Presupposition, vagueness, and oddness can lead to some sentences failing to have a clear truth value. The homogeneity property of plural predication with definite descriptions may also create truth-value gaps: The books are written in Dutch is true if all relevant books are in Dutch, false if none of them are, and neither true nor false if, say, half of the books are written in Dutch. We study the projection property of homogeneity by deploying methods of general interest to identify (...) truth-value gaps. Method A consists in collecting both truth judgments and, independently, falsity judgments. The second method, employed in experiment series B and C, is based on one-shot ternary judgments: completely true vs. completely false vs. neither. After a calibration of these methods, we use them to demonstrate that homogeneity projects out of negation, the scope of universal sentences and the scope of non-monotonic quantifiers such as exactly two, to some extent. We assess our results in light of different theoretical approaches to homogeneity—approaches based on presuppositions, scalar implicatures, and something like supervaluations, respectively. We identify free parameters in these theories and assess various variants of them based on our results. Our experimental paradigms may be of broader significance insofar as they can be applied to other phenomena which result in the failure of a sentence to have a definite truth value. (shrink)

Hispanic specialists in the Alphonsine work have studied the distinction between ‘natura’ and ‘nature’ of the Partidas. The conclusions of these analyzes affirm that this distinction is born from a semantic displacement that is situated in a plane of legal-social relationships, within a naturalistic model in the Alphonsine political project that shows a Christian Aristotelian reading. The present paper does not differ from these conclusions, but we believe that it is necessary to modulate this naturalistic model from broader metaphysical conceptualizations (...) that better explain what that Christian Aristotelianism consists of. We will try to reinforce these theses from assessments that have the multidisciplinary nature present in the Alphonsine scriptorium as a backdrop. We present the possible influence of the philosophical schemes of the First Franciscan Scholasticism in this distinction of the terms ‘nature’ and ‘nature’. (shrink)

The problem of divine attributes was one of the most intensely debated topics in the 17-18th century Irish philosophy. Simply put, the problem revolves around the ontological question (i) whether human and divine attributes differ in degree or in kind, and the semantical (ii) how we ought to describe these divine attributes by means of our human language. While there was a consensus that analogies play a key role in solving the semantical problem there was a controversy about the kind (...) of speech they allow for. Especially, it was contested if using analogies for divine predication allows for a separate kind of speech, i.e. allows us to speak neither literally nor metaphorically but analogically. The aim of my paper is to contextualize George Berkeley's position on the problem of divine attributes as developed in § 21 of the IV. Dialogue in Alciphron.More specifically and contrary to what most scholars hold, I argue Berkeley fails to follow Cardinal Cajetan with remarkable closeness. Despite paraphrasing parts of Cajetan's De Nominum Analogia in § 21, the solution Berkeley advances is closer to the position of John Duns Scotus – and hence, ironically, with the position Cajetan aimed to reject. (shrink)

¿De qué manera afecta el Antropoceno a la ética ecológica? Sabido es que el primero no solo da cuenta de la formidable transformación de origen antropogénico experimentada por los sistemas planetarios, sino que de paso constata que el impacto humano sobre la Tierra es menos un accidente o contingencia que la consecuencia inevitable del modo de ser de la especie. Este artículo explorará las consecuencias que la actual emergencia planetaria tiene para la ética ecológica, arguyendo que la ausencia del sujeto (...) político "humanidad" incrementa la importancia de un comportamiento individual que está, agregación mediante, en la raíz del cambio climático y demás manifestaciones del Antropoceno. Se defenderá la idea de que la virtud más importante para el ciudadano ecológico es la virtud epistémica de la reflexividad o autoconciencia, cuyo resultado habrá de ser la formación de una subjetividad planetaria orientada a la sostenibilidad y, idealmente, a la reparación de las relaciones de la humanidad con el mundo natural. (shrink)

While applying general ethical principles and reasoning to the dilemmas presented by the development of nanotechnology is often useful and always legitimate, we also need to find a way to bridge the gap between general principles and the specific issues that arise from the development of individual nanotechnologies. Drawing inspiration from pragmatist thinking, a useful strategy is to focus on the links between the epistemological, political and social representations of a particular case. Using the example of a nanotechnological house, this (...) paper analyzes the problematic connections between scientific knowledge, technical expertise, decision-making and public engagement in nanotechnology representational networks. (shrink)

. As a discipline, semiotics has gained recognition in many fields. Cultural background plays an important part in the field of the visual art. Given the rich cultural context of the pictorial hybridization Chinese-European in the early Qing dynasty, the pictorial works can be used in studying semiotics. This article addresses a discourse on some semiotic reflections in painting. It focuses on the application of the theory of the semiotic scientist Charles Peirce that has proven to be suitable for analyzing (...) pictorial works. The model chosen as a subject for investigation is a painting in ink on silk titled “Portrait of Qianlong’s Consort with Yongyan as a Child,” painted using Western techniques in the eighteenth century. The analysis of the portrait offers an appropriate basis to develop some semiotic reflections on this work of art by contributing to aesthetic and artistic awareness. Semiotic structures were employed to develop an understanding of the pictorial forms by turning each element into a tool of communication. The semiotic reading of this work is concerned with the visual art education and sensorial message of the painting. (shrink)

