I defend the conserved quantity theory of causation against two objections: firstly, that to tie the notion of “cause” to conservation laws is impossible, circular or metaphysically counterintuitive; and secondly, that the conserved quantity theory entails an undesired notion of identity through time. My defence makes use of an important meta-philosophical distinction between empirical analysis and conceptual analysis. My claim is that the conserved quantity theory of causation must be understood primarily as an empirical, not a conceptual, analysis of causation.

En el contexto de este artículo denominaremos mentalismo a la conjunción de dos tesis diferentes: (i) para que las expresiones lingüísticas tengan significado es necesario que haya entidades de carácter mental; (ii) tales entidades mentales son suficientes para fijar el significado de las expresiones correspondientes (es decir, lo determinan). Es característico deI segundo Wittgenstein el rechazo a ambas tesis. Pero son sus argumentos contra (ii), especialmente a partir de las consideraciones sobre seguir una regla, los que han concentrado casi toda la atención. En este trabajo presento el argumento principal de Wittgentein contra (i), diferenciándolo de sus objeciones a (ii).In this article mentalism will be used to denominate the conjunction of two thesis: (i) it is a necessary condition for linguistic expressions having meaning the existence of mental entities; (ii) these mental entities are sufficient to fix the meaning of the corresponding expressions (they determine it). The two thesis are rejected by the later Wittgenstein. Most of the attention, though, has been paid to his arguments against (ii), especially based on discussions of rule-following. In this paper I work out Wittgenstein’s main argument against (i), and I distinguish it from his objections to (ii).

The correlations between distant systems in typical quantum situations, such as Einstein-Podolosky-Rosen experiments, strongly suggest that the quantum realm involves curious types of non-Iocal influences. In this paper, I study in detail the nature of these non-Iocal influences, as depicted by various quantum theories. I show how different quantum theories realise non-Iocality in different ways, whichreflect different ontological settings.

We can distinguish different senses in which a formal language can be said to have been provided with an interpretation. We focus on two: (i) We provide a model (or structure) and a definition of satisfaction and truth in the standard way (ii) We provide a translation into a natural language. We argue that the sentences of a formal language interpreted as in (i) do not have meaning. A formal language interpreted as in (i) models the way the truth of a sentence would be affected by two factors: the interpretation as in (ii) of the language, and a way the world might be. Viewing in this way the relation between interpreting a formal language as in (i) and as in (ii) allows us to justify the conceptual adequacy of the standard model-theoretic definitions of the properties of logical truth and logical consequence.

The standard argument against the compositionality of adjective-noun compounds containing "red" says that "red" does not make the same semantic contribution because a red car has to be red outside whereas a red watermelon has to be red inside. Fodor's reply to that argument is that the inside/outside feature is semantically irrelevant because "red F" just means F which is red for Fs. That account agrees with our intuitions concerning analyticity; but it seems to be in conflict with a central test for understanding: a person who knows nothing else about these expressions than what is offered by Fodor is far from applying them successfully.

Michael Dummett holds that the sense of a natural language proper name is part of its linguistic meaning. I argue that this view sits uncomfortably with Frege's observation that the sense of a natural language proper name varies from speaker to speaker. Moreover, the thesis under discussion is not supported by Frege's views on communication. Recently Richard Heck has tried to develop an argument which is intended to show that assertoric communication with sentences containing proper names is only possible if Dummett's thesis or a version of it is true. I will challenge this argument and argue that it does not support Dummett's thesis.

There are many reasons to assume that the contents expressible by declarative sentences are generally truth-evaluable (reasons stemming from semantics, logic and considerations about truth). This assumption of global truth-evaluability, however, appears to conflict with the view that the contents of some sentences do not admit of truth or falsehood for lack of objectivity of their subject matter. Could there be a notion of truth on which the truth-evaluability of a content does not rule out the non-objectivity of its subject matter?In this paper, I discuss Crispin Wright's criterion of Cognitive Command as a criterion for objectivity. This criterion faces the Problem of A Priori Error. I reject Wright's response to that problem and propose to solve the problem by relativising truth. This move allows for the possibility of contents that are truth-evaluable yet non-objective.

El propósito de este artículo es mostrar que las llamadas "teorías de la identidad psiconeural" no tienen la estructura lógica de una teoría genuina de la identidad. Un operador de identidad genuino es un operador de segundo orden, o de órdenes superiores, que convierte predicados n-ádicos en predicados n-1-ádicos. Si las teorias de la identidad psiconeural no son, en realidad, teorías de la identidad, entonces la críticas habituales que usan la Ley de Leibniz y otros rasgos que se relacionan con la identidad no tienen ningún efecto. Así, dos serán las conclusiones: (i) que las llamadas "teorías de la identidad psiconeural" deben de reformularse, de manera que expresen claramente su contenido, y (ii) que las críticas utizadas hasta ahora contra ellas no consiguen su objetivo.The aim of this paper is to show that the so-called "theories of psichoneural identity" do not possess the logical structure of a genuine theory of identity. The identity operator is a second- or higher-order operator that converts n-adic predicates into n-1-ádic ones. If the so-called "theories of psichoneural identity" are not theories of identity at all, then two conclusions follow: (i) these theories of the mind-body relation should state their contents in a more appropiate way, and (ii) the usual criticisms against them, which bear on some features that all idetity theories must hold, as for instance Leibniz Law, leave them untouched.

Con este artículo se pretende simplificar la propuesta presentada en un trabajo anterior, prescindiendo como conectiva del símbolo barra de la probabilidad condicionada. Haciéndolo, se consigue reducir a la mitad el número de condiciones postuladas, percibiéndose con ello mejor el lugar central de la condición de superioridad por implicación. También se aborda qué información pueda proporcionar el grado de aproximación de los modelos teórico-económicos sobre lo que vaya a terminar sucediendo en las situaciones empíricas correspondientes, se indican dos formar de ampliar el análisis para incrementarla, y se comenta la aplicabilidad práctica de las comparaciones estudiadas.The proposal about the approximation comparisons presented in an earlier essay may be simplified doing without the bar symbol of conditional probability. In this way, the number of the postulated conditions diminish in a half, and the key role of the superiority by implication property is better perceived. Attention is also paid to what information can be gathered from the approximation degree of economic theoretical models about what may finally happen in the corresponding empirical situations, and to the ways by which this information can be increased. Some comments about the applicability of approximation comparisons are added.

The paper explores the notion of communicative success as a match between the speaker's communicative intention and the audience's interpretation. The first part argues that it cannot be generalized to all kinds of communication. The second part characterizes various types of relations between the speaker's and the audience's beliefs on which this kind of communicative success can be based. It shows that the requirements concerning agreement between these beliefs are rather modest.

Analogy is taken into consideration by its didactive and heuristic functions. Analogic changes are analyzed in the form of syntactic-semantic graphs. Their recognizable structural similarity corresponds to the syntax or semantics in the analogy. The concept of analogy has subjective and objective aspects. The explanation in analogies is a dynamic transition from one concept structure to another. The possibility of analogy in the world is a statement about the disposition of the world. The possibility of analogy asserts something about the behaviour of the environment. Analogy is considered as a means of explanation and a dynamic method of cognition.

The paper endeavours to identify three fundamental approaches to the depiction of the urban space. The first is that of the chronicling traveller, for whom thespace is always identified with the aid of events and operations which transmute into performative markings. This approach was replaced at the beginning of the modern period by representation in the form of the map. The third approach is Barthes' perceptions of the city as the Argo and of the urban centre as the place of encounter. Here the urban space is determined through the active participant in play and by his body.