The most natural way to distinguish perception from cognition is by considering perception as stimulus-dependent. Perception is tethered to the senses in a way that cognition is not. Beck Australasian Journal of Philosophy 96(2): 319-334 (2018) has recently argued in this direction. He develops this idea by accommodating two potential counterexamples to his account: hallucinations and demonstrative thoughts. In this paper, I examine this view. First, I detect two general problems with movement to accommodate these awkward cases. Subsequently, I place (...) two very common mental phenomena under the prism of the stimulus-dependence criterion: amodal completion and visual categorization. The result is that the stimulus-dependent criterion is too restrictive, it leaves the notion of perception extremely cramped. I conclude that even the criterion of stimulus-dependence fails to mark a clearly defined border between perception and cognition. (shrink)

In this paper, I discuss the strong thesis of cognitive penetrability (CPs), to wit, th at the perceptual states (P) of a subject (S) are pervasively influenced, affected, or caused by cognitive factors (C) as expectations, memories, thoughts, goals, and so on, at all levels of perceptual processing. I argue that following the predictive coding models of perception (PC), the strong thesis of cognitive penetrability is to be expected.

Accidie, depression, and dejection seem to be psychological phenomena that are best characterized as cases in which an agent has no motivation to pursue what he or she judges to be good or valuable. The phenomena thus seem to present a challenge to any view that draws a close connection between motivation and evaluation. ‘Accidie, Evaluation, and Motivation’ aims to show that the phenomena are actually best explained by a theory that postulates a conceptual connection between motivation and evaluation.

Representations of science and technology, embodied as imaginaries, visions, and expectations, have become a growing focus of analysis. These representations are of interest to normative approaches to science and technology, such as Hermeneutic Technology Assessment and Responsible Innovation, because of their ability to modulate understandings of science and technology and to influence scientific and technological development. This article analyses the culture of participation underlying the NanoKOMIK project and the representations and meanings of (nano)science and (nano)technology communicated in the two nano-fiction (...) comic books created as part of the project: _Dayanne and Murillo. The power of nanoscience_ (2016) and _NanoKOMIK #2_ (2017). The article argues that despite NanoKOMIK’s efforts to engage the public with (nano)science and (nano)technology, it reproduces non-binding modes of public participation and transmits socio-technical meanings that are instrumental in the social legitimisation of (nano)technology. More specifically, the analysis shows that NanoKOMIK’s comic books, in addition to not problematising the risks and conveying an eminently positive view of nanotechnology, also communicate certain ‘myth-conceptions’ of scientific activity and its products. For example, they convey an individualistic and linear vision of research and innovation and an instrumentalist and neutral (or ‘value-free’) view of technology. These findings highlight the importance of critically analysing the ‘cultures of participation’ that characterise and reproduce ‘participatory’ or ‘collaborative’ projects and the representations of (nano)science and (nano)technology that they perpetuate. (shrink)

He aquí un libro indispensable para comprender los fenómenos complejos a través de los métodos transdisciplinarios. Con inteligencia y brillantez Sergio Vilar nos traslada del paradigma de Descartes, Newton y Laplace a la nueva visión del mundo que surge de Bohr, Piaget y Prigogine.

This article precisely analyzes the relation ship between the State, society and the individual, both from the point of view of liberalism and of republicanism. There is a surprising difference in the categories of both theories and their philosophical bases: the form in which the social state is ..

