Self-knowledge, Authenticity and Obedience

In questo articolo propongo un descrizione del privilegio epistemico dato alla prospettiva della prima persona, alla quale si relaziona un certo tipo di potere su sé stessi. Vorrei mettere in discussione il punto di vista di Robert Dumm e Richard Moran sul problema del soggetto e abbozzare un approccio alternativo. A tal fine, vorrei per prima cosa avvalermi delle nozioni di Bernard William di riconoscimento e di donazione di senso e, in secondo luogo, utilizzare la distinzione di Simone Weil tra i due sensi di obbedienza e la nozione, ad essa associata, di attenzione. In contrasto con la visione di Moran e Dunn, concluderei affermando che un certo tipo di autopercezione è centrale nel nost…

Gustav von Aschenbach's Inner Impulse and the Value of His Life

Gustav von Aschenbach's inner impulse and the value of his life

The Relevance of Moral Disagreement

Nondescriptivist Cognitivism vindicates the cognitive value of moral judgements despite their lack of descriptive content. In this paper, I raise a few worries about the proclaimed virtues of this new metaethical frame- work Firstly, I argue that Nondescriptivist Cognitivism tends to beg the question against descriptivism and, secondly, discuss Horgan and Timmons' case against Michael Smith's metaethical rationalism. Al- though I sympathise with their main critical claims against the latter, I am less enthusiastic about the arguments that they provide to support them.

Capacitats i events

Crítica de reduir les capacitats humanes a disposicions naturals.

Physicalism and the mental: the dominant view

The main purpose of this book is to elaborate a number of reductio arguments that are meant to challenge causal physicalism, as well as the dominant view, in its attempt to show the compatibility between the causal efficacy of the mental and causal physicalism. As a result, we will provide an alternative analysis of our intuitions about the primacy of the physical that fits with the casual autonomy of mental properties. The present chapter is meant to characterize and motivate the dominant view.

First-person authority and Self-Knowledge as an Achievement

There is much that I admire in Richard Moran¿s account of how first- person authority may be consistent with self-knowledge as an achievement. In this paper, I examine his attempt to characterize the goal of psychoanalytic treatment, which is surely that the patient should go beyond the mere theoretical acceptance of the analyst¿s interpretation, and requires instead a more intimate, first-personal, awareness by the patient of their psychological condition. I object, however, that the way in which Moran distinguishes between the deliberative and the theoretical attitudes is ultimately inconsistent with a satisfactory account of psychoanalytic practice; mainly because, despite Moran¿s claims…

Obras de ficción, formas de conciencia y literatura

espanol"Relatar lo ocurrido como invencion: una introduccion a la filosofia de la ficcion contemporanea (2016a)" ofrece al lector en castellano una magnifica oportunidad para familiarizarse con algunos aspectos centrales de la filosofia del lenguaje contemporanea y sus implicaciones para la teoria de la ficcion. Garcia-Carpintero recorre los argumentos fundamentales en favor y en contra de cada una de las posiciones relevantes, y nos propone finalmente un analisis alternativo de la norma de la ficcion y una teoria neofregeana de los terminos referenciales que logra esquivar algunas objeciones tradicionales. Esta discusion incluye, no obstante, dos objeciones a su norma de la ficcion: una se…

Mental Contents, Tracking Counterfactuals, and Implementing Mechanisms

In the ongoing debate, there are a set of mind-body theories sharing a certain physicallst assumption: whenever a genuine cause produces an effect, the causal efficacy of each of the non- physical properties that participate In that process is determined by the instantiation of a well-defined set of physical properties. These theories would then Insist that a nonphysical property could only be causally efficacious insofar as it is physically implemented. However, in what follows we will argue against the idea that fine- grained mental contents could be physically implemented In the way that functional properties are. Therefore, we will examine the metaphysical con- ditions under which the i…

