This volume presents two Leibnizian writings, the Specimen of Philosophical Questions Collected from the Law and the Dissertation on Perplexing Cases. These works, originally published in 1664 and 1666, constitute, respectively, Leibniz's thesis for the title of Master of Philosophy and his doctoral dissertation in law. Besides providing evidence of the earliest development of Leibniz's thought and amazing anticipations of his mature views, they present a genuine intellectual interest, for the freshness and originality of Leibniz's reflections on a striking variety (...) of logico-philosophical puzzles drawn from the law. The Specimen addresses puzzling issues resulting from apparent conflicts between law and philosophy (the latter broadly understood as comprising also mathematics, as well as empirical sciences). The Dissertation addresses cases whose solution is puzzling because of the convoluted logical form of legal dispositions and contractual clauses, or because of conflicting priorities between concurring parties. In each case, Leibniz dissects the problems with the greatest ingenuity, disentangling their different aspects, and proposing solutions always reasonable and sometimes surprising. And he does not refrain from peppering his intellectual acrobatics with some humorous comments. bbbbbb. (shrink)

Proprio perché fuori moda è bene occuparsi di Kelsen – è questa la convinzione sottesa ai contributi qui pubblicati di Bernardo Sordi, Sara Lagi e Carlos M. Herrera. E proprio per fare emergere l’eccentricità di Kelsen rispetto al mainstream giusfilosofico contemporaneo e, quindi, proprio per questo motivo, la sua perdurante attualità, gli autori hanno trattato del suo pensiero a partire da un’angolatura diversa da quella consueta – una prospettiva “al di là della purezza”.

In everyday reasoning - just as in science and art - knowledge is acquired more by "doing" than with long analyses. What do we "do" when we discover something new? How can we define and explore the pattern of this reasoning, traditionally called "synthetic"? Following in the steps of classic pragmatists, especially C.S. Pierce, Giovanni Maddalena's Philosophy of Gesture revolutionizes the pattern of synthesis through the ideas of change and continuity and proposes "gesture" as a new tool for synthesis. (...) Defining gesture as an action with a beginning and an end that carries on a meaning, Maddalena explains that it is a dense blending of all kinds of phenomena - feelings and vague ideas, actual actions, habits of actions - and of signs - icons, indexes, and symbols. When the blending of phenomena and signs is densest, the gesture is "complete," and its power of introducing something new in knowledge is at its highest level. Examples of complete gestures are religious liturgies, public and private rites, public and private actions that establish an identity, artistic performances, and hypothesizing experiments. A departure from a traditional Kantian framework for understanding the nature and function of reason, The Philosophy of Gesture proposes an approach that is more attuned with our ordinary way of reasoning and of apprehending new knowledge. (shrink)

Though there are many challenges to Ekman’s thesis that there are basic emotions with universal corresponding facial expressions, our main criticism revolves around the extent to which grounding situations alter how people read faces. To that end, we recruit testifying experimental studies that show identical faces expressing varying emotions when contextualized differently. Rather than dismissing these as illusions, we start with the position—generally favored by embodied thinkers—that situations are primary: they are where specifiable and hence knowable properties first show up. (...) We further argue that situationally inflected emotional expressions are informationally meaningful. We reject the idea that reading expressions is primarily about ascertaining internal mental states, arguing instead that people are registering overall situations when looking at faces. However, if mind is understood as a situated phenomenon that extends into active ecological frames, then one can still argue that mindreading is going on. Although we do not claim isolated things like cliffs or cars have agency, we speculate networked systems with cliffs, people, cars, bears, etc., collectively function with intentionality, more so if advancing a robust situated mind thesis, contra figures like Dennett who argue that people over-impute mind to things. Our position has practical implications insofar as it casts doubts on recent attempts to develop AI systems that extract emotional intent out of facial expressions since many of these systems are grounded on Ekman’s basic view. (shrink)

This article makes a positive case for an ethnographic sensibility in political theory. Drawing on published ethnographies and original fieldwork, it argues that an ethnographic sensibility can contribute to normative reflection in five distinct ways. It can help uncover the nature of situated normative demands (epistemic argument); diagnose obstacles encountered when responding to these demands (diagnostic argument); evaluate practices and institutions against a given set of values (evaluative argument); probe, question and refine our understanding of values (valuational argument); and uncover (...) underlying social ontologies (ontological argument). The contribution of ethnography to normative theory is distinguished from that of other forms of empirical research, and the dangers of perspectival absorption, bias and particularism are addressed. (shrink)

This paper offers a conceptual framework which (re)integrates goal-directed control, motivational processes, and executive functions, and suggests a developmentalpathway from situated action to higher level cognition. We first illustrate a basic computational (control-theoretic) model of goal-directed action that makes use of internalmodeling. We then show that by adding the problem of selection among multiple actionalternatives motivation enters the scene, and that the basic mechanisms of executivefunctions such as inhibition, the monitoring of progresses, and working memory, arerequired for this system to (...) work. Further, we elaborate on the idea that the off-line re-enactment of anticipatory mechanisms used for action control gives rise to (embodied)mental simulations, and propose that thinking consists essentially in controlling mental simulations rather than directly controlling behavior and perceptions. We concludeby sketching an evolutionary perspective of this process, proposing that anticipationleveraged cognition, and by highlighting specific predictions of our model. (shrink)

