En este trabajo, propongo realizar un breve análisis de dos visiones teóricas acerca del razonamiento jurídico en contextos judiciales que, a primera vista, resultan radicalmente diferentes: la visión de Paolo Comanducci (en adelante, “modelo comanducciano”), y la visión de Damiano Canale y Giovanni Tuzet (en adelante, “modelo inferencialista”). Primero realizaré una reconstrucción sumaria, pero global, de ambos modelos (secciones II y III), para luego establecer algunas notas comparativas entre ellos (sección IV). Allí, intentaré mostrar propondré entender que la visión (...) de Comanducci es mejor entendida como analizando al razonamiento jurídico desde un punto de vista estático, momentáneo e individual, mientras que la visión de Canale y Tuzet es mejor entendida como analizando el razonamiento desde un punto de vista dinámico, concatenado e intersubjetivo. En este sentido, el objetivo principal en este trabajo es evaluar cómo, y en qué medida, estas dos posturas ambas pueden ser consideradas más bien complementarias en lugar de excluyentes a los fines de describir y/o explicar el razonamiento jurídico en contextos judiciales (sección V). (shrink)

The literature on indicative conditionals contains two appealing views. The first is the selectional view: on this view, conditionals operate by selecting a single possibility, which is used to evaluate the consequent. The second is the informational view: on this view, conditionals don’t express propositions, but rather impose constraints on information states of speakers. Both views are supported by strong arguments, but they are incompatible on their standard formulations. Hence it appears that we have to choose between mutually exclusive options. (...) But the options are not exclusive. This paper develops a theory of the semantics and assertability of conditionals that is both selectional and informational. The theory vindicates the signature inferences of both selectional and informational theories, including so-called Conditionals Excluded Middle and principles about the interplay between conditionals and ‘might’. It also predicts some interesting and puzzling facts about the assertion of conditionals. (shrink)

ArgumentIn 1895 when the Lumière brothers unveiled their cinematographic camera, many scientists were elated. Scientists hoped that the machine would fulfill a desire that had driven research for nearly half a century: that of capturing the world in its own image. But their elation was surprisingly short-lived, and many researchers quickly distanced themselves from the new medium. The cinematographic camera was soon split into two machines, one for recording and one for projecting, enabling it to further escape from the laboratory. (...) The philosopher Henri Bergson joined scientists, such as Etienne-Jules Marey, who found problems with the new cinematographic order. Those who had worked to make the dream come true found that their efforts had been subverted. This essay focuses on the desire to build a cinematographic camera, with the purpose of elucidating how dreams and reality mix in the development of science and technology. It is about desired machines and their often unexpected results. The interplay between what “is” (the technical), what “ought” (the ethical), and what “could” be (the fantastical) drives scientific research. (shrink)

The period from 1900 to 1935 was particularly fruitful and important for the development of logic and logical metatheory. This survey is organized along eight "itineraries" concentrating on historically and conceptually linked strands in this development. Itinerary I deals with the evolution of conceptions of axiomatics. Itinerary II centers on the logical work of Bertrand Russell. Itinerary III presents the development of set theory from Zermelo onward. Itinerary IV discusses the contributions of the algebra of logic tradition, in particular, Löwenheim (...) and Skolem. Itinerary V surveys the work in logic connected to the Hilbert school, and itinerary V deals specifically with consistency proofs and metamathematics, including the incompleteness theorems. Itinerary VII traces the development of intuitionistic and many-valued logics. Itinerary VIII surveys the development of semantical notions from the early work on axiomatics up to Tarski's work on truth. (shrink)

Speaker’s meaning is the act at the core of meaning shift, where meaning can be the very act or its output. What are its conditions, which intentions direct it? What’s its mechanics? I will give a first answer to the first question. Then, I will discuss the mechanics of speaker’s meaning, as well as meaningful links different from speaker’s meaning. This will bring me to surmise a second answer to the first question. Along the way, I will compare the act (...) of meaning with other acts. In closing, I will try a limited elucidation of the notion of intention, which I use throughout. On these issues there is the conspicuous tradition of studies, originating from the late Paul Grice, to confront us with. Rather naturally, I will move from it. But I am interested in the notion of speaker’s meaning and its place in an analysis of meaning, and not in that tradition as such. The notion of speaker’s meaning, I think, is relevant even for those who do not subscribe to a Gricean approach to meaning, as I don’t. (shrink)

