The Linda paradox is a key topic in current debates on the rationality of human reasoning and its limitations. We present a novel analysis of this paradox, based on the notion of verisimilitude as studied in the philosophy of science. The comparison with an alternative analysis based on probabilistic confirmation suggests how to overcome some problems of our account by introducing an adequately defined notion of verisimilitudinarian confirmation.

We provide a 'verisimilitudinarian' analysis of the well-known Linda paradox or conjunction fallacy, i.e., the fact that most people judge the probability of the conjunctive statement "Linda is a bank teller and is active in the feminist movement" (B & F) as more probable than the isolated statement "Linda is a bank teller" (B), contrary to an uncontroversial principle of probability theory. The basic idea is that experimental participants may judge B & F a better hypothesis about Linda as compared (...) to B because they evaluate B & F as more verisimilar than B. In fact, the hypothesis "feminist bank teller", while less likely to be true than "bank teller", may well be a better approximation to the truth about Linda. (shrink)

A survey of some game-theoretic accounts of the emergence and evolution of spontaneuous cooperation in social and public-good dilemmas.

This is the introductory essay to the Italian translation of Matt Ridley's "The origins of virtue", surveying the game-theoretic and evolutionary approaches to the emergence and evolution of cooperation and altruism.

The paper focuses on Anthony de Jasay's "anarcho-liberalism" as based oon his game-theoretic approach to the problem of public goods provision.

The parallel research is contemporary to analyse processes and localisation in artificial intelligence (AI) associated with connexionism and learning algorithms. In machine learning, the perceptron (or McCulloch-Pitts neuron) is an algorithm for Boolean functions of binary classifiers. A binary classifier is a function which can decide whether or not an input, represented by a vector of numbers, belongs to some specific class. With a pattern N we use the calculator in synthesis applying polynomial advanced systems.

Abstract-In mathematics and mathematical logic, Boolean algebra is a branch of algebra. It differs from elementary algebra in two ways. First, the values of the variables are the truth values true and false, usually denoted 1 and 0, whereas in elementary algebra the values of the variables are numbers. From Poincaré to Turing mathematics is developed at the basis of the fundamental processes.

A wide family of many-valued logics—for instance, those based on the weak Kleene algebra—includes a non-classical truth-value that is ‘contaminating’ in the sense that whenever the value is assigned to a formula φ⁠, any complex formula in which φ appears is assigned that value as well. In such systems, the contaminating value enjoys a wide range of interpretations, suggesting scenarios in which more than one of these interpretations are called for. This calls for an evaluation of systems with multiple contaminating (...) values. In this paper, we consider the countably infinite family of multiple-conclusion consequence relations in which classical logic is enriched with one or more contaminating values whose behavior is determined by a linear ordering between them. We consider some motivations and applications for such systems and provide general characterizations for all consequence relations in this family. Finally, we provide sequent calculi for a pair of four-valued logics including two linearly ordered contaminating values before defining two-sided sequent calculi corresponding to each of the infinite family of many-valued logics studied in this paper. (shrink)

Quantic numbers variate as multiples of a fundamental quantity as the spin, that is always an entire multiple of 1/2.

Considering topology as an extension of mereology, this paper analyses topological variants of mereological essentialism (the thesis that an object could not have different parts than the ones it has). In particular, we examine de dicto and de re versions of two theses: (i) that an object cannot change its external connections (e.g., adjacent objects cannot be separated), and (ii) that an object cannot change its topological genus (e.g., a doughnut cannot turn into a sphere). Stronger forms of structural essentialism, (...) such as morphological essentialism (an object cannot change shape) and locative essentialism (an object cannot change position) are also examined. (shrink)

I present a ‘stage-theoretical’ interpretation of the supervaluationist semantics for the growing-block theory of time according to which the ‘nodes’ on the branching tree of historical possibilities are taken to be possible stages of the growth of the growing-block. As I will argue, the resulting interpretation (i) is very intuitive, (ii) can easily ward off an objection to supervaluationist treatments of the growing-block theory presented by Fabrice Correia and Sven Rosenkranz, and (iii) is also not saddled by the problems affecting (...) the supervaluationist version of the growing-block theory defended by R. A. Briggs and Graeme A. Forbes. (shrink)

