Résumé L’expertise psychiatrique est un instrument d’évaluation devenu indispensable dans le champ judiciaire tout en étant régulièrement contesté. Comment comprendre ce paradoxe apparent? En décrivant, répond l’article, comment le droit formalise une partie de la morale autour de la catégorie de personne. À partir d’une étude de cas fondée sur une observation des usages de l’expertise dans une chambre correctionnelle, la première partie montre comment les acteurs de la justice évaluent l’instrument d’évaluation ; la seconde partie se penche sur la (...) construction d’une altérité déviante, celle du délinquant sexuel. (shrink)

The present article seeks to reconstruct the Christological meaning of the verbs “creating” and “begetting” in the Synodical letter of Ancyra (358). In order to assess the teaching of this document, the first part of the article provides an overview of the Christological use of “creating” and “begetting” from the beginning of the Arian crisis up to the eve of the synod of Ancyra. The second part studies the verbs “creating” and “begetting” in the Letter of Ancyra. The synodical document (...) makes an original and significant theological effort, purifying and complementing both the notion of “creation” (Prv 8:22) and “generation” (Prv 8:25), in order to grasp the perfect notion of the eternal birth of the Son. This understanding is confirmed by Hilary of Poitiers. (shrink)

La reconstrucción de la doctrina de Fotino de Sirmio presenta graves dificultades, por una parte, porque su enseñanza fue rápidamente reducida por la tradición posterior a la radical negación de la divinidad de Cristo y, por otra, porque no se conserva nada de sus obras. De hecho, Friedrich Loofs afirma que sólo se conserva una frase de Fotino. El presente artículo busca mostrar que la noticia de Epifanio es más confiable de lo que se ha dicho y que contiene algunos (...) párrafos textuales de las actas del proceso contra Fotino conducido por Basilio de Ancira, en Sirmio, en el año 351. De este modo, el texto de Epifanio permitiría reconstruir la enseñanza del obispo de Sirmio con mayor seguridad y acceder a su doctrina original. (shrink)

Resumen: En la historia de la recepción de Samuel Beckett en los países de habla no inglesa, la primera traducción de Comment c’est al castellano, realizada por José Emilio Pacheco en 1966, aparece como un hito aislado y deslumbrante. Esta traducción a partir del texto original en francés, hecha por el poeta mexicano cuando tenía 27 años, no tuvo una repercusión notable en su momento, a pesar de la audacia de la empresa y de la brillantez de la traducción. (...) Sin embargo, a raíz de la trayectoria de Pacheco como crítico, traductor y poeta de primera magnitud, se considera necesario hacer una evaluación en profundidad de este texto único. El objetivo de este artículo es el de analizar la versión de Pacheco del texto beckettiano por medio de un acercamiento al contexto histórico y a los elementos propios de su bagaje cultural que el poeta aporta a la elaboración de su traducción. Se trata, en definitiva, de explicar cómo se lee a Beckett en español por medio de Pacheco.: The first translation into Spanish of Samuel Beckett’s Comment c’est, by José Emilio Pacheco, Cómo es, stands out as a dazzling and unprecedented landmark in the history of the reception of the Irish author in non-English-speaking countries. In his translation the 27-year-old Mexican poet took the French original version as his main source but, despite its daring quality and the brilliance of the text rendered into Spanish, it had little impact in the cultural atmosphere of its day. In light of Pacheco’s standing in the world of letters as a first-rank critic, translator and poet, it is deemed necessary a reassessment of this unique text. The aim of this article is to analyze Pacheco’s translation of Samuel Beckett’s novel; for this purpose, the historical context and the personal elements that the poet incorporated from his personal background into his version of Comment c’est will be studied in detail. All in all, the final objective of this research is to explain how Beckett is read in Spanish through Pacheco’s version. (shrink)

Brief introduction to an interview with Pierre Rosanvallon, conducted by Javier Fernández Sebastián, in Madrid, September 28, 2006.

