Josep E. Corbi

: In The View From Here, Jay Wallace emphasises that an agent's capacity to regret a past decision is conditioned by the attachments that she may have developed as a result. Those attachments shape the point of view from which she retrospectively deliberates. Wallace stresses, however, that not every normative aspect of her decision is affected by this change in perspective, because her decision will remain as unjustified as it was in the past. I will argue, however, that this approach to justification is inconsistent with the normative import that Wallace ascribes to the actual dynamics of our attachments in his defence of the rationale of regret. If I am right, Wallace's approach is caught in the following dilemma: Either he renounces a nonperspectival approach to justification or he revises his view about the normative import of the actual dynamics of our attachments.

In Authority and Estrangement Richard Moran takes some rather illuminating steps towards getting rid of the Cartesian picture of self-knowledge. I argue, however, that Moran’s crucial distinction between deliberative and theoretical attitude is seriously contaminated by that traditional picture. More specifically, I will point out why some crucial aspects of the phenomena that Moran describes in terms of the interplay between the theoretical and the deliberative attitude, should rather be interpreted as a process that takes place within the deliberative attitude itself. The theoretical attitude will, as a result, constitute a rather marginal attitude towards one’s own psychological dispositions and experiences, the adoption of which only makes sense in rather peculiar, often pathological, situations.

In the ongoing debate, there are a set of mind-body theories sharing a certain physicalist assumption: whenever a genuine cause produces an effect, the causal efficacy of each of the nonphysical properties that participate in that process is determined by the instantiation of a well-defined set of physical properties. These theories would then insist that a nonphysical property could only be causally efficacious insofar as it is physically implemented. However, in what follows we will argue against the idea that fine-grained mental contents could be physically implemented in the way that functional properties are. Therefore, we will examine the metaphysical conditions under which the implementing mechanism of a particular instance of a functional property may be individuated, and see how genuine beliefs and desires—insofar as they track the world—cannot meet such conditions.

In the ongoing debate, there are a set of mind-body theories sharing a certain physicalist assumption: whenever a genuine cause produces an effect, the causal efficacy of each of the nonphysical properties that participate in that process is determined by the instantiation of a well-defined set of physical properties. These theories would then insist that a nonphysical property could only be causally efficacious insofar as it is physically implemented. However, in what follows we will argue against the idea that fine-grained mental contents could be physically implemented in the way that functional properties are. Therefore, we will examine the metaphysical conditions under which the implementing mechanism of a particular instance of a functional property may be individuated, and see how genuine beliefs and desires—insofar as they track the world—cannot meet such conditions

I discuss, in this paper, the view of value that is associated with Humean motivational theories. I argue that these theories unjustifiably constrain the kind of element that may contribute to our motivational economy and, thereby, unduly reduce our capacity to recognize certain sources of value. To this purpose, I will examine some axiological experiences that, if I am right, are inaccessible to a Humean analysis of our motivational structure. I will insist, for instance, on a sense in which social links may be important in the life of a human being which the Humean notion of desire cannot apprehend.

La claridad y la argumentación sirven de refugio frente a la charlatanería en el filosofar, pero quienes enfatizan tales principios metodológicos tienden a identificar la claridad con la literalidad y la argumentación con la formalización. En este trabajo, considero los límites de una elucidación filosófica de nuestras prácticas morales que descanse en tal identificación; para ello, examino la relevancia de la posición original de John Rawls para la determinación de los principios de la justicia y, en general, de los experimentos mentales para el estudio de la moralidad. La relevancia de la posición original depende, a mi entender, de un supuesto de concordancia según el cual, a menos que incurramos en algún error deliberativo, no puede haber discrepancia alguna entre nuestros juicios relativos a la justicia acerca de una situación hipotética y nuestros juicios cuando nos enfrentamos realmente a la misma. A lo largo del texto, trato de mostrar que tal supuesto es insostenible a partir del examen de una experiencia moral particular: a saber, la experiencia del soldado; y, para ello, revindico las virtudes deliberativas de la conciencia expresiva de ciertos hechos frente a una mera conciencia declarativa de los mismos; finalmente, extraigo algunas consecuencias de esta distinción para la definición de un estilo filosófico. Astress on clarity and argumentation may serve as a refuge against quackery, but often those who focus on such methodological principles tend to identify clarity with literalness and argumentation with formalization. My reflection upon the limits of a philosophical style inspired in such an identification is mainly concerned with the use of thought experiments in the elucidation of our moral practices and, more specifically, with the relevance of John Rawls' original position for the determination of the basic principles of justice. To this purpose, I emphasize that the relevance of the original position rests on a matching assumption according to which, if agents deliberate appropriately, there should not be any gap between our judgments concerning justice about a hypothetical situation and our judgments whenever we are actually confronted with it. I will, nevertheless, explore a particular moral experience, namely, that of the soldier, only to conclude that such an assumption is untenable. More specifically, I will defend the deliberative virtues of an expressive awareness of certain facts as opposed to a mere declarative awareness of them. In the last section, I will derive some implications of this distinction as to the articulation of a philosophical style

