The debate between speculative realism and phenomenology has become quite heated over the past years. The matter of contention is the possibility of a metaphysics that can provide knowledge of reality as it is in itself. The speculative realists accuse phenomenology of denying this possibility, confining knowledge to the sphere of subjectivity. What has been overlooked in this debate is the similarity between the speculative project of Quentin Meillassoux and a Husserlian metaphysics. This article looks at these positions from a (...) reconciliatory point of view. After outlining the debate, conceding the problematic nature of realism for phenomenology to the speculative realists, it will be shown that there is a place for a realist metaphysics within phenomenology. After showing the similarities between Meillassoux’s philosophy and a phenomenological metaphysics, and the legitimacy of qualifying the latter as a speculative realism, the conclusion will reflect on the modal notions at play in them. (shrink)

It is widely assumed that functional and dispositional properties are not identical to their physical base, but that there is some kind of asymmetrical ontological dependence between them. In this regard, a popular idea is that the former are realized by the latter, which, under the non-identity assumption, is generally understood to be a non-causal, constitutive relation. In this paper we examine two of the most widely accepted approaches to realization, the so-called ‘flat view’ and the ‘dimensioned view’, and we (...) analyze their explanatory relevance in the light of a number of examples from the life sciences, paying special attention to developmental phenomena. Our conclusion is that the emphasis placed by modern-day biology on such properties as variability, evolvability, and a whole collection of phenomena like modularity, robustness, and developmental constraint or developmental bias requires the adoption of a much more dynamic perspective than traditional realization frameworks are able to capture. (shrink)

The axiom of dependent choice ( $\mathsf {DC}$ ) and the axiom of countable choice ( ${\mathsf {AC}}_\omega $ ) are two weak forms of the axiom of choice that can be stated for a specific set: $\mathsf {DC} ( X )$ asserts that any total binary relation on X has an infinite chain, while ${\mathsf {AC}}_\omega ( X )$ asserts that any countable collection of nonempty subsets of X has a choice function. It is well-known that $\mathsf {DC} \Rightarrow (...) {\mathsf {AC}}_\omega $. We study for which sets and under which hypotheses $\mathsf {DC} ( X ) \Rightarrow {\mathsf {AC}}_\omega ( X )$, and then we show it is consistent with $\mathsf {ZF}$ that there is a set $A \subseteq \mathbb {R}$ for which $\mathsf {DC} ( A )$ holds, but ${\mathsf {AC}}_\omega ( A )$ fails. (shrink)

In pediatric emergency rooms (ERs), social workers must navigate diverse responsibilities including acting as advocates and liaisons between families and multidisciplinary treatment teams, providing compassionate support to families in crisis, and assessing for and reporting any suspicions of child abuse or neglect. These potentially contrasting roles can place social workers at the center of dealing with ethical dilemmas and advocating against ethical violations, such as bias and discrimination toward families. This qualitative study seeks to gain insight into ethical issues commonly (...) encountered in pediatric ERs by exploring the perspectives of 23 social workers at Level 1 trauma centers in the United States. Thematic analysis was used to develop major themes and subthemes related to ethical violations, dilemmas, and best practices in pediatric ERs. Major themes emerged related to unfair treatment of families (with subthemes of bias, discrimination, and compassion fatigue), ethical dilemmas (with subthemes of cultural issues, safety and system issues), and promoting ethical practices (with subthemes of self-awareness, advocacy, and efforts to change the system). This study provides important insights into ethical issues in pediatric ERs as experienced by social workers and can inform efforts to improve the quality and equity of care for all families in pediatric ERs. (shrink)

