We need urgently to bring about a revolution in universities around the world, wherever possible, so that they take their fundamental task to be, not to acquire and apply knowledge, but rather to help humanity learn how to resolve conflicts and problems of living in increasingly cooperatively rational ways, so that we may make progress towards a good, genuinely civilized, wise world. The pursuit of knowledge would be a vital but subsidiary task. I have argued for the urgent need for (...) such an academic revolution for nearly 50 years, ever since the publication of two books: What’s Wrong With Science? Towards a People’s Rational Science of Delight and Compassion, 1976, and From Knowledge to Wisdom: A Revolution for Science and the Humanities, 1984, both available free online. This article, written in preparation for a talk given to Pittsburgh University on the 15th September 2023, gives an outline of my baffled struggles with problems of philosophy, science, literature and life that led up to the discovery of the urgent need for an intellectual and institutional revolution in universities around the world, needed in order to galvanize the social revolution required to enable us to make progress to a world in which peace, justice, democracy, individual freedom, sustainable prosperity, the possibility of a good life, are available to all, insofar as that is attainable. (shrink)

The love for books and libraries of a great philosopher.

A NEW, ORIGINAL GIORDANO BRUNO'S AUTOGRAPH, IN THE PRAGUE'S COPY OF CAMOERACENSIS ACROTISMUS. Extract from "The dispute of Cambrai. Camoeracensis Acrotismus" edited by Guido del Giudice, publ. Di Renzo, Rome 2008.

Nicholas Maxwell believes that while we have developed an excellent way of learning about the nature of the universe, we have so far failed in our attempts to apply this method to create a civilized world.

Universities need to change dramatically in order to help humanity make progress towards as good a world as possible.

“Medico, filosofo e matematico di gran dottrina et inventione, raro nel’architettura, erudito di lettere greche, che ha già composto molti libri di proprio e non alieno intelletto”, così Federico Cesi, il princeps dell’Accademia dei Lincei, presentò nel 1612 a Galileo il nuovo adepto Nicola Antonio Stigliola, conterraneo e compagno di gioventù Giordano Bruno.

Our world is beset with appalling problems. To solve these urgent, intractable global problems it is not new scientific knowledge and technology that we need so much as new actions: new policies, new international relations, new institutions and social arrangements, new ways of living. The mere provision of scientific know-ledge and technological know-how cannot help much: indeed, all too often it actually makes matters worse. The dreadful truth is that science has played a crucial role, often unwittingly, in the creation (...) of our problems. To solve our problems we certainly need to learn, but what we need to learn is not so much new knowledge as new actions—new, more cooperative, wiser ways of living. Above all, we need to learn how to resolve our conflicts in more just, humane and rationally cooperative ways. This in turn requires that we create new institutions and traditions of learning, rationally devoted to helping us to learn how to become more cooperative and wise. We need a new kind of academic enterprise, all over the world, which takes as its basic task to promote not just knowledge, but rather wisdom—wisdom being defined as the capacity to solve problems of living so as to achieve what is of value, for oneself and others (wisdom thus including but going beyond knowledge). (shrink)

Recent years have seen growing interest in modifying interventionist accounts of causal explanation in order to characterise noncausal explanation. However, one surprising element of such accounts is that they have typically jettisoned the core feature of interventionism: interventions. Indeed, the prevailing opinion within the philosophy of science literature suggests that interventions exclusively demarcate causal relationships. This position is so prevalent that, until now, no one has even thought to name it. We call it “intervention puritanism” (I-puritanism, for short). In this (...) paper, we mount the first sustained defence of the idea that there are distinctively noncausal explanations which can be characterized in terms of possible interventions; a position we call “intervention liberalism” (I-liberalism, for short). While many have followed James Woodward (2003) in committing to I-puritanism, we trace support for I-liberalism back to the work of Jaegwon Kim (1974). Furthermore, we analyse two recent sources of scepticism regarding I-liberalism: debate surrounding mechanistic constitution; and attempts to provide a monistic account of explanation. We show that neither literature provides compelling reasons for adopting I-puritanism. Finally, we present a novel taxonomy of available positions upon the role of possible interventions in explanation: weak causal imperialism; strong causal imperialism; monist intervention puritanism; pluralist intervention puritanism; monist intervention liberalism; and finally, the specific position defended in this paper, pluralist intervention liberalism. (shrink)

A mistery unveiled, among magic, alchemy and philosophy.

Much of my working life has been devoted to trying to get across the point that we urgently need to bring about a revolution in the aims and methods of academic inquiry, so that the basic aim becomes to seek and promote wisdom rather than just acquire knowledge.

