I discuss Edouard Machery’s claim that philosophers and psychologists when using the term ‘concept’ are really theorizing about different things. This view is not new, but it has never been developed or defended in detail. Once spelled out, we can see that Machery is right that the psychological literature uses a different notion of concept. However, Machery fails to acknowledge that the two notions are not only compatible but complementary. This fits more with the traditional view according to which philosophers (...) and psychologists are merely interested in different aspects of the same kind. The main aim of this paper is then to show how precisely the two notions of ‘concept’ relate. Distinguishing them resolves the long-standing debate on whether concepts can be prototypes and allows me to formulate success conditions of a theory of categorization that are independent of the success conditions of a theory of concepts. (shrink)

In der analytischen Handlungstheorie streiten seit einigen Jahren Kausalisten und Teleologen über die angemessene Erklärung menschlichen Handelns aus Gründen. Mit Fokus auf das Problem abweichender Kausalketten zielt der Beitrag auf eine reflektierte Einschätzung des Stands dieses Disputs sowie der Vorzüge und Defizite der involvierten Ansätze und konstatiert ein Patt. Während Kausalisten ein kausaltheoretischer Begriff der Abweichung fehlt, ringen Teleologen mit der Abwägung kontrafaktischer Situationen.

In a recently published study combining transcranial magnetic stimulation and electroencephalography (TMS-EEG), an early component of TMS-evoked potentials (TEPs), i.e., M1-P15, was proposed as a measure of transcallosal inhibition between motor cortices. Given that early TEPs are known to be highly variable, further evidence is needed before M1-P15 can be considered a reliable index of effective connectivity. Here, we conceived a new preregistered TMS-EEG study with two aims. The first aim was validating the M1-P15 as a cortical index of transcallosal (...) inhibition by replicating previous findings on its relationship with the ipsilateral silent period (iSP) and with performance in bimanual coordination. The second aim was inducing a task-dependent modulation of transcallosal inhibition. A new sample of 32 healthy right-handed participants underwent behavioral motor tasks and TMS-EEG recording, in which left and right M1 were stimulated both during bimanual tasks and during an iSP paradigm. Hypotheses and methods were preregistered before data collection. Results show a replication of our previous findings on the positive relationship between M1-P15 amplitude and the iSP normalized area. Differently, the relationship between M1-P15 latency and bimanual coordination was not confirmed. Finally, M1-P15 amplitude was modulated by the characteristics of the bimanual task the participants were performing, and not by the contralateral hand activity during the iSP paradigm. In sum, the present results corroborate our previous findings in validating the M1-P15 as a cortical marker of transcallosal inhibition and provide novel evidence of its task-dependent modulation. Importantly, we demonstrate the feasibility of preregistration in the TMS-EEG field to increase methodological rigor and transparency. (shrink)

Modal knowledge accounts like sensitivity or safety face a problem when it comes to knowing propositions that are necessarily true because the modal condition is always fulfilled no matter how random the belief forming method is. Pritchard models the anti-luck condition for knowledge in terms of the modal principle safety. Thus, his anti-luck epistemology faces the same problem when it comes to logical necessities. Any belief in a proposition that is necessarily true fulfills the anti-luck condition and, therefore, qualifies as (...) knowledge. Miščević shares Pritchard’s take on epistemic luck and acknowledges the resulting problem. In his intriguing article “Armchair Luck: Apriority, Intellection and Epistemic Luck” Miščević suggests solving the problem by supplementing safety with a virtue theoretic condition-“agent stability”-which he also spells out in modal terms. I will argue that Miščević is on the right track when he suggests adding a virtue-theoretic component to the safety condition. However, it should not be specified modally but rather in terms of performances that manifest competences. (shrink)