Understanding, Truth and Explanation

In this paper I intend to discuss the relationship between understanding, truth, and explanation, starting from the problem of the interpretation of alien belief systems. The examination of this will lead us to present an analysis of the structure of understanding, and to defend its cognitive universality in so far as any identification of reality reproduces the structure of the process of understanding. This cognitive universality does not necessarily exclude, however, the possibility of reducing understanding to causal relations. With respect to this, I shall discuss the plausibility of the views of Quine, Searle and Davidson on the kind of relation that holds between cognitive processes …

The Mud of Experience and Modes of Awareness

In *Authority and Estrangement* Richard Moran takes some rather illuminating steps towards getting rid of the Cartesian picture of self-knowledge. I argue, however, that Moran¿s crucial distinction between delib- erative and theoretical attitude is seriously contaminated by that traditional picture. More specifically, I will point out why some crucial aspects of the phenomena that Moran describes in terms of the interplay be- tween the theoretical and the deliberative attitude, should rather be interpreted as a process that takes place within the deliberative attitude itself. The theoretical attitude will, as a result, constitute a rather marginal at- titude towards one¿s own psychological …

The Loss of Confidence in the World

In this chapter, I focus on the experience of torture and, more specifically, on Jean Améry's account of it in his book *At the Mind's Limits*. There he claims that the loss of confidence in the world is the most devastating effect he experienced as a victim of torture. I thus explore what cosmopolitan aspiration may be revealed by this loss and also discuss whether it is to be discredited as an irrational reaction on the victim's side or instead as proportional to the facts and, consequently, as relevant to the conditions under which a certain cosmopolitan aspiration could be achieved or, at least, favored.

Evidence and First-Person Authority

In this paper, I challlenge David Finkelstein's claim that evidence does not contribute to first-person authority. To this end, I first argue that the phenomenon of first-person authority involves a certain combination of two kinds of authority, namely: an epistemic (insofar as evidence is at issue here) and a practical (insofar as the capacity to shape one's own psychological and dispositions is the central concern) kind of authority. Secondly, I defend the view that gathering evidence plays a crucial role regarding an agent's ability to preserve (or cultivate) her practical authority upon herself.

El refugio de la claridad

A stress on clarity and argumentation may serve as a refuge against quackery, but often those who focus on such methodological principles tend to identify clarity with literalness and argumentation with formalization. My reflection upon the limits of a philosophical style inspired in such an identification is mainly concerned with the use of thought experiments in the elucidation of our moral practices and, more specifically, with the relevance of John Rawls¿ original position for the determination of the basic principles of justice. To this purpose, I emphasize that the relevance of the original position rests on a matching assumption according to which, if agents deliberate appropriately,…

Naturalismo y absurdo

Se trata de discutir algunas de las razones que podamos tener para afirmar: 'Si la visión naturalista del mundo es en general correcta, entonces la vida humana es necesariamente absurda'. Si este condicional me interesa, es porque no puedo dejar de conceder su antecedente, es decir, no puedo dejar de percibir el mundo a través de ciertos supuestos naturalistas. Se sigue, pues, que si la tesis T resultase verdadera, me vería obligado a aceptar una conclusión que desearía evitar, pues en algún grado me inquieta. Parece, por tanto, sensato empezar examinando el tipo de razones que puedan invitarnos a suscribir ese condicional. En un segundo apartado, intentaré mostrar, sin embargo, que …

Justification, Attachments and Regret

Abstract: In The View From Here, Jay Wallace emphasises that an agent's capacity to regret a past decision is conditioned by the attachments that she may have developed as a result. Those attachments shape the point of view from which she retrospectively deliberates. Wallace stresses, however, that not every normative aspect of her decision is affected by this change in perspective, because her decision will remain as unjustified as it was in the past. I will argue, however, that this approach to justification is inconsistent with the normative import that Wallace ascribes to the actual dynamics of our attachments in his defence of the rationale of regret. If I am right, Wallace's approach …

Examen crítico de la concepción de la filosofía de Gilbert Ryle

En varios escritos, Ryle explicita, de manera más o menos sucinta, su concepción del objeto y método de la filosofía; no obstante, estas consideraciones, a menudo demasiado tajantes y generales, quedan perfiladas y matizadas cuando son aplicadas por Ryle al análisis de problemas filosóficos concretos. En consecuencia, sólo a partir del estudio de los dos aspectos mencionados podremos ofrecer una visión fidedigna y crítica de la concepción del objeto y método de la filosofía de Ryle, siendo precisamente ésta la misión del presente artículo.

