Book review of Consciousness by Christopher Hill

Christopher S. Hill advances a theory of conscious experience that employs the idea of representation to unify and explain a wide range of subjective phenomena, including emotions and pain. The theory shows the relevance of philosophical thought in a multidisciplinary view of the mind.

Os seis requisitos das premissas da demonstração científica em aristóteles (Segundos Analíticos I2)

Discuto neste artigo os seis requisitos que Aristóteles propõe para as premissas das demonstrações científicas em Segundos Analíticos I 2, 71b20-33. Pretendo mostrar que os seis requisitos não respaldam a interpretação "axiomatizante". Ao contrário, os seis requisitos podem ser entendidos consistentemente de acordo com uma interpretação segundo a qual o traço mais fundamental da demonstração científica consiste na explicação pela causa apropriada.

A caracterização da lógica pela força assertórica em frege. Resposta a Marco Ruffino

Segundo a caracterização padrão da lógica nos escritos fregeanos, a palavra "verdadeiro" indica a essência da lógica, assim como a palavra "bom" indica a essência da ética e a palavra "belo" a essência da estética. Num escrito póstumo de 1915, porém, Frege afirma que é a força assertórica, e não a palavra "verdadeiro", que indica a essência da lógica. Prima facie, esta correção está em conflito com a crítica fregeana à concepção psicologista da lógica. Pois, segundo esta crítica, a lógica não é a ciência das leis "do ser tomado como verdadeiro", mas a ciência das leis "do ser verdadeiro", ao passo que a força assertórica expressa o ser tomado como verdadeiro. Em escritos anteriores, tentei resolver este conflito por uma reconstrução da concepção fregeana da verdade baseada na tese fregeana de que verdade é expressa na linguagem natural pela "forma da sentença assertórica". A meta do presente trabalho é defender esta interpretação contra as objeções recentemente feitas por Marco Ruffino.

The relation between the general maxim of causality and the principle of uniformity in hume's theory of knowledge

ABSTRACT When Hume, in the Treatise on Human Nature, began his examination of the relation of cause and effect, in particular, of the idea of necessary connection which is its essential constituent, he identified two preliminary questions that should guide his research: (1) For what reason we pronounce it necessary that every thing whose existence has a beginning should also have a cause and (2) Why we conclude that such particular causes must necessarily have such particular effects? (1.3.2, 14-15) Hume observes that our belief in these principles can result neither from an intuitive grasp of their truth nor from a reasoning that could establish them by demonstrative means. In particular, with respect to the first, Hume examines and rejects some arguments with which Locke, Hobbes and Clarke tried to demonstrate it, and suggests, by exclusion, that the belief that we place on it can only come from experience. Somewhat surprisingly, however, Hume does not proceed to show how that derivation of experience could be made, but proposes instead to move directly to an examination of the second principle, saying that, "perhaps, be found in the end, that the same answer will serve for both questions" (1.3.3, 9). Hume's answer to the second question is well known, but the first question is never answered in the rest of the Treatise, and it is even doubtful that it could be, which would explain why Hume has simply chosen to remove any mention of it when he recompiled his theses on causation in the Enquiry concerning Human Understanding. Given this situation, an interesting question that naturally arises is to investigate the relations of logical or conceptual implication between these two principles. Hume seems to have thought that an answer to (2) would also be sufficient to provide an answer to (1). Henry Allison, in his turn, argued (in Custom and Reason in Hume, p. 94-97) that the two questions are logically independent. My proposal here is to try to show that there is indeed a logical dependency between them, but the implication is, rather, from (1) to (2). If accepted, this result may be particularly interesting for an interpretation of the scope of the so-called "Kant's reply to Hume" in the Second Analogy of Experience, which is structured as a proof of the a priori character of (1), but whose implications for (2) remain controversial.

Uma nota sobre a lógica formal de Kant

O artigo apresenta um problema que surge da combinação da teoria kantiana dos juízos analíticos com a sua adesão oficial à silogística. Argumenta-se em seguida que o problema só pode ser inteiramente solucionado pelo reconhecimento de que a lógica com a qual Kant de fato operava não é consistente nem com a silogística, nem com a lógica clássica, consistindo, de fato, em uma espécie de lógica inclusiva.