This paper discusses three relevant logics that obey Component Homogeneity - a principle that Goddard and Routley introduce in their project of a logic of significance. The paper establishes two main results. First, it establishes a general characterization result for two families of logic that obey Component Homogeneity - that is, we provide a set of necessary and sufficient conditions for their consequence relations. From this, we derive characterization results for S*fde, dS*fde, crossS*fde. Second, the paper establishes complete sequent calculi (...) for S*fde, dS*fde, crossS*fde. Among the other accomplishments of the paper, we generalize the semantics from Bochvar, Hallden, Deutsch and Daniels, we provide a general recipe to define containment logics, we explore the single-premise/single-conclusion fragment of S*fde, dS*fde, crossS*fdeand the connections between crossS*fde and the logic Eq of equality by Epstein. Also, we present S*fde as a relevant logic of meaninglessness that follows the main philosophical tenets of Goddard and Routley, and we briefly examine three further systems that are closely related to our main logics. Finally, we discuss Routley's criticism to containment logic in light of our results, and overview some open issues. (shrink)

According to Composition is Identity, a whole is literally identical to the plurality of its parts. According to Mereological Nihilism, nothing has proper parts. In this note, it is argued that Composition is Identity can be shown to entail Mereological Nihilism in a much more simple and direct way than the one recently proposed by Claudio Calosi.

There are two main ways in which the notion of mereological fusion is usually defined in the current literature in mereology which have been labelled ‘Leśniewski fusion’ and ‘Goodman fusion’. It is well-known that, with Minimal Mereology as the background theory, every Leśniewski fusion also qualifies as a Goodman fusion. However, the converse does not hold unless stronger mereological principles are assumed. In this paper I will discuss how the gap between the two notions can be filled, focussing in particular (...) on two specific sets of principles that appear to be of particular philosophical interest. The first way to make the two notions equivalent can be used to shed some interesting light on the kind of intuition both notions seem to articulate. The second shows the importance of a little-known mereological principle which I will call ‘Mild Supplementation’. As I will show, the mereology obtained by adding Mild Supplementation to Minimal Mereology occupies an interesting position in the landscape of theories that are stronger than Minimal Mereology but weaker than what Achille Varzi and Roberto Casati have labelled ‘Extensional Mereology’. (shrink)

In this article I examine the main conceptions of public reason in contemporary political philosophy in order to set the frame for appreciating the novelty of the pragmatist understanding of public reason as based upon the notion of consequences and upon a theory of rationality as inquiry. The approach is inspired by Dewey but is free from any concern with history of philosophy. The aim is to propose a different understanding of the nature of public reason aimed at overcoming the (...) limitations of the existing approaches. Public reason is presented as the proper basis for discussing contested issues in the broad frame of deep democracy. (shrink)

Reasons-first theorists claim that facts about reasons for attitudes are normatively primitive, and that all other normative facts ultimately reduce to facts about reasons. According to their view, for example, the fact that something is good ultimately reduces to facts about reasons to favour it. I argue that these theories face a challenging dilemma due to the normativity of arational lifeforms, for instance the fact that water is good for plants. If all normative facts are, ultimately, facts about reasons for (...) attitudes, then reasons-first theorists must either (a) show that these facts do reduce to facts about reasons, or (b) concede that they do not and, instead, show that this is not a problem for their view. Both options, however, are riddled with difficulties—or so I will try to argue. (shrink)

The aim of this study is to address the “Grounding Grounding Problem,” that is, the question as to what, if anything, grounds facts about grounding. I aim to show that, if a seemingly plausible principle of modal recombination between fundamental facts and the principle customarily called “Entailment” are assumed, it is possible to prove not only that grounding facts featuring fundamental, contingent grounds are derivative but also that either they are partially grounded in the grounds they feature or they are (...) “abysses”. (shrink)

