Four studies show that observers and readers imagine different alternatives to reality. When participants read a story about a protagonist who chose the more difficult of two tasks and failed, their counterfactual thoughts focused on the easier, unchosen task. But when they observed the performance of an individual who chose and failed the more difficult task, participants' counterfactual thoughts focused on alternative ways to solve the chosen task, as did the thoughts of individuals who acted out the event. We conclude (...) that these role effects may occur because participants' attention is engaged when they experience or observe an event more than when they read about it. (shrink)

Quantification is particularly seductive in times of global uncertainty. Not surprisingly, numbers, indicators, categorizations, and comparisons are central to governmental and popular response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This essay draws insights from critical data studies, sociology of quantification and decolonial thinking, with occasional excursion into the biomedical domain, to investigate the role and social consequences of counting broadly defined as a way of knowing about the virus. It takes a critical look at two domains of human activity that play a (...) central role in the fight against the virus outbreak, namely medical sciences and technological innovation. It analyzes their efforts to craft solutions for their user base and explores the unwanted social costs of these operations. The essay argues that the over-reliance of biomedical research on “whiteness” for lab testing and the techno-solutionism of the consumer infrastructure devised to curb the social costs of the pandemic are rooted in a distorted idea of a “standard human” based on a partial and exclusive vision of society and its components, which tends to overlook alterity and inequality. It contends that to design our way out of the pandemic, we ought to make space for distinct ways of being and knowing, acknowledging plurality and thinking in terms of social relations, alterity, and interdependence. (shrink)

In management literature, intellectual capital is considered the key driver of the competitive advantage of the third millennium enterprise firm; consequently, measuring, managing and reporting IC has become a critical issue. Frameworks addressed to measure and report IC have proliferated, nevertheless the adoption of these frameworks is not so widespread in practice. The strong call for critically investigating IC practices has been raised by several leading authors in the area. Doing a critical and performative IC research means empirically researching IC (...) organisational practices in specific contexts, in order to increase the understanding of the IC dynamics. By critically analysing the IC practices of ANPAS Piemonte, an Italian non-profit organisation chosen for its long-standing experience in issuing audited IC reports, the article contributes to the knowledge of how and why IC is measured and reported in a specific, outstanding NPO disclosing IC. Moreover, the case study analysis contributes to shed lights on the levers and barriers that should be faced by other managers intending to implement and effectively use an IC measurement, management and reporting system within organisation. (shrink)

In two experiments, we investigated whether 13-month-old infants expect agents to behave in a way consistent with information to which they have been exposed. Infants watched animations in which an animal was either provided information or prevented from gathering information about the actual location of an object. The animal then searched successfully or failed to retrieve it. Infants’ looking times suggest that they expected searches to be effective when—and only when—the agent had had access to the relevant information. This result (...) supports the view that infants’ possess an incipient metarepresentational ability that permits them to attribute beliefs to agents. We discuss the viability of more conservative explanations and the relationship between this early ability and later forms of ‘theory of mind’ that appear only after children have become experienced verbal communicators. (shrink)

At a time when they had largely fallen into disrepute Bolzano reactivated the distinctions between ‚clear‘ and ‚obscure‘, ‚distinct‘ and ‚confused‘ ideas. In the central sections of this paper I offer a critical reconstruction of the explanations of these pairs of opposita which are to be found in vol. III of Bolzano's monumental Wissenschaftslehre . I then provide a detailed account of its Leibnizian counterparts that were well-known to the ‚Bohemian Leibniz‘, and finally I evaluate Bolzano's criticism thereof.

Stefania Tutino shows that post-Reformation Catholic culture was a rich laboratory for our current moral and hermeneutical anxieties.