The Decameron was written in the wake of the Black Death, a shattering epidemic which had shaken Florence's confident entrepreneurial society to its core. In a country villa outside the city, ten young noble men and women who have escaped the plague decide to tell each other stories. Boccaccio's skill as a dramatist is masterfully displayed in this virtuoso performance of one hundred tales, vivid portraits of people from all stations in life, with plots which revel in a bewildering variety (...) of human reactions. Themes are playfully restated from one story to another within an elegant and refined framework. One of Chaucer's most fruitful sources for the Canterbury Tales, Boccaccio's work artfully combines the essential ingredients of narrative: fate and desire, crises and quick-thinking. This new translation by Guido Waldman captures the exuberance and variety and tone of Boccaccio's masterpiece. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more. (shrink)

The theologians of the late German Enlightenment saw in Kant's Critique of Pure Reason a new rational defence of their Christian faith. In fact, Kant's critical theory of meaning and moral law totally subverted the spirit of that faith. This challenging new study examines the contribution made by the Critique of Pure Reason to this change of meaning. George di Giovanni stresses the revolutionary character of Kant's critical thought but also reveals how this thought was being held hostage to (...) unwarranted metaphysical assumptions that caused much confusion and rendered the First Critique vulnerable to being reabsorbed into modes of thought typical of Enlightenment popular philosophy. Amongst the striking features of this book are nuanced interpretations of Jacobi and Reinhold, a lucid exposition of Fichte's early thought, and a rare, detailed account of Enlightenment popular philosophy. (shrink)

-- v. 5. V. słownik, indeksy i bibliografia.

This paper goes over Derridian thought through a topological study of his work. Thus, we take as a main point the relation between space, understood as spacement, and place as remains in order to describe the movement of Derridian thought. This leads to study the role of khôra in Derrida’s work, finding out thus its similarity with other capital notions as “différance” or “trace”. Thus, Derridian Topology is build up by spectrality and therefore it ends in a topology of the (...) impossible, in a topology of what has no place, that is to say, in a topology of the aporia. (shrink)

El término "expresividad poética" se refiere a las múltiples articulaciones del plano de la expresión, derivadas del valor expresivo del signo lingüístico (ROSSET 1970: 135) y de su particular papel en los dominios poéticos. Los rasgos de significado (como proyección, elevación y relieve) permiten considerar expresivos todos los enunciados poéticos que constituyen un momento particularmente denso en la consolidación formal de la convergencia entre los dos planos (expresión/contenido); por eso se destacan de los otros por su alta densidad de paralelismos (...) estructurales y de isomorfismos, procedimientos responsables de que uno tenga la impresión de que una forma particular de contenido sólo puede ser manifestada por el recorte determinado de una expresión específica. Estas consideraciones tienen un impacto inmediato en la lectura, interpretación y práctica de traducción de poemas, lo que se pretende aquí demostrar, a través del ejemplo de traducción de una fábula de Fedro, escrita en metro yámbico. The term "poetic expressiveness" refers to the multiple joints of the plan of expression, derived from the expressive value of the linguistic sign (ROSSET: 1970, 135) and its particular role in the field of poetry. The features of meaning, such as projection, elevation and salience, make it possible to consider expressive all poetic statements which constitute particularly dense instances in the formal consolidation of a convergence between the two planes (expression/content), and therefore it stands out from the others due to the high density of structural parallelisms and isomorphisms, which are procedures responsible for the impression that a particular form of content can only be expressed by cutting that same specific form of expression out. These considerations have an immediate impact on the reading, interpretation and practice of translating poems, which is intended to be demonstrated here, through an example of translation of a Phaedrus' fable, written in iambic meter. (shrink)

Ce texte est le chapitre II de l'ouvrage de G. Gasparini, Tempi e ritmi nella società del Duemila, FrancoAngeli, Milano, 2009. Nous remercions Giovanni Gasparini et les éditions FrancoAngeli de nous avoir autorisé à le reproduire ici. La cultura temporale La velocità è uno dei tratti-chiave e degli aspetti più caratteristici e pervasivi delle società industrializzate. In qualunque modo si vogliano definire tali società, la velocità di svolgimento raggiunta nelle operazioni, negli spostamenti e (...) - Sociologie – Nouvel article.

How many citizens take part in moral and political decisions concerning the results obtained by the contemporary life sciences? Should they blindly follow skilled demagogues or false and deceptive leaders? Should they adhere to the voice of the majority, or should they take a different decisional path? Deliberative democracy answers these questions, but what is deliberative democracy? Can we really deliberate if we are completely ignorant of the relevant issue? What about ethical or political expertise, is it strictly necessary? Finally, (...) and most significantly, can a deliberative process take place if we ignore the techniques governing it; that is, the techniques required to be minimally skilled in rational argumentation? Giovanni Boniolo goes back to the historical and theoretical foundations of deliberation showing us, with some irony, that deliberation is a matter of competence, and not just a matter of a right to decide. His conclusion might not delight everyone: “anyone who is not sufficiently acquainted with the subject matter or lacks the sufficient deliberative competence ought not be admitted to deliberative discussions. This restriction makes both good deliberation and a proper deliberative democracy possible, otherwise debate degenerates into demagogy and hypocrisy”. (shrink)

Scientific understanding in the field of cognitive sciences is a multifaceted concept that necessitates reflecting on the integration of various explanations. In this paper, I argue that different kinds of explanations regarding cognitive sciences can be integrated into an account of explanatory scientific understanding, as proposed by Khalifa. Moreover, I propose that scientific understanding should be distinct from mere knowledge and should be conceptualized as a nexus of explanation. This paper explores the theoretical foundations of scientific understanding, discusses different types (...) of explanations in cognitive sciences, criticises a reduction problem in Khalifa’s account and elucidates how these explanations can be effectively integrated to foster a holistic understanding of cognitive phenomena. Through an interdisciplinary approach, the aim of this paper is to enrich our comprehension of cognitive sciences and promote a more unified perspective on scientific understanding. (shrink)