First-Person Authority and Self-Knowledge as an Achievement

There is much that I admire in Richard Moran’s account of how firstperson authority may be consistent with self-knowledge as an achievement. In this paper, I examine his attempt to characterize the goal of psychoanalytic treatment, which is surely that the patient should go beyond the mere theoretical acceptance of the analyst’s interpretation, and requires instead a more intimate, first-personal, awareness by the patient of their psychological condition. I object, however, that the way in which Moran distinguishes between the deliberative and the theoretical attitudes is ultimately inconsistent with a satisfactory account of psychoanalytic practice; mainly because, despite Moran’s claims t…

La filosofía política de F. A. Hayek

A.F. Hayek defendió, frente a Keynes, la necesidad de evitar la intervención estatal en el sistema libre de mercado, pues, con ello sólo se conseguiría paliar momentáneamente ciertas dificultades, pero tales medidas conducirían, a la larga, a un callejón sin salida. Sin embargo, para Hayek el sistema económico liberal no sólo es el sistema más efectivo desde un punto de vista económico, sino que es, además, el único moralmente aceptable en la medida en que sólo una economía liberal puede garantizar la libertad del individuo, valor supremo de la existencia humana. En este sentido, podemos decir que Hayek dedicó buena parte de su vida a elaborar una filosofía política que def…

J.Habermas: pragmática universal y normatividad

Este trabajo defiende las siguientes tesis: la pragmática de Habermas no puede dotarnos de una base normativa para la teoría crítica. Pues ningún sistema de reglas puede determinar la racionalidad o irracionalidad de situaciones particulares de habla. Esta prioridad del juicio respecto de las reglas no excluye la posibilidad de una filosofía transcendental ni conlleva el rechazo de la idea de una reflexión crítica.

Particularismo Moral

El particularismo moral insiste en la importancia de atender a las circunstancias del caso particular, pero no puede renunciar a mostrar cómo se proyecta sobre otros casos similares y en qué sentido el sujeto que valora puede entenderse como un sujeto cualquiera. El generalismo moral, por el contrario, destaca el hecho de que la respuesta moral va más allá del caso particular y considera que, para ello, debe subsumirse bajo un conjunto de principios; por otro lado, defiende que la apelación a un sujeto cualquiera alude manifiestamente a un sujeto que hace abstracción de sus propias circunstancias, incluido su carácter. El particularismo moral se define, en el debate contemporáneo, por contr…

El uso expresivo de las palabras: Daño sexual, narración y transformación

Resumen: Marta Suria escribe Ella soy yo como parte de su respuesta a la irrupción del recuerdo de las agresiones sexuales que había sufrido desde su infancia. Confía en que la forma en que narra su experiencia, la transforme y la libere. ¿Cómo es posible, sin embargo, que una forma de narrar nos transforme, tenga el poder de liberarnos? En este escrito, describiremos, primero, la concepción de la relación entre lenguaje y experiencia que da pie a esta perplejidad; esbozaremos, posteriormente, una concepción alternativa en la que esa perplejidad se disuelve y desde la que es fácil reconocer el poder transformador de ciertas formas de narrarnos. Descansará esta concepción alternativa en la i…

Hechos, normas y valores

Recensión del libro *Normas y valores* de Hilary Putnam y Jürgen Habermas (Madrid: Trotta, 2008)

Classical and Connectionist Models: Levels of Description

To begin, I introduce an analysis of interlevel relations that allows us to offer an initial characterization of the debate about the way classical and connectionist models relate. Subsequently, I examine a compatibility thesis and a conditional claim on this issue. With respect to the compatibility thesis, I argue that, even if classical and connectionist models are not necessarily incompatible, the emergence of the latter seems to undermine the best arguments for the Language of Thought Hypothesis, which is essential to the former. I attack the conditional claim of connectionism to eliminativism, presented by Ramsey et al. (1990), by discrediting their discrete characterization of common-…

