BackgroundRespect for autonomy is a paramount principle in end-of-life ethics. Nevertheless, empirical studies show that decision-making, exclusively focused on the individual exercise of autonomy fails to align well with patients’ preferences at the end of life. The need for a more contextualized approach that meets real-life complexities experienced in end-of-life practices has been repeatedly advocated. In this regard, the notion of ‘relational autonomy’ may be a suitable alternative approach. Relational autonomy has even been advanced as a foundational notion of palliative (...) care, shared decision-making, and advance-care planning. However, relational autonomy in end-of-life care is far from being clearly conceptualized or practically operationalized.Main bodyHere, we develop a relational account of autonomy in end-of-life care, one based on a dialogue between lived reality and conceptual thinking. We first show that the complexities of autonomy as experienced by patients and caregivers in end-of-life practices are inadequately acknowledged. Second, we critically reflect on how engaging a notion of relational autonomy can be an adequate answer to addressing these complexities. Our proposal brings into dialogue different ethical perspectives and incorporates multidimensional, socially embedded, scalar, and temporal aspects of relational theories of autonomy. We start our reflection with a case in end-of-life care, which we use as an illustration throughout our analysis.ConclusionThis article develops a relational account of autonomy, which responds to major shortcomings uncovered in the mainstream interpretation of this principle and which can be applied to end-of-life care practices. (shrink)

El propósito de este libro es de examinar cuales fueron los órdenes epistemológicos, las prácticas discursivas y los mecanismos disciplinarios que hicieron posible en el siglo XX la construcción de un objeto de conocimiento llamado "Latinoamérica", y de una serie de saberes filosóficos sobre "lo latinoamericano". El autor realiza un ejercicio deconstructivo de aquellas narrativas que, con base a la creación de identidades homogéneas, buscaron presentar a Latinoamérica como lo "otro" de la modernidad occidental, e incluso como el continente llamado (...) a mostrar un camino nuevo de liberación para toda la humanidad. A través de un diálogo con pensadores como Foucault, Said, Rama, Lyotard, Mignolo y Spivak, el autor muestra que los principales temas, registros y motivos esgrimidos a favor de una "exterioridad" latinoamericana con respecto a la modernidad, son en realidad discursos pertenecientes a un orden moderno del saber. (shrink)

Is there a theoretically interesting notion that is a natural extension of the concept of rigidity to general terms? Such a notion ought to satisfy two Kripkean conditions. First, it must apply to typical general terms for natural kinds, stuffs, and phenomena, and fail to apply to most other general terms. Second, true 'identification sentences' (such as 'Cats are animals') containing general terms that the notion applies to must be necessary. I explore a natural extension of the notion of rigidity (...) to general terms, the notion of an essentialist predicate. I argue that, under natural assumptions, this notion satisfies the two Kripkean conditions. (shrink)

The main aim of this paper is to point out that Davidsonian and Fregean theories of quotation do not accommodate certain facts about disquotation. A second aim is to dispel some errors of interpretation in a common Davidsonian reading of Tarski's claims about quotation. This allows a correct exegesis of Tarski's view, which is then seen not to be affected by the arguments usually adduced against the view wrongly attributed to Tarski. Finally, a Tarskian view is proposed of some problems (...) about quotation not addressed by Tarski. (shrink)

As we navigate physical (e.g., supermarket) and digital (e.g., social media) systems, we generate personal data about our behavior. Researchers and designers increasingly rely on this data and appeal to several approaches to collect it. One of these is data donation, which encourages people to voluntarily transfer their (personal) data collected by external parties to a specific cause. One of the central pillars of data donation is informed consent, meaning people should be adequately informed about what and how their data (...) will be used. However, can we be adequately informed when it comes to donating our data when many times we don’t even know it is being collected and, even more so, what exactly is being collected? In this paper, we investigate how to foster (personal) data literacy and increase donors’ understanding of their data. We introduce a Research through Design approach where we define a data donation journey in the context of speech records, data collected by Google Assistant. Based on the data donation experiences of 22 donors, we propose a data donation framework that understands and approaches data donation as an encompassing process with mutual benefit for donors and researchers. Our framework supports a donation process that dynamically and iteratively engages donors in exploring and understanding their data and invites them to (re)evaluate and (re)assess their participation. Through this process, donors increase their data literacy and are empowered to give meaningfully informed consent. (shrink)

