[Under contract with CUP, in preparation] What is a mind? Is it possible for a computer or other machine to have a mind? And how would we know? Mental fictionalism offers a new approach to these timely questions. Its central idea is that mental states (thoughts, beliefs, desires) are useful fictions. When we talk about mental states, we should be seen as merely speaking “as if” humans (and perhaps other creatures or even artifacts) had such states, in order to make (...) sense of their behavior. -/- This book is unique in presenting and defending three versions of mental fictionalism in a single volume (prefix-semantical mental fictionalism, pretense mental fictionalism, and affective storyism). The authors are three of the world’s most prominent proponents (respectively) of each variety: T. Parent (Nazarbayev University), Adam Toon (University of Exeter), and Tamás Demeter (Corvinus University of Budapest). The book essentially pits these different varieties of mental fictionalism against each other, allowing the reader to size them up. In the process, fresh perspectives are offered on foundational matters in the philosophy of mind, such as the nature of mental states and folk psychology, as well as hot topics such as embodied cognition, animal cognition, consciousness, and AI. -/- UPDATE: The chapter on prefix-semantical mental fictionalism is available upon request; write to nontology "at" gmail. (shrink)

« Réfléchir aux similarités entre des répertoires très éloignés dans le temps et l’espace permet parfois de repenser à nouveaux frais les oppositions catégorielles qui nous servent à appréhender les genres musicaux. C’est ce qu’avait fait Simha Arom dans un article sur les parentés inattendues entre polyphonies africaines et polyphonies médiévales. En décal(qu)ant ce rapprochement avec la musique techno née à Detroit dans les années 1980-1990, on propose de montrer que l’opposition entre musiques savantes, traditionnelles et populaires, opérante dans le (...) monde occidental depuis le début du xix e siècle, gagne à être enrichie par d’autres grilles d’analyse pour complexifier la cartographie des objets musicaux qui peuplent le monde de la musique aujourd’hui. ». (shrink)

In this paper, we provide a new characterization of Keisler’s order in terms of saturation of Boolean ultrapowers. To do so, we apply and expand the framework of ‘separation of variables’ recently developed by Malliaris and Shelah. We also show that good ultrafilters on Boolean algebras are precisely the ones which capture the maximum class in Keisler’s order, answering a question posed by Benda in 1974.

L’articolo passa in rassegna le diverse tradizioni che trattano del passaggio, nell’Accademia del 339 a. C., dello scolarcato da Speusippo all’homo novus Senocrate. La nostra tradizione in proposito è alquanto tardiva: essa prende la sua origine da Filodemo, che dipenderebbe da fonti relativamente vicine a Platone ed ai suoi immediati discepoli, del III o II secolo. Pur essendo autore di età augustea, Filodemo non sembra conoscere certe vicissitudini subite dalla tradizione platonico-accademica. La tradizione seguente è notevolmente più tardiva: scendiamo all’età (...) dei medioplatonici, e troviamo documenti rappresentati, oltre che da alcune scarne notizie, dalle Epistole socratiche cui non potremmo conferire altra antichità che quella della nuova sofistica, in età di Adriano. Infine, esiste una tradizione conciliatoria che ci viene indicata dalle Vite di Aristotele nella tarda antichità e che trova eco nello scritto di alcuni commentatori neoplatonici; sulle fonti di ciò possiamo avanzare puramente delle ipotesi. (shrink)

The main contribution of this paper is a completeness result for an axiomatization of Hansson [13]'s deontic system DSDL2, whose semantics involves a non-necessarily transitive betterness relation. Reference is made to a deductive system put forth by Åqvist [2, 3].

In eighteenth-century France, scientific progress and its spreading met a growing interest among public, an enthusiasm that was to be reflected in literature. Fictional works including scientific knowledge in their narrative made their appearance, paving the ground for a genre promised to a growing success in the following centuries—science fiction. The article presents three eighteenth-century French literary works, each one centered on a different domain of science: Voltaire’s Micromégas, Charles-François Tiphaigne’s Amilec, or the Seeds of Mankind and François-Félix Nogaret’s The (...) Mirror of Current Events, or Beauty to the Highest Bidder. The first one, an iconic Enlightenment work that promotes critical thinking, relies on discoveries made in astronomy and optics. Tiphaigne de la Roche is far from sharing the fame of Voltaire, but his odd Amilec is noteworthy as it is possibly the very first science-fiction work in which biology is central. Written in the unique atmosphere of the French revolution, Nogaret’s work The Mirror of Current Events depicts androids-like interacting with humans. Our purpose is to show that these works were a precursor of the science fiction genre in literature, to describe how and what science or technology was depicted in them, and how they influenced the view of Man in eighteenth-century France. (shrink)

In Jacques Lacan's view, a woman is a reduced object of Phallic Power through the sacred path. Women are therefore "not all" in their desire. Lacan undertakes a localisation in the "Name of Father", where wo/man is given the vacuous place in the play of substitutions. Following Lacan, we attempt at an interpretation of the feminine condition.

El presente trabajo tiene como objetivo fundamental discutir críticamente algunas de la tesis principales del planteo hilpineano sobre los artefactos técnicos y establecer las limitaciones inherentes a su modelo de autoría. Con este propósito se reconstruyen, en primer término, los conceptos vertebradores de la posición de Hilpinen para luego indagar sus supuestos a través de un análisis de su aplicación al campo de producción contemporánea y al territorio de los bioartefactos. The principal aim of this paper is discuss Hilpinen's main (...) theses concerning technical artifacts and to indicate some limitations to his model of authorship. We first reconstruct the essential arguments of Hilpinen's perspective then we explore its assumptions through an analysis of its application to the realms of contemporary production and bio-artifacts. (shrink)

Some studies report that the sport context increases the risk of exposure to sexual violence for athletes. In contrast, others indicate a protective effect of sport participation against sexual violence, particularly among varsity athletes. Studies of sexual violence towards varsity athletes are limited by their failure to include control groups and various known risk factors such as age, graduate level, gender and sexual identity, disability status, international and Indigenous student status, and childhood sexual abuse. The purpose of the present study (...) is to fill in these gaps to determine whether varsity athletes are at greater risk than non-athletes of sexual violence towards them or whether, on the contrary, involvement in a varsity sport is coherent with the Sport Protection Hypothesis. Data for this article come from the ESSIMU study, a broad survey of students, professors, and other employees at six francophone universities regarding sexual violence on university campuses. A total of 6,485 students with complete data on sexual violence, athlete status, and gender were included in the study. From this total, 267 participants identified themselves as varsity athletes. Data were analyzed using a series of logistic regressions on each form of violence using athlete status as a predictor and characteristics associated with sexual violence victimization or distinguishing between varsity athletes and non-athletes as confounding variables. When considering all confounding variables in the regression analyses on four yearly incidence rates of sexual violence, the results revealed that being a varsity athlete did not significantly increase the risk of exposure to sexual violence at university. All considered other variables were more significant predictors of the past year’s risk of sexual violence victimization than athlete status was. (shrink)