Normativity, moral realism, and unmasking explanations

Moral Projectivism must be able to specify under what conditions a certain inner response counts as a moral response. I argue, however, that moral projectivists cannot coherently do so because they must assume that there are moral properties in the world in order to fix the content of our moral judgements. To show this, I develop a number of arguments against moral dispositionalism, which is, nowadays, the most prom- ising version of moral projectivism. In this context, I call into question both David Lewis' dispositionalist account of colour and Chistine Korsgaard's procedural realism.

Valores, ideal y conflicto

Es tarea de la filosofía no sólo resaltar, formular y orde- nar los supuestos fundamentales de una cultura, sino tam- bién desvelar, si es el caso, su carácter ilusorio. Reflexionaré, en esta ocasión, acerca de la idea de utopía, la imagen de un modo ideal de vida, el sueño del paraíso. Intentaré mostrar, en concreto, un seQtido en el que tal ideal es necesariamente ilusorio.

Peter Winch i el problema de la comprensió de les creences primitives

Es tracta d'esbossar, en aquest article, les línies fonamentals de la crítica de Winch a l'estudi positivista de creences pertanyents a cultures molt d'allunyades de la nostra i, més en concret, a la seua concepció del problema de la racionalitat de les creences màgiques dels pobles primitius.

The real and the imaginary in the soldier's experience

In this paper, I intend to shed a unifying light on three phenomena, namely: (a) the strangeness of the bullet hitting the body of the soldier's comrade; (b) the fact that, in order to perceive the battlefield as real, the soldier must alienate himself from his old identity, and (c) the impossibility of home coming. To this purpose, I will firstly introduce in some detail the sorts of expectations that, according to Améry, constitute our confidence in the world; secondly, I will return to the soldier's experience and examine each of its three stages in the light of such expectations and their role in the identity of the self.

Mental Contents in a World of Causes

A fundamental issue in cognitive science is whether mental contents are causally efficacious and, therefore, should be preserved in scientific psychology. In this paper, we pursue some aspects of this issue by examining Fred Dretske's recent contributions to it. He defends the causal efficacy of mental content *qua* mental content, but imposes an important constraint: mental contents can operate as structuring, but not as triggering causes. We shall argue, by contrast, that mental contents can also intervene as triggering causes.

El mal incondicional y la experiencia del cuerpo

Yago es el mal incondicional, sus acciones no pueden justificarse y, sin embargo, pueden ser defendidas [T1]. Esta es la tesis que Richard Raatzsch defiende en *The Apologetics of Evil. The Case of Yago*. Su argumento descansa fundamentalmente en otras dos tesis, a saber: [T2] que no hay motivo alguno que dé cuenta de las acciones de Yago como un todo y [T3] que Yago es uno de esos que mantienen su corazón atento solo a sí mismos. Trato de mostrar, sin embargo, que el argumento de Raatzsch en favor de [T2]-[T3] es inconsistente con su defensa de Yago, por lo que concluiré que Raatzsch no puede mantener coherentemente las tres tesis. Esta conclusión crítica se verá, no obstante, complementad…

Comprender otras culturas

En 1964, P. Winch publica su famoso artículo *Understanding a Primitive Society*, donde trata de afrontar el problema de la comprensión de sociedades muy alejadas de la nuestra a partir de su extrapolación al campo de las ciencias sociales, de los análisis de Wittgenstein en el campo de la filosofía del lenguaje. Sus planteamientos un tanto agresivos y polémicos frente a la posibilidad de valorar las creencias primitivas desde nuestros patrones de racionalidad científica, parecían conducir, según muchos intérpretes, a un relativismo extremado. Las reacciones no se hicieron esperar, orientándose en su mayoría a la defensa de ciertos patrones universales de racionalidad, al tiempo…

