I want to model a finite, fallible cognitive agent who imagines that p in the sense of mentally representing a scenario—a configuration of objects and properties—correctly described by p. I propose to capture imagination, so understood, via variably strict world quantifiers, in a modal framework including both possible and so-called impossible worlds. The latter secure lack of classical logical closure for the relevant mental states, while the variability of strictness captures how the agent imports information from actuality in the imagined (...) non-actual scenarios. Imagination turns out to be highly hyperintensional, but not logically anarchic. Section 1 sets the stage and impossible worlds are quickly introduced in Sect. 2. Section 3 proposes to model imagination via variably strict world quantifiers. Section 4 introduces the formal semantics. Section 5 argues that imagination has a minimal mereological structure validating some logical inferences. Section 6 deals with how imagination under-determines the represented contents. Section 7 proposes additional constraints on the semantics, validating further inferences. Section 8 describes some welcome invalidities. Section 9 examines the effects of importing false beliefs into the imagined scenarios. Finally, Sect. 10 hints at possible developments of the theory in the direction of two-dimensional semantics. (shrink)

There is some consensus on the claim that imagination as suppositional thinking can have epistemic value insofar as it’s constrained by a principle of minimal alteration of how we know or believe reality to be – compatibly with the need to accommodate the supposition initiating the imaginative exercise. But in the philosophy of imagination there is no formally precise account of how exactly such minimal alteration is to work. I propose one. I focus on counterfactual imagination, arguing that this can (...) be modeled as simulated belief revision governed by Laplacian imaging. So understood, it can be rationally justified by accuracy considerations: it minimizes expected belief inaccuracy, as measured by the Brier score. (shrink)

Manufacturing and industry practices are undergoing an unprecedented revolution as a consequence of the convergence of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, robotics, cloud computing, virtual and augmented reality, among others. This fourth industrial revolution is similarly changing the practices and capabilities of operators in their industrial environments. This paper introduces and explores the notion of the Operator 4.0 as well as how this novel way of conceptualizing the human operator necessarily implicates human values in the technologies that constitute it. (...) The design approach known as value sensitive design (VSD) is used to explore how these Operator 4.0 technologies can be designed for human values. Expert elicitation surveys were used to determine the values of industry stakeholders and examples of how the VSD methodology can be adopted by engineers in order to design for these values is illustrated. The results provide preliminary adoption strategies that industrial teams can take to Operator 4.0 technology for human values. (shrink)

The paper presents a positive argument for a version of metaphysically light ethical non-naturalism from the nature of mental states such as desires. It uses as its premise the time-honoured, and recently rediscovered, doctrine of the guise of the good, whereby it is essential to desire that the object of desire be conceived as good or as normatively favoured under some description. The argument is that if the guise of the good is a correct theory of desire, then a certain (...) version of non-naturalism is better placed than other meta-ethical views to make sense of it. First I define ethical non-naturalism and the guise of the good, providing also an initial defence of the latter. Then I briefly survey some historical precedents and proceed to the argument. For each major meta-ethical view I consider I offer reasons why combining them with the guise of the good leads to consequences that are or should be unwelcome by the guise of the good. At the end of this elimination process a form of relatively metaphysically light non-naturalism will emerge as the view that best fits with the guise of the good. (shrink)

Starting from the ‘Dewey Lectures’, Rawls presents his conception of justice within a contextualist framework, as an elaboration of the basic ideas embedded in the political culture of liberal-democratic societies. But how are these basic ideas to be justified? In this article, I reconstruct and criticize Rawls’s strategy to answer this question. I explore an alternative strategy, consisting of a genealogical argument of a pragmatic kind – the kind of argument provided by authors like Bernard Williams, Edward Craig and Miranda (...) Fricker. I outline this genealogical argument drawing on Rawls’s reconstruction of the origins of liberalism. Then, I clarify the conditions under which this kind of argument maintains vindicatory power. I claim that the argument satisfies these conditions and that pragmatic genealogy can thus partially vindicate the basic ideas of liberal-democratic societies. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that one approach to normative political theory, namely contextualism, can benefit from a specific kind of historical inquiry, namely genealogy, because the latter provides a solution to a deep-seated problem for the former. This problem consists in a lack of critical distance and originates from the justificatory role that contextualist approaches attribute to contextual facts. I compare two approaches to genealogical reconstruction, namely the historiographical method pioneered by Foucault and the hybrid method of pragmatic genealogy (...) as practiced by Bernard Williams, arguing that they both ensure an increase in critical distance while preserving contextualism’s distinctiveness. I also show, however, that only the latter provides normative action-guidance and can thus assist the contextualist theorist in the crucial task of discerning how far certain contextual facts deserve their justificatory role. I prove this point by showing how a pragmatic genealogy of the practice of punishment can inform the contextualist’s reflection about the role this practice should play in a transitional scenario, i.e. in the set of circumstances societies go through in the aftermath of large-scale violence and human rights violations. (shrink)