The geographical Utopias that present a New World, from classical Antiquity and the Middle Ages to the exploration and conquest of American territories by Spain, give a two-fold vision of the myth of gold. On the one hand, the legendary lands in which were found the wealth and power generated by the coveted metal—El Dorado, El Paititi, the City of the Caesars—establish the direction of a venture toward the unknown, and a geography of the imaginary marked the ubiquitous sign of (...) the mythical gold. But at the same time, America permitted the felicitous re-encounter in its territory of the Golden Age that had been lost in the Old World. The first steps of Western man toward the American adventure wavered contradictorily between these extremes, in that gold was at the same time “booty and marvel.”. (shrink)

Dreams of gold have accompanied human history down through the ages. Gold is a beautiful and useful metal, easily shaped and immune to rust, and from the time of the ancient Sumerian and Egyptian civilizations, it has been regarded as a precious metal from which jewels and decorative as well as everyday objects have been fashioned. Even before the concept of money turned it into one of the principal forms of exchange, gold was used as a medium of barter.Apart from (...) being of commercial and aesthetic value, gold is also a part of the stuff of fables and legends. Legendary and mythical lands where gold abounds have crowded the imaginative geography of almost all civilizations. The Bible itself, in the Book of Kings, speaks of the Mines of King Solomon, the Kingdom of Ophir, and the City of Sidon, while the prophet Zechariah observes that in the City of Tyre: “silver is heaped up like dust, and gold as the mire of the streets.” [Zachariah, 9.3]. (shrink)

“The ships that invented regions were directed toward the West”, announced Juan de Castellanos in 1587 in his Elegías dedicated to Christopher Columbus, and at the beginning of the 16th century Hernán Pérez de Oliva wrote a Historia de la invención de las Indias. The use of the word invention when speaking of the discovery of America may seem to be a semantic confusion or poetic license, viewed from the contemporary perspective of a discipline with well-defined limits, such as geography, (...) since we usually understand invention as the transformation of things by man's intervention, while discovery is finding something that already existed so as to make it known to others. (shrink)

In the face of the alienating effects of the current globalization it is appropriate to assess the brutal historical experience of Spain’s conquest and colonization of America. From that confrontation were born innovative mixtures, unanticipated metamorphoses and the polymorphous reality to be seen in today’s Latin-American cultures. Utopia, in the context of the globalization we are now experiencing, is composed of interculturalism, the very many opportunities for exchange and cross-fertilization. Traditional utopian discourse must henceforth reconcile the universal values of reason (...) with passions, differences, fragmentation and the diversity of cultures. (shrink)

Behind every Utopia there is always a territory, but a territory that “is not here”, a territory removed from immediate reality in space or in time. In time, when the Utopia invokes the past of an Age of Gold or a Paradise Lost “illo tempore,” but also when there is a gamble with the hope of a better world to be organized in the future. These are “ideal times” or “longed-for times,” past or future of which philosophers, writers or political (...) men speak. (shrink)

'We desire all and only those things we conceive to be good; we avoid what we conceive to be bad.' This slogan was once the standard view of the relationship between desire or motivation and rational evaluation. Many critics have rejected this scholastic formula as either trivial or wrong. It appears to be trivial if we just define the good as 'what we want', and wrong if we consider apparent conflicts between what we seem to want and what we seem (...) to think is good. In Appearances of the Good, Sergio Tenenbaum argues that the old slogan is both significant and right, even in cases of apparent conflict between our desires and our evaluative judgements. Maintaining that the good is the formal end of practical inquiry in much the same way as truth is the formal end of theoretical inquiry, he provides a fully unified account of motivation and evaluation. (shrink)

Résumé Face aux effets aliénants de la globalisation actuelle il convient de prendre la mesure de l’expérience historique brutale que constituèrent la conquête et la colonisation de l’Amérique par l’Espagne. De ce choc sont nés des mélanges innovants, des métamorphoses inattendues et la réalité polymorphe que l’on observe dans les cultures latino-américaines d’aujourd’hui. L’utopie dans le contexte de la mondialisation que nous vivons actuellement passe par l’interculturalité, par les multiples possibilités d’échanges et de métissages. Le discours utopique classique doit désormais (...) réconcilier les valeurs universelles de la raison avec les passions, les différences, la fragmentation et la diversité des cultures. (shrink)

El título de este libro, al estar en plural, constituye de por sí una petición de principio. Se trata, pues, de descomponer el Tiempo en tiempos y dentro de ellos analizar lo que son las secuencias de carácter temporal. Porque sólo rompiendo la interesada confusión del Tiempo con los tiempos puede pensarse de una forma "otra", puede empezar a repensarse el enorme sinsentido de la Estructura que nos atrapa, ratonera del pensamiento que adora la Realidad.