El pasado 8 de junio 2020, Fernando Soler Escalona, estudiante de nuestra Facultad, obtuvo el grado académico de Doctor en Teología, con una tesis sobre El sentido teológico de las metáforas de comer y beber en la obra de Orí-genes, redactada bajo la supervisión de Samuel Fernández, Profesor Titular de Patrología. La defensa fue inusual: la pandemia de COVID-19 obligó a realizarla por videoconferencia, para mantener el aislamiento físico entre los participantes. En la espera de la publicación integral (...) de la tesis, reproducimos a continuación la presentación que el Doctorando hizo de sus investigaciones durante la defensa. (shrink)

‘...if you learn to think like Peter Cave – with freshness, humour, objectivity and penetration – you will have been amply rewarded.’ :::: Prof. Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, University of Notre Dame __________________ Chapter Titles:>>> ___ 1 Lao Tzu: The Way to Tao >>> 2 Sappho: Lover >>> 3 Zeno of Elea: Tortoise Backer, Parmenidean Helper >>> 4 Gadfly: aka ‘Socrates’ >>> 5 Plato: Charioteer, Magnificent Footnote Inspirer – ‘Nobody Does It Better’ >>> 6 Aristotle: Earth-Bound, Walking >>> 7 Epicurus: Gardener, Curing (...) the Soul, Ably Assisted by Lucretius >>> 8 Avicenna: Flying Man, Unifier >>> 9 Descartes: With Princess, With Queen >>> 10 Spinoza: God-Intoxicated Atheist >>> 11 Leibniz: Monad Man >>> 12 Bishop Berkeley, ‘That Paradoxical Irishman’: Immaterialist, Tar-Water Advocate >>> 13 David Hume: The Great Infidel or Le Bon David >>> 14 Kant: Duty Calls, Categorically >>> 15 Schopenhauer: Pessimism With Flute >>> 16 John Stuart Mill: Utility Man, With Harriet, Soul-Mate >>> 17 Søren Kierkegaard: Who? >>> 18 Karl Marx: Hegelian, Freedom-Fighter >>> 19 Lewis Carroll: Curiouser and Curiouser >>> 20 Nietzsche: God-Slaying Jester, Trans-Valuer >>>> 21 Bertrand Russell: Radical, Aristocrat >>> 22 G. E. Moore: Common-Sense Defender, Bloomsbury’s Sage >>> 23 Heidegger: Hyphenater >>> 24 Jean-Paul Sartre: Existentialist, Novelist, French >>> 25 Simone Weil: Refuser and Would-Be Rescuer >>> 26 Simone de Beauvoir: Situated, Protester, Feminist >>> 27 Ludwig Wittgenstein: Therapist >>> 28 Hannah Arendt: Controversialist, Journalist? >>> 29 Iris Murdoch: Attender >>> 30 Samuel Beckett: Not I >>>. (shrink)

This paper is an attempt to lay out a meta‐ethical position that is inspired by the framework of Wittgenstein's later philosophy. To achieve this goal, this paper is divided into two parts. First, I explore recent attempts to tie Wittgenstein's epistemology in On Certainty to moral epistemology. I argue that there can be a meaningful parallel drawn between the epistemic certainties discussed in On Certainty and what I consider to be moral certainties. These moral certainties are unjustified fundamental moral attitudes (...) that underlie our moral practices. Then, I show how the debate over moral certainty has branched into two directions. One direction presents the concept of moral certainty as a naturalistic concept. On this reading, moral certainties transcend time and place since they are rooted in our natural tendencies to act or not act in certain ways. The other direction presents moral certainty as a distinctly relativistic concept. On this reading, we have our moral certainties because we belong to communities that agree on these certainties. In the second section, I argue that we have both natural, universal certainties and localized, relative certainties. I also argue that our localized certainties are constrained by non‐moral facts about ourselves and about the world. To make this argument, I rely on Wittgenstein's concept of “general facts of nature.” The result of the paper is a meta‐ethical position that can be located in between moral relativism and moral realism. (shrink)

Kant’s Formula of Humanity can be analyzed into two parts. One is an injunction to treat humanity always as an end. The other is a prohibition on using humanity as a mere means. The second is often referred to as the FH prohibition or the mere means prohibition. It has become popular to interpret this prohibition in terms of consent. The idea is that, if X uses Y's humanity as a means and Y does not consent to it, then X (...) uses Y's humanity as a mere means. There is then debate about the kind of consent that is relevant: possible, actual, or rational. In this paper, I argue against this interpretation. Section one sets up the consent account. Section two attacks possible and actual consent accounts on doctrinal grounds. Section three extends this doctrinal attack to rational consent accounts. Section four circles back to the original motivation for the consent interpretation. I argue that the consent account rests on a misinterpretation, and I conclude with a quick sketch of an alternative interpretation of the FH prohibition. (shrink)

