The theory of collective agency and intentionality is a flourishing field of research, and our understanding of these phenomena has arguably increased greatly in recent years. Extant theories, however, are still ill-equipped to explain certain aspects of collective intentionality. In this article we draw attention to two such underappreciated aspects: the failure of the intentional states of collectives to supervene on the intentional states of their members, and the role of non-human factors in collective agency and intentionality. We propose a (...) theory of collective intentionality which builds on the ‘interpretationist’ tradition in metasemantics and the philosophy of mind as initiated by David Lewis and recently developed further by Robbie Williams. The collective-level analogue of interpretationism turns out to look different in some ways from the individual-level theory, but is well-suited to accommodating phenomena such as hybrid collective intentionality. Complemented with Kit Fine’s theory of variable embodiment, such a theory also provides a diachronic account of intentional collectives. (shrink)

dolce, the first top-level ontology to be axiomatized, has remained stable for twenty years and today is broadly used in a variety of domains. dolce is inspired by cognitive and linguistic considerations and aims to model a commonsense view of reality, like the one human beings exploit in everyday life in areas as diverse as socio-technical systems, manufacturing, financial transactions and cultural heritage. dolce clearly lists the ontological choices it is based upon, relies on philosophical principles, is richly formalized, and (...) is built according to well-established ontological methodologies, e.g. OntoClean. Because of these features, it has inspired most of the existing top-level ontologies and has been used to develop or improve standards and public domain resources. Being a foundational ontology, dolce is not directly concerned with domain knowledge. Its purpose is to provide the general categories and relations needed to give a coherent view of reality, to integrate domain knowledge, and to mediate across domains. In these 20 years dolce has shown that applied ontologies can be stable and that interoperability across reference and domain ontologies is a reality. This paper briefly introduces the ontology and shows how to use it on a few modeling cases. (shrink)

Nonostante la pervasività della nozione di servizio e le recenti proposte per una Scienza dei Servizi unificata, esistono ancora parecchie inconsistenze tra le varie definizioni di servizio in uso nelle diverse discipline (e spesso anche all'interno della stessa disciplina). In particolare, a dispetto del fatto che l'obiettivo generale di questa scienza dovrebbe essere di permettere a persone e calcolatori di interagire agevolmente con i servizi nella vita di tutti i giorni, molti approcci alla modellazione dei servizi in informatica (specialmente quelli (...) centrati sui servizi web) sembrano focalizzarsi principalmente sugli aspetti connessi al flusso dati, per cui i servizi sono considerati come scatole nere che trasformano un ingresso in un’uscita, e che interoperano tra loro secondo modalità predefinite. Questo modello a scatola nera ha sicuramente i suoi vantaggi ma, stando a quanto dicono Petrie e Bussler, sembra funzionare bene sono all'interno di contesti omogenei, i cosiddetti parchi di servizi, dove l'interoperabilità è tecnicamente possibile solo perché i contenuti e le modalità di erogazione di ogni servizio sono predefiniti e condivisi da tutti i soggetti coinvolti. (shrink)

Nonostante la pervasività della nozione di servizio e le recenti proposte per una Scienza dei Servizi unificata, esistono ancora parecchie inconsistenze tra le varie definizioni di servizio in uso nelle diverse discipline (e spesso anche all'interno della stessa disciplina). In particolare, a dispetto del fatto che l'obiettivo generale di questa scienza dovrebbe essere di permettere a persone e calcolatori di interagire agevolmente con i servizi nella vita di tutti i giorni, molti approcci alla modellazione dei servizi in informatica (specialmente quelli (...) centrati sui servizi web) sembrano focalizzarsi principalmente sugli aspetti connessi al flusso dati, per cui i servizi sono considerati come scatole nere che trasformano un ingresso in un’uscita, e che interoperano tra loro secondo modalità predefinite. Questo modello a scatola nera ha sicuramente i suoi vantaggi ma, stando a quanto dicono Petrie e Bussler, sembra funzionare bene sono all'interno di contesti omogenei, i cosiddetti parchi di servizi, dove l'interoperabilità è tecnicamente possibile solo perché i contenuti e le modalità di erogazione di ogni servizio sono predefiniti e condivisi da tutti i soggetti coinvolti. (shrink)

Primary goal of this paper is to show that counterfactual reasoning, as many other kinds of common sense reasoning, can be studied and analyzed through what we can call a cognitive approach, that represents knowledge as structured and partitioned into different domains, everyone of which has a specific theory, but can exchange data and information with some of the others. Along these lines, we are going to show that a kind of ``counterfactual attitude'' is pervasive in a lot of forms (...) of common sense reasoning, as in theories of action, beliefs/intentions ascription, cooperative and antagonistic situations, communication acts. The second purpose of the paper is to give a reading of counterfactual reasoning as a specific kind of contextual reasoning, this latter interpreted according to the theory of MultiContext Systems developed by Fausto Giunchiglia and his group. (shrink)

