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

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

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

Lo propio y lo ajeno: génesis de los Ensayos de Montaigne

La gran paradoja del spinozismo se encuentra en el deseo por establecer los principios de una filosofía que aspira a la reforma de la naturaleza humana, y que acepta como evidencia la imposibilidad de llevar tal empresa a buen término. Es un realismo radical lo que acentúa que invariablemente en política se tenga que decidir entre la protesta radical y la protesta reflexiva.The great paradox of spinozism is found in the desire to establish the principles of a philosophy that aspires to the reform of human nature, and that accepts as evidence the impossibility of carrying out such an enterprise. It's a radical realism that accentuates the politics' necessesity to choose between the radical protest and the reflexive protest

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

Speech acts, criteria and intentions

What makes a speech act a speech act? Which are its necessary and sufficient conditions? I claim in this paper that we cannot find an answer to those questions in Austin’s doctrine of the infelicities, since some infelicities take place in fully committing speech acts, whereas others prevent the utterance from being considered as a speech act at all. With this qualification in mind, I argue against the idea that intentions—considered as mental states accomplishing a causal role in the performance of the act—should be considered among the necessary conditions of speech acts. I would thus like to deny a merely ‘symptomatic’ account of intentions, according to which we could never make anything but fallible hypotheses about the effective occurrence of any speech act. I propose an alternative ‘criterial’ account of the role of intentions in speech acts theory, and analyse Austin's and Searle's approaches in the light of this Wittgensteinian concept. Whether we consider, with Austin, that speech acts ‘imply’ mental states or, with Searle, that they ‘express’ them, we could only make sense of this idea if we considered utterances as criteria for intentions, and not as alleged behavioural effects of hidden mental causes.Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación Programa Nacional de Movilidad de Recursos Humanos del Plan Nacional de I-Di 2008-201

Acting in order to know, knowing in order to act: Sosa on epistemic and practical deliberation

The questions ‘Do I know p?’ and ‘shall I take p as a reason to act?’ seem to belong to different domains — or so claims Ernest Sosa in his Judgment and Agency (2015), the latest version of his virtue epistemology. According to Sosa, we may formulate the first question in a purely epistemological way — a matter of knowledge “full stop” —, while the second one is necessarily intruded by pragmatic factors — a matter of “actionable knowledge”. Both should be answered, in his view, considering the reliability of my belief, but the former could be faced in total abstraction from my personal practical concerns. In this paper, I dispute Sosa’s view, and claim that no purely epistemic level of knowledge “full stop” is conceivable, at least within a reliability framework. A case is put forward in order to show that some given belief may not be considered as reliable by itself, as a token, but always as a member of a type, belonging to some class of reference of other beliefs. And the relevant class of reference may only be chosen considering personal practical interests