The practical problem of how to conduct oneself as a Christian and a Philosopher or Bioethicist in public debate an when asked to be engaged in government committees is difficult. One solution that has had some support has been to approach the issues on the grounds of our natural law tradition but understood anthropocentrically – the ultimate end is not communion with God by integral human development. This is often called New Natural Law (NNL). This separation of Philosophy and Theology (...) has had its critics and most notably the current Poe and his immediate predecessor. In their own writing addressed to people of goodwill, they took a different approach that was essentially Christocentric and involving s close partnership between Philosohy and Theology. In my own experience over thirty years of public involvement in Bioethics, I have discovered that the NNL approach has two overwhelming problems. What is offered to the secular dialogue, as an anthropocentric natural law, often sounds false to secular others because we propose something guided by our beliefs, but failing to acknowledge that contribution. However something that I have discovered latterly in that approach is in fact false by our own standards. By the strictures we impose on our contribution we in fact ignore the New Law instituted by Christ, the law of love. The New Natural Law (NNL) Project has proved to be a failure where it has been tried, and, I know realize, was doomed from the outset, because in being anthropocentric it was essentially lacking and the answers that it gave to problems were often unsatisfactory because lacking love and the particular demand of needing to be capable of being oriented towards God, the God of love. The NNL approach tended to produce a casuistry that was too liberal and too lacking in understanding of the essential role that affectivity plays in our lives, created as we are in the imago dei, in the image and likeness of the God of love. Such a morality demands much more than anthropocentricism can demand. In recognizing these difficulties I propose instead a more pragmatic approach that reflects a partnership between Philosophy and Theology as espoused by the Second Vatican Council, and by Pope’s Benedict XVI and Pope John Paul II, and which engages the work of Alasdair MacIntyre and Servais Pinckaers. An approach that I have tried with some success in chairing government committees. (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)

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)

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.

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 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)

Il seguente lavoro si concentra su un confronto tra la filosofia di Peirce e quella di Cassirer, con particolare attenzione alla loro trattazione del problema della semiotica e della sua rilevanza in relazione alla teoria della conoscenza.

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

Scientific Realism (SR) has three crucial aspects: 1) the centrality of the concept of truth, 2) the idea that success is a reliable indicator of truth, and 3) the idea that the Inference to the Best Explanation is a reliable inference rule. It will be outlined how some realists try to overcome the difficulties which arise in justifying such crucial aspects relying on an adaptationist view of evolutionism, and why such attempts are inadequate. Finally, we will briefly sketch some of (...) the main difficulties the realist has to face in defending those crucial aspects, and how such difficulties are deeply related: they derive from the inability of SR to satisfyingly avoid the sceptical challenge of the criterion of truth. Indeed, SR seems not to be able to fill the so-called ‘epistemic gap’ (Sankey 2008). In fact, the epistemic gap cannot be filled in no way other than obtaining a criterion of truth, but such a criterion cannot be obtained if the epistemic gap obtains. (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 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)

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.

Substructural approaches to paradoxes have attracted much attention from the philosophical community in the last decade. In this paper we focus on two substructural logics, named ST and TS, along with two structural cousins, LP and K3. It is well known that LP and K3 are duals in the sense that an inference is valid in one logic just in case the contrapositive is valid in the other logic. As a consequence of this duality, theories based on either logic are (...) tightly connected since many of the arguments for and objections against one theory reappear in the other theory in dual form. The target of the paper is making explicit in exactly what way, if any, ST and TS are dual to one another. The connection will allow us to gain a more fine-grained understanding of these logics and of the theories based on them. In particular, we will obtain new insights on two questions concerning ST which are being intensively discussed in the current literature: whether ST preserves classical logic and whether it is LP in sheep’s clothing. Explaining in what way ST and TS are duals requires comparing these logics at a metainferential level. We provide to this end a uniform proof theory to decide on valid metainferences for each of the four logics. This proof procedure allows us to show in a very simple way how different properties of inferences (unsatisfiability, supersatisfiability and antivalidity) that behave in very different ways for each logic can be captured in terms of the validity of a metainference. (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 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)

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)

This article presents a challenge that those philosophers who deny the causal interpretation of explanations provided by population genetics might have to address. Indeed, some philosophers, known as statisticalists, claim that the concept of natural selection is statistical in character and cannot be construed in causal terms. On the contrary, other philosophers, known as causalists, argue against the statistical view and support the causal interpretation of natural selection. The problem I am concerned with here arises for the statisticalists because the (...) debate on the nature of natural selection intersects the debate on whether mathematical explanations of empirical facts are genuine scientific explanations. I argue that if the explanations provided by population genetics are regarded by the statisticalists as non-causal explanations of that kind, then statisticalism risks being incompatible with a naturalist stance. The statisticalist faces a dilemma: either she maintains statisticalism but has to renounce naturalism; or she maintains naturalism but has to content herself with an account of the explanations provided by population genetics that she deems unsatisfactory. This challenge is relevant to the statisticalists because many of them see themselves as naturalists. (shrink)

