This paper is concerned with formal aspects of the logic of theory change, and in particular with the process of shrinking or contracting a theory to eliminate a proposition. It continues work in the area by the authors and Peter Gärdenfors. The paper defines a notion of safe contraction of a set of propositions, shows that it satisfies the Gärdenfors postulates for contraction and thus can be represented as a partial meet contraction, and studies its properties both in general and (...) under various natural constraints. (shrink)

IN THE DISCUSSION on education in the Republic, Socrates lays down the principles which those who speak about the gods must follow if they want to avoid the errors of traditional mythology. The first typos of this rational theology is this: "God is the cause, not of all things, but only of the good." For "God, being good, cannot be responsible for everything happening in our life, as is commonly believed, but only for a small part. For we have a (...) far smaller share of good than of evil, and while God must be held to be the sole cause of good, we must look for some other factors than God as cause of the evil." Rightly celebrated, this passage has set the agenda for ages of reflection in Western thought on the cause of evil. In contrast to traditional mythology where the gods are seen as the origin of both good and evil--as Homer says, "Zeus has two jars standing on the floor of his palace, full of fates, good in one and evil in the other"--the divinity is now freed of all responsibility for evil. God, who is entirely good, can only be the cause of well-being. If this answer sets God free of all responsibility for evil, it seems to be at the cost of limiting God's power: for God is no longer responsible for "most things in human life," since most of them are evil. What, then, may be the cause or causes of evil? Do bad things have a cause? Or do they just happen? Plato's formulation seems to suggest that he favours a dualistic solution to the problem of evil: God is the cause of all good, but for evil we have to find other causes. What could those causes be: matter, cosmic necessity, an evil soul? Various answers of this type were developed in later Platonism and in later mythological philosophies. Without denying that Plato often uses a dualistic discourse and uses elements of it in his cosmology, I do think that Plato had something different in mind. After all, he was not primarily interested in the problem of theodicy. For in this passage of the Republic, he is not concerned with the problem of evil in the universe as a whole, which is really the theodicy question, but with evil in "human life," that is, evil insofar as human beings experience it and suffer from it: the fact that we are not at all living well but are instead miserable and unhappy. (shrink)

The purpose of the paper is to present a logical framework that allow to formalize a kind of prima facie duties, defeasible conditional duties, indefeasible conditional duties and actual (indefeasible) duties, as well as to show their logical interconnections.

Bayesian reverse-engineering is a research strategy for developing three-level explanations of behavior and cognition. Starting from a computational-level analysis of behavior and cognition as optimal probabilistic inference, Bayesian reverse-engineers apply numerous tweaks and heuristics to formulate testable hypotheses at the algorithmic and implementational levels. In so doing, they exploit recent technological advances in Bayesian artificial intelligence, machine learning, and statistics, but also consider established principles from cognitive psychology and neuroscience. Although these tweaks and heuristics are highly pragmatic in character and (...) are often deployed unsystematically, Bayesian reverse-engineering avoids several important worries that have been raised about the explanatory credentials of Bayesian cognitive science: the worry that the lower levels of analysis are being ignored altogether; the challenge that the mathematical models being developed are unfalsifiable; and the charge that the terms ‘optimal’ and ‘rational’ have lost their customary normative force. But while Bayesian reverse-engineering is therefore a viable and productive research strategy, it is also no fool-proof recipe for explanatory success. (shrink)

Behind a succinct account about Euler and his connection with the philosophy, on show forth his arguments for to prove the effective existence of the absolute space in the Mechanica sive motus scientia (1736) and in the Reflexions sur l’espace et le temps (1748). These works constitute the Euler’s first approximation in defence of the doctrine of space held by Newton, and against: the Metaphysicians(Leibniz, Berkeley). This paper point at the possible ascendancy about Kant, especially in Von de m ersten (...) Grunde des Unterschiedes der Gegenden im Raume (1768). (shrink)

La humanidad ya dispone de vacunas eficaces contra el COVID‐19. En Perú se administraron 86 millones de dosis para cubrir la demanda de 33 millones de peruanos. Para ello, se ha priorizado la vacunación en grupos clave: personal de salud, sujetos con condiciones de salud preexistentes y mayores de 65 años. Sin embargo, dada la problemática social y la situación de la salud pública en Perú, este trabajo defiende que la prioridad de la vacunación debe centrarse en la población que (...) vive en extrema pobreza. El método utilizado fue una argumentación ética sobre la distribución de la vacuna contra el COVID‐19 en Perú. Esta argumentación se basa en el análisis de la población peruana que vive en extrema pobreza, la cual presenta diferentes estratos de vulnerabilidad, y que, ante una eventual infección por SARS‐CoV‐2, se irían agravando uno tras otro, a través de un efecto en cascada. Este escenario daría lugar a nuevas vulnerabilidades de las ya existentes, causando mayores daños. Los esfuerzos de vacunación en esta población clave les brindaría oportunidad de seguir encontrando formas de llevar alimentos a sus hogares, reduciendo significativamente el riesgo de contagio en su entorno y mitigando el efecto devastador de las enfermedades locales a las que ya está expuesta. Se plantean cuatro objeciones relacionadas con este argumento, con sus correspondientes respuestas. El acceso prioritario a la vacuna reduciría significativamente el daño a las personas que viven en la extrema pobreza, haciendo prevalecer los principios de justicia y equidad. (shrink)