This edited work presents contemporary mathematical practice in the foundational mathematical theories, in particular set theory and the univalent foundations. It shares the work of significant scholars across the disciplines of mathematics, philosophy and computer science. Readers will discover systematic thought on criteria for a suitable foundation in mathematics and philosophical reflections around the mathematical perspectives. The first two sections focus on the two most prominent candidate theories for a foundation of mathematics. Readers may trace current research in set theory, (...) which has widely been assumed to serve as a framework for foundational issues, as well as new material elaborating on the univalent foundations, considering an approach based on homotopy type theory (HoTT). The further sections then build on this and are centred on philosophical questions connected to the foundations of mathematics. Here, the authors contribute to discussions on foundational criteria with more general thoughts on the foundations of mathematics which are not connected to particular theories. This book shares the work of some of the most important scholars in the fields of set theory (S. Friedman), non-classical logic (G. Priest) and the philosophy of mathematics (P. Maddy). The reader will become aware of the advantages of each theory and objections to it as a foundation, following the latest and best work across the disciplines and it is therefore a valuable read for anyone working on the foundations of mathematics or in the philosophy of mathematics. (shrink)

Hannah Arendt und ihre Schriften werden seit jeher als unkonventionell wahrgenommen, als disziplinär schwer einzuordnen. Sie haben breite Anerkennung in vielen verschiedenen Ländern erlangt und scheinen sämtliche fach- wie kulturspezifischen Grenzen zu überschreiten. Diese Studie reflektiert die materiellen Bedingungen jener Wahrnehmungen, ihre performativen Funktionen sowie ihre historischen Transformationen, die sie zwischen Deutschland und den USA von den 1940er-Jahren bis heute durchlaufen haben. Im Zentrum der Rekonstruktion stehen Arendts Begriff des Politischen und damit korrelierend sie selbst als öffentliche Figur. Beide Ideen (...) werden als Subjekte und Ergebnisse der Interaktionsverhältnisse zwischen der Akteurin, ihren sozialen und epistemischen Kontexten sowie der Gemeinschaft ihrer Leserinnen und Lesern wie auch Konkurrentinnen und Konkurrenten betrachtet. (shrink)

The text approaches the phenomenon of transnational migration movements in the globalized world as a question related to the specific borders and mobilities of philosophy. The circulation of philosophical ideas and subjectivities between different countries and languages is challenged as a form of transnational citizenship. This main thesis will be examined in the light of the building process of the concept of belonging in the political theory of Hannah Arendt in relation to her German and US-American audiences. I will first (...) explain the approach of the transnational circulation of ideas as well as its presumption, the consideration of philosophy as a specific social practice. I will then explore the mutations of Arendt’s thinking on belonging along a close reading and a contextualization of some of her German and English texts. The contradictions in Arendt’s conceptualizations of the idea of belonging will be finally reexamined as practices of constructing transnational social and intellectual frames. (shrink)

L’articolo intende evidenziare attraverso l’analisi di alcune opere specifiche di Paul Ricoeur -quelle che indagano i rapporti tra storia e verità, identità e oblio-la relazione in cui l’autore pone la costruzione dell’identità individuale in quanto processo metaforico e performativo e quella dell’identità collettiva in quanto espressione drammatica, con i processi narrativi, che riguardano le percezioni individuali e le raffigurazioni sociali. Ne consegue una teoria della rappresentazione dell’alterità, della costruzione identitaria e della narrazione della sovranità che impiega le categorie ermeneutiche ed (...) euristiche di una fenomenologia in trasformazione dinamica. In questa prospettiva, si rinviene la posizione funzionale di concetti in definizione quali la memoria, il ricordo, l’oblio, in relazione al rapporto tra l’individuo e la sua storia, così come di una comunità col proprio racconto. Ne emerge una concezione della sovranità quale metafora di identità in bilico che Ricoeur considera stabilizzarsi solo nell’equilibrio delle alterità e nello scambio delle narrazioni. Ne consegue la necessità di una riorganizzazione filosofica, politica, ma anche storiografica quale urgenza di ridefinizione continua e permanente del mito narrativo, in un confronto incessante e vitale con le narrazioni individuali e collettive degli altri. Lo stesso monito etico e politico che Ricoeur ci lascia nei suoi ultimi scritti. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic served as a catalyst to build a stronger European Health Union to protect the health of Europeans and to develop a new Global Health Strategy to contribute to global health security. In positioning itself as a key player in global health governance, the EU seeks to assert its responsibility as a global health actor and deepen its leadership in global health law.

