Catharine Trotter Cockburn (1679- 1749) fu poetessa, drammaturga e filosofa. La vivacità intellettuale e la forte determinazione le permisero di aggirare il pregiudizio di genere e di sottrarsi alle dinamiche di marginalizzazione femminile tipiche dell’età moderna. Pur celandosi dietro l’anonimato, Cockburn prese parte attiva al dibattito filosofico del tempo, intervenendo soprattutto in materia di morale. Le sue opere filosofiche, scritte in difesa di Locke o di Clarke, custodiscono, nonostante il dichiarato intento apologetico, tratti di originalità e indipendenza, particolarmente evidenti nella (...) teoria dell’obbligo morale, nell’interpretazione modale della dottrina lockeana d’identità personale, nell’ipotesi di una natura ontologica dello spazio. (shrink)

Lista de obras traducidas al español por quien esto escribe y publicadas en la colección digital "La Reina de las Ciencias" de la Biblioteca Digital del ILCE al 16 de octubre de 2024.

The aim of this essay is to analyze the concept of ecstasy in F. W. J. Schelling's Erlangen Lectures. In particular, I intend to show how it constitutes a significant evolution with regard to the model of reminiscence and in particular that of Mitwissenschaft, as presented in the Weltalter. The essay focuses on three aspects of the notion of ecstasy: 1) its relation to temporality, 2) its relation to interiority, and 3) its noetic value and its moral dimension. In conclusion, (...) I will show how in Erlangen a movement of progressive de-historicization and de-theosophicization of ecstasy began, culminating in the Berliner Einleitung of 1842/43. (shrink)

Estas son algunas erratas que he encontrado en mi traducción al español de la "Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy" de Bertrand Russell, traducción publicada físicamente por Editorial Porrúa/Tecnológico de Monterrey en 2021 en la Colección de Publicaciones de la Escuela de Humanidades y Educación del Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey.

Mi objetivo es discutir las principales dificultades que Frank P. Ramsey encontró en Principia Mathematica y la solución que, vía el Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, propuso al respecto. Sostengo que las principales dificultades que Ramsey encontró en Principia Mathematica están, todas, relacionadas con que Russell y Whitehead desatendieron la forma lógica de las proposiciones matemáticas, las cuales, según Ramsey, deben ser tautológicas.

In this article I propose a new interpretation of David Hume’s position on social contract theory. First, and acknowledging Hume’s critical stance on contractualism, I reject the reasons usually adduced to explain his position: empiricist methodology and utilitarianism. Instead, I argue that to fully understand Hume’s position on contractualism, one must take into account both a psychological methodology and a normative outlook. Second, I highlight Hume’s constructive proposals on the origin and foundation of government and justice, as well as the (...) philosophical approach that he suggested when discussing politics, i.e., mediating between parties. As I argue in this article, these latter aspects of Hume’s political philosophy, often disregarded when examining his reasons against contractualism, are nevertheless essential to understand his views on social contract theory. (shrink)

A groundbreaking text for the account of the problem of evil in German idealism. Here is a brief review for the German audience.

In this article I discuss the main theses of the realist political philosophy developed in recent years by Raymond Geuss and embodied in his famous Philosophy and Real Politics. Once the motivations behind Geuss’ project identified and its similarities and differences with the other great realistic philosophical-political project of our days, that of Bernard Williams, pointed out, I critically expose Geuss’ theses and his objections to the Kantian and Rawlsian ways of doing political philosophy. In addition to discussing the central (...) points of his proposal, I present two general responses to it, one doctrinal and the other methodological. (shrink)

The literary genesis of Einbahnstraße by Walter Benjamin represents a very special case of the use of the procedures of surrealism in the philosophical-literary production of the author. The process of evolution of thinking that ended up in the writing of this piece is unveiled throughout the present analysis. This is a sign of both waiver and restart; the opening for a new productive dimension in the career of one of the most important —and misunderstood— philosophers of the 20th century. (...) More than enlightening a small master piece of philosophy from a literary perspective, or analyzing a small master piece of literature from the philosophy, what is being problematized here is the division, cultivated or figured throughout the years, between both disciplines. This work is intended to recover what is insoluble from the philosophical-literary labor of Walter Benjamin, besides tracing a possible reconfiguration for an interdisciplinary field of work to come up and contribute in the understanding of the problem called The Retreat of Metaphor by Jacques Derrida. (shrink)