A counterpossible conditional is a counterfactual with an impossible antecedent. Common sense delivers the view that some such conditionals are true, and some are false. In recent publications, Timothy Williamson has defended the view that all are true. In this paper we defend the common sense view against Williamson’s objections.

Objective correlates—behavioral, functional, and neural—provide essential tools for the scientific study of consciousness. But reliance on these correlates should not lead to the ‘fallacy of misplaced objectivity’: the assumption that only objective properties should and can be accounted for objectively through science. Instead, what needs to be explained scientifically is what experience is intrinsically— its subjective properties—not just what we can do with it extrinsically. And it must be explained; otherwise the way experience feels would turn out to be magical (...) rather than physical. We argue that it is possible to account for subjective properties objectively once we move beyond cognitive functions and realize what experience is and how it is structured. Drawing on integrated information theory, we show how an objective science of the subjective can account, in strictly physical terms, for both the essential properties of every experience and the specific properties that make particular experiences feel the way they do. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to show how both Jan Patočka and Jürgen Habermas, starting from a reinterpretation of the idea of «lifeworld», engaged a critique of modern civilisation, aiming (with different outcomes) at a redefinition of the concept of political community. In order to achieve this goal, I firstly focus on Patočka’s understanding of modern rational civilisation and its attempt to fix the fracture between «life» and «world». At this stage, I take also advantage of Hans Blumenberg’s distinction (...) between these two terms, in order to better clarify Patočka’s stance on this problem. Secondly, I analyse Habermas’ ideas of lifeworld and system, and their uncoupling in modern societies, as well as the reemergence of this issue in Habermas’ recent works on the European economic and political crisis. Finally, I focus on the very different ways in which Patočka and Habermas tackled the ideas of conflict and crisis in contemporary world, also in view of a possible path out of this crisis through a re-constitution of Europe. (shrink)

According to the doctrine of the guise of the good, all that is desired is seen by the subject as good to some extent. As a claim about action, the idea is that intentional action, or acting for a reason, is action that is seen as good by the agent. I explore the thesis' main attractions: it provides an account of intentional behavior as something that makes sense to the agent, it paves the way for various views in meta-ethics and (...) normative ethics, and it offers a unified account of practical and theoretical reason. In response to common objections, I examine points of current debate: what is it for something to appear as good? Is value or normative reasons the basic concept at work? How to explain akrasia, perversity in action, and expressive action? I conclude with an overview of alternatives to the guise of the good. (shrink)

We find a simple counterfactual acceptable, it is argued, to the extent that (i) our probability of the consequent under the thought experiment of counterfactually supposing the antecedent is high, (ii) provided the latter is on-topic with respect to the former. Counterfactual supposition is represented by Lewisian imaging. Topicality, by an algebra of subject matters. A topic-sensitive probabilistic logic is then provided, to reason about the acceptability of simple counterfactuals.

In this paper, we take a meta-theoretical stance and aim to compare and assess two conceptual frameworks that endeavor to explain phenomenal experience. In particular, we compare Feinberg & Mallatt’s Neurobiological Naturalism (NN) and Tononi’s and colleagues' Integrated Information Theory (IIT), given that the former pointed out some similarities between the two theories (Feinberg & Mallatt 2016c-d). To probe their similarity, we first give a general introduction to both frameworks. Next, we expound a ground plan for carrying out our analysis. (...) We move on to articulate a philosophical profile of NN and IIT, addressing their ontological commitments and epistemological foundations. Finally, we compare the two point-by-point, also discussing how they stand on the issue of artificial consciousness. (shrink)

We present and defend the Australian Plan semantics for negation. This is a comprehensive account, suitable for a variety of different logics. It is based on two ideas. The first is that negation is an exclusion-expressing device: we utter negations to express incompatibilities. The second is that, because incompatibility is modal, negation is a modal operator as well. It can, then, be modelled as a quantifier over points in frames, restricted by accessibility relations representing compatibilities and incompatibilities between such points. (...) We defuse a number of objections to this Plan, raised by supporters of the American Plan for negation, in which negation is handled via a many-valued semantics. We show that the Australian Plan has substantial advantages over the American Plan. (shrink)

We present a theory of truth in fiction that improves on Lewis's [1978] ‘Analysis 2’ in two ways. First, we expand Lewis's possible worlds apparatus by adding non-normal or impossible worlds. Second, we model truth in fiction as belief revision via ideas from dynamic epistemic logic. We explain the major objections raised against Lewis's original view and show that our theory overcomes them.

