Analogue Gravity Phenomenology is a collection of contributions that cover a vast range of areas in physics, ranging from surface wave propagation in fluids to nonlinear optics. The underlying common aspect of all these topics, and hence the main focus and perspective from which they are explained here, is the attempt to develop analogue models for gravitational systems. The original and main motivation of the field is the verification and study of Hawking radiation from a horizon: the enabling feature is (...) the possibility to generate horizons in the laboratory with a wide range of physical systems that involve a flow of one kind or another. The years around 2010 and onwards witnessed a sudden surge of experimental activity in this expanding field of research. However, building an expertise in analogue gravity requires the researcher to be equipped with a rather broad range of knowledge and interests. The aim of this book is to bring the reader up to date with the latest developments and provide the basic background required in order to appreciate the goals, difficulties and success stories in the field of analogue gravity. Each chapter of the book treats a different topic explained in detail by the major experts for each specific discipline. The first chapters give an overview of black hole spacetimes and Hawking radiation before moving on to describe the large variety of analogue spacetimes that have been proposed and are currently under investigation. This introductory part is then followed by an in-depth description of what are currently the three most promising analogue spacetime settings, namely surface waves in flowing fluids, acoustic oscillations in Bose-Einstein condensates and electromagnetic waves in nonlinear optics. Both theory and experimental endeavours are explained in detail. The final chapters refer to other aspects of analogue gravity beyond the study of Hawking radiation, such as Lorentz invariance violations and Brownian motion in curved spacetimes, before concluding with a return to the origins of the field and a description of the available observational evidence for horizons in astrophysical black holes. (shrink)

In an important contribution to educational policy, Daniele Checchi offers an economic perspective on the demand and supply of education. He explores the reasons why, beyond a certain point, investment in education has not resulted in reductions in social inequalities. Starting with the seminal work of Gary Becker, Checchi provides an extensive survey of the literature on human capital and social capital formation. He draws on individual data on intergenerational transmission of income and education for the USA, Germany and (...) Italy, as well as aggregate data on income and educational inequality for a much wider range of countries. Checchi explores whether resources spent in education are effective in raising students' achievement, as well as analysing alternative ways of financing education. The Economics of Education thus provides the analytical tools necessary to understand the complex relationships between current income inequality, access to education and future inequality. (shrink)

For the first time in print, this article reports passages from John Rawls’s graduate papers and annotations on books and manuscripts from his personal library. The analysis of this material shows the historical inaccuracy of the widespread assumption that Rawls’s philosophy owes very little to American pragmatism. Peirce’s notion of truth, as well as the holistic critique of pragmatism thatMortonWhite began in the late 1940s, prove significant at the very beginning of Rawls’s philosophical enterprise. In the light of this material, (...) it might be argued that Rawls’s elaboration of ‘reflective equilibrium’ started at least in part as an attempt to overcome the pending problems of pragmatism. (shrink)

Quel rapport est-il possible de tracer entre l'ethique et la politique? Michel Foucault, Pierre Hadot et Stanley Cavell, a partir de trois positions philosophiques tres differentes, ont elabore des strategies de reponse a cette question que le present ouvrage se propose de rendre explicites et d'explorer. Ainsi, l'esthetique de l'existence, les exercices spirituels et le perfectionnisme moral y sont combines afin de construire un arriere-plan conceptuel et pratique permettant de saisir a la fois les enjeux politiques d'une ethique de soi (...) et l'incontournable dimension ethique d'une politique de nous-memes. Cet ouvrage entend contribuer a l'elaboration d'une philosophie analytique de la politique dont le but est de rendre visibles l'existence et le fonctionnement concret du pouvoir dans ses ramifications quotidiennes; une telle entreprise se noue de facon etroite avec une analyse des techniques de l'ordinaire, c'est-a-dire de ces pratiques que les individus utilisent pour donner une forme a leur vie et pour transformer leur rapport a eux-memes, aux autres et au monde. (shrink)

La modernità incompiuta e l'ermeneutica dell'umano: sulla filosofia di Domenico Jervolino -- Sulla mortalità dell'essere morale: note su ontologia e diritto con Gabriel Marcel -- Matrimonio e "diritto naturale vignete" in Sergio Cotta -- La molteplicità degli ordinamenti giuridici nella riflessione di Giuseppe Capograssi -- Last not last.

