Recent work on philosophy of technology emphasises the ways in which technology can disrupt our concepts and conceptual schemes. We analyse and challenge existing accounts of conceptual disruption, criticising views according to which conceptual disruption can be understood in terms of uncertainty for conceptual application, as well as views assuming all instances of conceptual disruption occur at the same level. We proceed to provide our own account of conceptual disruption as an interruption in the normal functioning of concepts and conceptual (...) schemes. Moreover, we offer a multilevel taxonomy thereof, where we distinguish between instances of conceptual disruptions occurring at different levels (conceptual scheme, conceptual clusters, and individual concepts), taking on different forms (conceptual gaps and conceptual conflicts), and leading to different degrees of severity (extending from mild to severe). We also provide detailed accounts through historical examples of how conceptual gaps and conceptual conflicts can occur at different times in the very same process of conceptual disruption. Finally, we make the case that different kinds of conceptual engineering can provide meaningful ways to assess and overcome distinct types of conceptual disruption. (shrink)

Il presente articolo si propone di seguire il percorso della tradizione dell’Epistola ai Pisoni di Orazio in Europa e in Italia tra Sette e Ottocento, con particolare attenzione al contesto storico-culturale di riferimento e agli specifici ambienti di ricezione. Il tema è certo ampio e necessiterebbe di una trattazione più distesa e articolata di quella che questa sede può offrire: la prospettiva sarà, dunque, limitata ad alcune specifiche considerazioni sull’argomento. Il lavoro si sofferma primariamente sui diversi meccanismi di traduzione e (...) ripresa che interessano l’opera oraziana tutta. Tra questi si rintracciano molteplici filoni: a partire dalla ricerca biografica, passando attraverso la vivace sfera dell’imitazione e della parodia, per approdare alle rielaborazioni musicale e pittorica. L’analisi giunge così a concentrarsi in particolare sull’Ars poetica, della quale si seguono le fila della diffusione e si ripercorrono gli episodi della fortuna in Italia, dove la ricezione dell’opera si lega alla questione linguistica ai tempi estremamente attuale. Sensibili all’influsso oraziano si rivelano tanto grandi nomi del panorama culturale italiano, quanto intere correnti letterarie, come l’Arcadia, oltre a docenti – sempre più interessati a una corretta lettura dell’opera da parte dei propri studenti – nonché semplici amatori. Funge, infine, da addentellato di uno studio che sarebbe, altrimenti, meramente descrittivo, un’ipotesi in merito a un possibile legame tra gli ambienti di diffusione dell’Ars poetica tipici di ciascuno dei due secoli. Dall’analisi condotta sui dati disponibili si evidenzia, infatti, una continuità di interessi tra arcadici e docenti riconducibile a una “discendenza educativa” di questi ultimi dai primi. (shrink)

The focus of Through Your Eyes: Religious Alterity and the Early Modern Western Imaginations is the (mostly Western) understanding, representation and self-critical appropriation of the "religious other" between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. Mutually constitutive processes of selfing/othering are observed through the lenses of creedal Jews, a bhakti Brahmin, a widely translated Morisco historian, a collector of Western and Eastern singularia, Christian missionaries in Asia, critical converts, toleration theorists, and freethinkers: in other words, people dwelling in an 'in-between' space which (...) undermines any binary conception of the Self and the Other. The genesis of the volume was in exchanges between eight international scholars and the two editors, intellectual historian Giovanni Tarantino and anthropologist Paola von Wyss-Giacosa, who share an interest in comparatism, debates over toleration, and history of emotions. (shrink)

The author presents a critical edition of the Latin treatise De mineralibus, which was generally attributed to Aristotle in the Middle Ages, but is in fact an abridgement of two chapters from Avicenna’s Kitāb al-Šifā’ compiled and translated from Arabic by Alfred of Sareshill, who put them at the end of the Liber metheororum, the first Latin version of Aristotle’s Meteorology. De mineralibus is transmitted by more than a hundred manuscripts. The edition is based on the complete collation of ten (...) witnesses of the text, selected according the stemma codicum proposed in vol. X.1 of Aristoteles Latinus, in which part IV of the Liber metheororum has been published. In addition to the editorial criteria, the author presents and discusses some peculiarities of Alfred’s Arabic-Latin translation. The edition is accompanied by Latin-Arabic and Arabic-Latin glossaries. (shrink)