Cheerfulness or serenity (Heiterkeit) is one of the most important themes in Nietzsche’s philosophy. Throughout his writings, from first to last, he can be found wrestling with conceptions of cheerfulness and promoting a cheerful mode of philosophizing. Despite the importance and recurrence of the theme of cheerfulness in Nietzsche’s entire œuvre, there have been relatively few studies specifically devoted to it. An important debate on cheerfulness has recently taken place in the literature on Nietzsche between Robert Pippin and Lanier Anderson (...) and Rachel Cristy. Both sides of the debate have explored Nietzsche’s practice of cheerfulness in direct relation to Montaigne. According to Pippin, Nietzsche never succeeds in writing with the kind of cheerfulness of Montaigne. In contrast, Anderson and Cristy have contended that both Nietzsche and Montaigne conceive of cheerfulness as a complex, non-naïve spiritual state or attitude that is to be cultivated through the practice of philosophy as a way of life. According to Anderson and Cristy, this is a deep form of love of life that both Nietzsche and Montaigne practice and perhaps achieve at least in part by and through writing. In this essay, we aim to contribute to this debate by offering a threefold argument. First, we argue that Nietzsche conceives of cheerfulness not only as a psychological ideal, as a desirable state or attitude of the spirit, but also as an aesthetic ideal, as a desirable quality or style of thinking and writing (sections 1–2). Second, we argue that, in addition to Montaigne, Ralph Waldo Emerson is an equally important but neglected influence on Nietzsche’s conception and practice of cheerfulness (section 2). Third, by reconstructing Nietzsche’s self-presentation as a cheerful thinker and writer in the 1886 prefaces and in Ecce homo (1888), we conclude that it is possible to argue that starting from his middle writings Nietzsche thinks and writes cheerfully in some of his works, including a number of his most significant texts (section 3). (shrink)

This is the first dedicated commentary to Sextus Empiricus’ treatise _Against the Arithmeticians_, dealing with crucial issues in the history of the sceptical, Platonic and Pythagorean traditions and in the ancient philosophy of mathematics.

This book aims to develop the tradition of philosophical hermeneutics, the theoretical account of interpretive (as opposed to explanatory) understanding--the account of meanings and contexts rather than causes and predictions--usually restricted to the domain of literary and textual analysis, in new directions by exploiting its potential as an instrument of critique. It refutes commonly held claims that hermeneutic analyses are necessarily relativistic, Eurocentric, or critically impotent and demonstrates how hermeneutic procedures can inform analyses of urgent current and cross-cultural issues such (...) as the biology of race, female genital excision, and the so-called "culture of poverty" thesis. Lorenzo Simpson demonstrates that a robust methodology of philosophical hermeneutics is well positioned to intervene in critical political and social issues in global ethics and justice in concert with critical theory's emancipatory aims. (shrink)

Theoretical and manipulative abduction conjectures and manipulations : the extra-theoretical dimension of scientific discovery. -- Non-explanatory and instrumental abduction : plausibility, implausibility, ignorance preservation. -- Semiotic brains and artificial minds : how brains make up material cognitive systems. -- Neuromultimodal abduction : pre-wired brains, embidiment, neurospaces. -- Animal abduction : from mindless organisms to srtifactual mediators. -- Abduction, affordances, and cognitive niches : sharing representations and creating chances through cognitive niche construction. -- Abduction in human and logical agents : hasty (...) generalizers, hybrid abducers, fallacies. -- Morphodynamical abduction : causation of hypotheses by attractors dynamics. (shrink)

The technological advances of contemporary society have outpaced our moral understanding of the problems that they create. How will we deal with profound ecological changes, human cloning, hybrid people, and eroding cyberprivacy, just to name a few issues? In this book, Lorenzo Magnani argues that existing moral constructs often cannot be applied to new technology. He proposes an entirely different ethical approach, one that blends epistemology with cognitive science. The resulting moral strategy promises renewed dignity for overlooked populations, both (...) of today and of the future. (shrink)

This book employs a new eco-cognitive model of abduction to underline the distributed and embodied nature of scientific cognition. Its main focus is on the knowledge-enhancing virtues of abduction and on the productive role of scientific models. What are the distinctive features that define the kind of knowledge produced by science? To provide an answer to this question, the book first addresses the ideas of Aristotle, who stressed the essential inferential and distributed role of external cognitive tools and epistemic mediators (...) in abductive cognition. This is analyzed in depth from both a naturalized logic and an ecology of cognition perspective. It is shown how the maximization of cognition, and of abducibility – two typical goals of science – are related to a number of fundamental aspects: the optimization of the eco-cognitive situatedness; the maximization of changeability for both the input and the output of the inferences involved; a high degree of information-sensitiveness; and the need to record the “past life” of abductive inferential practices. Lastly, the book explains how some impoverished epistemological niches – the result of a growing epistemic irresponsibility associated with the commodification and commercialization of science – are now seriously jeopardizing the flourishing development of human creative abduction. (shrink)

