La clase de filosofía, desde la perspectiva del docente, no debe considerarse como una mera actividad transeúnte o predicamental. El presente estudio quiere examinarla, siguiendo la metafísica de la vida de Tomás de Aquino, como una obra vital, que requiere, por un lado, que el profesor se haga una sola cosa —una sola vida, podemos decir— con la doctrina que va a explicar y, por el otro, que esta intelección actual, sin movimiento alguno, dé lugar a la «concepción» y al (...) «parto» de lo entendido en una palabra del corazón, la cual, por su dinamismo intrínseco, tiende, a su vez, a manifestarse exteriormente en una palabra sonora, en un «verbum vocis». Esta exteriorización, por la cual aquella íntima operación que constituye la vida del que filosofa se corporeiza en forma de «diálogo», es, precisamente, la clase de filosofía. La técnica pedagógica debe tener en cuenta el orden intrínseco por el cual la vida humana, mediante la formación de una palabra del corazón, procede a su propia perfección, y no debe olvidar que el perfeccionamiento vital del profesor es causa (instrumental) del perfeccionamiento vital del alumno; es decir, quien no «produce», quien no «engendra», quien no «crea» interiormente lo que está explicando —independientemente de si se trata o no de una novedad— difícilmente ofrecerá unos medios adecuados para que el alumno conciba y dé a luz, en la intimidad de su mente, a un «verbum cordis». (shrink)

Charles L. Dodgson's reputation as a significant figure in nineteenth-century logic was firmly established when the philosopher and historian of philosophy William Warren Bartley, III published Dodgson's ?lost? book of logic, Part II of Symbolic Logic, in 1977. Bartley's commentary and annotations confirm that Dodgson was a superb technical innovator. In this paper, I closely examine Dodgson's methods and their evolution in the two parts of Symbolic Logic to clarify and justify Bartley's claims. Then, using more recent publications and unpublished (...) letters, I argue that Dodgson approached the elimination problem in class logic differently than his contemporaries, and in doing so, anticipated several important concepts and techniques in automated deductive reasoning. These materials also provide additional insight into his reasons for writing this book. (shrink)

Cet article a pour but principal d’analyser la nature de l’utopie. Une fois posé un cadre conceptuel, on se penche, à l’aide d’exemples précis, sur ses figures narratives et descriptives en rapport avec le mythe et l’idéologie dans les champs de la philosophie, de la sociologie et de l’anthropologie. Appréhendée dans sa double acception contradictoire, à la fois comme cité du bonheur et de la perfection « Eu-topos » et/ou cité de nulle part « Ou-topos » selon Thomas (1517), l’utopie (...) révèle d’emblée cette intelligence du double sens. (shrink)

Although much has been written on Descartes’ thought on animals, not so much has originated in, or has taken full account of, Descartes’ views on emotions. I explore here the extent to which the latter can contribute to the debate on whether he embraced, and to which extent, the doctrine of the bête machine. I first try to show that Descartes’ views on emotions can help offer new support to the skeptical position without necessarily creating new tensions with other central (...) aspects of his philosophy. And second, I sketch the type of theory of animal passions which Descartes could have accepted. The general conclusion I draw is not that Descartes did not hold the view of the bête machine but rather that we can find within his thought a solid stream of ideas, which became stronger towards the end of his life, that points in the opposite direction. (shrink)

Pritchard propone revitalizar el proyecto analítico para la noción de conocimiento: ofrecer una caracterización informativa y no circular de la misma. Cree que la clave es entender que las dos intuiciones centrales a esta noción imponen demandas independientes. Sostengo, por el contrario, la suficiencia de la condición anti-suerte. No solo respondo al argumento de Pritchard sino que desarrollo una línea alternativa inadvertida por él, pero implicada por supuestos suyos sobre la condición anti-suerte. Sostengo que una concepción evidencial de la seguridad (...) la hace dependiente de una condición de habilidad. Fortalezco la defensa de la epistemología anti-suerte minando dicha concepción. (shrink)

Excerpt from L'E nerge tique Et le Me canisme: Au Point de Vue des Conditions de la Connaissance 1. - Les physiciens contemporains s'accordent tous a reconnaitre la valeur objective complete des resultats purement experimentaux. Ceux-ci constituent veritablement la science de la physique, et, sauf dans des cas exceptionnels, momentanes, dans la science en train de se faire, il n'y a, a leur sujet, aucune divergence. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find (...) more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.". (shrink)

