This paper focuses on the early sixteenth-century epistemic logic developed by John Mair’s circle and discusses iterated epistemic modalities, epistemic closure and Bradwardinian semantics related to the logic of epistemic statements. These topics are addressed as part of setting up and solving epistemic sophisms based on traditional scenarios which can be traced back to fourteenth-century British epistemic logic. While the ultimate source for the debate appears to be the second chapter of William Heytesbury’s Regule solvendi sophismata, the immediate source (...) is the Italian editorial, commentarial and philosophical tradition, notably Paul of Venice and Cajetan of Thiene. (shrink)

Over the course of its six seasons, the Netflix show the House of Cards (HOC) details the rise to power of Claire and Frank Underwood in a fictional United States. They achieve power not by winning free and fair elections, but by exploiting various weaknesses of the U.S. political system. Could such a thing happen to our own democracies? This chapter argues that it is a threat that should be taken seriously, as the structure of HOC’s democratic institutions closely (...) mirrors our own, and the flaws that the Underwoods exploit are precisely those that have allowed autocrats to capture democracies “from the inside.” Of even greater concern, these flaws may flow from the nature of democracy itself. This possibility is explored by considering the events of the HOC in the light of the anti-democratic arguments of Plato and Hobbes. The chapter concludes by briefly considering responses to these arguments. (shrink)

In his Bipartitum in morali philosophia, the Scottish philosopher William of Manderston, a pupil of John Mair, and an Ockhamist philosopher, is quoting a text of Antonin of Padua who distinguishes the factum opened to a juridical qualification from the inner belief, known by God alone. Quoting the same text, the authors of the Malleus maleficarum try hard to distinguish three distinct fields, the inner beliefs which belongs to God, the exterior acts, the facts, which are relevant for the (...) judges, and the third field, which establishes a relation between the fact and the beliefs. This third field is proper to the inquisitors. Against this ethics of imputability, Manderston, relying on Ockham’s ethics, advocates an intentionalist ethics which depends on a sharp separation between interiority and exteriority. The soteriological dimension of the question entirely belongs to the inner life, whereas the exteriority is strictly disciplinary. By his radicality, Manderston appears as a paradigm of the modern dichotomy between conscience and law, Paolo Prodi once pointed out as a cornerstone of the religious modernity. (shrink)

Les formations politiques nées aux lendemains de la restauration du multipartisme ont participé aux différentes consultations électorales et ont connu des fortunes diverses. Si, les élections présidentielles et législatives donnent lieu directement à la connaissance des élus, les municipales, quant à elles, s’accompagnent d’un autre type d’élection destinée à élire les exécutifs municipaux (le maire et ses adjoints). Comment se déroule effectivement ce deuxième tour d’élection dans les communes gagnées par le MDR? Les exécutifs municipaux sont-ils élus par leurs pairs (...) ou désignés par le coordonnateur de ce parti ? Telles sont les questions auxquelles cet article tentera de donner quelques réponses. Il s’agira, de manière précise, de mesurer la capacité d’acceptation des règles du jeu démocratique par le personnel politique du MDR d’une part, et le degré de politisation des conseillers municipaux de ce parti d’autre part. (shrink)