Artículos de revista (Fac. de Filosofía y Letras)
Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/10171/70318
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- Origins of biological teleology: how constraints represent ends(Springer Nature, 2024) Deacon, T. (Terrence); García-Valdecasas, M. (Miguel)To naturalize the concept of teleological causality in biology it is not enough to avoid assuming backward causation or positing the existence of an inscrutable teleological essence like the élan vital. We must also specify how the causality of organisms is distinct from the causality of designed artifacts like thermostats or asymmetrically oriented processes like the ubiquitous increase of entropy. Historically, the concept of teleological causality in biology has been based on an analogy to the familiar experience of purposeful action. This is experienced by us as a disposition to achieve a general type of end that is represented in advance, and which regulates the selection of efficient means to achieve it. Inspired by this analogy, to bridge the gap between biology and human agency we describe a simple molecular process called autogenesis that shows how two linked complementary self-organizing processes can give rise to higher-order relations that resemble purposeful dispositions, though expressed in terms of constraints on molecular processes. Because the autogenic model is described in sufficient detail to be empirically realizable, it provides a proof of principle demonstrating a simple form of teleological causality.
- If presentism is false, then I don’t exist. On common-sense presentism(Springer Nature, 2024) Guillon, J.B. (Jean-Baptiste)For many presentist philosophers, e.g. Zimmerman (Contemp Debates Metaphys 10:211–225, 2008), a central motivation in favour of presentism is that it is supposed to be part of common sense. But the fact that common-sense intuitions are indeed presentist is usually taken for granted (and sometimes also conceded by eternalists). As has been shown in other domains of philosophy (e.g. free will), we should be careful when attributing some supposed intuitions to common sense, and Torrengo (Phenomenology and Mind 12: 50–55, 2017) and Le Bihan (Igitur-Arguments Philos 9(1):1–23, 2018) have legitimately raised doubts about the assumption that common sense is presentist. In this paper, I take up this challenge and try to show that our common-sense intuitions do imply presentism. More precisely, the intuitions that I take to imply presentism are fundamental intuitions about our selves as conscious beings. The upshot is that presentism is so much embedded within our conception of our selves that if presentism is false, then I don’t exist!
- The Fundamental Argument without any garbage(Metaphilosophy LLC and John Wiley & Sons Ltd., 2024) Milburn, J. (Joe)Rik Peels's (2017) Fundamental Argument is an important argument against epistemic scientism. The crucial premise of the Fundamental Argument is that if nonscientific sources of belief did not provide us with knowledge, neither could the sciences. But, the sciences do provide us with knowledge. Thus, epistemic scientism is false. This paper defends Peels's argument against recent criticisms. In particular, Hietanen and colleagues criticize Peels's argument for resting on what they call the “garbage in, garbage out” principle (GIGO). This paper strengthens their attacks on the GIGO principle. It shows, however, that we don't need the GIGO principle to motivate the crucial premise of the Fundamental Argument. Instead, it argues that the crucial premise is true for the following reasons: scientific knowledge is the result of successful inquiry; at some point we lacked scientific knowledge; and, we cannot successfully inquire without some prior knowledge.
- Entre Zoopedia y Antrozoología: el «Fisiólogo» atribuido a san Epifanio y el «Tesoro» de Covarrubias(2024) Piñero-Moral, R. (Ricardo)Entre los animales que habitan el mundo está el propio ser humano, naturalmente. Como el deseo de conocimiento y la búsqueda de sentido es algo natural en nosotros, el Fisiólogo arrancó hace siglos como una tarea que solo podría ser completada con el empeño de todos. Del mismo modo podríamos pensar que la misión de dar a conocer y esclarecer el sentido del mundo a través del significado de las palabras va mucho más allá de un mero intento personal cuya tarea es ya, de suyo, tan inabarcable y compleja que excede cualquier proyecto individual. Y es así. Enseñarlo todo a través de palabras es un reto mayor que la búsqueda de un tesoro sin mapa. Por eso Covarrubias, en vez de buscar ese tesoro, lo construyó.
- El vocabulario de refranes y frases proverbiales de Gonzalo Correas como fuente para el estudio de la negación(Universidad de Murcia, 2023) Pérez-Salazar-Resano, C. (Carmela)Los recursos expresivos de negación en español han conocido cambios con el devenir del tiempo. La transformación de la negación medieval en la negación moderna había culminado en 1627, cuando el Vocabulario de refranes y frases proverbiales de Gonzalo Correas estaba listo para la imprenta. Con base en este archivo fraseológico y paremiológico del Siglo de Oro, que Correas compuso a partir de fuentes diversas, escritas y orales, en este trabajo se describen, en primer lugar, las peculiaridades de las paremias de polaridad negativa; en segundo lugar, se revisa la nómina completa de las palabras negativas y los términos de polaridad negativa y su comportamiento gramatical, y se muestra, en concreto, el generoso caudal de locuciones y fórmulas rutinarias negativas vigentes (muchas de ellas en el intercambio oral-coloquial) en el siglo XVII. Se espera, al asumir esta doble tarea, aportar nuevos datos al conocimiento de la expresión de la negación en español clásico.