El presente artículo se propone explorar la relación entre neutralización y conciencia del ‘como si’ en la fenomenología de Husserl, en particular, a partir de su convergencia en las intuiciones de fantasía. Partiendo de una crítica a una línea de interpretación que, en su intento de aproximarse fenomenológicamente a una «conciencia estética», homologa la modificación de neutralidad con la epojé, el artículo busca exponer la función metodológica que cumplen la modalización de la creencia en el proyecto de Ideas I, así (...) como también resaltar la importancia creciente que la fantasía y la conciencia del ‘como si’ irán adquiriendo en el desarrollo posterior de la fenomenología de Husserl. (shrink)

The review focuses basically on Leader’s paper "Toleration without Liberal Foundations". First, the author makes some semantic remarks about the uses of the word “toleration”; second, he offers some criticisms of Leader’s paper; and, finally, he puts forward the outline of a modest proposal.

Large Language Models (LLMs) are generative AI systems capable of producing original texts based on inputs about topic and style provided in the form of prompts or questions. The introduction of the outputs of these systems into human discursive practices poses unprecedented moral and political questions. The article articulates an analysis of the moral status of these systems and their interactions with human interlocutors based on the Habermasian theory of communicative action. The analysis explores, among other things, Habermas's inquiries into (...) the analogy between human minds and computers, and into the status of atypical participants in the linguistic community such as genetically modified subjects and animals. Major conclusions are the LLMs seem to qualify as authors that originally participate in discursive practices but do display only a structurally derivative form of communicative competence and fail to meet the status of communicative agents. In this sense, while the contribution of AI writing systems in public discourse and deliberation can support the process of mutual understanding within the community of speakers, the human actors involved in the development, use, and diffusion of these systems share a collective responsibility for the disclosure of AI authorship and verification and adjudication of validity claims. (shrink)

On an influential line of thinking tracing back to Ramsey, conditionals are closely linked to the attitude of supposition. When applied to counterfactuals, this view suggests a subjunctive version of the so-called Ramsey test: the probability of a counterfactual If A, would B ought to be equivalent to the probability of B, under the subjunctive supposition that A. I present a collapse result for any view that endorses the subjunctive version of the Ramsey test. Starting from plausible assumptions, the result (...) shows that one’s rational credence in a would-counterfactual and in the corresponding might-counterfactual have to be identical. (shrink)

Reading or hearing about Theodor Adorno's ideas always results in quibbles. He strikes many as a naïve philosopher because of his reversal of concept and object; some see him as an anarchist because of his relentless critique of rationality; while to others he simply does not make sense, and especially a critique of society based on negative dialectics simply does not make sense to many! These points, however, are precisely some of the key elements of his thought; without a deeper (...) apprehension of these main themes, it would be impossible to arrive at a level-headed appraisal of his philosophy. (shrink)

Recent developments in generalized probability theory have renewed a debate about whether regularity (i.e., the constraint that only logical contradictions get assigned probability 0) should be a necessary feature of both chances and credences. Crucial to this debate, however, are some mathematical facts regarding the interplay between the existence of regular generalized probability measures and various cardinality assumptions. We improve on several known results in the literature regarding the existence of regular generalized probability measures. In particular, we give necessary and (...) sufficient conditions for the existence of regular generalized probability measures defined on the whole powerset of any sample space. (shrink)

Does a privileged frame of reference exist? Part of Einstein’s success consisted in eliminating Bergson’s objections to relativity theory, which were consonant with those of the most important scientists who had worked on the topic: Henri Poincaré, Hendrik Lorentz and Albert A. Michelson. In the early decades of the century, Bergson’s fame, prestige and influence surpassed that of the physicist. Once considered as one of the most renowned intellectuals of his era and an authority on the nature of time, The (...) Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2010) does not even include him under the entry of “time.” How was it possible to write off from history a figure that was once so prominent? Through an analysis of behind-the-scenes of science correspondence, this article traces the ascendance of Einstein's views of time at the expense of Bergson’s. (shrink)