In this paper we investigate how the dynamic nature of words’ meanings plays a role in a philosophical theory of meaning. For ‘dynamic nature’ we intend the characteristic of being flexible, of changing according to many factors (speakers, contexts, and more). We consider meaning as something that gradually takes shape from the dynamic processes of communication. Accordingly, we present a draft of a theory of meaning that, on the one hand, describes how a private meaning is formed as a mental (...) state of individual agents during a lifetime of experiences, and, on the other hand, shows how a public meaning emerges from the interaction of agents. When communicating with each other, agents need to converge on a shared meaning of the words used, by means of a negotiation process. A public meaning is the abstract product of many of these processes while, at the same time, the private meanings are continually reshaped by each negotiation. Exploring this dynamics, we have been looking at the work done by computer scientists dealing with problems of heterogeneity of sources of information. We argue that a suitable solution for both disciplines lies in a systematic characterization of the processes of meaning negotiation. (shrink)

How can organisations survive not only the substitution of members, but also other dramatic changes, like that of the norms regulating their activities, the goals they plan to achieve, or the system of roles that compose them? This paper is as first step towards a well-founded ontological analysis of the persistence of organisations through changes. Our analysis leverages Kit Fine’s notions of rigid and variable embodiment and proposes to view the (history of the) decisions made by the members of the (...) organisation as the criterion to re-identify the organisation through change. (shrink)

We present an ontological analysis of the notion of group agency developed by Christian List and Philip Pettit. We focus on this notion as it allows us to neatly distinguish groups, organizations, corporations – to which we may ascribe agency – from mere aggregates of individuals. We develop a module for group agency within a foundational ontology and we apply it to organizations.

In knowledge representation, socio-technical systems can be modeled as multiagent systems in which the local knowledge of each individual agent can be seen as a context. In this paper we propose formal ontologies as a means to describe the assumptions driving the construction of contexts as local theories and to enable interoperability among them. In particular, we present two alternative conceptualizations of the notion of sociomateriality (and entanglement), which is central in the recent debates on socio-technical systems in the social (...) sciences, namely critical and agential realism. We thus start by providing a model of entanglement according to the critical realist view, representing it as a property of objects that are essentially dependent on different modules of an already given ontology. We refine then our treatment by proposing a taxonomy of sociomaterial entanglements that distinguishes between ontological and epistemological entanglement. In the final section, we discuss the second perspective, which is more challenging form the point of view of knowledge representation, and we show that the very distinction of information into modules can be at least in principle built out of the assumption of an entangled reality. (shrink)

In this paper, building on these previous works, we propose to go deeper into the understanding of crowd behavior by proposing an approach which integrates ontologi- cal models of crowd behavior and dedicated computer vision algorithms, with the aim of recognizing some targeted complex events happening in the playground from the observation of the spectator crowd behavior. In order to do that, we first propose an ontology encoding available knowledge on spectator crowd behavior, built as a spe- cialization of the (...) DOLCE foundational ontology, which allows the representation of categories belonging both to the physical and to the social realms. We then propose a simplified and tractable version of such ontology in a new temporal extension of a description logic, which is used for temporally coupling events happening on the play- ground and spectator crowd behavior. At last, computer vision algorithms provide the input information concerning what is observed on the stands and ontological reasoning delivers the output necessary to perform complex event recognition. (shrink)

A thorough understanding of what needs are is fundamental for design- ing well-behaved information systems for many social applications and in partic- ular for public services. Talking about needs pervades indeed the jargon of Public Administrations when motivating their service offering. In this paper, we propose an ontological analysis of needs, aiming at a principled disentangling of the differ- ent uses of the term. We leverage philosophical tradition on intentionality, for its rich understanding of mental entities, we compare it with (...) the well-established BDI (Belief-Desire-Intention) tradition in knowledge representation, and we propose a formalisation of needs within the foundational ontology DOLCE. Throughout the paper, we motivate our analysis focusing on needs in public services. (shrink)

Many Public Administrations structure their services around the notion of users’ need. However, there is a gap between private, subjectively perceived needs (self-attributed) and needs that are attributed by PA to citizens (heteroattributed). Because of the gap, citizens’ needs are often only partially satisfied by PAs services. This gap is in part due to the fact that the meaning of the word “need” is ambiguous and full of antinomic nuances. The purpose of this paper is to formulate a definition of (...) “need” suitable for citizens’ needs management with respect to PA’s services offering, and to provide an accurate ontological analysis of the notion of “need” and the network of concepts that relate to it. (shrink)

Forests, cars and orchestras are very different ontological entities, and yet very similar in some aspects. The relationships they have with the elements they are composed of is often assumed to be reducible to standard ontological relations, like parthood and constitution, but how this could be done is still debated. This paper sheds light on the issue starting from a linguistic and philosophical analysis aimed at understanding notions like plurality, collective and composite, and propos- ing a formal approach to characterise (...) them. We conclude the presentation with a discussion and analysis of social groups within this framework. (shrink)

Human-centered explainable AI (HCXAI) advocates for the integration of social aspects into AI explanations. Central to the HCXAI discourse is the Social Transparency (ST) framework, which aims to make the socio-organizational context of AI systems accessible to their users. In this work, we suggest extending the ST framework to address the risks of social misattributions in Large Language Models (LLMs), particularly in sensitive areas like mental health. In fact LLMs, which are remarkably capable of simulating roles and personas, may lead (...) to mismatches between designers' intentions and users' perceptions of social attributes, risking to promote emotional manipulation and dangerous behaviors, cases of epistemic injustice, and unwarranted trust. To address these issues, we propose enhancing the ST framework with a fifth 'W-question' to clarify the specific social attributions assigned to LLMs by its designers and users. This addition aims to bridge the gap between LLM capabilities and user perceptions, promoting the ethically responsible development and use of LLM-based technology. (shrink)

