Este artigo tem como objeto o direito de resistência na teoria política de Thomas Hobbes. Hobbes é conhecido por defender um modelo de poder e Estado absoluto ao mesmo tempo que inclui o direito de resistência como como um direito natural inalienável. Mas qual é o limite dessa ideia na teoria hobbesiana? Parece que há uma aparente armadilha em torno do direito de resistência colocada pelo próprio autor. Pretendo indicar pontos que mostrem como dissolver tal aparente armadilha do pensamento político (...) hobbesiano e, sobretudo, mostrar que Hobbes não estava fazendo um convite à resistência. (shrink)

There are various forms of teleological thinking central to debates in the early modern and modern periods, debates in which David Hume (1711–1776) is a key figure. In the first section, we shall introduce three levels at which teleological considerations have been incorporated into philosophical accounts of man and nature, and sketch Hume’s criticisms of these approaches. In the second section, we turn to Hume’s non-teleological ‘science of man’. In the third section, we show how Hume has an account of (...) human flourishing that is not dependent on teleology. In the fourth section, we shall speculate as to the relation between Hume’s account of human nature and contemporary evolutionary accounts of morality and reasoning. (shrink)

My book Abductive Cognition. The Epistemological and Eco-Cognitive Dimensions of Hypothetical Reasoning basically refers to all kinds of human hypothetical cognition, also of creative kind. During the research related to the preparation of that book I soon had the opportunity to examine the studies regarding the human process of continuous delegation and distribution of cognitive functions to the environment to lessen cognitive limitations, also and especially in the case of what has been called ‘manipulative abduction’. These design activities are closely (...) related to the process of cognitive niche construction, which I will specifically address in this article. Niche construction should be regarded as a second major participant, after natural selection, in evolution. Indeed, by altering their environment and partly controlling some of the energy and matter fluxes in their ecosystems, organisms are capable of changing some of the natural selective pressures in their local environments. The question I plan to answer is the following: we need to hypothesize a fundamental role of non-genetic information in the evolution, but what kind of evolution could we obtain in this case? I will illustrate that in building various mediating structures, humans transform the environment and create cognitive niches. Thus, humans and other non-human animals become ecological engineers and chance seekers, involved in the processing, the alteration, and even the creation of external structures to reduce or suppress their cognitive limitations. Hence, this article will address a detailed analysis of the role of extragenetic information in evolution and what this process of selection selects for purposeful organisms, so niche-constructing ones. (shrink)

This paper argues, contrary to Fodor’s well-known position, that the iconic and discursive modes of representation are not mutually exclusive categories. It is argued that there exists at least a third kind of representation which blends the semantic properties of icons and the syntactic properties of discourses. We reason that this iconic-discursive genus behaves differently from other representational formats, such as distributed representations or maps, previously put forward as challenging Fodor’s basic distinction. A reflection follows about how this kind of (...) representation impacts on the Fodorian issues for which the original dual distinction was argumentatively instrumental, namely, the kinds of codes and possible inter-code relations accessible to the representational mind. The suggestion is put forward that iconic-discursive representations may facilitate trade-offs between the world and the representational mind, as well as between the differently complex levels of representation that mediate between percepts and concepts. We conclude that such aspects of the computational mind, which until now appeared to be stubbornly resistant with respect to a conciliation of Hume’s empiricism and Fodor’s computationalism, may be more easily accessed and understood taking advantage of the biosemiotics perspective and acknowledging the richness of the biosemiotics codes accessible to cognition. (shrink)

