There is an urgent need in philosophy of mathematics for new approaches which pay closer attention to mathematical practice. This book will blaze the trail: it offers philosophical analyses of important characteristics of contemporary mathematics and of many aspects of mathematical activity which escape purely formal logical treatment.

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)

Neuroeconomics, neuromarketing, neuroaesthetics, and neurotheology are just a few of the novel disciplines that have been inspired by a combination of ancient knowledge along with recent discoveries about how the human brain works.This fascinating and thought provoking new book critically questions our love affair with brain imaging.

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)

Anti-realist epistemic conceptions of truth imply what is called the knowability principle: All truths are possibly known. The principle can be formalized in a bimodal propositional logic, with an alethic modality ${\diamondsuit}$ and an epistemic modality ${\mathcal{K}}$, by the axiom scheme ${A \supset \diamondsuit \mathcal{K} A}$. The use of classical logic and minimal assumptions about the two modalities lead to the paradoxical conclusion that all truths are known, ${A \supset \mathcal{K} A}$. A Gentzen-style reconstruction of the Church–Fitch paradox is presented (...) following a labelled approach to sequent calculi. First, a cut-free system for classical bimodal logic is introduced as the logical basis for the Church–Fitch paradox and the relationships between ${\mathcal {K}}$ and ${\diamondsuit}$ are taken into account. Afterwards, by exploiting the structural properties of the system, in particular cut elimination, the semantic frame conditions that correspond to KP are determined and added in the form of a block of nonlogical inference rules. Within this new system for classical and intuitionistic “knowability logic”, it is possible to give a satisfactory cut-free reconstruction of the Church–Fitch derivation and to confirm that OP is only classically derivable, but neither intuitionistically derivable nor intuitionistically admissible. Finally, it is shown that in classical knowability logic, the Church–Fitch derivation is nothing else but a fallacy and does not represent a real threat for anti-realism. (shrink)

A significant body of research concludes that stable beliefs of perceived consumer effectiveness lead to sustainable consumption choices. Consumers who believe that their decisions can significantly affect environmental and social issues are more likely to behave sustainably. Little is known, however, about how perceived consumer effectiveness can be increased. We find that feelings of guilt and pride, activated by a single consumption episode, can regulate sustainable consumption by affecting consumers’ general perception of effectiveness. This paper demonstrates the impact that guilt (...) and pride have on perceived consumer effectiveness and shows how this effect rests on the ability of these emotions to influence perceptions of agency. After experiencing guilt or pride, consumers see themselves as the cause of relevant sustainability outcomes. The process of causal attribution associated with these emotions influences consumers’ use of neutralization techniques. Through the reduction in consumers’ ability to neutralize their sense of personal responsibility, guilt and pride positively influence perceived consumer effectiveness. The inability to rationalize-away their personal responsibility, persuades consumers that they affect sustainability outcomes through their decisions. The research advances our understanding of sustainable consumption and identifies a new avenue for the regulation of individual consumer behavior that has significant implications for the development of sustainable marketing initiatives. (shrink)

A growing body of literature documents the important role played by moral outrage or moral anger in stakeholders’ reactions to cases of corporate social irresponsibility. Existing research focuses more on the consequences of moral outrage than a systematic analysis of how appraisals of irresponsible corporate behavior can lead to this emotional experience. In this paper, we develop and test, in two field studies, an extended model of moral outrage that identifies the cognitions that lead to, and are associated with, this (...) emotional experience. This research contributes to the existing literature on reactions to corporate social irresponsibility by explaining how observers’ evaluation of irresponsible corporate behavior leads to reactions of moral anger. The paper also helps clarify the difference between moral outrage and other types of anger and offers useful insights for managers who have to confront public outrage following cases of irresponsible corporate behavior. Finally, the analysis of the causes of stakeholders’ anger at irresponsible corporations opens important avenues for future research that are presented in the paper. (shrink)

We devise exact conditions under which a join semilattice with a weak contact relation can be semilattice embedded into a Boolean algebra with an overlap contact relation, equivalently, into a distributive lattice with additive contact relation. A similar characterization is proved with respect to Boolean algebras and distributive lattices with weak contact, not necessarily additive, nor overlap.

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)

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)

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)

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)

Companies faced with a crisis sometimes blame others in their communications, when they feel that responsibility for the negative event lies elsewhere. Research has argued that stakeholders often react negatively to this type of message, because they perceive them as an unfair attempt to deny responsibility. In four experiments, examining blame directed at an employee and a supplier, we complement existing research by demonstrating that blame-giving messages can be persuasive in certain circumstances. Blame-giving communications can improve perceptions of firm ethicality (...) more than apologies or an absence of corporate communication. This effect, in turn, reduces negative word-of-mouth intentions. The study identifies several boundary conditions for this effect. For blame-giving to be effective, a credible third party needs to identify who is responsible for wrongdoing, and the company needs to use vivid communication with detailed information about the culprit. Furthermore, blame-giving can backfire: when stakeholders doubt the company’s honesty, this type of messaging is seen as manipulative. The study contributes to a developing research stream on the relative effectiveness of different types of crisis communications by demonstrating that, in certain circumstances, blame-giving messages are more persuasive than apologies. Moreover, our analysis offers guidelines on how to design these messages to make them acceptable to stakeholders. (shrink)

The ‘Turing barrier’ is an evocative image for 0′, the degree of the unsolvability of the halting problem for Turing machines—equivalently, of the undecidability of Peano Arithmetic. The ‘barrier’ metaphor conveys the idea that effective computability is impaired by restrictions that could be removed by infinite methods. Assuming that the undecidability of PA is essentially depending on the finite nature of its computational means, decidability would be restored by the ω-rule. Hypercomputation, the hypothetical realization of infinitary machines through relativistic and (...) quantium models, would thus be capable of breaking the Turing barrier. The speculation is unfounded in principle, apart from issues of physical realizability: The point is that the ω-rule does not cope with all objects entailing the undecidability of PA. As long as the system is consistent, the computational boundary can be established by paradox-like constructions, such as Gödel-Rosser’s and Yablo’s, which are refractory to infinite induction, and do stand as the barrier’s buttresses. (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)