Incompatibilismo y necesidad metafísica

Algunos filósofos piensan que el conflicto entre la imagen determinista del mundo y la libertad de decisión es irresoluble, y ello les define como incompatibilistas; mientras que otros consideran que hay modos de integrar ambas intuiciones y merecen, pues, el nombre de compatibilistas. El presente artículo pretende mediar en el debate entre estas dos posiciones. Para ello, reflexionaremos acerca de la naturaleza de los vínculos contrafácticos implicados en las relaciones causales que se presuponen tanto en la imagen determinista del mundo como en nuestras intuiciones acerca de la libertad de decisión.

Physicalism and the Mental: The Dominant View

Se presenta el punto de vista dominante sobre la relación entre el mundo natural y lo mental. A presentation of the dominant view about the metaphysical relation between the natural world and the mental.

The Distinctiveness of Second-Person Attributions

In Social Cognition and the Second Person in Human Interaction (2021), Routledge, Diana Pérez and Antoni Gomila articulate a complex web of conceptual and empirical explorations that altogether make a remarkable case for the primitiveness and distinctiveness of second-person mental attributions. I find their case for the primitiveness of second-person attributions quite convincing and deeply rooted in their philosophical project, whose specific nature I will examine in the first section. The rest of the paper will then focus on their case for the distinctiveness of those mental attributions that are made in second- person interactions. My conclusion will be that Pérez and Gomila's various…

Morality, Self-Knowledge and Human Suffering [introduction]

This essay is in search of some light as to how one should respond to a certain kind of human suffering. The word 'should' undoubtedly raises a normative issue, and also the use of 'one' to refer to whoever may be subject to the corresponding normative demand. Choice of such words is hardly neutral and betrays a certain philosophical stance that, I hope, further considerations in this book will reasonably ground.

The Insight of Empiricism. In Defense of a Hypothetical, but Propositional Given

In this paper, I defend a hypothetical but propositional given as the fundamental insight of empiricism

Presentació. El nostre lloc al món en què creiem

Presentación de las tres conferencias impartidas por Barry Stroud en la Càtedra Filosofia i Ciutadania J.L. Blasco, 2014. Presentació de les tres conferències impartides per Barry Stroud en la Càtedra Filosofia i Ciutadania J.L. Blasco, 2014. Introduction to the three lectures delivered by Barry Stroud, Càtedra Filosofia i Ciutadania J.L. Blasco, 2014

Samuel Beckett, Pragmatic Contradiction and the Vestiges of Practical Necessity

This essay examine Samuel Beckett's *Trilogy to specify the conditions under which we could make sense of practical necessity. Among other things, I will show how Ajax' must is connected to Mol/oy's attempt to visit his mother and to the need to keep talking that both Molloy and the Unnamable share. I will conclude that their dislocated pursuit of certainty reveal - among other things - how the conditions under which practical necessity can be properly experienced have been extirpated from our social and cultural context. Still, the fact that its vestiges nevertheless subsist provide some reason to regard practical necessity as a constitutive aspect of our agency. This will provide a partic…

El conexionismo y su impacto en la filosofía de la mente

Discusión del impacto del surgimiento del conexionismo en la filosofía de la mente

Analiticidad, extensionalidad y significado

En este escrito, pretendo examinar con cierto detenimiento el debate generado en torno a la crítica quineana del dogma de la analiticidad; incluyendo, al final, haré una breve referencia a su vinculación con el dogma del "reductivismo radical y a la alternativa pragmático-holista que Quine propone.

Enunciats disposicionals i explicacions nomològiues en les ciències socials

En aquest article, discutesc el model de Hempel a 'The Function of General Laws in History', on defensa que, en contra del que es pretenia des de certes postures més o menys idealistes, les lleis generals complien el mateix paper en l'explicació dels fenòmens històrics que en l'explicació dels fenòmens naturals.