Three accounts of effective realism (ER) have been advanced to solve three problems for scientific realism: Fraser and Vickers (forthcoming) develop a version of ER about non-relativistic quantum mechanics that they argue is compatible with all the main realist versions (‘interpretations’) of quantum mechanics avoiding the problem of underdetermination among them; Williams (2019) and Fraser (2020b) propose ER about quantum field theory as a response to the problems facing realist interpretations; Robertson and Wilson (forthcoming) propose ER to deal with the (...) dubious ontological status of the entities belonging to superseded theories. This paper argues for the unification of these proposals based on realism about modal structure and the idea of scale relativity of ontology developed by ontic structural realists. This solves problems some or all the accounts of ER face, especially that of making explicit in what way they are realist. Furthermore, we respond to a recent critique that has been raised against the ontic structural realist account of quantum mechanics that we employ. (shrink)

Spirituality is an area of interest for management and business. But two issues confront it: the struggle to be amidst a utilitarian framework where spirituality is reduced as a means to forward profit-oriented goals and difficulty with spirituality’s subjective and multifaceted nature in business management. Challenges abound in determining which spirituality is appropriate. Business scholarship is dominated by a utilitarian view, which some more philosophically oriented scholars have opined to be counterintuitive to the real purpose of workplace spirituality. But some (...) recognize the significance of pragmatic and useful approaches, which this paper views as something integrated into the more philosophic approaches, particularly through virtue ethics. Thus, the authors offer the case for virtue, examined in the person of Corazon C. Aquino, Asia’s first woman president, who successfully bridged the gap between the sacred and secular. To appease both utilitarian and more metaphysical orientations, this research stipulates that for every value-added service rendered to others, there is a corresponding virtue enhancement in the person. (shrink)

Some authors claim that minimal models have limited epistemic value (Fumagalli, 2016; Grüne-Yanoff, 2009a). Others defend the epistemic benefits of modelling by invoking the role of robustness analysis for hypothesis confirmation (see, e.g., Levins, 1966; Kuorikoski et al., 2010) but such arguments find much resistance (see, e.g., Odenbaugh & Alexandrova, 2011). In this paper, we offer a Bayesian rationalization and defence of the view that robustness analysis can play a confirmatory role, and thereby shed light on the potential of minimal (...) models for hypothesis confirmation. We illustrate our argument by reference to a case study from macroeconomics. At the same time, we also show that there are cases in which robustness analysis is detrimental to confirmation. We characterize these cases and link them to recent investigations on evidential variety (Landes, 2020b, 2021; Osimani and Landes, forthcoming). We conclude that robustness analysis over minimal models can confirm, but its confirmatory value depends on concrete circumstances. (shrink)

Cheerfulness or serenity is one of the most important themes in Nietzsche’s philosophy. Throughout his writings, from first to last, he can be found wrestling with conceptions of cheerfulness and promoting a cheerful mode of philosophizing. Despite the importance and recurrence of the theme of cheerfulness in Nietzsche’s entire œuvre, there have been relatively few studies specifically devoted to it. An important debate on cheerfulness has recently taken place in the literature on Nietzsche between Robert Pippin and Lanier Anderson and (...) Rachel Cristy. Both sides of the debate have explored Nietzsche’s practice of cheerfulness in direct relation to Montaigne. According to Pippin, Nietzsche never succeeds in writing with the kind of cheerfulness of Montaigne. In contrast, Anderson and Cristy have contended that both Nietzsche and Montaigne conceive of cheerfulness as a complex, non-naïve spiritual state or attitude that is to be cultivated through the practice of philosophy as a way of life. According to Anderson and Cristy, this is a deep form of love of life that both Nietzsche and Montaigne practice and perhaps achieve at least in part by and through writing. In this essay, we aim to contribute to this debate by offering a threefold argument. First, we argue that Nietzsche conceives of cheerfulness not only as a psychological ideal, as a desirable state or attitude of the spirit, but also as an aesthetic ideal, as a desirable quality or style of thinking and writing. Second, we argue that, in addition to Montaigne, Ralph Waldo Emerson is an equally important but neglected influence on Nietzsche’s conception and practice of cheerfulness. Third, by reconstructing Nietzsche’s self-presentation as a cheerful thinker and writer in the 1886 prefaces and in Ecce homo, we conclude that it is possible to argue that starting from his middle writings Nietzsche thinks and writes cheerfully in some of his works, including a number of his most significant texts. (shrink)

