Name der Zeitschrift: Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie Jahrgang: 97 Heft: 4 Seiten: 397-415.

According to Jean-Luc Nancy the essential condition for the existence of sense is the 'otherness' of our being-together. For John Cassavetes being-together makes sense only there where it escapes sense. It will be shown that in fact that both propositions derive from a qualitative distance at the heart of our being-together. This qualitative distance triggers the circulation of sense and leaves sense always open. It is in this way that being-together responds of sense absolutely (responding to its content – the (...) acquired meanings – and its structure – sense’s referentiality) by foreclosing any absolute sense, maintaining itself as it were as the moving horizon of sense. (shrink)

Fondée en 1984, portée par l'affirmation de la nécessité de faire une « histoire du temps présent » démarquée de la science politique et de la sociologie, Vingtième siècle. Revue d'histoire se voulait « une revue du contemporain », généraliste, dont les questions du présent justifieraient les choix rédactionnels. Ses créateurs affirmaient ainsi leur croyance dans l'efficacité du regard historique pour déchiffrer les faits de leur temps. Or, la « question des femmes », celle de leur place et d...

Cosmopolitics, the concept of a world politics based on shared democratic values, is in an increasingly fragile state.

In this paper, we present a number of problems for intellectualism about knowledge-how, and in particular for the version of the view developed by Stanley & Williamson 2001. Their argument draws on the alleged uniformity of 'know how'-and 'know wh'-ascriptions. We offer a series of considerations to the effect that this assimilation is problematic. Firstly, in contrast to 'know wh'-ascriptions, 'know how'-ascriptions with known negative answers are false. Secondly, knowledge-how obeys closure principles whose counterparts fail for knowledge-wh and knowledge-that. Thirdly, (...) as opposed to knowledge-wh and knowledge-that, knowledge-how is inferentially isolated from further knowledge-that. We close by providing some evidence against the further reduction of knowledge-wh to knowledge-that, which is presupposed by the intellectualist theory under discussion. (shrink)

We can distinguish between two different ways in which mathematics is applied in science: when mathematics is introduced and developed in the context of a particular scientific application; when mathematics is used in the context of a particular scientific application but it has been developed independently from that application. Nevertheless, there might also exist intermediate cases in which mathematics is developed independently from an application but it is nonetheless introduced in the context of that particular application. In this paper I (...) present a case study, that of the Lagrange multipliers, which concerns such type of intermediate application. I offer a reconstruction of how Lagrange developed the method of multipliers and I argue that the philosophical significance of this case-study analysis is twofold. In the context of the applicability debate, my historically-driven considerations pull towards the reasonable effectiveness of mathematics in science. Secondly, I maintain that the practice of applying the same mathematical result in different scientific settings can be regarded as a form of crosschecking that contributes to the objectivity of a mathematical result. (shrink)

Le ton préremptoire de Nietzsche lorsqu'il condescend à parler d'autres penseurs et le style provocateur dans lequel il mesure son propre génie ont rendu ses critiques timides; on le menage comme s'il allait se lever pour écraser son interlocuteur sous les invectives. Tout en assurant qu'il est inimitable et n'a point fait école, ses grands commentateurs se veulent d'abord ses disciples. Us entretiennent un nuage de sacralité autour de textes dont il devient difficile d'aborder l'analyse. Nietzsche a le droit de (...) se contredire, de se tromper sur l'étymologie, d'ignorer la recherche historique érudite de son temps, de ne jamais citer dans le texte les auteurs qu'il attaque, de malmener telle ou telle théorie scientifique: sa hauteur de vue sauve tout. Mais à quel titre les ceuvres de Nietzsche pourraient-elles sérieusement échapper à un regard rigoureux, visant un objet linguistique precis, daté et done assignable dans une tradition? Suffit-il que Nietzsche ait renié d'avance toute interprétation et souhaité de rester incompris? Cela ne paraît ni nécessaire, ni suffisant. (shrink)

The purpose of the present paper is to clarify the different ways in which the young Max Horkheimer received Schopenhauer’s philosophy in his early writings Aus der Pubertät. The text analysis reveals that the young Horkheimer adopted during the 1914-1916 period a romantic perspective and a more illuministic one in the 1917-1918 period. This paper specifically focuses on a novel from the first period, Eva, from which it appears that Horkheimer subscribed to Schopenhauer’s doctrine of the aesthetical genius in an (...) original way. (shrink)