Presentation of a monographic section on 'Mental Causation and the Exclusion Problem'

Presentation of a monographic section on 'Mental Causation and the Exclusion Problem'

The Apologetics of Evil. The Case of Iago

En respuesta al comentario de Carlos Pereda sobre Un lugar para la moral

Carlos Pereda califica mi concepción de la moral de realismo particularista y objeta a mi defensa tanto del realismo como del particularismo. En mi respuesta trato de mostrar cómo nuestras discrepancias en torno al papel de los principios en la deliberación moral es, excepto en un punto crucial, cuestión de énfasis. No ocurre lo mismo, sin embargo, con mi reivindicación del realismo moral, pues parte de lo que intento mostrar en el libro es que los programas constructivistas de los que habla Pereda no pueden pensarse coherentemente. 

Conexionismo y el epifenomenalismo de lo mental

[SPA] En este artículo discuto una serie de argumentos presentados por J. Fodor, Z. Pylyshyn y B. McLaughlin donde se defiende que el surgimiento de los modelos conexionistas no representa realmente una amenaza para la hipótesis del lenguaje del pensamiento, dado que esos modelos no pretenden dar cuenta de la sistematicidad del pensamiento ni de la eficacia causal de las propiedades mentales. A lo largo del artículo intento mostrar, sin embargo, que los argumentos mencionados no aciertan a excluir la posibilidad de dar cuenta, dentro de un modelo conexionista, de la sistematicidad y la eficacia causal de lo mental. Este hecho afectaría ciertamente a los mejores argumentos en defen…

Emocions morals en la fletxa del temps

En aquest article, examine el paper de la vergonya, la culpa i el ressentiment en la recuperació de la veu de la víctima. Aquesta recuperació no consistirà simplement en reconstruir el que diu la víctima, sinó en reivindicar la seua autoritat epistèmica.

The Apologetics of Evil. The Case of Iago -a review

In this review, a present the main line of argument in the book and challenge two fundamental claims, namely: that Iago has no motive for his actions as whole, and also that Iago's actions can be defended, despite the fact that they cannot be justified.

La racionalidad como virtud de la agencia

Racionalidad, acción y opacidad nos invita a poner en cuestión una ima- gen de la racionalidad y de la agencia que se sitúa en el centro de la cultura filosófica contemporánea. Es una imagen que nace con la modernidad y ocupa un lugar tan nuclear en nuestra cultura que se sostiene más allá de cualquier evidencia que podamos aportar en su contra. Constituye el prisma a través del que toda evidencia se filtra y acrisola; resiste cualquier objeción porque se atrinchera en un grado de generalidad que la torna invulnerable al tiempo que la vacía. Este último rasgo pasa desapercibido porque parece que no quede espacio conceptual para un afuera, un más allá de esa imagen. Los límites de la raciona…

Observation, Character, and a First-Person Point of View

In Values and the Reflective Point of View (2006), Robert Dunn defends a certain expressivist view about evaluative beliefs from which some implications about self-knowledge are explicitly derived. He thus distinguishes between an observational and a deliberative attitude towards oneself, so that the latter involves a purely first-person point of view that gives rise to an especially authoritative, but wholly non-observational, kind of self-knowledge. Even though I sympathize with many aspects of Dunn's approach to evaluative beliefs and also with his stress on the practical significance of self-knowledge, I argue that his proposal seriously misinterprets the role of observation and evidenc…

Self and Sense in a Natural World

A subject is a being who has a life to lead. In this paper, I explore the array of resources that are available to us (i.e., Westerners at the turn of the millennium) to articulate and assess our lives. Specifically, I shall reflect 011 the impact that such matters may have on our naturalist conviction that the world ultimately consists of a causal network where notions such as sense and value have no direct bearing. Some tend to assume that an implication of our naturalist world-view is that the notions of sense and value are inevitably relative to the subject's desires and inclinations. This is, however, a line of reasoning that I would like to resist. For I am convinced that this approac…

