This essay explores Jonas’s multifaceted and rich enquiries into the notion of image. In particular, it argues that reflecting on the “image” helps Jonas clarify the unique condition of human existence, where the twine of thought and being reveals a paradoxical (and yet crucial) relationship between time and eternity, change and permanence, immanence and transcendence. The employ of the interpretative device provided by the image enables a nuanced understanding of the human complexity which goes beyond the partial and reductive descriptions (...) of relativistic immanentism, on the one hand, and immutable transcendence, on the other. By commenting upon its anthropological, aesthetic, and ethical significance, we propose that the study of Jonas’s thoughts on the image not only offers valuable insights into the philosophical understanding of such a fascinating object, but also sheds a new and interesting light on the unity of his oeuvre. (shrink)

A critical review of the main themes arising out of recent literature on the semantics of ordinary event talk. The material is organized in four sections: (i) the nature of events, with emphasis on the opposition between events as particulars and events as universals; (ii) identity and indeterminacy, with emphasis on the unifier/multiplier controversy; (iii) events and logical form, with emphasis on Davidson’s treatment of the form of action sentences; (iv) linguistic applications, with emphasis on issues concerning aspectual phenomena, the (...) telicity/atelicity distinction, the treatment of statives, and temporal quantification. (shrink)

This book offers a systematic and thorough philosophical analysis of the ways in which driving automation crosses path with ethical values. Upon introducing the different forms of driving automation and examining their relation to human autonomy, it provides readers with in-depth reflections on safety, privacy, moral judgment, control, responsibility, sustainability, and other ethical issues. Driving is undoubtedly a moral activity as a human act. Transferring it to artificial agents such as connected and automated vehicles necessarily raises many philosophical questions. When (...) driving is automated, what happens to its ethical dimensions? Could artificial agents accomplish ethical objectives on our behalf, take moral decisions in our place, and drive us into a more ethical transportation future? In doing so, would they be “moral” as we are or in a way that is similar to, but also remarkably different from, our own? And what role is yet to be played by human responsibility and commitment? The book addresses these questions with the aim of stimulating an interdisciplinary dialogue between different stakeholders. They include automotive engineers, computer scientists, and moral philosophers, as well as industry representatives, policymakers, regulators, transportation experts, and the general public. Indeed, connected and automated vehicles will not take the high road for us . We must drive them there. (shrink)

The purpose of Machine Ethics is to develop autonomous technologies that are able to manage not just the technical aspects of a tasks, but also the ethical ones. As a consequence, the notion of Artificial Moral Agent (AMA) has become a fundamental element of the discussion. Its meaning, however, remains rather unclear. Depending on the author or the context, the same expression stands for essentially different concepts. This casts a suspicious light on the philosophical significance of Machine Ethics. In particular, (...) the risk arises of discarding Machine Ethics as a whole on the basis of accusations that, however, apply exclusively to one specific understanding of what AMAs are – but not to other, more adequate and convincing conceptualisations. To avoid this pitfall, this essay tries to elaborate a philosophically sound interpretation of AMAs and to sketch its primary component, i.e., the notion of functional ethics. (shrink)

Evolutionary Debunking Arguments are defined as arguments that appeal to the evolutionary genealogy of our beliefs to undermine their justification. Recently, Helen De Cruz and her co-authors supported the view that EDAs are self-defeating: if EDAs claim that human arguments are not justified, because the evolutionary origin of the beliefs which figure in such arguments undermines those beliefs, and EDAs themselves are human arguments, then EDAs are not justified, and we should not accept their conclusions about the fact that human (...) arguments are unjustified. De Cruz's objection to EDAs is similar to the objection raised by Reuben Hersh against the claim that, since by Gödel's second incompleteness theorem the purpose of mathematical logic to give a secure foundation for mathematics cannot be achieved, mathematics cannot be said to be absolutely certain. The response given by Carlo Cellucci to Hersh's objection shows that the claim that by Gödel's results mathematics cannot be said to be absolutely certain is not self-defeating, and can be adopted to show that EDAs are not self-defeating as well in a twofold sense: an argument analogous to Cellucci's one may be developed to face De Cruz's objection, and such argument may be further refined incorporating Cellucci's response itself in it, to make it stronger. This paper aims at showing that the accusation of being self-defeating moved against EDAs is inadequate by elaborating an argument which can be considered an EDA and which can also be shown not to be self-defeating. (shrink)