As humanity becomes increasingly interconnected through globalization, the question of whether community is possible within culturally diverse societies has returned as a principal concern for contemporary thought. Lorenzo Simpson charges that the current discussion is stuck at an impasse-between postmodernism's fragmented notions of cultural difference and humanism's homogeneous versions of community. Simpson proposes an alternative-one that bridges cultural differences without erasing them. He argues that we must establish common aesthetic and ethical standards incorporating sensitivity to difference if we are (...) to achieve cross-cultural understanding. (shrink)

Functional reductionism characterises inter-theoretic reduction as the recovery of the upper-level behaviour described by the reduced theory in terms of the lower-level reducing theory. For instance, finding a statistical mechanical realiser that plays the functional role of thermodynamic entropy allows for establishing a reductive link between thermodynamics and statistical mechanics. This view constitutes a unique approach to reduction that enjoys a number of positive features, but has received limited attention in the philosophy of science. -/- This paper aims to clarify (...) the meaning of functional reductionism in science, with a focus on physics, to define both its place with respect to other approaches to reduction and its connection to ontology. To do so, we develop and explore two alternative frameworks for functional reduction, called Syntactic Functional Reductionism and Semantic Functional Reductionism. They represent two different possible stances on the view that expand and improve the basic functional reductionist approach along different lines, and make clear how the approach works in practice. The former elaborates on David Lewis’ account, is connected with the syntactic view of theories, is committed to a logical characterisation of functional roles, and is embedded within Nagelian reductionism. The latter adopts a semantic view of theories, spells out functional roles mainly in terms of mathematical roles within the models of theories, and is expressed in terms of the related structuralist approach to reduction. The development of these frameworks has the final goal of advancing functional reductionism, to make it a fully-fledged alternative account for reduction in science. (shrink)

This handbook offers the first comprehensive reference guide to the interdisciplinary field of model-based reasoning. It highlights the role of models as mediators between theory and experimentation, and as educational devices, as well as their relevance in testing hypotheses and explanatory functions. The Springer Handbook merges philosophical, cognitive and epistemological perspectives on models with the more practical needs related to the application of this tool across various disciplines and practices. The result is a unique, reliable source of information that guides (...) readers toward an understanding of different aspects of model-based science, such as the theoretical and cognitive nature of models, as well as their practical and logical aspects. The inferential role of models in hypothetical reasoning, abduction and creativity once they are constructed, adopted, and manipulated for different scientific and technological purposes is also discussed. Written by a group of internationally renowned experts in philosophy, the history of science, general epistemology, mathematics, cognitive and computer science, physics and life sciences, as well as engineering, architecture, and economics, this Handbook uses numerous diagrams, schemes and other visual representations to promote a better understanding of the concepts. This also makes it highly accessible to an audience of scholars and students with different scientific backgrounds. All in all, the Springer Handbook of Model-Based Science represents the definitive application-oriented reference guide to the interdisciplinary field of model-based reasoning. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to propose a novel reading of the critical legitimacy of the regulative use of reason in the Transcendental Dialectic of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. After introducing some key terminology of the Dialectic, I analyse the shortcomings of two influential accounts of the regulative use of reason and identify their common problem in their commitment to the descriptivity of the ideas of reason. I then offer my rule‐based account of the regulative use of reason (...) by clarifying how Kant transforms reason's metaphysical inclinations into prescriptive rules of bottom‐up empirical research. Finally, I explain why such interpretation of reason is metaphysically innocent and thereby a promising approach to understand its role in Kant's scientific project. (shrink)

There are several key ingredients common to the various forms of model-based reasoning considered in this book. The term ‘model’ comprises both internal and external representations. The models are intended as interpretations of target physical systems, processes, phenomena, or situations and are retrieved or constructed on the basis of potentially satisfying salient constraints of the target domain. The book’s contributors are researchers active in the area of creative reasoning in science and technology.