El artículo revisa los límites teóricos que unen y separan la lógica de Aristóteles de la lógica aristotélica y la lógica de primer orden. Considera las razones para sostener la actualidad de la lógica de Aristóteles y se pregunta por la unidad de la disciplina, destacando la importancia de la noción de ciencia en la definición de lógica. The article deals with the theoretical limits which unify Aristotle's logic with Aristotelian logic and First Order Logic, and it realizes their differences (...) too. It examines the reasons to maintain the presence and actuality of Aristotle's logic and discovers the importance of the notion of science in defining the nature of logic. (shrink)

The traditional point of view on analyticity implies that truth in virtue only of meaning entails a priori acceptability and vice versa. The argument for this claim is based on the idea that meaning as it concerns truth and meaning as it concerns competence are one and the same thing. In this paper I argue that the extensions of these notions do not coincide. I hold that truth in virtue of meaning— truth for semantic reasons—doesn't imply a priori acceptability, and (...) that a priori reflection based only on knowledge of meaning—in the sense of competence—doesn't necessitate true conclusions.The main consequence of this view concerns conceptual analysis, as it presupposes we have a privileged—incorrigible in the face of empirical evidence—access to non-trivial truths about the world on the basis of mere a priori reflection founded on meaning. If, as I argue, such access is not incorrigible the project of conceptual analysis loses its special epistemological status. (shrink)

A theory of the beliefs of non-human animals is not closed to us, only because we do not have beliefs of their kind. Starting from a theory of human beliefs and working on a building block model of propositional attitudes a theory of animal beliefs is viable. Such a theory is an example of the broader conception of a heterophenomenological approach to animal cognition. The theory aims at outlining the crucial differences between human and animal beliefs as well as the (...) relations between these attitudes and theories of them. By this it contributes both to a theory of human cognition and to a theory of the evolutionary origin of human cognition. The capacities of animals can thus be appreciated without making animals minor humans. Human cognition can be seen in its uniqueness without cutting the ties to its evolutionary origin. (shrink)

Essays by some of the world's leading educators provide a revolutionary portrait of new ideas and developments in education that can influence the possibility of social and political change. The authors take into account such diverse terrain as feminism, ecology, media, and individual liberty in their pursuit of new ideas that can inform the fundamental practice of education and promote a more humane civil society. The book consolidates recent thinking just as it reflects on emerging new lines of critical theory.

It is known that a countable $\omega $ -categorical structure interprets all finite structures primitively positively if and only if its polymorphism clone maps to the clone of projections on a two-element set via a continuous clone homomorphism. We investigate the relationship between the existence of a clone homomorphism to the projection clone, and the existence of such a homomorphism which is continuous and thus meets the above criterion.

The emphasis of systems and synthetic biology on quantitative understanding of biological objects and their eventual re-design has raised the question of whether description and construction standards that are commonplace in electric and mechanical engineering are applicable to live systems. The tuning of genetic devices to deliver a given activity is generally context-dependent, thereby undermining the re-usability of parts, and predictability of function, necessary for manufacturing new biological objects. Tolerance and allowance are key aspects of standardization that need to be (...) brought to biological design. These should endow functional building blocks with a pre-specified level of confidence for bespoke biosystems engineering. However, in the absence of more fundamental knowledge, fine-tuning necessarily relies on evolutionary/combinatorial gravitation toward a fixed objective. (shrink)

Synthetic biology aims at making life easier to an engineer by applying biotechnology engineering principles such as standardization and modularity. I argue that living organisms are inherently non-machine, non-standardized entities and that the current state-of-the-art in SynBio combines pre- and post-standardization efforts, in a scenario without evidence that full standardization in biology is even possible. I finally propose a new view on SynBio based on purpose rather than on technicalities.

Journal Name: Philologus Issue: Ahead of print.

