En este trabajo abordamos dos preguntas centrales en la metafísica de los universales y las propiedades, tal como este tema queda delineado en el trabajo de D. Armstrong y D. Lewis, y en desarrollos recientes de sus ideas por parte de otros autores. En particular, nos centraremos en la cuestión de qué tan escasos son los universales, y en la de qué es la naturalidad perfecta que se atribuye a ciertas propiedades. Argumentamos que la posición más estable sobre estas cuestiones (...) consiste en postular universales sólo para propiedades perfectamente naturales, y tomar a la naturalidad perfecta como un primitivo sólo parcialmente caracterizado por sus conexiones con la idea de similitud objetiva y con la de base mínima de sobreveniencia. (shrink)

In the contemporary debate about the nature of persistence, stage theory is the view that ordinary objects (artefacts, animals, persons, etc.) are instantaneous and persist by being suitably related to other instantaneous objects. In this paper I focus on the issue of what stage theorists should say about the semantics of ordinary proper names, like ‘Socrates’ or ‘London’. I consider the remarks that stage theorists actually make about this issue, present some problems they face, and finally offer what I take (...) to be the best alternative available for them. (shrink)

This paper argues against the common practice of presenting perdurantism, endurantism, and other views about persistence and time as solutions to an alleged puzzle about change. Various recent attempts to generate a puzzle about change are examined and found unsuccessful. This does not mean, however, that the relevant views about persistence and time are not well motivated, but rather that their interest and purpose is independent of their suitability for solving the alleged puzzle.

In this introductory study I discuss the notion of alternative possibilities and its relation to contemporary debates on free will and moral responsibility. I focus on two issues: whether Frankfurt-style cases refute the principle of alternative possibilities, and whether alternative possibilities are relevant to grounding free will and moral responsibility. With respect to the first issue, I consider three objections to Frankfurt-syle cases: the flicker strategy, the dilemma defense, and the objection from new dispositionalism. With respect to the second issue, (...) I consider the debate between Alternative Possibilities views and Actual Sequence views, as framed by Carolina Sartorio in her Causation and Free Will. I then explain how these two issues are relevant to the papers included in this volume. (shrink)

[ES] El término «metaontología» se aplica a la indagación sobre la naturaleza de la ontología. Si bien este tipo de indagación tiene importantes precedentes en la historia de la filosofía moderna, en los últimos quince años ha cobrado renovado interés dentro de la tradición analítica, en parte debido al notorio desarrollo de la ontología misma en las últimas décadas. En este capítulo se presentarán algunos de los principales problemas metaontológicos, y las posiciones más destacadas sobre los mismos. [EN] The term (...) «metaontology» applies to the inquiry on the nature of ontology. Although this type of inquiry has important precedents in the history of modern philosophy, in the last fifteen years it has gained renewed interest in the analytic tradition, partly because of the remarkable development of ontology itself in recent decades. This chapter will present some of the main metaontológicos problems, and the most prominent positions on them. (shrink)

Truthmaking without truthmakers (TWT, for short) is the thesis that although every true proposition is made true by reality, there need not be particular entities (like facts, states of affairs, or tropes) that make these propositions true. The first substantial part of this paper (section 2) is devoted to developing a particular version of TWT and at the same time defending TWT in general from arguments against it that have been advanced by orthodox truthmaker theorists. In the second part of (...) the paper (section 3) I argue that talk about truthmakers within the theory can be understood as metaphoric and as conveying valuable information about something other than the supposed truthmakers: about truthmaking. The aim of this paper is therefore twofold. On the one hand, I intend to present the view on truthmaking, a version of TWT, that I find most plausible in the light of the arguments for and against truthmaker theory. On the other hand, I argue that friends of TWT have good reason to adopt a figuralist approach to truthmaker theory, rather than rejecting it outright. (shrink)