Timothy Williamson’s potentially most important contribution to epistemicism about vagueness lies in his arguments for the basic epistemicist claim that the alleged cut-off points of vague predicates are not knowable. His arguments for this are based on so-called ‘margin for error principles’. This paper argues that these principles fail to provide a good argument for the basic claim. Williamson has offered at least two kinds of margin for error principles applicable to vague predicates. A certain fallacy of equivocation seems to (...) underlie his justification for both kinds of principles. Besides, the margin for error principles of the first kind can be used in the derivation of unacceptable consequences, while the margin for error principles of the second kind can be shown to be compatible with the falsity of epistemicism, under a number of assumptions acceptable to the epistemicist. (shrink)

This paper defends the claim that pragmatic encroachment—the idea that knowledge is sensitive to the practical stakes of believing—can explain a distinctive kind of epistemic injustice: the injustice that occurs when prejudice causes someone to know less than they otherwise would. This encroachment injustice, as we call it, occurs when the threat of being met with prejudice raises the stakes for someone to rely on her belief when acting, by raising the level of evidential support required for knowledge. We explain (...) this notion of encroachment injustice, connect it to the empirical literature on implicit bias, and defend it against important objections. (shrink)

Carroll shaped the corporate social responsibility discourse into a four-dimensional pyramid framework, which was later adapted to corporate citizenship and sustainability approaches. The four layers of the pyramid—structured from foundation to apex as economic, legal, ethical, and philanthropic responsibilities—drew considerable managerial attention. An important criticism of the economic foundation of the Carroll pyramid concerns the identification and ordering of the four dimensions, which are inadequately justified theoretically. The authors of this article propose an alternative approach that builds on the public (...) value concept, which integrates a microfoundation of psychological research into basic human needs. Drawing on their Swiss Dialogue process, the authors argue that a four-dimensional pyramid does have heuristic value for managers. The advantage of this alternative pyramid logic is that it may be contingently adapted to different cultural contexts, because it allows adaptive internal reordering. (shrink)

I argue that recent defenses of the view that in 1936 Tarski required all interpretations of a language to share one same domain of quantification are based on misinterpretations of Tarski’s texts. In particular, I rebut some criticisms of my earlier attack on the fixed-domain exegesis and I offer a more detailed report of the textual evidence on the issue than in my earlier work. I also offer new considerations on subsisting issues of interpretation concerning Tarski’s views on the logical (...) correctness of certain omega-arguments, on the Tarskian proof that Etchemendy took to be modal and fallacious, and on Tarski’s appeals to the “common concept of consequence”. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to examine some passages of Tarski‘s paper ’On the concept of logical consequence’ and to show that some recent readings of those passages are wrong. John Etchemendy has claimed that in those passages Tarski gave an argument purporting to show that the notion of logical consequence defined by him (as opposed to some pretheoretic notion of logical consequence) possesses certain modal properties. Etchemendy further claims that the argument he attributes to Tarski is fallacious. Some (...) of Etchemendy’s critics have granted him that Tarski did give an argument purporting to show that the defined notion possesses certain modal properties ; but they have claimed that Tarski’s argument was not a fallacious one. I will show that both Etchemendy and his critics are wrong; in the relevant passages, Tarski did not offer (nor did he intend to offer) an argument that the defined notion of logical consequence possesses any modal properties. (shrink)

Logic is formal in the sense that all arguments of the same form as logically valid arguments are also logically valid and hence truth-preserving. However, it is not known whether all arguments that are valid in the usual model-theoretic sense are truthpreserving. Tarski claimed that it could be proved that all arguments that are valid (in the sense of validity he contemplated in his 1936 paper on logical consequence) are truthpreserving. But he did not offer the proof. The question arises (...) whether the usual modeltheoretic sense of validity and Tarski's 1936 sense are the same. I argue in this paper that they probably are not, and that the proof Tarski had in mind, although unusable to prove that model-theoretically valid arguments are truth-preserving, can be used to prove that arguments valid in Tarski's 1936 sense are truth-preserving. (shrink)