In this paper I will focus on a crux in two Platonic scholia, where manuscripts have the impossible διονύσιον, but Greene suggests δίκαιον. This amendment was made on the basis of a gloss of Photius’ Lexicon, although the corresponding gloss of Suidas confirms the text of Platonic scholia. However the agreement with Photius is not so important, not only because it is impossible to prove that he reproduces the text of the glossary composed by the Atticist Aelius Dionysius without any (...) modification (it is also the source of Suidas and other Byzantine lexica, and especially of the so called Erweiterte Synagoge, which the Platonic scholia derive from as well), but also because our scholia reveal elsewhere a major affinity with Suidas than with Patriarch’s Lexicon. In the light of a careful review of the loci paralleli I therefore suggest the reading δημόσιον. (shrink)

It is a widely held principle that no one is able to do something that would require the past to have been different from how it actually is. This principle of the fixity of the past has been presented in numerous ways, playing a crucial role in arguments for logical and theological fatalism, and for the incompatibility of causal determinism and the ability to do otherwise. I will argue that, assuming bivalence, this principle is in conflict with standard views about (...) knowledge and the semantics for ‘actually’. I also consider many possible responses to the argument. (shrink)

David Chalmers argued against the claim that for all p, or even for all entertainable p, it is knowable a priori that p iff actually p. Instead of criticizing Chalmers’s argument, I suggest that it can be generalized, in a sense, and in interesting ways, concerning other principles about contingent a priori truths. In particular, I will argue that the puzzle presented by Chalmers runs parallel to others that do not turn on ‘actually’. Furthermore, stronger arguments can be presented that (...) do not turn on apriority either, though they do entail the conclusion of Chalmers’s argument. All such puzzles involve interactions between rigidifying sentence-forming devices with factive operators. (shrink)

The semantic view of theories is normally considered to be an ac-count of theories congenial to Scientific Realism. Recently, it has been argued that Ontic Structural Realism could be fruitfully applied, in combination with the semantic view, to some of the philosophical issues peculiarly related to bi-ology. Given the central role that models have in the semantic view, and the relevance that mathematics has in the definition of the concept of model, the fo-cus will be on population genetics, which is (...) one of the most mathematized areas in biology. We will analyse some of the difficulties which arise when trying to use Ontic Structural Realism to account for evolutionary biology. (shrink)

In the last decades two different and apparently unrelated lines of research have increasingly connected mathematics and evolutionism. Indeed, on the one hand different attempts to formalize darwinism have been made, while, on the other hand, different attempts to naturalize logic and mathematics have been put forward. Those researches may appear either to be completely distinct or at least in some way convergent. They may in fact both be seen as supporting a naturalistic stance. Evolutionism is indeed crucial for a (...) naturalistic perspective, and formalizing it seems to be a way to strengthen its scientificity. The paper shows that, on the contrary, those directions of research may be seen as conflicting, since the conception of knowledge on which they rest may be undermined by the consequences of accepting an evolutionary perspective. (shrink)

In response to the many social impacts of automated mobility, in September 2020 the European Commission published Ethics of Connected and Automated Vehicles, a report in which recommendations on road safety, privacy, fairness, explainability, and responsibility are drawn from a set of eight overarching principles. This paper presents the results of an interdisciplinary research where philosophers and engineers joined efforts to operationalize the guidelines advanced in the report. To this aim, we endorse a function-based working approach to support the implementation (...) of values and recommendations into the design of automated vehicle technologies. Based on this, we develop methodological tools to tackle issues related to personal autonomy, explainability, and privacy as domains that most urgently require fine-grained guidance due to the associated ethical risks. Even though each tool still requires further inquiry, we believe that our work might already prove the productivity of the function-based approach and foster its adoption in the CAV scientific community. (shrink)

In a recent paper, Pruss proves the validity of the rule beta-2 relative to Lewis’s semantics for counterfactuals, which is a significant step forward in the debate about the consequence argument. Yet, we believe there remain intuitive counter-examples to beta-2 formulated with the actuality operator and rigidified descriptions. We offer a novel and two-dimensional formulation of the Lewisian semantics for counterfactuals and prove the validity of a new transfer rule according to which a new version of the consequence argument can (...) be formulated. This new transfer rule is immune to the counter-examples involving the actuality operator and rigidified descriptions. However, we show that counter-examples to this new rule can also be generated, demanding that the Lewisian semantics be generalized for higher dimensions where counter-examples can always be generated. (shrink)

Interview with Stathis Psillos regarding realism in the philosophy of science and recent realist trends in Continental Philosophy.

