Doctor of Philosophy(PhD) / Though Quine's argument against the analytic-synthetic distinction is widely disputed, one of the major effects of his argument has been to popularise the belief that there is no sharp distinction between science and philosophy. This thesis begins by distinguishing reductive from holistic empiricism, showing why reductive empiricism is false, refuting the major objections to holistic empiricism and stating the limits on human knowledge it implies. Quine's arguments (and some arguments that have been mistakenly attributed to him) from holism against the analytic-synthetic are considered, and while many of them are found wanting one good argument is presented. Holism does not, however, imply that there is no sharp distinction between science and philosophy, and indeed implies that the distinction between scientific and philosophical disputes is perfectly sharp. The grounds upon which philosophical disputes may be resolved are then sought for and deliniated.

Doctor of Philosophy(PhD) / Though Quine's argument against the analytic-synthetic distinction is widely disputed, one of the major effects of his argument has been to popularise the belief that there is no sharp distinction between science and philosophy. This thesis begins by distinguishing reductive from holistic empiricism, showing why reductive empiricism is false, refuting the major objections to holistic empiricism and stating the limits on human knowledge it implies. Quine's arguments (and some arguments that have been mistakenly attributed to him) from holism against the analytic-synthetic are considered, and while many of them are found wanting one good argument is presented. Holism does not, however, imply that there is no sharp distinction between science and philosophy, and indeed implies that the distinction between scientific and philosophical disputes is perfectly sharp. The grounds upon which philosophical disputes may be resolved are then sought for and deliniated.

This thesis is about the arguments and the methods that can sustain the epistemic support that comes from intuitions regarding hypothetical cases vis-à-vis theories of intuition. In the past twenty years, philosophical intuitions have received new attention, spurred by fashionable experimental philosophy that empirically tests philosophers’ intuition-engendering hypothetical cases with experimental methods. The results purportedly show that intuitions are unreliable, subject to demographic variation, and error-prone. In response, philosophers have presented various theories of philosophical intuition and explanations of how intuitions are situated in the justificatory apparatus of philosophical methodology. Three types of theories prevail in the literature, each a plausible option for the explanatory sustenance of intuitions’ epistemic efficacy. Selfevidence theories depend on the understanding of the intuited proposition. Intellectual seemings theories depend on the content of the intuited proposition. Judgment theories depend on our normal capacities for making judgments. Judgment theories divide further into disposition-to-believe theories and capacity theories. I argue that, beyond objections and unique epistemic burdens that each theory faces regarding the methodologies underpinning their conception and defense, no one theory of intuition can be reasonably accepted over the others. The centrality of intuitions’ use in philosophical methodology and in philosophers’ ways of thinking and reasoning, giving an argument that supports intuitions as conferrers of epistemic status, which does not itself appeal to intuitions, is a precarious endeavor. I consider various methods to avoid engaging question-begging premises and epistemic circularity. However, none are successful when the theory at hand is characteristically a priori and countenances only intuitions that confer epistemic status. In response to the ill-fated caricature of philosophical intuitions epistemic-statusconferrers, I present my own survey evidence concerning philosophers’ conception of intuition-use in philosophical method. Surprisingly, professional philosophers are more inclined to think that intuitions operate in the context of discovery more so than they are inclined to think that intuitions operate in the context of justification. The upshot of these survey results motivates my preferred account philosophical intuitions wherein philosophical intuitions are bifurcated into epistemic (justificatory intuitions) and epistemically-related (intuitions of discovery) roles. In the light of the objections I pose regarding the proper grounding of intuitions, revising the standard conception of philosophical intuitions requires two sorts of moves in the debate. First, one must offer a proviso for sources of justification that do not epistemically depend on intuitions for the ability to confer epistemic status. This allows one to justify a theory of intuition without appeal to intuition or epistemic regress. Second, one must give an explanation for and build on the recognition that intuitions are bifurcated into justificatory and discovery roles. The added clarity of filling out the nature of bifurcation allows for a more accurate characterisation of philosophical intuitions in the methods of philosophy. Furthermore, that intuitions operate in discovery roles offers an explanation for philosophical innovation and progress.

