Enactive cognitive science combines questions in epistemology, ontology, and ethics by conceiving of bodies as open-ended and mutually transforming through activity. While enaction is not a theory of ethics, it can contribute to its foundations. We present a schematization of enactive ideas that underlie traditional distinctions between Being, Knowing, and Doing. Ethics in this scheme begins in the relation between knowing and becoming. Critical of dichotomous thinking, we approach the questions of alterity and ethical reality. Alterity is relevant to the (...) enactive approach, but not in the radical sense of transcendental arguments. We propose difference, instead, as a more generative concept. Following Simondon, we see norms and values manifest in webs of past and future acts together with their potentialities for becoming. We propose a transindividual concept of moral attunement that includes ethical know-how and consciousness raising. Through generative difference and attunement to configurations of becoming, enaction underpins an ethics of participation linking virtue ethics and ethics of care. (shrink)

The present article aims at providing some clarification on the Horkheimer-Neurath 1937 debate, so as to make three main claims: (a) around 1937 (even though perhaps neither in the early 1930s, at the time of his review of Mannheim’s Ideology and Utopia, nor after the Second World War, at the time of Adorno’s disenchanted statement, “the whole is the false”), Horkheimer belonged to the Hegelian-Marxist tradition stemming from Lukács’s History and Class Conscioussness (1923); (b) notwithstanding Neurath’s semantic and epistemological holism, (...) his fallibilism, his rejection of Wertfreiheit in the social sciences, his commitment to socialism, there is still a gulf between his position and Horkheimer’s, for Neurath did not accept the main methodological claim made by the latter, namely, the Lukács-inspired view that what “constitutes the decisive difference between Marxism and bourgeois thought” is the Hegelian “point of view of totality”; (c) highlighting the main differences between Neurath’s and Lukács’s versions of Marxism – one concerning the very idea of dialectic, and the other concerning the epistemic privilege of the proletariat – can throw some light on and help understand better the distinctive features of Lukács’s Hegelianization of Marxism. (shrink)

European Journal of Philosophy, Volume 29, Issue 4, Page 937-947, December 2021.

Recent developments in generalized probability theory have renewed a debate about whether regularity (i.e., the constraint that only logical contradictions get assigned probability 0) should be a necessary feature of both chances and credences. Crucial to this debate, however, are some mathematical facts regarding the interplay between the existence of regular generalized probability measures and various cardinality assumptions. We improve on several known results in the literature regarding the existence of regular generalized probability measures. In particular, we give necessary and (...) sufficient conditions for the existence of regular generalized probability measures defined on the whole powerset of any sample space. (shrink)

In the literature there are at least two main formal structures to deal with situations of interactive epistemology: Kripke models and type spaces. As shown in many papers :149–225, 1999; Battigalli and Siniscalchi in J Econ Theory 106:356–391, 2002; Klein and Pacuit in Stud Log 102:297–319, 2014; Lorini in J Philos Log 42:863–904, 2013), both these frameworks can be used to express epistemic conditions for solution concepts in game theory. The main result of this paper is a formal comparison between (...) the two and a statement of semantic equivalence with respect to two different logical systems: a doxastic logic for belief and an epistemic–doxastic logic for belief and knowledge. Moreover, a sound and complete axiomatization of these logics with respect to the two equivalent Kripke semantics and type spaces semantics is provided. Finally, a probabilistic extension of the result is also presented. A further result of the paper is a study of the relationship between the epistemic–doxastic logic for belief and knowledge and the logic STIT by Belnap and colleagues. (shrink)