Pragmatic vindicatory genealogies provide both a cause and a rationale and can thus affect the space of reasons. But how far is the space of reasons affected by this kind of genealogical argument? What normative and evaluative implications do these arguments have? In this paper, I unpack this issue into three different sub-questions and explain what kinds of reasons they provide, for whom are these reasons, and for what. In relation to this final sub-question I argue, most importantly, that these (...) arguments are ambiguous about what they give us reasons for, meaning that they can be interpreted both as justifications for recognizing the normative standing of certain norms, values, and practices - and thus for living by them - and as excuses for those that do so. I illustrate this point by reference to the genealogical vindication of honour cultures, showing how the vindicatory argument can illuminate such case as one of excusing moral ignorance. Drawing on legal theory and moral philosophy, I show that different evaluative and normative implications hang on the result of the interpretation as either justification or excuse, and show that this ambiguity is a virtue rather than a limitation. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that Bykvist’s recent challenges to the fitting-attitude account of value (FA) can be successfully met. The challenge from solitary goods claims that FA cannot account for the value of states of affairs which necessarily rule out the presence of favouring subjects. I point out the modal reasons why FA can account for solitary goods by appealing to contemplative attitudes. Bykvist’s second challenge, the ‘distance problem’, questions the ability of FA to match facts about the intensity (...) of fitting attitudes and facts about value, particularly in the case of solitary goods. I argue that this challenge can be met by including the notion of a veil of ignorance in the formulation of FA, and understanding its role as bracketing the relevance of certain facts when determining the fittingness of attitudes to states of affairs. (shrink)

The Humean view that conceivability entails possibility can be criticized via input from cognitive psychology. A mainstream view here has it that there are two candidate codings for mental representations (one of them being, according to some, reducible to the other): the linguistic and the pictorial, the difference between the two consisting in the degree of arbitrariness of the representation relation. If the conceivability of P at issue for Humeans involves the having of a linguistic mental representation, then it is (...) easy to show that we can conceive the impossible, for impossibilities can be represented by meaningful bits of language. If the conceivability of P amounts to the pictorial imaginability of a situation verifying P, then the question is whether the imagination at issue works purely qualitatively, that is, only by phenomenological resemblance with the imagined scenario. If so, the range of situations imaginable in this way is too limited to have a significant role in modal epistemology. If not, imagination will involve some arbitrary labeling component, which turns out to be sufficient for imagining the impossible. And if the relevant imagination is neither linguistic nor pictorial, Humeans will appear to resort to some representational magic, until they come up with a theory of a ‘third code’ for mental representations. (shrink)

An overview of hyperintensionality is provided. Hyperintensional languages have expressions with meanings that are more fine-grained than necessary equivalence. That is, the expressions may necessarily co-apply and yet be distinct in meaning. Adequately accounting for theories cast in hyperintensional languages is important in the philosophy of language; the philosophy of mind; metaphysics; and elsewhere. This entry presents a number of areas in which hyperintensionality is important; a range of approaches to theorising about hyperintensional matters; and a range of debates that (...) attention to hyperintensional constructions has generated. (shrink)

In this paper, I would like to show how the movements of never stable meanings that link biography and religion are figured and interwoven throughout a kind of ineffable literary and philosophical notion of religion. Religion is a notion that can be understood through a cluster of topics such as origin, promise, dissociation, the unconditional, forgiveness, the undeconstructable and the possibility of the impossible—terms and expressions that Derrida suggests describe God.