This chapter proposes that the cognitive mechanisms of joint attention (defined as a combination of attention following skills with attention contact skills) are not metarepresentational in nature, but based upon the coordination of two different types of intentional understanding — third-person and second-person intentions — that are represented at the level of a sensorimotor notion of others as subjects. This proposal is developed and analyzed from a comparative perspective through a review of findings concerning apes, typically developing children, and children (...) with autism. It is argued that each of these populations illustrates a different type of joint attention system based upon different notions of the other as a subject. (shrink)

Si, pour Heidegger, Nietzsche représente le dernier penseur de la métaphysique, ce n’est pas seulement en raison de son appartenance à la conceptualité de l’onto-théologie ni des limites intrinsèques à sa tâche d’un renversement du platonisme. La lecture des traités et des cahiers posthumes concernant la pensée de l’ Ereignis précise la critique heideggérienne et la complète par l’opposition totale à la tentative d’un élevage ( Züchtung ) de l’être humain supérieur. En effet, Heidegger voit dans la notion d’élevage la (...) fixation voire la radicalisation, à l’époque de la fabrication ( Machenschaft ), de la définition métaphysique de l’être humain comme animal rationale. Contre la Züchtung nietzschéenne, il pense la possibilité d’une préparation ( Vorbereitung ) du Da-sein, comme la plus haute transformation de l’essence humaine. Ce sont les rapports de ces deux notions, l’élevage tel qu’il apparaît dans la critique heideggerienne de Nietzsche, et le concept qu’il lui oppose, la préparation, que nous analysons dans cet article, en exposant non seulement la manière dont l’un répond à l’autre, mais également les limites de ce couple de concepts. Par là, nous cherchons d’une part à mieux comprendre la place de Nietzsche dans le projet de l’histoire de l’Être, et, d’autre part, à déterminer la portée de son dépassement. (shrink)

Contrary to what often seems to be the implicit belief, Tarski's 1933 version of the theorem on the indefinability of truth did not mention semantic notions, either defined or intuitive. I state this version in a somewhat modernized form and explain briefly the self-imposed mathematico-philosophical constraints that led Tarski to formulate it as he did. I also point out that close attention to its content suggests a refined view of the exact contrast between Tarski's achievement and Gödel's achievement in his (...) earlier discovery of another version of the result. (shrink)

The thesis, typical among dualists, that there are no necessitation relations between events of consciousness and physical events implies that it is prima facie lucky that in our world the apparently existing psychophysical laws usually match events of consciousness and physical events in a “harmonious” way. The lucky psychophysical laws argument concludes that typical dualism amounts to a psychophysical parallelism that is prima facie too improbable to be true. I argue that an anthropic reasoning in the space of possible worlds (...) makes the appearance of a harmonious match situation unsurprising, and that this is all that is needed for the argument to be harmless to a typical dualist. (shrink)

En la discusión de la teoría de la mente hay dos enfoques que han intentado explicar la atribución de estados psicológicos: la teoría-teoría y la teoría de la simulación. El rasgo distintivo de ambos enfoques es que defienden un proceso cognitivo unimodal de explicación de la lectura de mentes, sea de teorización o simulación. En este trabajo se discuten las implicaciones que tienen estos enfoques en la investigación filosófica y empírica, y se defiende la tesis de que la lectura de (...) mentes no es una capacidad unimodal. Se presentan varias de las inconsistencias de la TT y la TS al buscar un acoplamiento con la evidencia empírica en psicología y neurociencia cognitiva, lo que refleja que, en efecto, la atribución de estados mentales no es el resultado de un proceso cognitivo único. Se concluye que son varios los procesos cognitivos, con distinciones de nivel y complejidad funcional encargados del reconocimiento y atribución de estados psicológicos en los demás, lo que exige un enfoque híbrido, integrativo, pluralista y coherente de la lectura de mentes. (shrink)