Samuel Lebens takes the three principles of Jewish faith, as proposed by Rabbi Joseph Albo (1380-1444), in order to scrutinize and refine them with the toolkit of contemporary analytic philosophy. What could it mean for a perfect being to create a world from nothing? Could our world be anything more than a figment of God's imagination? What is the Torah? What does Judaism expect from a Messiah, and what would it mean for a world to be redeemed? These questions (...) are explored in conversation with a wide array of Jewish sources and with an eye towards diverse fields of contemporary research, such as cosmology, philosophical logic, the ontology of literature, and the metaphysics of time. The Principles of Judaism articulates the most fundamental axioms of Orthodox Judaism in the vernacular of contemporary philosophy. (shrink)

I argue that metaethicists should be concerned with two kinds of alienation that can result from theories of normativity: alienation between an agent and her reasons, and alienation between an agent and the concrete others with whom morality is principally concerned. A theory that cannot avoid alienation risks failing to make sense of central features of our experience of being agents, in whose lives normativity plays an important role. The twin threats of alienation establish two desiderata for theories of normativity; (...) however, I argue that they are difficult to jointly satisfy. (shrink)

Taking a thematic approach to Butler as a political thinker, this text develops Butler's theory of the political through an exploration of her politics of troubling.

The growing body of research on interdisciplinarity has encouraged a more in depth analysis of the relations that hold among academic disciplines. In particular, the incursion of one scientific discipline into another discipline’s traditional domain, also known as scientific imperialism, has been a matter of increasing debate. Following this trend, Scientific Imperialism aims to bring together philosophers of science and historians of science interested in the topic of scientific imperialism and, in particular, interested in the conceptual clarification, empirical identification, and (...) normative assessment of the idea of scientific imperialism. Thus, this innovative volume has two main goals. Indeed, the authors first seek to understand interdisciplinary relations emerging from the incursion of one scientific discipline into one or more other disciplines, such as in cases in which the conventions and procedures of one discipline or field are imposed on other fields; or more weakly when a scientific discipline seeks to explain phenomena that are traditionally considered proper of another discipline’s domain. Secondly, the authors explore ways of distinguishing imperialistic from non-imperialistic interactions between disciplines and research fields. (shrink)

The shooting bias hypothesis aims to explain the disproportionate number of minorities killed by police. We present the evidence mounting in support of the existence of shooting bias and then focus on two dissenting studies. We examine these studies in light of Biddle and Leuschner’s “inductive risk account of epistemically detrimental dissent” and conclude that, although they meet this account only partially, the studies are in fact epistemically and socially detrimental as they contribute to racism in society and to a (...) social atmosphere that is hostile to science as scholars working on issues of racism come under attack. We emphasize this final point via recourse to Kitcher’s “Millian argument against the freedom of research.”. (shrink)

In Book II, Chapter xxi of An essay concerning human understanding, Locke claims that a mind's will is its power 'to order the consideration of any Idea, or the forbearing to consider it; or to prefer the motion of any part of the body to its rest, and vice versa in any particular instance' (Il. xxi. 5).l To exercise this power (that is, to will), Locke says, is to perform an act of volition (or: willing), volitions being actions of the (...) mind directed to the performance of other actions (of the mind or body). Locke claims further that a man's being free (or at liberty) with respect to some action A is his having the power to perform or to forbear performing A according to his volition in the matter (8). Thus, X is free with respect to A if and onty if (i) X is able to perform A if he wills to perform A and (ii) X is able not to perform A if he wills not to perform A. This analysis of freedom. (shrink)

This paper shows that Hannah Arendt was a theorist both of secularization as a process and the secular as a goal of modern politics. It reconstructs these arguments in her corpus, especially her book "On Revolution," and argues that this dimension of her work may have been a response to Carl Schmitt (and is in any event now usefully read in such a way). The paper ends by examining how Arendt might reply to currently influential challengers of a secular politics.