Im politischen Denken des Wilhelm von Humboldt findet eine konservative Wende statt: Von den radikalen Freiheitsansprüchen der Frühschriften bleibt in den Denkschriften des späten Staatsmannes kaum noch etwas erhalten. In diesem Band wird Humboldts konservative Wende textimmanent freigelegt, historisch situiert und systematisch ergründet. Insbesondere wird Humboldts Konservatismus auf seine zunehmende Angst vor der Demokratie zurückgeführt, was nach seinem Verständnis das schädliche Ergebnis der neuzeitlichen Vernunftrechts- und Vertragslehre darstellt. Aus diesem Grund wird Humboldts konservative Wende letzthin durch seine bereits in der (...) Frühproduktion anzutreffende zweifache Kritik an Rationalismus und Kontraktualismus beleuchtet. (shrink)

Naïve realism (also called ‘relationalism’ or ‘object view’) is becoming increasingly popular, but the specific outline of its commitments remains often underspecified by proponents and misunderstood by critics. Naïve realism is associated with two claims, both concerning genuine, veridical perceptual experience (where this excludes hallucinations). Constitutive Claim (CC): The phenomenal character of perception is (partly) constituted by the mind-independent objects in one’s surrounding and their properties. Relational Claim (RC): Perception is a relation to mind-independent objects in the environment and their (...) properties. Some philosophers use the two claims interchangeably while talking about naïve realism, while others use only one or the other, although they do not explicitly discuss if the other claim is also a core commitment of naïve realism, or if naïve realism can be held without the other claim. This raises the question of how RC and CC relate to one another, together with the most pressing question of what each claim ultimately commits one to. After discussing the shortcomings of alternative interpretations, I argue that naïve realism should be understood as committed to, first and foremost, RC. This should be understood as a claim about the phenomenal character of perception, rather than about its nature, structure or essence (whatever that means). CC, on the other hand, should be understood as a corollary of RC. This doesn’t only offer a better characterisation of how naïve realists understand phenomenal character: it also helps us understand how we can simultaneously claim that the object of perception is a constitutive element of perception, while also allowing for it to play a causal role in determining perception. (shrink)

Evolutionary theory (ET) is teeming with probabilities. Probabilities exist at all levels: the level of mutation, the level of microevolution, and the level of macroevolution. This uncontroversial claim raises a number of contentious issues. For example, is the evolutionary process (as opposed to the theory) indeterministic, or is it deterministic? Philosophers of biology have taken different sides on this issue. Millstein (1997) has argued that we are not currently able answer this question, and that even scientific realists ought to remain (...) agnostic concerning the determinism or indeterminism of evolutionary processes. If this argument is correct, it suggests that, whatever we take probabilities in ET to be, they must be consistent with either determinism or indeterminism. This raises some interesting philosophical questions: How should we understand the probabilities used in ET? In other words, what is meant by saying that a certain evolutionary change is more or less probable? Which interpretation of probability is the most appropriate for ET? I argue that the probabilities used in ET are objective in a realist sense, if not in an indeterministic sense. Furthermore, there are a number of interpretations of probability that are objective and would be consistent with ET under determinism or indeterminism. However, I argue that evolutionary probabilities are best understood as propensities of population-level kinds. (shrink)

When philosophers of physics explore the nature of chance, they usually look to quantum mechanics. When philosophers of biology explore the nature of chance, they usually look to microevolutionary phenomena, such as mutation or random drift. What has been largely overlooked is the role of chance in macroevolution. The stochastic models of paleobiology employ conceptions of chance that are similar to those at the microevolutionary level, yet different from the conceptions of chance often associated with quantum mechanics and Laplacean determinism.

Alexander Rosenberg (1994) claims that the omniscient viewpoint of the evolutionary process would have no need for the concept of random drift. However, his argument fails to take into account all of the processes which are considered to be instances of random drift. A consideration of these processes shows that random drift is not eliminable even given a position of omniscience. Furthermore, Rosenberg must take these processes into account in order to support his claims that evolution is deterministic and that (...) evolutionary biology is an instrumental science. (shrink)

With this paper I intend to rehabilitate the status of orality as medium of the public use of reason in the normative Kantian sense. As a first step, I reconstruct the reasons why Kant rejects the spoken word and designates the written word as the sole medium of public reasoning. As a second step, I argue for the possibility of employing the spoken word as medium of public reasoning while remaining within the normative framework of Kant’s concept of the public (...) use of reason. (shrink)