Rescuing Mele/Robb Cases Resumen: Mi intención en este trabajo es exponer algunas dudas sobre las consideraciones que Carlos Moya (2017) esgrime en contra de un tipo particular de “Caso Frankfurt”: el “caso de bloqueo” descrito por Mele y Robb (1998). En primer lugar, argumento que el caso de Mele/Robb es un contraejemplo exitoso al Principio de Posibilidades Alternativas aún si, en contra de lo que sus proponentes sugieren, la acción relevante está causada de manera determinista. Por otro lado, argumento que (...) el agente en el caso Mele/Robb ejercita un tipo relevante de control racional sobre su acción. Palabras clave: Frankfurt, Moya, sobredeterminación, sensibilidad a razones. Abstract: My goal in this paper is to expose some doubts about the arguments that Carlos Moya (2017) addresses against a particular Frankfurt-style case: the “blockage case” described by Mele and Robb (1998). I argue first that the Mele/Robb case is a succesful counterexample to the Alternative Possibilities Principle even if, against what its proponents suggest, the relevant action is deterministically caused. Second, I argue that the agent in the Mele/Robb case exercises a relevant sort of rational control over her action. Keywords: Frankfurt, Moya, overdetermination, reasons-responsiveness. (shrink)

The ‘paradoxes of coincidence’ are generally taken as an important factor for deciding between rival views on persistence through time. In particular, the ability to deal with apparent cases of temporary coincidence is usually regarded as a good reason for favouring perdurantism (or ‘four-dimensionalism’) over endurantism (or ‘three-dimensionalism’). However, the recent work of Gilmore ( 2007 ) and McGrath ( 2007 ) challenges this standard view. For different reasons, both Gilmore and McGrath conclude that perdurantism does not really obtain support (...) from the puzzles of temporary coincidence. In this paper, I will evaluate their arguments and defend the opposite view: that the paradoxes of coincidence do give some support to perdurantism. However, the way in which they do so is rather unexpected. As we will see, there are different ways in which coincidence scenarios may be thought to support perdurantism, some of which have not yet been sufficiently explored. Thus, my immediate goal is to explore one of those directions, bringing into focus a new argument from coincidence to perdurantism. And although I motivate my discussion by examining the arguments in the work of Gilmore and McGrath, the merits of this argument can be independently assessed. More generally, my overall purpose is to contribute to our general understanding of how the topics of coincidence and persistence bear on each other. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that both perdurance theory and the ‘relations-to-times’ endurantist view rely on an atemporal notion of property instantiation and relation bearing. I distinguish two possible meanings of ‘atemporal’ which result in two different understandings of what it is for an object to have a property or to bear a relation atemporally. I show that standard presentations of the theories considered are indeterminate as to which of these two understandings is the intended one. I claim that even (...) if both understandings are admissible, one of them is more attractive and has more to recommend than the other. (shrink)

We describe the main issue debated at the IV Blasco Disputatio: whether our knowledge of metaphysical possibility and necessity rests on knowledge of essence. But before getting to this specific issue, we offer a broader introduction to the more general problems in the epistemology of modality. In this way, we establish a background against which the contributions to this SI can be better appreciated.

A good part of the philosophical debate on free will and moral responsibility in the last fifty years has revolved around so-called Frankfurt-style cases. One of the most important milestones in this debate is the case described by Mele and Robb (1998), which was intended to avoid some earlier objections directed at Frankfurt’s original argument. However, the success of Mele and Robb’s case has been contested by Pereboom (2001), Widerker (2003), and Moya (2003, 2017), among others. The present paper aims (...) to vindicate Mele and Robb’s (and Frankfurt’s) general argument by describing a variation of their case that overcomes or avoids the objections of those authors. (shrink)