In this paper I develop an account of petitio principii (the fallacy sometimes also called ‘vicious circularity’, or ‘begging the question’) which has two crucial features: it employs the notion of doxastic justification, and it takes circularity to be relative to an evidential state. According to my account, an argument will be circular relative to an evidential state if and only if having doxastic justification for the conclusion is necessary, for a subject in that evidential state, to have doxastic justification (...) for the premisses. I compare the account to some existing ones, and claim some advantages. I then rebut an objection which threatens to undermine the importance of one of those advantages. This account seems to shed new light on the old problem of characterizing petitio principii. It avoids the two obvious problems which any account of this phenomenon must face: being too narrow, for example by leaving out all arguments in which the conclusion does not appear among the premisses, and being too wide, making all valid arguments circular. (shrink)

Daniele Botti argues that John Rawls’s philosophy is importantly connected with classical American pragmatism and that Rawls’s intellectual trajectory did not take a “pragmatic turn” in the 1980s but possibly an “un-pragmatic” one. Both claims go against conventional wisdom, and Botti corroborates them with archival research.

This essay focuses on Mario Ageno (1915–1992), initially director of the physics laboratory of the Italian National Institute of Health and later professor of biophysics at Sapienza University of Rome. A physicist by training, Ageno became interested in explaining the special characteristics of living organisms origin of life by means of quantum mechanics after reading a book by Schrödinger, who argued that quantum mechanics was consistent with life but that new physical principles must be found. Ageno turned Schrödinger’s view into (...) a long-term research project. He aimed to translate Schrödinger’s ideas into an experimental programme by building a physical model for at least a very simple living organism. The model should explain the transition from the non-living to the living. His research, however, did not lead to the expected results, and in the 1980s and the 1990s he focused on its epistemological aspect, thinking over the tension between the lawlike structure of physics and the historical nature of biology. His reflections led him to focus on the nature of the theory of evolution and its broader scientific meaning. (shrink)

In this paper I take the opportunity of the recent publication of Pieranna Garavaso’s and Nicla Vassallo’s Frege on Thinking and Its Epistemic Significance (with whose main tenets this paper is in constant dialogue) to provide an overview of some important components of Frege’s conception of logic. Section 1 discusses Frege’s view that the task of logic is to provide justification for what we think, and in sections 2 and 3 this idea is shown to play a central role in (...) his anti-psychologistic view that logic is normative for thinking. Section 4 offers a survey of Frege’s manifold conception of thinking. Finally, section 5 discusses the rela-tions between thinking and language in Frege’s philosophy. (shrink)

In this paper I will attempt to show that there are some essential connections between essence and knowledge, and to clarify their nature. I start by showing how the standard Finean counterexamples to a purely modal conception of essence suggest that, among necessary properties, those that are counted as essential have a strong epistemic value. I will then propose a “modal-epistemic” account of essence that takes the essential properties of an object to be precisely the sub-set of its necessary properties (...) that constitute a significant source of knowledge about it. I will then argue that this view is supported by an inference to the best explanation that starts from some uncontroversial, although sometimes neglected, epistemic roles essences should play. -/- . (shrink)

The paper aims to offer an account of the cognitive capacities involved in judgements about thought experiments, without appealing to the notions of analyticity or intuition. I suggest that we employ a competence in the application of the relevant concepts. In order to address the worry that this suggestion is not explanatory, I look at some theories of concepts discussed in psychology, and I use them to illustrate how such competence might be realized. This requires, crucially, distinguishing between concepts and (...) ways of applying concepts, or conceptions. I end by considering a possible objection and comparing my account with a similar one defended by David Papineau. (shrink)

Lowe claims that having knowledge of the essence of an object is a precondition for thinking about it. Lowe supports this claim with roughly the following argument: you cannot think about something unless you know what you are thinking about; and to know what it is that you are thinking about just is to know its essence. I will argue that this line of reasoning fails because of an equivocation in the expression ‘what a thing is’, which can be used (...) to indicate the essence of the thing but also, more commonly, some description of that thing which is useful in the context to identify it. I will then consider some possible variations of the argument, both in its premises and in its conclusion, and I will argue that they either fail to produce a sound argument or they weaken the conclusion too much to preserve the philosophical interest of the result. (shrink)

This paper explores the intertwining of uncertainty and values. We consider an important but underexplored field of fundamental uncertainty and values in decision-making. Some proposed methodologies to deal with fundamental uncertainty have included potential surprise theory, scenario planning and hypothetical retrospection. We focus on the principle of uncertainty transduction in hypothetical retrospection as an illustrative case of how values interact with fundamental uncertainty. We show that while uncertainty transduction appears intuitive in decision contexts it nevertheless fails in important ranges of (...) strategic game-theoretic cases. The methodological reasons behind the failure are then examined. (shrink)

