Diego Rodríguez Téllez

Este trabajo cuestiona el supuesto carácter intuitivo o natural del escepticismo acerca del mundo externo. En §1 examinamos una versión del argumento escéptico que se sostiene a partir de dos principios: clausura del conocimiento e indiferencia. Para profundizar la postura que ha defendido Michael Williams, en §2 ofrecemos un examen novedoso de la argumentación escéptica cartesiana que nos permite establecer que en dos argumentos de esta estrategia argumentativa resulta claro que la presunta naturalidad que el escéptico reclama es falsa y que, antes bien, para lograr su conclusión, necesita asumir compromisos con el realismo epistémico, es decir, con la tesis de que nuestras creencias se ubican al interior de una jerarquía epistemológica de acuerdo únicamente con su contenido y en abstracto. Finalmente, basados en argumentos de inspiración wittgensteiniana, en §3 mostramos cómo es que, en contra del realismo epistémico, cada creencia desempeña un papel justificativo según el contexto pertinente.

Self-control is deemed crucial for reasons-responsive agency and a key contributor to long-term wellbeing. But recent studies suggest that effortfully resisting one’s temptations does not contribute to long-term goal attainment, and can even be harmful. So how does self-control improve our lives? Finding an answer requires revising the role that overcoming temptation plays in self-control. This paper distinguishes two forms of self-control problems: temptation (the presence of a strong wayward motivation) and apathy (the lack of commitment-advancing motivation). This distinction makes it possible to separate negative self-control (aimed at overcoming temptation) from positive self-control (aimed at overcoming lack of motivation). The paper argues that temptation should not play a central role in our conception of self-control, since overcoming temptation is neither necessary nor sufficient for successful self-control.

In this paper I argue that two claims usually included in any minimally detailed presentation of the epistemic closure principle are inconsistent, namely, that closure explains how we extend our knowledge through deduction and that it is different from another epistemic principle, to wit, transmission. The attempt to offer a correct diagnosis of reasonings such as the one involved in Dretke’s zebra case is an instance of a discussion in which the distinction takes part. My argument has the following structure. First, I introduce the distinction between closure and transmission following the standard presentation. Second, I introduce the main motivations behind the principles; in particular, I establish that the main motivation behind closure consists in explaining the phenomenon of the advancement of knowledge through deductive reasoning. Third, based on the identification of a restriction on any plausible formulation of closure capable of explaining the phenomenon aforementioned, I cast doubts on the distinction between this principle and transmission. I conclude that any formulation of the epistemic principle of closure which satisfies its main motivation collapses into the epistemic principle of transmission.