This paper aims to offer a metaphilosophical reconstruction of Law in the analytic tradition of the twentieth and twentieth-one century first fifteen years, in order to determine the identity of the “analytic concept of law”. To do that I will usethree argumentative axes. The first will clarify the distinction between the Continental and Anglo-Saxon focuses on twentieth century analytical legal philosophy. The second axis will emphasize the methods and purposes of the latter, from the publication of Hart’s The Concept of Law’s first edition to its second edition in 1994. The third will problematize the existence or non-existence of an analytical concept of Law. / Este trabajo pretende hacer una reconstrucción metafilosófica del derecho en la tradición analítica, puntualmente entre el siglo XX y los tres primeros lustros del XXI, con el objeto de determinar la identidad del concepto analítico de derecho. Para dicho fin, se dispondrá de tres ejes argumentativos. El primero dilucidará la distinción entre los enfoques continental y anglosajón de la filosofía jurídica analítica del siglo XX. El segundo eje se centrará en los métodos y propósitos de esta última, desde el período posterior a la publicación de la primera edición de The Concept of Law de Hart (1961) hasta su segunda edición en 1994. El tercero problematizará la existencia o inexistencia de un concepto analítico del derecho.

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Poser la question de l’erreur implique de soulever une demande sur le statut de la philosophie, pratique finalisée, en tant que « science de la vérité » (d’après Aristote), à débusquer la possibilité dans laquelle l’erreur consiste à part entière. Corrélativement, cela équivaut à envisager le rapport entre machine et organisme, étant donné que l’erreur apparaît en fonction d’une anticipation de l’expérience (ou de sa reconsidération rétrospective) qui a partie liée avec un quelque genre d’acte créatif, vital ou artificiel. Georges Canguilhem et Raymond Ruyer ont ressentis avec force cet entrelacement, en problématisant, d’un côté, l’idée positiviste selon laquelle la technique dérive toujours d’une application du savoir scientifique et, de l’autre côté, la conception qui oppose vie et artifice. En essayant, donc, d’établir et de montrer la liaison entre ces trois domaines, la thèse parcourt l’œuvre de ces deux penseurs et illustre la manière dont l’erreur bouleverse une fois pour toutes chaque cadre ontologique fixe. La considération d’autres perspectives (Gilles Deleuze et Félix Guattari, Jean Cavaillès et l’inconnu Louis Weber) nous introduit, ensuite, à l’exigence de se référer, pour éclaircir les questions ontologiques et gnoséologiques, à la discursivité scientifique et aux logiques plurielles qu’elle déploie. Une pensée plurielle des techniques, fondée dans l’autonomie du geste et sur l’imprévisibilité de ses conséquences, devrait se rejoindre ainsi à une logique du vivant qui ne fait qu’une avec la logique – la forme – du discours philosophique. L’erreur opèrerait à l’instar d’un dispositif onto-poïétique qui requiert, néanmoins, de reconnaître une seule, véritable réalité : la recherche. / Error is a philosophical item that involves the statute of philosophical inquiry itself, a practice which aims to track down, as such as «science of the truth» (according to Aristotle), the possibility wherein error entirely consists. In parallel, that means to understand the relation between machine and organism, because the error can appear only in function of an anticipation of experience (or its retrospective observation), entailed materially, even before cognitively, by a biological or technical creative act. Georges Canguilhem and Raymond Ruyer have explicitly considered this problem, criticizing the positivistic idea about scientific derivation of technics as well as the irreducible distinction between living beings and artificial realities. Throughout the works of these two thinkers, the dissertation attempts to explain this fundamental relationship and to set up how error subverts every effort to fix a definitive ontology. Evaluating also others perspectives (like Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s view or the Jean Cavaillès and the unknow Louis Weber’s contributions), the argumentation leads to argue, furthermore, that, to clarify gnoseological and ontological problems, it is necessary to strictly follow the scientific discursivity and the pluralistic logics laid out by it. A pluralistic technics’ thought, based on autonomous gestures and on their unpredictable consequences, has to be reconnected to a logic of life which is the same order of the logic – the form – of philosophical discourse. Error should operate like an onto-poietic device and determine only a kind of genuine reality: research.