Central topics pertaining to the current debate in the philosophy of action concern the distinction between practical and theoretical reasoning, and the nature of a conclusion in a process of reasoning. In this debate the reference to the Aristotelian reflection is recurrent. In four passages from his works, that is MA. 7, 701a7-b1, EN. H 5, 1147a24-31, EE. B 11, 1227b23-33 and EN. Г 5, 1112bl1-24, Aristotle explores some important aspects of practical reasoning making a parallel with the logical structures (...) of theoretical reasoning. In particular he finds specific analogies between practical and theoretical syllogism, practical and theoretical necessity, deliberation and analysis, action and demonstration. In spite of its specifications, the activity of reason shows its unity. Aristotle considers and deepens the constitutive ingredients of theoretical reasoning in the contest of practical philosophy. The comparison between practical and theoretical reasoning has consequently an expositive purpose, because it supports Aristotle's treatment of action theory. (shrink)

This paper explores Aristotle's remarks in Posterior Analytics on certain special disciplines that are subordinate to pure mathematical sciences. Optics, harmonics and mechanics prove their own contents by means of premises belonging to arithmetic or geometry. Even though subaltern sciences are exceptions to the prohibition on kind crossing, the premises to their demonstrations are legitimately appropriate to the relative conclusions. In order to delineate the demonstrative structure of subordinate sciences, Aristotle introduces the distinction between knowledge of a fact and knowledge (...) of the reason for it. In his view, these two different levels of knowledge, characterizing respectively empirical and theoretical approaches, are closely related. Nautical astronomy, for instance, deals with the observation and recording of the astral motions, which are made intelligible by mathematical astronomy. The Aristotelian ideal of an explanatory connection between appearances and mathematical principles seems to be the main aspect in the treatment of subordinate sciences in Posterior Analytics. (shrink)

Gadamer’s retrieval of phronēsis lies at the heart of his philosophical hermeneutics. This paper argues that this retrieval requires a co-retrieval of what Aristotle referred to as character virtue, and that Gadamer’s work largely neglects this. In part one, I review Aristotle’s analysis of the relationship between phronēsis and character virtue. In part two, I show how Gadamer’s double insistence on the importance of phronēsis for his hermeneutics and on taking responsibility for concepts generates the requirement of a co-retrieval of (...) character virtues and vices. Following this, I then survey four ambiguous tendencies in Gadamer’s work that seem to militate against such a retrieval. I conclude with some remarks for future work. (shrink)

Nicomachean Ethics 6.8 has been interpreted in a variety of ways. One dispute involves Aristotle’s remarks about the relationship of phronēsis to politics: does Aristotle claim that phronēsis is foremost applicable to an individual’s private life, to the political realm, or to some combination of the two? Two features of this dispute make it worthy of closer attention. First, the conflict of interpretations has not been documented as such. Second, I argue this contemporary conflict is a repetition of an ancient (...) conflict about phronēsis that was being waged in 5th/4th century Athens. Phronēsis was a contested term alongside two related terms, apragmosynē (quietism) and polypragmosynē (meddlesomeness), and the construction of lines 1141b23–1142a12 enters into this historical debate to create a productive tension between two rival views. Aristotle heightens the tension between views represented by quietists and busybodies for his own purposes. In section 1, I surface the neglected historical frame of Nicomachean Ethics 6.8. In section 2, I turn to the contemporary conflict of interpretations, showing how it repeats the historical frame in many ways, and I provide a basic taxonomy of the views typically offered. In section 3, I bring the two debates – historical and contemporary – together and offer my own view of what Aristotle is up to in the passage. I argue that centering the historical frame in this passage highlights Aristotle’s use of Isocratean-style phronēsis, while also transforming the concept by connecting it to a series of questions that go beyond Isocrates’ view, thus preparing for a later exploration of the best forms of human living. (shrink)