Abstracta : Linguagem, Mente e Ação
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Abstracta focuses on the main areas of contemporary analytic philosophy including Epistemology, Philosophical Logic, Metaphysics, Moral Philosophy, Philosophy of Language, Philosophy of Mind and Psychology, and Philosophy of Science. However, contributions on other philosophical areas as well as papers on the History of Philosophy might be considered for publication on the precondition that they are not purely exegetical.
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The Globethics library contains vol. 1(2004)-10(2017). - Latest volume published.
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Joseph Raz on the Problem of the AmoralistJoseph Raz has argued that the problem of the amoralist is misconceived. In this paper, I present three interpretations of what his argument is. None of these interpretations yields an argument that we are in a position to accept.
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Reactive Commitments: Reasoning Dialectically about ResponsibilityPhilosophy has recently been presented with, and started to take seriously, sociological studies in which our ‘folk concepts’ are elaborated. The most interesting concepts studied are moral concepts, and results have been achieved that seem to sharply contradict the speculation of philosophers and to threaten the very way in which moral philosophy has been done in the past. In this paper, I consider certain results in empirical studies of the folk concept of responsibility. I will then sketch a version of a reactive attitude theory that allows for a genuine sense in which our intuitions about responsibility may be incoherent in a certain sense but without making moral reasoning radically contextual.
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Truths are valuable, truth isn'tThis paper deals with the relationship that is sometimes said to hold between true beliefs and success. It argues for deflationism about truth. In particular, a position will be defended according to which the instrumental value of true beliefs can be accounted for within a deflationary framework. The paper denies that truth has any non-instrumental value in the sense that truth is pursued for its own sake. Moreover, the instrumental value of true beliefs will be explained in terms of psychological regularities between agents’ ‘correct’ beliefs about the world, rather than in terms of truth as such. The argument concludes with the result that – in the strict sense – truth is valueless because truth is no (genuine) property. However, the value of individual true beliefs is acknowledged, insofar as they foster one’s behavioural success.
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The Regulative and the Theoretical in EpistemologyThe distinction between the regulative (‘practical’, ‘subjective’, ‘decision-procedural’) and the theoretical (‘objective’, ‘absolute’) pertains to the aims (the desiderata) of an account of justification. This distinction began in ethics and spread to epistemology. Each of internalism, externalism, is separately forced to draw this distinction to avoid a stock, otherwise fatal, argument levelled against them by the other. Given this situation however, we may finesse much partisan conflict in epistemology by simply seeing differing accounts of justification as answering to radically distinct desiderata of adequacy. We should see knowledge as answering to the theoretical desideratum of adequacy alone; and rationality as answering to the regulative desideratum of adequacy alone. Objections to this ‘Gordian’ [knot] approach to epistemology (from virtues theorists and others) are rejected. Such an approach may make for accounts that violate our ordinary language intuitions; but in developing an epistemological axiology, any such intuitions are not to the point.
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Action, Deviance, and GuidanceI argue that we should give up the fight to rescue causal theories of action from fundamental challenges such as the problem of deviant causal chains; and that we should rather pursue an account of action based on the basic intuition that control identifies agency. In Section 1 I introduce causalism about action explanation. In Section 2 I present an alternative, Frankfurt’s idea of guidance. In Section 3 I argue that the problem of deviant causal chains challenges causalism in two important respects: first, it emphasizes that causalism fails to do justice to our basic intuition that control is necessary for agency. Second, it provides countless counterexamples to causalism, which many recent firemen have failed to extinguish – as I argue in some detail. Finally, in Section 4 I argue, contra Al Mele, that control does not require the attribution of psychological states as causes.
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The Two-Component Theory of Proper Names and Kripke’s PuzzleThis paper provides a defense of the description theory of proper names by constructing a ‘two-component’ theory of names. Using Kripke’s puzzle about belief as the stepping stone, this paper first points out problems with Kripke’s direct reference theory of names. It then presents the two-component theory of names and defends it against Kripke’s general criticisms of the description theory. It also compares the two-component theory of names against other leading description theories and shows how the two-component theory provides a better analysis of names. The paper offers a comprehensive summary of the debate between the description theory and the direct reference theory of names. At the end, it shows how the two-component theory of names can deal with Kripke’s puzzle and more.