In occasione del bimillenario della morte del poeta latino Ovidio, l’articolo analizza l’influenza del poema delle Metamorfosi come fonte primaria di Giordano Bruno. L’esposizione della dottrina pitagorica, esposta nel libro XV del poema, si adatta perfettamente all’ontologia del Nolano e alla sua fede nella metempsicosi. In particolare il mito di Diana e Atteone viene adottato dal filosofo, nel De gl’Heroici furori, come ideale rappresentazione della propria esperienza conoscitiva. La tormentosa vicenda del cacciatore Atteone, tramutato in cervo per aver sorpreso la (...) Diana nuda, simboleggia in Bruno il passaggio dall’amore profano a quello divino. -/- On the occasion of the two thousandth anniversary of the death of the Latin poet Ovid, the article analyzes the influence of the poem of the Metamorphoses as a primary source of Giordano Bruno. The exposition of the Pythagorean doctrine, contained in the XV book of the poem, fits perfectly with the ontology of the Nolan and his faith in metempsychosis. In particular, the myth of Diana and Actaeon is adopted by the philosopher, in De gl'Heroici furori, as an ideal representation of his own cognitive experience. The tormenting story of the hunter Atteone, turned into a deer for having surprised the “naked Diana”, symbolizes in Bruno the passage from the profane love to the divine one. (shrink)

Quando la biblioteca diventa un confessionale. Nel 1585, Giordano Bruno ritorna a Parigi dopo il soggiorno londinese, e comincia a frequentare l’abbazia di Saint Victor, famosa per la sua ” libraria “, immortalata da Rabelais. Il bibliotecario, Guillaume Cotin, trasforma lo “scriptorium” in un confessionale, dove il filosofo dà libero sfogo ai suoi ricordi e al suo impetuoso carattere. -/- When the library becomes a confessional. In 1585, Giordano Bruno, returns to Paris after his stay in London, and begins to (...) attend the abbey of Saint Victor, famous for his library, immortalized by Rabelais. The librarian, Guillaume Cotin, transforms the scriptorium into a confessional, where the philosopher gives free rein to his memories and his impetuous character. (shrink)

La fantasia popolare è stata sempre affascinata dalla possibilità che tra le pagine di antichi manoscritti si celassero arcani segreti, la cui rivelazione potesse conferire poteri occulti. Libri costati enormi sacrifici, che erano stati per i loro autori una ragione di vita e, al tempo stesso, la fonte di mille pericoli. La “Magia Naturalis” di Giovan Battista Della Porta fu uno dei testi più diffusi fra XVI e XVII secolo. Attorno ad esso ruotò per decenni un ampio dibattito, che spaziava (...) dalla magia alla scienza, dalla filosofia alla teologia. -/- Popular imagination has always been fascinated by the possibility that arcane secrets were hidden among the pages of ancient manuscripts, the revelation of which could confer occult powers. Books that required enormous sacrifices, which had been a reason for living for their authors and, at the same time, the source of a thousand dangers. Giovan Battista Della Porta's “Magia Naturalis” was one of the most widespread texts between the 16th and 17th centuries. A wide debate revolved around it for decades, ranging from magic to science, from philosophy to theology. (shrink)

L’articolo si propone di chiarire uno dei punti oscuri della biografia di Giordano Bruno. Nel 1571 il Capitolo generale dei Domenicani di Roma lo assegnò come studente formale allo Studio di Andria. Secondo i suoi più importanti biografi, il Nolano non ci sarebbe mai andato. Attraverso l’accurata analisi dei documenti relativi al corso di studi, e il riscontro delle citazioni contenute in alcune opere, l’ipotesi che Bruno abbia soggiornato ad Andria per circa un anno appare, invece, estremamente probabile. The article (...) tries to clarify one of the obscure points of Giordano Bruno’s biography. In 1571 the General Chapter of the Dominicans in Rome assigned him, as a formal student, to the Study of Andria. According to his most important biographers, the Nolan never went there. However, through the careful analysis of the documents relating to his course of studies, and the comparison of the quotations contained in some of his works, the hypothesis that Bruno stayed in Andria for about a year appears extremely probable. (shrink)