Predicação e extensão conceitual em Kant: problemas

O artigo examina a noção de extensão conceitual em Kant, a fim de determinar uma visão de predicação que possa integrar, de forma coerente, compromissos teóricos básicos da lógica geral como ele a concebia e os fundamentos de sua lógica transcendental. Após um breve panorama das diversas caracterizações da noção no corpus kantiano, distingo três modelos interpretativos acerca da mesma na literatura. Tais modelos são criticados e suas perspectivas de integrar os compromissos de Kant de modo inteiramente satisfatório são rejeitadas. Finalmente, esboço um tratamento alternativo da concepção kantiana de extensão conceitual, o qual respeita os critérios de adequação que guiaram o exame dos modelos anteriores. Ele aponta, por sua vez, para uma reavaliação da noção kantiana de conteúdo conceitual.

Escaping the flybottle: solipsism and method in Wittgenstein's Philosophical Remarks

The paper supports a dialectical interpretation of Wittgenstein's method focusing on the analysis of the conditions of experience presented in his Philosophical Remarks. By means of a close reading of some key passages dealing with solipsism I will try to lay bare their self-subverting character: the fact that they amount to miniature dialectical exercises offering specific directions to pass from particular pieces of disguised nonsense to corresponding pieces of patent nonsense. Yet, in order to follow those directions one needs to allow oneself to become simultaneously tempted by and suspicious of their all-too-evident "metaphysical tone" - a tone which, as we shall see, is particularly manifest in those claims purporting to state what can or cannot be the case, and, still more particularly, those purporting to state what can or cannot be done in language or thought, thus leading to the view that there are some (determinate) things which are ineffable or unthinkable. I conclude by suggesting that in writing those remarks Wittgenstein was still moved by an ethical project, which gets conspicuously displayed in these reiterations of his attempts to cure the readers (and himself) from some of the temptations expressed by solipsism.

Acción, hecho y sucesso

Examino la semántica de las oraciones de acción de Davidson y sus aspectos más relevantes: la formalización cuantificacional y las tesis sobre preposiciones y sobre modificación adverbial. A partir de Grice, emprendo tres líneas de ataque contra esta propuesta: una mezclando predicados y preposiciones, otra basada en modificaciones adverbiales y una a partir del posible análisis acciones negativas. Con ello espero suscitar dudas acerca del papel de los hechos y sucesos en el análisis de la acción.

The mathematics of McTaggart's paradox

Mc Taggart's celebrated proof of the unreality of time is a chain of implications whose final step asserts that the A-series (i.e. the classification of events as past, present or future) is intrinsically contradictory. This is widely believed to be the heart of the argument, and it is where most attempted refutations have been addressed; yet, it is also the only part of the proof which may be generalised to other contexts, since none of the notions involved in it is specifically temporal. In fact, as I show in the first part of the paper, McTaggart's refutation of the A-series can be easily interpreted in mathematical terms; subsequently, in order to strengthen my claim, I apply the same framework by analogy to the cases of space, modality, and personal identity. Therefore, either McTaggart's proof as a whole may be extended to each of these notions, or it must embed some distinctly temporal element in one of the steps leading up to the contradiction of the A-series. I conclude by suggesting where this element might lay, and by hinting at what I believe to be the true logical fallacy of the proof.

Boundless thought. The case of conceptual mental episodes

I present and defend here a thesis named vehicleless externalism for conceptual mental episodes. According to it, the constitutive relations there are between the production of conceptual mental episodes by an individual and the inclusion of this individual in social discursive practices make it non-necessary to equate, even partially, conceptual mental episodes with the occurrence of physical events inside of that individual. Conceptual mental episodes do not have subpersonal vehicles; they have owners: persons in interpretational practices. That thesis is grounded on inferentialism and on the endorsement of the idea that "meaning is normative". After having recapitulated this heritage and after having presented that thesis, the paper especially attempts to articulate how, in that framework, we may then positively conceive the relations there are between conceptual mental episodes, intracranial events and inferential behaviour.

