Este artículo describe la cultura material de la campaña de escraches, un tipo específico de activismo performativo implementado por la Plataforma de Afectados por la Hipoteca (PAH) con el fin de presionar a la clase política para cambiar la ley hipotecaria española. A partir del análisis de los círculos gigantes de cartón utilizados por la PAH en los escraches, se estudia cómo estos objetos tienen la capacidad de replantear el espacio y el tiempo de la política. A partir del material (...) etnográfico que se presenta, el artículo indica cómo se elaboran y cómo se usan estos círculos para teorizar sobre la noción de objeto desobediente. De este modo, el trabajo se centra en tres aspectos: cómo los círculos convocan diferentes actores y audiencias, su papel en tanto herramientas políticas que subvierten la narrativa oficial de la crisis financiera, y su rol como elementos clave para cuestionar la moralidad de la deuda hipotecaria y del endeudamiento. (shrink)

In this paper we claim that the notion of cognitive representation (and scientific representation in particular) is irreducibly plural. By means of an analogy with the minimalist conception of truth, we show thatthis pluralism is compatible with a generally deflationary attitude towards representation. We then explore the extent and nature of representational pluralism by discussing the positive and negative analogies between the inferential conception of representation advocated by one of us and the minimalist conception of truth.

This Element has two main aims. The first one is an historically informed review of the philosophy of probability. It describes recent historiography, lays out the distinction between subjective and objective notions, and concludes by applying the historical lessons to the main interpretations of probability. The second aim focuses entirely on objective probability, and advances a number of novel theses regarding its role in scientific practice. A distinction is drawn between traditional attempts to interpret chance, and a novel methodological study (...) of its application. A radical form of pluralism is then introduced, advocating a tripartite distinction between propensities, probabilities and frequencies. Finally, a distinction is drawn between two different applications of chance in statistical modelling which, it is argued, vindicates the overall methodological approach. The ensuing conception of objective probability in practice is the 'complex nexus of chance'. (shrink)

Given one conception of biological individuality (evolutionary, physiological, etc.), can a holobiont – that is the host + its symbiotic (mutualistic, commensalist and parasitic) microbiome – be simultaneously a biological individual and an ecological community? Herein, we support this possibility by arguing that the notion of biological individuality is part‐dependent. In our account, the individuality of a biological ensemble should not only be determined by the conception of biological individuality in use, but also by the biological characteristics of the part (...) of the ensemble under investigation. In the specific case of holobionts, evaluations of their individuality should be made either host‐relative or microbe‐relative. We support the claim that biological individuality is part‐dependent by drawing upon recent empirical evidence regarding the physiology of hosts and microbes, and the recent characterization of the ‘demibiont’. Our account shows that contemporary disagreements about the individuality of the holobiont derive from an incorrect understanding of the ontology of biological individuality. We show that collaboration between philosophers and biologists can be very fruitful in attempts to solve some contemporary biological debates. (shrink)

al-Juzʼ 1. Uṣūl al-masāʼil al-akhlāqīyah -- al-juzʼ 2-3. Furūʻ al-masāʼil al-akhlāqīyah.

An English translation of the Second Disputation.

Symbiosis plays a fundamental role in contemporary biology, as well as in recent thinking in philosophy of biology. The discovery of the importance and universality of symbiotic associations has brought new light to old debates in the field, including issues about the concept of biological individuality. An important aspect of these debates has been the formulation of the hologenome concept of evolution, the notion that holobionts are units of natural selection in evolution. This review examines the philosophical assumptions that underlie (...) recent proposal of the hologenome concept of evolution, and traces those debates back in time to their historical origins, to the moment when the connection between the topics of symbiosis and biological individuality first caught the attention of biologists. The review is divided in two parts. The first part explores the historical origins of the connection between the notion of symbiosis and the concept of biological individuality, and emphasizes the role of A. de Bary, R. Pound, A. Schneider and C. Merezhkowsky in framing the debate. The second part examines the hologenome concept of evolution and explores four parallelisms between contemporary debates and the debates presented in the first part of the essay, arguing that the different debates raised by the hologenome concept were already present in the literature. I suggest that the novelty of the hologenome concept of evolution lies in the wider appreciation of the importance of symbiosis for maintaining life on Earth as we know it. Finally, I conclude by suggesting the importance of exploring the connections among contemporary biology, philosophy of biology and history of biology in order to gain a better understanding of contemporary biology. (shrink)