In a recent article, P. Roger Turner and Justin Capes argue that no one is, or ever was, even partly morally responsible for certain world-indexed truths. Here we present our reasons for thinking that their argument is unsound: It depends on the premise that possible worlds are maximally consistent states of affairs, which is, under plausible assumptions concerning states of affairs, demonstrably false. Our argument to show this is based on Bertrand Russell’s original ‘paradox of propositions’. We should then opt (...) for a different approach to explain world-indexed truths whose upshot is that we may be morally responsible for some of them. The result to the effect that there are no maximally consistent states of affairs is independently interesting though, since this notion motivates an account of the nature of possible worlds in the metaphysics of modality. We also register in this article, independently of our response to Turner and Capes, and in the spirit of Russell’s aforementioned paradox and many other versions thereof, a proof of the claim that there is no set of all true propositions one can render false. (shrink)

The question on the essence of man and his relationship to nature is certainly one of the most important themes in the philosophy of Hans Jonas. One of the ways by which Jonas approaches the issue consists in a comparison between the contemporary interpretation of man and forms of wisdom such as those conveyed by ancient Greek philosophy and the Jewish tradition. The reconstruction and discussion of these frameworks play a fundamental role in Jonas’s critique of the modern mind. In (...) the first section I introduce the anthropological problem in Hans Jonas’s oeuvre. Moreover, I clarify why it becomes essential for Jonas to resort to different forms of traditional wisdom. In the second and third sections I try to give an account (as complete as possible) of the two generalisations which Jonas shapes in order to criticise the modern concepts of man and nature. In the last section I show how Jonas links these generalisations to his own philosophical assessment of modernity. Finally, I focus on his methodology, which exemplifies how critical thinking may arise from a reconsideration of traditional contents. (shrink)

Around the middle of XVI th century, in the Florence of Grand Duke Cosimo I de’ Medici, Bernardo Segni (Firenze, 1504–1558) translated and commented some Aristotelian works in the Florentine vernacular. His works represents a very important innovation in the panorama of Italian Aristotelianism, because they are the product of circles outside the university world and are the first attempt to translate in Italian the works of the great Greek philosopher. In this paper, I’ll examine some aspects of his works, (...) in particular of his translation of Nicomachean Ethics. (shrink)

One of the major challenges in the philosophy of religion is theological fatalism—roughly, the claim that divine omniscience is incompatible with free will. In this article, I present new reasons to be skeptical of what I consider to be the strongest argument for theological fatalism. First, I argue that divine foreknowledge is not necessary for an argument against free will if we take into account divine knowledge of contingent a priori truths. Second, I show that this argument can be generalized (...) so that ordinary human knowledge of contingent a priori truths also leads to an argument against free will. This, I believe, results in an absurd conclusion that is unacceptable to both theists and non-theists. But if there is something wrong with this argument, there is something wrong, too, with the argument for theological fatalism. Although there is a range of possible responses, I suggest that the core issue in all cases is a closure principle—specifically, the principle that ‘no choice about’ is closed under entailment (or strict implication). (shrink)

In this paper I critically evaluate the value neutrality thesis regarding technology, and find it wanting. I then introduce the various ways in which artifacts can come to influence moral value, and our evaluation of moral situations and actions. Here, following van de Poel and Kroes, I introduce the idea of value sensitive design. Specifically, I show how by virtue of their designed properties, artifacts may come to embody values. Such accounts, however, have several shortcomings. In agreement with Michael Klenk, (...) I raise epistemic and metaphysical issues with respect to designed properties embodying value. The concept of an affordance, borrowed from ecological psychology, provides a more philosophically fruitful grounding to the potential way(s) in which artifacts might embody values. This is due to the way in which it incorporates key insights from perception more generally, and how we go about determining possibilities for action in our environment specifically. The affordance account as it is presented by Klenk, however, is insufficient. I therefore argue that we understand affordances based on whether they are meaningful, and, secondly, that we grade them based on their force. (shrink)

Da tempo era vivamente sentita l’esigenza di una nuova edizione degli scoli a Platone, che sostituisse quella di Greene del 1938. Questo volume contiene una nuova edizione degli scoli relativi ai dialoghi delle prime sette tetralogie, fondata su una completa collazione dei testimoni principali, aumentati di due unità rispetto all’edizione precedente, e corredata da un apparato di fonti e paralleli, il cui rapporto con gli scoli è stato del tutto rimeditato alla luce delle recenti acquisizioni della critica.