This issue of The Monist is devoted to the metaphysics of lesser kinds, which is to say those kinds of entity that are not generally recognized as occupying a prominent position in the categorial structure of the world. Why bother? We offer two sorts of reason. The first is methodological. In mathematics, it is common practice to study certain functions (for instance) by considering limit cases: What if x = 0? What if x is larger than any assigned value? Physics, (...) too, often studies the (idealized) initial and boundary conditions of a given system: What would happen in the case of a perfect sphere, or a perfectly black body? In the cognitive sciences, research often thrives on the analysis of cognitive errors, perceptual illusions, brain pathologies. Also in logic one can learn a lot by studying special, anomalous scenarios such as those exhibited by the paradoxes: it is unlikely that we actually find ourselves in a soritical context, or in a liar-like situation, but the fact that we might—or simply the fact that we can conceive of such a possibility—is important enough to deserve careful consideration. In short, the odd, the unfamiliar, the extra-ordinary, the limit cases are perfectly at home in scientific and more broadly intellectual discourse at various levels, where they can be fruitfully engaged in a sophisticated way (witness the existence of specific confining and managing strategies for dealing with them); and they are important precisely because they instruct us concerning the normal, the obvious, and the paradigmatic. The same goes for metaphysics, we submit. Although its major concern is, naturally, with such core entities as substances, properties, or hunks of solid matter, a lot may be learned by paying attention to those limit cases where we find ourselves dealing with entities of much lesser kinds, whether real or putative. (shrink)

In this paper I will present three arguments (based on the notions of constitution, metaphysical reality, and truth, respectively) with the aim of shedding some new light on the structure of Fine’s (2005, 2006) ‘McTaggartian’ arguments against the reality of tense. Along the way, I will also (i) draw a novel map of the main realist positions about tense, (ii) unearth a previously unnoticed but potentially interesting form of external relativism (which I will label ‘hyper-presentism’) and (iii) sketch a novel (...) interpretation of Fine’s fragmentalism (which I contrast with Lipman’s 2015, 2016b, forthcoming). (shrink)

A brief study of Saul Steinberg’s works on shadows and reflections, and of the seemingly paradoxical world that emerges from such works.

What is the relation between parts taken together and the whole that they compose? The recent literature appears to be dominated by two different answers to this question, which are normally thought of as being incompatible. According to the first, parts taken together are identical to the whole that they compose. According to the second, the whole is grounded in its parts. The aim of this paper is to make some theoretical room for the view according to which parts ground (...) the whole they compose while being, at the same time, identical to it. (shrink)

Grounding contingentism is the doctrine according to which grounds are not guaranteed to necessitate what they ground. In this paper I will argue that the most plausible version of contingentism is incompatible with the idea that the grounding relation is transitive, unless either ‘priority monism’ or ‘contrastivism’ are assumed.

In its simplest form, a Spritz is an aperitif made with (sparkling) water and (white) wine. A ‘gunky Spritz’, as I will call it, is a Spritz in which the water and the wine are mixed through and through, so that every proper part of the Spritz has a proper part containing both water and wine. In the literature on the notion of location the possibility of mixtures like a gunky Spritz has been thought of as either threatening seemingly intuitive (...) locative principles, or as requiring the position of multiple primitive locative relations. In this paper I present a new theory of location which assumes as primitive only the notion of pervasive location and show that it can account for the possibility of gunky Spritz in an intuitive and adequate way. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to propose a novel supervaluationist theory of ‘actually’ in the open future. First, I will argue that any adequate theory of actuality in a branching setting must comply with three main desiderata. Second, I will prove that none of the actuality operators that have been proposed in the literature is up to the task. Finally, I will propose a novel theory of actuality in the open future combining one of the existing definitions of the (...) actuality operator with a new definition of the historical possibility operator, and argue for its adequacy. The central feature of the theory I will advance is the introduction of an actuality parameter capable of being shifted by the historical possibility operator. I will argue that this account appears to not only be consistent with the idea that the future is genuinely open, but also with the general idea that ‘actually’ is, in a relevant sense, a ‘rigid’ operator. (shrink)