Why is there something rather than nothing? About this storied question we challenge the commonly accepted main assumption: the existence of something. Starting from Nothing only, we explain how our perceived reality emerges as an illusory self-referential interpretation of Nothing and build a framework to give precise definitions to fundamental concepts such as existence, reality, nothingness and somethingness. We then explore the consequences of this framework and we discover an explanation for the existence of laws of physics in our illusory (...) reality. By aiming to describe reality starting with Nothing, we provide the first instance of an assumption-less theory. (shrink)

This article aims to justify the positive role in the empirical investigation of nature that Kant attributes to the idea of God in the Critique of Pure Reason. In particular, I propose to read the Transcendental Ideal section and the Appendix to the Transcendental Dialectic together to see whether they can reciprocally illuminate each other. I argue that it is only by looking at the transcendental deduction of the ideas of reason and the resulting analogical conception of God that a (...) fully legitimate positive use of the idea of God can be vindicated. (shrink)

This article analyzes Italian research and experimentation on the economic potential of certain plant species in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, also providing insight into beekeeping and honey production. It focuses on continuity of method and progress across regimes and on the invisibility of many of the actors involved in the development of agricultural science and food research. Specifically, “continuity” refers to the continuation of certain threads of Old-Regime experimentation by the scientific apparatus put in place during the (...) Napoleonic era. These threads were reworked and strengthened with the new means available to Frenchified Europe. The concept of “invisibility” derives from an expression by Steven Shapin and refers to actors who contributed to the development of agricultural science while remaining in the shadows. These include various types of technicians and members of rural society who supported the scientific work of scholars without receiving overt recognition. Continuity and invisibility were therefore two fundamental components both in the epistemological development of agricultural science and in the improvement of food research. The article analyzes case studies mainly from northern Italy – or rather, the various geopolitical entities existing in this geographical region – during the late Old Regime and the Napoleonic era, comparing them with examples from all over Europe. (shrink)

Functionalism is the view that being x is to play the role of x. This paper defends a functionalist account of three-dimensional entities in the context of Wave Function Realism (WFR), that can explain in detail how we can recover three-dimensional entities out of the wavefunction. In particular, the essay advocates for a novel version of WFR in terms of a functional reductionist approach in the style of David Lewis. This account entails reduction of the upper entities to the bottom (...) ones, when the latter behave appropriately. As applied to WFR, it shows how the wavefunction can turn out to be identical to three-dimensional objects, provided certain conditions. The first major goal of the paper is thus to put forward an improved and more rigorous version of WFR, which dissolves several extant issues about the theory, and can serve as a starting point for future literature on the topic. Moreover, the second major goal of the article is to take WFR as a case study to demonstrate the pros of functional reductionism, especially in the form defended here, thereby helping to bring this view back in the philosophy of science debate. The positive upshots of this paper suggest a possible application of functional reductionism also to other contexts. (shrink)

In today's world, the corporate image of the largest companies is closely linked to their performance in the field of corporate social responsibility and the disclosure of information on that topic, specifically, on climate change. Since the Board of Directors is the body responsible for this process, the aim of this article is to show the role that companies' Boards of Directors play in the accountability process vis-à-vis stakeholders in relation to one specific aspect which has enormous significance in environmental (...) information: practices used to monitor greenhouse gas emissions. In order to achieve this, we shall verify certain business characteristics, in addition to the size and activity of the Board of Directors, and we shall take different dependence models into consideration. These models will include variables related to the level of independence and diversity of the Board of Directors, which interact with dummy variables representing the company's litigation risks regarding environmental behavior and the institutional macro-context of the organization's country of origin. The results make it clear that Boards of Directors are basically focused on the traditional responsibility of creating economic value, instead of dealing with today's broader business world concepts, which include social responsibility. This focus, therefore, does not favor the accountability process before other stakeholders, if this makes it more difficult to protect the interests of shareholders. (shrink)

This essay seeks to give a contractarian foundation to the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility, meant as an extended model of corporate governance of the firm. It focuses on justification according to the contractarian point of view. It begins by providing a definition of CSR as an extended model of corporate governance, based on the fiduciary duties owed to all the firm's stakeholders. Then, by establishing the basic context of incompleteness of contracts and abuse of authority, it analyses how the (...) extended view of corporate governance arises directly from criticism of the contemporary neo-institutional economic theory of the firm. Thereafter, an application of the theory of bargaining games is used to deduce the structure of a multi-stakeholder firm, on the basis of the idea of a constitutional contract, which satisfies basic requirements of impartial justification and accordance with intuitions of social justice. This is a sequential model of constitutional bargaining, whereby a constitution is first chosen, and then a post-constitutional coalition game is played. On the basis of the unique solution given to each step in the bargaining model, the quest for a prescriptive theory of governance and strategic management is accomplished, so that I am able to define an objective-function for the firm consistent with the idea of CSR. Finally, a contractarian potential explanation for the emergence of the multi-fiduciary firm is provided. (shrink)