I will analyse three fundamental ways of governing ignorance though abduction, which are essential from an eco-cognitive and eco-logical point of view, in which the central role in human cognition of natural and artefactual environment is taken into account. First of all, according to the so-called GW-schema, proposed by Gabbay and Woods, abduction presents an ignorance-preserving or (ignorance-mitigating) character: given the fact that the abduced hypotheses aim at becoming truths, the basic ignorance is neither solved nor left untouched. Second, I (...) will contend that abduction is not always ignorance preserving but also knowledge enhancing. Indeed, according to the eco-cognitive model of abduction, I myself have recently proposed, we can easily see that, occasionally, knowledge can be immediately increased (and ignorance ‘killed’) through abduction: in this perspective, abduction does not have to be rigidly conceptualized as an inference to the best explanation in the received sense, which is as an inference that, to grant truth, also takes advantage of an empirical evaluation phase or an inductive phase, as Peirce classified it. Finally, it is important to stress that abductive cognition is at the roots of two fundamental cognitive processes. On one side, abductive cognition constructs (and/or takes advantage of the exploitation of) embodiments, external representations, enactions, artefacts and props, which involve ignorant entities suitably transformed in cognitive representations and/or devices. On the other side, abductive cognition dominates those ‘special’ cognitive creative processes that lead to what I call the disseminated ‘computational domestication of ignorant entities’: I will illustrate the example of the recent unconventional computational domestication of ignorant entities, which creates novel cognitive embodiments (morphological computation). (shrink)

The concept of every real thing from all eternity contains the unavoidability of its existence before the divine decision. Thus every complete concept of a real thing contains the property of being such that the thing will exist if a created universe exists. Then a thing's existence cannot be external to its concept. There is bound to be more in the concept of something that exists than in that of "something" that does not-since existence is explained through the quidditative property (...) of being an essence that constitutes an integral part of the most perfect series of things. Such an essential, quidditative perfection explains the divine decision, and hence existence. Therefore, existence can be deduced from that essential perfection. The essence-as-such, the mere possible, contains something from which existence follows. What Leibniz never manages to explain is what distinguishes existence from the quidditative perfection it unavoidably stems from. (edited). (shrink)

Es un estudio en profundidad de la teología filosófica desarrollada en el ámbito de la filosofía analítica, en la cual se ha sometido a examen el concepto mismo de Dios, con vistas a probar si era lógicamente defendible; de no serlo, tendríase una prueba de la inexistencia de Dios. El autor acude a una lógica no clásica (contradictorial y gradualista) para articular el concepto de Dios de manera que, a pesar de tales contradicciones, es lógicamente defendible.

In this essay, I offer a vindication of pride. I start by presenting the Christian condemnation of pride as the cardinal sin. I subsequently examine Mandeville’s line of argument whereby pride is beneficial to society, although remaining a vice for the individual. Finally, I focus on, and endorse, the analysis of pride formulated by Hume, for whom pride qualifies instead as a virtue. This is because pride not only contributes to making society flourish but also stabilizes the virtuous agent by (...) creating a virtuous circle between our desire for self-appraisal and our aspiration to act morally. I conclude by underscoring the (virtuous) connection between pride and modesty, concomitantly arguing that humility should be discarded as vicious. (shrink)

In this paper, I present some reasons in favour of an interpretation of Hume’s moral philosophy as a brand new form of "virtue ethics." By discussing some specific issues within the secondary literature in favour and against this kind of reading, I argue that Hume offers better philosophical tools to redefine the basic notion of virtue ethics than the neo-Aristotelian alternative. In particular, I maintain that the strength of Hume’s proposal lies in its pointing toward the unity of character instead (...) of the unity of the virtues. This allows Hume to develop a nonfinalistic, secular and pluralistic morality in which the individuality of people is seen as a central value to be promoted. (shrink)