Dentro de la obra madura de Spinoza, la _Ética_ y el _Tratado Teológico-Político _ se han analizado ampliamente. Sin embargo, el _Tratado Político_ ha sido menormente estudiado por ser una obra inconclusa y con problemas estructurales. Nosotros afirmamos que la teoría política más acabada de Spinoza se encuentra en el TP. En esta obra se sacan todas las consecuencias de guiarse por una noción estrictamente inmanente de la política. En ese sentido, el TP sigue de manera más coherente el programa (...) trazado por la doctrina fundamental de Spinoza expuesta en la _Ética_, y no el TTP. Esto nos lleva a la consideración de la política como tendencia en dos direcciones opuestas: ampliación de poder y concentración de poder. (shrink)

Roy Sorensen has argued that a certain technical use of quotation marks to name the empty string supports a revised version of Davidson’s theory of quotation. I point out that Sorensen’s considerations provide no support for Davidson’s original theory, and I show that at best they support the revised Davidsonian theory only to the same extent that they support a simpler revised version of a Tarskian theory.

An exposition of Kripke's unpublished critique of dispositionalism about color, followed by a review of some recent defenses of dispositionalism and a sketch of some objections that could be made to these defenses from a broadly Kripkean perspective.

Beltrami's first allegedly true interpretation of lobachevsky's geometry can be conceived as (i) pursuing a kantian program insofar as it shows that all the geometrical lobachevskian concepts are constructible in the euclidean space of our human representation, And (ii) proving, Even to kant, That a non-Euclidean geometry is not only logically possible (something that kant never denied) but also mathematically acceptable from a kantian point of view (something that kant would have accepted only after beltrami's interpretation).

Despite the triumphant rhetoric of mechanistic materialism, current biology has no shortage of unsolved fundamental problems. In 1981, seeking a way forward, Rupert Sheldrake proposed the hypothesis of “formative causation” as a unifying organizing principle of life. Expanding the concept of morphogenetic fields, Sheldrake posited a spatio‐temporal connection termed “morphic resonance” whereby the more often a self‐organizing process takes place, the easier it will be for it to take place in the future. After initial acclaim, his project was quickly met (...) with dogmatic skepticism, dismissed as scientific heresy, and ultimately ignored. Forty years later, the experimental implications of his ideas remain largely untested. Visionary or not, Sheldrake's case illustrates the conceptual resistance of the scientific enterprise to revise its own deepest theoretical commitments. Beyond career‐building selection pressures, young researchers need to be presented with the major questions in their field and encouraged to entertain radically alternative points of view. Science is what scientists make of it. (shrink)

El presente artículo parte de analizar el vínculo existente entre los derechos sociales y la democracia conforme a las funciones que desempeñan tales derechos, adaptándose a la realidad en la que deben ser implementados. Por tanto, el paso de la democracia a una posdemocracia plantea dificultades desde un primer momento al crearse obstáculos para el desenvolvimiento real de los principios que han de regir la operatividad de los derechos sociales. Tal es así que nos debemos plantear si es posible que (...) subsistan en ese contexto. De esta manera, se presentan una serie de observaciones y propuestas para salvar los derechos sociales desde una perspectiva de participación de la ciudadanía y un enfoque de derechos humanos. Finalmente, se concluye que lo importante es que se superen los obstáculos que impidan una justiciabilidad y efectividad adecuadas de los derechos sociales. (shrink)

I would like to challenge this view on various grounds, but before I do so, I wish to provide a broader setting for the problems discussed in this paper.

Tras delinear los intereses y líneas básicas del pensamiento de Aranguren, se consideran sus reflexiones sobre el tema de la muerte, principalmente en su Ética de 1958, pero también en artículos y obras posteriores.

