The thesis argues that a basic ontology of dóxa and appearances (and more in general mental episodes) can be gleaned from a careful analysis of Plato's early dialogues. To this aim, the first part (chapter 1) discusses the main issues concerning Plato's language of dóxa and appearances, both from the linguistic and from the philosophical point of view, and argues that dóxa is best understood as judgement. The second part develops a three-stage argument: chapter 2 argues that dóxa and appearances (...) are for Plato affections (páthe); chapter 3 that affections are for Plato fundamentally relational events; chapter 4 that, therefore, appearances are for Plato fundamentally relational events. The third and last part (chapter 5) investigates Plato's ontology of evaluative appearances (and desire) by focussing on the interplay between the ontology of appearances and the ontology of values (“goods and evils”) as one can extract it from the dialogue Gorgias. The three parts are secluded within a general introduction and conclusions. Four appendices complement the thesis with: a philosophical glossary of mental events; a table of frequencies of terms for mental episodes in the Platonic corpus; a list of all the occurrences of 'phaínomai' and 'dokéo' in the early dialogues; and a semi-formal appendix discussing the logical form of Plato's statements about metaphysical explanations. (shrink)

Fueled by ever-growing amounts of (digital) data and advances in artificial intelligence, decision-making in contemporary societies is increasingly delegated to automated processes. Drawing from social science theories and from the emerging body of research about algorithmic appreciation and algorithmic perceptions, the current study explores the extent to which personal characteristics can be linked to perceptions of automated decision-making by AI, and the boundary conditions of these perceptions, namely the extent to which such perceptions differ across media, (public) health, and judicial (...) contexts. Data from a scenario-based survey experiment with a national sample (N = 958) show that people are by and large concerned about risks and have mixed opinions about fairness and usefulness of automated decision-making at a societal level, with general attitudes influenced by individual characteristics. Interestingly, decisions taken automatically by AI were often evaluated on par or even better than human experts for specific decisions. Theoretical and societal implications about these findings are discussed. (shrink)

Networks in nature possess a remarkable amount of structure. Via a series of data‐driven discoveries, the cutting edge of network science has recently progressed from positing that the random graphs of mathematical graph theory might accurately describe real networks to the current viewpoint that networks in nature are highly complex and structured entities. The identification of high order structures in networks unveils insights into their functional organization. Recently, Clauset, Moore, and Newman,1 introduced a new algorithm that identifies such heterogeneities in (...) complex networks by utilizing the hierarchy that necessarily organizes the many levels of structure. Here, we anchor their algorithm in a general community detection framework and discuss the future of community detection. BioEssays 30:934–938, 2008. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Aristotle's theory of truth, which has been the most influential account of the concept of truth from Antiquity onwards, spans several areas of philosophy: philosophy of language, logic, ontology and epistemology. In this 2004 book, Paolo Crivelli discusses all the main aspects of Aristotle's views on truth and falsehood. He analyses in detail the main relevant passages, addresses some well-known problems of Aristotelian semantics, and assesses Aristotle's theory from the point of view of modern analytic philosophy. In the process (...) he discusses most of the literature on Aristotle's semantic theory to have appeared in the last two centuries. His book vindicates and clarifies the often repeated claim that Aristotle's is a correspondence theory of truth. It will be of interest to a wide range of readers working in both ancient philosophy and modern philosophy of language. (shrink)

Paolo Mancosu provides an original investigation of historical and systematic aspects of the notions of abstraction and infinity and their interaction. A familiar way of introducing concepts in mathematics rests on so-called definitions by abstraction. An example of this is Hume's Principle, which introduces the concept of number by stating that two concepts have the same number if and only if the objects falling under each one of them can be put in one-one correspondence. This principle is at the (...) core of neo-logicism. In the first two chapters of the book, Mancosu provides a historical analysis of the mathematical uses and foundational discussion of definitions by abstraction up to Frege, Peano, and Russell. Chapter one shows that abstraction principles were quite widespread in the mathematical practice that preceded Frege's discussion of them and the second chapter provides the first contextual analysis of Frege's discussion of abstraction principles in section 64 of the Grundlagen. In the second part of the book, Mancosu discusses a novel approach to measuring the size of infinite sets known as the theory of numerosities and shows how this new development leads to deep mathematical, historical, and philosophical problems. The final chapter of the book explore how this theory of numerosities can be exploited to provide surprisingly novel perspectives on neo-logicism. (shrink)