This study draws a comparative framework between deconstructive reading of texts and jazz standards. It will be argued that both are defined by the constant play of tradition and innovation. On the one hand, the repetition of a set of rules and dominant understanding of texts/tunes that generates tradition. On the other hand, invention and improvisation that take on that tradition and generate innovation. The act of reading/playing becomes also an act of invention/improvisation that manifests a constant tension between the (...) old that is handed down through writing/recording and the new that is generated by the reader/musician. (shrink)

_Framing effects_ concern the having of different attitudes towards logically or necessarily equivalent contents. Framing is of crucial importance for cognitive science, behavioral economics, decision theory, and the social sciences at large. We model a typical kind of framing, grounded in (i) the structural distinction between beliefs activated in working memory and beliefs left inactive in long term memory, and (ii) the topic- or subject matter-sensitivity of belief: a feature of propositional attitudes which is attracting growing research attention. We introduce (...) a class of models featuring (i) and (ii) to represent, and reason about, agents whose belief states can be subject to framing effects. We axiomatize a logic which we prove to be sound and complete with respect to the class. (shrink)

This book is both an introduction to and a research work on Meinongianism. “Meinongianism” is taken here, in accordance with the common philosophical jargon, as a general label for a set of theories of existence – probably the most basic notion of ontology. As an introduction, the book provides the first comprehensive survey and guide to Meinongianism and non-standard theories of existence in all their main forms. As a research work, the book exposes and develops the most up-to-date Meinongian theory (...) (called modal Meinongianism), applies it to specific fields, and discusses its open problems. Part I of the book provides a historical introduction to, and critical discussion of, the dominant philosophical view of existence: the “Kantian-Fregean-Quinean” perspective. Part II is the full-fledged introduction to the Meinongian theories of existence as a real property of individuals: after starting with the so-called naïve Meinongian conception and its problems, it provides a self-contained presentation of the main neo-Meinongian proposals, and a detailed discussion of their strengths and weaknesses. Part III develops a specific neo-Meinongian theory of existence employing a model-theoretic semantic framework. It discusses its application to the ontology and semantics of fictional objects, and its open problems. The methodology of the book follows the most recent trends in analytic ontology. In particular, the meta-ontological point of view is largely privileged. (shrink)

The development of manufacturing technologies for new materials involves the generation of a large and continually evolving volume of information. The analysis, integration and management of such large volumes of data, typically stored in multiple independently developed databases, creates significant challenges for practitioners. There is a critical need especially for open-sharing of data pertaining to engineering design which together with effective decision support tools can enable innovation. We believe that ontology applied to engineering (OE) represents a viable strategy for the (...) alignment, reconciliation and integration of diverse and disparate data. The scope of OE includes: consistent capture of knowledge pertaining to the types of entities involved; facilitation of cooperation among diverse group of experts; more effective ongoing curation, and update of manufacturing data; collaborative design and knowledge reuse. As an illustrative case study we propose an ontology focused on the representation of composite materials focusing in particular on the class of Functionally Graded Materials (FGM) in particular. The scope of the ontology is to provide information about the components of such materials, the manufacturing processes involved in creation, and diversity of application ranging from additive manufacturing to restorative dentistry. The ontology is developed using Basic Formal Ontology (BFO) and the Ontology for Biomedical Investigations (OBI). (shrink)

'Ontology and Metaontology: A Contemporary Guide' is a clear and accessible survey of ontology, focussing on the most recent trends in the discipline. -/- Divided into parts, the first half characterizes metaontology: the discourse on the methodology of ontological inquiry, covering the main concepts, tools, and methods of the discipline, exploring the notions of being and existence, ontological commitment, paraphrase strategies, fictionalist strategies, and other metaontological questions. The second half considers a series of case studies, introducing and familiarizing the reader (...) with concrete examples of the latest research in the field. The basic sub-fields of ontology are covered here via an accessible and captivating exposition: events, properties, universals, abstract objects, possible worlds, material beings, mereology, fictional objects. -/- The guide's modular structure allows for a flexible approach to the subject, making it suitable for both undergraduates and postgraduates looking to better understand and apply the exciting developments and debates taking place in ontology today. (shrink)

I propose a comprehensive account of negation as a modal operator, vindicating a moderate logical pluralism. Negation is taken as a quantifier on worlds, restricted by an accessibility relation encoding the basic concept of compatibility. This latter captures the core meaning of the operator. While some candidate negations are then ruled out as violating plausible constraints on compatibility, different specifications of the notion of world support different logical conducts for negations. The approach unifies in a philosophically motivated picture the following (...) results: nothing can be called a negation properly if it does not satisfy Contraposition and Double Negation Introduction; the pair consisting of two split or Galois negations encodes a distinction without a difference; some paraconsistent negations also fail to count as real negations, but others may; intuitionistic negation qualifies as real negation, and classical Boolean negation does as well, to the extent that constructivist and paraconsistent doubts on it do not turn on the basic concept of compatibility but rather on the interpretation of worlds. (shrink)