The philosophy of science of Patrick Suppes is centered on two important notions that are part of the title of his recent book (Suppes 2002): Representation and Invariance. Representation is important because when we embrace a theory we implicitly choose a way to represent the phenomenon we are studying. Invariance is important because, since invariants are the only things that are constant in a theory, in a way they give the “objective” meaning of that theory. Every scientific theory gives a (...) representation of a class of structures and studies the invariant properties holding in that class of structures. In Suppes’ view, the best way to define this class of structures is via axiomatization. This is because a class of structures is given by a definition, and this same definition establishes which are the properties that a single structure must possess in order to belong to the class. These properties correspond to the axioms of a logical theory. In Suppes’ view, the best way to characterize a scientific structure is by giving a representation theorem for its models and singling out the invariants in the structure. Thus, we can say that the philosophy of science of Patrick Suppes consists in the application of the axiomatic method to scientific disciplines. What I want to argue in this paper is that this application of the axiomatic method is also at the basis of a new approach that is being increasingly applied to the study of computer science and information systems, namely the approach of formal ontologies. The main task of an ontology is that of making explicit the conceptual structure underlying a certain domain. By “making explicit the conceptual structure” we mean singling out the most basic entities populating the domain and writing axioms expressing the main properties of these primitives and the relations holding among them. So, in both cases, the axiomatization is the main tool used to characterize the object of inquiry, being this object scientific theories (in Suppes’ approach), or information systems (for formal ontologies). In the following section I will present the view of Patrick Suppes on the philosophy of science and the axiomatic method, in section 3 I will survey the theoretical issues underlying the work that is being done in formal ontologies and in section 4 I will draw a comparison of these two approaches and explore similarities and differences between them. (shrink)

This paper discusses possible forms of loss or weakness of the ability to interact with others and the ways in which this arises. In particular, in the context of socio-affective knowledge and related failures, it focuses on certain deficits that primarily involve the body. The article aims to show that the “destiny” of our inner drives and our lives—the specific solutions to which they are forced in their vicissitudes—is less “blind” than it appears, leaving (albeit minimal) margins of escape, also (...) because it has a relational connotation. Starting from Bernhard Waldenfels’s recent work on the relationship between phenomenology and psychoanalysis, in which this question is addressed from a phenomenological-responsive point of view, this article reflects on the problem by establishing a comparison between Waldenfels’s philosophy and Max Scheler’s phenomenology of values. Beyond the differences that their approaches to the problem of relational deficits present, Waldenfels and Scheler can be put in fruitful dialogue with each other, starting from their common interest in Freudian psychoanalysis. Within this framework, it is possible to evaluate, adopting Scheler’s point of view, both a methodological aspect and a psychological presupposition of Freud’s ontogenesis of sympathy and love: associationism. From this perspective, Freud reveals himself in part as an heir to British empiricism. I will argue that, with and beyond Freud, the human being is not reducible to a mere sum of blind sensations or blind drives and that for both at least certain forms of inability to interact with others are derivative—deformations of normal responsivity and aberrations of normal pulsional-(relational) life—rather than originary phenomena. (shrink)

According to recent scholarship, Kant’s "An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?" and the introductory section to "The Conflict of the Faculties" are masterpieces of philosophical rhetoric. The philosophical significance of these texts lies in establishing the free public use of reason as a tool to discipline political power through pure practical reason, and the rhetorical mastery consists in presenting the free public use of reason as a means to satisfy the ruler’s pragmatic practical reason. Elaborating on this interpretation, (...) I flesh out three further aspects of the writings in question. First, I examine the four types of arguments that Kant crafts in defence of the public use of reason and show how their pragmatic practical character is fully in keeping with the foundation of politics on pure practical ideas. Second, contrasting Kant’s notion of the public use of reason with the classical liberal conception of free speech, I argue that the distinctive character of Kant’s notion of the public use of reason consists in adding to the liberal demand for freedom from state censorship the requirement of the self-discipline of the participants in the public use of reason. Third, I contend that Kant’s notion of the public use of reason goes beyond a mere non-coercive discursive procedure and conclude that, to qualify as public in the distinctive Kantian sense, publicly presented positions must uphold theoretical and moral criteria informed by critical philosophy. (shrink)

The four case studies on chance in evolution provide a rich source for further philosophical analysis. Among the issues raised are the following: Are there different conceptions of chance at work, or is there a common underlying conception? How can a given concept of chance be distinguished from other chance concepts and from nonchance concepts? How can the occurrence of a given chance process be distinguished empirically from nonchance processes or other chance processes? What role does chance play in evolutionary (...) theory? I argue that in order to answer these questions, a careful distinction between process and outcome must be made; however, the purpose of this essay is not to answer these questions definitively, but rather to elaborate on them and to provide a starting point for further discussion. (shrink)

In seinem 2020 erschienen Buch "Moralischer Fortschritt in dunklen Zeiten. Universale Werte für das 21. Jahrhundert" präsentiert Markus Gabriel einen ethischen Ansatz, den er als Neuen Moralischen Realismus bezeichnet. Das zweite Kapitel trägt den Titel _Warum es moralische Tatsachen, aber keine ethischen Dilemmata gibt_ und bildet den Gegenstand des vorliegenden Beitrags. Es wird im Folgenden versucht, die Positionen des Neuen Moralischen Realismus in Bezug auf ethische Dilemmata zu beleuchten. Zu diesem Zweck gilt es deutlich zu machen, wie der Neue Moralische (...) Realismus die Fragen beantwortet, was ethische Dilemmata sind, ob ethische Dilemmata überhaupt vorkommen und wie die entsprechenden Handlungsoptionen moralisch zu beurteilen sind. Von der Absicht geleitet, durch diesen Beitrag einen philosophischen Dialog zu reproduzieren, werden die hier gemachten Deutungsversuche als Fragen präsentiert. (shrink)

