão estabelecida pela física clássica. De seguida, é invocada a célebre experiência de Edwin Hubble, responsável pela origem da Teoria do Big-Bang. Como não poderia deixar de ser, esta é também (...) alvo de uma examinação cuidadosa. Por fim, a reflexão estende-se ao domínio indeterminista da mecânica quântica, com o propósito de perscrutar os seus princípios fundamentais. Por forma a assegurar o cumprimento deste desígnio, o trabalho não se furta à exigência de aflorar certos traços elementares das doutrinas de Niels Bohr e Werner Heisenberg. Em suma, o breve estudo que aqui se presentifica procura, sobretudo, trazer à coação os elementos teóricos que ancoram o entendimento da física e da cosmologia nos nossos dias, problematizando, quando necessário, algumas das suas inferências. (shrink)

In this paper, I start with the opposition between the husserlian project of a phenomenology of the experience of time, started in 1905, and the mathematical and physical theory of time, as it comes out from the special theory of relativity, by Einstein, in the same year. Although the contrast between the two approaches is apparent, my aim is to show that the original program of Husserl’s time theory is the constitution of an objective time and a time of the (...) world, starting from the intuitive giveness of time, i.e., from time as it appears. To show this, I stress the structural similarity between the original question of time, by Husserl, and the problem of a phenomenology of the space constitution, as it was first developed in the husserlian manuscripts of the XIX century, in which we find the threefold question of the origin of our space representation, of the geometrization of intuitive space and the constitution of transcendent world space. Finally, I reconsider some of Husserl’s main theses about the phenomenological constitution of objective time in the light of the main results of special relativity time-theory, introducing several corrections to central assumptions that underlie Husserl’s theory of time. (shrink)

Este artigo propõe aproximações entre Hume e Mandeville a partir do modo como cada um deles entende a divisão do trabalho como um fenômeno moderno característico das sociedades comerciais europeias. O ponto de partida, comum a ambos, é a ideia de que o homem, ou a natureza humana, é um animal movido por paixões muito semelhantes, senão idênticas, às de outros animais, notadamente os mamíferos. A antropologia subjacente à divisão do trabalho tem, portanto, uma raiz fisiológica. O mesmo paradoxo interessa (...) a esses autores: o processo de divisão do trabalho, que possibilita a produção de tantos artefatos excelentes, é o trabalho de artesãos não qualificados. Há, portanto, uma disparidade entre o produto e o princípio que o engendra. Como pretendemos mostrar, este é o leitmotiv de uma crítica, dirigida por Hume, às provas teleológicas da existência de Deus. (shrink)

Análisis y revisión historiográfica actualizada de los distintos periodos constructivos de la Giralda: islámico, medieval, renacentista, barroco y de los siglos XIX y XX. En todos ellos se insiste en las personalidades y mentalidades que influyeron en su fisonomía. Se concluye con una revisión de las diferentes artes plásticas: Arquitectura, Escultura, Pintura, Mobiliario, Orfebrería. Bordados, Estampación, Arte Popular, y recreaciones e interpretaciones de la torre en las que se ejemplifican los distintos tipos y usos del monumento sevillano.

L’article en question a comme objetif examiner l’analyse que fait Jean Scot Erigène du champ de validité des catégories, analyse qui s'accompagne d'une réflexion intense sur la portée du discours apophantique. Pour ce faire, nous allons nous arrêter sur les arguments les plus importants du premier livre du Periphyseon de Jean Scot Erigène, dont le but central est de démontrer la pertinence de la négation et le caractère périphérique de l'affirmation, concernant non seulement Dieu, mais aussi l'ousia et la matière. (...) La thèse d’Erigène est que ne peut être connu que ce qui se manifeste à l'âme par les schèmes catégoriaux, dans le temps et dans l'espace, bref,seulement ce qui est fini et donc définissable. (shrink)