Termos singulares, transcategoriais e Summa Genera na lógica de Aristóteles

Quais termos são suscetíveis de operações silogísticas? Para importantes intérpretes da lógica aristotélica - especialmente Ross, Patzig e Lukasiewicz - a resposta tende a introduzir um único e homogêneo grupo de termos, aqueles de generalidade intermediária (τὰ µεταξὺ). Fundamentada basicamente na classificação tripartite de entes que aparece no capítulo 27 de Primeiros Analíticos I, essa opinião atribui à silogística a exclusão de (i) termos singulares (como "Sócrates" e "este homem"), (ii) transcategoriais (como "ente" e "um"), bem como dos chamados (iii) summa genera ("substância", "qualidade", "quantidade", etc.). Em nossa opinião, esses resultados não derivam dos textos de Aristóteles, mas de leituras, traduções e interpretações impróprias das passagens centrais da discussão. Neste artigo, faremos um novo exame desses textos, a fim de mostrar que Aristóteles jamais afastou de sua lógica os tipos de termos que os intérpretes não hesitam em excluir da silogística. Assim, esperamos reintroduzir termos singulares, transcategoriais e summa genera, no domínio da silogística aristotélica.

Dos modelos de interpretación: la indeterminación de la traducción en quine y el argumento modelo teorético de Putnam

Las tesis de la indeterminación de Quine establecen que las condiciones de verdad de una oración sub-determinan la referencia de los términos que ocurren en la misma. La cuestión es ¿cuál es el alcance de esa sub-determinación? En Reason, Truth and History Putnam señala que la su-determinación es mayor de lo que podría suponerse a partir de los argumentos de Quine y se propone, con su "argumento modelo teorético", prolongar radicalmenteestos resultados. En este artículo pretendo mostrar que el argumento modelo teorético de Putnam no es una mera prolongación de los resultados de Quine, sino que se trata de un argumento que supone un modelo de interpretación distinto del que subyace al argumento de este último. Si estoy en lo cierto, tendríamos en este caso dos modos de entender la interpretación y dependerá de qué modo la entendamos, el alcance que le demos a la sub-determinación de la referencia por los valores veritativos. Considero, por lo tanto, que el argumento de Putnam, si bien radicaliza las conclusiones de Quine, lo hace introduciendo un modelo de interpretación diferente al que es desarrollado en Word and Object.

The notion of process in nonstandard theory and in Whiteheadian metaphysics

In this article I intend to show that certain aspects of A.N. Whitehead's philosophy of organism and especially his epochal theory of time, as mainly exposed in his well-known work Process and Reality, can serve in clarify the underlying assumptions that shape nonstandard mathematical theories as such and also as metatheories of quantum mechanics. Concerning the latter issue, I point to an already significant research on nonstandard versions of quantum mechanics; two of these approaches are chosen to be critically presented in relation to the scope of this work. The main point of the paper is that, insofar as we can refer a nonstandard mathematical entity to a kind of axiomatical formalization essentially 'codifying' an underlying mental process indescribable as such by analytic means, we can possibly apply certain principles of Whitehead's metaphysical scheme focused on the key notion of process which is generally conceived as the becoming of actual entities. This is done in the sense of a unifying approach to provide an interpretation of nonstandard mathematical theories as such and also, in their metatheoretical status, as a formalization of the empirical-experimental context of quantum mechanics.

Carnap and Kuhn on linguistic frameworks and scientific revolutions

Several recent works in history and philosophy of science have re-evaluated the alleged opposition between the theses put forth by logical empiricists such as Carnap and the so-called "post-positivists", such as Kuhn. Although the latter came to be viewed as having seriously challenged the logical positivist views of science, recent authors (e.g., Friedman, Reisch, Earman, Irzik and Grünberg) maintain that some of the most notable theses of the Kuhnian view of science have striking similarities with some aspects of Carnap's philosophy. Against that reading, Oliveira and Psillos argue that within Carnap's philosophy there is no place for the Kuhnian theses of incommensurability, holism, and theory-ladenness of observations. This paper presents each of those readings and argues that Carnap and Kuhn have non-opposing views on holism, incommensurability, the theory-ladenness of observations, and scientific revolutions. We note at the very end - without dwelling on the point, however - that they come apart on other matters, such as their views on metaphysics and on the context of discovery/justification distinction.