Bridging the Intellectualist Divide: A Reading of Stanley’s Ryle

Gilbert Ryle famously denied that knowledge-how is a species of knowledge-that, a thesis that has been contested by so-called “intellectualists.” I begin by proposing a rearrangement of some of the concepts of this debate, and then I focus on Jason Stanley’s reading of Ryle’s position. I show that Ryle has been seriously misconstrued in this discussion, and then revise Ryle’s original arguments in order to show that the confrontation between intellectualists and anti-intellectualists may not be as insurmountable as it seems, at least in the case of Stanley, given that both contenders are motivated by their discontent with a conception of intelligent performances as the effect of intellectual hidden powers detached from practice

L'edat de les coses

L'edat de les cose

Radiacions: de Röntgen a Lawrence

Radiations: From Röntgen to Lawrence.Basic science, applied science and technologies are not just connected by a linear relationship; rather, the history of radioactivity shows us that they are richly and intricately interwoven. Applications to medicine are emphasized in this paper

The effectiveness of loop unrolling for modulo scheduling in clustered VLIW architectures

Clustered organizations are becoming a common trend in the design of VLIW architectures. In this work we propose a novel modulo scheduling approach for such architectures. The proposed technique performs the cluster assignment and the instruction scheduling in a single pass, which is shown to be more effective than doing first the assignment and later the scheduling. We also show that loop unrolling significantly enhances the performance of the proposed scheduler especially when the communication channel among clusters is the main performance bottleneck. By selectively unrolling some loops, we can obtain the best performance with the minimum increase in code size. Performance evaluation for the SPECfp95 shows that the clustered architecture achieves about the same IPC (Instructions Per Cycle) as a unified architecture with the same resources. Moreover when the cycle time is taken into account, a 4-cluster configurations is 3.6 times faster than the unified architecture.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Modulo scheduling for a fully-distributed clustered VLIW architecture

Clustering is an approach that many microprocessors are adopting in recent times in order to mitigate the increasing penalties of wire delays. We propose a novel clustered VLIW architecture which has all its resources partitioned among clusters, including the cache memory. A modulo scheduling scheme for this architecture is also proposed. This algorithm takes into account both register and memory inter-cluster communications so that the final schedule results in a cluster assignment that favors cluster locality in cache references and register accesses. It has been evaluated for both 2- and 4-cluster configurations and for differing numbers and latencies of inter-cluster buses. The proposed algorithm produces schedules with very low communication requirements and outperforms previous cluster-oriented schedulers.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Fast, accurate and flexible data locality analysis

This paper presents a tool based on a new approach for analyzing the locality exhibited by data memory references. The tool is very fast because it is based on a static locality analysis enhanced with very simple profiling information, which results in a negligible slowdown. This feature allows the tool to be used for highly time-consuming applications and to include it as a step in a typical iterative analysis-optimization process. The tool can provide a detailed evaluation of the reuse exhibited by a program, quantifying and qualifying the different types of misses either globally or detailed by program sections, data structures, memory instructions, etc. The accuracy of the tool is validated by comparing its results with those provided by a simulator.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Montaigne distemporáneo: humanismo y posmodernidad

The starting point of the paper is Heidegger’s well-known diagnosis of humanism, which considers it to be just another form of anthropocentric metaphysics, oriented at the control of beings. Distinguishing between different forms of humanism that emerged in the Renaissance, this paper claims that Heidegger only seems to have been correct in some cases (Pico della Mirandola, Ficcino or Pomponazzi), but not in others (such as the sort of rhetoric humanism revived by Grassi, or Montaigne’s sceptical humanism). Focusing on the latter, this paper purports that we should not regard the author of The Essays as our contemporary (i.e. as if his thinking had occurred and yet continues to be present in us), but as our ‘distemporary’ (as if it had not occurred and thus is still absent). He would thus be more relevant today in terms of what he still has to say than in what he has already told us.Tomando como punto de partida el conocido diagnóstico de Heidegger acerca del humanismo (según el cuál éste no sería más que otra forma de metafísica antropocéntrica, orientada hacia el dominio del ente), se subraya aquí la necesidad de distinguir entre las distintas formas de humanismo que surgieron en el Renacimiento. Con respecto a algunas de ellas (Pico della Mirandola, Ficcino o Pomponazzi), el diagnóstico de Heidegger parece acertado, pero no es así con respecto a otras (como el humanismo retórico revalorizado por Grassi, o el humanismo escéptico de Montaigne). Centrándose en este último, el artículo reivindica la necesidad de pensar al autor de Los Ensayos no como nuestro contemporáneo (efectivamente acontecido, y perdurando aún presente en nosotros), sino más bien como nuestro ‘distemporáneo’ (no realizado y, por tanto, todavía ausente). De modo que su vigencia residiría hoy más en lo que aún tendría que decirnos que en aquello que nos ha dicho ya.Ministerio de Investigación e Innovación del Gobierno de España FFI2011-2513

Promesas deconstruidas. Austin, Derrida, Searle.

Este artículo constituye una aproximación tentativa al enfrentamiento que tuvo lugar entre John Searle y Jacques Derrida en torno a la teoría de los actos de habla de John L. Austin. Se analizan las implicaciones del debate más allá de la cuestión estrictamente lingüística, buscando los fundamentos del mismo en la filosofía de la mente y la consciencia.This article is a tentative approximation to the debate between John Searle and Jacques Derrida about John L. Austin’s speech acts theory. The implications of the debate are analyzed further than the strictly linguistic issue, searching for it’s basis in the philosophy of mind and consciousness

No achievement beyond intention: A new defence of robust virtue epistemology

According to robust versions of virtue epistemology, the reason why knowledge is incompatible with certain kinds of luck is that justified true beliefs must be achieved by the agent (Sosa in A virtue epistemology: apt belief and reflective knowledge, 2007, Reflective knowledge: apt belief and reflective knowledge, 2009, Knowing full well, 2011; Greco in Philos Studies 17:57–69, 2007, Achieving knowledge, 2010, Philos Phenomenol Res 85:1–26, 2012). In a recent set of papers, Pritchard (The nature and value of knowledge: three investigations, 2010a, Think 25:19–30, 2010b, J Philos 109:247–279, 2012, Virtue scientia. Bridges between philosophy of science and virtue epistemology, Forthcoming) has challenged these sorts of views, advancing different arguments against them. I confront one of them here, which is constructed upon scenarios affected by environmental luck, such as the fake barn cases. My objection to Pritchard differs from those offered until now by Carter (Erkenntnis 78:253–275, 2011, Pac Philos Q, 2014), Jarvis (Pac Philos Q 94:529–551, 2013) or Littlejohn (Synthese 158:345–361, 2006) in that it is based on the claim that cognitive performances may not be properly considered as achievements beyond the scope of the agent’s intentional action—an idea that confers more explanatory power on my argument, and contributes to stregthening links between knowledge and agency.Ministerio de Investigación e Innovación FFI2011-2513