Some opponents of abortion claim that fetuses are persons from the moment of conception. Following Berg (2017), let us call these individuals “Personhood-At-Conception” (or PAC), opponents of abortion. Berg argues that if fetuses are persons from the moment of conception, then miscarriage kills far more people than abortion. As such, PAC opponents of abortion face the following dilemma: They must “immediately” and “substantially” shift their attention, resources, etc., toward preventing miscarriage or they must admit that they do not actually believe (...) that fetuses are persons from the moment of conception (or, at least, they must recognize that they are not acting in ways that are consistent with this belief). In this essay, I show that Berg’s argument fails at each step. Specifically, after outlining her argument (in section 1), I consider the central claim of Berg’s style of argument: That “miscarriage…is much deadlier than abortion.” In section 2, I argue that this claim is false (when taken literally) and misleading otherwise. In section 3, I show that Berg’s style of argument is identical in structure to a criticism that is sometimes levied against the recent “Black Lives Matter” movement. In the latter context, the argument has been vehemently rejected. I argue that Berg’s style of argument should be rejected for the same reasons. Finally, in section 4, I show that Berg’s suggestion that opponents of abortion should divert “substantial” amounts of money and attention to miscarriage prevention faces two problems. First, these claims are made without any evidence regarding the actual priorities and spending habits of PAC opponents of abortion. If we are told “not enough is being done,” one wonders: What is being done and how much counts as “enough”? Berg gives no answer to either question. Second, even if it is true that opponents of abortion do not pay substantial attention to miscarriage prevention, Berg fails to notice that this may be for good reason. I conclude that PAC opponents of abortion do not face the dilemma that Berg presents. (shrink)

Non fu Bellarmino il vero carnefice del Nolano.

I have recently published a book to which I gave the title: Is Bad Philosophy Responsible for the Climate Crisis? But this proved to be too inflammatory for Palgrave Macmillan, and they changed it to the anodyne The Philosophy of Inquiry and Global Problems: The Intellectual Revolution Needed to Create a Better World. In the book I argue that academic philosophy has a certain responsibility for the failure of humanity to put a stop to the climate and nature crises, in (...) failing even to notice that a bad philosophy of inquiry dominates academic inquiry – one that prevents universities from engaging actively with the public domain to ensure action is taken to prevent the climate and nature crises from developing, or intensifying. The Philosophy of Inquiry and Global Problems spells out what has gone wrong that has reduced academic philosophy to its present pitiful state, and what needs to be done to restore philosophy so that it becomes again a discipline with profoundly fruitful intellectual and humanitarian implications. This Opinion Piece is the Preface to the published book. (shrink)

Giordano Bruno e i cacciatori di "bufale". Quello delle fake news, le cosiddette “bufale” per intenderci, non è il solo problema che affligge il web, strumento potentissimo, che dà voce a tutti, ma in maniera incontrollata. C’è un fenomeno ancor più preoccupante: quello delle false citazioni (fake quotes).

The article presents another of those ingenious mind, rebels to the yoke of religion, typical of the Italian Renaissance. Converted to Calvinism and therefore condemned to death by the Inquisition, Guglielmo Grataroli (1516-1568) became a defender of heterodox doctrine. His translation of a report of the Waldensian massacre in Calabria became part of the history of Protestant martyrs. He was the author of numerous treatises on various subjects, for which he widely used the works of Giovanni Michele Alberto da Carrara, (...) Antoine Mizauld and Gerolamo Cardano. The perfect correspondence of the topics discussed makes it probable that Giordano Bruno knew his writings. In particular, the De mutatione temporum, eiusque signis perpetuis may have inspired the De’ segni de’ tempi, a Bruno’s lost opera. This allows us to conjecture the content of the work with greater reliability. (shrink)

At present universities are devoted to the acquisition of specialized knowledge and technological know-how. They fail to do what they most need to do: help the public acquire a good understanding of what our problems are, what needs to be done to solve them. Universities do not even conceive of their task in that way. The result is that the public, by and large, fails to appreciate just how serious the problems that face us are, and so fails to put (...) pressure on governments to act in the ways that are required. -/- Modern science and technology make possible modern industry and agriculture, modern power production and travel, modern hygiene and medicine, modern armaments: these in turn have led to much that is of great benefit, but also to the global problems that threaten our future. Science divorced from the capacity to solve problems of living wisely is a disaster. It is that disaster that academia, as at present constituted, is designed to produce – and has produced: the modern world. We have to learn how to solve the grave global problems that confront us. That in turn requires that our institutions of learning – our schools and universities – are designed and devoted to the job. At present they are not. In giving priority to the pursuit of knowledge, they fail to do what most needs to be done and, even worse, are the source of our problems. It is absolutely vital, for the future of humanity, that universities are transformed radically so that they give absolute priority to the all-important task of helping the public come to understand what our problems are, and what we need to do about them. And as a result get governments to act. -/- The book demonstrates that universities as at present constituted violate reason and, as a result, betray humanity. Cure universities of their structural irrationality, and they would come actively to promote actions required to solve global problems, and help humanity make progress toward a better world. The book spells out in detail the changes that need to be made to academic inquiry, why they need to be made, and how they would enable universities to empower humanity to solve current global problems. (shrink)

