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One of the most influential intellectual battles in the history of ideas in the Western world took place in the 17th and 18th centuries and pitted a French mathematician against a Dutch philosopher. This short essay is certainly not the place to indulge in a counter-factual re-imagination of what international law would look like under the reign of a Spinozian epistemology. [Extracted from the article]

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This paper examines the dispute between Burge and McDowell over methodology in the philosophy of perception. Burge (2005 , 2011) has argued that the disjunctivism posited by naive perceptual realists is incompatible with the results of current perceptual science, while McDowell (2010 , 2013) defends his disjunctivism by claiming an autonomous field of enquiry for perceptual epistemology, one that does not employ the classificatory schemes of the science. Here it is argued that the crucial point at issue in the dispute is Burge's acceptance, and McDowell's rejection, of the 'Cartesian idealization' of mind as a self-contained system. Burge's case against disjunctivism rests on the assumption of a clearly demarcated boundary between mind and world, a picture of the mind that McDowell's philosophy reacts against. This boundary is required for scientific, causal explanations of perceptual processing because it is a simplifying assumption that helps present scientists with a clearly demarcated object of investigation. Concurring with McDowell, I conclude that philosophers need not carve up their objects of investigation in the same way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On Evidence in Philosophy sketches an epistemology of philosophy itself, a method for philosophical inquiry. Part 1 defends a version of Moore's method of "common sense," in which humble, boring everyday facts like "I have hands" and "I had breakfast earlier today" trump the a priori philosophical premises of arguments for various eliminative idealisms and skepticisms. Part 2 exhibits the deeper poverty of philosophical method, arguing that philosophy cannot prove or even refute any interesting thesis. But Part 3 defends intuitions as giving us good prima facie reason to accept the judgments they support, and then develops the method of wide reflective equilibrium in the context of a broader explanatory‐coherentist epistemology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although pragmatism and phenomenology have both contributed significantly to the genealogy of so-called "4E" - embodied, embedded, enactive and extended - cognition, there is benefit to be had from a systematic comparative study of these roots. As existing 4E cognition literature has tended to emphasise one or the other tradition, issues remain to be addressed concerning their commonalities - and possible incompatibilities. We begin by exploring pragmatism and phenomenology's shared focus on contesting intellectualism, and its key assumption of mindedness as representation. We then outline distinctive insights from both traditions regarding the nature and role of habits, in order to put forward a habit-based epistemology as an alternative to the Cartesian idea-based epistemology that has dominated modern philosophy. We pay particular attention to the work of classical pragmatist C.S. Peirce, arguing that his semiotics, which analyses sign-use as habit, shows how theorists of embodied cognition can break a certain false dichotomy between embodiment and logical or intellectual structure which has prevented them from fully theorising propositional knowledge. In this way, our work both augments and challenges the Dewey/Merleau-Ponty connection that has been much more extensively explored by the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Philosophers struggle to identify a conception of race in Descartes's philosophy. Yet, Descartes was not wholly silent on matters of foreign ethnicity and identity. This paper compares Descartes's various statements on savages and barbarians, which have never been methodically analyzed. A tensive view emerges across several texts wherein Descartes asserts that all persons are rational while simultaneously presuming the epistemic inferiority of the foreign other construed as "savage" or "barbarous." Further examination indicates that prejudice against this foreign other is endemic to both Descartes's epistemology and his conception of the mind-body union. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Psychoanalysts have written about synchronicity, or meaningful coincidence, from the beginning of the field, yet the topic remains controversial and relegated to the edges of clinical work and research due to lack of a scientific framework. This paper presents a way to conceptualize resonant patterning between inner and outer processes derived from the mathematics of fractal geometry. Considered the "geometry of nature" since its inception, nonlinear fractal models, methods, and metaphors reach beyond reductionism, Cartesian dualism, and traditional linear notions of causality to accommodate porous, interpenetrating boundaries between inner and outer domains as well as self-similar relational patterns. A fractal epistemology is sturdy yet flexible enough to accommodate paradox, ambiguity, uncertainty plus other complex, fuzzy processes of the