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)

The influential Italian thinker offers three essays in the political philosophy of language. Multitude between Innovation and Negation by Paolo Virno translated by James Cascaito. The publication of Paolo Virno's first book in English, Grammar of the Multitude, by Semiotext in 2004 was an event within the field of radical political thought and introduced post-'68 currents in Italy to American readers. Multitude between Innovation and Negation, written several years later, offers three essays that take the reader on a (...) journey through the political philosophy of language. “Wit and Innovative Action” explores the ambivalence inevitably arising when the semiotic and the semantic, grammar and experience, rule and regularity, and right and fact intersect. Virno unravels the infinite potential and wonders of everyday linguistic praxis and ambiguity. Wit, he argues, is a public performance, and its modus operandi characterizes human action in a state of emergency; it is a reaction, an articulate response, and a possible solution to a state of crisis. “Mirror Neurons, Linguistic Negation, and Mutual Recognition” examines the relationship of language and intersubjective empathy: without language, would human beings be able to recognize other members of their species? And finally, in “Multitude and Evil,” Virno challenges the distinction between the state of nature and civil society and argues for a political institution that resembles language in its ability to be at once nature and history. Few thinkers take the risks required by innovation. Like a philosophical entrepreneur, Virno is engaged in no less than rewriting the dictionary of political theory, an urgent and ambitious project when language, caught in a permanent state of emergency impossible to sustain, desperately needs to articulate and enact new practices of freedom for the multitude. Paolo Virno is the author of several books, including A Grammar of the Multitude, 2004). (shrink)

Some philosophers argue that false speech and false belief are impossible. In the Sophist, Plato addresses this 'falsehood paradox', which purports to prove that one can neither say nor believe falsehoods. In this book Paolo Crivelli closely examines the whole dialogue and shows how Plato's brilliant solution to the paradox is radically different from those put forward by modern philosophers. He surveys and critically discusses the vast range of literature which has developed around the Sophist over the past fifty (...) years, and provides original solutions to several problems that are so far unsolved. His book will be important for all who are interested in the Sophist and in ancient ontology and philosophy of language more generally. (shrink)

Pierre de Fermat is known as the inventor of modern number theory. He invented–improved many methods useful in this discipline. Fermat often claimed to have proved his most difficult theorems thanks to a method of his own invention: the infinite descent. He wrote of numerous applications of this procedure. Unfortunately, he left only one almost complete demonstration and an outline of another demonstration. The outline concerns the theorem that every prime number of the form 4n + 1 is the sum (...) of two squares. In this paper, we analyse a recent proof of this theorem. It is interesting because: it follows all the elements of which Fermat wrote in his outline; it represents a good introduction to all logical nuances and mathematical variants concerning this method of which Fermat spoke. The assertions by Fermat will also be framed inside their historical context. Therefore, the aims of this paper are related to the history of mathematics and to the logic of proof-methods. (shrink)

Chapter Θ10 of Aristotle's Metaphysics is traditionally taken to be about the truth of intuitions, namely episodes of an immediate and sub-propositional grasp of entities. This exegesis however saddles Aristotle with a broken-backed theory of truth because in other passages of his works he claims that truth and falsehood apply only to items of a propositional nature and denies that sub-propositional items can be true or false. An alternative exegesis is preferable which takes Θ10 to be about the truth of (...) existential statements and judgements concerning simple items. (shrink)

In this paper, I propose the idea that the French mathematician Michel Chasles developed a foundational programme for geometry in the period 1827–1837. The basic concept behind the programme was to show that projective geometry is the foundation of the whole of geometry. In particular, the metric properties can be reduced to specific graphic properties. In the attempt to prove the validity of his conception, Chasles made fundamental contributions to the theory of polarity and also understood that a satisfactory development (...) of projective geometry has to overcome the specificity of that theory itself. In this perspective, he developed his ideas on duality and homography, showing their dependence on the concept that he was going to pose at the basis of geometry: the anharmonic ratio, today called cross-ratio. The conceptual itinerary that starts from Chasles’ studies on polarity and ends with his results based on the cross-ratio represents the itinerary of his foundational programme. I will follow this complex and interesting line of thought, place it in the context of what was then called descriptive geometry, and outline a connection with the later great results of Von Staudt, Cayley, and Klein. (shrink)

