Las teorías de la mente sostenidas por los filósofos de la época moderna han sido consideradas desde un nuevo punto de vista por la Ciencia Cognitiva contemporánea. La teoría kantiana de la actividad mental, incluyendo sus diversas facultades y los respectivos elementos de estas, ha sido estudiada como una de las propuestas más atractivas, considerando su afinidad con tópicos recientes de dicha disciplina y de la Filosofía de la Mente, tales como la modularidad de las facultades, la intencionalidad de las (...) representaciones, la estructura conceptual y, en especial, la teoría representacional de la mente. En el presente trabajo revisamos algunas propuestas contemporáneas relevantes referentes a estos tópicos y, teniendo en vista la teoría de Kant de la actividad mental, señalamos algunas dificultades que el pensamiento contemporáneo tendría que enfrentar a este respecto. The theories of mind held by modern philosophers have been considered from a new point of view by the contemporary Cognitive Science. The kantian theory of mental activity, included his several faculties and the respective elements of these, have been studied as one of the more attractive proposal, considering his affinity with recent topics in Cognitive Science and the Philosophy of Mind, such as the modularity of faculties, the intentionality of mental representation, conceptual structure, and the representational theory of the mind. In this paper we review some relevant contemporary proposals on these topics , and having in view Kant's theory about the mental, we point out some of the difficulties that contemporary thought at this respect may have to face. (shrink)

La Revista de Filosofía dedica este número a la memoria de quien nos ha dejado hace algunos meses, suscitando en nosotros un agudo sentimiento de desolación y dolor: la profesora Ives Benzi Zenteno.

In our seventh and final piece on the theme “Good without God”, Jonathan Ives argues that reliance on God as an external source of moral authority leads to a kind of moral cowardice.

In this article we distinguish between philosophical bioethics (PB), descriptive policy orientated bioethics (DPOB) and normative policy oriented bioethics (NPOB). We argue that finding an appropriate methodology for combining empirical data and moral theory depends on what the aims of the research endeavour are, and that, for the most part, this combination is only required for NPOB. After briefly discussing the debate around the is/ought problem, and suggesting that both sides of this debate are misunderstanding one another (i.e. one side (...) treats it as a conceptual problem, whilst the other treats it as an empirical claim), we outline and defend a methodological approach to NPOB based on work we have carried out on a project exploring the normative foundations of paternal rights and responsibilities. We suggest that given the prominent role already played by moral intuition in moral theory, one appropriate way to integrate empirical data and philosophical bioethics is to utilize empirically gathered lay intuition as the foundation for ethical reasoning in NPOB. The method we propose involves a modification of a long-established tradition on non-intervention in qualitative data gathering, combined with a form of reflective equilibrium where the demands of theory and data are given equal weight and a pragmatic compromise reached. (shrink)

Philosophical works on actual causation make wide use of thought experiments. The principal aim of this paper is to show how thought experiments are used in the contemporary debate over actual causation and to discuss their role in relation to formal approaches in terms of causal models. I claim that a recourse to thought experiments is not something old fashioned or superseded by abstract models, but it is useful to interpret abstract models themselves and to use our intuitions to judge (...) the results of the model. Recent research on actual causation has stressed the importance of integrating formal models with some notion of normality; I suggest that thought experiments can be useful in eliciting intuitions where normality is not intended in a statistical sense. The first expository part gives a short presentation of the notion of actual causation, summarising some typical problems of counterfactual approaches and how they are treated in causal and structural models. The second part focuses on the problems of model isomorphism and criticises some radical ideas opposing the role of thought experiments, claiming that they may also be of use in evaluating formal models. (shrink)

In this paper we discuss the influence of war as a metaphor in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. After an introduction on the traditional analysis of the war metaphor, we address the social consequences of using this metaphor, a topic that has been widely debated with regard to public communication in the context of COVID-19. We pay particular attention to a theory that many intellectuals have raised: the possibility that the use of the metaphor in this context is harmful (...) to a democratic society because it may lead citizens to accept limited civil liberties and authoritarian policies. After presenting the extensive literature on the use of the war metaphor before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, in the final section of the paper, we analyse experimental evidence of the effects of this metaphor. In the conclusion, we hint at open questions and suggest that the current evidence does not support claims of direct liberticidal influence. (shrink)

This paper responds to the commentaries from Stacy Carter and Alan Cribb. We pick up on two main themes in our response. First, we reflect on how the process of setting standards for empirical bioethics research entails drawing boundaries around what research counts as empirical bioethics research, and we discuss whether the standards agreed in the consensus process draw these boundaries correctly. Second, we expand on the discussion in the original paper of the role and significance of the concept of (...) ‘integrating’ empirical methods and ethical argument as a standard for research practice within empirical bioethics. (shrink)