En este trabajo se muestra que, si se lleva a su conclusión lógica la máxima de Quine, “Ningún enunciado es inmune a la revisión” (es decir, a que la propia máxima quineana no es inmune a la revisión), desemboca una situación paradójica. Tal paradoja es, no obstante, inofensiva para la máxima de que “Ningún enunciado es inmune a la revisión” porque no la autorrefuta.

In this contribution we will present a generalization of de Finetti's betting game in which a gambler is allowed to buy and sell unknown events' betting odds from more than one bookmaker. In such a framework, the sole coherence of the books the gambler can play with is not sucient, as in the original de Finetti's frame, to bar the gambler from a sure-win opportunity. The notion of joint coherence which we will introduce in this paper characterizes those coherent books (...) on which sure- win is impossible. Our main results provide geometric characterizations of the space of all books which are jointly coherent with a xed one. As a consequence we will also show that joint coherence is decidable. (shrink)

Jurado: Mario Gómez-Torrente (presidente), Miguel Ángel Fernández Vargas (vocal), Santiago Echeverri Saldarriaga (secretario). [Graduado con Mención Honorífica.].

In this work I examine the reasons offered by David Lewis in favor of tolerance in his works “Mill and Milquetoast” and “Academic Appointments: Why Ignore the Advantage of Being Right?” In the first section I expose and discuss the conception of tolerance that is the target of Lewis’s objections, namely, the conception defended by J.S. Mill. In the second section I expose and discuss Lewis’s main reasons in favor of tolerance and the advantages that, according to Lewis, has his (...) position in relation to that of Mill. In the third section I discuss some of the philosophical and political consequences that seem to follow from Lewis’s proposal and from his criticisms of Mill’s conception of tolerance. (shrink)

A long historiographical tradition has claimed that the famous Pietro Pomponazzi’s Tractatus de immortalitate animae had been inspired by Tommaso de Vio’s Commentary on De anima – whose basic thesis was that, according to the principles of Aristotelian philosophy, the human soul was mortal – even though Pomponazzi in his entire work never mentioned Caietanus as a model. Firstly, this article frames the status quaestionis focusing on affinities and divergences between the two books and on the possible relationship and (...) exchange between the two authors, especially on the topic of the Aristotelian psychology. Secondly, the present study shows what emerges from a cross-reading of the sources which includes the collection of the Opuscula published in 1519 by the Dominican friar Bartolomeo Spina, who explicitly accused Caietanus of having paved the way for the scandalous and anti-Christian Pomponazzi’s position. The important gain of this collation of texts is the discovery of an unseen moment of debate with Caietanus inside Pomponazzi’s Tractatus. (shrink)

[español] En primer lugar, el texto ofrece un acercamiento al papel que amor y nostalgia cumplen en la poesía de Emilio Prados, así como a su íntimo nexo con la muerte como aniquilación mística. Como herramienta interpetativa, recurriré a la razón poética de María Zambrano, autora profundamente emparentada, vital y teóricamente, con la poesía pradiana. Este enfoque permitirá una visión de conjunto sobre la obra del poeta español y en segundo lugar, trazar una comparativa con el saudosismo de Teixeira (...) de Pascoaes. Así, indicaré las numerosas coincidencias que existen entre ambos y me detendré en la cuestión de la muerte mística, ámbito más problemático, donde sin embargo, puede apreciarse una comunión de espíritu entre el español y el portugués. ****************** [english] Firstly, the text offers an approach to the function of love and nostalgia in the poetry of Emilio Prados, as much as its intimate connection with death as mystical annihilation. As interpretive tool, I will use the poetic reason of María Zambrano, an author deeply linked, vital and theoretically, with pradian poetry. This focus will provide an overall view of Prado's work and the possibility of a comparison with Teixeira de Pascoaes's saudosism. Thus, I will point same coincidences between them and I will consider the question of mystical death. This sphere, although it is problematic, can show some kind of community of spirit between both. (shrink)