Kant’s view of human beings is, as much of his philosophy, notoriously based on the dichotomy between the phenomenal and the noumenal world. This dichotomy digs a rift across human nature by separating the animal and the rational parts of it, their heteronomous and autonomous components, their sense of duty and their self-love. Human beings, for Kant, inhabit both worlds. On the one hand, even if we agree with Kant that the fundamental moral norms are constitutive of our rational and (...) autonomous agency and therefore inescapable, it remains unclear whether and how far these norms can motivate finite and heteronomous human beings, normally concerned with their own ends, interests and inclinations. On the other hand, although moral actions may express who we really are as rational beings, they may nonetheless leave us with an unfulfilled but legitimate need to reconcile morality with our own ends as finite, animal beings, inevitably concerned with living our own lives. Sasha Mudd described these phenomena as two forms of alienation: moral alienation (the estrangement of the heteronomous agent, motivated by happiness and inclinations, from a morality perceived as alien, foreign, and hardly motivating) and practical alienation (the estrangement of the autonomous moral agent from her empirical and heteronomous dimension – her projects, desires, aspirations, inclinations, and so on). On Mudd’s account, Kant successfully escape the first kind of alienation through his doctrine of respect. Here I argue, contra Mudd, that there are at least two ways in which Kant leaves moral agents alienated from morality itself. (shrink)

We outline a neo-Meinongian framework labeled as Modal Meinongian Metaphysics (MMM) to account for the ontology and semantics of fictional discourse. Several competing accounts of fictional objects are originated by the fact that our talking of them mirrors incoherent intuitions: mainstream theories of fiction privilege some such intuitions, but are forced to account for others via complicated paraphrases of the relevant sentences. An ideal theory should resort to as few paraphrases as possible. In Sect. 1, we make this explicit via (...) two methodological principles, called the Minimal Revision and the Acceptability Constraint. In Sect. 2, we introduce the standard distinction between internal and external fictional discourse. In Sects. 3–5, we discuss the approaches of (traditional) Meinongianism, Fictionalism, and Realism—and their main troubles. In Sect. 6 we propose our MMM approach. This is based upon (1) a modal semantics including impossible worlds (Subsect. 6.1); (2) a qualified Comprehension Principle for objects (Subsect. 6.2); (3) a notion of existence-entailment for properties (Subsect. 6.3). In Sect. 7 we present a formal semantics for MMM based upon a representation operator. And in Sect. 8 we have a look at how MMM solves the problems of the three aforementioned theories. (shrink)

I present an approach to our conceiving absolute impossibilities—things which obtain at no possible world—in terms of ceteris paribus intentional operators: variably restricted quantifiers on possible and impossible worlds based on world similarity. The explicit content of a representation plays a role similar in some respects to the one of a ceteris paribus conditional antecedent. I discuss how such operators invalidate logical closure for conceivability, and how similarity works when impossible worlds are around. Unlike what happens with ceteris paribus counterfactual (...) conditionals, the closest worlds are relevantly closest belief-worlds: closest to how things are believed to be, rather than to how they are. Also, closeness takes into account apriority and the opacity of intentional contexts. (shrink)

Accounts of propositions as sets of possible worlds have been criticized for conflating distinct impossible propositions. In response to this problem, some have proposed to introduce impossible worlds to represent distinct impossibilities, endorsing the thesis that impossible worlds must be of the same kind; this has been called the parity thesis. I show that this thesis faces problems, and propose a hybrid account which rejects it: possible worlds are taken as concrete Lewisian worlds, and impossibilities are represented as set-theoretic constructions (...) out of them. This hybrid account (1) distinguishes many intuitively distinct impossible propositions; (2) identifies impossible propositions with extensional constructions; (3) avoids resorting to primitive modality, at least so far as Lewisian modal realism does. (shrink)

I examine and rebut Ridge’s two arguments for Capacity Judgment Internalism (simply qua their particular character and content, first person normative judgments are necessarily capable of motivating without the help of any independent desire). First, the rejection of the possibility of anormativism (sec. 2), second, an argument from the rational requirement to intend to do as one judges that one ought to do (sec. 3). I conclude with a few remarks about the nature of this requirement and about verdicts of (...) akrasia. (sec. 4). (shrink)