Ever since the early decades of this century, there have emerged a number of competing schools of ecology that have attempted to weave the concepts underlying natural resource management and natural-historical traditions into a formal theoretical framework. It was widely believed that the discovery of the fundamental mechanisms underlying ecological phenomena would allow ecologists to articulate mathematically rigorous statements whose validity was not predicated on contingent factors. The formulation of such statements would elevate ecology to the standing of a rigorous (...) scientific discipline on a par with physics. However, there was no agreement as to the fundamental units of ecology. Systems ecologists sought to identify the fundamental organization that tied the physical and biological components of ecosystems into an irreducible unit: the ecosystem was their fundamental unit. Population ecologists sought, instead, to identify the biological mechanisms regulating the abundance and distribution of plant and animal species: to these ecologists, the individual organism was the fundamental unit of ecology, and the physical environment was nothing more than a stage upon which the play of individuals in perennial competition took place. As Joel Hagen has pointed out, the two schools were thus dividied by fundamentally different and irreconcilable assumptions about the nature of ecosystems.Notwithstanding these divisive efforts to elevate the image of ecology, the discipline remained in the shadows of American academia until the mid-1960s, when systems ecologists succeeded in projecting ecology onto the national scene. They did so by seeking closer involvement with practical problems: they argued before Congress that their approach to the theoretical problems of ecology was uniquely suited to the solution of the impending “environmental crisis.” With the establishment of the International Biological Program, they succeeded in attracting unprecedented levels of funding for systems ecology research. Theoretical population ecologists, on the other hand, found themselves consigned to the outer regions of this new institutional landscape. The systems ecologists' successful capture of the limelight and the purse brought the divisions between them and population ecologists into sharper relief — hence the hardening of the division of ecology observed by Hagen.45I have argued that the population biologist Richard Levins, prompted by these institutional developments, sought to challenge the social position of systems ecology, and to assert the intellectual priority of theoretical population ecology. He attempted to do so by articulating a nontrivial and rather carefully thought out classification of ecological models that led to the disqualification of systems analysis as a legitimate approach to the study of ecological phenomena. I have suggested that — ultimately —Levins's case against systems analysis in ecology rested on the view that an aspiration to realism and prediction was incompatible with an interest in theoretical issues, a concern that he equated with the search for generality. He sought to reinforce this argument by exploiting the fact that systems ecologists had staked their future on the provision of technical solutions to the problems of the “environmental crisis”: he associated systems ecologists' aspiration to realism and precision with a concern for practical issues, trading on the widely accepted view that practical imperatives are incompatible with the aims of scientific inquiry.46 These are plausible, but nonetheless questionable, claims which have now become an integral part of ecological knowledge. And finally, I hope to have shown how even the most abstract levels of scientific argument are shaped by political considerations, and how discussions of the conceptual development of modern ecology might benefit from a greater consideration of its historical and social dimensions.47. (shrink)

Still today it remains unclear whether Galileo ever climbed the leaning tower of Pisa in order to drop bodies from its top. Some believe that he established the principle of equal speeds for falling bodies by means of an ingenious thought experiment. However, the reconstruction of that thought experiment circulating in the philosophical literature is no more than a cartoon. In this paper I will tell the story of the thought processes behind the cartoon.Keywords: Galileo Galilei; Thought experiment; Falling bodies.

In European culture the sacred and the secular have existed in a dialectical relationship. Prodi sees the fifteenth-century crisis of Christianity as opening up three paths that eroded this dualism and tended towards modernity: civic-republican religion, sacred monarchy, and the territorial churches. Important counter-forces, which sought to maintain dualism, included the Roman-Tridentine Compromise, and those forms of Radical Christianity which rejected confessionalisation outright. During the Eighteenth Century, all these phenomena tended to contribute to one of two tendencies: towards civic religion, (...) or towards political religion. The former preserved a distinction between conscience and law; the latter comprised a state religion which sought to perfect all of human nature. It was civic religion which become embodied in the early USA, alienating God from worldly power, but leaving him as the guarantor of agreements between humans. Back in Europe, Prodi tracks the relationship between the Catholic Church and the new national states. He then turns to the political religions of the Twentieth Century. Prodi concludes by emphasising that this dualism of sacred and secular power lay at the centre of Western modernity, and expresses his fears about the collapse of civic religion into political religion, especially in the USA. (shrink)

The main aim of this paper is to put Peano’s opinion about the unacceptability of the actual infinitesimal notion into evidence. First we briefly focus on the cultural environment where Peano’s considerations originated and developed. Then we examine Peano’s article of 1892, “Dimostrazione dell’impossibilità di segmenti infinitesimi costanti” [Peano 1892].

Past research on recruitment has shown that employer image predicts job seekers’ perceptions of organizational attractiveness. We contribute to this body of work by examining job seekers’ reactions to a market-dominant employer that has suffered from a case of corporate social irresponsibility (CSI). We show that job seekers’ reaction is buffered in the case of dominant employers’ wrongdoing. This effect is stronger for job seekers who are very interested in working in the dominant employers’ industry. Market dominance, however, reduces the (...) negative impact of CSI only under certain circumstances. We find that market dominance provides a buffer against the negative effect of CSI only when (1) CSI is directly relevant to the domain of performance of the organization and (2) job seekers feel very certain about their attitudes toward the organization. In two experiments with participants actively looking for employment at the time of study, we tested a model of moderated mediation examining how market dominance and CSI influence perceived employer ethicality and perceived employer competence. These two variables, in turn, explain how job seekers form perceptions of organizational attractiveness. This is the first study to explore how job seekers react to potential employers that are dominant in a market but have suffered from a CSI incident. The study identifies the boundary conditions that explain why sometimes market-dominant employers can emerge relatively unscathed in the eyes of job seekers following CSI. The research opens important managerial implications concerning the recruitment efforts of organizations that have suffered from CSI. (shrink)