This paper explores how Indic and Indic-derived linguistic analyses of the Buddha’s epithet _bhagavat_ influenced the epithet’s interpretations and translations in the Sanskrit, Pali, Chinese, and Tibetan traditions. The paper consists of three parts. The first part examines and classifies the evidence into four types of analyses that ultimately reflect analytical models afforded by the Indic linguistic disciplines of grammar (_vyākaraṇa_) and etymology (_nirvacana_). The second part explores how these linguistic analyses coordinate with pronouncements emphasizing the epithet’s extraordinary status as (...) opposed to ordinary language terms. The third part examines how these analyses fostered the adoption of certain translations strategies in China and Tibet, focusing on the second of the ‘Five Guidelines for Non-Translating’ (_wǔzhǒng bùfān_ 五種不翻) attributed to Xuanzang (600/602–664) and on pertinent statements recorded in the early-ninth-century Tibetan _Sgra sbyor bam po gñis pa_/_Madhyavyutpatti_. Using _bhagavat_ as an example, this paper aims to demonstrate the important yet little-studied role that Indic and Indic-derived linguistic analyses had in South Asian Buddhism as well as in the Indianized Buddhist cultures of China and Tibet. (shrink)

This paper aims to recover the ideas about semantics that are contained in Yāska’s _Nirukta_ (c. 6–3 century BCE), the seminal work of the Indian tradition of _nirvacana_ or etymology. It argues that, within the framework of his etymological project, Yāska developed consistent and sophisticated ideas relating to semantics—what I call his theory of meaning. It shows that this theory assumes the form of explicit and implicit reflections pertaining to the relation between three categories: denoting names (_nāman_/_nāmadheya_), denoted objects (_sattva_/_artha_), (...) and name-giving action expressed by verbal roots (_ākhyāta_). A typology of Yāska’s etymologies for what they reveal about semantics will be proposed and investigated. In doing so, attention will be paid to how Yāska’s ideas resemble and anticipate ideas concerning the difference between polysemy and homonymity, metaphoric transfer, and synecdoche. It is hoped that attending to Yāska’s thus-far largely overlooked ideas will help us better appreciate the _Nirukta_’s role in the history of early Indian engagements with semantics. (shrink)

The article analyzes the relationship between absolute knowing and the process of recognition in self-consciousness. The theme is discussed in relation to Hegel's thesis of the scientific character of philosophical knowledge. The article shows how the dialectical relationship between judging consciousness and the consciousness that acts is essential to understand the status of absolute knowing. To support this thesis, the article examines Hegel's discussion on the forms of manifestation of spirit within the chapter “Spirit” and the Hegelian analysis of the (...) relationship between revealed religion and absolute knowing. Selfconsciousness embodies the concept of spirit because it is constituted by the movement of infinity and is therefore a self-differentiating whole. The structure of self-consciousness characterizes the specificity of the Phenomenology of Spirit: the convergence of a form of knowledge and a form of human subjectivity. Another central theme is action, in which the «horizontal» recognition of the selfconsciousnesses gives rise to the «vertical recognition» of spirit.The action itself is the bearer of the unity of essence and Dasein, universality and particularity, substantiality and singular subjectivity. (shrink)

More than any other philosopher, Duns Scotus and Simondon both gave extensive consideration to the relation between what is primarily common and what is primarily singular. Pointing to certain resonances between their ideas can help us to develop a theoretical model to decipher the mode of being of the contemporary multitude. This article deals with: 1. The critique that Duns Scotus and Simondon address to everyone who believes that the matter form pair can account for the process of individuation; 2. (...) The gap separating the notion of the « universal » from that of the « common », and therefore, the need to precisely define the ontological and logical status of the « common » without any surreptitious use of categories linked to the « universal 1); 3. The paradoxical relation involving both addition and subtraction - between the individuated individual and « common nature »; and 4. The question of angels , a source of enduring fame in school textbooks for Duns Scotus, re-examined here in the light of Simondon ’s concepts of « transindividuality » and of « collective individuation ». (shrink)

[Patañjali, Yogasūtras with Bhoja’s Rājamārtaṇḍa Commentary. With an Introduction, Translation, Subcommentary and Notes by Paolo Magnone].