L'index detaille de la Metaphysique d'Aristote publie en 1597 par Suarez, constitue une introduction aux Disputes metaphysiques. Il a pour objectif de produire les conditions d'un renouvellement de l'heritage de la Metaphysique d'Aristote en redefinissant le contenu et les limites d'une science de l'etant.Le projet de refondation de la metaphysique comme ontologie s'effectue dans cet ouvrage de presentation en quatre moments:1) L'exposition du probleme de la nature de la connaissance qui implique le depassement de l'equivocite de la notion de sagesse.2) (...) La determination de l'objet, des proprietes et des principes veritables de la metaphysique en tant que science de l'universel, c'est a dire de l'etantite de l'etant selon son abstraction la plus extreme.3) La redefinition du statut de la realite a partir d'une theorie de la representation de l'objet qui fasse abstraction de l'objet, c'est a dire qui procede a l'indifferenciation des etants afin d'en donner une representation universelle et abstraite; ainsi est affirme le primat d'une ontologie de l'essence sur toute ontotheologie.4) Enfin, la mise en place d'un systeme de reference transcendantal rendant possible une fondation universelle de la comprehension de l'etant par la mediation d'une theorie du concept.L'index prefigure ainsi, par son ambition et sa demarche, ce que Heidegger nommera, en evoquant la philosophie de Suarez, l'avenement du "caractere fondamental de la metaphysique moderne". (shrink)

In an influential article published in 1982, Bas Van Fraassen developed an argument against causal realism on the basis of an analysis of the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen correlations of quantum mechanics. Several philosophers of science and experts in causal inference -including some causal realists like Wesley Salmon- have accepted Van Fraassen’s argument, interpreting it as a proof that the quantum correlations cannot be given any causal model. In this paper I argue that Van Fraassen’s article can also be interpreted as a good (...) guide to the different causal models available for the EPR correlations, and their relative virtues. These models in turn give us insight into some of the unusual features that quantum propensicies might have. (shrink)

This paper is divided in two parts. In part I, I argue against two attempts to naturalise the notion of scientific representation, by reducing it to isomorphism and similarity. I distinguish between the means and the constituents of representation, and I argue that isomorphism and similarity are common means of representation; but that they are not constituents of scientific representation. I look at the prospects for weakened versions of these theories, and I argue that only those that abandon the aim (...) to naturalise scientific representation are likely to be successful. In part II of the paper, I present a deflationary conception of scientific representation, which minimally characterises it by means of two necessary conditions: representation is essentially intentional and it has the capacity to allow surrogate reasoning and inference. I then defend this conception by showing that it successfully meets the objections and difficulties that make its competitors, such as isomorphism and similarity, untenable. In addition the inferential conception explains the success of various means of representation in their appropriate domains, and it sheds light on the truth and accuracy of scientific representations. (shrink)

There has been an intense discussion, albeit largely an implicit one, concerning the inference of causal hypotheses from statistical correlations in quantum mechanics ever since John Bell’s first statement of his notorious theorem in 1966. As is well known, its focus has mainly been the so-called Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (“EPR”) thought experiment, and the ensuing observed correlations in real EPR like experiments. But although implicitly the discussion goes as far back as Bell’s work, it is only in the last two decades that (...) it has become recognizably and explicitly a debate about causal inference in the quantum realm. The bulk of this paper is devoted to a review of three influential arguments in the philosophical literature that aim to show that causal models for the EPR correlations are impossible, due to Bas Van Fraassen, Daniel Hausman and Huw Price. I contend that all these arguments are inconclusive since they contain premises or presuppositions that are false, unwarranted, or at least controversial. Five different common cause models are outlined that seem perfectly viable for the EPR correlations. These models are then employed to illustrate various difficulties with the premises and presuppositions underlying Van Fraassen’s, Hausman’s and Price’s arguments. In all these cases it is argued that the difficulties cut deep against these authors’ own theories of causation and causal inference. My conclusions are that causal models for the EPR correlations remain viable, that philosophical work is still required to assess their relative virtues, and that in any case the mere theoretical conceivability and empirical possibility of these models sheds doubts over Van Fraassen’s, Hausman’s and (important elements in) Price’s theories of causation and causal inference. (shrink)