In this paper I articulate and respond to Kent Hurtig's objection to the fitting attitude account of value (FA). According to the objection, when a good or bad state of affairs is indexed to the actual world, but is such that the actual world does not contain anyone for whom it is fitting to (dis)favor it, it cannot be fitting for anyone in a non-actual world to (dis)favor it. So there are good or bad states of affairs that it is (...) not fitting for anyone to (dis)favor. First I comment on a solution proposed by Toni Rønnow-Rasmussen. Then I argue that if, due to their location in modal space, the relevant states of affairs cannot even be evaluated as good or bad (and a fortiori favored or disfavored) by readers, then such cases are dialectically powerless against FA; if, on the other hand, they can be evaluated as good or bad—despite their location in modal space—then they can also be favored or disfavored, and it will be fitting for us (if for no one else) to favor or disfavor them, thus defusing the challenge. (shrink)

The guise of the good is the thesis that an agent can only want, or intentionally do or pursue something, if and because this seems good to the agent in some respect or other. Bernard Williams criticizes the guise of the good in Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy. In this paper I reconstruct and assess his hitherto unnoticed critical remarks. Williams's opposition is based on the idea that it takes an “extra step” to go from desiring or pursuing something (...) to thinking of it as good. To show this, he employs an argument from elimination (with two strands: an argument from personal ends and an argument from immediate ends), and a separate argument which I call the one‐desire argument. I review and reject two types of answers to Williams's objections: answers that explore different varieties of what it can mean to “think of as good,” and answers that focus on different varieties of goodness under the guise of which one can desire something. I then consider whether a different, but nearby thesis, namely the guise of normative reasons, can accommodate Williams's objections, concluding that this alternative also fails. I end by looking at how this debate might move forward. (shrink)

The denial of the intrinsic value of acts apart from both motives and consequences lies at the heart of Ross’s deontology and his opposition to ideal utilitarianism. Moreover, the claim that acts can have intrinsic value is a staple element of early and contemporary attempts to “consequentialise” all of morality. I first show why Ross’s denial is relevant both for his philosophy and for current debates. Then I consider and reject as inconclusive some of Ross’s explicit and implicit motivations for (...) his claim, stemming from his philosophy of action, his axiology, and his concept of intrinsic value, or a combination of these. I also criticize Ross’s later view that all right acts somehow produce some good, but that the value of some of these goods is explained by the prior rightness of the act. In the course of the discussion, the idea that acts can have intrinsic value apart from motives and consequences gains credibility both from the weaknesses in Ross’s arguments and from some putative examples. So, finally, I distinguish two attitudes in the history of ideal utilitarianism towards the necessity or not to give a detailed account of the intrinsic value of acts, and suggest that a Why Bother attitude is more promising than a Constructive one. (shrink)

Foucault found the starting point of modern European philosophy to be the construction of “man” as both an empirical fact and a transcendental operator. The aim is to show how this construction was made possible by an underlying strategical handling of the concept of matter. Some restrictions imposed on the materiality of knowledge-contents became key in explaining how actual men could gain access to transcendental knowledge. The paper focuses on Husserl and Kant as meaningful turning points of this transcendental discourse. (...) However, the relevance of their dematerializing strategies will be shown to lay beyond their historic-cultural meaning, since they can also provide a way of dealing with knowledge experiences that can be critical even towards modernity’s characteristic anthropocentrism. (shrink)

In this paper, I tackle the problem of diachronic identity. Far from providing a criterion for identity over time, the aim of this work is to understand if this issue pertains to ontology, conceived as that part of philosophy that tries to answer the question about what entities exist, or metaphysics, conceived as that part of philosophy that tries to explain, of those entities, what they are. On the face of it, only metaphysics has the task to solve this problem, (...) but I argue that this is false. Through the analysis of different theories concerning identity through time, I show how both ontology and metaphysics are concerned with the problem of diachronic identity, and how actually ontology turns out to be primary in solving the problem. (shrink)

In Treatise 2.3.4 Hume provides an explanation of why ‘we naturally desire what is forbid, and take a pleasure in performing actions, merely because they are unlawful’. Hume’s explanation of this phenomenon has barely received any attention so far. But a detailed analysis bears fruit for both Humean scholarship and contemporary moral psychology. After putting the passage in its context, I explain why desiring and taking pleasure in performing certain actions merely because they are unlawful poses a challenge to Hume’s (...) theory of evaluation. Then I propose a solution of the challenge which draws on Hume’s treatment of malice, and highlights the role played by comparison and the self in these apparently paradoxical passions. Finally, I distinguish three views in contemporary discussions of desiring something under the guise of the bad (negationism, parasitism, at-face-valuism), and I argue that Hume’s account stands out as a particularly plausible version of the third view. (shrink)