Les pouvoirs de la littérature sont en déshérence. Enseignante et écrivaine, l'auteure ne se résigne pas à entériner cet échec. L'enseignement des lettres doit servir à former des hommes libres, des citoyens capables d'un jugement autonome. Ce livre est aussi une réflexion sur la figure du narrateur et sur la liberté du lecteur qui retraverse des situations où se trouve engagé son imaginaire.

Jean-Luc Nancy and the Thinking of Otherness is the first book in English to provide a sustained account of the relationship between Nancy, Levinas and Heidegger.

Persistent disagreements may induce parties in the disagreement to experience a strong state of anxiety. Such anxiety has a psychological nature in ordinary cases of disagreement (i.e., cases which do not impact on the doxastic identity of the opposing epistemic agents). On the contrary, the more the content of a disagreement concerns basic issues related to the non-negotiable views for the parties involved, the more anxiety turns out to be of an epistemic kind, and, accordingly, suggests a set of normative (...) consequences. I will outline the main differences between ordinary and doxastic-identity-related disagreements in terms of the nature of the anxiety they give rise. In light of this distinction, I will characterize religious disagreements as disagreements of the latter type, and I will provide a few insights for approaching them. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that the vindicatory/unmasking distinction has so far prevented scholars from grasping a third dimension of genealogical inquiry, one I call possibilising. This dimension has passed unnoticed even though it constitutes a crucial aspect of Foucault’s genealogical project starting from 1978 on. By focusing attention on it, I hope to provide a definitive rebuttal of one of the main criticisms that has been raised against genealogy in general, and Foucauldian genealogy in particular, namely the idea that (...) Foucault’s genealogical project lacks normative grounding and is therefore ultimately incapable of telling us why we should resist and fight against the mechanisms of power it nevertheless reveals in an empirically insightful way. This conclusion, I argue, is mistaken because it conceives of Foucauldian genealogy exclusively as an unmasking or problematising method, whereas I claim that Foucault’s genealogical project possesses a possibilising dimension that provides his work with sui generis normative force. (shrink)

The author pieces together a manuscript of Epitimia of Theodore the Stoudite and other chapters prescribing monastic rules to the hegumen and monks. The manuscript, dating back to the second half of the 12th century, was originally belonging to the famous dossier of the St. Nicola of Casole Abbey . The Salentine manuscript reports a shortened version of Epitimia adapted for the Otranto monastery.

This paper presents and discusses some recent interpretations of the form of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus. Borutti (2010) interprets the Tractatus as a sort of maze, where its propositions – far from leading to a single conclusion – represent different paths and (intersecting) ways of elucidating the essence of language and reality. Bazzocchi (2010), by contrast, describes the Tractatus as having a tree-like structure, its main propositions being the roots of the tree and the decimal ones branches and leaves, different levels of (...) comment on the main propositions. On the view advocated by Diamond and Conant (2010), the Tractatus has a ladder structure (where its propositions are rungs) through which it guides its reader to get rid of philosophical confusions. The paper finally briefly discusses how these readings deal with the question of Tractarian nonsense. (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)

Despite there are many university classes entitled “Psychology of art”, and a noticeable production of scientific literature accumulated over the years around psychological aspects concerning art, I argue here that psychology of art still does not exist as an independent subject of research. The main ways in which psychology addressed art are discussed, and the problems and limitations of such approaches are pointed out. An integrated approach to the foundation of psychology of art as an independent psychological science is sketched (...) out. The reasons why it should exist, what it should focus on, and how (the methods) research should be conducted are just announced, pending an appropriate discussion with those interested in a manifesto for an independent psychology of art. (shrink)

Normative powers like promising allow agents to effect changes to their reasons, permissions and rights by the means of communicative actions whose function is to effect just those changes. An attractive view of the normativity of such powers combines a non-reductive account of their bindingness with a value-based grounding story of why we have them. This value-based view of normative powers however invites a charge of wishful thinking: Is it not bad reasoning to think that we have a given power (...) because it would be good? In this article, I offer a defence of the value-based view of normative powers against this surprisingly under-discussed objection. First, I clarify the challenge by distinguishing between two components of normative powers, which I call the material and normative components, respectively. Secondly, I defend the form of normative explanation involved, showing that it is needed to give convincing value-based explanations for other important normative phenomena, especially rights of autonomy. (shrink)