In Umberto Eco's semiotics, the encyclopedia is a multidimensional space of semiosis. It is a complex system of shared knowledge that governs the production and interpretation of signs inside communicative contexts. Every semiotic act involves the elements that form the encyclopedia. By means of several examples and comparisons with different semiotic theories, my paper aims to show how semiosis is governed by semantic categorizations, pragmatic rules, and narrative frames that the encyclopedia articulates and makes operative for interpreters and producers of (...) signs. (shrink)

In recent years, reflection on pedagogical tact has made a comeback in the international debate. Tact is a fundamental disposition of the educator, albeit one that is scarcely addressed in the training of teachers and educators. The question is whether it is possible to treat this pedagogical propensity as a teachable habit, and to what extent. Here we propose that tact can be understood as a teachable frame of mind of the educator by analysing tactlessness. In other words, in order (...) to become a tactful teacher, one has to pass through situations in which tact is not enacted, because the absence of tact – as Adorno proposes in his dialectical-negative perspective – becomes a condition for soliciting doubts about one’s educational action, metareflexive rethinking and finally tactful responses. (shrink)

The aim of my paper will be to provide a commentary on the introduction to the French edition of Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy (1985) by Bernard Williams (1929–2003) and to show the Nietzschean legacy that is made explicit there. In this introduction, called “L'éthique, question de style?” and published in 1990, Williams reflects on some of the problems of style that his book poses to French readers, to whom he feels his work is less familiar. Furthermore, Williams recalls (...) some moments of the Royaumont colloquium (which he attended in 1958) and dwells on some peculiarities that distinguish him from analytic philosophy, “French” philosophy, Wittgenstein and Heidegger. Finally, the text closes with a description of the image of the philosopher to whom Williams feels closest—that of Nietzsche—and illustrates the reasons that distance him from other models of philosophical writing. (shrink)

This volume explores the relationship between justice and freedom in Hegel's practical philosophy, with a particular focus on the pivotal concept of reciprocal recognition. The contributors analyze the intersubjective relations between individuals and institutions through the lens of Hegel and demonstrate how his account of justice and freedom can be applied to address pressing issues in political philosophy. Despite extensive scrutiny of the concept of justice by political philosophers, Hegel's unique account has been notably overlooked. What sets Hegel apart is (...) his emphasis on the inseparable link between justice and freedom. Freedom is inextricably tied to an account of just social relations and institutions, while justice itself is intertwined with a robust endorsement of freedom. The chapters comprising this volume examine three crucial dimensions of Hegel's framework for freedom and justice. First, the contributors address how Hegel's distinctive integration of freedom and justice sheds new light on the nature of his practical philosophy. Second, they relate Hegel's theory to other prominent accounts of justice, including Rawlsian forms of Kantian constructivism, Habermas' neo-Kantian discourse theory, republican views, neo Aristotelian accounts, and critical theory approaches. Finally, the contributors apply Hegel's reconstructed theory of justice to ongoing debates encompassing criminal justice, distributive justice, global justice, environmental justice, and issues related to racial and gender justice, as well as populism. Justice and Freedom in Hegel will appeal to scholars and advanced students engaged in research on Hegel's practical philosophy, 19th-century philosophy, and political philosophy. (shrink)

Despite the fact that Thomas Paine was one of the protagonists of the late eighteenth-century Atlantic revolutions, the dissemination of his political thought in revolutionary Italy has not been the subject of much research. While some remarkable works have appeared in recent years that focus on his reflections in Italy, for almost two centuries his oeuvre has remained under-studied and his most famous works were not translated into Italian. This article proposes to investigate the critical reception of Paine’s writings in (...) Italy in the last decade of the eighteenth century within the framework of the political philosopher’s activity during the Revolution. An examination of Italian counter-revolutionary thinkers’ perception of Paine’s theories will lead to an analysis of the political aims and editorial characteristics animating the Italian editions of Paine’s writings that appeared at that time. These translations did not concern his most famous works, in which Paine reflected philosophically on political issues, but rather little-known pamphlets with concrete political aims. (shrink)

In his earlier work, Individual Autonomy and Responsibility in Late Imperial China, Paulo Santangelo embarked on an incisive analysis of Li Zhi's philosophical contributions, noting the necessity to compile evidence underscoring the significance of individual freedom and responsibility. This led him to explore the reevaluation of the individual from the latter part of the Ming dynasty to the early Qing dynasty. His aim was to trace the evolution of the valorization of individual will and desire, culminating in the construction of (...) a more autonomous selfhood. Drawing on an extensive array of sources from both Eastern and Western traditions and spanning various disciplines, Santangelo's study meticulously addresses questions of philosophical and ethical comparability. This book stands as a vital resource not only for those engaged in Chinese intellectual history and moral philosophy but also for scholars interested in understanding these issues on a global scale. (shrink)