Rational Powers in Action presents a conception of instrumental rationality as governing actions that are extended in time with indeterminate ends. Tenenbaum argues that previous philosophical theories in this area, in focusing on momentary snapshots of the mind of idealized agents, miss central aspects of human rationality.

A implementação de tecnologias móveis de informação e comunicação no suporte à Saúde Mental tem atraído a atenção das autoridades. Com a ascensão das Inteligências Artificiais, esse movimento pode ser impulsionado de maneira exponencial. Nesse cenário, esta revisão tem como objetivos verificar a aplicabilidade das Inteligências Artificiais (IAs) na Saúde Mental e analisar os aspectos que favorecem a relação entre IAs e usuários. Para tanto, realizou-se uma revisão sistemática nas bases de dados PubMed e Biblioteca Virtual em Saúde, no período (...) de 25 de maio a 23 de junho de 2023. Selecionamos os 100 primeiros artigos mais relevantes com as palavras-chave: “Inteligência Artificial”, “Saúde Mental”, “Chatbots”, “Psicoterapia”, “Psicologia” e suas equivalentes em inglês. Os critérios de inclusão foram: acesso aberto, publicação a partir de 2018, em português ou inglês e menção à atuação de IAs no âmbito da Saúde Mental. Para reduzir o risco de viés, excluímos os estudos que não mensuraram o impacto das intervenções por meio de métodos experimentais ou quase-experimentais. Para a síntese dos dados, delimitaram-se alguns pontos específicos de análise, como “Resultado da intervenção”, “Aspectos que favorecem a relação”, entre outros. Atenderam aos critérios de inclusão 24 estudos, dos quais 17 apresentaram resultados positivos em suas intervenções. O uso de IAs na Saúde Mental possui grande potencial de expansão e os resultados obtidos neste trabalho podem guiar a implementação dessas práticas e futuras pesquisas na área. (shrink)

A questão sobre Deus em Aristóteles aparece na teoria sobre o primeiro motor imóvel, demonstrada no livro XII da Metafísica. Tudo o que se move é movido por outro. Entende Aristóteles que no universo há uma série indeterminada de motores e movidos. Todos os movimentos têm uma causa anterior. Mas, não é possível regredir ao infinito, pois todos e cada um sempre dependeriam de outro. Por esta razão, conclui o Estagirita que é necessário que exista um primeiro motor imóvel que (...) não seja movido por nenhum outro. Ora, se não existisse um primeiro motor absoluto, seria impossível o movimento gerado nos outros motores que compõem o universo. Neste estudo sobre a teoria aristotélica, que se tornou tradicional na teodiceia, apresentamos determinados passos da Metafísica com o auxílio de alguns comentadores sem, contudo, entrar em aporias importantes que o texto aristotélico vem suscitando entre os pesquisadores. (shrink)

This paper explores the challenges posed by the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence specifically Large Language Models (LLMs). I show that traditional linguistic theories and corpus studies are being outpaced by LLMs’ computational sophistication and low perplexity levels. In order to address these challenges, I suggest a focus on language as a cognitive tool shaped by embodied-environmental imperatives in the context of Agentive Cognitive Construction Grammar. To that end, I introduce an Embodied Human Language Model (EHLM), inspired by Active Inference (...) research, as a promising alternative that integrates sensory input, embodied representations, and adaptive strategies for contextualized analysis and conceptual utility maximization. By incorporating Active Inference, which sees perception as inferring the world's state from sensory data, the findings reveal that the characterization of the English modal be able to, as a triadic construction encoding biological intelligent agency, introduces a more plausible theoretical basis for the positing of linguistic constructions. This emphasizes the crucial role of embodied human language models in the comprehension of how humans construct preferred futures through language. (shrink)

