An argument that the major metaphysical theories of facts give us no good reason to accept facts in our catalog of the world. -/- In this book Arianna Betti argues that we have no good reason to accept facts in our catalog of the world, at least as they are described by the two major metaphysical theories of facts. She claims that neither of these theories is tenable—neither the theory according to which facts are special structured building blocks of reality (...) nor the theory according to which facts are whatever is named by certain expressions of the form “the fact that such and such.” There is reality, and there are entities in reality that we are able to name, but, Betti contends, among these entities there are no facts. -/- Drawing on metaphysics, the philosophy of language, and linguistics, Betti examines the main arguments in favor of and against facts of the two major sorts, which she distinguishes as compositional and propositional, giving special attention to methodological presuppositions. She criticizes compositional facts (facts as special structured building blocks of reality) and the central argument for them, Armstrong's truthmaker argument. She then criticizes propositional facts (facts as whatever is named in “the fact that” statements) and what she calls the argument from nominal reference, which draws on Quine's criterion of ontological commitment. Betti argues that metaphysicians should stop worrying about facts, and philosophers in general should stop arguing for or against entities on the basis of how we use language. (shrink)

The step to e-research in philosophy depends on the availability of high quality, easily and freely accessible corpora in a sustainable format composed from multi-language, multi-script books from different historical periods. Corpora matching these needs are at the moment virtually non-existing. Within @PhilosTei, we have addressed this corpus building problem by developing an open source, web-based, user-friendly workflow from textual images to TEI, based on state-of-the-art open source OCR software, to wit Tesseract, and a multi-language version of TICCL, a powerful (...) OCR post-correction tool. We have demonstrated the utility of the tool by applying it to a multilingual, multi-script corpus of important eighteenth to twentieth-century European philosophical texts. (shrink)

The common discourse on intellectual property rights rests mainly on utilitarian ground, with implications on the question of justice as well as moral significance. It runs like this: Intellectual property rights are to reward the originators for his/her intellectual labour mainly in monetary terms, thereby providing incentives for originators to engage in future innovative labouring. Without such incentives, few, if not none, will engage in creative activities and the whole human community will, thereby, suffer because of reduced inventions. However, such (...) utilitarian argument on piracy as de-motivation may not be necessarily justified. In fact, intellectual property arrangement is one among different institutions concerning how the society may handle new ideas and creative works. In reality, private ownership over one's intellectual product is merely a modern western concept that is being ' advertised' as being normative, which, by itself, is highly debatable. Alarming still, such normative argument assumes both justness and moral dimensions. This article will analyse whether such argument is philosophically sound. (shrink)

While it is widely assumed that greater diversity in corporate governance will enhance a firm’s corporate social performance, this study considers an alternative thesis which relates managerial control to corporate philanthropy. The study empirically evaluates both board diversity and managerial control of the board as possible predictors of corporate philanthropy. The demonstration of a positive relationship between managerial control and corporate philanthropy contributes to our understanding that corporate social performance results from a complex set of economic and social motives. Possible (...) future research and managerial implications are discussed. (shrink)

Se exponen las prácticas docentes de las educadoras de párvulos, que cumplen una función reproductora del nacionalismo que es internalizado en las niñas y niños como la ciudadanía chilena. Para ello, configuran un escenario lúdico que ritualiza la conducta cívica y patriótica, por medio de conmemoraciones cívicas fundadas en el belicismo de la guerra del Pacífico, sin considerar la realidad cosmopolita y de diversidad cultural presente en las aulas nortinas. A partir de esto, proponemos una nueva perspectiva respecto de la (...) realización de actos cívicos en la educación parvularia, para hacerlos más inclusivos y acordes a la realidad cultural de la región de Tarapacá, la más multicultural de Chile. This paper describes the teaching practices of pre-school teachers who play a reproductive role of nationalism internalized in children as Chilean citizenships. This happens as the result of a ludic scenario that ritualizes civic and patriotic conduct, through civic commemorations based on the Pacific war, regardless both the cosmopolitan reality and cultural diversity present in classrooms in the Northern part of Chile. Considering this, we propose a new perspective on conducting civic events in early childhood education, to make them more inclusive and consistent with the cultural reality of the region of Tarapacá, Chile's most multicultural region. (shrink)