Current research has documented how cases of irresponsible corporate behavior generate negative reactions from consumers and other stakeholders. Existing research, however, has not examined empirically whether the characteristics of the victims of corporate malfeasance contribute to shaping individual reactions. This study examines, through four experimental surveys, the role played by the national identity of the people affected on consumers’ intentions to spread negative word of mouth. It is shown that national identity influences individual reactions indirectly; mediated by perceived similarity and (...) sympathy. Consumers perceive foreign victims as different from the self and this reduces the sympathy experienced towards them. Sympathy is an emotion that shapes consumer reactions and regulates WOM. The study identifies two moderating processes of this effect. Individuals who score high on collective narcissism are most likely to be strongly biased against foreign victims. In-group bias is also moderated by the perceived severity of the crisis. When a case is perceived as very serious, perceived similarity plays a less important role in generating sympathy because consumers focus on the perceived suffering of the victims. Hence, in-group bias is stronger in cases perceived as having minor consequences. The paper contributes to the literature on corporate social irresponsibility and offers implications for both scholars and managers. (shrink)

This paper investigates what happens when we merge two different lines of theorizing about counterfactuals. One is the comparative closeness view, which was developed by Stalnaker and Lewis in the framework of possible worlds semantics. The second is the interventionist view, which is part of the causal models framework developed in statistics and computer science. Common lore and existing literature have it that the two views can be easily fit together, aside from a few details. I argue that, on the (...) contrary, transplanting causal-models-inspired ideas in a possible worlds framework yields a new semantics. The difference is grounded in different algorithms for handling inconsistent information, hence it touches on issues that are at the very heart of a semantics for contrary-to-fact conditionals. Roughly, Stalnaker/Lewis semantics requires us to evaluate the consequent of a counterfactual at all closest antecedent-verifying possibilities. Causal-models-based semantics also does this, but in addition uses the information contained in the antecedent, together with background causal information, to shift what worlds count as closest. This makes systematically different predictions and generates a new logic. The upshot is that we have a new semantics to study, and a substantial theoretical choice to make. (shrink)

The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) withits Optional Protocol is the first binding legal act and leading international instrumentregarding the rights of persons with disabilities. One of the principles of CRPDis “respect for inherent dignity, individual autonomy including the freedom to makeone’s own choices and independence”, whereby persons with disabilities are recognizedas holders of rights taking into account their specific situation. CRPD recognizes inArticle 6 that “women and girls with disabilities are subject to multiple discrimination”and (...) mandates signatory countries to “take measures to ensure their full and equalenjoyment of all human rights and fundamental freedoms.” The research was done inorder to examine the readiness of the state to institutionally cover the awareness of girlsand women with disabilities, their education on the issue of violence, access to servicesand information appropriate to the needs of each category separately, as well as systemicsolutions for their protection from violence. A qualitative research strategy was applied,and the research was conducted with representatives of the Centers for Social Work, representativesfrom the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy, professionals who are directproviders of services in the field of non-family protection, as well as the girls and womenwith disabilities themselves. The main conclusions that emerge from the research saythat girls and women with disabilities are more susceptible to violence, especially bytheir partners or family members. More awareness is needed to recognize and encouragereporting of violence. (shrink)

The book includes 13 contributions that deal with the first attempts of opposition to the of Aristotle's thought. From Theophrastus to Epicurus, and to Plotinus. The best specialists have collaborated (among others: M. Mignucci, E. Berti, K. Ierodiakonou, C. Natali, S. Maso, F. Ferrari, D. Taormina, A. Falcon, A. Schiaparelli).