- Carl Schmitt on the transformations of the people in modernity(Cambridge University Press, 2023) Herrero, M. (Montserrat)This article argues that through the reinterpretation of the old theory of pouvoir constituant proposed by Sieyès, Carl Schmitt shows the impossibility of political modernity being anything other than authoritarian populism, whether by means of democratic or autocratic procedures. It is not that Schmitt's theory is authoritarian populism, but that modern politics, born out of the French Revolution, cannot be anything else. Schmitt's analyses of the idea of the people in political modernity in Dictatorship (1921), The Crises of Parliamentary Democracy (1923), Volksentscheid und Volksbegehren (1927), Constitutional Theory (1928), and State, Movement, People (1933) provide a fine analysis of the populist character of modernity. Something that those alive in the twenty-first century have been able to experience was theorized by Schmitt in an oracular way. Because of his keen insight he is still worth reading.
- Populism’s challenges to political reason: Reconfiguring the public sphere in an emotional culture(Sage, 2022) González, A.M. (Ana Marta); García-Martínez, A.N. (Alejandro Néstor)Populism’s Challenges to Political Reason can be seen as a consequence of social and cultural trends, the so called ‘emotional culture’, that have been accentuated in recent decades. By considering those trends, this article aims at shedding light on some distinctive marks of contemporary populism in order to argue for a reconfiguration of the public sphere that, without ignoring emotion, recovers argumentation and persuasion based on facts and reason.
- “You Would Not Seek Me If You Had Not Found Me”—Another Pascalian Response to the Problem of Divine Hiddenness(2021) Guillon, J.B. (Jean-Baptiste)One version of the Problem of Divine Hiddenness is about people who are looking for God and are distressed about not finding him. Having in mind such distressed God-seekers, Blaise Pascal imagined Jesus telling them the following: “Take comfort; you would not seek me if you had not found me.” This is what I call the Pascalian Conditional of Hiddenness (PCH). In the first part of this paper, I argue that the PCH leads to a new interpretation of Pascal’s own response to the problem, significantly different from Hick’s or Schellenberg’s interpretations of Pascal. In short: for any person who is distressed about not finding God, and who (for this reason) seriously considers the Argument from Hiddenness, the PCH would show that their own distress constitutes evidence that God is in fact not hidden to them (because this desire for God has been instigated in them by God himself). In the second part of the paper, I set aside the exegetical question and try to develop this original strategy as a contemporary response to one version of the Problem of Divine Hiddenness, which I call the “first-person problem.” I argue that the PCH strategy offers a plausibly actual story to respond to the first-person problem. As a result, even if we need to complement the PCH strategy with other more traditional strategies (in order to respond to other versions of the problem), the PCH strategy should plausibly be part of the complete true story about Divine Hiddenness.
- Does autogenic semiosis underpin minimal cognition? Deacon’s autogen model in the context of the life-mind continuity thesis(Springer, 2021) García-Valdecasas, M. (Miguel)Minimal cognition is an emerging field of research in the context of the life-mind continuity thesis. It stems from the idea that life and mind are strongly continu- ous, involving the same basic set of organisational principles. Minimal cognition has been sometimes regarded as the analysis of the minimum requirements for the emergence of cognitive phenomena. In the target article, Deacon describes the emer- gence of the autogenic system as an interpreting system that displays the simplest form of interpretive competence, its most critical function being the capacity to re- present itself in ever new substrates and to interpret environmental conditions with respect to system self-maintenance. Since Deacon describes the autogen in cogni- tive terms, this article examines whether the autogen model can embody the critical disposition that underpins the emergence of minimal cognition. It finds that it does so, but argues that the autogenic system itself fails to be cognitive because it lacks the displacement of constraints that enable the semiotic scaffolding exhibited by life processes. The article then discusses the implications of the idea that autogenic processes underpin the emergence of minimal cognition for the life-mind continuity thesis.
- On the naturalisation of teleology: self-organisation, autopoiesis and teleodynamics(Sage, 2022) García-Valdecasas, M. (Miguel)In recent decades, several theories have claimed to explain the teleological causality of organisms as a function of self- organising and self-producing processes. The most widely cited theories of this sort are variations of autopoiesis, originally introduced by Maturana and Varela. More recent modifications of autopoietic theory have focused on system organisation, closure of constraints and autonomy to account for organism teleology. This article argues that the treatment of teleology in autopoiesis and other organisation theories is inconclusive for three reasons: First, non-living self-organising processes like autocatalysis meet the defining features of autopoiesis without being teleological; second, organisational approaches, whether defined in terms of the closure of constraints, self- determination or autonomy, are unable to specify teleological normativity, that is, the individuation of an ultimate beneficiary; third, all self-organised systems produce local order by maximising the throughput of energy and/or material (obeying the maximum entropy production (MEP) principle) and thereby are specifically organised to under- mine their own critical boundary conditions. Despite these inadequacies, an alternative approach called teleody- namics accounts for teleology. This theory shows how multiple self-organising processes can be collectively linked so that they counter each other’s MEP principle tendencies to become codependent. Teleodynamics embraces – not ignoring – the difficulties of self-organisation, but reinstates teleology as a radical phase transition distinguishing sys- tems embodying an orientation towards their own beneficial ends from those that lack normative character.