Duns Escoto, en razón del modo como las potencias activas actúan, distingue entre las potencias naturales y la voluntad. Las potencias naturales actúan determinada y necesariamente, cuando se cumplen las condiciones para hacerlo; la voluntad es indeterminada y se auto-determina a actuar. Por indeterminada, la voluntad puede querer actos contrarios y objetos contrarios, es decir, puede querer A y-A y elige uno de los dos por si misma, se auto-determina, sin que nada exterior a ella la determine. La voluntad humana (...) puede querer objetos contrarios con actos volitivos distintos y en tiempos distintos, debido a su imperfección y mutabilidad. La voluntad divina puede querer, con un único acto volitivo, objetos contrarios v.g. puede, al mismo tiempo, querer A y -A. En base a esta libertad de Dios, todo lo creado -orden físico o moral- es radicalmente contingente, es decir, es así pero puede ser de otra manera y/o dejar de ser. Por la potencia ordenada, Dios conserva el orden físico o moral establecido; por la potencia absoluta, Dios puede revocar ese orden y establecer, incluso temporalmente, otro distinto. El conocimiento divino de todo lo creado no puede ser un conocimiento necesario en el sentido de que sea imposible que A (que será) pueda no ser. Consecuencia de la contingencia radical de las acciones divinas es que 'un predestinado puede condenarse'. (shrink)

La materia prima existe desde siempre y es en potencia, es decir, tiene un ser que esta en disposición de ser después en acto no puede existir sola sin la forma, pero es en si misma una sustancia. Es la causa inmediata de todo cambio sustancial en el universo. El ser de la materia no parece identificarse con su potencia (ser material=potencia de la materia) sino que el ser de la materia es una sustancia que posee una potencia múltiple de (...) recibir formas y de convertirse sucesivamente en acto(ser material=sustancia de la materi+potencia multiple). La materia es sujeto de potencias o posibilidades que se convertirán necesariamente después en seres actuales. Existe entre lo posible y lo actual una relación necesaria por la que lo posible se convertirá necesariamente en acto y lo actual en posible. Existen dos especies de materia distintas: la materia sensible y la celeste con características esencialmente distintas. (shrink)

En los textos del Comentario a la Física de Aristóteles, Tomás de Aquino se esfuerza en destacar la distinción entre materia prima y privación. La materia prima es el sujeto del cambio sustancial; la privación es la carencia de forma que afecta a un sujeto de cambio, ya sea éste una sustancia natural ya sea la materia prima. Ambos son no-entes, es decir ambos están fuera del ámbito del ser formal o del ser en acto. Pero, mientras la materia prima (...) es en potencia, la privación simplemente no-es. La materia prima posee una confusa entidad ubicada entre el ser en acto o ser formal y el no-ser; abarca al ámbito del ser en potencia. La privación simplemente no es y, en consecuencia, es solo un ente de razón, elaborado por la mente humana con fundamento en la realidad. La materia prima con su ser en potencia es el fundamento ontológico del incesante cambio en el universo y de la esencial temporalidad de toda sustancia individual.Thomas Aquinas in the text of his Commentary to Aristotle´s Physics tries to point out the distinction between prime matter and privation. Prime matter is the subject of any substantial change; privation is the lack of a form affecting a subject of change, either a natural substance or prime matter. Both -prime matter and privation- are non-beings, that is, both are outside the scope of formal being or of being in act. But, if prime matter is in potency, privation simply is not. Prime matter owns a confused entity, located in between being in act or formal being and non-being; it belongs to the sphere of being in potency. Privation simply is not and, so, it is only a being of reason, built by human intellect with basement in reality. Prime matter with its being in potency is the ontological background of continuous change in the world and of the essential temporality of any individual substance. (shrink)

El tema monográfico de este número es el de la mirada desde el descentramiento, desde lugares y espacios que no son los habituales, que se sitúan en los márgenes. Se presentan fragmentos de visiones de los excluídos, de los marginados y “condenados de la tierra”; así como pensamientos y formas de acción rebeldes que rechazan toda forma de coerción social. Otros están escritos desde la “anormalidad”; desde los estigmatizados por su condición física o el carácter de su labor. Se hacen (...) presentes.. (shrink)

“Resistir significa en primer lugar rechazar. Hoy, la insurgencia consiste en ese rechazo que no tiene nada de negativo, que es un acto indispensable, vital “ V. F.Hace ya seis años, en 1997, dos importantes editoriales publicaron en Barcelona, México y Buenos Aires, una traducción al español de El horror económico, y tres años después apareció en nuestra lengua Una extraña dictadura, ambos de la destacada ensayista y novelista francesa Vivianne Forrester. Estas obras se convirtieron en éxit..