ordinary analytic experience. Clinical examples also illustrate that fractal framework applies more broadly to the occasional extra-ordinary experience of synchronicity and other "uncanny" nonlocal phenomena in clinical work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Radical empiricism is an epistemological theory developed by William James, who is known for pragmatism. Denying basically Descartes' Cartesian dualism and the materialist monism of positivism, James brings a novel monist interpretation to empiricism that goes beyond Hume's criticism towards causality. This interpretation is an attempt to re-understand the experience through the contribution of the experimental consciousness studies that James has continued for many years. This initiative has a close relationship with James' era. For this period is an anti-metaphysical period in which the materialist conception of nature, the theory of evolution, and the discourse that the only valid knowledge is based on experience is increasingly dominant. Indeed, James is also opposed to any transcendent being and principle, such as God, the Absolute, spirit, or full perception, that does not arise from experience. However, with his studies of consciousness, he concludes that a materialist idea of nature and the theory of evolution is not based on scientific facts but metaphysical beliefs. With the influence of this thought, James, who turns towards philosophy, aims to develop a philosophical system in which the individual is not reduced to the species, nature, reduced to the physical, religious, and value, is not excluded, and where free will is enabled. The metaphysical principle of radical empiricism is "pure experience" which exists as the foundation of all conscious states, appears before the distinction of subject and object, and which is simple, immediate, the natural flow of life and the unity of plurality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines some key places in G. Vico's work, De antiquissima Italorum sapientia ex linguae latinae originibus eruenda (1710), in which the distinction between physics and metaphysics is never transformed into absolute distance, just as the heterogeneity of the infinite with respect to the finite is not dissolved. This is the great theme of the new metaphysics, concerned with reconciling itself with 'our religion', Christianity, and the limits of human reason in controversy with 'the first true meditated by Renato Descartes'. Man is not only the meeting point of nature and spirit but also the place of evil, of original sin, and yet vis veri, according to Augustine's lesson that helps correct Malebranche. The theoretical novelty lies in the assimilation of the ingenious faculty to the formative forces (memory, imagination and fantasy) capable of carrying out synthetic operations, devalued by Cartesian gnoseology and psychology. If the verum is the factum, the latter is the fruit of 'fictiones', i.e. of mental constructions made by the ingenium and its 'eye', the 'phantasy', capable of referring the metaphysical prototype of the divine truth to human operations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the earlier chapters of Interpreting Kant in Education, a reading of Kant was developed that contrasts sharply with the widespread 'Kantian' picture in education theory. Having discussed aspects of Kant's view in relation to empiricist and naturalist (mind‐independent) epistemologies, I turn in this sixth chapter to contrast them with Richard Rorty's social consensus (mind‐dependent) view of knowledge. Attention is drawn to empiricist understandings of epistemological concepts to illustrate the enduring influence of the Cartesian legacy, which, I argue, has shaped interpretations of Kant in education. Alternative understandings of some familiar concepts (previously introduced) are expanded on, with mind, world and their relation again being a point of discussion. Drawing on the work of John McDowell, I focus particularly on the ideas of objectivity and 'worldly constraint' as a basis for arguments developed in Part Two and in order to bring into view a richer and more acceptable picture of Kant's idealist view of knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This essay analyzes the relation body and movement to transcendence based on fundamental concepts of the body theme - immanence and transcendence. It takes up principles and ideas from classical authors of philosophy and religion such as Plato and Aristotle, as well as Hegel and Descartes, to address the concrete materiality of the body in the historical-social course and, as it moves, it develops the spirituality that moves and the psychic force that transcends. Among the concepts, it appreciates the corporeality in Merleau-Ponty and his followers and the humanized transcendence in Manuel Sérgio and the scholars of this author. It applies as methodology the review of studies and as methodological procedure the classification of ideas and theoretical principles categorized by the meanings of body, movement, spirituality, and transcendence, in the elected authors. It concludes that in conscious movement, there is a transcendence of bodily limits and levels of spirituality as a continual process of the human trajectory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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In this text, the relationship between