_Peirce’s Speculative Grammar: Logic as Semiotics _offers a comprehensive, philologically accurate, and exegetically ambitious developmental account of Peirce’s theory of speculative grammar. The book traces the evolution of Peirce’s grammatical writings from his early research on the classification of arguments in the 1860s up to the complex semiotic taxonomies elaborated in the first decade of the twentieth century. It will be of interest to academic specialists working on Peirce, the history of American philosophy and pragmatism, the philosophy of language, the (...) history of logic, and semiotics. (shrink)

Background Providing understandable information to patients is necessary to achieve the aims of the Informed Consent process: respecting and promoting patients’ autonomy and protecting patients from harm. In recent decades, new, primarily digital technologies have been used to apply and test innovative formats of Informed Consent. We conducted a systematic review to explore the impact of using digital tools for Informed Consent in both clinical research and in clinical practice. Understanding, satisfaction and participation were compared for digital tools versus the (...) non-digital Informed Consent process. Methods We searched for studies on available electronic databases, including Pubmed, EMBASE, and Cochrane. Studies were identified using specific Mesh-terms/keywords. We included studies, published from January 2012 to October 2020, that focused on the use of digital Informed Consent tools for clinical research, or clinical procedures. Digital interventions were defined as interventions that used multimedia or audio–video to provide information to patients. We classified the interventions into 3 different categories: video only, non-interactive multimedia, and interactive multimedia. Results Our search yielded 19,579 publications. After title and abstract screening 100 studies were retained for full-text analysis, of which 73 publications were included. Studies examined interactive multimedia, non-interactive multimedia, and videos, and most studies were conducted on adults. Innovations in consent were tested for clinical/surgical procedures and clinical research. For research IC, 21 outcomes were explored, with a positive effect on at least one of the studied outcomes being observed in 8/12 studies. For clinical/surgical procedures 49 outcomes were explored, and 21/26 studies reported a positive effect on at least one of the studied outcomes. Conclusions Digital technologies for informed consent were not found to negatively affect any of the outcomes, and overall, multimedia tools seem desirable. Multimedia tools indicated a higher impact than videos only. Presence of a researcher may potentially enhance efficacy of different outcomes in research IC processes. Studies were heterogeneous in design, making evaluation of impact challenging. Robust study design including standardization is needed to conclusively assess impact. (shrink)

In this paper, we take a meta-theoretical stance and aim to compare and assess two conceptual frameworks that endeavor to explain phenomenal experience. In particular, we compare Feinberg & Mallatt’s Neurobiological Naturalism (NN) and Tononi’s and colleagues' Integrated Information Theory (IIT), given that the former pointed out some similarities between the two theories (Feinberg & Mallatt 2016c-d). To probe their similarity, we first give a general introduction to both frameworks. Next, we expound a ground plan for carrying out our analysis. (...) We move on to articulate a philosophical profile of NN and IIT, addressing their ontological commitments and epistemological foundations. Finally, we compare the two point-by-point, also discussing how they stand on the issue of artificial consciousness. (shrink)

Typical presentism asserts that whatever exists is present. Moderate presentism more modestly claims that all events are present and thus acknowledges past and future times understood in a substantivalist sense, and past objects understood, following Williamson, as “ex-concrete.” It is argued that moderate presentism retains the most valuable features of typical presentism, while having considerable advantages in dealing with its most prominent difficulties.

According to a longstanding philosophical tradition dating back to Aristotle, certain proofs do not only certify the truth of their conclusion but also explain it. Lately, much effort is being devo...

Charles Sanders Peirce: Logic Charles Sanders Peirce was an accomplished scientist, philosopher, and mathematician, who considered himself primarily a logician. His contributions to the development of modern logic at the turn of the 20th century were colossal, original and influential. Formal, or deductive, logic was just one of the branches in which he exercized … Continue reading Peirce’s Logic →.

We propose a reconstruction of the constellation of problems and philosophical positions on the nature and number of the primitives of logic in four authors of the nineteenth century logical scene: Peano, Padoa, Frege and Peirce. We argue that the proposed reconstruction forces us to recognize that it is in at least four different senses that a notation can be said to be simpler than another, and we trace the origins of these four senses in the writings of these authors. (...) We conclude that Frege, and even more so Peirce, developed new notations not to make drawing logical conclusions easier but in order to answer the needs of logical analysis. (shrink)

The notion of grounding is usually conceived as an objective and explanatory relation. It connects two relata if one—the ground—determines or explains the other—the consequence. In the contemporary literature on grounding, much effort has been devoted to logically characterize the formal aspects of grounding, but a major hard problem remains: defining suitable grounding principles for universal and existential formulae. Indeed, several grounding principles for quantified formulae have been proposed, but all of them are exposed to paradoxes in some very natural (...) contexts of application. We introduce in this paper a first-order formal system that captures the notion of grounding and avoids the paradoxes in a novel and non-trivial way. The system we present formally develops Bolzano’s ideas on grounding by employing Hilbert’s ε-terms and an adapted version of Fine’s theory of arbitrary objects. (shrink)

[ita] L'articolo analizza la concezione di verità in Tommaso d'Aquino, di cui si sottolinea una sostanziale validità, a patto di integrarsi con la prospettiva più affettivo-esistenziale tipica della Patristica e di Blondel. [eng] The article analyzes the conception of truth in Tommaso d'Aquino, underlining a substantial validity of it, provided that it is completed with the most existential perspective typical of the Patristic and Blondel.

