This paper investigates the link between informational consequence and credence. I first suggest a natural constraint, namely that informational consequence should preserve certainty: on any rational credence distribution, when the premises of an informational inferences have credence 1, the conclusion also has credence 1. Then I show that the certainty‐preserving constraint leads to triviality. In particular, the following three claims are incompatible: (i) informational consequence is extensionally distinct from classical consequence; (ii) informational inferences preserve certainty; (iii) credences obey (a subset (...) of) classical Bayesian constraints. The proof is straightforward, but the theoretical implications are substantial. Informational theorists need to either give up the idea that credence applies to epistemic discourse, or develop a nonclassical theory of credence and credal update. Moreover, the result also suggests that there is a connection between informational consequence and triviality results, including classical triviality results like Lewis's. (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)

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)

L’opera raccoglie nove lezioni introduttive alla gnoseologia: esse scaturiscono da un’esperienza d’insegnamento concreta e si configurano come un approccio teoretico all’universo composito della filosofia della conoscenza, rappresentando un supporto didattico in grado di accompagnare pedetentim – tanto gli studenti quanto i cultori della materia – alla scoperta di una disciplina di fondamentale importanza per le sue attinenze con la metafisica e l’etica.

The article looks into the recent magisterium of the Church on the death penalty and deems it an instance of the development of doctrine rather than a circumstantiated reaction. It then dwells on the thinking that constitutes the backbone of the Encyclical Evangelium Vitae and compares and contrasts it with the various pronouncements of the teaching office of the Church, and with the two editions of the Cathechism of the Catholic Church. When one carefully examines the issue, human dignity and (...) its consequent human rights - among which one must mention the inalienable right to life - emerge as the hermeneutical cog of the problem. Together with the personalistic views of Vatican II, such a hermeneutic asks for a rethinking of the ethical norms in penal law which, in a clearer and more definitive way - per se, and not simply per accidens -, must then declare the moral implausibility of death whenever it is meted out as punishment. A death inflicted on someone else can only be justified within the strict and rigorous condition of legitimate self-defence. (shrink)