Cette étude défend l’idée que, contrairement à l’opinion de Latour sur la nécessité de laisser de côté l’épistémologie pour traiter de tout ce qui a de la valeur pour la science, Mario Bunge a systématiquement construit une épistémologie détaillée et approfondie. La stratégie argumentative consistera à montrer (a) qu’il est faux que nous n’avons jamais été modernes (b) que l’épistémologie est là pour de bon et (c) que Mario Bunge soutient un réalisme scientifique fort, une version du matérialisme, du systémisme (...) et de l’émergentisme, comportant une dimension morale (il existe des valeurs objectives comme la vérité, la paix et la justice qui méritent d’être étudiées). Ensuite, le réalisme de Bunge rejette la neutralité axiologique rendant les scientifiques responsables de leurs actions. Bunge a toujours été moderne et continue à enrichir ses propres positions. (shrink)

La teoría del «mal radical en la naturaleza humana», expuesta por Kant en La religión dentro de los límites de la mera razón, hace contraste con el optimismo antropológico que empapa el Criticismo. Constituyó, sin duda, una importante denuncia frente a la banalidad de muchos optimismos ilustrados. Pero su letra (acto de libertad pre-individual) tiene una obvia dificultad. El artículo propone una reinterpretación que la evitaría, aunque desdramatizando un tanto el tentador alcance enigmático de la propuesta kantiana.

Se trata de examinar las relaciones entre amor, ética y justicia, adoptando cuatro perspectivas complementarias: en primer lugar, se aborda la confrontación con Freud, en su enconada diatriba contra el concepto de «amor al prójimo». En segundo lugar, se plantea la confrontación con Kant, bajo la forma de la disputa entre «amor» e «imperativo». Situados así en el terreno de la ética, se consideran las relaciones entre amor y justicia, sirviéndonos ante todo de los análisis de Ricoeur, para abordar finalmente (...) lo que podríamos denominar «el amor a los fuera de la ley», apoyándonos en algunos personajes literarios de Dostoievski. (shrink)

On March 27, 1572 Fray Luis de Leon was imprisoned, among other reasons, because according to his informers, fray Luis, in addition to «be a friend of novelties» has argued that to understand the Sacred Scripture is not necessary the scholastic Theology. Fray Luis, who was always opposed to this view, will try to defend himself on the basis of the work De doctrina christiana of St.Augustine and putting forward that to correctly interpret Scripture is necessary the scholastic Theology, but (...) also other wisdoms such as history or language knowledge. (shrink)

The main thesis of this paper is that for Socrates political virtue is accomplished exclusively in the sphere of pure language or gesture. The argument consists of three parts. First, following on from the lectures entitled What is Called Thinking?, I examine Heidegger’s interpretation of the figure of Socrates in relation to the themes of language and gesture. Following on from this analysis, I remark that Heidegger overlooks important aspects of Socrates’ understanding of the relation between political virtue and speech. (...) Subsequently, based on the analysis of a central passage from Plato's Apology, I argue that virtue requires the public communicability of speech, and that it imposes itself over language and gestures as a principle of action that precedes and exceeds conceptual knowledge. Finally, I conclude by stating that political power is restricted to the medium of language, to what language itself does or says. (shrink)

This paper looks into two Scottish Philosophical Societies of the Eighteenth century: The Philosophical Society of Edinburgh, and the Select Society of Edinburgh. I intend to show that they were planned, constructed, and carried out according to the experimental method of natural philosophy, and that it was this factor that enhanced the influence they had in the development of the country. An examination of the minute books, discourses, abstracts and question lists of these societies will provide enough evidence to support (...) the claim that experimental philosophy and its method were the decisive factors for the developing and huge success of these societies. (shrink)

La Universidad como centro de investigación y conocimiento debe propiciar una cultura para investigar. El artículo tiene como objetivo presentar la construcción y análisis estructural de una escala para evaluar la cultura investigativa en universitarios, constituida en seis dimensiones y treinta ítems calificados en escala Likert con cinco opciones de respuesta. La escala fue aplicada a 438 estudiantes del último año de estudios de dieciséis Escuelas de una Universidad del norte peruano, luego de su validación por cinco expertos. El análisis (...) factorial exploratorio y confirmatorio permitió validar la estructura multidimensional y su fiabilidad se estableció con el coeficiente omega (w=0.96). (shrink)