This article presents a republican interpretation of Michael Walzer’s theory of distributive justice and of his idea of complex equality. It demonstrates that Spheres of Justice is not only a defense of pluralism and equality, but also of liberty or freedom. Like Quentin Skinner and Philip Pettit, Walzer understands liberty as non-domination. For Walzer, a just distribution of all social goods leads to a “complex egalitarian society” in which every citizen is equally free from domination and tyranny. Against alternative interpretations, (...) this paper suggests that Walzer is indeed a political egalitarian and that complex equality should be interpreted as a simple equality of liberty or freedom. In the conclusion, the article argues that Walzer’s and Pettit’s versions of republicanism are complementary because they each illuminate the other’s blind spot and thus mutually fix each other’s particular shortcoming. (shrink)

I present an epistemological puzzle about perceptual knowledge and its relation to the evaluation of probabilities. It involves cases, concerning a given subject S and a proposition P in a determinate context, where apparently: S has perceptual knowledge of P; the epistemic justification S has for believing Not-P is much greater than her epistemic justification for believing P. If those two theses were true, the following very plausible epistemological principle would fail: If S knows P, then the epistemic justification S (...) has for believing Not-P is not greater than her epistemic justification for believing P. I offer a solution to the puzzle, which is compatible with basic intuitions and theses of orthodox Bayesianism. (shrink)

En noviembre de 1698, la Congregación de San Felipe Neri fue instituida canónicamente en Sevilla por el Padre Francisco Navascués Pérez. Se celebra, por tanto, su tercer centenario. Por este motivo, este trabajo se concibe como punto de partida de un futuro libro, para el que se está realizando una investigación. El trabajo muestra el proceso de desarrollo de la Congregación del Oratorio de Sevilla desde 1698, año de su fundación, hasta 1893, cuando el Papa León XIII le concede la (...) propiedad de la Iglesia de San Alberto, actual sede del Oratorio. Encontramos aquí la fundación, el desarrollo del Oratorio en el siglo XVIII, la creación de la Real Casa de Ejercicios, las diversas extinciones y reinstalaciones de la Congregación durante el siglo XIX, y todos sus prefectos. Por último, ofrecemos información sobre la situación actual de la Congregación del Oratorio de San Felipe de Sevilla. (shrink)

Este artículo trata en primer lugar de las relaciones entre la Iglesia y el Estado durante el siglo XIX debido a las medidas políticas tomadas por los gobiernos liberales: venta de tierras de la Iglesia, nacionalización de propiedades eclesiásticas y secularización. En segundo lugar, aborda la supresión de ciertos monasterios masculinos en 1820 y la secularización de 1835, describiendo en detallelos casos de los dominicos, los frailes carmelitas, los Mercedarios descalzos, los Capuchinos y los Oratorios. También insiste, de manera especial, (...) en el proceso de secularización de los Mínimos. Finalmente, también analiza la restauración de órdenes religiosas masculinas en la diócesis de Sevilla en el finales del siglo XIX y principios del XX, dedicando algunas páginas a la restauración de losMínimos en su antiguo monasterio de la Consolación en Utrera en 1896. (shrink)

Según Williamson, saber y creer son estados mentales, pero creer algo verdadero y creer justificadamente algo verdadero no lo son. Ese tratamiento discriminatorio es relevante para la epistemología de Williamson. Su principal tesis epistemológica negativa y su principal tesis epistemológica positiva están en peligro si su teoría metafísica sobre lo mental es incorrecta. Presento aquí un problema para dicha teoría: impone limitaciones implausibles a los posibles usos de conceptos y expresiones lingüísticas. Describiré algunas opciones que tendría Williamson para evitar el (...) problema; pero sostendré que acarrean cierta dosis de arbitrariedad. (shrink)

Timothy Williamson has defended the claim that any philosophically satisfying conception of modality that encompasses possible worlds semantics (PWS) commits us to the Barcan Formula. His argument depends on the assumption that the domain of what there is (the domain of the actual world) has to be identified with the domain D(@), where @ is the index or possible world that in PWS represents , or stands for , the actual world. I work out an interpretation of the relation between (...) PWS and possible worlds terminology that makes it plausible to reject that assumption. (shrink)

Composition as Identity claims that a composite object is identical to its parts taken collectively. This is often understood as reducing the identity of composite objects to the identity of their parts. The author argues that Composition as Identity is not such a reduction. His central claim is that an intensional notion of composition, which is sensitive to the arrangement of the composing objects, avoids criticisms based on an extensional understanding of composition. The key is to understand composition as an (...) intensional kind of identity relation, many-one identity. Eventually, the author suggests an arrangement condition for many-one identity that allows him to distinguish between composite objects, even if they have the same parts. (shrink)

The role of cognitive control mechanisms in reducing interference from emotionally salient distractors was investigated. In two experiments, participants performed a flanker task in which target-distractor affective compatibility and cognitive load were manipulated. Differently from past studies, targets and distractors were presented at separate spatial locations and cognitive load was not domain-specific. In Experiment 1, words and faces, were used respectively as targets and distractors, whereas in Experiment 2, both targets and distractors were faces. Findings showed interference from distractor processing (...) only when cognitive load was high. The present findings indicate that, when targets and distractors are presented at different spatial locations, cognitive control mechanisms are involved in preventing interference from positive or negative distractors. The role of stimulus valence and type is also discussed with regard to different patterns of interference observed. (shrink)