In this paper we advance a new solution to Quinn’s puzzle of the self-torturer. The solution falls directly out of an application of the principle of instrumental reasoning to what we call “vague projects”, i.e., projects whose completion does not occur at any particular or definite point or moment. The resulting treatment of the puzzle extends our understanding of instrumental rationality to projects and ends that cannot be accommodated by orthodox theories of rational choice.

Este no es un libro de filosofía, ni de astrología, ni de esoterismo. No hay en él ninguna pretensión más allá de la simple expresión de un recorrido intelectual y vital, de una búsqueda y un encuentro. Desde este punto de vista se intentan exponer tres esferas distintas del ser y del conocer, de forma separada pero con las oportunas referencias cruzadas, y manteniendo siempre la jerarquía que las diferencia. La primera de ellas es la que aquí se considera como (...) un tipo de exoterismo, es decir, un ámbito externo de considerar las cosas (en referencia a los dos siguientes): la filosofía; con la razón como facultad analítica y reflexiva por excelencia, pretende buscar las razones de ciertas problemáticas mediante el pensamiento discursivo. El segundo ámbito, el intermedio, definido como el del simbolismo, de la analogía universal o del anima mundi, es tratado aquí en referencia a una ciencia tradicional y sagrada: la astrología. Y el tercero y último es aquel dominio correspondiente a la Metafísica integral, en el sentido profundo que apunta hacia la Trascendencia misma, como núcleo de toda forma espiritual; se presentará aquí desde el esoterismo tradicional en la línea de los trabajos de René Guénon, pero principalmente desde la tradición más reciente (la islámica) y la considerada por muchos más primordial (la hindú). (shrink)

Definiciones de epistemología hay muchas, al igual que clases y estilos. Sin embargo, más allá de esta diversidad, es necesario contar con una definición básica que guíe nuestra comprensión del tema. Dos serán las preguntas que nos ayuden a ello en este artículo: a) ¿qué es la epistemología? y b) ¿para qué le sirve al científico?

The COVID‐ 19 pandemic is a critical test for the already overburdened and mostly underfunded public healthcare systems of Latin America. In a region that suffers from severe inequalities, public healthcare systems are the only source of medical care for a large sector of the population who work in the informal economy or are unemployed. State‐run hospitals and clinics are already overstressed by continuous demand for treatment of vector‐borne diseases and community‐acquired infections as well as high rates of non‐communicable diseases. (...) Ideological misconceptions and denial among Latin America’s political leaders prevented timely preparations for the pandemic and added to chronic governance problems. As ethical expertise in Latin America focuses on research ethics, few hospitals in the region have functioning clinical ethics committees or clinical ethics policy, forcing healthcare personnel to make excruciating treatment decisions in an environment dominated by material scarcity and public distrust. This essay examines the emergence of COVID‐19 in Latin America and the serious challenge that it poses for Latin America's public healthcare systems. (shrink)

Marsílio de Pádua foi um pensador da Idade Média que escreveu duas obras de filosofia política que influenciaram a modernidade. Este estudo analisa o capítulo 17 da primeira parte do Defensor Pacis, onde se trata da unidade do governo ou do principado. Se houver muitos em número ou espécie, tal como acontece nas grandes cidades e, em particular, em um reino, aí deve haver então um supremo governante, a quem os demais estejam subordinados e por quem sejam dirigidos. Trata-se de (...) uma unidade de ordem, não de uma unidade absoluta, ou seja, de muitos homens considerados ou de um conjunto de pessoas, que se afirma constituir algo único quantitativa- mente. (shrink)