Cet article examine le rôle joué par la notion d'intelligence dans la poésie de Xénophane et de Parménide. L'auteur soutient que ces deux philosophes, en modifiant les attributs traditionnels du noos humain et divin, répondent aux problèmes posés par le pessimisme gnoséologique de la tradition poétique archaïque, dans laquelle les mortels sont inéluctablement condamnés à l'ignorance. Comme le montre le cas d'Hésiode, même l'inspiration divine ne garantit pas d'acquérir la connaissance, parce que la divinité peut communiquer, à son gré, le (...) vrai ou le faux et que le poète est dépourvu de moyens pour établir la validité de la révélation. Chez Xénophane en revanche, la régularité de l'ordre naturel fondé sur l'immuable noos du dieu offre aux hommes la possibilité effective d'améliorer leur compréhension du monde, tandis que dans le poème de Parménide, la déduction des attributs de l'Être donne aux mortels l'accès à cette vérité qui était auparavant une prérogative exclusive des dieux. (shrink)

Ives, Rosslyn Review of: The age of genius: The seventeenth century and the birth of the modern mind, by A. C. Grayling, Bloomsbury 2016, $34.

In this paper, we present the first stage of an empirical bioethics project exploring the moral sources of paternal responsibilities and rights. In doing so, we present both (1) data on men's normative constructions of fatherhood and (2) the first of a two-stage methodological approach to empirical bioethics. Using data gathered from 12 focus groups run with UK men who have had a variety of different fathering experiences (n = 50), we examine men's perspectives on how paternal responsibilities and rights (...) are generated and the significance of the genetic connection within the father–child relationship. We do not attempt to explore men's experiences of fatherhood or their fathering practices; and neither is the analysis driven from a particular sociological perspective. Rather, we explore men's normative constructions of fatherhood in order to present accessible data that might be of significance to the philosophical/moral debate on the sources of paternal rights and responsibilities. (shrink)

The definition of metabolic syndrome has been, and still is, extremely controversial. My purpose is not to give a solution to the associated debate but to argue that the controversy is at least partially due to the different ‘causal content’ of the various definitions: their theoretical validity and practical utility can be evaluated by reconstructing or making explicit the underlying causal structure. I will therefore propose to distinguish the alternative definitions according to the kinds of causal content they carry: definitions (...) grounded on associations, definitions presupposing a causal model built upon statistical associations, and definitions grounded on underlying mechanisms. I suggest that analysing definitions according to their causal content can be helpful in evaluating alternative definitions of some diseases. I want to show how the controversy over MetS suggests a distinction among three kinds of definitions based on how explicitly they characterise the syndrome in causal terms, and on the type of causality involved. I will call ‘type 1 definitions’ those definitions that are purely associative; ‘type 2 definitions’ the definitions based on statistical associations, plus generic medical and causal knowledge; and ‘type 3 definitions’ the definitions based on mechanisms. These kinds of definitions, although different, can be related to each other. A definition with more specific causal content may be useful in the evaluation of definitions characterised by a lower degree of causal specificity. Moreover, the identification of the type of causality involved is of help to constitute a good criterion for choosing among different definitions of a pathological entity. In section I introduce the controversy about MetS, in section I propose some remarks about medical definitions and their ‘causal import’, and in section I suggest that the different attitudes towards the definition of MetS are relevant to evaluate their explicative power. (shrink)

The Vocation of Man is Fichte’s response to Jacobi. Fichte follows a double strategy: he provides us with his defense against the accusations made to the Doctrine of Science in Jacobi’s Letter to Fichte (subjectivism, solipsism, nihilism), on the other part, he tries to build a link to the non-knowledge of Jacobi. With the ternary structure of the work, Fichte shows its commitment to the position that was already his at the time of the pantheism controversy: he still believes in (...) the necessity of a mediation of Knowledge between Doubt and Faith and does not agree with the Jacobian salto mortale. But Fichte’s account of “knowledge” and ‘faith” in the in the last two books of the work are precisely calibrated to demonstrate to Jacobi their agreement in these two areas. The reaction of Jacobi shows the discrepancy between the Fichte’s intentions and accomplishments. Die Bestimmung des Menschen bringt Fichtes Antwort auf Jacobi. Fichte verfolgt zwei Ziele : es gilt auf der einen Seite fur ihn, sein Verteidigungssystem gegen die im Brief an Fichte entgegen der Wissenschaftslehre geau.erten Anschuldigungen (Subjektivismus, Solipsismus, Nihilismus) darzustellen, auf der anderen Seite einen Ubergang zum jacobischen Nichtwissen zu ermitteln. Mit der dreiteiligen Struktur der Schrift zeigt Fichte, da. er der Position, die er schon beim Pantheismusstreit vertrat, treu bleibt: er halt eine Vermittlung durch das Wissen zwischen dem Zweifel und dem Glauben fur notwendig und setzt sich dem jacobischen salto mortale entgegen. Aber die in den zwei letzten Buchern der Schrift inszenierten Wissen und Glaube sind genau darauf abgezielt, um Jacobi ihre Ubereinstimmung in jenen zwei Bereichen unter Beweis zu stellen. Jacobis Reaktion zeigt die ganze Diskrepanz zwischen Fichtes Erwartungen und dem Ergebnis. (shrink)