In a recent piece, Jon Bebb (2023) has argued that we have no reason to believe, contrary to what is often assumed, that ‘normal’ is ambiguous between a statistical and a normative sense. I argue that his case rests on two false premisses, and that we have very good reasons to believe that ‘normal’ is, in fact, ambiguous in this way. As part of my argument, I will go on to suggest that if ‘normal’ is ambiguous between a statistical and (...) a normative sense, that is because of the deep but seldom recognised connection between regularities and rules. This suggestion, if correct, will in turn help us elucidate three familiar thoughts about normality. (shrink)

Este artículo pretende ofrecer una visión alternativa tanto de la lectura conceptualista tradicional de Kant como de la nueva lectura no conceptualista. En contra de las lecturas conceptualistas tradicionales sostengo que confunden las condiciones para la representación sensible de los objetos (tesis de la intencionalidad) con las condiciones para el reconocimiento (Erkenntnis) de que representamos objetos mediante intuiciones sensibles (tesis del reconocimiento). En contra de las lecturas no conceptualistas sostengo que no distinguen el no conceptualismo -propio de la filosofía contemporánea (...) de la mente- de las tesis antiintelectualistas de Kant. Tales lecturas fracasan porque se equivocan al atribuir un contenido representacional a las intuiciones sensibles de Kant. Las intuiciones sensibles, según Kant, no presentan el mundo según ciertas condiciones de satisfacción que podrían o no ser satisfechas por el mundo. Por lo tanto, no son ni verídicas ni non verídicas. Se limitan a presentar el mundo de una manera directa, independiente de los conceptos, lo que llamaré aquí la presentación de re de los objetos. En mi lectura, la oposición entre intuiciones y conceptos es la oposición entre la presentación de re de um objeto y el reconocimento proposicional de dicto de que representamos algo como um objeto. (shrink)

Dieser Schwerpunkt dreht sich um das Konzept der Mathematik und ihrer Komponenten und die Bedeutung von Konnektoren für die Mathematik, die auf Taschenrechner angewendet werden.

This paper presents a semantical analysis of the Weak Kleene Logics Kw3 and PWK from the tradition of Bochvar and Halldén. These are three-valued logics in which a formula takes the third value if at least one of its components does. The paper establishes two main results: a characterisation result for the relation of logical con- sequence in PWK – that is, we individuate necessary and sufficient conditions for a set.

Fine (2005, 2006) has presented a ‘trilemma’ concerning the tense-realist idea that reality is constituted by tensed facts. According to Fine, there are only three ways out of the trilemma, consisting in what he takes to be the three main families of tense-realism: ‘presentism’, ‘(external) relativism’, and ‘fragmentalism’. Importantly, although Fine characterises tense-realism as the thesis that reality is constituted (at least in part) by tensed facts, he explicitly claims that tense realists are not committed to their fundamental existence. Recently, (...) Correia and Rosenkranz (2011, 2012) have claimed that Fine’s tripartite map of tense realism is incomplete as it misses a fourth position they call ‘dynamic absolutism’. In this paper, I will argue that dynamic absolutists are committed to the irreducible existence of tensed facts and that, for this reason, they face a similar trilemma concerning the notion of fact-content. I will thus conclude that a generalised version of Fine’s trilemma, concerning both fact-constitution and fact-content, is indeed inescapable. (shrink)

Cette orientation évolue autour du concept de mathématiques et de ses composants et de l'importance des connecteurs pour les mathématiques appliquées aux calculatrices.Les symboles et la synthèse sont inscrits pour remarquer leur règle dans les mathématiques et les machines intelligentes générales.