fallibilism and cognitive vulnerability is examined using Richard Rorty's thinking as an example. First, some of Rorty's central ideas are collected and commented on, especially the substitution of objectivity for solidarity, since it affects relevant issues of epistemology and of reflection on rationality. Next, the notions of fallibilism and cognitive vulnerability are examined, which will be connected to an existential dimension of vulnerability. Examples of all those things are also given from Rorty's thinking and it is highlighted that the author operates with both a negative and a positive sense of existential vulnerability. It is then stated that Rorty's proposal implies pessimistic fallibilism and an excess of cognitive vulnerability. First, it is argued that the cause of this lies in the fact that his approach is imprisoned in what Richard Bernstein called Cartesian anxiety and secondly, this generates unwanted consequences for the Rortyan goals themselves to raise his ethnocentric proposal as a non-relativistic alternative to realism and authoritarianism. In this respect, it is maintained that the priority that Rorty attributes to solidarity is accompanied by the rejection of any notion of evidence. This produces a conceptual lacuna in the structure of his thought that makes it impossible to reflect philosophically on an epistemic activity (the activity of adducing or requesting evidence) that is a normal part of day-to-day conversational exchanges as important as controversies to determine the best option in each case. In response, we will argue that one can better work towards the achievement of Rortyan goals if we bear in mind that reasons based on solidarity do not replace and do not deactivate the value of epistemic reasons, although they do combine and reinforce each other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It intends to evidence the affiliation to the Cartesian paradigms in the radiophonic framework CBN Academy, transmitted by CBN radio from São Paulo since 2012 and presented by the philosopher Mário Sérgio Cortella. We problematize his position of scientific diffusionism based on the programs of January of 2019 from parameters such as theme, books and authors quoted. The main theoretical references are Edgar Morin and Cremilda Medina. We conclude that the CBN Academy's proposal to discuss philosophy on the radio is not dialogic but imposing, exhausting itself on the limited transmission of content. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review is the property of Cambridge University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article discusses the form of Cartesianism in southern U.S. culture that was featured in the novels of Walker Percy, particularly in the 1961 book "The Moviegoer." Also cited are the influence of Cartesianism to southern epistemology despite the region's resistance to scientific, industrial, and technological advances, and how Cartesianism allowed the South's history of oppression.

In this paper I examine contemporary accounts of noninferential justification in light of what I take to be the Cartesian project of building epistemology on foundations made secure by the impossibility of error. I argue that familiar abstract arguments for foundationalism, by themselves, don’t seem to motivate Cartesianism. But I further argue that there is one version of foundationalism that is more closely linked to the way in which Descartes sought ideal knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Descartes’ Rules for the direction of the mind presents us with a theory of knowledge in which imagination, considered as an “aid” for the intellect, plays a key role. This function of schematization, which strongly resembles key features of Proclus’ philosophy of mathematics, is in full accordance with Descartes’ mathematical practice in later works such as La Géométrie from 1637. Although due to its reliance on a form of geometric intuition, it may sound obsolete, I would like to show that this has strong echoes in contemporary philosophy of mathematics, in particular in the trend of the so called “philosophy of mathematical practice”. Indeed Ken Manders’ study on the Euclidean practice, along with Reviel Netz’s historical studies on ancient Greek Geometry, indicate that mathematical imagination can play a central role in mathematical knowledge as bearing specific forms of inference. Moreover, this role can be formalized into sound logical systems. One question of general epistemology is thus to understand this mysterious role of the imagination in reasoning and to assess its relevance for other mathematical practices. Drawing from Edwin Hutchins’ study of “material anchors” in human reasoning, I would like to show that Descartes’ epistemology of mathematics may prove to be a helpful resource in the analysis of mathematical knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In various arguments, Descartes relies on the principles that conceivability implies possibility and that inconceivability implies impossibility. Those principles are in tension with another Cartesian view about the source of modality, i.e. the doctrine of the free creation of eternal truths. In this paper, I develop a ‘two-modality’ interpretation of the doctrine of eternal truths which resolves the tension and I discuss how the resulting modal epistemology can still be relevant for the contemporary