Pro lidské jednání je důležitý vztah volního a nevolního momentu, svobody a danosti. Ve své práci bych se chtěl zabývat vztahem volního a nevolního momentu v trilogii P. Ricoeura Filosofie vůle (především v jejím prvním dílu). Ricoeur ukazuje odkázanost a propojenost obou momentů ve třech fázích jednání, jimiž je rozhodování, čin a souhlas. Pokud nevolní moment převládne nad volním, propadá člověk zlu. Cílem člověka by mělo být dobro: ovládnutí nevolního momentu vůlí a vztah k druhému člověku. Problematičnost rozdělení světa na (...) dobro a zlo ukazují úvahy F. Nietzscheho v interpretaci P. Kouby. Pro Nietzscheho jsou dobro a zlo nejednoznačné a provázané. Jeho pohled interpretovaný P. Koubou nám ukazuje člověka zcela odkázaného na sebe sama, bez opory v jasném rozdělení světa. Pokusím se důkladněji vyložit Ricoeurův popis volního a nevolního momentu a ukázat, zda a nakolik na něj lze uplatnit Nietzscheho kritiku. Závěrem přiblížím alternativu vůči morálce na jedné straně a relativismu na druhé, kterou ve své interpretaci Nietzscheho nabízí P. Kouba. (shrink)

El presente artículo toma como objeto de análisis las implicancias políticas de la categoría psicoanalítica de identificación en la obra de Ernesto Laclau, a partir del establecimiento de un vínculo epistemológico entre teoría política y psicoanálisis. A tales efectos, abordaré la apropiación laclausiana de las contribuciones de Sigmund Freud y de Jacques Lacan sobre este fenómeno, para señalar la especificidad de la identificación en tanto mecanismo habilitante de toda constitución subjetiva, en general, así como de toda subjetividad política, en (...) particular. (shrink)

Many philosophers believe that our ordinary English words man and woman are “gender terms,” and gender is distinct from biological sex. That is, they believe womanhood and manhood are not defined even partly by biological sex. This sex/gender distinction is one of the most influential ideas of the twentieth century on the broader culture, both popular and academic. Less well known are the reasons to think it’s true. My interest in this paper is to show that, upon investigation, the arguments (...) for the sex/gender distinction have feet of clay. In fact, they all fail. We will survey the literature and tour arguments in favor of the sex/gender distinction, and then we’ll critically evaluate those arguments. We’ll consider the argument from resisting biological determinism, the argument from biologically intersex people and vagueness, the argument from the normativity of gender, and some arguments from thought experiments. We’ll see that these arguments are not up to the task of supporting the sex/gender distinction; they simply don’t work. So, philosophers should either develop stronger arguments for the sex/gender distinction, or cultivate a variety of feminism that’s consistent with the traditional, biologically-based definitions of woman and man. (shrink)

What is a woman? The definition of this central concept of feminism has lately become especially controversial and politically charged. “Ameliorative Inquirists” have rolled up their sleeves to reengineer our ordinary concept of womanhood, with a goal of including in the definition all and only those who identify as women, both “cis” and “trans.” This has proven to be a formidable challenge. Every proposal so far has failed to draw the boundaries of womanhood in a way acceptable to the Ameliorative (...) Inquirists, since not all those who identify as women count as women on these proposals, and some who count as women on these proposals don’t identify as women. This is the Trans Inclusion Problem. Is there any solution? Can there be? Recently, Katharine Jenkins, pointing to the work of Mari Mikkola, suggests that the Trans Inclusion Problem can be “deflated” rather than solved. We will investigate this proposal, and show that, unfortunately, Jenkins is mistaken: Mikkola’s project will not help us answer the Trans Inclusion Problem. After that, we’ll look at Robin Dembroff’s suggestion that we “imitate” the linguistic practices of trans inclusive and queer communities, and we will evaluate whether this would help us solve the Trans Inclusion Problem. Unfortunately, this strategy also fails to solve the problem. By the end, we’ll have a better appreciation of the challenges faced by Ameliorative Inquirists in their project of redefining “woman,” and clearer view of why the Trans Inclusion Problem cannot, in fact, be solved. That’s primarily because, no matter what it means to be a woman, it’s one thing to be a woman, and another thing to identify as a woman. (shrink)