I will center the discussion of the Hart-Fuller debate on the five claims Hart mentions might be understood as legal positivisms main tenets: (1) the command theory; (2) the no necessary connection thesis; (3) the methodological claim; (4) the charge of positivism as formalism and the problem of interpretation; and (5) the meta-ethical confusion. In light of these five claims, I will explore whether the exchange of views between Hart and Fuller in 1957 truly amounted to a debate. Sorting out (...) this issue is the aim of this article. (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the article “Constructivist Model Building: Empirical Examples From Mathematics Education” by Catherine Ulrich, Erik S. Tillema, Amy J. Hackenberg & Anderson Norton. Upshot: I argue that radical constructivism poses a series of deep methodological constraints on educational research. We focus on the work of Ulrich et al. to illustrate the practical implications of these constraints.

[ES] ¿Cómo caracteriza Aristóteles a la episteme teoretiké? Aristóteles consideraba a toda ciencia como un sistema S de enunciados que responden varios cánones, por ejemplo, aquellos que se refieren a un tipo o clase particular de objetos, los que son verdaderos, lo que refieren a sus consecuencias lógicas, lo que se aceptan sin definición, y los que que se aceptan sin demostración. Es así que, en este trabajo, por una parte reconstruiré los argumentos que Aristóteles da para sostener dicho sistema, (...) y por otra, analizaré la vigencia de tales argumentos. La hipótesis que manejaré, es que si se suponen verdaderos los requisitos que Aristóteles prescribió para el conocimiento científico se arriba a conclusiones que en la mayoría de los casos están en pugna con las tesis centrales de la metodología y de las ciencias contemporáneas. [EN] How does Aristotle characterize the episteme teoretiké? Aristotle considered all science as a system S of statements that answer to various canons, for example, those that refer to a particular type or class of objects, those which are true, those which refer to their logical consequences, those which are accepted without definition, and those that are accepted without demonstration. Thus, in this work, on the one hand I will reconstruct the arguments Aristotle gives to support this system, and on the other, I will analyze the validity of such arguments. The hypothesis that I will handle is that if the requisites that Aristotle prescribes for scientific knowledge are assumed to be true, then conclusions are reached that in most cases are in conflict with the central theses of the methodology and contemporary sciences. (shrink)

Filipe Martone argues that reference-fixing intentions where the intended object is represented by means of a description can never fix the reference of a demonstrative, and that a speaker, as a matter of empirical fact, never has simultaneous perceptual and non-perceptual reference-fixing intentions that she can intend as fixing the reference of a demonstrative. In this note I reject Martone’s arguments for these claims.

I put forward an inferentialist account of Lewis structures (LSs). In this view, the role of LSs is not to realistically depict molecules, but instead to allow surrogate reasoning and inference in chemistry. I also show that the usage of LSs is a central part of a person’s identity as a chemist, as it is defined within educational identity theory. Taking these conclusions together, I argue that the inferentialist approach to LSs and chemistry identity theory can be studied in parallel, (...) as two complementary sides of the same research programme. (shrink)

Axel Barceló has extended the objectivist apparatus for handling color terms that I develop in my book Roads to Reference, so that the extension covers also some aesthetic predicates. In this note I argue that Barceló’s extension probably attempts to go too far.

This article is a slightly modified version of the first part of Chapter 4 of Revoluciones sin sujeto. Slavoj Žižek’s y la crítica del historicismo posmoderno (Madrid: Akal, 2015) translated by Douglas Kristopher Smith and Nicolas Lema Habash. This text seeks to overcome the scission between Slavoy Žižek and Michel Foucault by challenging the notion that Foucault lacks an ontology of power, beyond contingent historical processes. By exposing the underlying Nietzschean relational ontology of struggle—as distinct from a fundamental, positive grounding—in (...) Foucault’s work, the piece shows how this aspect has been largely misunderstood—including by Žižek himself. Furthermore, it demonstrates how this agonistic ontology of human experience can serve to shed light on Žižek’s notion of the incompleteness of the subject by bringing it into the realm of politics. (shrink)