There are few problems to which legal philosophers have devoted more attention than the relationship between morality and law, or, said in different terms, between the “good” and the “obligatory”. One might think that all that should and could be said about it has already been uttered or written. Nevertheless philosophy — and legal philosophy is no exception — is just this: rethinking old problems which are in fact always new,1 and for which no definitive solution is given — nor (...) is possible, I would add — and which need a permanent effort of reassessment. There is no reason for disappointment or despair in this endless work. It is neither pointless nor irrelevant. (shrink)

This paper discusses some models purported to legitimise a European supranational legal order. In particular, the author focuses on an application of the so‐called regulatory model to the complex structure of the European Community and the European Union. First of all, he tackles the very concept of legitimacy, contrasting it with both efficacy and efficiency. Secondly, he summarises the most prominent positions in the long‐standing debate on the sources of legitimation for the European Community. Thirdly, in this perspective, he analyses (...) several, sometimes contradictory, notions of the rule of law. His contention is that we can single out five fundamental notions of the rule of law and that some but not all of them are incompatible with or oppose democracy. Finally, the paper addresses the regulatory model as a possible application of the rule of the law to the European supranational order. The conclusion is that the regulatory model should be rejected if it is presented as an alternative to classical democratic thought, though it might be fruitful if reshaped differently and no longer assessed from a functionalist standpoint of deliberation. (shrink)

Effective methods for evaluating the reliability of statements issued by witnesses and defendants in hearings would be an extremely valuable support to decision-making in court and other legal settings. In recent years, methods relying on stylometric techniques have proven most successful for this task; but few such methods have been tested with language collected in real-life situations of high-stakes deception, and therefore their usefulness outside lab conditions still has to be properly assessed. In this study we report the results obtained (...) by using stylometric techniques to identify deceptive statements in a corpus of hearings collected in Italian courts. The defendants at these hearings were condemned for calumny or false testimony, so the falsity of (some of) their statements is fairly certain. In our experiments we replicated the methods used in previous studies but never before applied to high-stakes data, and tested new methods. We also considered the effect of a number of variables including in particular the homogeneity of the dataset. Our results suggest that accuracy at deception detection clearly above chance level can be obtained with real-life data as well. (shrink)

Many of the problems traditionally related to the interpretation of Leibniz' theory of relations may be seen in a better light considering essentially two factors: 1) the different plans (ontological, metaphysical, psychological and logical-linguistic) implied by Leibniz reflections on the subject; 2) the reference to scholastic and late-scholastic texts read or consulted by Leibniz. Relations for Leibniz are, from a metaphysical point of view, denominations only seemingly external, they are in reality denominationes intrinsecae, and are founded on the general connection (...) of all things. From a psychological point of view they are abstract entities that our mind builds by resemblance. From an ontological point of view they are individual accidents inherent to the substances. From a logical-linguistic point of view they are abstract structures that connect the one to the other at least two subjects. The propositions in which they appear, as for example the proposition “Paris loves Helen” are transformed by Leibniz in equivalent propositions joined by operators, which in medieval logic were known as termini reduplicantes (terms which define mostly intensional contexts). This may be seen with sufficient clarity examining the last part, until now inedited, of the famous passage about Paris and Helen published by Couturat in his Opuscules. (shrink)

La caída del Muro de Berlín fue saludado por muchos analistas y académicos como el inicio de una nueva era. Con el fin de la Guerra Fría se vislumbraba una nueva etapa de paz y prosperidad. Tras la “revolución liberal” algunos avistaban el “fin de la historia”. Pero tal esperanza se disipó rápidamente: la desaparición del “socialismo real” relanzó un capitalismo desenfrenado y no sólo en los países ayer bajo la órbita soviética. El ordoliberalismo entendido como el establecimiento de un (...) modelo económico altamente competitivo y garantizado jurisdiccionalmente, se infiltró también en las instituciones europeas. La crisis del año 2010 vino a confirmar para Europa su deriva neoliberal, tecnocrática. La onda expansiva del 9 de noviembre de 1989 aún no ha concluido. Nuevas turbulencias aguardan. El Brexit también puede interpretarse en esta clave, como una empresa más de demolición, “liquidación”, “liberalización”. (shrink)

Does syllogistic logic have the resources to capture mathematical proof? This volume provides the first unified account of the history of attempts to answer this question, the reasoning behind the different positions taken, and their far-reaching implications. Aristotle had claimed that scientific knowledge, which includes mathematics, is provided by syllogisms of a special sort: 'scientific' ('demonstrative') syllogisms. In ancient Greece and in the Middle Ages, the claim that Euclid's theorems could be recast syllogistically was accepted without further scrutiny. Nevertheless, as (...) early as Galen, the importance of relational reasoning for mathematics had already been recognized. Further critical voices emerged in the Renaissance and the question of whether mathematical proofs could be recast syllogistically attracted more sustained attention over the following three centuries. Supported by more detailed analyses of Euclidean theorems, this led to attempts to extend logical theory to include relational reasoning, and to arguments purporting to reduce relational reasoning to a syllogistic form. Philosophical proposals to the effect that mathematical reasoning is heterogenous with respect to logical proofs were famously defended by Kant, and the implications of the debate about the adequacy of syllogistic logic for mathematics are at the very core of Kant's account of synthetic a priori judgments. While it is now widely accepted that syllogistic logic is not sufficient to account for the logic of mathematical proof, the history and the analysis of this debate, running from Aristotle to de Morgan and beyond, is a fascinating and crucial insight into the relationship between philosophy and mathematics. (shrink)

Comments on G. Maddalena and G. Tuzet, editors, I Pragmatisti Italiani. Tra Alleati e Nemeci (Italian Pragmatists. Between Enemies and Allies). Milano: Albo Versorio, 2007.