Gottlieb Söhngen (1892-1971), fue profesor de teología fundamental en la Universidad de Munich desde 1947, habiéndose contado entre sus alumnos el joven Joseph Ratzinger, más tarde Papa Benedicto XVI, quien elaboró sus tesis de doctorado y habilitación bajo su dirección. En el presente artículo se considera el modo en que Söhngen interpreta la mediación entre ciencia y sabiduría, fe e intellectus fidei en la tradición platónicoagustiniana y en Tomás de Aquino, así como la relación entre la ciencia teológica y sus (...) conclusiones. Söhngen destaca los contrastes, así como la riqueza complementaria de una y otra aproximación. Aún si su interpretación de Tomás de Aquino es fragmentaria y en parte deudora de una lectura que había de ser enriquecida por la investigación de las décadas siguientes, cabe destacar el valor de su análisis y de algunas de sus intuiciones, por ejemplo, respecto de la relación entre fe y teología. La interpretación de G. Söhngen se enmarca en su programa de “unidad de la teología”, entendida como una síntesis fecunda de revelación y método científico, filosofía y teología, categorías de pensamiento metafísico e histórico-salvífico, humanidad y cristianismo, en miras la tarea siempre actual de dar razón de la fe y de su diálogo con la cultura. (shrink)

Este trabajo plantea un análisis métrico de Andria a partir de una ruptura con la manera tradicional de estudiar la obra del africano —que juzga sus comedias a la sombra de los procedimientos compositivos de Plauto— con miras a un estudio integral del fenómeno métrico en Terencio. El análisis de la macroestructura y la microestructura métricas de la obra demuestra una estrecha imbricación entre los componentes métrico-musicales y el significado de los elementos de la trama y arroja nueva luz (...) sobre la composición y las funciones de los cantica. (shrink)

Replies to commentators Respuestas a los comentarios críticos de Carlos Patarroyo, Mirja Pérez de Calleja y Pablo Rychter.

It is a widespread belief that the Kochen-Specker theorem imposes a contextuality constraint on the ontology of beables in quantum hidden variables theories. On the other hand, after Bell’s influential critique, the importance of von Neumann’s wrongly called ‘impossibility proof’ has been severely questioned. However, Max Jammer, Jeffrey Bub and Dennis Dieks have proposed insightful reassessments of von Neumann’s theorem: what it really shows is that hidden variables theories cannot represent their beables by means of Hermitian operators in Hilbert space. (...) Hereby I show that i) the very same constraint can be derived from Gleason’s theorem, and that ii) if we consider the import of von Neumann’s and Gleason’s theorems, the relevance of the Kochen-Specker theorem for hidden variables theories gets substantially weakened: it does not force them to be contextual in any interesting sense of the term. (shrink)

Perfectionism about well-being is, at a minimum, the view that people’s lives go well when, and because they realize their capacities. It is common to link perfectionism with an idea of human essence or nature, to yield the view that what constitutes people’s well-being is the development and exercise of characteristically human capacities. The first part of this paper considers the very serious problems associated with the idea of human nature or essence, and argues that perfectionism would be more plausible (...) if it abandons reliance on it and focuses instead on the unfolding of some valuable capacities that need not be unique to, or shared by all human beings. This revised perfectionism is evaluative all the way down, pragmatic but not unprincipled, and holistic. In its second part, the paper articulates this account in terms of the dignitarian approach—the view that we have reason to organize our personal and social life in such a way that we respond appropriately to the valuable features of individuals that give rise to their dignity. Dignity is a non-conventional, normative status based on a diverse and disjunctive set of valuable capacities. The dignitarian approach helps develop, defend, and identify the implications of the revised perfectionism suggested in the previous part of the paper while also allowing us to make sense of the role of some generalizations that animated some of the plausibility of traditional perfectionism—and this without the pitfalls of reliance on an idea of human nature. On this paper’s proposed view—Dignitarian Perfectionism—human individuals’ well-being consists, at least in part, in developing and exercising the capacities at the basis of their dignity. (shrink)