Education – typically and rightly held to be an incontrovertible good – has for some time now been dominated by mass formal schooling systems. These systems routinely harm and oppress many students. I argue that they do so impermissibly, and I call this stance “educational pacifism”. I propose that Maria Montessori’s views on mass formal schooling systems broadly align with educational pacifism and that, therefore, she can be considered an educational pacifist. Finally, I claim that contemporary Montessorians ought to be (...) educational pacifists, firstly because educational pacifism makes a compelling moral argument and secondly because Montessori herself agrees with it. (shrink)

Recently, I argued that subjects inside of artificial wombs—termed ‘gestatelings’ by Romanis—share the same legal and moral status as newborns (neonates). Gestatelings, on my view, are persons in both a legal and moral sense. Kingma challenges these claims. Specifically, Kingma argues that my previous argument is invalid, as it equivocates on the term ‘newborn’. Kingma concludes that questions about the legal and moral status of gestatelings remain ‘unanswered’. I am grateful to Kingma for raising potential concerns with the view I (...) have presented. In this essay, however, I argue that (most) of Kingma’s objections are unpersuasive. First, my original argument does not equivocate on terms like ‘newborn’ or ‘neonate’. The terms denote human beings that have been born recently; that is what matters to the argument. Charges of equivocation, I suspect, rest on a confusion between the denotation and connotations of ‘newborn’ (or ‘neonate’). Next, I show that, contra Kingma, it is clear that—under current law in the USA and UK—gestatelings would count as legal persons. Moral personhood is more difficult. On that subject, Kingma’s criticisms have merit. In response, however, I show that my original claim—that gestatelings should count as moral persons—remains true on several (common) philosophical accounts of personhood. Regarding those accounts that imply gestatelings are not moral persons, I argue that advocates face a troubling dilemma. I conclude that regardless of which view of moral personhood one adopts, questions about the moral status of gestatelings are not ‘unanswered’. (shrink)

L’indagine condotta su alcuni personaggi finora rimasti nell’ombra, ma che ebbero un peso notevole, se non determinante, sul destino del filosofo, permette di ricostruire il complotto ordito dall’Inquisizione Cattolica per arrivare a mettere le mani su Giordano Bruno. La minuziosa e circostanziata ricostruzione dei fatti si integra perfettamente con altre recenti ricerche dello stesso genere.

How can the world we live in and see, touch, hear, and smell, the world of living things, people, consciousness, free will, meaning, and value - how can all of this exist and flourish embedded as it is in the physical universe, made up of nothing but physical entities such as electrons and quarks? How can anything be of value if everything in the universe is, ultimately, just physics? In Our Fundamental Problem Nicholas Maxwell argues that this problem of (...) reconciling the human and physical worlds needs to take centre stage in our thinking, so that our best ideas about it interact with our attempts to solve even more important specialized problems of thought and life. When we explore this fundamental problem, Maxwell argues, revolutionary answers emerge for a wide range of questions arising in philosophy, science, social inquiry, academic inquiry as a whole, and - most important of all - our capacity to solve the global problems that threaten our future: climate change, habitat destruction, extinction of species, inequality, war, pollution of earth, sea, and air. An unorthodox introduction to philosophy, Our Fundamental Problem brings philosophy down to earth and demonstrates its vital importance for science, scholarship, education, life, and the fate of the world. (shrink)

Education systems are full of harmful violence of types often unrecognised or misunderstood by educators, education leaders, and bureaucrats. Educational violence harms a great number of innocent persons (those who, morally speaking, may not be justifiably harmed). Accordingly, this paper rejects educational violence used to achieve educational ends. It holds that educational violence is unjustified if the condition that innocent persons are harmed is satisfied, that this condition is satisfied in current educational practice (compulsory schooling), and that, therefore, the current (...) education system (schooling) acts in an unjustifiable manner. If the means of educating cannot be justified, then that education system itself cannot be justified, since an end cannot be justifiably pursued if the means requisite to pursuing it are unjustifiable. I call this stance ‘educational pacifism’. (shrink)

Cosa spinge l'Abate-bibliofilo Louis Valentin de Vougny ad intraprendere, a metà del XVIII secolo, la traduzione di un libro "maledetto", lo "Spaccio de la bestia trionfante", i cui rari esemplari vengono acquistati a cifre esorbitanti?