In this essay, I discuss David Hume’s reasoning on free will as he presents it in A Treatise of Human Nature and An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding. I proceed by showing how Hume’s compatibilist solution acquires meaning in the light of his sentimentally based science of human nature, which conceives human beings as reasonable, social, and active creatures. Within Hume’s empiricist, naturalistic, and sceptical approach, we deal only with perceptions and never with things themselves, and human experience is structured in (...) a causal order which allows us to organise both the way we experience the world and our existence in relation to that of others. In such a scenario, the question of free will depends on human practices, such as the attribution of responsibility, which follow a causal order and are not affected by metaphysical doubts about the loss of responsibility if determinism were true. I argue that Hume traces responsibility back to the expression of feelings for or against particular characters; people become the object of judgements of responsibility in so far as, through their actions, they show that they possess characters of a certain kind which reflect a whole series of dispositions and traits, empirically verifiable and causally explainable, acquired over time. I conclude by highlighting how free will may represent a problem on a practical level once moral or religious issues come into play and why this is not so for Hume. (shrink)

This essay deals with a set of distinctive themes in the thought of Bernard Williams, and focuses on two aspects they all have in common. These are, on the one hand, the idea that the philosophical enterprise is intrinsically reflective in nature, and, on the other, a preoccupation with human beings singly regarded as individuals. By bringing these two constants to the fore, individually and in their interrelations, the essay formulates the general lines of an alternative reading of Williams, revealing (...) a more unitary understanding of his philosophy than has hitherto been allowed. (shrink)

It is possible to prove a real link between Machiavelli's pessimisitic vision of man and Christian Tradition on sin only through the analysis of two literary Texts, the Capitolo dell'Ambizione and the Esortazione alla penitenza. The Essay offers an historical inquiry on the philosophical-theological background of the Florentine thinker, focusing his Christian inheritance and meanwhile his peculiar secularizing interpretation.

This study described and analysed the circumstances surrounding a fatal car accident involving personnel of a multinational corporation in a developing country. For some companies, road accidents are the leading cause of work-related fatalities in developing countries. This reality highlights the ethical dilemmas encountered in a global workplace. Questions as to how a company addresses safety concerns outside the standard work environment, the ethics of operating in a risky environment and the requirements for international consistency in compensation standards for loss (...) of life were addressed. The authors argued that multinational companies should localize health and safety practices to address the important asymmetries between different regions of the world regarding social, cultural and infrastructural issues. Furthermore, the authors analysed the leadership role that should be played by multinational companies to help and support national governments to reduce traffic fatalities in developing countries. From this perspective, the article represents a contribution for the body of knowledge dealing with the business–society relations. The authors used an action research approach to address these issues, both in response to the particular incident and to contribute to the body of research in this field. (shrink)

In Bagaria (J Symb Log 81(2), 584–604, 2016), Bagaria and Väänänen developed a framework for studying the large cardinal strength of downwards Löwenheim-Skolem theorems and related set theoretic reflection properties. The main tool was the notion of symbiosis, originally introduced by the third author in Väänänen (Applications of set theory to generalized quantifiers. PhD thesis, University of Manchester, 1967); Väänänen (in Logic Colloquium ’78 (Mons, 1978), volume 97 of Stud. Logic Foundations Math., pages 391–421. North-Holland, Amsterdam 1979) Symbiosis provides a (...) way of relating model theoretic properties of strong logics to definability in set theory. In this paper we continue the systematic investigation of symbiosis and apply it to upwards Löwenheim-Skolem theorems and reflection principles. To achieve this, we need to adapt the notion of symbiosis to a new form, called bounded symbiosis. As one easy application, we obtain upper and lower bounds for the large cardinal strength of upwards Löwenheim–Skolem-type principles for second order logic. (shrink)

Custom is a complex phenomenon, and one that is hardly given a satisfying account, especially if it is assumed, as many legal positivists do, that law is only produced through acts of will. After examining five main reasons for the complexity of custom, I will consider Uberto Scarpelli’s thesis that customary law can be given an account within legal positivism through a reinterpretation of norm-generating facts as the manifestations of a will. But what kind of will is implied here, and (...) how can the underlying norm be inferred? I will first briefly examine Gaetano Carcaterra’s analysis of abduction as a method to infer norms from behaviors, and then distinguish six different forms of will possibly implied in a behavior which is relevant for the formation of a customary norm. I will finally focus on norm-oriented, or nomotropic will, and especially on nomotrophic will, that is, the will –implied and expressed in the reaction to the violation of a norm– that the infringed norm be valid. (shrink)

This is a critical discusssion of Professor da Costa's Essay on the foundations of logic which brings up issues of philosophy of logic, set theory, the foundations of mathematics, and paraconsistency.