This commentary focuses on the importance of attention skills in the development of universal associative learning, and it explains why the centrality of attention in UAL presents a considerable difficulty for the UAL approach. Attentional abilities are not just developmentally related to UAL but are in fact explanatory of UAL. The main problem is that all the types of attention involved in UAL can be dissociated from consciousness. This means that while attention skills for UAL might be necessary for consciousness, (...) they are not sufficient because they can all occur unconsciously. Thus, the possibility that UAL capacities might not be sufficient for consciousness cannot be eliminated, thereby challenging the key claim of the UAL approach. (shrink)

Mineral species are, at first glance, an excellent candidate for an ideal set of natural kinds somewhere beyond the periodic table. Mineralogists have a detailed set of rules and formal procedure for ratifying new species, and minerals are a less messy subject matter than biological species, psychological disorders, or even chemicals more broadly—all areas of taxonomy where the status of species as natural kinds has been disputed. After explaining how philosophers have tended to get mineralogy wrong in discussions of natural (...) kinds, I show how minerals species don’t behave like natural kinds. They are defined on the basis of human intentionality, not merely natural distinctions. They aren’t ideal grounds for inductive inference. And they don’t form a system that divides nature along a set of equivalent joints. While this is a regrettable outcome to those of us who like the idea of science relying on natural kinds, I contend that mineralogy is doing just fine without a natural kind-based taxonomy, and may in fact be better off without one. (shrink)

En los antiguos Reinos hispánicos hubo grandes controversias entre cristianos y judíos. Las dos religiones fundamentan sus creencias en el Antiguo Testamento, pero los cristianos añaden también el Nuevo Testamento. Otra diferencia estriba en la distinta manera de interpretar la tradición textual: los cristianos emplean el método alegórico y los judíos el método literal.In the old spanish Kingdoms there were big controversies between Christians and Jews. The two religions based their own credencies on the Old Testament, but the Christian one (...) also added the New Testament. Another difference lies on the different interpretation of the textual tradicion: the Christians use the allegorical method, the Jews follow the litteral one. (shrink)

Three philosophical attitudes in dialogue are suggested in answering the question posed by the Journal. An inviting, First Inner Voice undeerstands philosophy as a shareable theoretical task that can be explained and understood even across distant philosophical paradigms. A Second Inner Voice, sometimes termed in the dialogue as sceptic, distrusts any metaphilosophical definition of what philosophy is and what it should do, but would, nevertheless, aspire to retain a certain universalistic understanding of its own work, though it cannot be strongly (...) and conceptualy rendered. A Third Inner Voice, regarded in the text as somewhat Hegelian, insists in the unavoidability of strong philosophical definitions both in historical and in conceptual terms. No proposal or conclusion is forwarded regarding what should be done in contemporary philosophy, though an analysis of harm experiences is taken as an example of philosophical work. (shrink)

En este trabajo, el autor analiza las contradicciones que el multiculturalismo plantea en las sociedades actuales, resaltando la importante mediación que el sistema político democrático lleva a cabo en la resolución de las mismas. A partir de los artículos de tres autores ('The Politics ofRecognition" de CH Taylor: "Struggles for Recognition in Constitutional States" de J. Habermas y "Legitimacy and Diversity: Dialectical Reflections on Analytical Distinctions" de T. McCarthy) y de la referencia final al trabajo de Rawls 'The Law of (...) the People", expone una serie de momentos teóricos que representan diferentes estadios en la discusión entre el pensamiento liberal y el comunitarismo, y que componen un proceso explicativo en el que cada uno de esos momentos supondría una superación teórica del anterior. En concreto, el autor trata de situar la discusión sobre el reconocimiento del derecho a la diferencia, en el terreno en el que del análista del modelo teórico del liberalismo más acorde con el reconocimiento de derechos a las colectividades-el republicanismo comunitarista al que se refiere Taylor-, se pase al análisis del tipo de sistema político dentro del cual se reconozca la diferencia y la existencia de otras culturas como algo que ya estaba implícito en la teoría de los derechos. Este sistema político sería la democracia deliberativa y su procedimiento discursivo para tomar decisiciones y llegar a acuerdos, propuesto por J. Habermas. El trabajo de McCarthy tratarla de resolver algunas fisuras en la democracia deliberativa que afectarían a su legitimidad por cuanto suponen un menoscabo a la idea misma de las diferencias. Finalmente, la alusión a Rawls permite al autor erigir el sistema de los derechos humanos en el estándar mínimo necesario para llegar a un acuerdo global lo suficientemente amplio y abstracto como para garantizar el máximo respeto a las diferencias. Un acuerdo que, insiste el autor, sólo puede enmarcarse en un proyecto democrático con dimensión internacional, al que llama "horizonte cosmopolitamente democrático". (shrink)