The Spanish Jesuit Francisco Suarez was an eminent philosopher and theologian whose _Disputationes Metaphysicae_ was first published in Spain in 1597 and was widely studied throughout Europe during the seventeenth century. The _Disputationes Metaphysicae_ had a great influence on the development of early modern philosophy and on such well-known figures as Descartes and Leibniz. This is the first time that Disputations 17, 18, and 19 have been translated into English. The _Metaphysical Disputations_ provide an excellent philosophical introduction to the medieval (...) Aristotelian discussion of efficient causality. The work constitutes a synthesis of monumental proportions: problematic issues are lucidly delineated and the various arguments are laid out in depth. Disputations 17, 18, and 19 deal explicitly with such issues as the nature of causality, the types of efficient causes, the prerequisites for causal action, causal contingency, human free choice, and chance. (shrink)

Philippe Huneman has recently questioned the widespread application of mechanistic models of scientific explanation based on the existence of structural explanations, i.e. explanations that account for the phenomenon to be explained in virtue of the mathematical properties of the system where the phenomenon obtains, rather than in terms of the mechanisms that causally produce the phenomenon. Structural explanations are very diverse, including cases like explanations in terms of bowtie structures, in terms of the topological properties of the system, or in (...) terms of equilibrium. The role of mathematics in bowtie structured systems and in topologically constrained systems has recently been examined in different papers. However, the specific role that mathematical properties play in equilibrium explanations requires further examination, as different authors defend different interpretations, some of them closer to the new-mechanistic approach than to the structural model advocated by Huneman. In this paper, we cover this gap by investigating the explanatory role that mathematics play in Blaser and Kirschner’s nested equilibrium model of the stability of persistent long-term human-microbe associations. We argue that their model is explanatory because: i) it provides a mathematical structure in the form of a set of differential equations that together satisfy an ESS; ii) that the nested nature of the ESSs makes the explanation of host-microbe persistent associations robust to any perturbation; iii) that this is so because the properties of the ESS directly mirror the properties of the biological system in a non-causal way. The combination of these three theses make equilibrium explanations look more similar to structural explanations than to causal-mechanistic explanation. (shrink)

1Department of Philosophy, University of Bristol, 9 Woodland Road, Bristol BS8 1TB, UKScience Without Laws Ronald Giere Chicago, IL University of Chicago Press 1999 x + 285 Hardback£17.50.

I argue against an account of scientific representation suggested by the semantic, or structuralist, conception of scientific theories. Proponents of this conception often employ the term “model” to refer to bare “structures”, which naturally leads them to attempt to characterize the relation between models and reality as a purely structural one. I argue instead that scientific models are typically “representations”, in the pragmatist sense of the term: they are inherently intended for specific phenomena. Therefore in general scientific models are not (...) (merely) structures. I then explore some consequences of this pragmatist account of representation, and argue that it sheds light upon the distinction between theories and models. I finish by briefly addressing some critical comments due to Bas Van Fraassen. (shrink)

A brief introduction to the history and philosophy of physical chance.

I defend a three-fold form of pluralism about chance, involving a tripartite distinction between propensities, probabilities, and frequencies. The argument has a negative and a positive part. Negatively, I argue against the identity thesis that informs current propensity theories, which already suggests the need for a tripartite distinction. Positively, I argue that that a tripartite distinction is implicit in much statistical practice. Finally, I apply a well-known framework in the modelling literature in order to characterize these three separate concepts functionally (...) in terms of their roles in modelling practice. (shrink)

Annotation A central piece of Suarez's (1584-1617) metaphysics, which is considered important because it was not a commentary on Aristotle, and was used in universities and by both his fellow Jesuits and Protestant scholars and theologians for centuries. He deals with the formal principles of the nature of material substances, that is, their substantial form, which is central to his interpretation of Aristotelian realism. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).

La Gran Guerra hace saltar por los aires las promesas de un mundo en constante progreso, surgirán los heraldos de una vuelta a los valores espirituales, medievales, frente a aquellos que defienden y reformulan un socialismo humanista, de raíz ilustrada, alejado de las ideologías totalitarias de su tiempo. Ramiro de Maeztu y Fernando de los Ríos representan y simbolizan con sus vidas estos dos paradigmas.