In this paper, I defend the heterogeneity problem for sensitivity accounts of knowledge against an objection that has been recently proposed by Wallbridge in Philosophia. I argue in, 479–496, 2015) that sensitivity accounts of knowledge face a heterogeneity problem when it comes to higher-level knowledge about the truth of one’s own beliefs. Beliefs in weaker higher-level propositions are insensitive, but beliefs in stronger higher-level propositions are sensitive. The resulting picture that we can know the stronger propositions without being in a (...) position to know the weaker propositions is too heterogeneous to be plausible. Wallbridge objects that there is no heterogeneity problem because beliefs in the weaker higher-level propositions are also sensitive. I argue against Wallbridge that the heterogeneity problem is not solved but only displaced. Only some beliefs in the weaker higher-level propositions are sensitive. I conclude that the heterogeneity problem is one of a family of instability problems that sensitivity accounts of knowledge face and that Wallbridge’s account raises a further problem of this kind. (shrink)

Hassin recently proposed the “Yes It Can” (YIC) principle to describe the division of labor between conscious and unconscious processes in human cognition. According to this principle, unconscious processes can carry out every fundamental high-level cognitive function that conscious processes can perform. In our commentary, we argue that the author presents an overly idealized review of the literature in support of the YIC principle. Furthermore, we point out that the dissimilar trends observed in social and cognitive psychology, with respect to (...) published evidence of strong unconscious effects, can better be explained by the way how awareness is defined and measured in both research fields. Finally, we show that the experimental paradigm chosen by Hassin to rule out remaining objections against the YIC principle is unsuited to verify the new default notion that all high-level cognitive functions can unfold unconsciously. (shrink)

Invariantists argue that the notion of concept in psychology should be reserved for knowledge that is retrieved in a context-insensitive manner. Contextualists argue that concepts are to be understood in terms of context-sensitive ad hoc constructions. I review the central empirical evidence for and against both views and show that their conclusions are based on a common mischaracterization of both theories. When the difference between contextualism and invariantism is properly understood, it becomes apparent that the way the question of stability (...) is currently investigated will not lead to a consensus. Instead of focusing directly on stability, we should turn our attention to other desiderata on a theory of concepts. In particular, I show that invariantism, but not contextualism, fails to account for compositionality and abstract concepts. (shrink)

Um mistério revelado, entre magia, alquimia e filosofia.

It is a commonly held view in contemporary epistemology that for having knowledge it is necessary to have an appropriately based belief, although numerous different views exist about when a belief’s base is appropriate. Broadly speaking, they all share the view that one can only have knowledge if the belief’s base is in some sense truth-related or tracking the truth. Baseless knowledge can then be defi ned as knowledge where the belief is acquired and sustained in a way that does (...) not track the truth. I will argue that rejecting baseless knowledge leads to controversial consequences. The problem increases if we consider contrasting persons who know because of appropriate belief forming processes but who fail to possess further epistemic virtues such as understanding. I will not argue which belief bases constitute a suffi cient condition for knowledge. Rather I will stress the point that the common assumption that an appropriate basing relation constitutes a necessary condition for knowledge has controversial consequences. (shrink)

Il fascino di un libro, tra Reuchlin e Bruno. -/- RINASCIMENTO ESOTERICO Speciale V centenario De arte cabalistica (1517-2017) -/- Nella sua rinomata libreria antiquaria, nel cuore di Firenze, Paolo Pampaloni sta sfogliando un grazioso volumetto in ottavo, rilegato in pelle scura. Si tratta di un esemplare del De incertitudine et vanitate scientiarum di Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim.

This paper analyses two early Chinese ways of modeling the ethical significance of art using music as an example. I shall focus on the Xunzi 《荀子》 as a paradigmatic statement of Confucian views, and selected passages from the Zhuangzi 《莊子》 as an exemplary manifestation of Daoist aesthetics. I argue that the Xunzi opts for a direct ethical impact of music, while it does not rely on an independent aesthetic conception of the goodness of music. By contrast, I argue that the (...) Zhuangzi discusses music on the grounds of an independent aesthetic conception of its goodness, while music can only claim an indirect ethical significance. Both models are mutually exclusive. This gives reason to believe that the Xunzi and the Zhuangzi present us with the two systematically possible ways of modeling the ethical impact of art. (shrink)

Binding needs to be task dependent, and cannot usefully be driven by properties of the stimulus alone. However, task dependent binding can only take place after the patterns in a stimulus have been identified. Thus pattern recognition needs to be done prior to binding. Synchronisation may be a consequence of pattern recognition and can be used to localise the pattern and tag its attributes at different levels of information processing.