Spinoza studies have seen a renaissance of interest in his views on modality, from which considerable disagreement has emerged about Spinoza's modal commitments. Much of this disagreement stems from larger interpretive disagreements about Spinoza's metaphysics. After a brief introduction, this SEP article begins with Spinoza's views on the distribution of modal properties, which quickly leads the heart of Spinoza's metaphysics, intersecting his views on causation, inherence, God, ontological plenitude and the principle of sufficient reason. Although the question of whether Spinoza (...) was a necessitarian is the predominant topic of discussion in the recent secondary literature on Spinoza's modal views, Spinoza also sketches interesting accounts of the nature of modality and the ground of modality that shed fresh light on his modal commitments. Though understudied by recent interpreters, these latter topics were of interest to Spinoza's peers and remain vibrant research questions in contemporary metaphysics of modality. (shrink)

The papers in this volume are drawn from a workshop on delusion and self-deception, held at Macquarie University in November of 2004. Our aim was to bring together theorists working on delusions and self-deception with an eye towards identifying and fostering connections—at both empirical and conceptual levels—between these domains. As the contributions to this volume testify, there are multiple points of contact between delusion and self-deception. This introduction charts the conceptual space in which these points of contact can be located (...) and introduces the reader to some of the general issues that frame the discussion of subsequent chapters. (shrink)

I argue that Spinoza endorses "conceptual dependence monism," the thesis that all forms of metaphysical dependence (such as causation, inherence, and existential dependence) are conceptual in kind. In the course of explaining the view, I further argue that it is actually presupposed in the proof for his more famed substance monism. Conceptual dependence monism also illuminates several of Spinoza’s most striking metaphysical views, including the intensionality of causal contexts, parallelism, metaphysical perfection, and explanatory rationalism. I also argue that this priority (...) of the conceptual does not commit Spinoza to forms of idealism or mentalism. The question of how to understand different kinds of metaphysical dependence is quite controversial in Spinoza studies; I address major alternative readings in the notes. But there I also try to draw connections to the growing debate in contemporary discussions about metaphysical dependence, as this topic is a happy point of shared interest between Spinoza and contemporary metaphysicians alike. (shrink)

The problem of demarcating science from nonscience remains unsolved. This article executes an analytical process of elimination of different demarcation proposals put forward since the professionalization of the philosophy of science, explaining why each of those proposals is unsatisfactory or incomplete. Then, it elaborates on how to execute an alternative multicriterial scientific demarcation project put forward by Mahner. This project allows for the demarcation not only of science from non-science and from pseudoscience, but also of different types of sciences and (...) of scientific fields from each other. This article also offers arguments in favor of accepting two types of scientific demarcations, namely epistemic-warrant scientific demarcations and territorial scientific demarcations, and argues in favor of accepting a territorially broad scientific demarcation. (shrink)

This book attracted attention on first publication under the title of "Capitalism and the Permissive Society" as a spirited defence of capitalism aimed at radicals who valued personal liberty above conformity and authority. It is, if anything, of even greater relevance today now that the political debate centres more on the uses and abuses of both the market and government inter-vention. In this new edition, the author discusses the latest developments in the world of ideas and events. His verdict on (...) recent experiments such as Reaganism and Thatcherism and liberal attempts to revive socialism will be of great interest. (shrink)

Understanding inductive reasoning is a problem that has engaged mankind for thousands of years. This problem is relevant to a wide range of fields and is integral to the philosophy of science. It has been tackled by many great minds ranging from philosophers to scientists to mathematicians, and more recently computer scientists. In this article we argue the case for Solomonoff Induction, a formal inductive framework which combines algorithmic information theory with the Bayesian framework. Although it achieves excellent theoretical results (...) and is based on solid philosophical foundations, the requisite technical knowledge necessary for understanding this framework has caused it to remain largely unknown and unappreciated in the wider scientific community. The main contribution of this article is to convey Solomonoff induction and its related concepts in a generally accessible form with the aim of bridging this current technical gap. In the process we examine the major historical contributions that have led to the formulation of Solomonoff Induction as well as criticisms of Solomonoff and induction in general. In particular we examine how Solomonoff induction addresses many issues that have plagued other inductive systems, such as the black ravens paradox and the confirmation problem, and compare this approach with other recent approaches. (shrink)

Chapter 1 Introduction How are participants associated with the eventualities they participate in? Are there events? Thematic roles? ...

I argue that the paradoxes attributed to the Megarians, namely the Liar, the Sorites, presupposition ("Have you stopped beating your father,") and failure of substitution of co-referential terms in psychological verbs ("The Electra") were intended to be reasons to accept Parmenides view that non-being is an incoherent notion and that there is exactly One Being. That is, Eubulides and others were akin to Zeno, in indirectly supporting Parmenidean monism.