Tommaso Giannini (1556-1638) was a prominent professor at the Ferrara Studium between the sixteenth and the seventeenth century. Probably influenced by Platonic sympathies nurtured by the Court and partly by the University milieu, in 1587 he published his first work titled De providentia ad sententiam Platonis et Platonicorum liber unus, which was a catalyst for his academic career. His De providentia displays a large amount of sources always tacitly used: Marsilio Ficino, Jacques Charpentier, Giulio Serina, Stefano Tiepolo, Teofilo Zimara, (...) Bessarion, Agostino Steuco, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola and amid the ancients Plotinus, Plutarch, Sirianus, Proclus (read through Teofilo Zimara and Leonico Tomeo), Iamblichus, Apuleius, Calcidius, Ammonius, Psellus. Though a compilative work, the De providentia retains nonetheless a great importance insofar as it contributes to focus the bibliotheca platonica of the time, furthermore in the same years and place of Francesco Patrizi da Cherso’s teaching. (shrink)

Tommaso Giannini was a prominent professor at the ferrarese Studium between sixteenth and seventeenth century. Probably influenced by Platonic sympathies nurtured by the Court and partly by the University milieu, in 1587 he published his first work titled De providentia ad sententiam Platonis et Platonicorum liber unus, which was a catalyst for his academic career. A compilative work in essence, the De providentia displays a large amount of sources always tacitly used: Marsilio Ficino, Jacques Charpentier, Giulio Serina, Stefano Tiepolo, (...) Teofilo Zimara, Bessarion, Agostino Steuco and amid the ancients Plotinus, Plutarcus, Sirianus, Proclus, Giamblicus, Apuleius, Calcidius, Ammonius, Psellus. A small place is reserved to Giovanni Pico della Mirandola and precisely to his Disputationes adversus astrologiam divinatricem. The aim of the paper is to provide a supplement of analysis of Giannini’s interest in Pico’s works considering his later writings, each one commonly identified as Disputationes Aristotelicae. (shrink)

In recent years, nonconceptual content theories have seen Kant as a reference point for his notion of intuition (§§ 1-3). This work aims to dismiss the possibility that intuition is provided with an autonomous function of de re knowledge. To this end, it will explore certain epistemological points that emerge from Garroni’s reading of the Third Critique in the conviction that they provide a suitable context to verify the presence of autonomous, epistemically nonconceptual content in the transcendental system (§§ 4-5). (...) It is here, in fact, that Kant discusses those cases where intuition is given without bringing into play the conceptual component. As Garroni posits, in this frame of reference, such content cannot subsist without the interplay between aesthetic and conceptual dimensions (§§ 6-7). Long before the development of the debate on Kantian nonconceptualism, and during the period in which the Kantian debate on the epistemic considerations contained in the Third Critique was developing deeply for the first time, Garroni had already identified a theoretical position on these issues, which can be labelled aesthetic conceptualism, thanks to his fundamentally epistemological reading of the Third Critique. (shrink)

An analysis of personal self-determination with a special reference to Aquinas.

In this paper, I review Ariemma's latest work "I piedi del mondo. Come le Nike hanno rivoluzionato l'immaginario globale", ed. Luiss University Press, 2024. In my review, I try using the book's content as an occasion for deepening further in the methodology of pop-philosophy: what do we mean when we assert we are doing pop-philosophy, and from which theoretical structure do we argue? Finally, i develop some ideas for a phenomenological contextualization of the pop-philosophy: if this discipline works with the (...) mass objects that constitute our immediate everyday life, I see phenomenology as a conceivable declination of pop-philosophy because of its interest of returning to the things themselves. (shrink)