Brentano never published on Bertrand’s paradox but claimed to have a solution. Adrian Maître has recovered from the Franz Brentano Archive Brentano’s remarks on his solution. They do not give us a worked demonstration of his solution but only an incomplete and in places obscure justification of it. Here I attempt to identify his solution, to explain what seem to me the clearly discernible parts of his justification and to discuss the extent to which the justification succeeds in the light (...) of current work on Bertrand’s paradox. (shrink)

Intervista a Guido del Giudice sulla "Bruno Renaissance".

We philosophers of science have before us an important new task that we need urgently to take up. It is to convince the scientific community to adopt and implement a new philosophy of science that does better justice to the deeply problematic basic intellectual aims of science than that which we have at present. Problematic aims evolve with evolving knowledge, that part of philosophy of science concerned with aims and methods thus becoming an integral part of science itself. The outcome (...) of putting this new philosophy into scientific practice would be a new kind of science, both more intellectually rigorous, and one that does better justice to the best interests of humanity. (shrink)

Anna Smajdor and Joona Räsänen argue that we have good reason to classify pregnancy as a disease. They discuss five accounts of disease and argue that each account either implies that pregnancy is a disease or, if it does not, it faces problems. This strategy allows Smajdor and Räsänen to avoid articulating their own account of disease. Consequently, they cannot establish that pregnancy is a disease, only that plausible accounts of disease suggest this. Some readers will dismiss Smajdor and Räsänen’s (...) claims as counterintuitive. By analogy, if a mathematical proof concludes ‘2+2=5’, readers will know—without investigation—that an error occurred. Rather than dismiss Smajdor and Räsänen’s work, however, the easiest way to undermine their argument is to describe at least one plausible account of disease that (i) excludes pregnancy and (ii) avoids the problems they raise for it. This is our strategy. We focus on dysfunction accounts of disease. After outlining Smajdor and Räsänen’s main arguments against dysfunction accounts, we explain why pregnancy is not a disease on these accounts. Next, we defend dysfunction accounts against the three problems that Smajdor and Räsänen raise. If successful, then contra Smajdor and Räsänen, at least one plausible account of disease does not imply that pregnancy is a disease. We suspect that defenders of other accounts can respond similarly. Yet, we note that insofar as dysfunction accounts align with the commonsense intuition that pregnancy is not a disease, this, all else being equal, seems like a point in their favour. (shrink)

It is natural and relatively common to suppose that feasibility is a constraint on what we ought to do all-things-considered but not a constraint on what we ought to do as a matter of justice. I show that the combination of these claims entails an implausible picture of the relation between feasibility and desirability given an attractive understanding of the relation between what we ought to do as a matter of justice and what we ought to do all-things-considered.

Regarding the influence of François Rabelais on the Giordano Bruno‟s works, up to now the criticism have only taken into consideration the lexical and thematic analogies. This article individualizes, in a passage of the Oratio Valedictoria, a literal quotation from the Gargantua et Pantagruel, showing that Rabelais was a direct source of inspiration for Bruno. The protagonist of the passage is the pythagorean Apollonius of Tyana, a character well known by the Nolan, who mentioned him in many occasions. He represents (...) the ideal medium with the oriental wisdom, that had so much influence on the thought of Bruno. Besides, he embodies the model of the "natural magician" in which the philosopher repeatedly identified himself, both in his works and life. (shrink)

IL MOSTRO E L'EROE. Quando Pomponio Algieri da Nola, all’età di soli 24 anni, viene bruciato vivo a Roma in piazza Navona, Giordano Bruno di anni ne ha appena otto. Oltre che per la giovane età del condannato, l’esecuzione è insolita anche per il luogo e il metodo scelto dall’Inquisizione: anziché le solite fascine, per alimentare il fuoco viene approntato un pentolone di pece, olio e trementina, nel quale viene immersa la povera vittima.