BackgroundIn Sweden, individuals with visual field loss have their driving license withdrawn. The literature clearly indicates that individuals with VFL are unsafe drivers on a group level. However, many drivers with VFL can be safe on an individual level. The literature also suggests that self-perception, beliefs, and insights of one’s own capabilities are related to driving performance. This study had three aims: To investigate self-perceived driving capability ratings for individuals with VFL; to compare these ratings between groups with different medical (...) conditions associated with VFL ; and to relate the self-perception ratings to actual driving performance in an advanced driving simulator.MethodsParticipants comprised 723 individuals whose driver’s license had been withdrawn because of VFL and 92 normally sighted elderly individuals. All participants completed a background survey, rated difficulties with different traffic situations, rated their strengths and weaknesses as drivers, and rated aspects that were important for causing traffic accidents. Of the VFL group participants, 264 also completed a simulator-based driving test that they knew could lead to renewal of their driving license. VFL participants and normally sighted was at the same age when they completed the simulator driving test.ResultsOverall, individuals with VFL rated their capabilities as high on all instruments and scales used, even higher than the elderly normally sighted control group. The only VFL etiology group that rated lower than other groups was the diabetes group. Safety orientation and internal control orientation values were best at discriminating between VFL participants in terms of self-perception of driving performance. Participants categorized as “high” in terms of safety skills and internal control were more modest in their ratings. Finally, participants who passed the simulated driving test did not differ from those who failed, in any of the self-perception measures.ConclusionSelf-perception ratings among individuals with VFL were higher than those of normally sighted elderly individuals. Self-assessed skills did not predict driving performance. Groups with different VFL etiologies rated similarly. Self-ratings of driving abilities cannot be used to assess actual driving performance. Actual driving tests are necessary to discriminate between safe and unsafe drivers with VFL. (shrink)

There is much to admire in John Pittard’s recent book on the epistemology of disagreement. But here we develop one concern about the role that rational insight plays in his project. Pittard develops and defends a view on which a party to peer disagreement can show substantial partiality to his own view, so long as he enjoys even moderate rational insight into the truth of his view or the cogency of his reasoning for his view. Pittard argues that this may (...) happen in ordinary cases of religious disagreement—cases in which it’s a live skeptical possibility that one is misdescribing his insight, or not having insight at all—and therefore one need not be strongly conciliatory even in the face of peer disagreement. Yet Pittard agrees that one should be strongly conciliatory in cases of disagreement involving, e.g., visual perception and dim rational insight, since the sort of fallible, corrigible evidence involved in such cases may be counterbalanced by symmetrical evidence on the part of one’s disagreeing peer. We worry that there’s an inconsistency here. If it’s unreasonable to show partiality to one’s visual experience (or dim rational insight) in cases like “Horse Race” and “Restaurant Check,” it’s likewise unreasonable to show partiality in religious disagreements to one’s moderate rational insight, fallible and corrigible as it is. (shrink)

For (finitary) deductive systems, we formulate a signature‐independent abstraction of the weak excluded middle law (WEML), which strengthens the existing general notion of an inconsistency lemma (IL). Of special interest is the case where a quasivariety algebraizes a deductive system ⊢. We prove that, in this case, if ⊢ has a WEML (in the general sense) then every relatively subdirectly irreducible member of has a greatest proper ‐congruence; the converse holds if ⊢ has an inconsistency lemma. The result extends, in (...) a suitable form, to all protoalgebraic logics. A super‐intuitionistic logic possesses a WEML iff it extends. We characterize the IL and the WEML for normal modal logics and for relevance logics. A normal extension of has a global consequence relation with a WEML iff it extends, while every axiomatic extension of with an IL has a WEML. (shrink)

In the recent literature on the nature of knowledge, a rivalry has emerged between modalism and explanationism. According to modalism, knowledge requires that our beliefs track the truth across some appropriate set of possible worlds. Modalists tend to focus on two modal conditions: sensitivity and safety. According to explanationism, knowledge requires only that beliefs bear the right sort of explanatory relation to the truth. In slogan form: knowledge is believing something because it’s true. In this paper, we aim to vindicate (...) explanationism from some recent objections offered by Gualtiero Piccinini, Dario Mortini, and Kenneth Boyce and Andrew Moon. Together, these authors present five purported counterexamples to the sufficiency of the explanationist analysis for knowledge. In addition, Mortini devises a clever argument that explanationism entails the violation of a plausible closure principle on knowledge. We will argue that explanationism is innocent of all these charges against it, and we hope that the strength of the defense we offer of explanationism is evidence in its favor, and a reason to investigate explanationism further as the long-elusive truth about the nature of knowledge. (shrink)