Since Seligman's 1971 statement that the vast majority of phobias are about objects essential to the survival of a species, a multitude of laboratory studies followed, supporting the finding that humans learn to fear and detect snakes (and other animals) faster than other stimuli. Most of these studies used schematic drawings, images, or pictures of snakes, and only a small amount of fieldwork in naturalistic environments was done. We address fear preparedness theories, and automatic fast detection data from mainstream laboratory (...) data and compares it with ethobehavioural information relative to snakes, predator-prey interaction, and snakes’ defensive kinematics strikes in order to analyse their potential matching. From this analysis four main findings arose, namely that: 1) Snakebites occur when people are very close to the snake and are unaware or unable to escape the bite; 2) Human visual detection and escape response is slow compared to the speed of snake strikes; 3) In natural environments, snake experts are often unable to see snakes existing nearby; 4) animate objects in general capture more attention over other stimuli and dangerous but recent objects in evolutionary terms are also able to be detected fast. The issues mentioned above pose several challenges to evolutionary psychology-based theories expecting to find special-purpose neural modules. The older selective habituation hypothesis (Schleidt, 1961), that prey animals start with a rather general predator image from which specific harmless cues are removed by habituation might deserve reconsideration. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to analyze how the reflection on the origins of the civilization was developed in Rome, at the end of the Republic, in a city where during centuries, nobody tried to go beyond this point of absolute origin that was the foundation of the Vrbs. In order to explore not only Cicéro’s philosophic reflection, but also his rhetorical texts, especially the De inuentione, which contains at the beginning of its first book a very interesting explanatory (...) myth both on the birth civilization, and on the evolution of human institutions. Before Cicero, the satiric poet Lucilius had tried to give a Roman adaptation of the Stoic social naturalism, by depriving it of its universalist ambition and Lucretius had an extremely deep reflection of the evolution of the selfish instinct which characterizes the human beings as all the living beings, towards forms more and more sophisticated of sociability. We evoke also a Roman peculiarity in the expression of the social oikeiôsis. All this shows the density and the variety of the Roman thought on society at the end of the Republic. (shrink)

Very often, phenomenology has been presented as opposed to structuralism. We aim to contest that opposition. We will argue that Husserl has influenced on structuralism in the early 20th century, and that phenomenolgy shows itself as a neither a global (trivial) nor a methodic struc-turalism. Indeed,..

The focus of this paper is Mexican historicism. It has three objectives: first, to introduce English-speaking readers to the nature and history of Mexican historicism; second, to defend Mexican historicism against the charges of relativism usually raised against historicism in general and “Mexican” philosophy in particular; and third, to argue for what I call the transcendental, or alternatively, “liberatory,” nature of Mexican historicism—a nature with philosophical and political consequences. The hope is that by making the clarifications and determinations made here, (...) the tradition of Mexican philosophy, of which Mexican historicism is a key moment, may find its place in the increasingly pluralistic US philosophical landscape. (shrink)

En la primera parte de este artículo se quiere exponer la posición de Ludwig Wittgenstein en las Investigaciones filosóficas donde ya se percibe un importante giro respecto a la concepción semántica del Tractatus. El Wittgenstein tardío asume el lenguaje y su significado no como el resultado aislado de una conciencia monológica sino el producto una praxis social mediada por reglas. Sin embargo, al pensador austríaco le falta aun el espacio para el encuentro con la otredad que se muestra en la (...) posibilidad de la traducción de las reglas de otros juegos de lenguaje al propio, ya sean entre comunidades distintas o dentro de una misma cultura en épocas diferentes. En la segunda parte se muestra como en la hermenéutica filosófica de Hans-Georg Gadamer se abre el lugar para la comprensión en inclusión de estos otros juegos gracias al despliegue de los modos que le son propios como son la asunción del círculo hermenéutico, la dialéctica de la pregunta y respuesta, la fusión de horizontes y el juego. En especial, se hace referencia a cómo la otredad que se presenta como tradición histórica produce en el sujeto que comprende y de la tradición interpretada, un mayor enriquecimiento. Esto es el centro de la comprensión hermenéutica y sucede cuando el sujeto incorpora en su horizonte las perspectivas y puntos de vista de otros horizontes gracias al vaivén inacabado y abierto de la comprensión.The first part of this paper presents the position of Ludwig Wittgenstein in the Philosophical Investigations where it can see a significant turn respect to the semantic conception of the Tractatus. The later Wittgenstein takes language and its meaning not as an isolated result of a monological consciousness but the product of a social practice mediated by rules. However, the Austrian philosopher lacks even the space for the encounter with otherness that is displayed on the possibility of translation of the rules of other language games to the own, whether between different communities or within the same culture in different times. In the second part is shown as in the philosophical hermeneutics of Hans-Georg Gadamer is open the space for the understanding of these other games through the deployment of the modes of its own such as the assumption of the hermeneutic circle, the dialectic of question and answer, the fusion of horizons and the play. In particular, it refers to how otherness, presented as historical tradition produce in the subject that comprehend and in the tradition interpreted greater enrichment. That is the center of the hermeneutic comprehension and happens when subject includes on his horizon the perspectives and views of other horizons thanks to unfinished and open sway of understanding. (shrink)