Among the many forms of artistic expression that characterize the digital era, remix occupies a rather central position. At the same time, however, the success of remix as an artistic practice raises several hard questions. What is original and what is derived? How can we sort out and make sense of questions concerning origination and derivation in situations where one thing is appropriated, reused, and repurposed for something else? What theory of moral and aesthetic value can accommodate and explain these (...) situations where authorship, authority, and origination are already distributed across a network of derivations, borrowings, and re-appropriated found objects? This paper develops a response to these questions, and it does so in three steps or movements. The first briefly introduces the concept of remix and the opportunities and challenges that this now wide-spread, content creation practice presents to existing models and theories of moral and aesthetic value. The second outlines the three elements of what I call “remixology”—a new axiology (or theory of moral and aesthetic value) that is designed to scale to these new opportunities and challenges. The third and final movement investigates the consequences of this proposal, demonstrating how remixology can be read backwards through time, providing us with some new perspectives on artistry and creativity in all human endeavors, and read forwards into the emerging challenges that have been made available by innovations in algorithmic content generation and computational creativity. (shrink)

This paper examines the relationship between some scholia to the IIId book of Plato’s Republic, Proclus’ commentary on it, and the so-called Chrestomathia, a work that the manuscripts attribute to the Neoplatonic philosopher himself. The conclusion is that the relationship between the three texts is highly problematic, and that we cannot think of a simple and direct derivation from one another. The author of the scholia probably made use of texts different from those that have come down to us, or (...) alternatively he has reworked his sources in a personal way. (shrink)

Review of Carlo M. Lucarini et Claudio Moreschini, Hermias Alexandrinus, In Platonis Phaedrum scholia, Berlin – Boston: De Gruyter, 2012, lxiv+293 pp., ISBN 978-3-11-020115-4.

We present a new puzzle about logical truth, necessity, and moral responsibility. We defend one solution to the puzzle. A corollary of our preferred solution is that prominent arguments for the incompatibility of determinism and moral responsibility are invalid.

APh 75-03933: Discussione di problemi testuali e nuove proposte di lettura.

In this paper, I have been able to demonstrate that the so-called Lexicon Theeteti is an apographon of Pal. gr. 173, a well known Plato's manuscript of Xth century. The codex Laurentianus 57,24, which contains the lexicon, previously dated to XIV/XV century, was also backdated to the first half of XIVth century.

In this paper, I argue that the temporal connective prima (‘before’) is a comparative adverb. The argument is based on a number of grammatical facts from Italian, showing that there is an asymmetry between prima and dopo (‘after’). On the ground of their divergent behaviour, I suggest that dopo has a different grammatical status from prima. I propose a semantic treatment for prima that is based on an independently motivated analysis of comparatives which can be traced back to Seuren (in: (...) Kiefer and Ruwet (eds.) Generative grammar in Europe, 1973). Dopo is analyzed instead as an atomic two-place predicate which contributes a binary relation over events to the sentence meaning. The different semantic treatments of the two connectives provide an explanation for the grammatical asymmetries considered at the outset; interestingly, they also shed some light on other asymmetries between prima and dopo, which are known to hold for the English temporal connectives before and after as well: these asymmetries are related to the veridicality properties, the distribution of NPIs, and the logical properties of these connectives first described in Anscombe (Philos Rev 73:3–24, 1964). (shrink)

Some remarks about commentaries on Plato in the medieval Byzantium.

Review of B. Vancamp, Untersuchungen zur handschriftlichen Überlieferung von Platons Menon, Palingenesia Band 97. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2010.