A logic is called 'paraconsistent' if it rejects the rule called 'ex contradictione quodlibet', according to which any conclusion follows from inconsistent premises. While logicians have proposed many technically developed paraconsistent logical systems and contemporary philosophers like Graham Priest have advanced the view that some contradictions can be true, and advocated a paraconsistent logic to deal with them, until recent times these systems have been little understood by philosophers. This book presents a comprehensive overview on paraconsistent logical systems to change (...) this situation. The book includes almost every major author currently working in the field. The papers are on the cutting edge of the literature some of which discuss current debates and others present important new ideas. The editors have avoided papers about technical details of paraconsistent logic, but instead concentrated upon works that discuss more 'big picture' ideas. Different treatments of paradoxes takes centre stage in many of the papers, but also there are several papers on how to interpret paraconistent logic and some on how it can be applied to philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of language, and metaphysics. (shrink)

Scalability, efficiency, and security had been a persistent problem over the years in data mining, several techniques had been proposed and implemented but none had been able to solve the problem of scalability, efficiency and security from cloud computing. In this research, we solve the problem scalability, efficiency and security in data mining over cloud computing by using a restful web services and combination of different technologies and tools, our model was trained by using different machine learning algorithm, and finally (...) using different validation and cross-validation methods to compare and validate our results. We build, train, test and deploy our model by restful API services which can be called through an endpoint, and with very high accuracy and huge success. (shrink)

We reply to various arguments by Otavio Bueno and Edward Zalta (‘Object Theory and Modal Meinongianism’) against Modal Meinongianism, including that it presupposes, but cannot maintain, a unique denotation for names of fictional characters, and that it is not generalizable to higher-order objects. We individuate the crucial difference between Modal Meinongianism and Object Theory in the former’s resorting to an apparatus of worlds, possible and impossible, for the representational purposes for which the latter resorts to a distinction between two kinds (...) of predication, exemplification and encoding. We show that encoding has fewer forerunners in the history of philosophy than Bueno and Zalta want, and that there’s a reason why the notion has been found baffling by some. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue against what I call “natural realism” about social kinds, the view according to which social categories have natural boundaries, independent of our thought. First, I draw a distinction between two different types of entity realism, one being about the existence of the entity, “ontological realism”, and the other one being about the direct mind-independence of the entity, “natural realism”. After endorsing ontological realism, I present the natural realist argument according to which there would be certain (...) social kinds, such as economic recessions and racism, even if we had no clue about their existence and nature. I claim that the argument fails insofar it mistakes the single instances for the kinds themselves. I then argue against natural realism by showing how the vagueness characterizing the boundaries of social kinds puts the realist in front of a dilemma: either she accepts the vagueness of these boundaries as ontic, a metaphysically problematic thesis, or she accepts that most or all social kinds remain unknown, an epistemologically problematic thesis. Thus, I argue that antirealism, according to which social kinds are constructed, is a better alternative to the realist account. (shrink)

Is there a notion of contradiction—let us call it, for dramatic effect, “absolute”—making all contradictions, so understood, unacceptable also for dialetheists? It is argued in this paper that there is, and that spelling it out brings some theoretical benefits. First it gives us a foothold on undisputed ground in the methodologically difficult debate on dialetheism. Second, we can use it to express, without begging questions, the disagreement between dialetheists and their rivals on the nature of truth. Third, dialetheism has an (...) operator allowing it, against the opinion of many critics, to rule things out and manifest disagreement: for unlike other proposed exclusion-expressing-devices (for instance, the entailment of triviality), the operator used to formulate the notion of absolute contradiction appears to be immune both from crippling expressive limitations and from revenge paradoxes—pending a rigorous nontriviality proof for a formal dialetheic theory including it. (shrink)

Negli ultimi due anni sono stati pubblicati due importanti libri sul progresso morale: 'Moral Progress' di Philp Kitcher e 'A Better Ape' di Victor Kumar e Richmond Campbell. In questa nota critica, recensisco entrambi i libri e problematizzo il modo in cui cercano rispettivamente di legare tra loro il tema del progresso morale con la teoria dell'evoluzione.