discussion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Among the epistemological ideas commonly associated with the Descartes of the Meditations, at any rate, is a knowledge-infallibilism. Such an idea was seemingly a vital element in Descartes’s search for truth within that investigative setting: only a true belief gained infallibly (as we would now describe it) could be knowledge, as the Meditations conceived of this. Contemporary epistemologists are less likely than Descartes was to advocate our ever seeking knowledge-infallibility, if only because most are doubtful as to its ever being available. Still, they would agree—in a seemingly Cartesian spirit—that if infallible knowledge was available then it would be a stronger link to truth than fallible knowledge ever manages to be. But this paper argues that infallible knowledge lacks that supposed advantage over fallible knowledge. Indeed, we will see why we should move even further away from the epistemological model at the heart of the Meditations: we should adopt knowledge-minimalism, by conceiving of a belief’s being true as always sufficient for its being knowledge—this, for any belief. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In The Human Place in the Cosmos Max Scheler argues the question of philosophical anthropology must address three problems: (i) the difference between man and animal; (ii) the Cartesian problem of the mind and body; and (iii) the essence of spirit. In a recent issue of Human Studies, two articles by Cristian Ciocan and Christian Ferencz-Flatz addressed the first of these problems through investigations of Husserl’s Nachlass. In this paper, I respond primarily to Ciocan by drawing on Scheler’s phenomenology and the implications this has for understanding Husserl’s phenomenology. By looking at Husserl’s published comments, we can see how the attempt to differentiate between man and animal is bound up with his understanding of spirituality. This allows an alternative way of understanding normality and abnormality which shifts emphasises away from how far we can empathise with the Other (be they man or animal) to emphasise what it means to be normal or abnormal. This will allow us to address an ambiguity of Husserl identified by Ferencz-Flatz. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bernard Lamy (1640–1715) is frequently included among the Cartesian Empiricists of the second half of the seventeenth century. He has also been described as an Augustinian who dabbled in Cartesianism. While acknowledging that there are both empiricist and Augustinian elements in his thought, I argue that it ought not be forgotten that there are central components of his philosophy that are both anti-empiricist and in opposition to Augustine. My aim in this paper, though, is not (merely) critical; I hope to show that Lamy provides us with one more example of the diversity present among the various thinkers labelled as ‘Cartesian’. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I apply Hayek’s distinction between ‘true’ and ‘false’ individualism to methodological individualism. Hayek traced ‘false’ individualism to Cartesian rationalism; Hayek’s rejection of Mises’ praxeology was due to its rationalist underpinnings. The first half of this paper identifies praxeology’s foundational philosophical concepts, emphasising their Cartesian nature, and illustrates how together they constitute a case for methodological individualism: intuition and deduction; reductionism; judgement; dualism. In the second half of this paper, I draw upon philosophy and cognitive science to articulate ‘Hayekian’ (N.B. not Hayek’s) alternatives to these Cartesian concepts. The Hayekian alternative allows a ‘gestalt switch’ from the individual- to the system-level perspective. I therefore suggest that methodological individualism is both true and false: true, in that economic phenomena are grounded in the actions of individuals; false, in that certain problems might be reconceived/discovered at the system-level. I finish by suggesting three avenues of research at system-level: optimisation; stigmergy; computational complexity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The defense of common sense in Berkeley's Three Dialogues is, first and foremost, a defense of the gardener's claim to know his cherry tree, a claim threatened by both Cartesian and Lockean philosophy. This defense depends on the esse is percipi thesis (EIP). EIP is not something the gardener believes; rather, it is a philosophical analysis of the rules he unreflectively follows in his use of the word 'exists'. Uncovering these connections between Berkeley's epistemology and philosophy of language will clarify Berkeley's strategy for bringing his reader back to common sense and practical engagement in the ordinary affairs of life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rational and operationalized views of science and what it means for teachers and students to know and enact legitimate science practices have dominated science education research for many decades (Fusco and Barton in J Res Sci Teach 38(3):337-354, 2001. doi:). Michalinos Zembylas challenges historically prevalent dichotomies of mind/body, reason/emotion, and emotion/affect, calling researchers and educators to move beyond the Cartesian dualisms, which have perpetuated a myth of scientific objectivity devoid of bias, subjectivity and emotions. Zembylas (Crit Stud Teach Learn 1(1):1-21, 2013. doi:) contends that the role of emotions and affect are best understood as relational and entangled in epistemological, cultural, and historical contexts of education, which represent contested sites of control and resistance. We argue that Zembylas' work is pivotal since 'theoretical frames of reference for doing research in science education...