The aim of this thesis is to advance a philosophically justifiable account of Artificial Moral Agency (AMA). Concerns about the moral status of Artificial Intelligence (AI) traditionally turn on questions of whether these systems are deserving of moral concern (i.e. if they are moral patients) or whether they can be sources of moral action (i.e. if they are moral agents). On the Organic View of Ethical Status, being a moral patient is a necessary condition for an entity to qualify as (...) a moral agent. This view claims that because artificial agents (AAs) lack sentience, they cannot be proper subjects of moral concern and hence cannot be considered to be moral agents. I raise conceptual and epistemic issues with regards to the sense of sentience employed on this view, and I argue that the Organic View does not succeed in showing that machines cannot be moral patients. Nevertheless, irrespective of this failure, I also argue that the entire project is misdirected in that moral patiency need not be a necessary condition for moral agency. Moreover, I claim that whereas machines may conceivably be moral patients in the future, there is a strong case to be made that they are (or will very soon be) moral agents. Whereas it is often argued that machines cannot be agents simpliciter, let alone moral agents, I claim that this argument is predicated on a conception of agency that makes unwarranted metaphysical assumptions even in the case of human agents. Once I have established the shortcomings of this “standard account”, I move to elaborate on other, more plausible, conceptions of agency, on which some machines clearly qualify as agents. Nevertheless, the argument is still often made that while some machines may be agents, they cannot be moral agents, given their ostensible lack of the requisite phenomenal states. Against this thesis, I argue that the requirement of internal states for moral agency is philosophically unsound, as it runs up against the problem of other minds. In place of such intentional accounts of moral agency, I provide a functionalist alternative, which makes conceptual room for the existence of AMAs. The implications of this thesis are that at some point in the future we may be faced with situations for which no human being is morally responsible, but a machine may be. Moreover, this responsibility holds, I claim, independently of whether the agent in question is “punishable” or not. (shrink)

Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems are ubiquitous. From social media timelines, video recommendations on YouTube, and the kinds of adverts we see online, AI, in a very real sense, filters the world we see. More than that, AI is being embedded in agent-like systems, which might prompt certain reactions from users. Specifically, we might find ourselves feeling frustrated if these systems do not meet our expectations. In normal situations, this might be fine, but with the ever increasing sophistication of AI-systems, this (...) might become a problem. While it seems unproblematic to realize that being angry at your car for breaking down is unfitting, can the same be said for AI-systems? In this paper, therefore, I will investigate the so-called “reactive attitudes”, and their important link to our responsibility practices. I then show how within this framework there exist exemption and excuse conditions, and test whether our adopting the “objective attitude” toward agential AI is justified. I argue that such an attitude is appropriate in the context of three distinct senses of responsibility (answerability, attributability, and accountability), and that, therefore, AI-systems do not undermine our responsibility ascriptions. (shrink)

APh 75-03932:Sono presentati i risultati di una nuova collazione dei principali manoscritti delle prime sette tetralogie, estesa anche a codici non utilizzati dall'edizione corrente degli scoli. Viene esclusa una redazione tardo-antica del corpus che risulta un prodotto specificamente bizantino redatto in tre fasi fra il 9° sec. e la metà del 10°.

En este artículo se plantean algunas consideraciones clásicas que santo Tomás de Aquino formuló sobre la fundamentación de la ley como producto de la razón y su relación con las leyes de los hombres. Se analiza el papel de la sindéresis como vínculo del individuo con la ius naturae y se concluye que la vida buena tiene un referente en el “estado de derecho” y en la práctica sistemática de las virtudes morales.

In this essay I try to determine the extent to which it is possible to conceive robots and organisms as analogous entities. After a cursory preamble on the long history of epistemological connections between machines and organisms I focus on Norbert Wiener’s cybernetics, where the analogy between modern machines and organisms is introduced most explicitly. The analysis of issues pertaining to the cybernetic interpretation of the analogy serves then as a basis for a critical assessment of its reprise in contemporary (...) robotics and AI, where the line between organisms and technologies gets even more blurred. In brief, I argue for the necessity of defining the extent to which the analogy between robots and organisms applies in order not only to harness its heuristic potential, but also to keep track of the pivotal differences that distinguish the two classes of entities. Finally, I discuss how the ordinary use of language and the peculiar status of the idea of robot obstruct awareness of the differences between robots and organisms. (shrink)

The present paper aims at contributing to the ethical debate on the impacts of artificial intelligence (AI) systems on human autonomy. More specifically, it intends to offer a clearer understanding of the design challenges to the effort of aligning driving automation technologies to this ethical value. After introducing the discussion on the ambiguous impacts that AI systems exert on human autonomy, the analysis zooms in on how the problem has been discussed in the literature on connected and automated vehicles (CAVs). (...) On this basis, it is claimed that the issue has been mainly tackled on a fairly general level, and mostly with reference to the controversial issue of crash-optimization algorithms, so that only limited design insights have been drawn. However, integrating ethical analysis and design practices is critical to pursue the implementation of such an important ethical value into CAV technologies. To this aim, it is argued, a more applied approach targeted at examining the impacts on human autonomy of current CAV functions should also be explored. As an example of the intricacy of this task, the case of automated route planning is discussed in some detail. (shrink)