La struttura a livelli modella il tutto e le sue parti con grande generalità. Lo dimostrano le argomentazioni teoriche (4.3), (4.4) e (4.5), e lo comprova la casistica che è stata aggiunta. Una tale struttura non presenta affatto i problemi a), b) e c) che sono tipici della struttura ad albero. Essa corregge inoltre deviazioni concettuali che sono diffuse nel settore informatico. L’immediatezza deviazioni concettuali che sono diffuse nel settore informatico. L’immediatezza visiva, infine, ne facilita la diffusione sul piano professionale (...) e tecnico.Per concludere, ritengo che la struttura a livelli possa fornire un contributo anche alle ricerche di ontologia e in particolare possa favorire i tentativi di unificazione condotti sia sul piano teorico, sia su quello applicativo [Uschold 1996]. Le difficoltà ed i limiti che la teoria degli insiemi oppone ad un formalismo generale (ad esempio quando riduce la casistica della relazione concetto di livello possiede una valenza estremamente ampia e ciò lo predispone per gli auspicati sviluppi ontologici. (shrink)

In this study some typical aspects of human behavior are reconsidered in a new evolutionary perspective. Firstly, a theoretical paradigm is introduced, according to which animals show a natural propensity to maintain behavior far beyond the time when the triggering motivation has been removed;, these drifting conducts are defined as Vestigial Drifting Drives or. Such a paradigm is then applied to those human attitudes that once conferred an adaptive advantage on our species but have now become dysfunctional within the framework (...) of the current ecological crisis. In this context, human beings are considered the repository of VDDs that may play out as evolutionary threats. This thesis is supported by many examples and references that, hopefully, could stimulate scientific debate and further research in evolutionary anthropology, psychology, and related disciplines. (shrink)

The two theories of pancreatic enzyme secretion, those of exocytosis and transmembrane flow, are described. Data thought to support the theory of transmembrane flow of single molecules from pancreatic acinar cells are first reviewed, and the conditions which could allow these data to be explained by the theory of exocytosis of enzyme quanta, i.e. secretory granules, are then discussed.The evidence suggesting short‐term modulation of the composition of pancreatic juice is also considered, and its possible explanations at the organ and cellular (...) level are discussed, in the light of suggested theories on enzyme secretion pathways. (shrink)