[and] what constitutes knowledge and being within a particular frame' carry material bearings over the enactments of science teaching and learning (Kyle in J Res Sci Teach 31:695-696, 1994, p. 321. doi:). In this paper, we hold cogen dialogue about how re-thinking notions of emotion and affect affords us, both science educators and researchers, to re-envision science education beyond cognitive and social frames. The framing of our dialogue as cogen builds on Wolff-Michael Roth and Kenneth Tobin's (At the elbows of another: learning to teach through coteaching. Peter Lang Publishing, New York, 2002) notion of cogenerative dialogue. Holding cogen is an invitation to an openly dialogic and safe area, which serves as a space for a dialogic inquiry that includes radical listening of situated knowledges and learning from similarities as well as differences of experiences (Tobin in Cult Stud Sci Educ, in review, 2015). From our situated experiences reforms, colleges of education, schools, and curriculum place not enough emphasis on affective and bodily dimensions of teaching and learning. Instead, the privilege seems to be given to reason, evidence, and rationalities, which continue to reinforce dominant ways of knowing and experiencing. The separation of mind and body, reason and emotion, effect and affect in teaching and research might bear unintended and negative consequences for many children and teachers who are engaged in bodily and affective forms of learning science. In this forum we wish to expand on the discussion to consider the interdependent nature of learning, experience, and affect by drawing on our work with science teachers and culturally and linguistically diverse students, juxtaposed alongside Zembylas' reflections, to further theorize the affective turn in science education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Problems / Problemos is the property of Vilnius University and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The so-called epistemological turn of the Descartes- Locke- Kant tradition ( Rorty) is a hallmark of modern philosophy. The broad family of normativism constitutes one major response to the Cartesian heritage building upon some version of the idea that human knowledge, action and sociality build fundamentally upon some form of social agreement and standards. Representationalism and the Cartesian picture more generally have been challenged by normativists but this paper argues that, even where these challenges by normativism have been taken to heart, our intellectual culture remains fundamentally epistemic in certain problematic senses. Two problems are highlighted: first, normativism remains functionally Cartesian, for human action and sociality appear as processes driven by the shared understandings by competent contributors (regardless of how these are constructed naturalistically), and second, normativism is unable to account for forms of human action and sociality other than those occurring in the relatively small worlds of normatively regulated conceptual spaces of mutual access and listening. These points are illustrated by an applied discussion of the blind spots of normativist accounts of the emerging environmental and the on-going economic crises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An important passage of the Analects (2.17) will be interpreted. It is perhaps the most important epistemological utterance in the work, yet it is not easy to interpret. Some interpretations are unacceptable because they render the passage trivial. Here we shall explicate the passage in line with contemporary virtue epistemology, so that it says something both interesting and insightful. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Italian philosopher Giambattista Vico developed a theoretical framework for the study of human sciences that exerted a strong influence on psychology and other human sciences. He backed the notion of the unity of knowledge about human mind and culture, including history, linguistics, philosophy, philology, epistemology, psychology, and for the first time proposed a method for their study that he ambitiously called ‘new science’. The article presents an overview of Vico’s thought and discusses some of the main axioms of his theoretical system. His critique of Cartesianism and the alternative epistemology he outlined are put forward as a thoughtful tool for reflection on contemporary psychological science. Finally, this retrospective look at Vico's ideas provides useful insights for a programmatic view of cultural psychology. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A response from the author of the article "Did Suhrawardi Believe in Innate Ideas as A Priori Concepts? A Note," which appears in the same issue, is presented. Topics discussed include the use by Suhrawardi of fitri translates as innate, a relative interpretation of Cartesian innate ideas with Suhrawardi's fitriat, and the differentiation by Suhrawardi of objective and intellectual attributes.