How are fundamental constants, such as c for the speed of light, related to particular technological environments? Our understanding of the constant c and Einstein’s relativistic cosmology depended on key experiences and lessons learned in connection to new forms of telecommunications, first used by the military and later adapted for commercial purposes. Many of Einstein’s contemporaries understood his theory of relativity by reference to telecommunications, some referring to it as “signal-theory” and “message theory.” Prominent physicists who contributed to it (Hans (...) Reichenbach, Max Born, Paul Langevin, Louis de Broglie, and Léon Brillouin, among others) worked in radio units during WWI. At the time of its development, the old Newtonian mechanics was retrospectively rebranded as based on the belief in a means of “instantaneous signaling at a distance.” Even our thinking about lengths and solid bodies, argued Einstein and his interlocutors, needed to be overhauled in light of a new understanding of signaling possibilities. Pulling a rod from one side will not make the other end move at once, since relativity had shown that “this would be a signal that moves with infinite speed.” Einstein’s universe, where time and space dilated, where the shortest path between two points was often curved and which broke the laws of Euclidean geometry, functioned according to the rules of electromagnetic signal transmission. For some critics, the new understanding of the speed of light as an unsurpassable velocity—a fundamental tenet of Einstein’s theory—was a mere technological effect related to current limitations in communication technologies. (shrink)

Many recent theories of epistemic discourse exploit an informational notion of consequence, i.e. a notion that defines entailment as preservation of support by an information state. This paper investigates how informational consequence fits with probabilistic reasoning. I raise two problems. First, all informational inferences that are not also classical inferences are, intuitively, probabilistically invalid. Second, all these inferences can be exploited, in a systematic way, to generate triviality results. The informational theorist is left with two options, both of them radical: (...) they can either deny that epistemic modal claims have probability at all, or they can move to a nonstandard probability theory. (shrink)

Recent crises in Europe and beyond have renewed a longstanding debate on the status and treatment of refugees. Hannah Arendt famously questioned the limits of universalistic human rights discourse based on the widespread phenomena of statelessness and displacement that emerged during and after World War II. In this paper, we analyze recent patterns of inclusion and exclusion of refugees in Italy through the lens of Arendtian narrative and theorizing. We consider three cases of interaction between families, schools, and other public (...) institutions in light of the shifting normative framework before and during the war in Ukraine. Two major insights emerge from this analysis. From a pedagogical point of view, the most promising educational practices with refugees are those centered on enabling their agency and corresponding experiences of "natality". From an ethical-political perspective, these practices highlight a latent tension between the universalistic scope of human rights enshrined in the human rights declarations and their structural dependence on the particular norms and procedures enacted by nation states. The understanding and teaching of human rights within our political communities is inseparable from the practices that engage with refugees. In this sense, our practices of inclusion and exclusion affect the understanding of national borders as a barrier or threshold with other political communities, but also the interpretation of our own ethical-political principles. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to shed light on an understudied aspect of Giordano Bruno's intellectual biography, namely, his career as a mathematical practitioner. Early interpreters, especially, have criticized Bruno's mathematics for being “outdated” or too “concrete”. However, thanks to developments in the study of early modern mathematics and the rediscovery of Bruno's first mathematical writings (four dialogues on Fabrizio's Mordente proportional compass), we are in a position to better understand Bruno's mathematics. In particular, this article aims to reopen (...) the question of whether Bruno anticipated the concept of infinitesimal quantity. It does so by providing an analysis of the dialogues on Mordente's compass and of the historical circumstances under which those dialogues were written. (shrink)

Heinrich Behmann (1891-1970) obtained his Habilitation under David Hilbert in Göttingen in 1921 with a thesis on the decision problem. In his thesis, he solved - independently of Löwenheim and Skolem's earlier work - the decision problem for monadic second-order logic in a framework that combined elements of the algebra of logic and the newer axiomatic approach to logic then being developed in Göttingen. In a talk given in 1921, he outlined this solution, but also presented important programmatic remarks on (...) the significance of the decision problem and of decision procedures more generally. The text of this talk as well as a partial English translation are included. (shrink)