This book addresses the issue of natural simultaneity of relatives, discussed by Aristotle in Categories 7, 7b15-8a12. Natural simultaneity is a form of symmetrical ontological dependence that holds between items that are not causally linked. In this section of the Categories, Aristotle introduces this topic in his analysis of relatives and maintains that, although relatives seem to be for the most part simultaneous by nature, there seem to be some exceptions. He mentions two pairs of relatives as exceptions, namely the (...) pairs knowledge/knowable and perception/perceptible, and argues at length for the priority of the second relative over the first one in each case. Through a close reading of this text, the author analyses Aristotle's arguments for the thesis of the exceptional character of these pairs and shows that all of them are unsuccessful in supporting the thesis. In order to draw this conclusion, the author highlights and carefully considers the properties that Aristotle is committed to attributing to relatives, taking into account the metaphysical framework of the Categories as well as their specificities within the set of non-substantial categories. Then, he shows that Aristotle's mature views on relatives in the Metaphysics can be construed as committing him to the rejection of such a thesis. Although the issue of natural simultaneity is just one of several that Aristotle considers in his discussion of relatives throughout Categories 7, it is a particularly relevant issue, since it involves a number of puzzles whose analysis allows for a better understanding of the very notion of relativity in Aristotle. This is the first book to explore this issue from the perspective of illuminating the Aristotelian views on relatives. Aristotle on Natural Simultaneity of Relatives in the Categories will appeal to scholars and graduate students working on Aristotle, ancient philosophy in general, and metaphysics. (shrink)

In this article, we aim to offer a new overall interpretation of Heraclitus’ philosophy, through an analysis of his own implicit conception of ‘philosophy’, as it is insinuated in the few but important fragments where the word philia occurs. In these fragments, a clear distinction between reality and appearance is drawn for the first time in the history of philosophy; and, accordingly, philosophy itself is hinted at as a direct ‘attachment’ to reality, beyond the appearances that conceal it. Using this (...) result as a hermeneutic principle, a thorough survey of the most significant fragments is then proposed. The outcome of such a survey is, hopefully, the presentation of Heraclitus’ main doctrines as a coherent whole. (shrink)

Any analysis of the Hippocratic anthropology must begin by taking a stand on two quite different issues. On the one hand, it must ascertain a precise and definite meaning of the word ‘Hippocratic’ in such a context, considering the historical problems surrounding the 'real' Hippocrates and the doctrinal heterogeneity of the Hippocratic collection. On the other hand, it must justify the very possibility of an anthropology within the Hippocratic tradition, by accommodating it with the obvious animadversion that its most representative (...) works show towards any philosophical or speculative inquiry. The first problem can be solved by purely historical means, viz. by restricting the object of analysis to the texts that admittedly represent the views of the Hippocratic school. Not so with the second one, which constitutes the truesignificant problem from a philosophical point of view and with which the present article is therefore concerned. After discussing the texts where the question on the nature of man is posed, a general survey of the Hippocratic conception of the theoretical and scientific foundations of clinical practice is given, in order to understand the Statement according to which it is to medicine, and not to philosophy, that an answer to such a question truly belongs. From such a survey a thesis arises: that, according to the Hippocratic perspective, the appropriate answer to the question on the nature of man is not the one that seeks to determine what man is, even by means of the empirical methods of medicine, but the one that reshapes the question itself, thereby replacing the philosophical focus on the knowing of man, for the sake of knowledge, by the clinical focus on the caring of man, for the sake of man himself. (shrink)

Predication is a complex entity in Aristotelian thought. The aim of the present essay is to account for this complexity, making explicit the diverse forms it assumes. To this end, we tum to a crucial chapter of the Posterior Analytics, where, in the most complete and developed manner within the corpus, Aristotle proceeds to systematize this topic. From the analysis, it will become apparent that predication can assume, generically, five forms: 1) the predication of essence, that is of the genus (...) and the specific difference; 2) essential predication, that is either of the genus or of the differences ; 3) the predication of accidents per se 4) and of simple accidents ; and 5) accidental predication. However, only types 2-4 are forms of strict predication. In effect, the “predication” of essence is not a genuine predication, but a formula for identity, constituting, technically, the statement of the essence of the subject. On the other hand, accidental “predication” can only be conceived of as such equivocally, since it results from a linguistic accident through which the ontological subject of the attribution suffers a displacement to the syntactic position of the predicate, which is not, by nature, its own. In neither case does the phrase bring about any legitimate predication. The study concludes with a discussion of Aristotle’s thesis according to which no substance can be a predicate, which is implied by its notion of accidental predication, a thesis which has been - and in our opinion wrongly so - challenged in modem times. (shrink)

Nesta obra, Patrick J. Geary, professor emérito de História na Universidade da Califórnia, que dedicou a sua vida académica ao estudo da História Medieval, apresenta-nos as suas “reflexões sobre a relação entre os mitos dos povos europeus e as realidades do nacionalismo contemporâneo” (p. 7). A narrativa que Patrick J. Geary nos oferece tem um objectivo claro e assumido: desmontar os mitos nacionalistas e contribuir para a prevenção do seu reaparecimento e/ou fortalecimento. Esta obra acaba p...