This volume will be of particular interest to researchers working in the history, and in the philosophy, of logic and mathematics, and more generally, to ...

We examined how people think about how things could have turned out differently after they made a decision to cooperate or not in three social interactions: the Prisoner’s dilemma (Experiment 1), the Stag Hunt dilemma (Experiment 2), and the Chicken game (Experiment 3). We found that participants who took part in the game imagined the outcome would have been different if a different decision had been made by the other player, not themselves; they did so whether the outcome was good (...) or bad for them, their own choice had been to cooperate or not, and the other player’s choice had been to cooperate or not. Participants who only read about a fictional protagonist’s game imagined changes outside the protagonist’s control (such as the other player’s decision) after a good outcome but within the protagonist’s control (such as the protagonist’s decision) after a bad outcome. The implications for theories of counterfactual thinking and moral decision-making are discussed. (shrink)

Yinshun (1906–2005) is regarded as one of the eminent monks of twentieth-century Chinese Buddhism. In the mission of reinventing Chinese Buddhism Yinshun engaged particularly in the revival and restatement of Madhyamaka. His interpretation of Nāgārjuna's texts, the reassessment of the links between pre-Mahāyāna Buddhism and the Prajn˜āpāramitā tradition, and the critical analysis of the Chinese San-lun became the core of the new Mahāyāna that he planned for the twentieth-century China. Yinshun also adopted Madhyamaka criteria to reconsider the Mahāyāna schools that (...) were popular in China, and theorized a Madhyamaka-framed Pure Land based on his reading of the Shizhu piposha lun [T26 n1521]. This article discusses Yinshun's views on the Easy Path (yixing dao) and Difficult Path (nanxing dao) in the Pure Land practice, and contextualizes Yinshun's interpretation within the past history of the Chinese Pure Land School, as well as within the new debates on Pure Land that emerged in twentieth-century China. (shrink)

Rêves, nymphes, démons, fantômes, conversations avec les animaux et les montagnes, enseignements transmis par les plantes : l’enchantement a disparu de nos vies. Quiconque ose l’évoquer viole les canons épistémologiques les plus élémentaires qui régissent notre monde et est immédiatement disqualifié comme ignorant ou fou. Il est toutefois suspect que le tabou de l’enchantement entre en action précisément lorsque le processus historique de la modernité commence à produire des spectres et des cauchemars à une échelle industrielle : le monde est (...) peuplé de fantômes et personne ne peut plus en parler. Contre le récit triomphant de la modernité et les fables noires du complotisme dark, l’article propose de repartir de l’efficacité symbolique de Lévi-Strauss pour repenser notre rapport à l’enchantement sous le signe de la sensibilité, de la multiplicité et de l’autonomie. (shrink)

In this paper we discuss a view of the Machine Learning technique called Explanation-Based Learning (EBL) or Explanation-Based Generalization (EBG) as a process for the interpretation of vague concepts in logic-based models of law.The open-textured nature of legal terms is a well-known open problem in the building of knowledge-based legal systems. EBG is a technique which creates generalizations of given examples on the basis of background domain knowledge. We relate these two topics by considering EBG''s domain knowledge as corresponding to (...) statute law rules, and EBG''s training example as corresponding to a precedent case. (shrink)

RASP is a recent extension to Answer Set Programming (ASP) that permits declarative specification and reasoning on the consumption and production of resources. ASP can be seen as a particular case of RASP. In this paper, we study the relationship between linear logic and RASP problem specification. We prove that RASP programs can be translated into (a fragment of) linear logic, and vice versa. In doing so, we introduce a linear logic representation of default negation as understood in ASP. We (...) are also able to establish a link between linear logic and here-and-there (HT) logic. (shrink)