Do Muslims and Christians worship the same God? We answer: it depends. To begin, we clear away some specious arguments surrounding this issue, to make room for the central question: What determines the reference of a name, and under what conditions do names shift reference? We’ll introduce Gareth Evans’s theory of reference, on which a name refers to the dominant source of information in that name’s “dossier,” and we then develop the theory’s notion of dominance. We conclude that whether Muslims’ (...) use of “Allah” co-refers with Christians’ use of “God” depends on how much weight is given to what type of information in the dossiers of these two names, and we offer a two-part test by which the reader can determine whether Muslim and Christian uses of the divine names co-refer: If Christianity were true and Islam false, might “Allah” still refer to God? And: If Islam were true and Christianity false, might “God” still refer to Allah? We explain the implications of your answers to those questions, and we close with a few reflections about what, in addition to reference, might be required for worship, and whether, from a Christian perspective, salvation turns on this issue. (shrink)

V práci sa zaoberám kritickou expozíciou argumentačných schém v kontexte pragma-dialektického prístupu k argumentácii. Nadväzujem pritom na prácu Hitchcocka a Wagemansa (2011), ktorí sa sústredili najmä na problémy súvisiace s typológiou argumentačných schém v pragma-dialektike. Pozorovania Hitchcocka a Wagemansa sú v priebehu výkladu kriticky hodnotené, prípadne upravené. Časť kritiky, ktorú v práci uvádzam, súvisí s tým, že niektoré dôležité aspekty argumentačných schém sú v rôznych pragma-dialektických publikáciách prezentované odlišne bez toho, aby sa odlišnosť akokoľvek komentovala, alebo zdôvodnila. Existencia takýchto zdôvodnení (...) nie je pritom iba znakom, ale aj nevyhnutnou podmienkou toho, aby sme akúkoľvek zmenu mohli nazývať pokrokom v teórii. Posledná časť práce je zameraná na problémy týkajúce sa hodnotenia argumentácie v pragma-dialektickom prístupe. Hoci článok prináša vlastné pozitívne návrhy, dôraz a celkový zámer spočíva predovšetkým na expozícii nedostatkov súčasného stavu pragma-dialektickej koncepcie argumentačných schém. Kľúčové slová: argumentačné schémy, kritické otázky, pragma-dialektický prístup k argumentácii, hodnotenie argumentov. (shrink)

What ethical issues are raised when employees are going to be given notice to leave? Are some approaches more ethical than others? This paper analysing the ethics of the situation and offering ethical guidelines was prepared for the Swedish Association of Graduates in Business Administration and Economics in its work to formulate a professional code of conduct. The author holds a PhD in business administration and is a member of The Swedish Council for Management and Work Life Issues, P.O. Box (...) 5042, S‐10241 Stockholm, Sweden. (shrink)

El interés filosófico que despierta la doctrina profetológica de Maimónides encuentra su justificación si con ello se hace justicia, al menos, a lo que en cierta tradición reflexiva se ha entendido como las disposiciones fundamentales que han de acompañar a la filosofía como actitud. Pero, además, ese interés está prefijado, en contraste, por una señalada y actual merma de esas disposiciones en el pensar de buena parte de quienes hoy día se dedican a un arrogante uso publico de la razón.

Trabajo intelectual y trabajo manual -- La historia de la filosofía en la enseñanza de la filosofía -- Sobre el estoicismo -- La concepción de tiempo en el libro XI de las Confesiones de San Agustín -- Sobre la muerte.

I begin by retracing an argument from Aristotle for final causes in science. Then, I advance this ancient thought, and defend an argument for a stronger conclusion: that no scientific explanation can succeed, if Naturalism is true. The argument goes like this: (1) Any scientific explanation can be successful only if it crucially involves a natural regularity. Next, I argue that (2) any explanation can be successful only if it crucially involves no element that calls out for explanation but lacks (...) one. From (1) and (2) it follows that (3) a scientific explanation can be successful only if it crucially involves a natural regularity, and this regularity does not call out for explanation while lacking one. I then argue that (4) if Naturalism is true, then all natural regularities call out for explanation but lack them. From (3) and (4) it follows that (5) if Naturalism is true, then no scientific explanation can be successful. If you believe that scientific explanation can be (indeed, often has been) successful, as I do, then this is a reason to reject Naturalism. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to challenge the idea that Toulmin’s main focus in The Uses of Argument is to critique formal deductive logic. I first try to challenge the argument that, on the basis of what Toulmin says about analytic arguments, it is impossible to determine exactly what they are. I will then attempt to determine the basic contours of analytic arguments. Finally, I will conclude that the concept of an analytic argument involves epistemological assumptions to which formal (...) logicians are in no way committed by the nature of their discipline. (shrink)