This paper aims to elucidate the significance of Austin’s method of linguistic phenomenology. I will do that by showing how this method operates in Sense and Sensibilia, where, as perception is at issue, the notion of phenomenology seems particularly pertinent. I will argue, against what has been often claimed, that Austin’s method is not merely therapeutical or polemical. In Austin’s view, a careful analysis of ordinary language can sharpen our perception of the world and reveal aspects of the reality itself. (...) If the linguistic analysis aims to get rid of the conceptual distortions entrenched in the philosophical tradition, his appeal to ordinary language is neither quietistic nor resolutive. Ordinary language gives access to a sort of non-introspective intersubjective phenomenology, which may be the foundation of sensible philosophical interrogations and a genuine progress in knowledge. The linguistic analysis held in Sense and Sensibilia illuminates not only the way we talk about experiences, but also the nature and the epistemology of experience itself. These remarks suggest an original way of defending and conceiving naïve realism, whose main elements are a radical externalism, a refusal of the semantization of perception and a dissolution of the skeptical threat. I will suggest that the application of these suggestions, together with the method of linguistic phenomenology, to the current debate on experience, may dissolve the dilemmas which haunt the opposition between conjunctivism and disjunctivism and provide a satisfying account of experience. (shrink)

It is commonly held that Kant, with his 1798 essay The Conflict of the Faculties, relinquishes some progressive stances and retreats to conservative positions. According to several interpreters, this is especially evident from Kant’s discussion of moral progress and public use of reason. Kant avers that moral progress can only occur through state-sanctioned education “from top to bottom” and entrusts the emergence of a state endowed with the relevant resolution and ability to “a wisdom from above” (7:92-93). According to numerous (...) interpreters, this call for state intervention and the accompanying surrender to a superhuman wisdom manifest Kant’s retreat from initially republican to later conservative positions. In Kant’s previous writings, the notion of public use of reason indicates the unrestricted freedom to communicate one’s thoughts, provided that the communication does not take place in the exercise of one’s function as a state official, and potentially encompasses all adult men. Instead, in The Conflict of the Faculties, Kant contrasts university professors’ freedom to make public use of their reason with the other public officials’ obligation “to uphold whatever […] the crown sanctions for them to expound publicly” (07:08). Thus, according to several scholars, Kant ends up disenfranchising the vast majority of people from the public use of reason and adjusting an emancipatory notion to the absolutist conception of speech and civil service. On my reading, with The Conflict of the Faculties, Kant neither retreats to conservative positions nor softens any progressive tenets of critical philosophy. On the contrary, I intend to show that a) the project of a state-sanctioned education constitutes Kant’s republican rebuttal of conservative positions on their ground, and is fully in keeping with critical philosophy; b) Kant sets forth a new notion of public use of reason that reverses the order of moral progress presented in his previous writings, but retains all its emancipatory character. I intend to support my interpretation by a) conducting a rhetorical analysis showing how Kant’s rhetoric aims to persuade the ruler that his interests are best served by fostering the regulative ideas of pure practical reason as discovered by critical philosophy; b) analysing Kant’s use of the term ‘public’ (both as the adjective ‘öffentlich’ and the noun ‘Publikum’) and showing how it retains its wide scope and emancipatory function and even expands them to areas previously subjected to legitimate censorship. (shrink)

With this paper I analyze Kant’s account of the human vocation to cosmopolitanism discussed in the last section of the Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View (7:321-333) and show how Kant’s notion of cosmopolitanism requires the cooperation of pure reason and pragmatic anthropology. My main thesis is that pure reason provides regulative ideas, thereby maintaining a foundational role, and pragmatic anthropology provides empirical evidence, thereby reinforcing the theoretical and practical status of reason’s ideas. In developing my analysis, I argue (...) that Kant reframes the question ‘What is the human being?’ in a non-essential way, foregrounds a moral practical concern, and assigns freedom an unprecedented role. Finally, I relate my analysis to two questions frequently discussed in Kant scholarship, namely the problem of whether the Anthropology has only a pragmatic or also a moral scope and the problem of the relation between the Anthropology and Kant’s critical system. (shrink)