This is a position article summarizing our approach to the philosophy of space and spatial representation. Our concern is mostly methodological: above all, we argue that a number of philosophical puzzles that arise in this field—puzzles concerning the nature of spatial entities, their material and mereological constitution, their relationship with the space that they occupy—stem from a confusion between semantic issues and true metaphysical concerns.

ABSTRACTThe ability of providing an adequate supervenience base for tensed truths may seem to be one of the main theoretical advantages of both the growing-block and the moving-spotlight theory of time over presentism. However, in this paper I will argue that some propositions appear to be as problematic for growing-block theorists as past-directed propositions are for presentists, namely propositions stating that nothing will be the case in the future. Furthermore, I will show that the moving-spotlight theory can adequately address all (...) the main supervenience challenges that can be levelled against A-theories of time. I will, thus, conclude that, at least as far as the supervenience principle is concerned, the moving-spotlight theory should be preferred over both presentism and the growing-block theory. (shrink)

The possibility of changing the past by means of time-travel appears to depend on the possibility of distinguishing the past as it is ‘before’ and ‘after’ the time-travel. So far, all the metaphysical models that have been proposed to account for the possibility of past-changing time-travels operate this distinction by conceiving of time as multi-dimensional, and thus by significantly inflating our metaphysics of time. The aim of this article is to argue that there is an intuitive sense in which past-changing (...) time-travels are metaphysically possible also in one-dimensional time. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The philosophical tradition approaches to morals have their grounds predominantly on metaphysical and theological concepts and theories. Among the traditional ethics concepts, the most prominent is the Divine Command Theory (DCT). As per the DCT, God gives moral foundations to the humankind by its creation and through Revelation. Morality and Divinity are inseparable since the most remote civilization. These concepts submerge in a theological framework and are largely accepted by most followers of the three Abrahamic traditions: Judaism, Christianity, and (...) Islam: the greatest part of the human population. Holding faith and Revelation for its grounds, the Divine Command Theories are not strictly subject to the demonstration. The opponents to the Divine Command conception of morals, grounded in the impossibility of demonstration of its metaphysical and religious assumptions, have tried for many centuries (albeit unsuccessfully) to devalue its importance. They held the argument that it does not show material evidence and logical coherence and, for this reason, cannot be taken into account for scientific nor philosophical purposes. It is just a belief and, as so, should be understood. Besides these extreme oppositions, many other concepts contravene the Divine Command theories, in one or another way, in part or in full. Many philosophers and social scientists, from the classic Greek philosophy up to the present date, for instance, sustain that morality is only a construct, and thus culturally relative and culturally determined. However, this brings many other discussions and imposes the challenge to determine what is the meaning of culture, which elements of culture are morally determinant, and finally, what are the boundaries of such relativity. Moral determinists claim that everything related to human behavior, including morality, is determined, once free will does not exist. More recently, modern thinkers argued that there is a strict science of morality. However, the scientific method alone, despite explaining several facts and evidence, cannot enlighten the entire content and full meaning of ethics. Morals’ understanding requires a broader perception, and an agreement among philosophers, which they have never achieved. All of these questions have many different configurations depending on each philosophical strand, and start complex analysis and endless debates, as long as many of them are reciprocally conflictive. The universe and the atmosphere involving this thesis are the dominions of all these conceptual conflicts, observed from an objective and evolutionary standpoint. Irrespective of this circumstance and its intrinsic importance, however, these questions are far distant from the methodological approach of an analytical discussion on objective morals, what is, indeed, the aim and scope of this work. We should briefly revisit these prominent traditional theories because this thesis shelters a comparative study, and its assumptions at least differ profoundly from all traditional theories. Therefore, it becomes necessary offering direct and specific elements of comparison to the reader, for the right criticism, dispensing interruptive researches. However, even revisiting the traditional theories, for this comparative and critical exposure purpose, they will be kept by the side of our main concerns, as “aliena materia.” Irrespective of the validity of any or all of the elements of this discussion, and their meaning as the philosophical universe of this thesis, the purpose of this work is demonstrating and justifying the existence and meaning of prehistoric moral archetypes arisen directly from the very first social needs and efforts for survival. These archetypes are the definition of the essential foundation of ethics, its aggregation to the collective unconscious and corresponding logic organization and transmission to evolutionary stages of the human genome and different relations space-time, irrespective of any contemporary experience of the individuals. The system defined by these archetypes composes an evolutionary human social model. Is this a metaethical position? Yes, it is. Moreover, as in any metaethical reasoning, we should look carefully for the best and coherent routes, as the Analytical Philosophy offers them. Thus, this work should reasonably demonstrate that morals are not a cultural product of the civilized men or modern societies and that despite being subject to several cultural relative aggregations and subtractions, its essential foundations are archetypal and have never structurally changed. This reasoning induces that morality is an original attribute of the “homo sapiens”; it is not a property and nor an accident: it integrates the human essence and belongs to the realm of the ontological human identity. The human phenomena is a continuing process, playing its role between random determination and free will, and we need to question how morality began and how did it come to us in the present. (shrink)