Can taxation and the redistribution of wealth through the welfare state be conceived as a modern system of circulation of the gift? But once such a gift is institutionalized, regulated and sanctioned through legal mechanisms, does it not risk being perverted or corrupted, and/or not leaving room for genuinely altruistic motives? What is more: if the market’s utilitarian logic can corrupt or ‘crowd out’ altruistic feelings or motivations, what makes us think that the welfare state cannot also be a source (...) of corruption? To explain the standard answers to the abovementioned questions as well as their implications I will first re-examine two opposing positions assumed here as paradigmatic examples of other similar positions: on the one hand, Titmuss’s work and the never-ending debate about it; on the other, Godbout’s position, in-so-far as it shows how Titmuss’s arguments can easily be turned upside down. I will then introduce and reinterpret Einaudi’s “critical point” theory as a more complex and richer anthropological explanation of the problems and answers considered herein. Through the analysis of these paradigmatic positions I will develop two interrelated arguments. 1) The way these problems are posed as well as the standard answers to them are: a) subject to fallacies: the dichotomy fallacy and the fallacy of composition; b) too reductive and simplistic: we should at least try to clarify what kind of ‘gift’ or ‘corruption’ we are thinking about, and who or what the ‘giver’, the ‘corrupter’, the ‘receiver’ and/or the ‘corrupted’ party are. 2) The answers to these problems cannot be found by merely following a theoretical approach, nor can they be merely based on empirical evidence; instead, they need to take into account the forever troublesome, ambiguous and unpredictable matter of human freedom. (shrink)

Suppose that you're certain that a certain sentence, e.g. "Frida is tall", lacks a determinate truth value. What cognitive attitude should you take towards it—reject it, suspend judgment, or what else? We show that, by adopting a seemingly plausible principle connecting credence in A and Determinately A, we can prove a very implausible answer to this question: i.e., all indeterminate claims should be assigned credence zero. The result is striking similar to so-called triviality results in the literature on modals and (...) conditionals. (shrink)

Abstract: The aim of this paper is to claim Nietzsche’s place within the philosophical tradition of projectivism. Indeed, as will be shown, although Nietzsche is almost unanimously ignored by scholars working on projectivism, during the whole development of his philosophical thought, he holds a position which can be reasonably defined as “projectivist”. -/- Resumo: Este artigo tem por objetivo reivindicar o lugar da filosofia nietzschiana na tradição filosófica do projetivismo. Com efeito, como mostrarei, mesmo se Nietzsche é quase unanimemente ignorado (...) nas obras dos especialistas nessa tradição, ele mantém, ao longo de seu desenvolvimento filosófico, uma posição que se pode com razão definir como “projetivista”. (shrink)

At the turn of the seventeenth century, Bruno and Cavalieri independently developed two theories, central to which was the concept of the geometrical indivisible. The introduction of indivisibles had significant implications for geometry – especially in the case of Cavalieri, for whom indivisibles provided a forerunner of the calculus. But how did this event occur? What can we learn from the fact that two theories of indivisibles arose at about the same time? These are the questions addressed in this paper. (...) Relying on the methodology of “historical epistemology”, this paper asserts that the similarities and differences between the theories of Bruno and Cavalieri can be explained in terms of “shared knowledge”. The paper shows that the idea – on which both Bruno and Cavalieri build – that geometrical objects are generated by motion was part of the mathematical culture of the time. Tracing this idea back to its Pythagorean origins thus sheds light on the relationship between motion and continuum in mathematics. (shrink)

In this essay I intend to analyze the issue of good government in the works of Adam Smith, the importance of which seems to have not received due attention. The reconstruction is driven by three hermeneutical hypotheses concerning the role played by the idea of good government in the development of Smith's speculation: 1) the «good government» has a synthetic character, holding together the different aspects – moral, legal, economic and political – of his reflection; 2) it emerges against the (...) backdrop of the first acquisitions of the Theory of Moral Sentiments about the ‘mediating’ role of the middle class, and especially during the reflection that goes from the Lectures on Jurisprudence to the Wealth of Nations, and then feeds back into the subsequent rewritings of the Theory; 3) From the moment the «good government» appears, it becomes a descriptive and prescriptive idea of the social order. In the conclusions I will show how these hermeneutical hypotheses might have implications in the history of political, legal and economic thought. (shrink)

This paper develops an information-sensitive theory of the semantics and probability of conditionals and statements involving epistemic modals. The theory validates a number of principles linking probability and modality, including the principle that the probability of a conditional If A, then C equals the probability of C, updated with A. The theory avoids so-called triviality results, which are standardly taken to show that principles of this sort cannot be validated. To achieve this, we deny that rational agents update their credences (...) via conditionalization. We offer a new rule of update, Hyperconditionalization, which agrees with Conditionalization whenever nonmodal statements are at stake but differs for modal and conditional sentences. (shrink)

[Theism and Theology in Classical Yoga] .