Unlike many neotomists, the evaluation of modernity in De Lubac is not totally negative. The value of the subject, as in Pico della Mirandola, is positive. The sense of justice, as in Proudhon, is positive. A new value of the material world is positive. The problem is not to absolutize these values, such as in Comte or in Marx or in Nietzsche.

In this paper, we offer a descriptive theory of analogical reasoning in mathematics, stating general conditions under which an analogy may provide genuine inductive support to a mathematical conjecture (over and above fulfilling the merely heuristic role of ‘suggesting’ a conjecture in the psychological sense). The proposed conditions generalize the criteria of Hesse in her influential work on analogical reasoning in the empirical sciences. By reference to several case studies, we argue that the account proposed in this paper does a (...) better job in vindicating the use of analogical inference in mathematics than the prominent alternative defended by Bartha. (shrink)

I provide an interpretation of Wittgenstein's much criticized remarks on Gödel's First Incompleteness Theorem in the light of paraconsistent arithmetics: in taking Gödel's proof as a paradoxical derivation, Wittgenstein was right, given his deliberate rejection of the standard distinction between theory and metatheory. The reasoning behind the proof of the truth of the Gödel sentence is then performed within the formal system itself, which turns out to be inconsistent. I show that the models of paraconsistent arithmetics (obtained via the Meyer-Mortensen (...) collapsing filter on the standard model) match with many intuitions underlying Wittgensteins philosophy of mathematics, such as its strict finitism and the insistence on the decidability of any meaningful mathematical question. (shrink)

Singular reference is the relation that a singular term has to a corresponding individual. For example, "Obama" singularly refer to the current US president. Descriptivism holds that all singular terms refer by means of a concept associated to the term. The current trend is against this. This book explains in detail why anti-descriptivism became dominant in spite of its weaknesses and how these weaknesses can be overcome by appropriately reviving descriptivism.

Naturalism is still facing a strong opposition in the philosophy of social science from influential scholars who argue that philosophical analysis must be autonomous from scientific investigation. The opposition exploits philosophers’ traditional diffidence toward social science and fuels the ambition to provide new foundations for social research. A classic anti-naturalist strategy is to identify a feature of social reality that prevents scientific explanation and prediction. An all-time favorite is the dependence of social phenomena on human representation. This article examines two (...) prominent versions of the dependence thesis and concludes that they both fail. Contemporary social science is capable of accounting for the causal dependence of social reality on representation, and there is no reason to believe that social entities are ontologically dependent on the collective acceptance of a constitutive rule. (shrink)

Standard defenses of ontological individualism are challenged by arguments that exploit the dependence of social facts on material facts—that is, facts that are not about human individuals. In this article, I discuss Brian Epstein’s “materialism” in The Ant Trap: granting Epstein’s strict definition of individualism, I show that his arguments depend crucially on a generous conception of social properties and social facts. Individualists, however, are only committed to the claim that projectible properties are individualistically realized, and materialists have not undermined (...) this claim. (shrink)

In this book we offer a theory of the self, whose core ideas are that the self is a process of self-representing, and this process aims mainly at defending the self-conscious subject against the threat of its metaphysical inconsistence. In other words, the self is essentially a repertoire of psychological manoeuvres whose outcome is a self-representation aimed at coping with the fundamental fragility of the human subject. Our picture of the self differs from both the idealist and the eliminative approaches (...) widely represented in contemporary discussion. Against the idealist approach, we deny that the self is something primitive and logically prior. Rather, we take it to be the result of a process of construction that starts with subpersonal unconscious processes. On the other hand, we also reject the anti-realistic, eliminative argument that, from the non-primary, derivative nature of the self, infers its status as an illusory by-product of real neurobiological events, devoid of any explanatory role. (shrink)

The essay confronts the classical forms of the government of social fears, elaborated in the course of modern and contemporary history, (in particular, national state and welfare systems)with the ongoing processes of economic and political globalization. The authors also discusses the question of the transformation of the subjective gaze, either individual and collective, regarding the historical time and in reference to the possible shift to a postmodern epoch.

Arguments from non-causal analogy form a distinctive class of analogical arguments in science not recognized in authoritative classifications by, e.g., Hesse and Bartha. In this paper, I illustrate this novel class of scientific analogies by means of historical examples from physics, biology and economics, at the same time emphasizing their broader significance for contemporary debates in epistemology.