Human dignity: social movements invoke it, several national constitutions enshrine it, and it features prominently in international human rights documents. But what is it, why is it important, and what is its relationship to human rights and social justice? Pablo Gilabert offers a systematic defence of the view that human dignity is the moral heart of justice. In Human Dignity and Human Rights (OUP 2019), he advanced an account of human dignity for the context of human rights discourse, which (...) covers the most urgent, basic claims of dignity. This book extends the dignitarian approach to more ambitious claims of maximal dignity of the kind encoded in democratic socialist conceptions of social justice. In particular, this book focuses on the just organization of working practices. It recasts in a dignitarian format the critique of capitalist society as involving exploitation, alienation, and domination of workers, and revamps a neglected but inspiring socialist principle. In its dignitarian interpretation, the Abilities/Needs Principle (‘From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs!’) yields reasonable and feasible requirements on social cooperation geared to empowering each human being to lead a flourishing life. While Human Dignity and Human Rights offered the first systematic philosophical account of human dignity in human rights discourse, Human Dignity and Social Justice presents the first systematic application of the dignitarian framework to the core ideals of democratic socialism. (shrink)

In a common, pejorative sense of it, ideology consists in attitudes whose presence contributes to sustaining, by making them seem legitimate, social orders that are problematic. An important way a social order can be problematic concerns the prospects for well-being facing the people living in it. It can make some people wind up worse off than they could and should be. They have “real interests” that are not properly served by the social order, and the interests aligned with it are (...) in fact “false,” merely “apparent,” or “distorted.” Ideology critique consists in part in noting the existence of such different interests, and in challenging the latter to facilitate the fulfillment of the former. This picture of ideology critique implies that ideology thwarts well-being. This paper aims to clarify, develop, and vindicate this picture. It argues that ideology critique should indeed draw (inter alia) on prudential considerations, and that a specifically objectivist view of well-being would be fitting. The fruitfulness of this approach is shown by exploring the specific case of the critique of working practices in contemporary capitalism. (shrink)

This article provides a survey of the emerging debate on the political representation of nonhuman animals. In Section 1, I identify some of the reasons why the interests of animals are often disregarded in policy-making, and present two arguments why these interests should be considered. In Section 2, I introduce four institutional proposals that have been discussed in the relevant literature. Section 3 attempts to make explicit the underlying logic of each proposal (i.e. which specific problems it wants to tackle). (...) Section 4 discusses some of the main normative pros and cons of each proposal. (shrink)

An inquiry into the current ways of knowing, their ramifications, and institutional and noninstitutional artistic practices that provide channels for education from below. Artistic Ecologies: New Compasses and Tools aims to both analyze and speculate about potentials of artistic ecologies, collective learning, and engaged pedagogies to engender new institutionalities. Going beyond tensions between individuals and institutions, Artistic Ecologies examines avenues for collective learning. If learning for life is emancipation—understood not just as a matter of power but of freedom—the essential question (...) that emerges is: What knowledge makes us free and how can institutions help produce it? In search of an answer, this publication’s textual and visual contributions explore sites and practices through which new institutionalities can emerge. Artistic Ecologies comprises essays analyzing current ways of knowing and their ramifications (Marina Garcés, Yayo Herrero and Pirate Care) and portraying alternative ways of forming knowledge through institutional and non-institutional artistic practices (DAAR—Decolonizing Architecture Art Research, Yael Davids, Max Jorge Hinderer Cruz, The Sensing Salon). Artistic contributions in various formats—poems, drawings, visual essays—by Luna Acosta, CAConrads, Eva Ďurovec, Teuta Gatolin, Margherita Isola, and Jammers illustrate heterodox channels for questioning the dominant forms of knowledge and educating from below. (shrink)