Start ing with Die Geburt der Tragödi (The Birth of Trag edy), Nietz sche crit i cizes the sub - ject of mo der nity mer ci lessly. The mod ern sub - ject, heir of the the o ret i cal and So cratic man, is the sub stance and cen ter of an objectified uni - verse. Con verted into thought and pur..

This essay proves that Duns Scotus did not undestand rightly Henry of Ghent’s doctrine on prime matter. In fact, of the three beings Doctor Solidus gives to prime matter, Duns Scotus discovers only the two last ones, that is the essential being and the formal being in act. Besides, he makes Henry of Ghent saying that prime matter can exist alone, without form, due to the fact that it receives directly from God the subsistent being per se, a being that (...) is not analogous to the being in act of form. In that case, prime matter would exist or would be in act without owning the being in act, which is contradictory. (shrink)

The claim is made that although she undervalues the work in question, Zita poses important questions for feminist philosophers of science. Reference ismade to further evidence supporting Harding's extended argument that science is neither characterized by objectivity nor value-free, and a concern which may have some relationship to Zita's “feminist question of the science question in feminism” is noted.

Indudablemente, Franz Hinkelammert es uno de los investigadores sociales más importantes de América Latina. Esto se manifiesta no sólo en la difusión de su obra, la publicación de sus libros en Europa y en nuestro continente, sino también en el creciente reconocimiento de sus aportes por importantes investigadores, científicos sociales, teólogos críticos y filósofos latinoamericanos. Es así, por ejemplo, que Enrique Dussel, Leonardo Boeff, Raúl Fornet-Betancourt, Gustavo Gutierrez y otros des..

La presente edición de la revista Polis tiene como tema central la(s) ciencia(s), la(s) tecnología(s) y la producción colectiva de saber(es). El desarrollo científico en nuestros países, llegados tardíamente a la revolución industrial, de frustrada y asimétrica industrialización, es claramente insuficiente y aún no han logrado incorporarse a la nueva revolución científico-tecnológica. Simultáneamente, nuestras sociedades se encuentran en un proceso de profundas transformaciones en su sistema..

INDIAN AND WESTERN PHILOSOPHY- A Study in Contrasts By BETTY HEIMANN. Originally published in I937. Contents include: 1. INTRODUCTION 13 2. THEOLOGY 2Q 3. ONTOLOGY AND ESCHATOLOGY 46 4. ETHICS 63 5. LOGIC 79 6. AESTHETICS 98 7. HISTORY AND APPLIED SCIENCE Il6 8. THE APPARENT RAPPROCHEMENT BETWEEN WEST AND EAST 131 EPILOGUE 147 INDEX OF PROBLEMS TREATED 149. INDIAN AND WESTERN PHILOSOPHY. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION: ONE ceuvre dart est un coin de la creation vu d travers un temperament, (...) says Zola and we may be justified in applying this aphorism when we venture on a some what similar survey and attempt an artificial selection from World-Philosophy throughout the ages. My aim, however, is not to elaborate any finished outline of all the philosophical conceptions that have arisen in East and West up to the present day, but merely to indicate the essential and fundamental tendencies and principles. In tracing the sources of Western Philosophy to Plato and Aristotle, and still earlier to the pre-Socratics of ancient Greece, I became convinced that all translations are, to a greater or less degree, modes of interpretation. I studied the Classics, therefore, from the linguistic standpoint, and this procedure ultimately developed into a philosophical method intimately associated with the psychological aspects of Philology. In pursuing this task I discovered at the same time the specifically material basis of all Western thought. In other words in my regress from the history of modern Philosophy to the dawn of Greek speculation, or to repeat to the pre-Socratics, I found myself able to trace the main trends of Western Philosophy to the prior era of the Greek Sophists, whose outstanding role as the actual founders of Western thought is, in my opinion, too frequently underestimated. Their basic dogma which has held good in the West ever since was, Man is the Measure of all things. At this point an equally important feature must be emphasized for throughout this age of the Sophists there persists the profound contrast between the typically Western, and the equally distinctive Eastern, intellectual and spiritual atmospheres. In this connection, still further, I was deeply impressed by the far-reaching divergence of the Western anthropological tendency from the older cosmic out look upon Man as being part and parcel of the Universe And this radical antithesis is to be dis cerned in contemporary Greek drama. For Aeschylus, the Marathonomaches, creates all his immortal tragedies in the genuinely cosmic mood. Every in fraction of cosmic order, with no single exception, must generate its own inevitable reaction, and also its punishment, in order that the primal cosmic harmony may once more be restored... (shrink)

This is a book about speech and the silencing of speech; about who gets to speak and who does not; about who is listened to and who is ignored. In this down-to-earth analysis of the democratic principle of freedom of speech, Betty McLellan insists that, if this prized democratic principle is to have any continuing credibility, free speech must be free for all.