The debate between the amodal and the grounded views of cognition seems to be stuck. Their only substantial disagreement is about the vehicle or format of concepts. Amodal theorists reject the grounded claim that concepts are couched in the same modality-specific format as representations in sensory systems. The problem is that there is no clear characterization of format or its neural correlate. In order to make the disagreement empirically meaningful and move forward in the discussion we need a neurocognitive criterion (...) for representational format. I argue that efficient coding models in computational neuroscience can be used to characterize modal codes: These are codes which satisfy special informational demands imposed by sensory tasks. Additionally, I examine recent studies on neural coding and argue that although they do not provide conclusive evidence for either the grounded or the amodal views, they can be used to determine what predictions these approaches can make and what experimental and theoretical developments would be required to settle the debate. (shrink)

While scientific inquiry crucially relies on the extraction of patterns from data, we still have a far from perfect understanding of the metaphysics of patterns—and, in particular, of what makes a pattern real. In this paper we derive a criterion of real-patternhood from the notion of conditional Kolmogorov complexity. The resulting account belongs to the philosophical tradition, initiated by Dennett :27–51, 1991), that links real-patternhood to data compressibility, but is simpler and formally more perspicuous than other proposals previously defended in (...) the literature. It also successfully enforces a non-redundancy principle, suggested by Ladyman and Ross, that aims to exclude from real-patternhood those patterns that can be ignored without loss of information about the target dataset, and which their own account fails to enforce. (shrink)

We show that every definable subset of an uncountably categorical pseudofinite structure has pseudofinite cardinality which is polynomial (over the rationals) in the size of any strongly minimal subset, with the degree of the polynomial equal to the Morley rank of the subset. From this fact, we show that classes of finite structures whose ultraproducts all satisfy the same uncountably categorical theory are polynomial R-mecs as well as N-dimensional asymptotic classes, where N is the Morley rank of the theory.

This paper asks: What is philosophy and what are some current challenges and future prospects for pursuing and teaching it? What role can and should students’ imagination, interests, and circumstances play in addressing these challenges and prospects? It argues, first, that there are at least six senses of the term “philosophy”: the personal, social, branch of inquiry, theory, school of thought, and wise sayings senses; second, that a variety of stimuli contribute to motivate philosophy in all of its senses. Third, (...) it argues that teaching philosophy involves not just teaching one or more philosophies historically held, nor just partially or totally defending one or another of these philosophies; but also engaging in the third sense of “philosophy” above listed: philosophy as a branch of inquiry. Finally, the paper argues that by relying on the interests of philosophy learners that match the stimuli motivating philosophy, philosophy teaching sensitizes philosophy learners to the grounds that make this investigation viable and promising, and motivates them to engage in it. (shrink)

The migration of nursing professionals from developing countries such as Zimbabwe to industrialised countries is taking place at an alarming rate, with little signs of slowing down. In Africa, nurses form the backbone of the healthcare delivery system and their migration has a huge negative impact on health service provision. Drawing on evidence from selected health institutions, the paper shows the magnitude of migration of nurses from Zimbabwe. The paper also shows that public to private health sector migration of nurses (...) is occurring at a significant rate. The effects of such movements are examined in detail. For instance, at the health institution level, nurse migration has led to staff shortages, and health institutions located in the disadvantaged areas have been the worst affected. The paper calls for the adoption of an integrated approach in managing and addressing the concerns of the nursing professionals. (shrink)

Dominic McIver Lopes’ Four Arts of Photography and Diarmuid Costello’s On Photography: A Philosophical Inquiry examine the state of the art in analytic philosophy of photography and present a new approach to the study of the medium. As opposed to the orthodox and prevalent view, which emphasizes its epistemic capacities, the new theory reconsiders the nature of photography, and redirects focus towards the aesthetic potential of the medium. This symposium comprises two papers that critically examine central questions addressed in the (...) two books, with responses by the two authors in defence of their respective positions. (shrink)

En este libro, que se titula «Sobre los nombres divinos [De divinis nominibus]», siguiendo la costumbre de aquellos que han transmitido la ciencia magistralmente [artificiose], Dionisio empieza, en primer lugar, presentando algunas consideraciones necesarias para todo el estudio sucesivo, y, en segundo lugar, prosigue exponiendo el objeto principal [de su tratado] en el capítulo tercero.