In this paper I address two important objections to the theory called ‘ Composition as Identity’ : the ‘wall-bricks-and-atoms problem’, and the claim that CAI entails mereological nihilism. I aim to argue that the best version of CAI capable of addressing both problems is the theory I will call ‘Atomic Composition as Identity’ which consists in taking the plural quantifier to range only over proper pluralities of mereological atoms and every non-atomic entity to be identical to the plurality of atoms (...) it fuses. I will proceed in three main steps. First, I will defend Sider’s Composition as identity. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 211–221, 2014) idea of weakening the comprehension principle for pluralities and I will show that :219–235, 2016a) it can ward off both the WaBrA problem and the threat of mereological nihilism. Second, I will argue that CAI-theorists should uphold an ‘atomic comprehension principle’ which, jointly with CAI, entails that there are only proper pluralities of mereological atoms. Finally, I will present a novel reading of the ‘one of’ relation that not only avoids the problems presented by Yi Composition as identity. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 169–191, 2014) and Calosi :429–443, 2016b, Am Philos Q 55:281–292, 2018) but can also help ACAI-theorists to make sense of the idea that a composite entity is both one and many. (shrink)

This paper is a new defense of type-B materialism against Jackson’s knowledge argument (1982) inspired by the Kantian main opposition between concepts and sensible intuitions. Like all materialists of type B, I argue that on her release from her black-and-white room, Mary makes cognitive progress. However, contrary to the so-called phenomenal concept strategy (henceforth PCS), I do not think that such progress can be accounted for in terms of the acquisition of new concepts. I also reject Tye’s recent account of (...) Mary’s cognitive progress as the acquisition of a “thing-knowledge.” What is crucial is not the Russellian opposition between knowing things and knowing truths but rather the Kantian opposition between conceptual and nonconceptual representations of the same thing (property). Mary’s phenomenal knowledge is here accounted for as the result of the cooperation of her newly acquired nonconceptual representation of the same phenomenal redness (the same thing) she had a conceptual representation before. As that new nonconceptual representation carries information about the same physical property she already represented but is now coded in analog rather than in digital form (Dretske, 1981), that nonconceptual representation can be accounted for in physical terms as Chalmers’s Master argument requires. Nevertheless, that representation can account for Mary’s cognitive progress since it carries information coded in analog form, something that the imprisoned she could never possess. (shrink)

My aim is to defend a peculiar epistemic version of the particularity thesis, which results from a sui generis combination of what I call the ‘singular relational view’ and what I call the ‘relativistic content view.’ Particulars are not represented as part of putative singular content. Instead, we are perceptually acquainted with them in the relevant sense that experience puts us in direct perceptual contact with them. And the content of experience is best modeled as a propositional function, that is, (...) the content of a complex predicate that is true or false only relative to some circumstances of evaluation. (shrink)