This book gives an account of work that I have done over a period of decades that sets out to solve two fundamental problems of philosophy: the mind-body problem and the problem of induction. Remarkably, these revolutionary contributions to philosophy turn out to have dramatic implications for a wide range of issues outside philosophy itself, most notably for the capacity of humanity to resolve current grave global problems and make progress towards a better, wiser world. A key element of the (...) proposed solution to the first problem is that physics is about only a highly specialized aspect of all that there is – the causally efficacious aspect. Once this is understood, it ceases to be a mystery that natural science says nothing about the experiential aspect of reality, the colours we perceive, the inner experiences we are aware of. That natural science is silent about the experiential aspect of reality is no reason whatsoever to hold that the experiential does not objectively exist. A key element of the proposed solution to the second problem is that physics, in persistently accepting unified theories only, thereby makes a substantial metaphysical assumption about the universe: it is such that a unified pattern of physical law runs through all phenomena. We need a new conception, and kind, of physics that acknowledges, and actively seeks to improve, metaphysical presuppositions inherent in the methods of physics. The problematic aims and methods of physics need to be improved as physics proceeds. These are the ideas that have fruitful implications, I set out to show, for a wide range of issues: for philosophy itself, for physics, for natural science more generally, for the social sciences, for education, for the academic enterprise as a whole and, most important of all, for the capacity of humanity to learn how to solve the grave global problems that menace our future, and thus make progress to a better, wiser world. It is not just science that has problematic aims; in life too our aims, whether personal, social or institutional, are all too often profoundly problematic, and in urgent need of improvement. We need a new kind of academic enterprise which helps humanity put aims-and-methods improving meta-methods into practice in personal and social life, so that we may come to do better at achieving what is of value in life, and make progress towards a saner, wiser world. This body of work of mine has met with critical acclaim. Despite that, astonishingly, it has been ignored by mainstream philosophy. In the book I discuss the recent work of over 100 philosophers on the mind-body problem and the metaphysics of science, and show that my earlier, highly relevant work on these issues is universally ignored, the quality of subsequent work suffering as a result. My hope, in publishing this book, is that my fellow philosophers will come to appreciate the intellectual value of my proposed solutions to the mind-body problem and the problem of induction, and will, as a result, join with me in attempting to convince our fellow academics that we need to bring about an intellectual/institutional revolution in academic inquiry so that it takes up its proper task of helping humanity learn how to solve problems of living, including global problems, and make progress towards as good, as wise and enlightened a world as possible. (shrink)

This paper presents a unifying diagnosis of a number of important problems facing existing models of rational choice under moral uncertainty and proposes a remedy. I argue that the problems of (i) severely limited scope, (ii) intertheoretic comparisons, and (iii) 'swamping’ all stem from the way in which values are assigned to options in decision rules such as Maximisation of Expected Choiceworthiness. By assigning values to options under a given moral theory by asking something like ‘how much do I desire (...) this option, supposing this theory is true?’ rather than ‘how much value does this theory assign to this option?’ these problems can be avoided, while the appealing features of these accounts can be preserved. This amendment provides a role for the preferences, desires, or goals of rational agents that is curiously absent from the existing discussion of what individuals rationally ought to do when they are uncertain about what they morally ought to do. (shrink)

How can we think about things in the outside world? There is still no widely accepted theory of how mental representations get their meaning. In light of pioneering research, Nicholas Shea develops a naturalistic account of the nature of mental representation with a firm focus on the subpersonal representations that pervade the cognitive sciences.

: In the epistemology of the late Wittgenstein, a central place is given to the notion of the hinge: an arational commitment that provides a foundation of some sort for the rest of our beliefs. Quasi-fideism is an approach to the epistemology of religion that argues that religious belief is on an epistemic par with other sorts of belief inasmuch as religious and non-religious beliefs all rely on hinges. I consider in this paper what it takes to find the appropriate (...) hinge for a quasi-fideist approach to the epistemology of religion. (shrink)

Una riflessione, a 400 anni dalla morte di Giovan Battista Della Porta Napoletano, uno dei grandi geni del Rinascimento.

Brano tratto dal libro di Guido del Giudice “Io dirò la verità”. Intervista a Giordano Bruno.

The Comprehensibility of the Universe puts forward a radically new conception of science. According to the orthodox conception, scientific theories are accepted and rejected impartially with respect to evidence, no permanent assumption being made about the world independently of the evidence. Nicholas Maxwell argues that this orthodox view is untenable. He urges that in its place a new orthodoxy is needed, which sees science as making a hierarchy of metaphysical assumptions about the comprehensibility and knowability of the universe, these (...) assumptions asserting less and less as one ascends the hierarchy. This view has significant implications: that it is part of scientific knowledge that the universe is physically comprehensible; that metaphysics and philosophy are central to scientific knowledge; that science possesses a rational, if fallible, method of discovery; that a new understanding of scientific method and rationality is required. Maxwell argues that this new conception makes possible a natural resolution of long-standing philosophical problems about science, regarding simplicity, induction, and progress. His goal is the reform not just of the philosophy of science but of science itself, and the healing of the rift between the two. (shrink)