In this paper I provide an exposition and critique of Johnson and Noorman’s (2014) three conceptualizations of the agential roles artificial systems can play. I argue that two of these conceptions are unproblematic: that of causally efficacious agency and “acting for” or surrogate agency. Their third conception, that of “autonomous agency,” however, is one I have reservations about. The authors point out that there are two ways in which the term “autonomy” can be used: there is, firstly, the engineering sense (...) of the term, which simply refers to the ability of some system to act independently of substantive human control. Secondly, there is the moral sense of the term, which has traditionally grounded many notions of human mor-al responsibility. I argue that the continued usage of “autonomy” in discussions of artificial agency complicates matters unnecessarily. This occurs in two ways: firstly, the condition of autonomy, even in its engineering sense, fails to accurately describe the way “autonomous” systems are developed in practice. Secondly, the continued usage of autonomy in the moral sense introduces unnecessary meta-physical baggage form the free will debate into discussions about moral agency. In order to understand the debate surrounding autonomy, we would therefore first need to settle many seemingly intractable metaphysical questions regarding the existence of free will in human beings. (shrink)

Several theists, including Linda Zagzebski, have claimed that theism is somehow committed to nonvacuism about counterpossibles. Even though Zagzebski herself has rejected vacuism, she has offered an argument in favour of it, which Edward Wierenga has defended as providing strong support for vacuism that is independent of the orthodox semantics for counterfactuals, mainly developed by David Lewis and Robert Stalnaker. In this paper I show that argument to be sound only relative to the orthodox semantics, which entails vacuism, and give (...) an example of a semantics for counterfactuals countenancing impossible worlds for which it fails. (shrink)

Los procesos de globalización constituyen un vasallaje cultural para la identidad regional de los pueblos originarios, por ello, aun cuando la identidad sea un concepto polisémico, ciertas actividades son necesarias para mantenerla o, incluso, acrecentarla. Los idiomas autóctonos, la preservación de su cosmovisión, sus tradiciones y la defensa de su patrimonio biocultural pueden ser elementos constitutivos de identidad, no para un aislamiento de los pueblos, sino para la construcción de una visión glocal.

Existing work on gaslighting ties it constitutively to facts about the intentions or prejudices of the gaslighter and/or his victim’s prior experience of epistemic injustice. I argue that the concept of gaslighting is more broadly applicable than has been appreciated: what is distinctive about gaslighting, on my account, is simply that a gaslighter confronts his victim with a certain kind of choice between rejecting his testimony and doubting her own basic epistemic competence in some domain. I thus hold that gaslighting (...) is a purely epistemic phenomenon—not requiring any particular set of intentions or prejudices on the part of the gaslighter—and also that it can occur even in the absence of any prior experience of epistemic injustice. Appreciating the dilemmatic character of gaslighting allows us to understand its connection with a characteristic sort of epistemic harm, makes it easier to apply the concept of gaslighting in practice, and raises the possibility that we might discover its structure and the associated harm in surprising places. (shrink)

We consider a natural-language sentence that cannot be formally represented in a first-order language for epistemic two-dimensional semantics. We also prove this claim in the “Appendix” section. It turns out, however, that the most natural ways to repair the expressive inadequacy of the first-order language render moot the original philosophical motivation of formalizing a priori knowability as necessity along the diagonal.

The purpose of this paper is to offer some critical remarks on the so-called pragmatist approach to the regulation of robotics. To this end, the article mainly reviews the work of Jack Balkin and Joanna Bryson, who have taken up such ap- proach with interestingly similar outcomes. Moreover, special attention will be paid to the discussion concerning the legal fiction of ‘electronic personality’. This will help shed light on the opposition between essentialist and pragmatist methodologies. After a brief introduction (1.), (...) in 2. I introduce the main points of the methodological debate which opposes pragmatism and essentialism in the regulation of robotics and I examine how legal fictions are framed from a pragmatist, functional perspective. Since this approach entails a neat separation of ontological analysis and legal rea- soning, in 3. I discuss whether considerations on robots’ essence are actually put into brackets when the pragmatist approach is endorsed. Finally, in 4. I address the problem of the social valence of legal fictions in order to suggest a possible limit of the pragmatist approach. My conclusion (5.) is that in the specific case of regulating robotics it may be very difficult to separate ontological considerations from legal reasoning—and vice versa—both on an epistemological and social level. This calls for great caution in the recourse to anthropomorphic legal fictions. (shrink)