Dynamic events such as a rolling ball moving from one place to another involve change and time intervals and thus presumably successions of static events occurring one after the other, e.g., the ball’s being at a certain place and then at another place during the interval in question. When dynamic events are experienced they should count as present and thus as existent from a presentist point of view. But this seems to imply the existence of the static events involved in (...) them. This in turn seems to imply that there exist past and perhaps even future static events. Therefore, there is a problem for presentism. A possible way out for the presentist is proposed, based on allowing for time-indexed past-oriented and future-oriented properties. One may raise objections regarding the ontological status of these properties and the commitment to past and future objects and times that they seem to bring with them, but these objections can be put to rest. (shrink)

1. Da Leibniz a Kant.--2. L'algebra della logica.

ABSTRACT The current analytical debate on time is full of attempts to adjudicate from a purely theoretical standpoint among competing temporal ontologies. Little attention has instead been devoted to the existential attitudes -- emotional or ethical -- that may lurk behind, or ensue from, the endorsement of one of them. Some interesting opinions have however been voiced regarding the two most prominent views in the arena, namely eternalism and presentism; it has been said that the former is nourished by a (...) fear of death, or more generally by a desire of preservation for whatever we find precious and valuable, and that the latter is fuelled by a propensity to reap whatever fruits the present brings, as enshrined in the carpe diem motto. This paper explores such a territory by focusing on the reality of past sentience, whether joyful or painful, and on the open future. The first part contrasts the reality of past sentience that comes with eternalism with the denial of this reality that follows from presentism, and argues that from an emotional, or perhaps even moral, standpoint the latter is preferable to the former. The second part clarifies why the eternalist must renounce the open future, whereas presentism is consistent with it, and considers how its rejection or acceptance, as the case may be, could be emotionally, or even morally, significant for our conception of ourselves as free agents. The conclusion offers a tentative proposal regarding which temporal ontology is superior from an existential perspective and some ruminations on the impact that all this may have on the theoretical side of the issue. (shrink)

Analyses, in the simplest form assertions that aim to capture an intimate link between two concepts, are viewed since Russell's theory of definite descriptions as analyzing descriptions. Analysis therefore has to obey the laws governing definitions including some form of a Substitutivity Principle (SP). Once (SP) is accepted the road to the paradox of analysis is open. Popular reactions to the paradox involve the fundamental assumption (SV) that sentences differing only in containing an analysandum resp. an analysans express the same (...) proposition, because analysandum and analysans are the same entity. Following suggestions of Gupta and Belnap it is argued that (SV) should be rejected. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that in several passages Plato sympathizes with the following view: sensible particulars undergo continuous, pervasive physical change; as a consequence, where there seems to be one and the same object which is identical through time, there is in fact a succession of impermanent objects numerically distinct from each other but similar to each other. I illustrate the difference between this view—which invites interesting comparisons with modern and contemporary theories—and other, superficially similar views which Plato criticizes. (...) I also suggest that this view might contribute to explaining Plato’s contention that sensible particulars lack being and are confined to coming to be. Finally, I show that my interpretation was well attested in antiquity; and I put forward the hypothesis that part of the aim of certain Aristotelian claims about substance might be to correct Plato in this respect. (shrink)

There have been attempts to derive anti-haeccetistic conclusions from the fact that quantum mechanics (QM) appeals to non-standard statistics. Since in fact QM acknowledges two kinds of such statistics, Bose-Einstein and Fermi-Dirac, I argue that we could in the same vein derive the sharper anti-haeccetistic conclusion that bosons are bundles of tropes and fermions are bundles of universals. Moreover, since standard statistics is still appropriate at the macrolevel, we could also venture to say that no anti-haecceitistic conclusion is warranted for (...) ordinary objects, which could then tentatively be identified with substrates. In contrast to this, however, there has been so far no acknowledgement of the possibility of inclusivism, according to which ontological accounts of particulars as widely different as those can possibly coexist in one world picture. The success of the different statistics in physics at least calls for a revision in this respect. (shrink)

This paper embeds a theory of proper names in a general approach to singular reference based on type‐free property theory. It is proposed that a proper name “N” is a sortal common noun whose meaning is essentially tied to the linguistic type “N”. Moreover, “N” can be singularly referring insofar as it is elliptical for a definite description of the form the “N” Following Montague, the meaning of a definite description is taken to be a property of properties. The proposed (...) theory fulfils the major desiderata stemming from Kripke's works on proper names. (shrink)

In “Toward an Ethic of Discussion,” Jacques Derrida returns to the controversy with Jonathan Searle to clarify his position but above all because he “would have wished to make legible the (philosophical, ethical, political) axiomatics hidden beneath the code of academic discussion.” I intend, in turn, to return to this text in order to find in it not only the conditions of an ethics of academic discussion but also of interpretation in a deconstructive perspective. In “Toward an Ethic of Discussion,” (...) in fact, it is possible to point out the necessity of a certain ethical treatment of the texts. In particular, how can we determine the conditions of an ethical use of quotation against the always possible manipulation of the text that quotation makes possible? I attempt to answer this question claiming that the reading protocol of deconstruction meets these conditions showing us at the same time the ethical conditions of scientific discourse in general, beyond any scientific claim of objectivity. (shrink)