Providence, from a philosophical point of view, is a problematic node that runs through much of the history of Western thought. The theme is closely linked to that of necessity, contingency, and causality, and so it can receive a contribution by analysing it starting from Aquinas’ natural philosophy. From the De Principiis Naturae, Aquinas’ youthful text, we witness the development of the theme in this context, which allows us to grasp providence in relation with necessity. The final causality acquires centrality. (...) It is as an “engine” that pushes everything to be according to the proper modality of its nature, and therefore also in the mode of necessity. The rootedness in the natural philosophy allows us to grasp the providence as that modality of divine government capable of holding together the necessity of God’s action and creatural contingency, leaving the rational creature free in its own choices. (shrink)

The aim of this study is to illustrate the role played by Augustine’s Commentary on the Genesis in the writings of Thomas Aquinas. This work is of great importance for Aquinas, not only because it is the work where Augustine clarifies his interpretation of creation, but also because creation is, among the theological topics, perhaps the most philosophical, insofar as it gives the opportunity of elaborating on many philosophical issues. In particular, the goal of the study is to rethink the (...) positions of Aquinas and Augustine on one of these issues, that is the relationship between soul and body. I mean to call into question two historiographical theses: first, that Augustine and Aquinas formulate positions that are irreconcilable with each other, and second, that they in no way address that which we today call the Mind-Body Problem. (shrink)

The dissemination of Tommaso Campanella’s thought in the seventeenth-century Dutch context was not only due to his concern with the war involving the Netherlands. His works, indeed, were referred to by scholars interested in establishing a new philosophy and natural history. Johannes De Raey and Paul Veezaerdt took up some of his perspectives on the history of Aristotelian philosophy, and dealt with the theological implications of his arguments.

(Tesis de Licencia en Filosofía. Moderador Alessandro Salucci, OP. Angelicum, Roma, Febrero 2006) -/- El problema causal está íntimamente ligado y nos lleva necesariamente al problema del ser, finito e infinito. Por tanto, no es un problema más en la filosofía. En la larga discusión que se planteó en el último período escolástico (fines del s. XIX y primera mitad del s. XX) las líneas de solución más originales las ha dado el p. Cornelio Fabro -/- Por lo tanto, nos (...) proponemos investigar su propuesta de solución. El p. Fabro defendía la necesidad de la dependencia causal a través de la noción de participación. Nuestro objetivo es por tanto hacer un análisis crítico de la postura del p. Fabro acerca de la dependencia causal como exigencia del ser participado, a través del estudio de algunas de sus obras más importantes al respecto. Buscamos respondernos por qué para el p. Fabro el ser participado exige una causa, y valorar sus argumentos. -/- Como hemos dicho, para nuestro trabajo nos valdremos ante todo del estudio de algunas de las obras más importantes del p. Cornelio Fabro con respecto a la causalidad. Nos referimos en concreto a tres de ellas: la primera, el artículo La difesa critica del principio di causa, donde el autor expone de un modo preciso la noción de participación como el fundamento de la justificación crítica del principio de causalidad. Las otras dos obras son La Nozione Metafisica di Partecipazione secondo San Tommaso d’Aquino, donde la noción de participación es puesta al centro de la metafísica tomista, como clave de bóveda de las tesis más características de la doctrina del Angélico; y Partecipazione e Causalità, obra en la cual el autor rescata el esse tomista original como fundamento de una metafísica de la causalidad. -/- Este estudio nos ha llevado a destacar la importancia de la noción de “ser que no es por sí” como noción esencialmente relacionada a la noción de participación y por otro lado cuasi necesaria para hacer el pasaje a la causa. (shrink)