Marsílio de Pádua (1280-1343) foi um pensador da Idade Média que escreveu duas obras de filosofia política que influenciaram a modernidade. Este estudo analisa o termo valencior pars , da obra Defensor Pacis . Marsílio parece definir essa parte preponderante como sendo a representação do conjunto dos cidadãos que não tem uma natureza débil. Isso sugere que a valencior pars é tanto qualitativamente superior quanto uma maioria numérica dos cidadãos. O apelo a uma mistura de considerações quantitativas e qualitativas era (...) familiar no contexto das eleições medievais da Igreja, que geralmente apoiava a parte maior e mais razoável ( maior et saniors pars ) das instituições eleitorais. Marsílio sugere que a valencior pars pode ser identificada com o costume honrado do governo, entretanto, parece que a mesma corresponde a qualquer parte da coletividade cuja decisão eleitoral é decisiva. Nesse sentido, o filósofo paduano está de acordo com a análise original de Aristóteles. (shrink)

O presente artigo visa demonstrar que os fins da política podem ser considerados como fins transpolíticos na medida em estão imbricados com o fim último do homem. O pensamento político de Tomás de Aquino (1225-1274) está exposto na sua filosofia prática ou moral, por exemplo, nas suas questões sobre as virtudes, de um modo especial quando trata da prudência e da justiça, bem como nas discussões sobre as formas de governo, as leis, o bem comum e o direito. Santo Tomás, (...) de certa forma, retoma as ideias de Aristóteles, todavia, trata da civitas ou melhor do regnum christiano, e não da polis grega. Os fins principais da política são: o bem comum, a vida virtuosa dos cidadãos e a felicidade (beatitude) na fruição divina. Demonstrar-se-á que o fim último do homem é um só, sendo os demais antecedentes ou meios para alcançar aquilo que todos desejam: a felicidade. Sem desconsiderar as diversas obras em que o autor trata de temas políticos, contudo, este artigo abordará as ideias da obra De regno. (shrink)

A alma é, sem dúvida, um dos problemas que mais interessou a Santo Agostinho; ele a define como uma substância partícipe da razão adequada ao governo de um corpo. A alma não tem quantidade corporal, contudo, é uma coisa grande. Este estudo pretende refletir sobre os sete graus de atividade da alma, os quais o autor apresenta na sua obra De quantitate animae. São eles: a animação, a sensação, a arte, a virtude, a tranquilidade, o ingresso e a contemplação. The (...) soul is undoubtedly one of the problems that most interested St. Augustine. He defines it as a substance participating of reason, adequate for the government of a body. The soul has no corporal quantity, but is nevertheless a great thing. This study aims to reflect on the seven degrees of activity of the soul, which the author presents in his work De quantitate animae. The are: animation, sensation, art, virtue, tranquility, ingress and contemplation. (shrink)

Marsílio de Pádua (1280-1343) foi um pensador da Idade Média que escreveu duas obras de filosofia política que influenciaram a modernidade. Este estudo analisa o termo valencior pars, da obra Defensor Pacis. Marsílio parece definir essa parte preponderante como sendo a representação do conjunto dos cidadãos que não tem uma natureza débil. Isso sugere que a valencior pars é tanto qualitativamente superior quanto uma maioria numérica dos cidadãos. O apelo a uma mistura de considerações quantitativas e qualitativas era familiar no (...) contexto das eleições medievais da Igreja, que geralmente apoiava a parte maior e mais razoável (maior et saniors pars) das instituições eleitorais. Marsílio sugere que a valencior pars pode ser identificada com o costume honrado do governo, entretanto, parece que a mesma corresponde a qualquer parte da coletividade cuja decisão eleitoral é decisiva. Nesse sentido, o filósofo paduano está de acordo com a análise original de Aristóteles. Marsilius of Padua (1280-1343) was a philosopher of the Middle Ages who wrote two books of political philosophy that have influenced modernity. This study analyzes the term valencior pars in the Defensor Pacis. Marsilius appears to define this preponderant part of the population as representing that part of the citizenry who do not have a debilitated nature. This suggests that the valencior pars is a much a qualitatively superior as a numerically greater part of the citizenry. The appeal to a mixture of quantitative and qualitative considerations was familiar in the context of the medieval church, which habitually supported the greater and more reasonable part (maior et sanior pars) of electoral institutions. Marsilius also suggests, however, that the valencior pars can be identified with this honored custom of government. It seems then, that the valencior pars is whatever part of the citizenry whose electoral decision is decisive. In this, Marsilius is at one with Aristotle's original analysis. (shrink)