With An Answer to the Question: What Is Enlightenment? (1784) and What Does It Mean to Orient Oneself in Thinking? (1786), Kant presents the concept of public use of reason and defines its requirements, scope, and function. In outline, the public use of reason consists in sharing one’s thoughts with “the entire public of the world of readers” (8:37). As for its requirements, to the extent that someone communicates in their own person, i.e. not in the exercise of their function (...) as a public official, and bases their reasoning on universalizable grounds, their use of reason qualifies as public and shall be free from state censorship. Therefore, Kant’s concept of public use reason aims to establish a public debate that is free and includes in its scope, both as subjects and recipients, potentially all adult men. The ultimate function of the public use of reason is to foster moral progress and, with it, the reform of the political community according to the republican ideal. However, it is commonly held that Kant, with his 1798 essay The Conflict of the Faculties, deprives his notion of public use of reason of its progressive core and adjusts it to the absolutist conception of speech and civil service. Characterizations of state officials as “not free to make public use of their learning” (7:18) and “bound to uphold whatever […] the crown sanctions for them to expound publicly” (7:8), as well as the depiction of laypeople as “incompetent” (7:18) and “resigned to understanding nothing about [the sciences]” (7:34), have led influential interpreters to read Kant as redefining his notion of public use of reason by restricting its subjects to university professors and its recipients to government members (e.g. John Christian Laursen 1986, rpt. 1992 and 1996; Kevin Davis 1992; Steven Lestition 1993; Jay Franzel 2013). On my reading, with The Conflict of the Faculties, Kant does indeed redefine the concept of public use of reason making concessions to the absolutist notion of speech and civil service. However, a close reading of the text reveals that the public use of reason ends up being reaffirmed in its progressive core and extended in its scope. To substantiate my interpretation, I will systematically analyse and classify each of the 68 occurrences of the adjective ‘public’ in The Conflict of the Faculties and show how Kant employs the absolutist vocabulary to convey the progressive project of his previous writings. Accordingly, I argue that Kant holds on to the free public use of reason as a means to reform politics according to the republican ideal and that the employment of the absolutist vocabulary is motivated by a pragmatic attitude and a provocative stance. (shrink)

This article was originally published in January 2007 on the online version of the journal “Rivista della scuola superiore dell'economia e delle finanze”. Since the journal’s webpage does not exist anymore, I have uploaded a PDF of the article as it was published in January 2007. In questo articolo esamino l'idea humboldtiana di progresso. Più precisamente, ricostruisco come Wilhelm von Humboldt teorizzi il progresso del singolo individuo, del cittadino e del genere umano. Secondo la mia ricostruzione, l’idea humboldtiana di progresso (...) presenta un intreccio di motivi illuministi, storicisti e antirazionalisti, ed esige una riforma dello stato in senso liberale. La mia tesi è che, tuttavia, il pensiero politico di Humboldt sfoci in un conservatorismo non liberale che in quanto tale spalanca uno iato tra il sistema istituzionale auspicato e la possibilità di progresso. (shrink)

Der Kerngedanke der politischen Theorie des Wilhelm von Humboldt ist äußerst schlicht und übersichtlich: In seinen "Ideen zu einem Versuch, die Gränzen der Wirksamkeit des Staats zu bestimmen" heißt es, dass die Funktion des Staats auf die Erhaltung der inneren und auswärtigen Sicherheit beschränkt werden soll. Diese Staatsauffassung findet ihre Begründung in einer Anthropologie, die dem Menschen das Recht und zugleich die Aufgabe zuweist, durch das spontane Zusammenwirken mit den anderen seine Potenzialitäten zur Entfaltung zu bringen. Schlicht und übersichtlich wie (...) diese Staats- und Menschenlehre auch scheinen mag, ist es an ihr außerordentlich interessant, einerseits welche Leitgedanken ihr zugrunde liegen, und andererseits welche theoretischen Neuigkeiten sie erzielt. Hier möchte ich insbesondere vier Aspekte hervorheben: 1- Individualismus: Der Angelpunkt der gesamten Philosophie Humboldts ist das Individuum, aus dem allerdings nie ein selbstgenügsames Subjekt wird; 2- Liberalismus: Humboldt formuliert als erster den Katalog der Motive des Liberalismus des 19. Jahrhunderts; 3- Gesetzmäßigkeitsprinzip: im Sinne seiner Ausformulierung des Rechts- und Freiheitsbegriffs erarbeitet Humboldt ein Gesetzmäßigkeitsprinzip anthropologischen Charakters; 4- Legitimationsprinzip: in Anlehnung an die Prämissen, aus denen sich das neue Gesetzmäßigkeitsprinzip ergibt, setzt Humboldt ein neues Legitimationsprinzip, das unserem Begriffspaar „materielle Verfassung-formelle Verfassung“ sehr ähnelt. (shrink)

Vortragstext für die VI. Tagung für Praktische Philosophie Universität Salzburg 27. & 28. September 2018.

In diesem Beitrag soll systematisch untersucht werden, wie in der Moderne der Begriff der Tyrannis umgedeutet wird, und wie die moderne Auffassung der Tyrannis mit der Aufwertung des Antagonismus zusammenhängt. Von der Antike bis zum Spätmittelalter wird die tyrannische Herrschaft über die durch sie selbst herbeigeführte Auflösung des Staates definiert: Als tyrannisch gilt die Regierung, die jene in der Antike als normativ gesetzte und im Mittelalter als gottgegeben aufgefasste Harmonie des Gemeinwesens zerstört. In der Moderne gelten dagegen alle Regierungen als (...) tyrannisch, die das Individuum bei oder gar in der Entfaltung seiner Talente und Eigenschaften hindern. Diese neue Begriffsbestimmung gründet auf die Aufwertung der Antagonismen als Bestandteile der menschlichen Natur und zugleich als Triebfeder des staatsrechtlichen Fortschritts. Die neuzeitliche Aufwertung der Antagonismen und das mit ihm zusammenhängende Primat der individuellen Freiheit haben zur Folge, dass vom Staat die Fähigkeit gefordert wird, die aus der Entfaltung der individuellen Freiheit entstehenden Antagonismen anzuerkennen. Erst in der Moderne wird nämlich der Anspruch zur Geltung gebracht, einen staatsrechtlichen Raum zu gestalten, der Antagonismen ohne Schmälerung der individuellen Freiheit zu regeln vermag. (shrink)