Moral Emotions, Principles, and the Locus of Moral Perception

I vindicate the thrust of the particularist position in moral deliberation. to this purpose, I focus on some elements that seem to play a crucial role in first-person moral deliberation and argue that they cannot be incorporated into a more sophisticated system of moral principles. More specifically, I emphasize some peculiarities of moral perception in the light of which I defend the irreducible deliberative relevance of a certain phenomenon, namely: the phenomenon of an agent morally coming across a particular situation. Following on from Bernard Williams, I talk of an agent's character as a factor that con- tributes to fixing what situations an agent comes morally across. A crucial point…

El principio de justificación inferencial, escepticismo y creencias causales

Existe un camino argumentativo que comienza con una trivialidad: 'Para tener justificación para creer una proposición p sobre la base de otra proposición e, uno debe tener (1) justificación pare creer e y (2) justificación para creer que e hace probable p', y termina desafiando nuestra capacidad para creer justificadamente proposiciones sobre objetos físicos y acontecimientos pasados. Esto es, al menos, lo que afirma Richard Fumerton. Pero, al igual que Christopher Hookway, dudo de que exista tal camino. En este artículo, intento mostrar cómo la crítica de Hookway puede encontrar una motivación adicional en una reflexión sobre el contenido de cierto tipo de creencias, a saber: cre…

A Challenge to Boghossian's Incompatibilist Argument

The paradox arises as we realize that (3) is clearly not knowable a priori, but (1) and (2) are. (2) holds 'a priori' because, according to Boghossian, it "just is the view that I have called the doctrine of privileged self-knowledge" (p. 202). The core of the paper is devoted, though, to argue that an externalist (i.e., someone who holds the view that "... facts external to a thinker's skin are relevant to the individuation of (certain of) his mental contents" (p. 199). is bound to concede that (1) is knowable 'a priori'. It would follow that, contrary to intuition, (3) can be known a priori since is the conclusion of an inference that relies on two premises that are, in

Armonía, falsedad y distancia

Elucidación filosófica de la novela 'Bajo el signo de Marte' de Fritz Zorn.

Emociones morales y la flecha del tiempo

La experiencia del daño tiene, a primera vista, dos polos: el polo de quien causa el daño (el verdugo) y el polo de quien lo sufre (la víctima). Existe, no obstante, una tercera perspectiva: la de quien no causa daño ni lo sufre, pero la del verdugo hiriendo a la víctima. El verdugo puede hacer sentir su voz, insistir en su representación de los hechos. En cambio, la víctima permanece indefensa y la verdad de su daño queda soterrada bajo la palabra del verdugo. Quien tiene noticia acaba aceptando el discurso legitimador del verdugo, acaba convencido de qLie el daño causado estaba justificado por un bien ulterior. En este escrito, examino el papel de la vergüenza, la culpa y el res…

The Principle of Inferential Justification, Scepticism, and Causal Beliefs

There is an argumentative route that begins with a platitude like: The Principle of Inferential Justification (PIJ): 'To be justified in believing one proposition P on the basis of another proposition E, one must be (1) justified in believing E, (2) justified in believing that E makes probable P' and ends up by challenging our capacity to justifiedly believing propositions concerning physical objects and past events. This is, at least, what Richard Fumerton claims, but, like Christopher Hookway, I doubt that there is such a route. In the coming pages, I seek to show how Hookway's challenge may find additional motivation in a reflection on the content of a certain kind of belief, namely: bel…

Minds, causes, and mechanisms [Introducció]

This book questions the internal consistency of causal physicalism, and vindicates a novel approach to mental causation. Throught a series of original and detailed arguments, it is made clear that many difficulties in the physicalist picture derive from an implausible view about causality. An alternative approach is defended which shows how mental contents, as opposed to functional propierties, may be causally efficacious without having an implementing mechanism.