What can we know? We know many things about the world around us: whether it is raining outside, the result of last night’s game, or how vaccines work. But we also want to know more. For example, we may want to know the ultimate origin of the universe, whether God exists, or whether there are such things as souls. Philosophers have long asked this type of questions — questions that concern a kind of knowledge that goes beyond our experience. A (...) wide range of answers (often contradicting each other) have been endlessly debated. Dissatisfied with this state of inquiry, Kant proposes a revolution in philosophy, which does not consist in devising new answers to these questions, but rather in analyzing our own capacity for knowledge. Such an analysis aims to shed light on the limits of our cognitive faculties and to reveal their true potential. In this article, we will see how Kant’s philosophy offers a revolutionary approach to our deep thirst for knowledge. (shrink)

L'auteur, en suivant la voie d'une généalogie du signe, repense la théorie de l'imagination qui, selon Spinoza, s'enracine dans la puissance du corps, se révélant indissociable d'une herméneutique.

Persuasive technologies are interactive systems designed to change and shape users’ behaviours towards specific goals. By discussing the case of screen-time management applications, this paper explores how persuasive systems transform self-awareness and the self’s cognitive architecture. Drawing on the notion of tectonoetic awareness, I will illustrate how artefacts enable the transition from the temporal bounded experience characterizing first-person perspective (noetic awareness) to the ability of reflecting on oneself from a third person and temporally extended perspective (autonoetic awareness). I will argue (...) that persuasive systems make possible new modalities of self-recognition and self-projection while they simultaneously affect the sense of agency by interfering with users’ actions and intentions. (shrink)

What makes scientific knowledge possible? The philosopher Immanuel Kant in his magnum opus, the Critique of Pure Reason, had a fascinating and puzzling answer to this question. Scientific knowledge, for Kant, is made possible by the faculty of reason and its demand for systematic unity. In other words, cognition about empirical objects can aspire to be scientific only if it is rationally embedded within or transformed into a system. But how can such system form once we take into account the (...) perspectival nature of knowledge, i.e., its being situated in individual human cognitive faculties? My PhD thesis has a two-pronged objective: to reconstruct the complexity of the notion of systematicity in Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason; and to defend its plausibility in contemporary debates on the unity or plurality of scientific knowledge. As far as is concerned, Kant’s position is far from being clearly understood in the literature. Despite a renewed interest in Kant’s notion of systematicity in recent decades, existing contributions fail to offer a satisfactory account of it. The aim of my thesis is to provide a unified reading of reason’s systematicity as an essential feature of Kant’s analysis of the sources of cognition. In particular, I defend a novel account of theoretical reason the aims to support the following claims: systematicity is grounded in a legitimate use of reason’s ideas as prescriptive rules for empirical investigation; it is necessary to make empirical cognition possible and generate scientific hypotheses; and it gives us fundamental insights into Kant’s ‘empirical realism’ and his understanding of the role of metaphysics in science. With regard to, I show that Kant’s account of theoretical reason has much more to offer than generally acknowledged. In particular, I present it as providing a reconciling solution to the conflict between unity and pluralism in contemporary philosophy of science. Drawing inspiration from Kant’s ‘perspectivism,’ I argue that unity and pluralism are to be thought as mutually inclusive principles of scientific knowledge. (shrink)

The “origins” of (geometric) space is examined from the perspective of the so-called “conceptual space” or “semantic space”. Semantic space is characterized by its fundamental “locality” that generates an “implicit” mode of geometrizing. This view is examined from within three perspectives. First, the role that various diagrammatic entities play in the everyday life and pragmatic activities of selected ethnic groups is illustrated. Secondly, it is shown how conceptual spaces are fundamentally linked to the meaning effects of particular natural languages and (...) these are very different from the global and universal aspects of Euclidean spaces. Thirdly, it is contended that these modes of creating body and culture-based spatial frameworks and related cosmogonies and cosmologies can be described as forms of “latent geometry” that initially appear unexplainable in any rational way. Nonetheless, and thanks to the deep mathematical reflections provided by René Thom, it is illustrated how the various ways of generating space can be further analyzed as distortions of mainstream spatialization furnished by Euclidean geometry that established the dominant universality of the ideas of space (and time). (shrink)