In a fragment entitled Elementa Nova Matheseos Universalis Leibniz writes “the mathesis [...] shall deliver the method through which things that are conceivable can be exactly determined”; in another fragment he takes the mathesis to be “the science of all things that are conceivable.” Leibniz considers all mathematical disciplines as branches of the mathesis and conceives the mathesis as a general science of forms applicable not only to magnitudes but to every object that exists in our imagination, i.e. that is (...) possible at least in principle. As a general science of forms the mathesis investigates possible relations between “arbitrary objects”. It is an abstract theory of combinations and relations among objects whatsoever. In 1810 the mathematician and philosopher Bernard Bolzano published a booklet entitled Contributions to a Better-Grounded Presentation of Mathematics. There is, according to him, a certain objective connection among the truths that are germane to a certain homogeneous field of objects: some truths are the “reasons” of others, and the latter are “consequences” of the former. The reason-consequence relation seems to be the counterpart of causality at the level of a relation between true propositions. Arigorous proof is characterized in this context as a proof that shows the reason of the proposition that is to be proven. Requirements imposed on rigorous proofs seem to anticipate normalization results in current proof theory. The contributors of Mathesis Universalis, Computability and Proof, leading experts in the fields of computer science, mathematics, logic and philosophy, show the evolution of these and related ideas exploring topics in proof theory, computability theory, intuitionistic logic, constructivism and reverse mathematics, delving deeply into a contextual examination of the relationship between mathematical rigor and demands for simplification. (shrink)

In an experiment on markets for services, we find that consumers are likely to stick to default tariffs and achieve suboptimal outcomes. We find that inattention to the task of choosing a better tariff is likely to be a substantial problem in addition to any task and tariff complexity effect. The institutional setup on which we primarily model our experiment is the UK electricity and gas markets, and our conclusion is that the new measures by the UK regulator Ofgem to (...) improve consumer outcomes are likely to be of limited impact. (shrink)

Uncertainty in Post-Reformation Catholicism provides a historical account of early modern probabilism and its theological, intellectual, and cultural implications. First developed in the second half of the sixteenth century, probabilism represented a significant and controversial novelty in Catholic moral theology. By the second half of the seventeenth century, probabilism became and has since been associated with moral, intellectual, and cultural decadence. Stefania Tutino challenges this understanding and claims that probabilism played a central role in addressing the challenges that geographical (...) and cultural expansions posed to traditional Catholic theology. Tutino argues that early modern theologians used probabilism to integrate major changes within the post-Reformation Catholic theological and intellectual system. Probabilist theologians realized that their time was characterized by many changes that traditional theology was not equipped to deal with, which consequently provoked an exponential growth of uncertainties, doubts, and dilemmas of conscience. Probabilism represented the result of their efforts to appreciate, come to terms with, and manage that uncertainty. Uncertainty in Post-Reformation Catholicism reinterprets probabilism as a way of dealing with moral and epistemological doubts in quickly changing times, a way that still may be useful today. Uncertainty in Post-Reformation Catholicism argues that probabilism played a central role in addressing the challenges that a geographically and intellectually expanding world posed to traditional Catholic theology. Early modern probabilist theologians realized that their time was characterized by many changes and novelties that traditional theology was not equipped to deal with, and that consequently provoked an exponential growth of uncertainties, doubts, and dilemmas of conscience. These theologians used probabilism as a means to integrate changes and novelties within the post-Reformation Catholic theological and intellectual system. Seen in this light, probabilism represented the result of their attempts to appreciate, come to terms with, and manage uncertainty. The problem of uncertainty was not only crucial then, but remains central even today. Despite the unprecedented amount of information available to us, we are becoming less able to formulate arguments based on facts, and more dependent on a cacophony of opinions that often simply reproduce our own implicit or explicit biases, prejudices, and preconceived preferences. (shrink)