L’articolo si pone il problema del perché Vico avesse pensato alla sua impresa come ad una scienza e si fosse occupato di confrontarla con la scienza della natura. Si passano in rassegna l’uso di concetti come degnità, assiomi, postulati, tenendo fermo che Vico non fu né un cartesiano, né un galileiano, e come non si lasci racchiudere nelle gabbie dell’apriorismo e del platonismo: egli ha solo fatto sue alcune idee o tesi presenti entro quelle tradizioni. Vico si guarda bene dall’effettuare (...) una scelta precisa e definitiva tra quelle realtà alle quali attribuiamo oggi il nome di razionalismo e empirismo. Si richiama contemporaneamente e negli stessi testi sia alla tradizione del geometrismo cartesiano sia a quella di Bacone e delpensiero dei baconiani del tardo Seicento, facendone un uso alquanto libero. L’articolo contiene inoltre osservazioni su Vico lettore di Cogitata et visa e di De dignitate et augmentis scientarum di Bacone. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:HERMENEUTIC OF AQUINAS'S TEXTS: NOTES ON THE INDEX THOMISTICUS PAOLO GurnTTI Universita Cattolica Augustinianum Milan, Italy I. Introduction: First Impressions of the Index Thomisticus UPON ENTERING an excellent library of philosophy, one cannot help but notice the 56 volumes of the Inde:c Thomisticus.1 Anyone with a scholarly interest in Saint 1 Index Thomisticus: Sancti Thomae Aquinatis Operum omnium Indices et concordantiae... (Stuttgart: Frommann-Holzboog, 1974-1980). Reference to this work (...) in notes takes the form: IT [section]-[vol.], [p.]. References to Aquinas's works will follow the conventions established by Busa in the Index Thomisticus (e.g., STl=Summa theologiae, prima pars) and unless otherwise indicated are from the same texts processed in the Index Thomisticus. References to Roberto Busa's works will have the following abbreviations: Clavis Indicis Thomistici: Clavis Indicis Thomistici (Stuttgart: FrommannHoltzboog, 1979). Fond. informatica linguistica: Fondamenti di informatica linguistica (Milan: Vita e Pensiero, 1987), (contains a bibliography of Busa's works through 1987). Per San Tommaso 'ratio seminalis ': "Per San Tommaso 'ratio seminalis' significa 'codice genetico '. Problemi e metodi di lessicologia e lessicografia tomistiche," in Atti dell'VIII congresso tomistico internazionale (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1981), vol. 1. L'Index Thomisticus: "L'Index Thomisticus," in Stitdi medievali, III serie, XXI, I, 1980. Informatica e filologia: " Informatica e nuova filologia," in G. Savoca ed., Lessicologia, filologia e critica (Florence: Olschki, 1986), pp. 17-25. L'originalite linguistique: "L'originalite linguistique de S. Thomas d'Aquin," in Archivum Latinitatis Medii Aevi (Bulletin du Cange), Tome XLIV-XLV, fascicule double, 1985, pp. 65-90. ORDO dans les ouevres: "ORDO dans les ouevres de St. Thomas d'Aquin," in M. Fattori and M. Bianchi, eds., ORDO II Colloquia internazionale del Lessico Intellettuale Europeo (Rome: Edizioni dell'Ateneo e Bizzarri, 1979), pp. 59-184. Voces REALIS-REALITER: "Voces REALIS-REALITER in S. Thoma Aq. Cum appendice de voce 'resrei," in M. Fattori and M. Bianchi eds., RES. III Colloquia internazionale del Lessico intellettuale Europea (Rome: Edizioni dell'Ateneo, 1982), pp. 104667 668 PAOLO GUIETTI Thomas Aquinas will be drawn to employ the Index Thomisticus as a powerful concordance. But any reasonable scholar can recognize the disproportion between a desirable concordance and this hyperbolic system of about 70,000 pages. The Index Thomisticus is the second largest written work of this century, surpassed only by the Enrcyclopedia Britannica. The Index Thomisticus is a mountain of pages that classifies with a precision never before realized everything that came from Aquinas's pen in twenty-five years.2 Is it not awkwardly disproportionate and too pedantically analytical for scholarly research? Moreover, what would Aquinas think if, in a return to this life, he could see the electronic digestion of his work? A neoscholastic Jesuit who devoted thirty-four years of his life to chopping and classifying even the most insignificant things, like " et " and " est," could seem to St. Thomas a modern computernut, i.e., a person who has lost his good sense in front of a screen.3 Everyone understands the usefulness of a concordance; even St. Thomas wanted and used concordances.4 But the Index Thomis136. De voce SPIRITUS: "De voce SPIRITUS in operibus S. Thomae Aquinatis," in M. Fattori and M. Bianchi, eds., SPIRITUS. IV Colloquia lnternazionale del Lessico Intellettuale Europeo (Rome: Edizioni dell'Ateneo, 1983), pp. 191-222. Thomistische H ermeneutik: " Das Problem der thomistischen Hermeneutik nach der Veroeffentlichung des Index Thomisticus," in A. Zimmermann, ed., ~Miscellanea Medievalia, Bd 19: Thomas von Aquin (Berlin, New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1988), pp. 359-364. L'Indez Thomisticus per la filoso fia: " L'Index Thomisticus per la filosofia e la teologia," in Teologia 5, 1980, pp. 258-265. Il logos Principia di dialogo: "Il logos principio di ogni dialogo tra persone secondo San Tommaso,'' in Portare Cristo all'Uomo. Congresso del Ventennio dal Concilio Vaticano II (Vatican City: Urbaniana University Press, 1985), pp. 577-584. 2 I. e., 8,767,854 words. The lnde:i: Thomisticus classifies everything St. Thomas has probably written, everything St. Thomas erased (Autographi deleta: Inde:i: Thomisticus: 006 ADL) and even works of other chosen authors for comparison with St. Thomas. a Roberto Busa, S.J., was born in Vicenza, Italy in 1913... (shrink)