The concept of perversion has traditionally been applied particularly to the sexual sphere, in order to condemn certain desires and certain practices as wrong or inappropriate because of their unnaturalness, as they are understood as a deviation from a given function of sexuality. In this article, I explore the question whether and how such a concept could be applied to another central dimension of our existence, namely our death and, in particular, whether it makes sense to talk of perverted attitudes (...) towards (our own) death. In the first section I present a fairly common account of what is a perverted attitude towards sex and explain how that account can be used to define a perverted attitude towards death. I come up with four suggestions (one based on belief in the afterlife and three secular ones, based respectively on the notion of death as meaningless, on Heidegger’s concept of authenticity and on the evolutionary function of death). In the second section, I explore potential connections between perversion in sex and perversion in death. I conclude that, outside the Catholic worldview, perverted attitudes to sex do not bring along perverted attitudes towards death, nor is there a connection the other way around. In fact, certain kinds of perverted attitudes towards death are even inimical to sexual perversion. In the third section, I present a metaphysical and an ethical reason to doubt that we can and should talk of a function of death or sex. (shrink)

The article intends to analyse the problem of the coexistence of opposite and alternative “comprehensive doc- trines” in today's Western society, on the basis of a comparison between the thought of Schmitt, Böckenförde, Habermas, Rawls and Charles Taylor. In this regard the article proposes a possible solution to avoid, on the one hand, the intolerant goal of a total homogeneity, and on the other a naive and aproblematic acceptance of a relativistic multiculturalism.

Se la tradizione continentale, da Nietzsche a Foucault, ha sottolineato le implicazioni critiche e destabilizzanti del metodo genealogico, gli approcci analitici hanno dimostrato che esso può anche offrire sostegno ai propri oggetti di indagine: norme comportamentali, pratiche, concetti e così via. Un resoconto genealogico, per esempio, può avere un carattere giustificativo quando individua una relazione funzionale necessaria tra il concetto o la pratica in esame e bisogni umani abbastanza fondamentali. La questione che voglio affrontare riguarda le presunte capacità giustificative di (...) questo tipo di spiegazioni genealogiche. In che misura modificano davvero lo spazio delle ragioni? Sostengo che la loro portata normativa e valutativa è variabile e che l'esame di alcuni casi limite aiuta a dimostrarlo. Più specificamente, ritengo che in alcuni casi le ragioni offerte attraverso queste spiegazioni siano ragioni non tanto per giustificare l'uso di certi concetti o pratiche, quanto per giustificare coloro che li vivono. (shrink)

Philosophical dialetheism, whose main exponent is Graham Priest, claims that some contradictions hold, are true, and it is rational to accept and assert them. Such a position is naturally portrayed as a challenge to the Law of Non-Contradiction (LNC). But all the classic formulations of the LNC are, in a sense, not questioned by a typical dialetheist, since she is (cheerfully) required to accept them by her own theory. The goal of this paper is to develop a formulation of the (...) Law which appears to be unquestionable, in the sense that the Priestian dialetheist is committed to accept it without also accepting something inconsistent with it, on pain of trivialism—that is to say, on pain of lapsing into the position according to which everything is the case. This will be achieved via (a) a discussion of Priest's dialetheic treatment of the notions of rejection and denial; and (b) the characterization of a negation via the primitive intuition of content exclusion. Such a result will not constitute a cheap victory for the friends of consistency. We may just learn that different things have been historically conflated under the label of 'Law of Non-Contradiction'; that dialetheists rightly attack some formulations of the Law, and orthodox logicians and philosophers have been mistaken in assimilating them to the indisputable one. (shrink)

The paper discusses some aspects of Object-Oriented Ontology (OOO) as a philosophical research program. The discussion stems from a reading of Decentrare l’umano. Perché la Object-Oriented Ontology (Kaiak 2021), a collection of essays that aims at introducing the Italian reader to the debate surrounding OOO. Working both as an introduction and as a critical discussion, Decentrare l’umano highlights the main tenets of OOO and some of their problematic implications. It does so through both theoretical arguments and imaginative literary performances played (...) out by some of the collected essays. Adopting a Kantian point of view, I argue that such a pluralistic approach to OOO rightly shows the need for an “Object-Oriented critique” that should put OOO in question as a theory, i. e. as a discursive product, without losing sight of OOO’s appeal to realism, concreteness, and directedness. (shrink)

Pensar un análisis crítico del discurso desde una perspectiva decolonial significa, ante todo, la puesta en cuestión de la historicidad de la colonialidad/imperialidad/modernidad en términos de rec...