The received view of dynamical explanation is that dynamical cognitive science seeks to provide covering law explanations of cognitive phenomena. By analyzing three prominent examples of dynamicist research, I show that the received view is misleading: some dynamical explanations are mechanistic explanations, and in this way resemble computational and connectionist explanations. Interestingly, these dynamical explanations invoke the mathematical framework of dynamical systems theory to describe mechanisms far more complex and distributed than the ones typically considered by philosophers. Therefore, contemporary dynamicist (...) research reveals the need for a more sophisticated account of mechanistic explanation. (shrink)

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)

Whereas most branches of neuroscience are thought to provide mechanistic explanations, systems neuroscience is not. Two reasons are traditionally cited in support of this conclusion. First, systems neuroscientists rarely, if ever, rely on the dual strategies of decomposition and localization. Second, they typically emphasize organizational properties over the properties of individual components. In this paper, I argue that neither reason is conclusive: researchers might rely on alternative strategies for mechanism discovery, and focusing on organization is often appropriate and consistent with (...) the norms of mechanistic explanation. Thus, many explanations in systems neuroscience can also be viewed as mechanistic explanations. (shrink)

Provides new insights on the lasting impact of famed philosopher and educator Paulo Freire 50 years after the publication of his masterpiece, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, this book brings new perspectives on rethinking and reinventing Brazilian educator and philosopher Paulo Freire. Written by the most premier exponents and experts of Freirean scholarship, it explores the currency of Freire's contribution to social theory, educational reform, and democratic education. It also analyzes the intersections of Freire’s theories with other crucial social theorists such (...) as Gramsci, Gandhi, Habermas, Dewey, Sen, etc. The Wiley Handbook of Paulo Freire studies the history and context of the man as a global public intellectual, moving from Brazil to the rest of the world and back. Each section offers insides on the epistemology of the global south initiated by Freire with his work in Latin America; the connections between class, gender, race, religion, the state and eco-pedagogy in the work of Freire; and the contributions he made to democratic education and educational reform. Presents original theory and analysis of Freire’s life and work Offers unique and comprehensive analysis of the reception and application of Paulo Freire in international education on all continents Provides a complete historical study of Freire’s contributions to education Systematically analyzes the impact of Freire in teachers training, higher education, and lifelong learning The Wiley Handbook of Paulo Freire is an ideal book for courses on international and comparative education, pedagogy, education policy, international development, and Latin America studies. (shrink)

In some recent papers, the authors and Peter Gärdenfors have defined and studied two different kinds of formal operation, conceived as possible representations of the intuitive process of contracting a theory to eliminate a proposition. These are partial meet contraction (including as limiting cases full meet contraction and maxichoice contraction) and safe contraction. It is known, via the representation theorem for the former, that every safe contraction operation over a theory is a partial meet contraction over that theory. The purpose (...) of the present paper is to study the relationship more finely, by seeking an explicit map between the component orderings involved in each of the two kinds of contraction. It is shown that at least in the finite case a suitable map exists, with the consequence that the relational, transitively relational, and antisymmetrically relational partial meet contraction functions form identifiable subclasses of the safe contraction functions, over any theory finite modulo logical equivalence. In the process of constructing the map, as the composition of four simple transformations, mediating notions of bottom and top contraction are introduced. The study of the infinite case remains open. (shrink)

Hybrid languages are expansions of propositional modal languages which can refer to worlds. The use of strong hybrid languages dates back to at least [Pri67], but recent work has focussed on a more constrained system called $\mathscr{H}$. We show in detail that $\mathscr{H}$ is modally natural. We begin by studying its expressivity, and provide model theoretic characterizations and a syntactic characterization. The key result to emerge is that $\mathscr{H}$ corresponds to the fragment of first-order logic which is invariant for generated (...) submodels. We then show that $\mathscr{H}$ enjoys interpolation, provide counterexamples for its finite variable fragments, and show that weak interpolation holds for the sublanguage $\mathscr{H}$. Finally, we provide complexity results for $\mathscr{H}$ and other fragments and variants, and sharpen known undecidability results for $\mathscr{H}$. (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)

In this paper, I propose that time representation should be classified as agent dependent motor-intentional, agent dependent conceptual and agent independent conceptual. I employ this classification to explain certain features of psychological and cultural time and discuss how biological time constrains such features. The paper argues that motor-intentional time is a crucial psychophysical link that bridges the gap between purely biochemical cycles and conceptual-intentional representations of time, and proposes that the best way to understand the transitions from biological to psychological (...) time is to characterize them as phase transitions that emerge on the global properties of a system regardless of specific aspects of the underlying processing units. With respect to hierarchical models of time, the paper claims that although the hierarchical organization of constraints limits the number of possible instantiations of temporal information, informational phases have principles of organization of their own. Based on these proposals, I conclude that since information assembles itself into the temporal behavior of an agent, it is more accurate to call the principles governing such a behavioral unity a phase, rather than a hierarchy. To support these theses, the paper draws upon research in biology, neuroscience, philosophy and psychology. (shrink)