It is embarrassing, to say the least, to admit in limine the impossibility of defining the key concepts of this paper, for I do not know either what tradition is or what topoi are. And what is even worse, I have no theoretical conclusions to present. But, after all, why define tradition? We all know what tradition is since it is one of the staples of our academic fare. Even the word itself is in great part an academic one. As (...) a matter of fact, in classical Latin, what we mean by tradition was expressed by words like memoria or institutum or mos vetus, whereas traditio meant surrender or the handing over of a city or of an enemy, although the meaning of instruction, training, teaching is also attested. It was the latter meaning that prevailed in the humanistic period, though with the technical sense of transmission of a text; and in this special meaning the word traditio still survives in the discipline of textual criticism. Of course, the transmission of the text was understood not only in the material sense but also as a means of conveying ancient wisdom, as a witness to its institutions and mores. So the revival of ancient learning implied a reconstruction of a tradition which was thought to have been broken during the Middle Ages. Thus, the studia humanitatis were defined as study of the past, a very well circumscribed past. Even today when we talk about humanistic studies we understand in great part the study of the institutions, mentality, literary movements of the past. Paolo A. Cherci, associate professor in the department of Romance languages and literatures at the University of Chicago, is the editor of Tommaso Garzoni's Works and the author of the forthcoming works, Capitoli di Critica Cervantina, Effemeridi Romaunze, and a collection of short stories, Erostratismo. (shrink)

Il libro ricostruisce la vita e il pensiero di Jean Guitton (1901-1999), il grande amico di Paolo VI, a quasi ventʼanni dalla sua morte. La vicenda umana di questo scrittore e filosofo cristiano ha attraversato quasi integralmente il XX secolo quale testimone diretto di eventi epocali: i primi tentativi ecumenici, le due guerre mondiali, le radicalizzazioni ideologiche del secondo dopoguerra, lʼera atomica e il Concilio Vaticano II. Il primo capitolo del volume è dedicato alla ricostruzione della vita di Guitton (...) e alle sue prime sintesi accademiche; ed esso fanno seguito altri due capitoli che trattano della sua antropologia (il tempo, il pudore, l'amore umano) e della sua cristologia filosofica (le condizioni di possibilità della rivelazione, la filosofia della risurrezione, la sua innovativa mariologia). Ne viene il ritratto di un pensiero di impronta umanista, ben radicato nella tradizione francese e che forse, come già lamentava Yves Congar nel 1963, non ha avuto, fino ad oggi, quellʼattenzione e quellʼaccoglienza che sembra meritare. (shrink)

This paper deals with a case of Virgilian ambiguity, namely the famous hemistich at Aen. 4.298 omnia tuta timens. By highlighting a plausible reading with a causal force (‘fearing everything too calm’, ‘because of the excessive calmness’), it seeks to demonstrate that this hemistich is an ambiguous passage. This view is confirmed through the imitation by Valerius Flaccus, who, in alluding to the Virgilian passage (Argonautica 8.408–12), highlights its ambiguity by including both of the most plausible readings.

Like all great thinkers, Charles Taylor was able with his oeuvre to challenge and often change the vocabulary, habits and theoretical imaginary of his readers. In this sense, he deserves to be celebrated as a teacher in the broadest sense of the word. Especially remarkable is his mastery in making the complexity of our experience as modern men and women accessible. Now, the first thing that can be learned from his sane attitude towards modern epistemology is the resolve to embrace (...) what he once called "a hazy picture of history" , in which order and chaos coexist in the same picture as a warning for the purity seekers. Our view of history must remain somewhat hazy because, if we want to understand long-term change without resorting to an old-style philosophy of history, we have to do justice both to historical discontinuity and to historical continuity. Thus, understanding deep historical change means being able to combine a fair dose of theoretical recklessness and a good eye for the details. (shrink)