In several manuscripts, written between 1894 and 1897, Twardowski developed a new theory of judgement with two types of judgement: existential and relational judgements. In Zur Lehre he tried to stay within a Brentanian framework, although he introduced the distinction between content and object in the theory of judgement. The introduction of this distinction forced Twardowski to revise further Brentano'stheory.His changes concerned judgements about relations and about non-present objects. The latter are considered special cases of relational judgements. The existential judgements (...) are analysed in a Brentanian way; whereas relational judgements are analysed in a Brentanian way only as far as the act is concerned, but not when it comes to the object: the object of a relational judgement is a relationship. With this notion of relationship Twardowski comes close to introducing a concept of state of affairs for the object of (relational) judgements. (shrink)

This book examines cultural recognition and the struggle for identity in America's schools. In particular, the contributing authors focus on the recognition and misrecognition as antagonistic cultural forces that work to shape, and at times distort identity.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Du Bois’s “Afterthought”A Pedagogical Variant for Continental PhilosophyHernando A. EstévezThe Souls of Black Folk is a pedagogical text that echoes continental philosophy’s aim of preparing humankind for the genuine practice of philosophical life through critique. In this text, Du Bois uses pedagogy to expose destructive and oppressive aspects of the Western tradition in its conflicting ideas and practices. In particular, I read Du Bois’s “afterthought” in Souls of Black (...) Folk as a form of critique that is expressly pedagogical, in that it prepares black individuals to play their destined role in this new era of history, and it calls for a continuous rethinking of the politics of higher education. While describing his early academic, political, and intellectual journey, Du Bois alludes to his initial and persistent concern with the impact of education on the formation of black men’s civil subjectivity. According to Du Bois, “My problem then was how, into the inevitable and logical democracy which was spreading over the world, could black folk in America and particularly in the South be openly and effectively admitted; and the colored people of the world allowed their self-government?” (Du Bois [1940] 1983, 29). For Du Bois such a question has sufficient political and social force to de-center the truths produced by the Western tradition as well as the precepts determining individuals’ subjectivity and self-government. Self-governance underlies Du Bois’s pedagogical and political projects as it is responsible for transforming black individuals’ self-perception and their relation to society. Du Bois approaches autonomy and self-governance pedagogically, by awakening individuals’ capacities for them by means of critique, through [End Page 82] questioning the historical basis on which the black race has been determined politically by the Western tradition.Du Bois’s essay Of the Training of Black Men (1902)1 begins by describing three “streams of thought,” which carry within the depth of their ideological flow ideas and ideals about humanity. Each stream has an epistemological and ontological force, which organizes the source of knowledge about the nature of black individuals’ being and existence. The force of the first stream of thought calls for an ethos that could unify humanity by multiplying its wants through worldwide cooperation. The second stream affirms the racism produced by theories explaining the origin of the black race, and the third calls for a civil struggle of black and whitened individuals whose political ideals challenge the presumed universal validity of the first two. Each stream of thought is followed by an afterthought, which questions the epistemological ground for moral and ontological claims of each of the three streams regarding the relationship between black individuals and the world. Du Bois deploys the pedagogical force of the afterthought most effectively in the political strength of the third stream of thought, in the emergence of suspicion. Through suspicion, a different possibility appears for thinking black individuals’ relationship with the world. This suspicion initiates a descriptive and normative analysis by challenging the pedagogical system on which beliefs and ideas about black individuals’ reality and future have been invented. In other words, suspicion dislodges history’s determinism by provoking self-reflection through critique of the Western philosophical tradition.In the words of Du Bois,And last of all there trickles down that third and darker thought—the thought of the things themselves, the confused, half-conscious mutter of men who are black and whitened, crying “Liberty, Freedom, Opportunity—vouchsafe to us, O boastful World, the chance of living men!” To be sure behind the thought lurks afterthought,—suppose, after all, the World is right and we are less than men? Suppose this mad impulse within is all wrong, some mock mirage from the untrue?(Du Bois [1903] 2006, 68; my emphasis)Furthermore, the “afterthought” and its immanent force of suspicion explore other subjective dimensions—the desires, struggles and dreams of the black race—which reveals alternative modes of being in the world.2 The political shift initiated by the afterthought’s critique is capable of opening up new historical categories and reconstructing the arena in which subjectivity occupies a new theoretical framework. The afterthought identifies and supersedes... (shrink)