Il pensiero politico di Augusto Del Noce si caratterizza per una complessa interpretazione della modernità. Essa non rappresenta per lui il luogo del necessario processo verso la meta finale e perfetta dell’immanenza, che trova nelle religioni secolari del totalitarismo e nel nichilismo scientista delle società opulente la sua più significativa rappresentazione. La modernità come tale va per lui contestata nel suo significato assiologico perché la sua problematizzazione è la condizione filosofica e politica per immaginarne un esito che permetta invece di (...) recuperare il valore della persona umana come luogo dell’apertura alla trascendenza e come prima pietra dell’edificio sociale. Senza questa prospettiva le promesse di emancipazione delle teorie politiche legate ad una idea di progresso ineluttabile ma circoscritto entro visioni materialistiche ed atee sono destinate al fallimento, come è stato tragicamente testimoniato dalla storia. Diversa è stata l’ermeneutica della modernità offerta da Del Noce, che contro la rivoluzione intesa come tentativo di sostituire la religione nell’opera di liberazione dell’uomo dall’alienazione, vede invece nel risorgimento una categoria ancora feconda di possibilità di libertà per l’uomo dell’epoca della secolarizzazione. Di fronte ai dilemmi delle odierne società liberaldemocratiche, la visione personalistica, che fa dell’uomo un essere dotato di un principio di dignità infinito, rimane il retaggio di quelle figure della nostra tradizione ottocentesca che, lungi dall’avere esaurito sue potenzialità, offre per lui ancora delle risorse per la salvezza di ciò rimane di più prezioso dell’umanesimo europeo. (shrink)

In this paper we study |$\mathcal{M}\mathcal{V}^{+}$|⁠, i.e. the positive fragment of Łukasiewicz infinite-valued Logic |$\mathcal{M}\mathcal{V}$|⁠. Using mainly algebraic techniques we characterize all the finitary extensions of |$\mathcal{M}\mathcal{V}^{+}$| that are structurally complete and those that are hereditarily structurally complete.

In agreement with some of the ideas expressed by Perruchet & Vinter (P&V), we believe that some phenomena hitherto attributed to processing may in fact reflect a fundamental distinction between direct and reflexive forms of consciousness. This dichotomy, developed by the phenomenological tradition, is substantiated by examples coming from experimental psychology and lesion neuropsychology.

Abstract:Taking my title from "Lingering in the Woods," one of Umberto Eco's Six Walks in the Fictional Woods, I present a study of Stanley Cavell's style of writing. While a dominant Anglo-American style of philosophical writing seems to be motivated principally by a desire for argumentation, a Cavellian, lingering style aims at thorough expression and description of the human experience. Traces of this style can be found also in Ludwig Wittgenstein's writing. After reopening the debate that arose from some responses (...) to The Claim of Reason, I conclude with a close reading of Cavell's "Excursus on Wittgenstein's Vision of Language.". (shrink)

L’opera del giovane scrittore, poeta, critico d’arte e filosofo americano Michael Angelo Tata si presenta, fin dall’inizio, come un testo ambizioso. Come sottolinea l’autore stesso, l’obiettivo del libro è di andare oltre le tesi del filosofo Arthur C. Danto riguardanti Andy Warhol e la sua arte(p. 1). Ironia della sorte, l’autore di Beyond Brillo Box viene chiamato in causa in uno scritto che potrebbe benissimo intitolarsi Beyond Arthur Danto. Ma nello specifico quali aspetti della teoria de...

The specific complexity of the question of genres depends on the plurality of the problems to which genre is pertinent and relevant. When Croce proclaimed, at the beginning of the century, the non-existence of the genre, he reduced the entire range of problems to the sole question relative to a work's belonging to a genre. In more recent times, there has been an attempt to reduce genre to the property of the linguistic act, in a methodological framework that understands poetics (...) exclusively as the science of literature. Against such reductionism, it is important to keep in mind a wider, more articulated idea of poetics as a pragmatic meditation, to investigate genres according to the multiple lines of systematization that are pertinent to them. (shrink)

We introduce and investigate a family of consequence relations with the goal of capturing certain important patterns of data-driven inference. The inspiring idea for our framework is the fact that data may reject, possibly to some degree, and possibly by mistake, any given scientific hypothesis. There is no general agreement in science about how to do this, which motivates putting forward a logical formulation of the problem. We do so by investigating distinct definitions of ‘rejection degrees’ each yielding a consequence (...) relation. Our investigation leads to novel variations on the theme of rational consequence relations, prominent among non-monotonic logics. (shrink)