Kathleen Stock, Only Imagine: Fiction, Interpretation, and Imagination, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2017, 222 pp. Julie Cheminaud, Les évadés de la médecine. Physiologie de l’art dans la France de la seconde moitié du XIXe siècle, Vrin, Paris 2018, 294 pp. Carla Carmona, Jerrold Levinson, Aesthetics, Literature, and Life: Essays in Honor of Jean-Pierre Cometti, Mimesis International, Milan 2019, 220 pp. Report on “Jean Baudrillard, l’intelligence du temps qui vient”, Centre Culturel International de Cerisy, Cerisy, France, 9-16 August 2019.

El presente articulo pretende poner de manifiesto el interés que tienen los libros penitenciales en la Alta Edad Media para informar sobre las costumbres y la vida cotidiana, tanto en lo que se ajusta como en lo que no se ajusta a las normas de conducta.

We point out a fundamental problem that hinders the quantization of general relativity: quantum mechanics is formulated in terms of systems, typically limited in space but infinitely extended in time, while general relativity is formulated in terms of events, limited both in space and in time. Many of the problems faced while connecting the two theories stem from the difficulty in shoe-horning one formulation into the other. A solution is not presented, but a list of desiderata for a quantum theory (...) based on events is laid out. (shrink)

The paper examines Beuchot's approach and agrees that there are many coincidences between medieval Aristotelianism and analytical philosophy. Both pursue philosophical inquiry in an argumentative manner. Nowadays analytical philosophy also tends to recognize as genuine such traditional metaphysical problems as were debated by the Scholastics. The paper's only criticism at Beuchot's views concerns analogy and reduplicative as-clauses. It argues that on that issue the cleavage between medieval and analytical philosophy lies in the latter's tending to favor complete equivocality of the (...) word «being». However, an alternative is possible, namely univocism, as implemented in combinatory logics, which while also rejecting reduplicative clauses is free from the ineffableness attendant upon equivocism. (shrink)

Da Costa's paraconsistent systems of the series Cm (for finite m) (see [C1], [C2], and esp. [C3], pp. 237ff.) share important features with transitive logic, TL (which has been gone into in [P1] and [P2]), namely, they all coincide in that: (c1) they possess a strong negation, `¬', a conditional, `⊃', a conjunction, `∧', and a disjunction, `∨', with respect to which they are conservative extensions of CL or Classical Logic; (c2) they possess a non strong negation, `N' (notations are (...) different for systems C) which does not possess all properties of classical negation, but for which the following schemata are theorematic (I use the letters `p', `q', etc as schematic letters; my notational conventions are basically Church's: associativity leftwards; a dot stands for.. (shrink)

¿Están comprendidos los extranjeros en el ámbito de aplicación de los derechos y deberes fundamentales estipulados por las constituciones modernas? Lamentablemente, no. Ha habido, a lo largo de la historia, progresos y retrocesos en la conciencia jurídica de los derechos migratorios. Hoy tienden a establecerse cláusulas de libre circulación en los espacios de integración económica, al paso que, de manera general (y a salvo de dispensas individuales), viene prohibida la inmigración del sur al norte. Esa orientación actual es injusta. Ni (...) se atiene a un principio de justicia natural ni respeta la tradición jurídica (en lo que comporta de derechos históricamente adquiridos). Es dudoso que tengan los estados derecho a prohibir la inmigración foránea. Menos aún es admisible que se considere un delito el auxilio a la inmigración no autorizada. Frente a los criterios hoy imperantes, este artículo formula la propuesta de reconocer el derecho universal humano de migración por todo el Planeta. (shrink)