A noteworthy aspect of the theological controversies arisen both in Catholic and in Protestant fields after the Reformation is the use of Cartesian philosophy for supporting the respective creeds. Theologians such as Antoine Arnauld or Pierre Jurieu appeal to Descartes's theory of judgement, which states that errors depend on the free will, and extend it to every religious or theological error. Hence, according to them, to make a religious or a theological mistake is a voluntary fault, and must not be tolerated. Also for this, a "champion" of toleration like Pierre Bayle harshly criticizes Cartesian epistemology, by denying that errors depend on the will and that the truth is knowable by us. Therefore, Bayle - but also Voltaire, who receives his legacy - give up on the philosophical foundation of toleration and commit it to the State. In this way, toleration becomes more a political practice than a philosophical principle, an idea that, with the present crisis of the States, seems to give rise to many problems. But in the same years another philosopher was developing arguments for religious tolerance without renouncing a strong definition of reason and truth: Gottfried Leibniz. In this paper, we will try to explain, first, Leibniz's criticism to Descartes theory of knowledge and the role it plays in the defense of toleration, and, second, how Leibniz's definitions of truth and knowledge can provide useful arguments for a positive foundation of toleration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inspired by the Cartesian plan to construct a universal system of science based on certain knowledge, the Oratorian philosopher Nicolas Malebranche (1638-1715) attempts to found a "science" of ethics which could serve to liberate practical knowledge from the restrictions of uncertainty and relativity in which it was confined. In applying to ethics the criteria established by Cartesian epistemology, the author highlights the necessity to study the stable and immutable principles of morality, from which could emerge, through rational arguments, a whole system of moral values. This project, first announced in the Search after Truth is developed in the Treatise on Ethics, in which Malebranche's vision comes to life as an original theory. His strictly rationalist and intellectualist approach -- focusing on the challenge of rational knowledge of moral truths -- converges with a Christian and the ocentric conception, true to the strong apologetic requirements that direct the author's thinking. In this text, using the form of philosophical reasoning, Malebranche proposes and demonstrates as certain the principles of religion ultimately achieving a philosophical definition of Christian virtue and its rational justification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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In his later works, Merleau-Ponty proposes the notion of ‘the flesh’ (la chair) as a new ‘element’, as he put it, in his ontological monism designed to overcome the legacy of Cartesian dualism with its bifurcation of all things into matter or spirit. Most Merleau-Ponty commentators recognise that Merleau-Ponty's notion of ‘flesh’ is inspired by Edmund Husserl's conceptions of ‘lived body’ (Leib) and ‘vivacity’ or ‘liveliness’ (Leiblichkeit). But it is not always recognised that, for Merleau-Ponty, the constitution of the world of perception, the problem of embodiment or incarnation, is at the very same time one with the problem of the experience of others in what Husserl calledEinfühlungorFremderfahungand indeed one with the problem of the constitution of the commonly shared world ‘for all’. As Merleau-Ponty put it in his late essay ‘The Philosopher and His Shadow’ inSigns, ‘the problem ofEinfühlung, like that of my incarnation, opens on the meditation of sensible being, or, if you prefer, it betakes itself there’. In other words, the problem of the apprehension of the other is part of the overall apprehension of the transcendent world. In this paper I want to meditate on the relations between embodiment, experience of others, and experience of the world in Merleau-Ponty's philosophy. I will take particular note, as in the title of this presentation, of the claim made by Merleau-Ponty inThe Visible and the Invisiblethat ‘there is no brute world, only an elaborated world’ (il n'y a pas de monde brut, il n'y a qu'un monde élaboré). [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article is inspired by Enrique Dussel's historical and philosophical work on Cartesian philosophy and the conquest of the Americas. It discusses the epistemic racism/sexism that is foundational to the knowledge structures of the Westernized University. The article proposes that the epistemic privilege of Western Man in Westernized Universities' structures of knowledge, is the result of four genocides/epistemicides in the long 16th century (against Jewish and Muslim origin population in the conquest of Al-Andalus, against indigenous people in the conquest of the Americas, against Africans kidnapped and enslaved in the Americas and against women burned alive, accused of being witches in Europe). The article proposes that Dussel's argument in the sense that the condition of possibility for the mid-17th century Cartesian "I think, therefore I am" (ego cogito) is the 150 years of "I conquer, therefor I am" (ego conquiro) is historically mediated by the genocide/epistemicide of the "I exterminate, therefore I am" (ego extermino). The 'I exterminate' is the socio-historical structural mediation between the idolatric 'I think' and the 'I conquer.' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The familiar Cartesian sceptical arguments all involve an explanation of our experiences. An account of the persuasive power of the sceptical arguments should explain why this is so. This supports a diagnosis of the error in Cartesian sceptical arguments according to which they mislead us into regarding our perceptual beliefs as if they were justified as inferences to the best explanation. I argue that they have instead a perceptual justification that does not involve inference to the best explanation and that should not be put in doubt by the sceptical hypotheses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Researchers have made situation awareness into a researchable, scientific concept and generated practical progress mainly by modeling it on a natural-scientific ideal of empiricism and positivism. Crucially, in the manner of Cartesian dualism, it assumes that the world is objectively available and apprehensible, and can be compared to the internal corresponding mirror (the SA) of it. This has involved epistemological and ethical sacrifices. Most importantly, people now get blamed for losing SA. This happens in research, investigations, media and judicial contexts, where in hindsight it is pointed out that their “mind” did not get the crucial bits of “matter” that were supposedly available to them. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The semantic blindness objection to contextualism challenges the view that there is no incompatibility between (i) denials of external-world knowledge in contexts where radical-deception scenarios are salient, and (ii) affirmations of external-world knowledge in contexts where such scenarios are not salient. Contextualism allegedly attributes a gross and implausible form of semantic incompetence in the use of the concept of knowledge to people who are otherwise quite competent in its use; this blindness supposedly consists in wrongly judging that there is genuine conflict between claims of type (i) and type (ii). We distinguish two broad versions of contextualism: relativistic-content contextualism and categorical-content contextualism. We argue that although the semantic blindness objection evidently is applicable to the former, it does not apply to the latter. We describe a subtle form of conflict between claims of types (i) and (ii), which we call différance-based affirmatory conflict. We argue that people confronted with radical-deception scenarios are prone to experience a form of semantic myopia (as we call it): a failure to distinguish between différance-based affirmatory conflict and outright inconsistency. Attributing such semantic myopia to people who are otherwise competent with the concept of knowledge explains the bafflement about knowledge-claims that so often arises when radical-deception scenarios are made salient. Such myopia is not some crude form of semantic blindness at all; rather, it is an understandable mistake grounded in semantic competence itself: what we call a competence-based performance error. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modest realism affirms that some of the objects of our beliefs exist independently of our beliefs. That is, there is a mind-independent world that we can epistemically access. The Cartesian skeptic claims that we can't offer any non-question-begging arguments in favor of modest realism and therefore we are not justified in believing that modest realism is true. Reliabilists argue that the skeptic assumes an evidentialist-internalist account of justification and that a proper account of justification jettisons this. Hence, our belief in modest realism can be justified. I argue in this paper that virtue-responsibilism offers an analogous response to the Cartesian skeptic. According to the virtue-responsibilist, my belief that P is an instance of knowledge iff it maps onto reality and is the result of an act of virtue. I show that the virtue- responsibilist theory excludes evidentialist-internalism, and allows for our belief in modest realism to be justified. However, it may be objected that the virtue-responsibilist can't offer non-question-begging reasons for thinking that the virtues are reliable. I argue that this objection fails and that we can know that the virtues are reliable by empirical study. Thus, virtue-responsibilism provides a satisfactory response to the Cartesian skeptic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The approach about the ideas, understood as metal representations, has practically bookmarked the whole Philosophy History, since the ancient Greece to the contemporary period. A lot of interpretations have been given to the meaning and to the nature of the ideas by many schools, among them lots of Realism slopes. This paper aims to present, from a historical and epistemological fragment, some theoretical perpectives, with emphasis in the realistic, nominalist and Cartesian proposals in relation to the formation and nature of the ideas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses Catholic priest and philosopher Nicolas Malebranche's thought on women and notes women thinkers including Mary Astell, Damaris Masham, and Mary Chudleigh's responses to Malebranche's work in order to highlight Malebranche's feminist sentiments. The author notes the Cartesian elements of Malebranche's philosophy, and special attention is paid to his accounts of the problem of error and the importance of freedom of the mind. Other topics include Malebranche's claim that women are the causes of prejudice, his commitment to the idea of free will, and his claims on the effect of biological gender differences on the pursuit of truth.