: Jerry Fodor and Zenon Pylyshyn have proposed a purely referential-causal semantics, a semantics without meanings. Adopting Pylyshyn’s previous treatment of the fact that we can perceive and track something before we have any idea of what that is, these authors claim that such causal relations to external entities allow us to word-label them and thereby build an entire lexicon with specific referents. I disagree and explain why I do so. The kind of semantics that I prefer is radically opposite: (...) the one proposed by Noam Chomsky and Paul Pietroski. This is an internalist semantics that only has meanings, reference being indirect, often indefinite, sometimes problematic. Chomsky insists that the only posit that is tenable is the internal structure of the speaker-hearer, a complex, abstractly characterizable, computational-derivational apparatus, optimal if left alone, that interfaces with other cognitive apparatuses: the articulatory-perceptual one and the conceptual-intentional one, satisfying the constraints that they impose. I show that the semantics proposed by Fodor and Pylyshyn is especially problematic when inexistent entities, possible entities, fictional characters and objects in the remote past are examined. It is, however, problematic even when dealing with more ordinary concepts. On the contrary, an internalist semantics avoids all these problems. Keywords: Internalist Semantics; Theory of Meaning and Reference; Jerry A. Fodor; Noam Chomsky; Paul Pietroski Menti con significati Riassunto: Jerry Fodor e Zenon Pylyshyn hanno proposto una semantica interamente causale-referenziale, una semantica priva di qualsiasi nozione di significato. Adottando la precedente trattazione di Pylyshyn di come è possibile percepire e inseguire oggetti prima di avere alcuna idea di cosa essi siano, questi autori pretendono che queste interazioni causali con enti esterni bastano a etichettarli con dei termini lessicali, costruendo un intero lessico con referenti specifici, senza la componente del significato. Io dissento e spiego perché. Il tipo di semantica che adotto è diametralmente opposto, una semantica che ha solo significati, per la quale i referenti esterni sono indiretti, spesso non definiti, talvolta problematici. Noam Chomsky e Paul Pietroski hanno perfezionato questa semantica puramente internalista, insistendo che l’unico attributo sostenibile è la struttura mentale interna al locutore, una struttura complessa, caratterizzabile solo a un livello di astrazione adeguato, atta a soddisfare i vincoli imposti dai sistemi cognitivi con i quali interagisce: quello articolatorio-percettivo e quello concettuale-intenzionale. Mostro che la semantica proposta da Fodor e Pylyshyn si scontra con problemi insolubili quando tratta enti inesistenti, enti possibili, invenzioni letterarie e oggetti appartenenti a un passato remoto. In effetti, si scontra con problemi insolubili anche quando tratta oggetti e proprietà ordinari. Una semantica interamente internalista non incontra nessuno di questi problemi. Parole chiave: Semantica internalista; Teoria del significato e del riferimento; Jerry A. Fodor; Noam Chomsky; Paul Pietroski. (shrink)

We aim to focus on the mimic gestures intentionally produced to be “monstrate” to others, thus attempting to propose a semiotic analysis on the actor’s face. We shall attempt to outline the extent to which, since the rise of cinema, the actor’s face has gained a foreground role as compared to the full-figured body, and the legacy of the nineteenth-century handbooks of scenic postures was crucial in this context, especially those of Antonio Morrocchesi and Alemanno Morelli. To deal with the (...) actor’s body as an instrument, means to make it a blank page to be used to re-design the character’s body, including the face. In this regard, it is worth mentioning the method of the pedagogue Jacques Lecoq—one of the greatest teachers of contemporary theatre—which consists in the use of a special mask during the training process: the so-called neutral mask. (shrink)

La catégorie moderne de la légalité vit depuis longtemps une profonde crise d'identité. Selon l'auteur, il ne s'agit pas simplement d'une crise d'effectivité, mais d'une crise bien plus profonde, qui ne se manifeste pas seulement par la dissiciation du modèle de la réalité, mais qui bouleverse le modèle théorique lui-même, signe d'une crise encore plus radicale qui concerne tout le paradigme juridique au sein duquel elle a été conçue.00Après avoir tracé les contours de ce paradigme et mis en lumière l'aporie (...) du princpe moderne d'égalité, l'Auteur nous montre, en s'appuyant sur la révolution constitutionnelle de l'après seconde guerre mondiale et en faisant le détour par les territoires du droit européen, que ceux qui semblent être des chemins interrompus de la légalité s'avèrent être, en réalité, les chemins encore peu explorés d'une nouvelle légalité dont il brosse le portrait. (shrink)