¿Cómo puede la lógica representar expresiones indéxicas como “yo”, “aquí” y “ahora”? ¿Cómo no debe representarlas? Examino estas dos preguntas a partir de la Lógica de los Demostrativos (LD) de Kaplan y su impopular prohibición de operadores monstruosos. A pesar de algunos defectos de formulación, sostengo que dicha prohibición está guiada por una poderosa visión de las relaciones lógicas de validez entre oraciones con indéxicos que desafía la concepción tradicional de consecuencia lógica como preservación de la verdad y resalta el (...) papel fundamental de la información semántica en la construcción de sistemas formales concebidos como modelos de las lenguas naturales. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to show that the disagreement between compatibilists and incompatibilists about the compatibility of free will with determinism is merely verbal, since although one side of the dispute claims that free will is compatible with determinism while the other denies it, they actually ascribe a different meaning to the term "free will". One can therefore accept both the compatibilist thesis and the incompatibilist thesis, since the two are not contradictory. My method is to analyse the (...) meaning of the phrase "being an ability to do otherwise" as a property of abilities and the meaning of the phrase "having an ability to do otherwise" as a property of agents. The result of this analysis allows me to make an unbiased comparison of the necessary conditions that compatibilists and incompatibilists expect to hold if agents are to have the ability to do otherwise. It is shown, as expected, that these conditions are not the same. (shrink)

Two important questions arise concerning the properties that constitute the phenomenal characters of our experiences: first, where these properties exist, and, second, whether they are tied to our consciousness of them. Such properties can either exist externally to the perceiving subject, or internally to her. This article argues that phenomenal characters, and specifically the phenomenal characters of colours, may exist independently of consciousness and that they are internal to the subject. We defend this combination of claims against a recent criticism (...) according to which the unconscious phenomenal character of colours exists externally to the subject. We defend internalism about (potentially unconscious) phenomenal character by appealing to recent neuroscientific and behavioural evidence, and by rejecting the claim that externalism about phenomenal character is dialectically in a better position than internalism. In addition, we briefly present certain difficulties for externalist views of phenomenal character. These concern cases where the perceptual relation fails, but a perceptual experience still results. These points suffice to defuse the externalist critique of our view, and support the internalist variant of the consciousness-independence claim as the most plausible account of the unconscious phenomenal character of colours. (shrink)

The work presents the concept of a structural universal and the criticisms that have been leveled against it. A structural universal is a property had by an individual due to the nature of its proper parts and due to the relations obtaining between those parts. Mellor has argued that there is no reason to accept such universal in addition to the basic universals that compose them. David Lewis has argued –on the other hand– that it has not been satisfactorily explained (...) how universals are composed by other universals. The composition by which a structural universal is given cannot be a set-theoretical construction or a mereological sum. Several proposals to explain the nature of structural universals are discussed. Finally it is argued that a structural universal should be understood as a complexion of higher-order universals. (shrink)

Straipsnis skirtas palyginti Arvydo Šliogerio ir Martino Heideggerio hominizuotos Būties sampratoms jų meno filosofijose. Šio tikslo siekiama pasitelkiant jų pasirinktų tapybos kūrinių interpretacijas – Šliogerio atveju pasirinktas Paulio Cézanne’o paveikslas Didžioji pušis, o Heideggerio atveju pasirinktas Vincento van Gogho paveikslas Batų pora. Straipsnio autorius pateikia argumentus, kaip pasirinktas Šliogerio meno kūrinys koreliuoja su jo aristoteliška substancinio individo koncepcija. Sykiu parodoma, kaip nuosekliai evoliucionavo Šliogerio hominizuotos Būties kritika nuo knygos Daiktas ir menas iki veikalo Transcendencijos tyla. Straipsnio pabaigoje išryškintas Šliogerio prieštaravimas (...) sau dėl dviejų nesuderinamų menininko samp­ratų: pirmas apie Menininką-žmogų, įliejantį „daugiau Būties“ į daiktą meno kūrinyje, negu kad tos Būties yra tame daikte gamtoje; antras apie tikrąjį Menininką-gamtą, kuris duoda daiktui „daugiau Būties“, negu jos randame žmogaus rankdarbyje. (shrink)

This paper inspects the relationship between problem analysis—a fundamental part of many therapeutic approaches—and meaning. In the first part, I argue that problem analysis emerges from the representational theory of meaning. I introduce Wittgenstein’s version of this theory as presented in the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, and examine its difficulties. Later, I focus on two fundamental themes of late Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations: private language and rule-following. I argue that the rule-following paradox has disproven the representational theory of meaning. I briefly describe the (...) private language argument and rule-following paradox—a sceptical paradox. Then I provide my reading of Kripke’s sceptical solution to it. I present its implications regarding the meaning and how this is relevant to problem analysis and therapeutic conversations in general. (shrink)