As Jasper Reid argues in his book, there are plenty of reasons for taking More’s philosophy seriously, both as an example of early modern metaphysics and a speculative effort in its own terms. More’s metaphysics was experimental, fictional, and theological at once, for it deliberately and passionately engages with the study of nature, stories of preternatural apparitions and the mysteries of revealed religion. More’s philosophical inquiry feeds on experiments, stories, and visions, and these become an organic part of his metaphysical (...) equipment. This, of course, was a hazardous and edgy undertaking, which no doubt contributed to the bad... (shrink)

For the majority of people, death is a threat and the very idea of being dead a vexation. Dying is usually associated with pain which never goes away, pain which is the source of one’s anxiety. Bringing a child into this world can also be a painful process, and sometimes requires surgical procedures, but after a time the pain goes away and one can resume one’s normal life. The pain that leads to death, however, is a definitive pain, a final (...) experience which can no longer bear fruit. Death is haunted by the ghost of annihilation, of no longer existing, of an enduring frustration that human history will continue, perhaps even quite satisfactorily, without us.The mysterious and unknown dimension which surrounds the event of death, and what follows in its wake, is a threat to most human beings and a source of anxiety. No one likes the idea of ‘not knowing’ what will happen next, that curiosity is left unfulfilled.When the ‘expiry date’ is more or less established and approaching fast, something of a psychological crisis situation is induced in many people’s lives, one which in most circumstances has been latent all the while. Such a crisis can sometimes express itself in moments of troubled questioning. The three classical questions — in ‘philosophical crescendo’ — are: Can one expect anything after death, and if so, what? After death, will one have to give an account for the way one has lived this life? Is it really normal that one must die? (shrink)

I. Der Homunkulus und die Gefühle -- II. Was die Neuro-Wissenschaft immer noch nicht erklären kann : Beiträge zur 'Subjektivistischen Wende'.

Fregeans and Russellians defend different conceptions on the truth-conditions of reports of attitude ascriptions. Very often, they appeal to our intuitions and to pragmatic aspects to support their view. In this paper I propose a principle of adequacy of attitude-ascriptions. In the first section, I review the old puzzle concerning the failure of the principle of substitution salva veritate in attitude ascriptions. In the second section, I present my principle, which is based on the claim that by choosing a designator (...) for an attitude-ascription a competent speaker is usually oriented by her supposition of the hearer’s epistemic state concerning the referent. In section 3, I apply my conception to some traditional tricky examples of attitude ascriptions in the literature. In section 4, I argue that even in non-standard situations (e.g. context of irony) a competent speaker must take into account the hearer’s epistemic state. Then, in the fifth section I suggest a consequence of my proposal for the discussion on exportation. Finally, in the concluding remarks I sketch some thoughts about the possibility of extending my pragmatic proposal to a semantic account of the truth-conditions of attitude-ascriptions. Keywords: Attitude ascriptions, exportation, contextualism, pragmatic adequacy. (shrink)

Este artigo pretende ser uma exposição crítica da teoria de ter-mos singulares de Russell. Nos seus textos sobre a semântica dos nomes próprios Russell defende uma forma mista de descritivismo . Infelizmente esses textos são extremamente imprecisos. Minha principal crítica será a con-fusão de Russell entre aspectos semânticos e epistemológicos.This paper is intended as a critical exposition of Russell’s theory of singular terms. In his texts about the semantics of proper names Rus-sell defends a mixted form of descritivism . Unfortunately (...) these texts are extremely imprecise. My main criticism aims Russell’s confusion between semantical and epistemological issues. (shrink)