Quassim Cassam distinguishes between trivial and substantial cases of self-knowledge. At first sight, trivial cases are epistemically distinctive insofar as the agent needn't provide any sort of evidence to ground her claim to knowledge. Substantial cases of self-knowledge such as ‘I know I want to have a second child’ do not seem to bear this distinctive relation to evidence. I will argue, however, that substantial cases of self-knowledge are often epistemically distinctive and, to this end, I will challenge a crucial assumption in the current debate about self-knowledge, namely: if a piece of self-knowledge is based on evidence, it must have been delivered by a detached, theoretical attitude toward oneself (_The Detachment Assumption_). My case against the Detachment Assumption combines a negative and a positive programme. Regarding the negative aspect, I will first present Cassam's case for Inferentialism; second, I will argue that this view about self-knowledge is at odds with the sort of self-improvement that he vindicates in his analysis of epistemic vices and, third, I will conclude that only by allowing for an engaged relation to evidence, can we make sense of that sort of self-improvement. Regarding the positive programme, I will first examine the sensitivity to the music that is specific of a graceful dancer and, on this basis, outline an attitude toward oneself that, despite involving evidence, is not detached or theoretical but engaged, so that it gives rise to a kind of substantial self-knowledge that is both transformative and epistemically distinctive.

La experiencia del daño tiene, a primera vista, dos polos: el polo de quien causa el daño y el polo de quien lo sufre. Existe, no obstante, una tercera perspectiva: la de quien no causa daño ni lo sufre, pero la del verdugo hiriendo a la víctima. El verdugo puede hacer sentir su voz, insistir en su representación de los hechos. En cambio, la víctima permanece indefensa y la verdad de su daño queda soterrada bajo la palabra del verdugo. Quien tiene noticia acaba aceptando el discurso legitimador del verdugo, acaba convencido de qLie el daño causado estaba justificado por un bien ulterior. En este escrito, examino el papel de la vergüenza, la culpa y el resentimiento en la recuperación de la voz de la víctima. Esta recuperación no consistirá simplemente en reconstruir lo que dice la víctima, sino en reivindicar su autoridad epistémica. Esta reivindicación de la autoridad de la víctima involucra, en cada caso, la descripción de los mecanismos mediante los que el verdugo distorsiona la verdad que algunas víctimas sienten la imperiosa necesidad de revelar.

A subject is a being who has a life to lead. In this paper, I explore the array of resources that are available to us (i.e., Westerners at the turn of the millennium) to articulate and assess our lives. Specifically, I shall reflect on the impact that such matters may have on our naturalist conviction that the world ultimately consists of a causal network where notions such as sense and value have no direct bearing. Sometend to assume that an implication of our naturalist world-view is that the notions of sense and value are inevitably relative to the subject’s desires and inclinations. This is, however, a line of reasoning that I would like to resist. For I am convinced that this approach unnecessarily restricts the number of resources to which we can legitimately appeal in order to lead our lives. This restriction will turn out to be quite serious because, as we shall see, it dramatically distorts our perception of the relevance that social ties may have in the life of a subject, as well as the conditions under which a human life may escape the absurd.

There is much that I admire in Richard Moran's account of how first‐person authority may be consistent with self‐knowledge as an achievement. In this paper, I examine his attempt to characterize the goal of psychoanalytic treatment, which is surely that the patient should go beyond the mere theoretical acceptance of the analyst's interpretation, and requires instead a more intimate, first‐personal, awareness by the patient of their psychological condition.I object, however, that the way in which Moran distinguishes between the deliberative and the theoretical attitudes is ultimately inconsistent with a satisfactory account of psychoanalytic practice; mainly because, despite Moran's claims to the contrary, such a distinction is still inspired by a Cartesian picture of the self. I argue that, in the light of his distinction, Moran may emphasize that an agent's psychological dispositions should be permeable to her decisions and projects, but is forced to reject the idea that permeability could go the other way too. I explore Bernard Williams' notion of acknowledgment and Simone Weil's distinction between two notions of necessity, in order to articulate a notion of receptive passivity which may help us to characterize this second direction of permeability. I finally outline why receptive passivity (and, thereby, the double direction of permeability) is crucial in order to identify the goal of psychoanalytic treatment and, derivatively, to understand how a certain kind of awareness may have a significant therapeutic effect.