The new theoretical perspective proposed by the Open Theism theologians, compels us to study in depth and to evaluate the “classic” argumentative tools used to solve the ancient antinomy between divine omniscience and human freedom, to which the thesis of the Open Theism try to give an innovative solution. Among these tools – invoked by many authors in the contemporary debate about omniscience, in analytic philosophy of religion – several ones are part of Thomas Aquinas’ thought: the division in primary (...) and secondary causes, the division of God’s knowledge, the distinction between propositions understood in sensu composito or in sensu diviso, the division between necessity de dicto or de re, and others. This paper aims to analyze the interpretation of these tools developed in the contemporary context and tries to draw some conclusions on the overall efficacy of the “Thomistic Solution” that we can build starting from these tools. La nuova prospettiva teoretica proposta dai sostenitori dell’Open Theism ha reso necessario un approfondimento e una valutazione degli strumenti argomentativi “classici” utilizzati per risolvere l’antica antinomia tra onniscienza divina e libertà umana, alla quale le tesi dell’Open Theism cercano di dare una soluzione innovativa. Tra questi strumenti – recuperati da molti autori nel contemporaneo dibattito sull’onniscienza, all’interno della filosofia analitica della religione – ve ne sono molti attribuiti a Tommaso d’Aquino: la divisione in causa prima e cause seconde, la suddivisione della conoscenza di Dio, la distinzione tra proposizioni intese in senso composto o in senso diviso, quella tra necessità de dicto e necessità de re, e altri. Il presente contributo si propone di analizzarne l’interpretazione sviluppata nel contesto contemporaneo e trarre alcune conclusioni sull’efficacia complessiva della “soluzione tomistica” che si può delineare a partire da questi strumenti. (shrink)

L’Exercitium academicum circa praescientiam daemonum (1666), pubblicato nella riformata Jena, tematizza una questione dibattuta nella Scolastica fra XIII e XIV secolo ma le cui radici risalgono ad Agostino d'Ippona, cui si deve il primo testo sull'argomento: la prescienza dei demoni. L'analisi segue la traccia del De divinatione daemonum agostiniano, mentre appare critica nei confronti delle posizioni di Tommaso d'Aquino e dei tomisti. Ad esse, in particolare riguardo alla natura delle facoltà intellettive demoniche, egli contrappone Giovanni Duns Scoto, Durando di (...) san Porziano e non meglio specificati nominales, accomunati in un indistinto riferimento alla teoria delle species. Ciò non toglie che il testo segua poi Tommaso nell'articolazione delle forme di prescienza dei demoni e nella definizione di questa come conoscenza congetturale. Scopo del nostro intervento sarà infatti mostrare, attraverso l'analisi che per la prima volta sarà condotta sul testo, lo spaccato di una comunità conversazionale nella quale le linee di forza e le distinzioni che animano il dibattito si mostrano autonome rispetto alle posizioni storiche di cattolici e riformati. Nell’Exercitium, Duns Scoto è contrapposto ai tomisti e, con Agostino e Durando di san Porziano – che costituisce una fonte comune del dibattito secentesco insieme a Bonaventura, Aureolo, Suarez, Vazquez, Gregorio di Valencia, e in tale veste sarà ripreso di lì a poco da Leibniz -, è cooptato tra gli autori a sostegno della sua tesi. Lungi dall'essere un esercizio di eclettismo o la stanca ripetizione di formule scolastiche, lo scritto getta luce su un dibattito universitario nel quale le fonti sono usate non come auctoritates ma quale repertorio di teorie da smontare e rimontare; ad esse l’Exercitium attinge per soluzioni che si definiscono in relazione a finalità filosofiche o dottrinali, ma non politiche né confessionali. (shrink)

L'elaborato intende analizzare lo statuto ontologico dell'ente a partire dal binomio esse e id quod est, sviluppato da Tommaso nel commento al De Hebdomadibus di Boezio, specificando i concetti di partecipazione come causalità forte, e di essere come massimo estensivo e più generale.