This paper is concerned with certain ontological issues in the foundations of geographic representation. It sets out what these basic issues are, describes the tools needed to deal with them, and draws some implications for a general theory of spatial representation. Our approach has ramifications in the domains of mereology, topology, and the theory of location, and the question of the interaction of these three domains within a unified spatial representation theory is addressed. In the final part we also consider (...) the idea of non-standard geographies, which may be associated with geography under a classical conception in the same sense in which non-standard logics are associated with classical logic. (shrink)

An imaginary dialogue between Andrea Bonomi and Gonzalo Pirobutirro (the main character of Gadda’s novel La cognizione del dolore) aiming to challenge Bonomi’s tenet that a work of fiction defines a domain of objects which is closed with respect to the actual world.

This paper proposes a methodological strategy to investigate the question of the individuation of the senses both from a commonsensical and a scientific point of view. We start by discussing some traditional and recent criteria for distinguishing the senses and argue that none of them taken in isolation seems to be able to handle both points of views. We then pay close attention to the faculty of hearing which offers promising examples of the strategy we pursue of combining commonsense and (...) science. In particular, we argue in favour of a distinction between two kinds of modes of presentation associated with sound perception: a mechanical mode of presentation that makes sounds perceptible by other modalities than audition such as touch and a tonal mode of presentation that makes people conceive of sounds as the proper objects of auditory perception. (shrink)

Most of the theories of location on the market appear to be ideologically parsimonious at least in the sense that they take as primitive just one locative notion and define all the other locative notions in terms of it. Recently, however, the possibility of some exotic metaphysical scenarios involving gunky mixtures and extended simple regions of space has been argued to pose a significant threat to parsimonious theories of locations. The aim of this paper is to show that a theory (...) taking as primitive a notion of plural pervasive location and allowing for irreducibly plural locative facts can account for all the putatively problematic scenarios for parsimonious theories of location. Furthermore, I will also argue that the notion of plural pervasive location is compatible with the possibility of multilocation. (shrink)

According to ‘Strong Composition as Identity’, if an entity is composed of a plurality of entities, it is identical to them. As it has been argued in the literature, SCAI appears to give rise to some serious problems which seem to suggest that SCAI-theorists should take their plural quantifier to be governed by some ‘weak’ plural comprehension principle and, thus, ‘exclude’ some kinds of pluralities from their plural ontology. The aim of this paper is to argue that, contrary to what (...) may appear at first sight, the assumption of a weak plural comprehension principle is perfectly compatible with plural logic and the common uses of plural quantification. As I aim to show, SCAI-theorists can simply claim that their theory must be understood as formulated by means of the most ‘joint-carving’ plural quantifier, thus leaving open the possibility of other, less joint-carving, ‘unrestricted’ plural quantifiers. In the final part of the paper I will also suggest that SCAI-theorists should not only allow for singular quantification over pluralities of entities, but also for plural quantification over ‘super-pluralities’ of entities. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to offer a new view of the key relation between the content and the conscious character of visual experience. The author aims to support the following claims. First, the author rejects the qualia realist claim that conscious character is an intrinsic, nonrepresentational property of visual experience, for example, a pattern of activation of neurons. However, the author also rejects the rival widespread representationalist claim that the conscious character of visual experience is identical to, or (...) supervenes on, any specific property represented by visual experience. The positive proposal is the following. Conscious character is identical to those patterns of activation of neurons that are referentially or representationally alive. Conscious redness, for example, is a pattern of activations of neurons that is normally created only when brains of physical duplicates come in visual contact with some distal property. This pattern of activation is recruited by natural selection to represent that property. This is called meaning representationalism. (shrink)

Dall'autore del più visitato sito web dedicato a Giordano Bruno, un volume in chiusura dell'anno bruniano, edito da Marotta & Cafiero: WWW.Giordano Bruno di Guido del Giudice è un assai originale pubblicazione che trova nella passione filosofica di chi lo ha scritto la sua più profonda motivazione.