Starting with 1985, we discovered the possible existence of electrons with net helicity in biomolecules as amino acids and their possibility to discern between the two quantum spin states. It is well known that the question of a possible fundamental role of quantum mechanics in biological matter constitutes still a long debate. In the last ten years we have given a rather complete quantum mechanical elaboration entirely based on Clifford algebra whose basic entities are isomorphic to the well known spin (...) Pauli matrices. A number of our recent results indicate the possible logical origin of quantum mechanics and the direct admission of quantum mechanics in the field of cognitive sciences. In February 2011 the authors Gölder et al., published their important discovery on Science about Spin Selectivity in Electron Transmission Through Self-Assembled Monolayers of Double-Stranded DNA confirming in such manner that the principles of quantum mechanics apply to biological systems. (shrink)

: In the present paper we give a new method for estimation and quantification of Heart Rate Variability (HRV) in the VLF,LF,HF bands using the basic concept of variability previously introduced. The method enables to quantify ANS modulation of R-R intervals. In the subsequent paper we will give detailed exposition of the performed and confirming experiments.

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.

We comment some recent results obtained by using a Clifford bare bone skeleton of quantum mechanics in order to formulate the conclusion that quantum mechanics has its origin in the logic, and relates conceptual entities. Such results touch directly the basic problem about the structure of our cognitive and conceptual dynamics and thus of our mind. The problem of exploring consciousness results consequently to be strongly linked. This is the reason because studies on quantum mechanics applied to this matter are (...) so important for neurologists and psychologists. Under this profile we present some experimental results showing violation of Bell inequality during the MBTI test in investigation of C.V. Jung’s theory of personality. (shrink)

The thesis of this paper is that Information, Cognition and a Principle of Existence are intrinsically structured in the quantum model of reality. We reach such evidence by using the Clifford algebra. We analyze quantization in some traditional cases of quantum mechanics and, in particular in quantum harmonic oscillator, orbital angular momentum and hydrogen atom.

In scientific communications, journal articles, and philosophical aesthetic debates the words “art”, “creativity”, and “machine” are put together more and more frequently. Since some machines are designed to, or happens to, imitate human artistic creativity, it seems natural to use the same words to talk about human artists and machines which imitate them. However, the evolution of language in light of technology may conceal specific features of the phenomena it is supposed to describe. This makes it difficult to understand what (...) machine creativity actually is and how it is connected to human creativity. The aim of the paper is to investigate why, and in what sense, the functioning of some machines may be described in terms of artistic creativity and what is the relation between machine creativity and its human archetype. I start (§1) by introducing some general ideas concerning how language evolves alongside new technologies and focusing on the case of machine creativity. In §2 I review how some creative machines have been presented to the public, thus showing that a linguistic habit which connects machines to artistic creativity has already formed. In §3 I survey the debate on machine aesthetics and I highlight the main traits of the issue. In §4 I submit a primary scheme of machine creativity which draws on the concept of functional autonomy. Finally (§5), I argue that machine creativity cannot be mistaken for a substitute of the human kind, despite the fact that the word is the same. Creative machines are technological mediums by which new forms of human aesthetic experience can be explored. The kind of creativity machines enjoy displays a functional nature. (shrink)

In the light of the results obtained during the last two decades in analysis of signals by time series, it has become evident that the tools of non linear dynamics have their elective role of application in biological, and, in particular, in neuro-physiological and psycho-physiological studies. The basic concept in non linear analysis of experimental time series is that one of recurrence whose conceptual counterpart is represented from variedness and variability that are the foundations of complexity in dynamic processes. Thus, (...) the recurrence plots and the Recurrence Quantification Analysis (RQA) are discussed. It is shown that RQA represents the most general and correct methodology in investigation of experimental time series. By it we arrive to inspect the inner structure of the time series connected to the signals under investigation. Linked to RQA we prospect also the method CZF, recently introduced by us. It is able to account for a true estimation of variability of signals in time as well as in frequency domain. And, consequently, it may be used in conjunction with classical Fourier analysis, accounting however that it is inappropriate in analysis of non linear and non stationary experimental time series. The use of CZF method in fractal analysis is also considered in addition to standard index as Hurst exponent. A large field of possible applications in neurological as well as in psycho-physiological studies is given. Also, there are given examples of other and (possibly linked) applications as example the analysis of beat-to-beat fluctuations of human heartbeat intervals that is sovereign in psycho-physiological studies. We give applications on some different planes to evidence the particular sensitivity of such methods. We reach the objective to show that the previously exposed methods are also able to predict in advance the advent of ventricular tachycardia and/or of ventricular fibrillation. The RQA analysis gives good results. The CZF method gives the most excellent results showing that it is able to give very significant indexes of prediction. We also apply such methods in investigation of state anxiety, and proposing in detail a quantum like model of such phenomenological status of the mind. (shrink)

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 simple derivation of the effect induced from repeated measurements on quantum unstable systems is obtained by using the regularized incomplete beta - function .