Il "Principe" di Machiavelli e, soprattutto i "Discorsi sopra la prima decade di Tito Livio" figurarono certamente tra i libri proibiti che Giordano Bruno lesse segretamente in convento. Essi ebbero una significativa influenza sul suo pensiero. THE FOX AND THE LION. Giordano Bruno, reader of Machiavelli. Machiavelli's Prince and, above all, the Discourses on Livy were certainly among the forbidden works that Giordano Bruno read secretly in the convent. They had a significant influence on him. -/- .

This paper considers objections to Popper's views on scientific method. It is argued that criticism of Popper's views, developed by Kuhn, Feyerabend, and Lakatos, are not too damaging, although they do require that Popper's views be modified somewhat. It is argued that a much more serious criticism is that Popper has failed to provide us with any reason for holding that the methodological rules he advocates give us a better hope of realizing the aims of science than any other set (...) of rules. Consequently, Popper cannot adequately explain why we should value scientific theories more than other sorts of theories ; which in turn means that Popper fails to solve adequately his fundamental problem, namely the problem of demarcation. It is suggested that in order to get around this difficulty we need to take the search for explanations as a fundamental aim of science. (shrink)

Recently, I argued that human subjects in artificial wombs (AWs) “share the same moral status as newborns” and so, deserve the same treatment and protections as newborns. This thesis rests on two claims: (A) “Subjects of partial ectogenesis—those that develop in utero for at time before being transferred to AWs—are newborns,” and (B) “Subjects of complete ectogenesis—those who develop in AWs entirely—share the same moral status as newborns.” In response, Elizabeth Chloe Romanis argued that the subject in an AW is (...) “a unique human entity…rather than a fetus or a newborn.” She provides four lines of response to my essay. First, she argues that I have “misconstrued” what birth is. Once we correct that error, it becomes clear that subjects of partial ectogenesis have not been born. Second, she argues that my claims imply that non-implanted embryos (existing in vivo) “would also be ‘born.’” But that is absurd. Third, she claims I fail to “meaningfully respond” to distinctions she draws between subjects of ectogenesis and neonates. Finally, she criticizes my essay for focusing on subjects of AWs rather than focusing on pregnant persons (who should be at the “centre” of debates over AWs). I respond to each of these charges. In doing so, I reaffirm that (contra Romanis) some subjects of ectogenesis are newborns and all subjects of ectogenesis—even those that have not been born—share the same moral status as newborns. (shrink)

This book argues for the need to put into practice a profound and comprehensive intellectual revolution, affecting to a greater or lesser extent all branches of scientific and technological research, scholarship and education. This intellectual revolution differs, however, from the now familiar kind of scientific revolution described by Kuhn. It does not primarily involve a radical change in what we take to be knowledge about some aspect of the world, a change of paradigm. Rather it involves a radical change in (...) the fundamental, overall intellectual aims and methods of inquiry. At present inquiry is devoted to the enhancement of knowledge. This needs to be transformed into a kind of rational inquiry having as its basic aim to enhance personal and social wisdom. This new kind of inquiry gives intellectual priority to the personal and social problems we encounter in our lives as we strive to realize what is desirable and of value – problems of knowledge and technology being intellectually subordinate and secondary. For this new kind of inquiry, it is what we do and what we are that ultimately matters: our knowledge is but an aspect of our life and being. (shrink)

There are numerous ways in which “the particular”—particular individuals, particular ideologies, values, beliefs, and perspectives—are sometimes overlooked, ignored, or even driven out of the healthcare profession. In many such cases, this is bad for patients, practitioners, and the profession. Hence, we should seek to find a place for the particular in health care. Specific topics that I examine in this essay include distribution of health care based on the particular needs of patients, the importance of protecting physicians’ right to conscientious (...) objection, the value in tolerating a plurality of moral and medical perspectives within the field, and more. Ultimately, as the imagery in the essay’s title suggests, I argue that if one cares about the “well-being” of the medical profession, then one should seek to avoid destroying the many diverse and particular entities that constitute it. (shrink)

While scholars have extensively discussed Kant’s treatment of the Principle of Sufficient Ground in the Antinomies chapter of the Critique of Pure Reason, and, more recently, his relation to German rationalist debates about it, relatively little has been said about the exact notion of ground that figures in the PSG. My aim in this chapter is to explain Kant’s discussion of ground in the lectures and to relate it, where appropriate, to his published discussions of ground.