The accusation of Nihilism, which Jacobi expressed in his Letter to Fichte, marks a caesura in Fichte’s production. Reputed to be the paradigmatical representantive of a philosophical tradition letting any reality dissolve in a simple game of shadows, Fichte sees himself constrained to clarify the status of the image in his system. This paper aims to examine the strategy to which he has recourse in the Destination of Man, in order to find an answer to the attack.

Ives, Rosslyn Review of: The most good you can do: How effective altruism is changing ideas about living ethically, by Peter Singer, Text Publishing Melbourne 2015.

Despite the importance of Ichikawa's writings, this volume is the first by any scholar to outline his critique.

This book addresses the relevance of Timaeus’s cosmology to Socrates’ request for a speech about war. Charles Ives finds relevance in the dialogue’s concern for education apropos of the medical dimensions of Timaeus’ physics, the project of becoming like god, and the philosophical soul responsible for success on the battlefield.

Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe have attempted to save the concept of ?hegemony? from its economistic and essentialist Marxist roots by incorporating the linguistic influences of post?structuralist theory. Their major Marxist detractors criticise their trajectory as a ?descent into discourse? ? a decay from well?grounded, material reality into the idealistic and problematic realm of language and discourse. Both sides of the debate seem to agree on one thing: the line from Marxism to post?Marxism is the line from the economy to (...) language, from ?reality? to discourse. This article focuses on Gramsci?s writings on language to argue against both sides of this debate. It illustrates how language is central to Gramsci?s historical materialism and that he does not oppose it to materiality. It argues that Gramsci adopted the very term hegemony substantially from his university studies in linguistics ? the debates from which Ferdinand de Saussure also developed structuralism. For Gramsci, such linguistic issues were directly related to the ?questione della lingua? and Italian unification. Moreover, language lies at the centre of Gramsci?s understanding of the relationship between coercion and consent. This not only troubles Laclau & Mouffe?s reading of Gramsci, but it illuminates a more productive conception of hegemony that can address recent debates around post?structuralism and the use of ?hegemony? to analyse globalisation and an increasingly technological and electronic world. (shrink)

In recent years there has been a wealth of literature arguing the need for empirical and interdisciplinary approaches to bioethics, based on the premise that an empirically informed ethical analysis is more grounded, contextually sensitive and therefore more relevant to clinical practice than an ‘abstract’ philosophical analysis. Bioethics has (arguably) always been an interdisciplinary field, and the rise of ‘empirical’ (bio)ethics need not be seen as an attempt to give a new name to the longstanding practice of interdisciplinary collaboration, but (...) can perhaps best be understood as a substantive attempt to engage with the nature of that interdisciplinarity and to articulate the relationship between the many different disciplines (some of them empirical) that contribute to the field. It can also be described as an endeavour to explain how different disciplinary approaches can be integrated to effectively answer normative questions in bioethics, and fundamental to that endeavour is the need to think about how a robust methodology can be articulated that successfully marries apparently divergent epistemological and metaethical perspectives with method. This paper proposes ‘Reflexive Bioethics’ (RB) as a methodology for interdisciplinary and empirical bioethics, which utilizes a method of ‘Reflexive Balancing’ (RBL). RBL has been developed in response to criticisms of various forms of reflective equilibrium, and is built upon a pragmatic characterization of Bioethics and a ‘quasi-moral foundationalism’, which allows RBL to avoid some of the difficulties associated with RE and yet retain the flexible egalitarianism that makes it intuitively appealing to many. (shrink)

In this paper, we will analyse the language used by a group of Tourism ESP students on WhatsApp. The data will be analysed from different perspectives: a) the grammatical mistakes made, and b) the students´ degree of adaptation to the most common linguistic features in text messages. The results indicate that these students continue to make some basic grammatical mistakes they should have already overcome. Moreover, many linguistic features of text messages were encountered in their interventions such as punctuation overuse (...) and deletion and overuse of sounds. Finally, they insert many emojis in their messages to express different meanings. (shrink)