A common and disabling consequence of stroke is the difficulty in processing contralesional space (i.e., hemispatial neglect). According to paper-and-pencil tests, neglect remits or stabilizes in severity within a few months after a brain injury. This arbitrary temporal limit, however, is at odds with neglect’s well-known dependency on task-sensitivity. The present study tested the hypothesis that the putative early resolution of neglect might be due to the insensitivity of testing methods rather than to the lack of spontaneous recovery at later (...) stages. A right hemisphere stroke patient was studied longitudinally for 3 years. According to paper-and-pencil tests the patient showed no symptom of hemispatial neglect 1 month post stroke. Awareness of spatially lateralized visual targets was then assessed by means of computer-based single- and dual-tasks requiring an additional top-down deployment of attention for the parallel processing of visual or auditory stimuli. Errorless performance at computer-based tasks was reached at month 12 and maintained until month 29 after stroke. A bottom-up manipulation was then implemented by reducing target diameter. Following this change, more than 50% of contralesional targets were omitted, mostly under dual-tasking. At months 40 and 41 the same task revealed a significant (but not complete) reduction in the number of contralesional omissions. Ipsilesional targets were, in contrast, still errorless detected. The coupling of a bottom-up (target change) and a top-down (dual-tasking) manipulation revealed the presence of a long-lasting spontaneous recovery from contralesional spatial awareness deficits. In contrast, neither manipulation was effective when implemented separately. After having excluded the potential confound of practice effects, it was concluded that not only the presence but also the time course of hemispatial neglect strongly depends on the degree of attentional engagement required by the task. (shrink)

Di Massimo di Tiro si conoscono pochi dettagli biografici. Le fonti antiche, concordi nel ritenerlo ‘filosofo’ e ‘filosofo platonico’, affermano che le sue dissertazioni o indagini filosofiche sono da ricondursi al suo primo soggiorno a Roma, al tempo dell’imperatore Commodo. Le quarantuno dissertazioni filosofiche di Massimo di Tiro offrono una visione privilegiata della cultura imperiale del secondo secolo, epoca in cui, dominante l’eleganza stilistica, anche la filosofia non disdegnava di dispiegare i propri contenuti mediante il bello stilo dello (...) strumento retorico. Nello svolgimento dei temi, perlopiù platonici nell’ispirazione e orientati ad argomenti presenti al dibattito coevo, ma comunque non escludenti altre influenze filosofiche, Massimo di Tiro si mostra pensatore dalla non banale semplicità. Muovendosi fra filosofia e letteratura, fra Platone e Omero, egli calibra l’erudizione sul filtro di un’esigenza educativa di ampio respiro. Nel volume si presenta la prima traduzione italiana completa dal greco. Il commento critico, aggiornato al dibattito accademico internazionale, mira a mostrare come l’opera del pensatore meriti una rinnovata attenzione nell’ambito degli studi classici letterari e filosofici, giacché nel delineare il quadro culturale del tempo essa consente di meglio precisare alcuni non marginali aspetti del platonismo del secondo secolo. (shrink)

The cognitive impairments shown by brain-damaged patients emphasize the role of task difficulty as a major determinant for performance. We discuss the proposal of Kurzban et al. in light of our findings on right-hemisphere–damaged patients, who show increasing awareness deficits for the contralesional hemispace when engaged with resource-consuming dual tasks. This phenomenon is readily explained by the assumption of unspecific depletable resources.

We prove that each ∀1 free amalgamation class K over a finite relational language L admits a countable generic structure M isometrically embedding all countable structuresin K relative to a fixed metric. We expand L by infinitely many binary predicates expressingdistance, and prove that the resulting expansion of K has a model companion axiomatizedby the first-order theory of M. The model companion is non-finitely axiomatizable, evenover a strong form of the axiom scheme of infinity.

The mental representation of brief temporal durations, when assessed in standard laboratory conditions, is highly accurate. Here we show that adding or subtracting temporal durations systematically results in strong and opposite biases, namely over-estimation for addition and under-estimation for subtraction. The difference with respect to a baseline temporal reproduction task changed across durations in an operation-specific way and survived correcting for the effect due to operation sign alone, indexing a reliable signature of arithmetic processing on time representation. A second experiment (...) replicated these findings with a different set of stimuli. This novel behavioral marker conceptually mirrors in the time domain the representational momentum found with motion, whereby the estimated spatial position of a visual target is displaced in the direction of motion itself. This momentum effect in temporal arithmetic suggests a striking analogy between time processing and visuospatial processing, which might index the presence of common computational principles. (shrink)

We study those relational structures S with the property that each partition of S contains a block isomorphic to S. We show that the Fraïsse limits of parametric classes K. have property ; over a binary language, every countable structure in K satisfying along with a condition on 1-extensions must be isomorphic to this limit.