Karl Marx’s writings about Spain have been published and studied on several occasions. Among the sources listed by Pedro Ribas, William Walton and his work The Revolutions of Spain, from 1808 to the End of 1836 figures among those mentioned most. Rather surprising, given that Walton sympathised with both Spanish Carlism and Portuguese Miguelism. Though he was born and died in England, Walton lived in the Spanish and Portuguese empires, in America and in the French colony of Santo Domingo at (...) various stages in the course of his career. A Catholic in an Anglican country, he translated Puigblanch’s The Inquisition Unmasked. Neither did his political ideas remain unchanged throughout his life. This paper looks at the influence thatWalton had on Marx’s ideas about Spain, particularly as regards the Carlist political movement. Marx read Walton in the British Library and took detailed notes from his book. He used these notes in his articles regarding the events that occurred in the country. We will also reflect on the place that Walton begins to occupy in Peninsular historiography, through the bibliographical information on his changing political viewpoints and his proximity to contemporary events.For this article we started with the study of the biography and the work of William Walton, which led us to discover a possible connection with the thinking of Karl Marx. Our investigations have led us to consider that Walton’s writings on Spain helped to form the opinions expressed by Marx in his press articles. (shrink)

Effective vaccines for COVID‐19 are already available to humankind. In Peru, 86 million doses were administered to cover the demand for 33 million Peruvian people. Hence, vaccination has been prioritized in groups: health personnel, subjects with pre‐existing health conditions and those over 65 years of age. However, given the social problems and the public health situation in Peru, this work defends that the priority of vaccination should be focused on the population living in extreme poverty. The method used was an (...) ethical argumentation on the distribution of scarce antiSARS‐CoV2 vaccine in Peru. This argument is based on the analysis of the Peruvian population living in extreme poverty, which presents different layers of vulnerability, and that, in the face of an eventual SARS‐CoV2 infection, these would be exacerbated one after the other, through a cascade effect. This scenario would give rise to new vulnerabilities to those already existing, causing greater damage. Vaccination efforts on this key population would give them the opportunity to continue to find ways to bring food to their homes, significantly reducing the risk of contagion in their environment and mitigating the devastating effect of the local diseases to which they are already exposed. Four objections related to this argument are raised with their corresponding responses. Priority access to the vaccine would significantly reduce the humanitarian harm to people living in extreme poverty, prevailing the principles of justice and equity. (shrink)

Este trabajo aborda las diferentes modalidades de la referencia a la teología en la teoría de Hans Kelsen, distinguiendo tres grandes formas: la descripción, el argumento y el problema. Se detiene particularmente en la modalidad denominada aquí “argumento teológico” y su función en el marco de la construcción de la epistemología kelseniana. Busca describir también las razones de su evolución sobre su utilidad, ligada a la relación entre epistemología y política tal como evoluciona en el marco de la guerra fría.

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)

This chapter will be a brief survey of the concepts from general philosophy of science for those interested in cognitive science. It covers several major topics in the philosophy of science: scientific explanation and underdetermination, reductionism and levels of nature, and scientific realism. We will discuss the goals of science, the methods of science, and the most plausible interpretations of science. To demonstrate the importance of these topics, the chapter includes cases in which confusion over these issues has led scientists (...) astray. These cases include instances in which cognitive neuroscience has failed to discover adequate explanations for phenomena, when previously established research did not withstand further scrutiny, and the increasingly complex and bewildering interrelationship between the study of the mind and the study of the brain and its parts. These issues are common to many areas of science, but they can be particularly fraught in a field like cognitive neuroscience, as researchers from a wide variety of disciplinary backgrounds and research foci come together to develop a systematic understanding of the mind. (shrink)

Our aim in this paper is to analyse the possibilities of a logical or epistemological equivalence between the projets of R. Dedekind and G. Frege for the foundations of arithmetic. It is well know that both of them have a “logicist” point of vew. But we think that even if some coincidences exist in the wa y they define the main concepts of arithmetic, some important differences remain.

Analyzing Mediumistic Mentation - Alvarado Proposal for Short List of Best Papers in Parapsychology - Levin Kauffman Stokes.

La crítica de la ontología ocupa un lugar preponderante en la filosofía de Michel Henry. No obstante, los términos en que se expresa son diversos según los contextos argumentales en que se despliegan. En este trabajo distingo tres argumentos con los que Henry cuestiona la ontología en distintas obras y períodos de su filosofía; a saber: la crítica del monismo ontológico; la crítica del monismo fenomenológico; la crítica de la ontología. Una vez expuestos, indago el modo en que estos argumentos (...) han sido tratados en la bibliografía secundaria. Concluyo con algunas reflexiones en cuanto al alcance de las variaciones terminológicas y argumentativas propias de estos tres argumentos y expresando una preferencia personal por la tercera y última formulación.The critique of ontology is preponderant in the philosophy of Michel Henry. However, the terms in which it is expressed are diverse according to the different lines of argument. In my paper I distinguish three arguments with which Henry challenges ontology in three different works and periods of his philosophy; namely: the critique of ontological monism; the critique of phenomenological monism; the critique of ontology. Once exposed those arguments, I describe how they have been received in the secondary literature. I conclude with some reflections on the terminological and argumentative variations characteristic of these three arguments and I express my personal preference for the third, last formulation. (shrink)

Research on moral responsibility and the related problem of free will is among the liveliest areas in contemporary analytical philosophy. Traditionally, these problems have been dealt with in conne...