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Uma análise fregeana de expressões para eventos e resultados dos eventosThis paper makes a Fregean analysis of certain expressions which, according to the way they are constructed, can refer, firstly, to events (A tradução da Bíblia por João demorou dois anos) and, secondly, to the results of these events (A tradução da Bíblia de João está sob a mesa). This paper intends to show that –if we take into account the above mentioned expressions and use Fregean notions such as meaning, reference, function, argument and concept– it is possible to consider events as objects. To do this we need to articulate developments made both from a linguistic perspective and a philosophical one. In this particular case, we take into account the Fregean ontology; we try to analyze ontologically the linguistic phenomena called nominalization and arrive to interesting conclusions about the ontological and semantic behavior of the expressions that contain event and result nominalizations.
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Silogísticas Keynesianas: As Inferências ImediatasJohn Neville Keynes uses a diagrammatic method, adapted of Euler’s diagrammatic method, in which the semantic content of a categorical judgment is associated to a proper subset of a set of basic diagrams. Different syllogistics are characterized by different sets of basic diagrams. We compare, by Keynesian diagrammatic method, three syllogistics (all of them with existential presupposition and with “non universal” presupposition of terms) as to validity of immediate inferences: the syllogistic without negative terms, the syllogistic with negative terms in which a term and its corresponding negative term complement each other in relation to the universe of discourse, and the syllogistic with negative terms in which a term and its corresponding negative term does not necessarily complement each other in relation to the universe of discourse.
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An Inferentialist Approach to ParaconsistencyThis paper develops and motivates a paraconsistent approach to semantic paradox from within a modest inferentialist framework. I begin from the bilateralist theory developed by Greg Restall, which uses constraints on assertions and denials to motivate a multiple-conclusion sequent calculus for classical logic, and, via which, classical semantics can be determined. I then use the addition of a transparent truth-predicate to motivate an intermediate speech-act. On this approach, a liar-like sentence should be “weakly asserted”, involving a commitment to the sentence and its negation, without rejecting the sentence. From this, I develop a proof-theory, which both determines a typical paraconsistent model theory, and also gives us a nice way to understand classical recapture.
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Which-Object MisidentificationJames Pryor (1999) distinguishes two varieties of error through misidentification, de re misidentification and which-object misidentification, and two corresponding varieties of immunity to error through misidentification. This paper examines the relation between de re and which-object misidentification. I argue that the most natural reading of which-object misidentification, according to which the two kinds of error are mutually exclusive, is in tension with Pryor’s claim that immunity to which-object misidentification implies immunity to de re misidentification. To resolve the tension, Pryor should construe which-object misidentification more broadly, as encompassing de re misidentification.
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The Theory of the Formal Discipline and the Possible Interpretations of Conditionals: Material Versus Defective ConditionalsAttridge and Inglis try to check whether or not the ‘Theory of Formal Discipline’ is correct. This theory states that learning mathematics improves logical reasoning, and Attridge and Inglis review it by means of an experiment. Their conclusion is that, indeed, learning mathematics improves conditional inferences causing that conditionals are interpreted as defective. In this paper, I analyze Attridge and Inglis´s experiment and hold that it has a methodological problem and that hence does not really prove that learning mathematics lead to defective interpretations of conditionals. Equally, the paper includes a brief reflection on how the mental models theory can explain the results achieved by Attridge and Inglis.
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What is Logical about the Logical Interpretation of Probability?My goal, in this paper, is to critically assess the categorization of “interpretations of probability” as it appears in the literature. In some sources only Carnap’s treatment of probability is understood to be the best example of “logical” probability. This is surprisingly narrow and I will here suggest otherwise. In fact, I believe that certain forms of Baysianism should also be included in the logical camp.