Presentación del dosier “En torno a la obra de Mario Presas en sus 90 años”.

This comprehensive review explores the evolving epistemological foundations of Human Reliability Analysis (HRA), tracing its transition from a practical, applied field to a scientific discipline. The paper critically examines the philosophical assumptions that underlie prominent HRA models, emphasizing their impact on both scientific validity and practical application. Organized into five sections, the paper begins by articulating its primary aim in Section 1: to uncover and scrutinize the philosophical assumptions within HRA models. Sections 2.2 and 2.3 delve into reductionist and holistic (...) paradigms. Section 2.4 focuses on the shift toward holistic theories, emphasizing the integration of human, technical, and organizational elements in modern socio-technical systems. Section 3 concludes by examining systemic approaches, capturing the paradigm shift from reductionism to a broader, interdependent view of accidents and reliability. Section 4 sheds light on the contemporary HRA models, emphasizing the prevalence of systemism in recent research. Notable models, such as SoTeRiA and FRAM, undergo scrutiny for their systemic approach, revealing interrelationships crucial for understanding accidents in complex operations. In Section 5, the paper explores the practical implications of the epistemological insights gained, emphasizing their potential impact on the development and enhancement of HRA models. The conclusion advocates for a paradigm shift in HRA that involves rethinking the epistemological bases of models. It underscores the need for ongoing philosophical scrutiny to drive the discipline's progress, ultimately enhancing our understanding, prediction, and improvement of human performance and system safety. (shrink)

In the first part of this paper we try to show how the discussion of Meinong’s distinction between distributed and undistributed objects was crucial for Husserl’s thinking about the phenomenology of time consciousness. The criticism of Meinong’s thesis that the representation of a distributed object (temporal object) is an undistributed act is presented as the central point for the development of Husserl’s own thesis about the perception as a continuum of continua and about consciousness as an unitary flux of temporal (...) phases. In a second part, we move to Brentano’s theory about original associations in the constitution of the “presence-time”. Brentano’s position about the function of phantasy as the origin of our representation of time is refused by Husserl and, as a result, the structural composition of time consciousness in phases of primal-impression, fresh memory (later “retention”) and immediate expectation (later “protention”) appears as the core form to the intuition of the present and the constitution of time. In a last section, we follow Husserl’s revision of his own analysis of fresh memory in order to understand his final position about retention as a primitive form of Vergegenwärtigung. (shrink)

In this paper I discuss the consistency and accuracy of Husserl’s sketch of a theory about non-declarative sentences in the last chapter of Logical Investigations. Whereas the consistency is acknowledged, the accuracy is denied, because Husserl’s treatment of non-declarative phrases such as questions or orders implies that those phrases contain, in some way, a declarative sentence and an objectifying act. To construct a question like “is A B?” as being equivalent to a pseudo-declarative sentence such as “I ask whether A (...) is B” is, however, a false phenomenological analysis, because to ask o r to order or to beg is not to assert. I turn, then, to John Austin ‘s theory of performative (as opposed to constatative) utterances and illocutionary acts in order to find a more accurate approach to the logical-semantic content of non-declarative sentences. Eventually, I show how this Husserlian theory of non-declarative sentences has a negative impact on the phenomenological theory of social ·acts and communication. (shrink)

I offer an outline of an integrated phenomenological analysis of free fantasy and of fictional worlds. My main concern amounts to stress the scissions entailed in free fantasy and in the consciousness of fictional objects: a scission of the I, and a scission of the experience. Firstly, I offer a somewhat new characterization of the presence of the objects of free fantasy, which disconnects any possible relationship of those objects with a real perception as the leading form of an originally (...) giving consciousness. My leading example is daydream. Secondly, I take the Husserlian analysis of neutralization as a conceptual tool to explain the consciousness of fictional worlds, against a new tendency for interpreting these worlds in light of the concept of “possible world”. The two approaches converge to a twofold characterization of the mode of being of fictions and of the modality of presence of the objects of fantasy. (shrink)