El autor de este artículo lee el Apologeticum de Tertuliano como un texto de transición ideológica entre los primeros escritos mesiánicos del cristianismo y la teología política del siglo IV, i.e. una obra que fusiona teología imperial y cristianismo. Dejando de lado las disputas teológicas con el judaísmo, Tertuliano propone una discusión frontal con los romanos sobre la relación del concepto de divinidad con el poder político y quiere mostrar que la teología y la ética de los cristianos son mucho (...) más apropiadas para una realidad como el Imperio romano que las que ha impuesto la tradición politeísta. En este razonamiento se destaca la correspondencia entre monoteísmo y monarquía universal. The author of this paper reads Apologeticum by Tertullian as a text of ideological transition between the early messianic Christian writings and political fourth century theology, i.e. a work that combines Imperial theology and Christianity. Leaving apart the theological disputes with Judaism, Tertullian proposes a frontal discussion with the Romans on the relationship of the concept of divinity with political power and wants to show that theology and Christian ethics are much more appropriate for a reality as Roman Empire which has imposed the polytheistic tradition. His argumentation stands out the reciprocation between monotheism and universal monarchy. (shrink)

Some authors have suggested that the All Affected Interests Principle, an influential principle of political inclusion, requires that animals have their interests politically represented. In this paper, I provide a systematic formulation, assessment, and defense of this argument, and suggest a middle way between two strategies found in the literature. On the one hand, I argue that applying the All Affected Interests to animals inevitably requires that we make some (potentially controversial) assumptions about the weight and scope of animal interests, (...) and cannot remain morally noncommittal. This is because most formulations of the principle do not apply to all interests, but only to those that satisfy a relevancy test – which requires first-order moral reasoning. On the other hand, I also contend that one can defend some substantive claims about the inclusion of animals via the All Affected Interests Principle without having to endorse a comprehensive account of animal rights, or a theory about the worth of natural entities. For the All Affected Interests Principle to apply to animals, all that we need are instances of normatively relevant interests systematically affected by political decisions. The interest of mammals in avoiding pain and suffering, I contend, provides such an example. (shrink)

Es un placer para nosotros, flamantes nuevos editores de la sección multilingüe de la EJPAP, estrenar esta sección con el dossier monográfico “Jane Addams en español.” El monográfico ha conseguido la hazaña de poder unir por primera vez textos de las todavía pocas personas que escriben en lengua castellana y que están familiarizadas con la obra de Jane Addams (1860-1935). El desconocimiento de la vida y obra de Jane Addams entre el público hispanohablante no se debe, de ningún modo, al (...) hecho... (shrink)

Castro-Gómez, Santiago. Revoluciones sin sujeto. Slavoj Žižek y la crítica del historicismo posmoderno. Ciudad de México: Akal, 2015. 400 pp.

PurposeAnomic feelings are predicted to play a moderating role in the relationship between organisational justice perceptions and the citizenship use of the organisation's internet access, or cybercivism. The purpose of this paper is to hypothesise that, just as AFs are supported in prior research as able to intensify the negative effects of organisational justice on cyberloafing, they will also intensify the positive effects of OJ on cybercivism.Design/methodology/approachData were collected from 270 of the 1,547 respondents at a public university.FindingsExcept in the (...) case of procedural justice, the results support that AF act as a moderator of the OJ‐cybercivism link because, among employees with comparatively less AF, the perceptions of the OJ under study had a stronger impact on cybercivism.Research limitations/implicationsTo generalise from a convenience sample of 17 per cent to the entire University is unfeasible, let alone the “public sector” as a whole for a whole culture/country. Therefore, the paper only aims to be an early exploration of actual phenomenon, and to provide new insights necessary to understand the impact of pervasive new media and information and communication technologies on individual behaviour in virtual work settings.Practical implicationsThe findings contribute to an improved understanding of the influence of OJ on cybercivism. As a moderator, anomia is supported in our sample as one of the key “controllers” of the OJ predictions on cybercivism and sets a new scenario in seeking electronic business effectiveness. By encouraging convincing values and equity in the workplace, organisational management seems be on the right path to create the proper context for cybercivism to occur.Originality/valueEmployee AFs are shown to be a moderator in the relationship between OJ and cybercivism. This is the first empirical test of this interaction. (shrink)