This paper explores the Persistence Question about cities, that is, what is necessary and sufficient for two cities existing at different times to be numerically identical. We first show that we can possibly put an end to the existence of a city in a number of ways other than by physically destroying it, which reveals the metaphysics of cities to be partly different from that of ordinary objects. Then we focus in particular on the commonly perceived vulnerability of cities to (...) imaginary relocation; and we make the hypothesis that cities do have among their essential properties that of being surrounded by a specific geographical context. Finally we investigate the pos- sibility that a city can survive relocation in virtue of the capacity of its geographical context to survive it in the first place. We suggest that city contexts may not be essentially context-dependent in turn, and outline a possible description of the cri- teria for their persistence over time. (shrink)

We indicate a new way in the solution of the problem of the quantum measurement . In past papers we used the well-known formalism of the density matrix using an algebraic approach in a two states quantum spin system S, considering the particular case of three anticommuting elements. We demonstrated that, during the wave collapse, we have a transition from the standard Clifford algebra, structured in its space and metrics, to the new spatial structure of the Clifford dihedral algebra. This (...) structured geometric transition, which occurs during the interaction of the S system with the macroscopic measurement system M, causes the destruction of the interferential factors. In the present paper we construct a detailed model of the (S+M) interaction evidencing the particular role of the Time Ordering in the (S+M) coupling since we have a time asymmetric interaction . We demonstrate that , during the measurement , the physical circumstance that the fermion creation and annihilation operators of the S system must be destroyed during such interaction has a fundamental role . (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)

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)

En este artículo se analiza la teoría para la toma de decisiones y se contrasta la valía de los dilemas morales para explicar los mecanismos deliberativos. Se sostiene que una estrategia de decisión exitosa es aquella que es capaz de realizar los movimientos racionales, adaptativos y necesarios para llegar a un fin programado. Una aspiración de las éticas normativas y descriptivas es elaborar una teoría de la decisión práctica, sin importar los análisis racionales del modo en que se llegue al (...) fin. El artículo plantea los procesos relacionados al cambio y a la retroalimentación sin encasillar la teoría de las decisiones en posturas deontológicas, utilitaristas o emocionales. Se examina la valía de los dilemas morales y algunas críticas recurrentes y se concluye que, personales o impersonales, los dilemas parecen no explicar la complejidad de los procesos deliberativos. This article analyzes the theory for decision making and contrasts the value of moral dilemmas to explain the deliberative mechanisms. It is argued that a successful decision strategy is one that is capable of performing the rational, adaptive and necessary movements to reach a programmed end. It suggests that the processes related to change and feedback can be useful but insufficient explanations if the theory of decisions is framed to deontological, utilitarian or emotional postures. The value of moral dilemmas and some recurrent criticisms are examined and it is concluded that, personal or impersonal, the dilemmas do not seem to explain the complexity of the deliberative processes. (shrink)

This contribution proposes how beholders may internally process unfinished works of art. It does so by considering five of Michelangelo Buonarroti’s interrupted sculptures and pointing out their empathic and imaginative potential. The beholder focused on the surface, I propose, is inclined to mentally simulate the artist’s gesture that drafted the sculptures through the visible graphic signs of the chisels. This inner simulation takes place within the activation of various brain networks, located in the brain’s motor system. Renaissance authors associated the (...) observation of the unfinished to learning and, as this article shows, this assumption seems to find confirmation in recent neuroscientific studies on mirror neurons and imitation learning. In this way, the empathic engagement established between the beholder and the work of art observed – as well as the role played by embodied simulation and imagination in this kind of visual perception – clarifies how the incompleteness can also have that pedagogical function recognised by Giorgio Vasari and Benvenuto Cellini. (shrink)

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

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)

This paper addresses the problem of evil from the perspective of saint Thomas Aquinas. It is argued that the nature of moral evil is in the individual who for some reason lost it departs from the pursuit of the good that is inherent to being. Synderesis is the only indissoluble bridge that man has with natural law and even with eternal. Converted into noluntas will guide man intrinsically evil acts but the synderesis, as a power with a natural habit, is (...) the best guide for the contingent decision-making under the rubric of the first practical principles from transcendent. (shrink)

En este artículo se debaten tres aspectos del concepto de la moral: el primero se refiere a la puesta en duda de la existencia misma, no sólo del concepto sino de la posible o imposible fundamentación de lo moral per se. En segundo lugar, la positivización del término llevado a lo normativo como una búsqueda de objetividad de lo moral y, el tercer aspecto, la crítica a la moral imperativa desde posturas dogmáticas. Se defiende que no es suficiente la perfectibilidad (...) de las leyes desde un punto de vista de la moralidad, sino que existe lo que podríamos llamar un fundamento personal, y al mismo tiempo, colectivo de comprensión del Derecho; entendido como el bienestar individual y colectivo para la realización de una vida plena en la polis. La moralidad, por tanto, si bien no es posible definirla en modo explicativo, racional, necesita de una base en valores compartidos con aspiraciones objetivistas y, al mismo tiempo, universalistas. (shrink)