El presente artículo parte de exponer y analizar dos niveles en el camino metafísico de Heidegger, diferentes mas relacionados recíprocamente: de una parte, el de la crítica al presente, marcado por la cultura del pesimismo que se nutre del desprecio de la civilización técnico-industrial; y, de otra parte, el de la desesperación ontológico existencial anclado en la pérdida epocal de la pregunta por el sentido del ser, la cual comporta, en consecuencia, la imposibilidad de una apropiación individual e histórica de (...) la verdad del ser. (shrink)

We argue for an account of chemical reactivities as chancy propensities, in accordance with the ‘complex nexus of chance’ defended by one of us in the past (Suárez, 2017, 2020). Reactivities are typically quantified as proportions, and an expression such as “A + B → C” does not entail that under the right conditions some amounts of A and B react to give the amount of C that theoretically would correspond to the stoichiometry of the reaction. Instead, what is (...) produced is a fraction α < 1 of this theoretical amount, and the corresponding percentage is usually known as the yield, which expresses the relative preponderance of its reaction. This is then routinely tested in a laboratory against the observed actual yields for the different reactions. Thus, on our account, reactivities ambiguously refer to three quantities at once. They first refer to the underlying propensities effectively acting in the reaction mechanisms, and which in ‘chemical chemistry’ (Schummer, 1998) are commonly represented by means of Lewis structures. Besides, reactivities represent the probabilities that these propensities give rise to, for any amount of the reactants to combine as prescribed. This last notion is hence best understood as a single case chance and corresponds to a theoretical stoichiometric yield. Finally, reactivities represent the actual yields observed in experimental runs, which account for and provide the requisite evidence for / against both the mechanisms and single case chances ascribed. (shrink)

The hologenome concept of evolution is a hypothesis about the evolution of animals and plants. It asserts that the evolution of animals and plants was partially triggered by their interactions with their symbiotic microbiomes. In that vein, the hologenome concept posits that the holobiont (animal host + symbionts of the microbiome) is a unit of selection. -/- The hologenome concept has been severely criticized on the basis that selection on holobionts would only be possible if there were a tight transgenerational (...) host-genotype-to-symbiont-genotype connection. As our current evidence suggests that this is not the case for most of the symbiont species that compose the microbiome of animals and plants, the opportunity for holobiont selection is very low in relation to the opportunity for selection on each of the species that compose the host microbiome. Therefore, holobiont selection will always be disrupted ‘from below’, by selection on each of the species that compose the microbiome. -/- This thesis constitutes a conceptual effort to defend philosophically the hologenome concept. I argue that the criticism according to which holobiont selection requires tight transgenerational host-genotype-to-symbiont-genotype connection is grounded on a metaphysical view of the world according to which the biological hierarchy needs to be nested, such that each new level of selection includes every entity from below. Applied to hologenomes, it entails that the hologenome is a collection of genomes, and selection of hologenomes is assumed to entail cospeciation of the host with the species that constitute its microbiome. -/- Against that interpretation, I propose the ‘stability of traits’ account, according to which hologenome evolution is the result of the action of natural selection in a non-nested hierarchical world. In that vein, hologenome evolution does not entail cospeciation, and thus it does not require tight transgenerational host-genotype-to-symbiont-genotype connection. By embracing a multilevel selection perspective, I argue that hologenome evolution results from the simultaneous action of natural selection on each of the lineages that compose the microbiome, and on the assemblage composed by the host genome plus the functional traits of its microbiome. Hologenome selection occurs when the evolution of the traits of the microbiome result from their effects on the fitness of the host, and it can take the form of multilevel selection 1, or multilevel selection 2. In both cases, hologenome selection entails the evolution of microbiome traits, as well as evolution of the host genome, rather than cospeciation of lineages. (shrink)

In seiner Vorlesung "Uber das Willentliche und das Unwillentliche" unternimmt Suarez, der als Autor der Fruhen Neuzeit in seinem Werk wie nur wenige andere Autoren seiner Zeit die mittelalterliche Philosophie und Theologie systematisch aufnimmt und neu verarbeitet, den Versuch, die Willenstheorien der Patristik, der Hochscholastik und der fruhneuzeitlichen Aristotelesrezeption miteinander zu verknupfen. Das Werk entstammt einer Vorlesungsreihe, die Suarez zwischen 1578 und 1585 am Collegium Romanum auf Einladung von Papst Gregor XIII. abhielt. In der Diskussion der Willensfreiheit, der Rolle von (...) Zwang oder Gewalt und den verschiedenen Arten des Willentlichen legt Suarez den Grundstein fur seine spatere Moralphilosophie. (shrink)

In the course of his argument, Suarez rejects any "physical" demonstration, which would employ the Aristotelian principle, "Everything which is moved is moved by another," in order to pass from motion to a First Mover. Other topics that he treats include, in Disputation 28, the analogy of being between God and creatures, and in Disputation 29, the fact that there is only one God who is the creator of all else."--BOOK JACKET.