Contemporary naturalism has two components. The first is ontological, and says, roughly, that all and only what the sciences say exists, really does exist. The other is methodological, and it says that only scientific explanations are legitimate explanations. Together these commitments promise a coherent picture of the world that is nicely integrated with an attractive epistemology. Despite the obvious appeal of naturalism, I would like to sound a note of caution. First, I would like to argue that naturalism's ontological commitment (...) cannot be vindicated. Not, that is, that it is false; rather, I argue that any attempt to show that it is true presupposes that it is not. Second, I argue that methodological naturalism is false. But, again, the problem is not straightforward. I will not claim that there are gaps in the explanations offered by science, such that the scientific project would be incomplete without emendation. Instead I argue that the goodness of an explanation depends, in part, on how the event to be explained is described, and that, some events, under some descriptions, call for non-scientific explanations. (shrink)

A lively topic of debate in decision theory over recent years concerns our understanding of the different risk attitudes exhibited by decision makers. There is ample evidence that risk-averse and risk-seeking behaviours are widespread, and a growing consensus that such behaviour is rationally permissible. In the context of clinical medicine, this matter is complicated by the fact that healthcare professionals must often make choices for the benefit of their patients, but the norms of rational choice are conventionally grounded in a (...) decision maker’s own desires, beliefs and actions. The presence of both doctor and patient raises the question of whose risk attitude matters for the choice at hand and what to do when these diverge. Must doctors make risky choices when treating risk-seeking patients? Ought they to be risk averse in general when choosing on behalf of others? In this paper, I will argue that healthcare professionals ought to adopt a deferential approach, whereby it is the risk attitude of the patient that matters in medical decision making. I will show how familiar arguments for widely held anti-paternalistic views about medicine can be straightforwardly extended to include not only patients’ evaluations of possible health states, but also their attitudes to risk. However, I will also show that this deferential view needs further refinement: patients’ higher-order attitudes towards their risk attitudes must be considered in order to avoid some counterexamples and to accommodate different views about what sort of attitudes risk attitudes actually are. (shrink)

In this chapter I show how challenges to our ability to tame the uncertainty of a pandemic leaves us vulnerable to uncertainty phobia. This is because not all the uncertainty that matters can be tamed by our knowledge of the relevant probabilities, contrary to what many believe. We are vulnerable because unrelievable wild uncertainty is a hard burden to bear, especially so when we must act in the face of it. -/- The source of unrelievable wild uncertainty is that the (...) nature of probability distributions matters for whether knowledge of them tames uncertainty. It matters because a warrant for the taming is provided by two theorems, but this warrant applies only to some kinds of probability distribution. Essentially, this is because the theorems are about what happens at a mathematical limit but real life never reaches the limit. Consequently, the warrant depends on how quickly the random processes producing the uncertainty converge towards their limit. If they are governed by one class of probability distributions, they converge quickly enough to possess the warrant. If they are governed by another class of probability distributions, they converge towards their limit too slowly and so do not possess that warrant. The random processes of pandemics involve the slow kind . -/- Faced with such a burden, as we are in a pandemic, we are tempted to retreat into uncertainty phobia, leading to fixed definite opinions, precisely when the exercise of sound judgement to determine our responses requires our opinions to be hedged and mobile. Coping with a pandemic requires us to bear the burden of unrelievable wild uncertainty rather than give in to the temptation of uncertainty phobia. Pandemics require the virtue of epistemic forbearance. (shrink)

Imperialism seems to be deeply antithetical to democracy. Yet, at least one form of imperialism – what I call “hands-off imperialism" – seems to be perfectly compatible with the kind of self-governance commonly thought to be the hallmark of democracy. The solution to this puzzle is to recognize that democracy involves more than self-governance. Rather, it involves what I call self-rule. Self-rule is an example of what Philip Pettit has called a modally demanding value. Modally demanding values are, roughly, values (...) the instantiation of which depends not only on what actually happens, but on what would happen in certain non-actual circumstances. Self-rule is the modally demanding counterpart of self-governance, since it requires, not merely that the members of a state actually govern themselves, but that they would continue to do so across a range of non-actual situations. Moreover, the value of self-rule (and hence democracy) is not reducible to the value of self-governance. Understanding the modally demanding character of democracy allows us to appreciate what is democratically objectionable about occupation by a foreign power, even if there is no prospect of the foreign power intervening in the governance of the occupied state by its members. (shrink)