On the classical understanding, an agent is fully excused for an action if and only if performing this action was a case of faultless wrongdoing. A major motivation for this view is the apparent existence of paradigmatic types of excusing considerations, affecting fault but not wrongness. I show that three such considerations, ignorance, duress and compulsion, can be shown to have direct bearing on the permissibility of actions. The appeal to distinctly identifiable excusing considerations thus does not stand up to (...) closer scrutiny, undermining the classical view and giving us reason to seek alternative ways of drawing the justification/excuse distinction. (shrink)

A groundbreaking examination of Michel Foucault's history of truth. Many blame Michel Foucault for our post-truth and conspiracy-laden society. In this provocative work, Daniele Lorenzini argues that such criticism fundamentally misunderstands the philosopher’s project. Foucault did not question truth itself but what Lorenzini calls “the force of truth,” or how some truth claims are given the power to govern our conduct while others are not. This interest, Lorenzini shows, drove Foucault to articulate a new ethics and politics of truth-telling (...) precisely in order to evade the threat of relativism. The Force of Truth explores this neglected dimension of Foucault’s project by putting his writings on regimes of truth and parrhesia in conversation with early analytic philosophy and by drawing out the “possibilizing” elements of Foucault’s genealogies that remain vital for practicing critique today. (shrink)

In a recent blog post, Joshua Clover rightly notices the swift emergence of a new panoply of “genres of the quarantine.”1 It should not come as a surprise that one of them centers on Michel Foucault’s notion of biopolitics, asking whether or not it is still appropriate to describe the situation that we are currently experiencing. Neither should it come as a surprise that, in virtually all of the contributions that make use of the concept of biopolitics to address the (...) current coronavirus pandemic, the same bunch of rather vague ideas are mentioned over and over again, while other—no doubt more interesting—Foucauldian insights tend to be ignored. In what follows, I discuss two of these insights, and I conclude with some methodological remarks on the issue of what it may mean to “respond” to the current “crisis.”. (shrink)

We study a fragment of Intuitionistic Linear Logic combined with non-normal modal operators. Focusing on the minimal modal logic, we provide a Gentzen-style sequent calculus as well as a semantics in terms of Kripke resource models. We show that the proof theory is sound and complete with respect to the class of minimal Kripke resource models. We also show that the sequent calculus allows cut elimination. We put the logical framework to use by instantiating it as a logic of agency. (...) In particular, we apply it to reason about the resource-sensitive use of artefacts. (shrink)

Danièle Henky | : L’hypotexte biblique, lorsqu’il est utilisé par les écrivains, notamment dans des ouvrages destinés à la jeunesse, est susceptible d’agir comme un ferment dans la pâte de l’écriture. Cet article se propose d’observer les effets de cette « fermentation » dans un certain nombre d’albums et de romans destinés à la jeunesse en limitant son analyse à l’un des passages de la Genèse auquel il est le plus souvent fait référence dans la littérature pour la jeunesse qu’il (...) s’agisse d’albums pour jeunes enfants ou de romans pour adolescents, celui du Déluge. | : The biblical hypotext, when used by writers, especially in works for the youth, is likely to act as “a ferment in the dough of writing”. This article aims to observe the effects of this “fermentation” in a number of books and novels for youth by limiting its analysis to one of the passages of Genesis to which it is most often referred in literature for young people, be it albums for young children or novels for teenagers, that of the Flood. (shrink)

The discussion on mathematical explanation has inherited the same sense of dissatisfaction that philosophers of science expressed, in the context of scientific explanation, towards the deductive-nomological model. This model is regarded as unable to cover cases of bona fide mathematical explanations and, furthermore, it is largely ignored in the relevant literature. Surprisingly, the reasons for this ostracism are not sufficiently manifest. In this paper I explore a possible extension of the model to the case of mathematical explanations and I claim (...) that there are at least two reasons to judge the deductive-nomological picture of explanation as inadequate in that context. (shrink)

In this paper I provide a definition of immaterialism as a kind of philosophy holding five grounding principles: a) any evidence is ontologically unsubsisting without the mind; b) all evidences are ontologically unrelated among them; c) the mind supports the subsistence of what is actually evident to her perceiving; d) the mind produces or acknoweldges an order in the coming of an evidence after the others; e) experience is the symbolic framing of relationships among given elements. After having defined immaterialism, (...) firstly, I offer some reasons for the claim that Berkeley's and Hume's philosophy are somewhat cognate (even if I believe that Hume is not a Berkeleian, but a different kind of immaterialist philosopher), and, secondly, I show that both Berkeley's and Hume's philosophy equally fit the definition of immaterialism. (shrink)