According to a common misconception, Kant rejects rhetoric as worthy of no respect and neglects popularity as a dispensable accessory. Two recent publications on the communicative dimension of Kant’s conception and practice of philosophy represent a very solid rebuttal of such criticism. The books in question are Kant’s Philosophy of Communication by G. L. Ercolini and A linguagem em Kant. A linguagem de Kant edited by Monique Hulshof and Ubirajara Rancan de Azevedo Marques, especially in light of the long chapter (...) “Kant e a Questão da Popularidade e da Linguagem da Filosofia” by Leonel Ribeiro dos Santos (pp. 17- 69). What Ercolini’s monograph and Santos’ chapter have in common, is that they both argue that Kant does indeed value and practice both rhetoric and popularity. However, they differ from each other in that Ercolini lets Kant’s reflection on popularity derive from occasional factors, while Santos locates its origin at the heart of Kant’s critical project. In order fully to appreciate their novelty, these two contributions call for an overview of the state of research on the subject of Kant’s conception of rhetoric. Thus, before closely examining them, I will briefly outline the relevant scholarship by dividing it into the three classes of those who interpret Kant (a) as a skillful rhetorician, (b) as dismissive of rhetoric, and finally (c) as according rhetoric a moral function. (shrink)

Conference paper Convegno della Società Italiana di Studi Kantiani "Leggi e regole. Universi ordinati nella filosofia di Kant" Università di Pavia 19-20 Dicembre 2019 -/- .

The subject of this paper is the increasing success of the FPÖ, the Austrian Freedom Party commonly classified as a right-wing populist party. Analyzing the possible causes of this incremental success, I especially focus on the party’s communication strategy. My thesis is that the discursive strategy of the FPÖ revolves around the unwarranted identification of persons and practices depicted as a benevolent and salvific “we” artificially set against a malevolent and dangerous “they”. This identification is unwarranted because it lacks any (...) modulation of level and logical articulation. Once thus constructed, the discursive strategy of the FPÖ includes, on one hand, the irremediable conflict of “we” and “they” and, on the other, the equalisation of “they”, so as to construct networks of guilty complicity among all subjects extraneous to the “we” represented through the leader’s will. (shrink)

L’indipendenza politica dei giudici è un principio e una prassi ormai consolidata nella Germania federale. A costituire una questione ancora dibattuta è invece la critica di politicità mossa al Tribunale Costituzionale Federale. La tesi presentata in quest’articolo è che tale critica non sia comprovabile né plausibile. Non è comprovabile nel senso che non è stato possibile provare inconfutabilmente che i giudici costituzionali interpretino la Costituzione sulla base di orientamenti politici personali. Non è plausibile in quanto la nomina dei giudici avviene (...) in conformità con la proporzionale politica. La critica di politicità del Tribunale Costituzionale Federale è da attribuire piuttosto al disappunto delle parti in causa, di volta in volta deluse dalla bocciatura di una legge o dal rifiuto di un ricorso. (shrink)

Mit diesem Beitrag untersuch ich systematisch (1) wie der Tyrannis-Begriff in der Moderne umgedeutet wird (2) und wie die moderne Auffassung der Tyrannis mit der Aufwertung des Antagonismus zusammenhängt. Von der Antike bis zum Spätmittelalter, so meine Rekonstruktion, gilt eine Regierung als tyrannisch, wenn sie die in der Antike als normativ gesetzte und im Mittelalter als gottgegeben aufgefasste Harmonie des Gemeinwesens zerstört. Dagegen gilt in der Moderne eine Regierung als tyrannisch, wenn sie das Individuum bei oder in der Entfaltung seiner (...) Talente und Eigenschaften hindert. Diese neue Begriffsbestimmung ergibt sich aus der Aufwertung der politischen und sozialen Antagonismen als Bestandteile der menschlichen Natur und zugleich als Triebfeder des staatsrechtlichen Fortschritts. Die neuzeitliche Aufwertung des Antagonismus und das mit diesem zusammenhängende Primat der individuellen Freiheit haben zur Folge, dass vom Staat die Fähigkeit gefordert wird, die aus der Entfaltung der individuellen Freiheit entstehenden Antagonismen anzuerkennen. Erst in der Moderne wird nämlich der Anspruch zur Geltung gebracht, den staatsrechtlichen Raum so zu gestalten, dass er politische und soziale Antagonismen ohne Schmälerung der individuellen Freiheit zu regeln vermag. (shrink)

Il tema dell'articolo è il massiccio incremento di elettori del Partito Liberale Austriaco FPÖ, comunemente classificato come partito populista di destra. La prospettiva scelta per analizzare tale successo elettorale consiste nell'esaminare la comunicazione pubblica della FPÖ. La tesi presentata è che la strategia discorsiva della FPÖ comprende da un lato la contrapposizione insanabile di un indistinto "noi" ad un altrettanto indistinto "loro" e dall’altro il livellamento del "loro" fino a costruire delle reti di colpevole complicità tra tutti i soggetti che (...) non siano il "noi" rappresentato nella volontà del capo. (shrink)