We introduce and discuss a knowledge-driven distillation approach to explaining black-box models by means of two kinds of interpretable models. The first is perceptron (or threshold) connectives, which enrich knowledge representation languages such as Description Logics with linear operators that serve as a bridge between statistical learning and logical reasoning. The second is Trepan Reloaded, an ap- proach that builds post-hoc explanations of black-box classifiers in the form of decision trees enhanced by domain knowledge. Our aim is, firstly, to target (...) a model-agnostic distillation approach exemplified with these two frameworks, secondly, to study how these two frameworks interact on a theoretical level, and, thirdly, to investigate use-cases in ML and AI in a comparative manner. Specifically, we envision that user-studies will help determine human understandability of explanations generated using these two frameworks. (shrink)

Since the second half of the XXth century, researchers in cybernetics and AI, neural nets and connectionism, Artificial Life and new robotics have endeavoured to build different machines that could simulate functions of living organisms, such as adaptation and development, problem solving and learning. In this book these research programs are discussed, particularly as regard the epistemological issues of the behaviour modelling. One of the main novelty of this book consists of the fact that certain projects involving the building of (...) simulative machine models before the advent of cybernetics are been investigated for the first time, on the basis of little known, and sometimes completely forgotten or unpublished, texts and figures. These pre-cybernetics projects can be considered as steps toward the “discovery” of a modelling methodology that has been fully developed by those more recent research programs, and that shares some of their central goals and key methodological proposals. -/- More info in Springer link: http://www.springer.com/new+%26+forthcoming+titles+%28default%29/book/978-1-4020-0606-7 -/- This book is the English translation of La scoperta dell'artificiale, Dunod/Masson, Milan, 1998. (shrink)

S’inspirant de Memorias. Entre dos mundos, ce texte se veut un témoignage et des commentaires de la perspective pédagogique développée par Mario Bunge dans le cadre de son enseignement de philosophie des sciences à l’Université de Buenos Aires dans les années soixante du siècle dernier. Perspective socratique du métier de philosophe qui ne renvoie cependant pas à une entreprise de dévoilement de la vérité, mais plutôt aux conditions de sa construction.

In this paper I investigate Aristotle’s account of predication in Topics I 9. I argue for the following interpretation. In this chapter Aristotle (i) presents two systems of predication cutting across each other, the system of the so-called four ‘predicables’ and of the ten ‘categories’, in order to distinguish them and explore their mutual relationship. I propose a semantic interpretation of the relationship between them. According to this reading, every proposition formed through a predicable constitutes at the same time a (...) predication according to one of the ten categories, and, consequently, signifies one of them, expressing one of the predicative relationship conveyed by them. Further, Aristotle (ii) explains the predicative connection between these two systems and the ten items signified by the ‘things said without any combination’ enumerated in Chapter 4 of the Categories, whose list is almost identical with that of categories in Top. I 9, with the only exception of their first members. (shrink)

My account of the causal role of consciousness in a physical world is modeled on Dretske’s celebrated explanation of the causal role of beliefs (something that Dretske himself never offered). First, behavior must be understood as a (broadly individuated) process that begins with some external stimulus causing some neurological event C, and ends with causing a bodily movement M (e.g., the Kennedy assassination is a process that begins with Oswald pulling the trigger at 12:30pm CST on November 23 in 1963 (...) in Dallas, Texas, but only ends half an hour later when Kennedy is pronounced dead at 1 pm CST). The internal neurological event C causes bodily movement M, but only by virtue of being recruited by natural selection to represent the instantiation of some external property F when properly stimulated under normal circumstances. But the reason why C causes M lies in the fact that C represents the instantiation of the external property F. I withdraw my hand from a hot surface because the activation of nociceptive specific neurons in my parietal lobe (together with the activation of neuronal patterns in my motor cortices) was recruited by natural selection to represent the tissue damage in my hand. The activation of nociceptive specific neurons causes my hand to withdraw but for the reason that it represents tissue data at the time that I felt pain in my hand. (shrink)