Search

The concept of Transcendental Object either refers, in the framework of the Critic of Pure Reason, to the cause or foundation of external phenomena, or, on the contrary, to the concept of an object in general as it is thought by the conscience so as to guarantee the objective validity of its representations. In this paper, I shall attempt to show that--contrary to what has been suggested by several interpreters--the ambiguity involved in the Kantian use of this concept is not the result of a terminological carelessness, but that it is founded on certain principles of Critical Idealism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The French translation of the Nicomachean Ethics done by Oresme in the 14th century has some interesting notes explaining the Aristotelian text. In this paper we present his interpretation of passage V 7, 1134b18-1135a5 of the NE, where a distinction is made between natural and conventional justice. Even though Oresme is influenced by Aquinas, his commentary shows great indepen- dence of thought and is a very interesting example of the transition from the medieval to the modern world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to show that not only there is no incompatibility between the cognitive and social factors in the analysis of scientific and techno- logical phenomena, but that they are complemented. This idea is exemplified with the study of the human error from a double perspective: the one of a cog- nitive scientist like James Reason and the other one of an engineer like Henry Petroski. The analysis of catastrophes because of failures in architectonic struc- tures or industrial processes show that only considering the cognitive and social elements we can diminish the failures and increase the successes of the scientific and technological activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alonso de la Veracruz was the first professor of western philosophy in America and the most outstanding humanist of the School of Salamanca in New Spain. He was one of the founding fathers of the Real University of Mexico in 1553. This paper analyzes the influences of Victoria and Domingo de Soto in De la Veracruz's criticism to political and economic domination of Spain over indigenous people of the New Word, based on a multicultural republicanism. From this perspective he promoted autonomy for indigenous people and defended their rationality, setting the foundations of mexican republican humanism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper defends an empiricist point of view about the problem of justification of knowledge. The stance, inspired in some writings of the last Quine, rejects at the same time the naïve empiricist commitment with the myth of the given and the radical thesis of teorethical charge of perception, finding an intermmediate position between those poles. This work includes, as a previous step, a critic to the so called "minimal empirism" of J. McDowell. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper recalls two passages of book seven from St. Augustine's Confessions (Confes. 7, 10, 16 and 7, 17, 23). There, he states having an overcoming experience described as a shock of terror and love. The main scope of our text is to clarify the sense of these expressions. In order to understand both passages we describe briefly the circumstances and events that led to such moment. We put forward that at the core of these events we find an ontological experience. At the same time we try to show how all this reveals a special state of the soul which must be considered when describing Augustine's ascent to the Being and the Truth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay focuses on the brief but significant passage of Physics IV 13, 222a28-b7, where Aristotle provides two arguments in favor of the extensive infinitude of time. The first one, Vigo argues, presents its extensive infinitude as depending on infinitude of movement. By contrast, the second argument proceeds immanently out of the consideration of the properties the 'now' possesses as being a limit that accounts for both the possibility of limitation (divisibility) and the continuity of time. The paper also explores some systematic consequences of this last argument and attempts to figure out some puzzles it involves from the methodological point of view. Such difficulties underline some structural limits of Aristotle's attempt to perform a re(con)ductive treatment of the properties of time regarded as a way of continuum dependent of other two more basic domains: movement and spatially extensive magnitude. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with Aristotle's concept of chance, such as it is presented in Physics II 4-6. The central section of the article concentrates on an analysis of Aristotle's definition of chance and its essential peculiarities: the fact of being an incidental (efficient) cause and the fact of existing in the domain of what is for the sake of an end. According to Rossi, both characteristics would correspond to a causal aspect (in an incidental sense) and to a non causal aspect (or just apparently causal) of chance. Finally, the author also tries to show the structural connection between the aforementioned aspects, taking as a key point the thesis of coincidence among the formal, final, and efficient causes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper intends to examine Aristotle's conception of the 'now', such as it is presented in Physics IV 10-14. The author argues that in the two main issues Aristotle tackles there (that is, whether time exists and what time is) the now is understood as being an inner limit of time, an understanding where the main emphasis is upon the condition of indivisibility of such a limit or, in other words, upon the fact that the now is not part of time. Baño concentrates on the analogy between 'now' and moving body, presented by Aristotle in order to account for the difficult thesis that the 'now' is always the same and, at once, always different. The issue the author is particularly concerned with is the fact that the moving body does not appear to be the same to movement as the 'now' is to time, since the moving body is not an inner limit