This article tries to establish the scopes and limits of the main interpretations on Newton during the 20th century, highlighting on the one hand the textual evidence at disposal, and on the other hand the philosophical and epistemological currents that defines the main features of those interpretations. It will be shown that the rejection of positivism is not sufficient condition for establishing an adequate interpretation and, together with the strengthening of the research from Newton’s manuscript, it is necessary a wider, (...) and more detailed model that those established by some of the most outstanding scholars like Alexandre Koyré, I. Bernard Cohen, Betty Dobbs, and Richard Westfall. (shrink)

It is undeniable that human agents sometimes act badly, and it seems that they sometimes pursue bad things simply because they are bad. This latter phenomenon has often been taken to provide counterexamples to views according to which we always act under the guise of the good. This paper identifies several distinct arguments in favour of the possibility that one can act under the guise of the bad. GG seems to face more serious difficulties when trying to answer three different, (...) but related, arguments for the possibility of acting under the guise of the bad. The main strategies available to answer these objections end up either undermining the motivation for GG or failing to do full justice to the nature of perverse motivation. However, these difficulties turn out to be generated by focusing on a particular version of GG, what I call the “content version”. But we have independent reasons to prefer a different version of GG; namely, the “attitude version”. The attitude version allows for a much richer understanding of the possibility of acting on what we conceive to be bad. Drawing on an analogy with theoretical akrasia and theoretical perversion, I try to show how the attitude version can provide a compelling account of perverse actions. (shrink)

This paper argues that the principles of instrumental rationality apply primarily to extended action through time. Most philosophers assume that rational requirements and principles govern in the first instance momentary mental states, as opposed to governing extended intentional actions directly. In the case of instrumental rationality, the relevant mental states or attitudes would typically be preferences, decisions, or intentions. In fact, even those who recognize the extended nature of our agency still assume that rational requirements apply primarily to mental states (...) at a moment in time. Such views try to do justice to the extended nature of our agency by postulating rational requirements that apply in the first instance to plans, policies, and intentions more generally. The paper focuses on the central case of requirements and reasons governing the reconsideration of intentions and argues that these requirements or reasons are either superfluous or invalid.I argue that a proper conception of instrumental reasoning that applies directly to actions turn out to have surprising consequences. In fact, this conception allows us to see that policies, projects and the like are best understood as instances of extended actions, and that the instrumental requirements that apply to projects and policies are exactly the same as the instrumental requirements that apply to ordinary extended actions. Finally, I argue that the resulting theory of instrumental rationality is a significant improvement over theories that rely on principles governing intentions. (shrink)