Agency in the Space of Reasons. A comment on *The Castle*

The received view regards the agent's experience and the external world as split by an unsurmountable metaphysical gulf; while an agent's desires belong to the inner and motivate her to act in one or another way, the outer is presented as a domain deprived of any evaluative properties. *In the Retrieval of Ethics*, Talbot Brewer argues that we can hardly make sense of our agency if the inner and the outer are thus kept apart, since an agent's motivations must be sensitive to the good and the good must be placed on the outside; it must be experienced as something she confronts. In this paper, I will stress that, in *The Castle*, there is no way in which K. might succeed in separating the inn…

THE RELEVANCE OF MORAL DISAGREEMENT. SOME WORRIES ABOUT NONDESCRIPTIVIST COGNITIVISM

Nondescriptivist Cognitivism vindicates the cognitive value of moral judgements despite their lack of descriptive content. In this paper, I raise a few worries about the proclaimed virtues of this new metaethical framework Firstly, I argue that Nondescriptivist Cognitivism tends to beg the question against descriptivism and, secondly, discuss Horgan and Timmons' case against Michael Smith's metaethical rationalism. Although I sympathise with their main critical claims against the latter, I am less enthusiastic about the arguments that they provide to support them.

Particularismo, atención y carácter: una defensa del particularismo moral

Entiende Christine Korsgaard que sólo una vida gobernada por principios universales responde a nuestra condición de sujetos, pues, de otro modo, quedaríamos reducidos a un amasijo de impulsos inconexos. Quiere, no obstante alejarse de la imagen del sujeto escindido entre razón y pasión y reivindica la necesidad de unificar cada una de las partes que lo constituyen. Tal unificación deberá descansar, según Korsgaard, en el respeto a principios morales de carácter universal, si bien confía en que una vida gobernada por tales principios permita atender suficientemente los proyectos y com- promisos con los que el sujeto se identifica y que constituyen su identidad práctica. En este es…

Incompatibilismo y necesidad contrafáctica

Algunos piensan que este conflicto entre la imagen determinista del mundo y la libertad de decisión es irresoluble, y ello les define como incompatibilistas; mientras que otros consideran que hay modos de integrar ambas intuiciones y merecen, pues, el nombre de compatibilistas. El presente artículo pretende mediar en el debate entre estas dos posiciones. Para ello, reflexionaremos acerca de la naturaleza de los vínculos contrafácticos implicados en las relaciones causales que se presuponen tanto en la imagen determinista del mundo como en nuestras intuiciones acerca de la libertad de decisión. En concreto, nuestra propuesta vendrá a subrayar la debilidad de las estrategias compatibili…

Lo real y lo imaginario en la experiencia del soldado

Se divide la experiencia del soldado en tres momentos ordenados en el tiempo: la partida, el campo de batalla y el regreso. En este texto se argumenta que esos tres momentos están separados entre sí por la distancia que separa lo real de lo imaginario.

Ensayos sobre libertad y necesidad [Presentació]

Presentación del libro que ambos autores han coordinado y editado sobre la libertad y la necesidad.

Insuficiencia del escepticismo: una reivindicación de la actitud ilustrada

'EL sueño de la razón produce monstruos'. Asi lo entendieron los pensadores ilustra- dos y ello les indujo a apostar por un modo de vida guiado por la razón, por una razón libre de prejuicios. Sin embargo, las experiencias históricas posteriores mostraron que una confianza desmedida en la razón también engendra monstruos, que el aforismo goyesco es igualmente verdadero en su lectura menos ilustrada, más escéptica. En este contexto, se entiende la fuerza que cobran, en la hora presente, los argumentos que subrayan las limitaciones de la razón como guía de nuestra vida, individual o social. Tales consideraciones escépticas han adoptado formas muy variadas. En este trabajo, examina…

Justification, Attachments and Regret

In *The View From Here*, Jay Wallace emphasises that an agent's capacity to regret a past decision is conditioned by the attachments that she may have developed as a result. Those attachments shape the point of view from which she retrospectively deliberates. Wallace stresses, however, that not every normative aspect of her decision is affected by this change in perspective, because her decision will remain as unjustified as it was in the past. I will argue, however, that this approach to justification is inconsistent with the normative import that Wallace ascribes to the actual dynamics of our attachments in his defence of the rationale of regret. If I am right, Wallace's approach is caugh…