According to Ernst Cassirer, the transition from the concept of substance to that of mathematical function as a guide of knowledge coincided with the end of ancient and the beginning of modern theoretical thought. In the first part of this article we argue that a similar transition has also taken place in the practical sphere, where mathematical function occurs in one of its specific forms, which is that of the algorithm concept. In the second part we argue that with the (...) rise of modernity the idea of substance and the related concepts of category and classification, which are deeply embedded in western culture, have not been totally supplanted by that of function. The intertwining of the concepts of substance and function has generated contradictory hybrids. These hybrids are used as a key for the understanding of the different repercussions of algorithmic logic on society in terms of social integration. (shrink)

The mnemonic arts and the idea of a universal language that would capture the essence of all things were originally associated with cryptology, mysticism, and other occult practices. And it is commonly held that these enigmatic efforts were abandoned with the development of formal logic in the seventeenth century and the beginning of the modern era. In his distinguished book, Logic and the Art of Memory Italian philosopher and historian Paolo Rossi argues that this view is belied by an (...) examination of the history of the idea of a universal language. Based on comprehensive analyses of original texts, Rossi traces the development of this idea from late medieval thinkers such as Ramon Lull through Bruno, Bacon, Descartes, and finally Leibniz in the seventeenth century. The search for a symbolic mode of communication that would be intelligible to everyone was not a mere vestige of magical thinking and occult sciences, but a fundamental component of Renaissance and Enlightenment thought. Seen from this perspective, modern science and combinatorial logic represent not a break from the past but rather its full maturity. Available for the first time in English, this book (originally titled Clavis Universalis ) remains one of the most important contributions to the history of ideas ever written. In addition to his eagerly anticipated translation, Steven Clucas offers a substantial introduction that places this book in the context of other recent works on this fascinating subject. A rich history and valuable sourcebook, Logic and the Art of Memory documents an essential chapter in the development of human reason. (shrink)

On a popular view dating back to Russell, descriptions, both definite and indefinite alike, work syntactically and semantically like quantifiers. I have an argument against Russell's view. The argument supports a different picture: descriptions can behave syntactically and semantically like variables. This basic idea can be implemented in very different systematic analyses, but, whichever way one goes, there will be a significant departure from Russell. The claim that descriptions are variables is not new: what I offer is a new way (...) of defending it. The argument centers on attitude reports. I argue that we should recognize a new reading of descriptions under attitude reports, which I call ‘singular opaque’. The existence of this reading cannot be explained on the traditional Russellian view, and demands a switch to the variable view. Along the way, some interesting new facts about attitude reports come to light. (shrink)

Quine is one of the most influential of contemporary philosophers, whose work has ranged broadly across a great number of topics and issues in a career spanning some fifty years. In this collection a group of distinguished philosophers offer a sustained critical evaluation of the full range of Quine's writings. Amongst the topics addressed are interpretation, epistemology, ontology, modality, and mathematical truth. This collection will certainly influence all future discussion of Quine. The contributors include: George Boolos, H-N. Castaneda, Donald Davidson, (...) Umberto Eco, Dagfinn Follesdal, James Higginbotham, Charles Parsons, Hilary Putnam, Barry Stroud, and Bas van Fraassen. However, Quine is given the last word, responding to the essays in the final contribution. (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)

Mascolo successfully defends a relational, developmental approach to emotions. I draw parallels between his perspective and the enactive approach, in particular with the concept of participa...

A bibliography of the writings on Pietro Piovani . A continuation of the Bibliografia degli scritti su Pietro Piovani , Liguori, Napoli, 2000, edited by the same author, which numbered 337 entries.

L’idea di bonheur è una delle chiavi principali per penetrare l’intreccio e le prospettive etico-sociali tra XVII e XVIII secolo. Chiaramente distinta, dagli stessi teorici, in senso linguistico, semantico e concettuale, dalla nozione di felicità, l’idea di bonheur, che indica un orientamento particolare del problema del benessere umano in senso individuale e collettivo, percorre l’antropologia moderna quale luogo ove rimisurare il destino solitario dell’uomo e la sua possibilità mondana, per diventare il criterio della nuova organizzazione sociale, economica e politica della (...) civiltà dei lumi. Questo volume procede dunque a una ricognizione della parabola del bonheur individuando le caratteristiche, i tempi e le modalità con i quali si è configurata nell’arco di due secoli, e disegna poi il significato specifico che tale nozione ha assunto nei suoi principali interpreti, da Saint-Évremond a Fontenelle, da Voltaire a Diderot fino all’abate Galiani. (shrink)