Scientists have always attempted to explain the world in terms of a few unifying principles. In the fifth century B.C. Democritus boldly claimed that reality is simply a collection of indivisible and eternal parts or atoms. Over the centuries his doctrine has remained a landmark, and much progress in physics is due to its distinction between subjective perception and objective reality. This book discusses theory reduction in physics, which states that the whole is nothing more than the sum of its (...) parts: the properties of things are directly determined by their constituent parts. Reductionism deals with the relation between different theories that address different levels of reality, and uses extrapolations to apply that relation in different sciences. Reality shows a complex structure of connections, and the dream of a unified interpretation of all phenomena in several simple laws continues to attract anyone with genuine philosophical and scientific interests. If the most radical reductionist point of view is correct, the relationship between disciplines is strictly inclusive: chemistry becomes physics, biology becomes chemistry, and so on. Eventually, only one science, indeed just a single theory, would survive, with all others merging in the Theory of Everything. Is the current coexistence of different sciences a mere historical venture which will end when the Theory of Everything has been established? Can there be a unified description of nature? Rather than an analysis of full reductionism, this book focuses on aspects of theory reduction in physics and stimulates reflection on related questions: is there any evidence of actual reduction? Are the examples used in the philosophy of science too simplistic? What has been endangered by the search for (the) ultimate truth? Has the dream of reductionist reason created any monsters? Is big science one such monster? What is the point of embedding science Y within science X, if predictions cannot be made on that basis? (shrink)

In trying to explain the possibility of akrasia , it seems plausible to deny that there is a conceptual connection between motivation and evaluation ; akrasia occurs when the agent is motivated to do something that she does not judge to be good . However, it is hard to see how such accounts could respect our intuition that the akratic agent acts freely, or that there is a difference between akrasia and compulsion. It is also hard to see how such (...) accounts could be extended to the realm of theoretical reason, but this is generally not taken Ito be a problem, because it is generally assumed that there is no similar phenomenon in the realm of theoretical reason. This paper argues that there is such a thing as theoretical akrasia, and that we can find a characterization of this phenomenon in Descartes’s Meditations. Drawing on certain passages in the Meditations, we can construct an account of theoretical akrasia; this account can then be adapted to resolve the original problem of akrasia in the realm of practical reason. The account asserts that there is a conceptual connection between motivation and evaluation in free action; it also enables us to show how the akratic agent is still acting freely when he does something that he does not judge to be the best all things considered. (shrink)

The practice of parkour in urban spaces by young people, especially those who call themselves traceurs, illustrates how identities are formed in an ephemeral way by reinterpreting spaces in the city – briefly and without leaving a trace. However, in a sort of paradox, these interventions are registered in the socio-digital spectrum, tokenistically anchoring and incorporating them into conversations and social interactions. This work aims to explain the practice of the sport called parkour as a socio-semiotic phenomenon. We have used (...) some zones of Mexico City as a specific case for our approach. The foregoing leads to the conclusion that the meaning of parkour goes beyond its recreational role and places it as a relevant piece of identity for excluded urban social groups – even though these practices have been appropriated by marketing strategies. Our approach will use a cultural semiotics perspective, as well as direct observations and interviews as research techniques. (shrink)

This article sheds light on Hobbes’s concept of the state of nature through a reading of his conception of knowledge, which makes it possible to relate him with the ‘New Science’ or the Scientific Revolution. In consequence, this article describes Hobbes with some problems and traditions of the Scientific Revolution through a fresh reading of his theory of knowledge, whence the concept of the state of nature is redefined in terms of integral cause; this makes it possible to argue the (...) need for Commonwealth, excluding the anthropological pessimism traditionally attributed to Hobbes. (shrink)

. The uniform prior distribution is often seen as a mathematical description of noninformativeness. This paper uses the well-known Three Prisoners Paradox to examine the impossibility of maintaining noninformativeness throughout hierarchization. The Paradox has been solved by Bayesian conditioning over the choice made by the Warder when asked to name a prisoner who will be shot. We generalize the paradox to situations of N prisoners, k executions and m announcements made by the Warder. We then extend the consequences of hierarchically (...) placing uniform and symmetrical priors for the probability p of the Warder naming Prisoner B, say. We prove that breaks of indifference and neutrality caused by assignment of uniform and symmetrical priors in lieu of degenerate indifference probabilities hold in general. Speaking of unknown probabilities or of probability of a probability must be forbidden as meaningless. Bruno de Finetti, 1977 I regard the use of hierarchical chains as a technique helping you to sharpen your subjective probabilities. I. J. Good, 1981. (shrink)