Bioethics is an interdisciplinary field that accommodates a broad range of perspectives and disciplines. This inherent diversity sets a number of challenges for both teachers and students of bioethics, notably in respect to the appropriate aims and methods of bioethics education, standards and criteria for evaluating performance and disciplinary identity. The Interdisciplinary and Empirical Ethics Network (IEEN) was established, with funding from the Wellcome Trust, to facilitate critical and constructive discussion about the ongoing development of bioethics as an evolving field (...) of interdisciplinary study. In November 2012 the IEEN organised a workshop at the University of Birmingham to discuss the issues relating to teaching and learning in interdisciplinary and empirical bioethics. This paper reports on that meeting. (shrink)

Cette contribution vise à répertorier les traces d’une influence de la mystique dans le corpus fichtéen et à définir un cadre interprétatif pour expliquer le recours par Fichte à un langage mystique dans L’Initiation à la vie bienheureuse. Un examen attentif des diverses sources laisse apparaître que la tradition mystique et Jacob Böhme en particulier, portés par un puissant souffle poétique, peuvent remplir à l’égard de la philosophie un rôle propédeutique par leur capacité à élever le public au suprasensible, mais (...) doivent également y borner leurs prétentions. Fichte dénonce en effet sur un plan philosophique leur caractère dogmatique et ne leur accorde de valeur qu’éclairés par la critique. (shrink)

L’accusation de nihilisme portée par Jacobi contre Fichte en marge de la Querelle de l’athéisme avait à l’origine une tout autre cible, les Lumières, accusées d’accorder un rôle démesuré à la raison humaine conduisant à la suppression de toute transcendance. Paradoxalement, celui dont Jacobi fait son adversaire privilégié est très largement d’accord avec le diagnostic sévère porté sur les Lumières, qu’il estime à son tour responsables de la dérive nihiliste. Les remèdes préconisés par les deux penseurs pour remédier au mal (...) de l’époque sont toutefois diamétralement opposés. Tandis que l’un se fait l’avocat d’un rationalisme prémoderne en prônant moins de raison, l’autre estime au contraire nécessaire d’instaurer plus de raison. (shrink)

This article builds on my previous article on Dirk H. Th. Vollenhoven (Ive 2015) and provides an overview of the development of the systematic philosophy of Herman Dooyeweerd. This article seeks to provide an overview of the key developments in the thinking of Dooyeweerd, both in the convergences arising from the conversation of the two brothers-in-law and long-term colleagues and in their divergences. Dooyeweerd and Vollenhoven worked within the tradition of Abraham Kuyper, the father of Reformational philosophy. The development of (...) their respective philosophical systematics has tended to be addressed separately. However, I argue that the close cooperation between the two philosophers was critical in the formulation of the philosophy of the cosmonomic Idea. The philosophical conversation between the two persisted, despite critical divergences, largely aired privately. Their respective insights remained a source of mutual stimulus and complementarity foundational for Reformational philosophy. (shrink)

A total of 1390 university students from five public Moldovan universities completed a survey reporting their experiences and beliefs with respect to 22 types of academic misconduct. An interpretable five-factor solution to the frequencies of these behaviors accounted for more than half of the total variance. The two most reliable predictors were 1) how often students witnessed other students engage in these behaviors, and 2) perceived acceptability of the behaviors. Demographic predictors of these behaviors (gender, academic specialty, year in school, (...) institution, grade average, and scholarship status) predicted minimal variance. Implications and limitations of the findings are discussed. (shrink)

Volume 20, Issue 4, May 2020, Page 80-82.

Over the last decade, patient and public involvement (PPI) has become a requisite in applied health research. Some funding bodies demand explicit evidence of PPI, while others have made a commitment to developing PPI in the projects they fund. Despite being commonplace, there remains a dearth of engagement with the ethical and theoretical underpinnings of PPI processes and practices. More specifically, while there is a small (but growing) body of literature examining the effectiveness and impact of PPI, there has been (...) relatively little reflection on whether the concept/practice of PPI is internally coherent. Here, the authors unpick a ‘paradox’ within PPI, which highlights a tension between its moral and pragmatic motivations and its implementation. The authors argue that this ‘professionalisation paradox’ means we need to rethink the practice, and purpose, of PPI in research. (shrink)

Ives, Rosslyn Review of: The swerve: How the renaissance began, by Stephen Greenblatt, Publisher The Bodley Head, London 2011.

In a recent paper published in the Journal of Medical Ethics, Le Morvan and Stock claim that the kantian ideal of treating people always as ends in themselves and never merely as a means is in direct and insurmountable conflict with the current medical practice of allowing practitioners at the bottom of their “learning curve” to “practise their skills” on patients. In this response, I take up the challenge they issue is and try to reconcile this conflict. The kantian ideal (...) offered in the paper is an incomplete characterisation of Kant’s moral philosophy, and the formula of humanity is considered in isolation without taking into account other salient kantian principles. I also suggest that their argument based on “necessary for the patient” assumes too narrow a reading of “necessary”. This reply is intended as an extension to, rather than a criticism of, their work. (shrink)