Tarski, Carnap and Quine spent the academic year 1940?1941 together at Harvard. In their autobiographies, both Carnap and Quine highlight the importance of the conversations that took place among them during the year. These conversations centred around semantical issues related to the analytic/synthetic distinction and on the project of a finitist/nominalist construction of mathematics and science. Carnap's Nachlaß in Pittsburgh contains a set of detailed notes, amounting to more than 80 typescripted pages, taken by Carnap while these discussions were taking (...) place. In my article, I present a survey of these notes with special emphasis on Tarski's rejection of the analytic/synthetic distinction, the passage from typed languages to first-order languages, Tarski's finitism/nominalism, and the construction of a finitist language for mathematics and science. (shrink)

In previous work by Baaz and Iemhoff, a Gentzen calculus for intuitionistic logic with existence predicate is presented that satisfies partial cut elimination and Craig's interpolation property; it is also conjectured that interpolation fails for the implication-free fragment. In this paper an equivalent calculus is introduced that satisfies full cut elimination and allows a direct proof of interpolation via Maehara's lemma. In this way, it is possible to obtain much simpler interpolants and to better understand and overcome the failure of (...) interpolation for the implication-free fragment. (shrink)

At the same time, the book is a contribution to recent philosophical debates, in particular on the prospects for a successful nominalist reconstruction of .

A recent article of Chernikov, Hrushovski, Kruckman, Krupinski, Moconja, Pillay, and Ramsey finds the first examples of simple structures with formulas which do not fork over the empty set but are universally measure zero. In this article we give the first known simple $\omega $ -categorical counterexamples. These happen to be various $\omega $ -categorical Hrushovski constructions. Using a probabilistic independence theorem from Jahel and Tsankov, we show how simple $\omega $ -categorical structures where a formula forks over $\emptyset $ (...) if and only if it is universally measure zero must satisfy a stronger version of the independence theorem. (shrink)

A passage from Michael of Ephesus’ Commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics, book V (p. 50, 6–10 Hayduck), gives some information on the Anonymous Commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics, books II–IV. Michael cites a series of ancient annotations to the third book, written by ancient exegetes and which have come down to him. It can therefore be assumed that Michael had the Anonymous Commentary in front of him when he wrote these lines. It is thus possible to assume that it was (...) Michael of Ephesus himself who organised the entire commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics and inserted the Anonymous Commentary on Books II-IV after Eustratius’ commentary on Book I and before his own commentary on Book V. (shrink)

Can we build endogenous expectations about the locus of occurrence of a target without being able to describe them? Participants performed cue–target detection tasks with different proportions of valid and invalid trials, without being informed of these proportions, and demonstrated typical endogenous effects. About half were subsequently able to correctly describe the cue–target relationships . However, even non-verbalizer participants showed endogenous orienting with peripheral cues , not depending solely on practice . Explicit instructions did not bring about dramatic advantages in (...) performance .With central symbolic cues, only verbalizers showed reliable endogenous effects . We concluded that endogenous orienting with peripheral cues can occur independently of participants developing explicit hypotheses about the cue–target relationships. (shrink)

This paper aims to show current philosophical anthropology pertinence to face up the question of meaning of human life. Exploring Marquard’s theory and his comprehension of human being as Homo Compensator‒ which allow to overcome the problems of modernity plunged in the gnosis dilemma, that in the absence of an absolute meaning it fails to understand the problem of evil‒ this paper firstly analyzes how modernity answered that problem from theodicy and philosophy of history. Afterwards, due to the failures of (...) these attempts, Marquard’s compensation proposal will be discussed as a search on a substitute meaning in the context of a philosophy of finitude, which advocates for a rhetorical-narrative meaning. The paper concludes with the problem of the non-compensable and its dilemmas on understanding meaning. (shrink)