All'inizio degli anni '90 nella pubblicistica tedesca emerge la tendenza a decretare la fine politica dell’istituzione partito. Tipicamente, il partito viene presentato come un dinosauro della democrazia ormai incapace di assolvere alle sue funzioni tipiche o come piovra infiltratasi illegittimamente in ogni ambito della vita civile. La tesi di quest’articolo è che, al contrario, i partiti tedeschi abbiano dimostrato una forte reattività alle mutate circostanze nazionali e internazionali e che siano riusciti a mantenere il loro tipico ruolo funzionale di mediatore, (...) rappresentante ed amministratore degli interessi degli elettori. (shrink)

In this paper I provide an ecological, Schelerian-based description of the aesthetic experience that, without being exhaustive, may account for its complexity, perspective character and stratifications. Aesthetic enjoyment, aesthetic object and the creative process of the artistic type are all specific and necessary moments of an experience – an aesthetic experience – shared by different experiential “individuals”, who also contribute to its formation process. The content of this experience grows and develops in conformity with its own laws, like a living (...) being so to speak, able, as such, to turn its own gaze to the others’ gaze at the same time as they turn to it. In other words, I will deal with the dynamics of the artist’s interactions with the spectator, of those of the spectator with the artist and of those of both with the work of art, which, created by the artist, or rather, “brought to light” by the artist, becomes an object– a quasi-sujet in Dufrennian terms – unique to the spectator. In this context, I will try to rehabilitate the axiological virtues of beauty, not in the sense of a metaphysics of beauty, but in a sense nearer to our experiences of “seeing something in a new light”. (shrink)

The debate between relationalism and representationalism in the philosophy of perception seems to have come to a standstill where opponents radically disagree on methodological principles or fundamental assumptions. According to Fish (this volume) this is because, not unlike Kuhnian scientific paradigms, the debate displays some elements of incommensurability. This diagnosis makes advancing the debate impossible. I argue that what is hindering progress is not a clash of research programmes, but a series of misunderstandings that can be avoided by disentangling the (...) different questions each theory is invested in and by making explicit the hidden assumptions at play in the debate. One such central assumption is what I call the Superficiality Constraint. This is the idea that the phenomenal character of experience is superficial with respect to introspection. I argue that we can make progress in the debate by assessing to what extent and at what cost relationalism can accommodate this constraint. (shrink)

In this paper, we support a continuistic reading of Joseph Margolis' philosophy, defending the claim that in the 1970s, Margolis tackled the issues suggested by the analytic philosophy of art from an original theoretical perspective and through conceptual tools exceeding the analytical framework. Later that perspective turned out to be a radically pragmatist one, in which explicitly tolerant realistic claims and non-reductive naturalism converged with radical historicism and contextualism. We will endorse this thesis by focusing on two important concepts appearing (...) in Margolis' aesthetics essays from the late 1950s to the 1970s: the type-token pair and the notion of cultural emergence. On the one hand, we will emphasise Margolis' indebtedness to Peirce's first formulation of the type-token distinction, involving a strong interdependence between the two elements of the pair, as well as an anti-essentialistic, historicised, and contextualised notion of type. On the other hand, we will delve into Margolis' exploration of the concept of emergence and cultural emergence, involving a genuinely pluralistic view of ontology, as well as a non-reductive, continuistic form of naturalism. Finally, we will connect the criticism of the so-called closure of the physical world with Margolis' anti-autonomistic stance in defining artworks. (shrink)

In this paper we investigate some important trends in contemporary naturalist aesthetics in relation to two decisive issues. Firstly, it is important to explicitly clarify what kind of naturalism is at stake within the debate, more specifically whether an account of the topic involves forms of physical reductionism, emergentism, and/or continuistic views of art and culture with nature. Secondly, we argue that it is necessary to define what conception of art is assumed as paradigmatic: whether this conception deals with basically (...) autonomist approaches to art, assuming aesthetic experience to coincide with the disinterested contemplation of formal features, independently of cognitive, practical, and ethical implications, or whether the arts are considered an enhancement of the features of human expe- rience and developments of other human behaviours. The second part of the paper will investigate some recent developments in current neuroaesthetics and fresh enactivist proposals in the aesthetic field which display a tendency toward a non-reductive naturalism, views of the arts as continuous with other modes of behav- iour and more conscious attitudes about the risks of scientism within scientific in- vestigations. Generally speaking, we espouse an idea of culture as the natural development of human organic experience that involves new emerging properties depending on the re-organization of already existing natural resources and favour continuistic and emergentist views as more suited to dealing with specific prob- lems in the field of the arts and as better responding to the criticism of irrelevancy directed against the latter, compared to reductive naturalist approaches. (shrink)

This Special Issue is dedicated to building a bridge between different disciplines concerned in the investigation of the qualitative dimension of experience and reality. The two main objectives of the Issue can be summarized as follows: 1) to elucidate the need for a revision of categories to account for the qualitative dimension in various disciplines (that include, for example, the cognitive sciences, neurosciences, biology, linguistics, informatics, artificial intelligence, robotics, newly emerging computer technologies) in order to develop an ontology that can (...) better account for the qualitative, dynamic and relational aspects of different domains of reality; 2) to explore the implications of the enactivist view for a relational and ecological account of the qualitative dimensions of life and cognition. (shrink)