Although it has been argued that mechanistic explanation is compatible with abstraction, there are still doubts about whether mechanism can account for the explanatory power of significant abstract models in computational neuroscience. Chirimuuta has recently claimed that models describing canonical neural computations must be evaluated using a non-mechanistic framework. I defend two claims regarding these models. First, I argue that their prevailing neurocognitive interpretation is mechanistic. Additionally, a criterion recently proposed by Levy and Bechtel to legitimize mechanistic abstract models, and (...) also a criterion proposed by Chirimuuta herself aimed to distinguish between causal and non-causal explanation, can be employed to show why these models are explanatory only under this interpretation. Second, I argue that mechanism is able to account for the special epistemic achievement implied by CNC models. Canonical neural components contribute to an integrated understanding of different cognitive functions. They make it possible for us to explain these functions by describing different mechanisms constituted by common basic components arranged in different ways. (shrink)

One of the most prominent ethical concerns regarding emerging neurotechnologies is mental privacy. This is the idea that we should have control over access to our neural data and to the information about our mental processes and states that can be obtained by analyzing it. A key issue is whether this information needs more stringent protection than other kinds of personal information. I will articulate and support the view, underlying recent regulatory frameworks, that mental privacy requires a special treatment because (...) of its relation to relevant aspects of personal identity. It has been suggested that this approach could be supported by the idea that mental privacy constitutes a fundamental psychological dimension of privacy. The connection between this psychological view of privacy and identity can be traced back to Irwin Altman’s idea that privacy is an interpersonal boundary regulation process. However, it is not clear whether this notion of privacy can be associated with a conception of identity that is relevant in contemporary neuroethics. I will suggest that the narrative and relational approach to identity, a prominent view in recent ethical discussions of neurotechnology, lines up with key aspects of Altman’s proposal. I suggest that if mental privacy is an essential component of identity, the latter could be affected by technological mind-reading. (shrink)

Depiction is the form of representation distinctive of figurative paintings, drawings, and photographs. Accounts of depiction attempt to specify the relation something must bear to an object in order to depict it. Resemblance accounts hold that the notion of resemblance is necessary to the specification of this relation. Several difficulties with such analyses have led many philosophers to reject the possibility of an adequate resemblance account of depiction. This essay outlines these difficulties and argues that current resemblance accounts succumb to (...) them. It then develops an alternative resemblance account, drawing on Grice's account of nonnatural meaning and its role in determining sentence meaning to argue that something depicts an object if it bears intention-based resemblances to the object that jointly capture its overall appearance. In addition to solving the metaphysical problem of what it is for something to depict an object, this account also sheds significant light on the epistemological issue of how we are able to work out that something depicts an object. This essay argues that our ability to work out that something depicts an object results from both our more general ability to identify intentions from the products of communicative behavior and our knowledge of stylistic conventions. This account avoids the difficulties that face rival attempts to analyze depiction in terms of resemblance. It also clarifies and explains the features that distinguish depictive from nondepictive representation. (shrink)

El artículo ofrece, en un inicio, algunos aspectos biográficos novedosos de la vida de Manuel Antonio Talavera, un teólogo paraguayo y abogado de la Real Audiencia que enseñó filosofía en Chile a finales del siglo XVIII. Luego, se presenta la transcripción de parte del curso de filosofía natural (De corporibus coelestibus) preparado para los alumnos del Real Convictorio Carolino de Santiago de Chile. Hasta ahora, Talavera es conocido sobre todo como el primer cronista de la Independencia de Chile. Por ello, (...) hacemos público por primera vez de manera íntegra un trabajo suyo relativo a su actividad docente en aulas santiaguinas, con lo que descubrimos también su condición de filósofo en Chile durante el fin del período colonial. (shrink)

This book argues that the last eight years in particular have shown us that our democracy has largely evaporated, leaving behind only an exoskeleton that was once its original vertebrae of ends and principles. It is critical to our form of democracy in the U.S. that citizens become active participants.

I explore one distinctive aspect of our relation to spaces which is particularly significant in our everyday aesthetic evaluations of cities (urban spaces): the frequent use of linguistic expressions referring to the sense of touch. We say that a space is oppressive or expansive, or warm or cold, or (more indirectly) cozy or desolate. Touching, as involved in these expressions, seems to refer, rather than to the contact of a physical object with our skin, to a sort of touching with (...) our life. To understand this, I try to make explicit both (a) what is being touched, i.e., the view of space behind these expressions; and (b) how and in which sense our life touches it. I propose to think about space as a plenum made of qualities (e.g., colors, smells, sounds, textures), some of which are penetrable and some of which are not. And as to how we touch spaces, I defend that we do so as we immerse ourselves in them. Once immersed in them, we are constantly both evaluating how well we fit in them as well as looking for a better-quality fitting. This is how we evaluate spaces aesthetically. Our embodied life fits better in a space when (a) we can realize more significant (for us, according to our ideal of life) possibilities in it, and (b) the felt quality of realizing those possibilities is enhanced by that space (“it feels better to read in this café”). (shrink)