Resumen: Marta Suria escribe Ella soy yo como parte de su respuesta a la irrupción del recuerdo de las agresiones sexuales que había sufrido desde su infancia. Confía en que la forma en que narra su experiencia, la transforme y la libere. ¿Cómo es posible, sin embargo, que una forma de narrar nos transforme, tenga el poder de liberarnos? En este escrito, describiremos, primero, la concepción de la relación entre lenguaje y experiencia que da pie a esta perplejidad; esbozaremos, posteriormente, una concepción alternativa en la que esa perplejidad se disuelve y desde la que es fácil reconocer el poder transformador de ciertas formas de narrarnos. Descansará esta concepción alternativa en la idea de expresión y en la capacidad de percibir aspectos. Mostraremos, en primer lugar, que el lenguaje no solo sirve para describir o para valorar nuestra experiencia, sino también para expresarla; argumentaremos, posteriormente, que la expresión lingüística o gestual de una experiencia no solo la anuncia o manifiesta, sino que le da forma y la modula; subrayaremos, finalmente, el poder transformador de ciertos usos expresivos del lenguaje.: Marta Suria writes Ella soy yo as part of her response to the irruption of the memories of the sexual aggressions she had suffered since childhood. She is convinced that the way she narrates her experience will transform and liberate her. How is it at all possible that a certain kind of narrative may transform and liberate us? In this paper, we will first describe the conception of the relationship between language and experience that lies behind this perplexity and, secondly, we will sketch an alternative conception that will hopefully allow us to account for the transformative power of certain kinds of narratives. This alternative conception will hinge on the idea of expression and on the concept of aspect perception. For this purpose, we will firstly argue that language can be used not only to describe or evaluate our experience, but also to express it; we will, then, defend the view that linguistic or gestural expressions of our experiences not only announce or manifest them, but contribute to shaping and modulating them; finally, we will highlight the transformative, humanizing power of certain expressive uses of language. Palabras clave: daño sexual, narración, expresión, percepción de aspectos, escena de triangulación, jugar, transformación. Keywords: sexual harm, narrative, expression, aspect perception, scene of triangulation, playing, transformative.

Epistemology as Political Epostemology: Knowledge, Wound and Narrative Resumen: El tipo de conocimiento que a menudo se toma como modelo en Conocimiento expropiado es el que nos proporciona la ciencia, vinculado a la idea de información y a los desarrollos tecnológicos; solo emerge otro modelo cuando se analiza la injusticia hermenéutica y otras formas de daño epistémico. Broncano aúna ambos modelos bajo el rótulo ‘conocimiento’ y esta opción terminológica tiene sentido en la medida en que considera que la agencialidad entrañada social y políticamente está en el centro de todo tipo de conocimiento. Defenderé, con todo, una tesis más radical, a saber: que, si nos tomamos en serio el papel de la agencialidad en la articulación del conocimiento, debemos acercarnos a la noción de conocimiento que se utiliza en la ciencia y en los desarrollos tecnológicos desde la perspectiva del esfuerzo de las y los supervivientes por articular sus experiencias de daño, y no a la inversa. Abstract: Quite often, Conocimiento expropiado takes the natural sciences as the model of knowledge, namely, the notion of knowledge that we associate with information and technological progress; an alternative model only emerges in this book when hermeneutic injustice and certain forms of epistemic harm are analysed. Broncano alludes to both epistemic experiences as knowledge, and this terminological choice makes sense insofar as he has placed socially and politically embedded agency at the centre of knowledge. My thesis is however that, if we are to take seriously the role of agency in the articulation of knowledge, we must examine the notion of knowledge as used in science and technological developments from the perspective of the survivors’ attempt to make sense of their moral wound rather than the other way round. Palabras clave: Conocimiento, relato, daño, objetividad, transformación. Keywords: Knowledge, narrative, moral wound, objectivity, transformative.

En su Investigación sobre el entendimiento humano, David Hume consideró la cuestión de las relaciones entre libertad y necesidad como “el tema más discutido de la metafísica, la ciencia más discutida”. El debate sobre esta venerable cuestión sigue siendo hoy tan vivo como lo fue en tiempos de Hume. El presente volumen colectivo es una buena muestra de ello. Los ensayos que lo forman, escritos desde una pluralidad de perspectivas, ponen de manifiesto la complejidad y la unidad interna del problema al que responden. Elaborados con un estilo carente de tecnicismos, pero no de rigor, estos Ensayos sobre libertad y necesidad despertarán el interés tanto de la persona culta como del especialista en filosofía.