El siguiente artículo se propone recuperar la cobertura del juicio de Bergen-Belsen por el semanario Argentinisches Wochenblatt, una de las principales publicaciones dirigida a la comunidad germanohablante en la Argentina y editada en la Ciudad de Buenos Aires. El proceso judicial de Belsen tuvo lugar entre septiembre y noviembre de 1945 y fue dirigida por una corte británica en la ciudad de Lünenburg. En el mismo se enjuiciaron a cuarenta y cinco agentes de las SS y sus colaboradores por crímenes (...) de guerra cometidos durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial en los campos de concentración de Auschwitz y Bergen-Belsen. En particular, se pretende exponer cómo fueron recuperados los testimonios de los sobrevivientes como de los victimarios por el semanario con el objetivo de aportar al conocimiento de la recepción de los procesos judiciales contra los nazis durante la posguerra en la prensa argentina en general y la editada en idioma alemán en particular. (shrink)

The main goal of my text is to generalize Alexy's explicative argument against human rights skeptics in order to minimize the overall room for their escape. This argument tries to show that any attempt to intersubjectively justify the nonexistence of human rights as moral rights necessarily commits the so‐called performative self‐contradiction. Alexy worries that the effect of his argument can be weakened by a group reduction of discourse. But I will argue that this worry is overstated because the price of (...) such a reduction is much higher than Alexy estimates. I will then turn to the issue of moral relativism. I will try to show that the explicative argument, if suitably generalized, can cope even with human rights skeptics who think in terms of moral relativism. (shrink)

Cílem této studie je analyzovat emoční manipulaci jako etický problém. Nejprve budu mluvit o emotivismu, což je metaetická teorie, která je oblíbeným terčem kritiky, protože v pojmech emotivismu se těžko rozlišuje morální argumentace od propagandy. Potom proberu samotný pojem manipulace a ukážu nějaké příklady. Manipulace je eticky problematický způsob ovlivňování chování druhého člověka, a to zejména proto, že nerespektuje jeho osobní autonomii. Emoční manipulace je ale docela spletitá záležitost, protože emoční angažovanost nemusí podkopávat osobní autonomii jednotlivce.

The article aims to highlight that the conceptual apparatus of the contemporary science (not only the problem-solving techniques but also the type of the raised issues) testify the shift of the paradigm, namely, the passage from the Cosmos paradigm to the Chaos paradigm. The significance of the old paradigm, especially considering its astonishing longevity, is related not only with its explanatory potential but also with the innate strife of humans to dwell in the aesthetically and ethically attractive and unconditionally intelligible (...) world. Reductionist methodology became established in the framework of the mechanistic worldview. In this case, simplicity is seen as the main measure of intelligibility; however, the important detail of the elasticity (or, in other words, vagueness) of the simplicity concept is insufficiently considered. The shift towards the new paradigm of chaos is presented as a well-grounded effort of liberation from the universe of anthropocentrism and apriority. (shrink)

Este trabajo pretende rastrear la concepción de la historia en la obra ensayística de Rafael Sánchez Ferlosio. La hoja de ruta que se sigue para ello consiste en establecer los vínculos que desde la Ilustración acaban derivando en la historia universal de Hegel. La crítica ferlosiana se vertebra mediante la filosofía de la historia primero de Benjamin y luego de Adorno, para concluir en una visión menos idealista de la narración histórica que, ya en el siglo XX se reconoce como (...) narración. El acerado escepticismo de Ferlosio le llevará a rechazar toda mistificación del acontecer histórico, especialmente la que produce la propia razón. (shrink)

Lidé s různými politickými názory interpretují klíčové pojmy politiky odlišně. Mají různé koncepce těchto pojmů, protože mají různou odpověď na politickou otázku: Co dělat? Mít stejný pojem znamená idenfikovat stejnou praktickou otázku, mít různé koncepce tohoto pojmu pak znamená mít jinou teorii toho, co je správná odpověď na tuto otázku, tedy jinou teorii toho, co máme dělat. People of different political persuasions interpret key concepts of politics in different ways. They have different conceptions of these concepts because they answer differently (...) on the political question: What to do? To have the same concept means to identify the same practical question, to have different conceptions of this concept means to have another theory of the right answer for this question. (shrink)