of movement. Consequently, the analogy cannot be based on the punctual condition of the 'now', and rather it seems to be based on the fact that the 'now' is a principle of time cognition, such as the moving body is a principle of cognition of movement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The word "imagination" alludes to different practices. This paper tries to answer two questions. In the first place, it tries to offer, descriptively, a general characterization listing various candidates for common properties of the different types of imagination: imaginating intervention, development of an imaginary scenario that is built from partial blockings of the truth dimension. In second place, a normative difference is drawn between fantasy and imagination using the metaphor of "walls versus bridges": fantasy lifts "walls' against reality and, thus, mental movements become centripetal, while imagination builds "bridges" with centrifugal movements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses main issues in Gadamer's conception of understanding. On the basis of Heidegger's view on the holistic-anticipative and historical-factical character of understanding, Gadamer emphasizes the productivity of distance and historical mediation as conditions of possibility for every genuine appropriation of sense. Understanding involves essentially a critical aspect, because appropriation of sense and self-questioning go always together. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing upon texts belonging to different periods of Habermasian thought, this paper exposes the conception of procedural rationality as standing in a genealogical connection with the normative ideas of bourgeois public sphere and of ideal speech situation. In examining the normative content of such a justifying rationality, the so-called "rules of reason", the article also explores several implications of the public dimension of the unavoidable and counterfactual idealizations of rational discourses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I wish to argue that in 13th century epistemology, the perception of the physical world did include the apprehension of complex states of affairs which could also be grasped by some animals. By discussing Avicenna's and Aquinas' points of view regarding the concept of sensibile per accidens and the mental faculties of perception (vis aestimativa and vis cogitativa), I conclude that the perceptual act of discerning complex states of affairs is based upon a background knowledge in which language is a non-essential feature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with the meaning of phantasia in Plato's dialogues, taking into account the dialectical contexts in which different representations and opinions are examined and submitted to refutation: the gods' apparitions as pictured by the poets are not a good basis for the citizens' paideia (Republic), nor are the apparitions in perception solid knowledge (Theaetetus); the verbal images produced by the sophists are unsound (Sophist) and should, like the images projected on the liver (Timaeus), be the object of critical analysis and interpretation. Nevertheless, it is argued that, in the dialogues as a whole, phantasia is not, a priori, false. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Something surprising in Charles S. Peirce scholarship throughout the years has been the scarce attention paid to the religious dimensions of Peirce's thought. The aim of this paper is to highlight that for Peirce the belief in God is not only a natural product of abduction, of the "rational instinct" or educated guess of the scientist or the lay man, but also that the abduction of God is for Peirce the "proof' of pragmatism. Not only the belief in God is able to change the conduct of the believer, but according to Peirce —in the "Neglected Argument" and in other places— the reality of God makes sense of the whole scientific enterprise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to show that we have at least two different arguments that prove the First Motor existence. Even though there are coincidences between Physics VII 1 and VIII 5, their arguments are not identical. Physics VII argue the impossibility of an infinite movement in a finite time and VIII 5 the necessity of a "principal" cause. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Did Kant always think that there can not be theoretical proofs of God? In this paper the content of the kantian work, known as Beweisgrund, within the precritic period, is analyzed. It is developed, with great detail, the argument of the existence of God through the possibility, centred in the following two kantians statements: "the inner possibility, the essences of things, is that which if it is supressed, everything thinkable is destroyed" and therefore the denial of the existence of God is a "complete nothingness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper intends to show that the main goals of Saul Kripke's theory of reference hang on the methodological usage of common sense, taking common sense as the natural way in which intelligence approach to reality and which is reflected in natural or ordinary language. The key to bring to light Kripke's ideas about common sense is analyzing the texts in which he talks about 'intuition'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we study, following St. Thomas Aquinas, the distinction between the habit of the first principles and the knowledge and the will, and other habits (habit of science, sinderesis, habit of wisdom) and between the intellectus agens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper a new Spanish translation of the brief opuscule De mystica theologia (by the Christian Neoplatonic Pseudo Dyonisius Areopagita) along with an introduction to the text are presented. The introduction focuses on the analysis of some points that are especially helpful to understand the text at issue: (i) its history and its significance for the Neoplatonism and, more importantly, its relevance in terms of a highly original exposition of the Christian doctrine from a Neoplatonist viewpoint. (ii) The importance of this text in Contemporary philosophy (Hegel, Heidegger, Wittgenstein) is also noted and, finally, (iii) its crucial significance for the so-called "negative theology". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the analysis of Davidsonian notion of action, this paper is an attempt to show the difference between the action as caused by an agent and the action as intentionally described. So, on the one hand, in the being level there is not a class of actions which is the particular class of intentional actions but, on the other hand, in the saving level there is not a class of actions which is not the particular class of intentional actions: paradoxically, the only class of actions includes actions as caused by an agent but, as such, the actions cannot be described. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to John Locke, the state of nature suffers a juridical insufficiency: to be judge in one's own case. The republican system is the solution to such inadequacy. This paper intends to demonstrate that the superiority of the republican system is not funded on economic nor demographic reasons, but in a moral basis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I reconstruct Anscombe's intricate dicussion of the notion of Cartesian substance. In particular, I consider her analysis of the connection between secondary qualities and whatever they inhere in trying to assess her tentative conclusion to the effect that it is not feasible to get rid of the notion of substance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the discussion between Taylor and Rorty about the results of overcoming epistemology. Firstly, the article summarizes the Taylor's criticism to Rorty. Secondly, it considers the rortvan response to Taylor and his own arguments against Taylor's realism. The main disagreements between Rorty and Taylor are as follow: 1) Rorty says that pragmatism overcomes epistemology, Taylor, on the contrary, says that it is an uncompromising realism which overcomes the mainstream epistemological tradition; 2) they disagree about how to understand vocabularies: Taylor claims that it is always possible to know what vocabulary describes better the world, but Rorty seems to claim that vocabularies are incommensurable; 3) Taylor thinks of truth as a correspondence relation to the world; Rorty, however, dismisses that conception. Thirdly, it is made an evaluation of the arguments offered by each side. Especially, that section argues against the rortyan conception of language games and its non-realistic consequences. Finally, it is suggested a reconsideration of the dichotomy realism-pragmatism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using Weber's concepts of rationalization and bureaucratic organization, as well as Habermas's idea of practical reason, this paper shows how aristotelian concepts of happiness and teleological rationality are applied to some problems of organizational life. These problems are related to coherence between two types of goals. Those that belong to people's life projects, and the goals of corporations looking for market efficiency. The aim is to show that the noncritical use of technical rationality and the bureaucratization of customs and procedures, can disrupt the need to make them rational or justified, and indeed frustrate the search for personal happiness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Throught the whole 20th century, Phenomenology could make solid contributions to philosophical knowledge. Husserl demanded that philosophy be founded as a rigorous science, as a foundation for pure logic. Trained as a mathematician, Husserl was attracted to philosophy by Franz Brentano. In the Logical investigations, Husserl began with an analysis and critical discussion of the principals authors of psychologism, naturalism and historicism; these tendencies were incapable of achieving the rigour required by genuine science. The directedness of the consciousness toward an object is a basic concept in Phenomenology. The call "To the things themselves" is not a demand for realism, because the things at stake are the acts of consciousness and the objective entities that get constituted in them; the objects of Phenomenology are absolute data grasped in pure, immanent intuition. The second part of this paper continued by an reading of Husserl's various ideas on the difference between empirical and transcendental subjectivity from the early Logical Investigations, and the paradox of subjectivity. The problem is that the ego is more than a simple phenomena, or a logic object. To do phenomenology was for Husserl tantamount to returning to the transcendental ego as the ground for the foundation of all meaning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, Hume's ideas concerning the necessary conditions for political estability and progress are discussed. Furthermore, it is showed how Hume, in base of his personal 'conservative' understanding of politics, has offered a sharp examination of the function and characteristics of government, as well as important philosophical keys, in order to comprehend the nature of social progress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I offer a conceptual reconstruction of pragmatism which places the function and the meaning of religion within its philosophical framework. Such a reconstruction is focussed on the notions of belief and action as they are articulated in the pragmatic maxim due to Ch. S. Peirce, which I read as a useful means to emphasize the social and ethical contents of religion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I suggest that an interesting (although rather dim) parallel may be drawn between the sophists' and Wittgenstein's views concerning the role of philosophy. In both cases the systematic approach is rejected and instead the importance of reasoning and argument emphasized. Apart from multiple differences, a crucial one between them is that the sophists aimed at forming linguistic seducers whose main goal would be to persuade their opponents, while Wittgenstein gives a technique to systematically get rid of philosophical puzzles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aristotelian doctrine of fallacies in the Sophistical Refutations cannot be understood without