In the sacrificial moral dilemma task, participants have to morally judge an action that saves several lives at the cost of killing one person. According to the dual process corrective model of moral judgment suggested by Greene and collaborators (2001; 2004; 2008), cognitive control is necessary to override the intuitive, deontological force of the norm against killing and endorse the utilitarian perspective. However, a conflict model has been proposed more recently to account for part of the evidence in favor of (...) dual process models in moral and social decision making. In this model, conflict, moral responses and reaction times arise from the interplay between individually variable motivational factors and objective parameters intrinsic to the choices offered. To further explore this model in the moral dilemma task, we confronted three different samples with a set of dilemmas representing an objective gradient of utilitarian pull, and collected data on moral judgment and on conflict in a 4-point scale. Collapsing all cases along the gradient, participants in each sample felt less conflicted on average when they gave extreme responses (1 or 4 in the UR scale). They felt less conflicted on average when responding to either the low- or the high-pull cases. The correlation between utilitarian responses and conflict was positive in the low-pull and negative in the high-pull cases. This pattern of data suggests that moral responses to sacrificial dilemmas are driven by decision conflict, which in turn depends on the interplay between an objective gradient of utilitarian pull and the moral motivations which regulate individual responsiveness to this gradient. (shrink)

Este artigo revisa a idéia de filosofia “medieval” and põe ênfase na variedade de significados daquela palavra. O autor crê que necessitamos de uma nova terminologia para aquele período da história do pensamento e sugere, por razões históricas, as expressões “United Age” e “Formation Age”. Em todo o artigo prevalece uma tentativa de compreender a natureza da atividade filosófica e da história da filosofia.

La parroquia es un tema central en la exhorta-ción Evangelii Gaudium del papa Francisco. Esta pequeña célula de la Iglesia universal si quiere ser trasformada en su raíz, ha de volver a la fuente y recuperar la frescura original del Evangelio. Esto provocará que nuestras parro-quias sean comunidades más creíbles, en contacto con los lugares y con la vida del pueblo, evitando que se conviertan “en una prolija estructura separada de la gente o en un grupo de selectos que se (...) miran a sí mismos”. En el seno de la Iglesia, toda renovación debe tender a la misión como objetivo, para no caer en una especie de introversión eclesial. La misión es inseparable del discipulado, por lo cual no debe entenderse como una etapa posterior a la formación. No podemos quedarnos tranquilos en espera pasiva en nuestros templos. (shrink)

During replication, the topology of DNA changes continuously in response to well‐known activities of DNA helicases, polymerases, and topoisomerases. However, replisomes do not always progress at a constant speed and can slow‐down and even stall at precise sites. The way these changes in the rate of replisome progression affect DNA topology is not yet well understood. The interplay of DNA topology and replication in several cases where progression of replication forks reacts differently to changes in DNA topology ahead is discussed (...) here. It is proposed, there are at least two types of replication fork barriers: those that behave also as topological barriers and those that do not. Two‐Dimensional (2D) agarose gel electrophoresis is the method of choice to distinguish between these two different types of replication fork barriers. (shrink)

I will present a comparative analysis between Thomas Kuhn's The Copernican Revolution published in 1957 and The Structure of Scientific Revolutions published in 1962, ir order to identify divergences in the views contained in each work. I shall set forth a comparative analysis of the historiographical assumptions employed by Kuhn in each of his books. I will explore some proposals which have pointed out several discontinuities between both books, as I introduce some tools to widen this interpretative trend. I will (...) argue that although Kuhn’s work in 1957 contains some concerns and problems which anticipate his later stances, these anticipations coexist with historiographical formulations and premises which are incompatible with the core of SSR. Therefore, I will assert that Kuhn adopts different historiographical frameworks in CR and in SSR. Finally, I will conclude that these differences are expressions of Kuhn's adoption of a more externalist view in the former, and a more internalist frame in the latter. (shrink)