An operational approach to quantum mechanics has been developed in the past decades in our group in Brussels. A similar approach is taken in this work, making use of the extra operational depth offered by this approach, to show that the construction of spacetime is specific to each observer. What is usually referred to as the block universe then emerges by noting that parts of the past and future are also contained in the present, but without the limitations that a (...) four-dimensional block universe usually implies, of a reality in which change would be impossible. In our operational approach, reality remains dynamic, with free choice playing a central role in its conceptualization. We also show that, when operationally analyzed, the theory implies that objects move not only in space, but also and especially in time, and more generally in spacetime, with their rest mass being a measure of their kinetic time energy. We therefore claim that Einstein’s relativity revolution has not been fully realized, since most physicists are not ready to accept these consequences of the theory although the formula’s showing them, when operationally analyzed, are in every relativity textbook. In particular, when relativistic motion is revisited as a genuine four-dimensional motion, it becomes possible to reinterpret the parameter c associated with the coordinate speed of light, which becomes the magnitude of the four-velocity of all material entities. We observe that this four-dimensional motion in Minkowski space can also be better understood if placed in the broader perspective of quantum mechanics, provided that non-locality is interpreted as non-spatiality, thus indicating the existence of an underlying non-spatial reality, the nature of which could be conceptual, consistent with the conceptuality interpretation of quantum mechanics. This hypothesis is reinforced by noting that when observers, or experiencers, as they will be referred to in this article, are described by acknowledging their cognitive nature of entities moving in a semantic space, Minkowski metric emerges in a natural way. (shrink)

Although scholars acknowledged that Avicenna’s science of the soul stands at the crossroads between natural philosophy and metaphysics, thus combining an overall physical investigation of all sublunary souls with a trans-physical (or proto-metaphysical) inquiry into the human rational soul, this paper aims to show a further disciplinary entanglement within Avicenna’s science of the soul, which features in the aforementioned physical investigation and helps to frame it, that is, the interaction between natural philosophy and medicine. Despite the strict division between these (...) two disciplines in Avicenna’s system of science, medicine seems to decisively contribute to accounting for the bodily functions of living beings. For this reason, Avicenna refers to medicine several times in his exposition on the soul. This paper approaches the disciplinary entanglement between natural philosophy and medicine in psychology by focusing on the medical concept of pneuma (rūḥ), which prominently features in the exposition of three main issues in psychology, i.e., body ensoulment, powers differentiation, and emotions. (shrink)

Questo articolo prende in esame il fenomeno della proliferazione di fake news da un punto di vista filosofico—anzi, per meglio dire, prettamente epistemologico—con particolare attenzione a tre questioni fondamentali: cosa sono le fake news e come debbano essere definite; quali meccanismi ne favoriscono la proliferazione sui social media; chi debba essere ritenuto responsabile e degno di biasimo nel processo sotteso alla generazione, pubblicazione e diffusione di fake news. A partire dall'analisi dei principali lavori nella letteratura filosofica sul tema, ci proponiamo (...) di: offrire una definizione di fake news che eviti le obiezioni sollevate contro altre definizioni discusse dalla letteratura (§1); mettere in luce le principali cause della propagazione di fake news, con particolare riferimento ai bias cognitivi e alle strutture comunitarie in cui si organizzano gli utenti dei social media (§2); infine, presentare una analisi originale della responsabilità epistemica dei consumatori di fake news (§3). (shrink)

You reach for the bowl with ‘sugar’ written on it only to discover, from the bad taste of your coffee, that it contained salt. Mundane experiences like these show that epistemic justification does not necessarily hold stable across possible changes of information. One can be justified in believing a proposition at a certain time (that the bowl contains sugar) and cease to be justified at a later time, as one enlarges one’s epistemic perspective (as one drinks a salty coffee). When (...) this happens, one’s justification has been defeated. An epistemic defeater, broadly speaking, is that in terms of which the defeat of justification proceeds. The notion of an epistemic defeater is mostly associated with J. Pollock’s work on reasoning and inference. Pollock has provided the canonical definition of an epistemic defeater and proposed an influential taxonomy in terms of the way different types of defeaters induce their characteristic effects. The notion of an epistemic defeater has acquired a broader meaning in current epistemology, and several distinctions have been introduced that have contributed to a more nuanced understanding of the phenomenon of defeat as well as to complement Pollock’s original taxonomy. The correlated notion of a propositional defeater, defined in terms of would-be defeat of justification, is appealed to by the proponents of the defeasibility theory in the parallel debate about knowledge to explain what prevents a justified true belief from constituting knowledge in Gettier cases. (shrink)