reference to Topics. In this paper we attempt to show that, in this last work, there is an implicit "logic of predicables", which can explain in a very convincing way some of those fallacies, like those of accident, of consequent, secundum quid ad simpliciter and babbling. At the same time, we present the main ingredients of this logic and we discuss some modem solutions about those sophisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I examine Aristotle's notion of practical necessity in the Nicomachean Ethics. This topic has received little attention in spite of its importance for the understanding of aristotelian practical syllogism. I focus my analysis on the controverted example of akratic reasoning in EN VII, 3, 1147a 26-30, in which Aristotle seems to showcase properties of practical reasoning connected with action. Nevertheless, as I hope to show, the aristotelian approach to this issue is insuficient to support an strong interpretation of practical necessity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I attemp to clarify the controversial use of pathêmata tês psuchês, made by Aristotle in De Anima and De Interpretatione, specially when he signifies the act of thinking (noein), thoughts (noemata) and knowledge in general. I defend the thesis that the term pathos is essential for Aristotle's theory of knowledge. My argument is based upon the distinction, made by Aristotle in De Anima and Metaphysics, betwen two meanings of this term: (i) as movement to the other (alloiôsis), and (ii) as growth to the same (homoiôsis). I interpret the latter in connection with the act (energeia), and I state the senses in which it would be proper to predicate the passibility and the impassibility of the faculties of cognition, the things which are known, and knowledge itself as act. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper deals with the way Ronald Dworkin —as H. L. A. Hart and John Rawls, to whom he follows— states the foundation to human rights. Certain presence of iusnaturalism in that foundation is pointed at, for Dworkin, as Hart and Rawls, seeks which ones would be the natural rights of man (one of them says that it would be freedom, and the other two that it would be equality), i.e. they are rights that cannot depend on social contract, because they are first to them and they are presupposed to it; and because of that, they cannot depend on the sole positivation. There is, then, a hidden or latent iusnaturalism in the foundation of human rights as moral rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper stresses the incidence of a temporal component in the Aristotelian doctrine of substance and categories, insofar as the distinction substance-accidents refers not only to the logical opposition between subject and predicate, but also refers to the real opposition between the subject of change and their determinations. The argument is based on interpretation of important passages from Cat. 5, Phys. I 7 and IV 10-14. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is focused on the critical discussion that Ps. Justinus (an Aristotelian author of the fifth century AD) addresses to some basic principles of Aristotle's philosophy of nature. Ps. Justinus concentrates his criticism on the Aristotelian doctrine of the eternity of movement, of time and of the world. He also argues against Aristotle to show the non eternity of the ether, implying an unification of the terrestrial and celestial realms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The distinction between absolute and relative generation implies the difference between substance and not-substance, instead of that between being and not-being, according to Aristotle. This paper tries to explain how this distinction makes possible to talk about the absolute not-being, an unavoidable concept when Aristotle tries to explain the absolute generation and corruption without appealing to the nothing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some recent developments of informal logic have pointed out the crucial importance of fallacies in understanding reasoning and regulating thought. Having that importance in mind, this paper offers an outline of the Aristotelian theory of fallacies and advances some remarks on its influence on the whole logical theory proposed by Aristotle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alter a brief discussion and some conclusions on the meaning of the eternity and inmortality of the soul according to Aristotle, the paper tries to show some differences between Aristotle's and Aquinas's approaches to the subject. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues on behalf of a proper understanding of culture (as something like sell-formation [Bildung]) as a basis for supporting the concept of development, instead of the conception proposed by many economists and social scientists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper tries to explain in what sense Eckhart can be considered as a "mysticist". The final conclusion is that Eckhart's "mysticism" must be interpreted not as a theological matter, but instead as a metaphysical doctrine, despite his theological inspiration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taking as its starting point the Aristotelian consideration of the different senses of being, this paper concentrates on being as true (ens ut verum) analyzing and commenting on the text of Metaphysics in which this concept appears, in order to delimit, as far as possible, its authentic meaning and to resolve the apparent contradictions that may be observed in these texts. The analysis is made using the commentaries by St. Thomas Aquinas. The conclusions reached are that being as true is properly one of the senses of being that must not be mistaken with ontological truth. It is also determined in this article in what being as truth consists, and there is a final remark on the essence of the truth of the simple. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to show the rhetorical character of one of the arguments developed by Aristotle in Met. IV supporting the principle of non-contradiction. Rhetoric has a place in metaphysical discussions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]