Le principali concezioni del progresso scientifico sono tre: la concezione epistemica, secondo cui il progresso si verifica quando si verifica un incremento della conoscenza; la concezione semantica, secondo cui il progresso si verifica quando vi è un incremento delle verità; la concezione problem-solving, secondo cui il progresso si verifica quando si verifica un incremento del numero dei problemi che si è in grado di risolvere. La concezione epistemica è ritenuta la più compatibile con una prospettiva realista. Di recente, Dellsén ha (...) proposto la concezione “noetica”, secondo cui il progresso si verifica quando vi è un incremento dell’understanding di un fenomeno da parte degli scienziati. Dellsén sostiene che la concezione noetica sia una concezione realista del progresso più adeguata di quella epistemica. Scopo di questo articolo è valutare se la concezione noetica sia più adeguata della concezione epistemica. (shrink)

In the present work is addressed three defining aspects of the question hermeneutics as didactic and condition to generate a shared horizon of meaning. In the first place the dialog between the text, author and reader. Second, the opening of the horizon of meaning through the question and its radical ontological. Third, the role of tradition in the construction of rational discourse and breaking through a language polysemic. Finally, we conclude that the dialog that opens horizon and shared sense is (...) the only capable of building long-term consensus and, specifically, solutions. (shrink)

Patrick Grim advances arguments meant to show that the doctrine of divine omniscience—the classical doctrine according to which God knows all truths—is false. In particular, we here have in mind to focus on two such arguments: the set theoretic argument and the semantic argument. These arguments due to Grim run parallel to, respectively, familiar paradoxes in set theory and naive truth theory. It is beyond the purview of this article to adjudicate whether or not these are successful arguments against the (...) classical doctrine of omniscience. What we are here interested in is a way in which these arguments can be generalized. In particular, we show how generalizations of those arguments can target, explicitly, alternatives to the classical doctrine of omniscience, including what we here call 'restricted omniscience' and 'open future open theism'. As a corollary, considerations of Grim-style arguments do not support these alternatives to the classical doctrine of omniscience over the classical doctrine. We conclude that what is paradoxical is not the classical doctrine of omniscience just as such; rather, what is paradoxical is a core commitment shared by the classical doctrine and its more modest alternatives, namely, the thesis that God is a perfectly logical reasoner. (shrink)

Recent research in the field of social robotics has shed light on the considerable role played by biases in the design of social robots. Cues that trigger widespread biased expectations are implemented in the design of social robots to increase their familiarity and boost interaction quality. Ethical discussion has focused on the question concerning the permissibility of leveraging social biases to meet the design goals of social robotics. As a result, integrating ethically problematic social biases in the design of robots-such (...) as, e.g., discriminatory gender stereotypes-has been opposed as morally unacceptable. Building on this debate, the present paper explores a related but different question: would it be permissible to design social robots in ways that intentionally challenge widespread discriminatory social biases, thus fostering moral education? The analysis shows that, while the potential benefits of such a design strategy could be significant, its practical endorsement raises important ethical issues. Hence, caution and further discussion are advised. (shrink)

L’Intelligenza Artificiale Generativa (IAG) pone sfide inedite all’educazione universitaria. Dalla definizione dei contenuti alla valutazione delle prove e alla determinazione delle modalità di esame, questo nuovo e potente strumento inaugura una stagione di cambiamenti su cui è urgente riflettere. La tecnologia contribuisce da sempre a dare forma al lavoro didattico, il quale evolve anche alla luce delle opportunità e dei rischi che essa introduce. Come far sì che l’evoluzione stimolata dall’IAG sia felice, ovvero serva i valori e gli obiettivi della (...) didattica e delle persone che la vivono? Ne ho discusso con alcuni colleghi dell’Unità di Studi META del Politecnico di Milano – docenti impegnati a vario titolo in corsi di carattere filosofico e sociale rivolti a studenti di formazione tecnica. (shrink)