This article focuses on the ethno-biological expedition to the Amazon headed by Ettore Biocca between November 1962 and July 1963. Biocca, a parasitologist by training, assembled a multidisciplinary team to carry out an ethno-biological study of Amazon natives. The expedition work covered the natives' customs, myths, chants, diseases and the hallucinogenic compounds and curare they used, and took into account plants and animals common to the Amazon environment. This article aims to contribute to the understanding of the 20th-century Western approach (...) to the Amazon people and its cultural importance. It sets out to show how Biocca's encyclopaedic work related to the centrality of Amazonia and its peoples in scientific and cultural debates on modernity and Western culture in the 1960s, and how it connects to Cold War anxieties about the disappearance of ‘uncorrupted’ peoples. (shrink)

L’œuvre de Bruno Goosse Classement diagonal exemplifie la tendance qui consiste, pour certains artistes contemporains, à entreprendre des enquêtes proches des recherches menées en sciences humaines, et particulièrement en histoire. Au travers d’une démarche spécifique, Classement diagonal questionne les processus de valorisation, de conservation et de patrimonialisation diversifiés qui ont affecté le champ de bataille de Waterloo, depuis 1815. L’exploration minutieuse conduite par Bruno Goosse pendant près de trois années a autorisé trois formes de présentation – une installation, un livre, (...) une conférence – qui, chacune à leur manière et non sans humour, font progresser la réflexion sur les mécanismes et les enjeux de la patrimonialisation, comme sur le régime d’historicité qui est celui de notre époque. L’artiste belge, s’il s’attelle à une étude historique, ne le fait pas en savant, affublé d’une autorité institutionnelle ou d’une accréditation universitaire, mais en amateur. Cette situation inconfortable lui permet d’interroger les idées reçues quant aux délimitations des arts et de la science, de la raison et de l’imagination, de la forme et du fond…. (shrink)

The concept of "cultural identity" has gradually replaced such discredited concepts as "race", "ethnicity", even "nationality" in the conservative political discourse of recent decades which conceives, represents and performs culture as a closed system with clear-cut boundaries which must be defended from contamination.The article employs the theories of Derrida and Lotman as useful tools for deconstructing this understanding of cultural identity, which has recently become an ideological justification for socio-political conflicts. In fact, their theories spring from a thorough critique of (...) the kind of internalizing self-enclosure which allowed Saussure to delimit and describe langue as the object of linguistics. The article identifies and compares the elements of this critique, focusing on Derrida's and Lotman's concepts of "mirror structure", "binarism", "numerousness", "textuality" and "semiosphere". An understanding of mediation emerges which is not reducible to any kind of definitive acquisition, thereby frustrating the pretences of identity, constantly dislocating and deferring any attempt at semiotic self-enclosure. My comparison suggests that Lotman's "translation of the untranslatable" and Derrida's différance can be considered analogous descriptions of this problematic kind of mediation. The constructive nature of culture, as described by Lotman and Derrida, challenges any attempt to view cultural formations as sources of rigid and irreducible identities or differences. (shrink)

Among the various experiments in ‘new governance’, the model of Responsible Research and Innovation is emerging in the European landscape as quite promising. Up to now, there have been two versions of RRI: a socio-empirical version which tends to underline the role of democratic processes aimed at identifying values on which governance needs to be anchored and a normative version which stresses the role of EU goals as ‘normative anchor points’ of both governance strategies and policy making. Both versions are (...) unsatisfactory. The first since it suggests movable anchorage which could clash with prefixed values, such as individual rights. The second since it does not safeguard fundamental rights in the process of balancing ‘anchor points’. This result is counterintuitive because it exposes governance to the risk of facing adverse court decisions in the defense of individual rights, thus losing its anticipative attitude. In order to avoid this outcome, the paper argues that it is only through better integration between the system of human rights and that of EU fundamental rights that the anticipative feature of RRI can be preserved. (shrink)

This erratum is to correct in the paper of Daniele Chiffi and Ahti-Veikko Pietarinen, On the Logical Philosophy of Assertive Graphs.

Les Parisiennes du XIIIe siècle ont mauvaise réputation. Non contentes de mal se tenir à table, elles se gavent et s’enivrent, parlent des vins en professionnelles de l’œnologie, suggérant une longue expérience de beuveries, et, surtout, se passent des hommes pour festoyer. Exclus de la convivialité féminine, ceux-ci se vengent en vers : c’est l’objet d’un poème comique, un fabliau, qui leur promet un sort funeste : le coma éthylique des trois dames de Paris les fait enterrer vives au cimetière (...) des Innocents! Encore une leçon de morale, sous couvert d’en rire, aux femmes qui ne veulent pas se contenir…. (shrink)