In Democratic Authority and the Separation of Church and State, Robert Audi addresses disagreements among equally rational persons on political matters of coercion by analysing the features of discussions between epistemic peers, and supporting a normative principle of toleration. It is possible to question the extent to which Audi’s views are consistent with the possibility of religious citizens being properly defined as epistemic peers with their non-religious counterparts, insofar as he also argues for some significant constraints on religious reasons in (...) public debates, and he advocates secular reasons being considered as equivalent to natural reasons. I shall also consider Jürgen Habermas’s criticism of Audi’s stance. One of Habermas’ main points focused on Audi’s strong division between religious and non-religious arguments that requires religious citizens to artificially split their reasons, while non-religiously affiliated citizens are not met with any similar requirement. Also, analysing the concept of epistemic parity, we can as well grasp some of the main features of the Habermasian idea of postsecularism. The difference between secular and postsecular views can be framed as hinging on what it means to be epistemic peers, thus bearing consequences on the understanding of the relationship between church and state—particularly regarding the nature of state neutrality and the different status of churches and organised secular groups. (shrink)

In the sentence “Tom sits,” the name distinguishes Tom from anyone else, whereas the predicate assimilates Tom, Theaetetus, and anyone else to whom the predicate applies. The name marks out its bearer and the predicate groups together what it applies to. On that ground, his name is used to trace back Tom, and the predi- cate is used to describe and classify what it applies to. In both cases, the semantic link is a direct link between expressions and particulars. Here, (...) I will explore the workings of predicative names along the direction just hinted at. The analysis of predication has been less central to philosophical investigation than that of referen- tial expressions. Some problems have concerned the unity of the sentence—what makes us understand “The baby cries” as a sentence rather than a list of words? Other problems have been what a predicate was taken to stand for, properties and relations, and the understanding of either at the ontological level. If a predicate refers to a property or a relation, yet predication, which is central to our understand- ing of predicates, applies it to one or more particulars. On the background hinted at, these problems might be differently viewed. (shrink)

The publication of Guido Calabresi’s book “The Future of Law and Economics” has drawn a substantial amount of attention among law and economics scholars. We thought that the best way to devote special attention to this book was to devote a Special issue to it. This article situates Calabresi’s book among other reflections on the future of the discipline, introduces and explains the reasons behind this Special issue and discuss the organization and content of it. -/- We emphasize how Calabresi’s (...) historical-conceptual standpoint allows him to isolate the stakes of different future developments around the question of how could further appreciation of legal institutions that defy the standard economic assumptions help the field develop theoretically. Overall, the contributors all shared Calabresi’s attempt to restore the balance between Law and Economics and the need to better account for the “whole unanalysed experience of human race”, often neglected by the Economic Analysis of Law approach. Most disagreements are about the ‘how’. In any case, the search for the Law and Economics ‘not (yet) taken’ or for other “Law and … ” approaches is always open to the Future. (shrink)

This introduction explains the reasons behind this Special issue and discuss the organization and content of it. The difficulty of a genuine dialogue and understanding between economics, law and humanities, seems to be due not only to the fragmentation of reflections on man, but to a real ‘conflict of anthropologies’. What kind of conceptions of man and human values are presupposed by and / or privileged by economics, law, economic approaches to law and social sciences? How and when do these (...) conceptions come into conflict within and between disciplines? How do these conceptions of man and his values influence the conceptions of economics, law and institutions, and vice versa, how do these last conceptions influence the former? What are the normative, regulatory and practical implications of assuming an anthropological and / or axiological perspective instead of another? This Special issue aims at exploring the possibility of finding a common ground for discussion between economics, law and humanities, through the analysis and comparison of both the conceptions of man, human action and values assumed by economics, law and humanities, and their normative implications. The contributions to this Special issue and its organization are outlined at the end of this introduction. (shrink)

The paper aims to address the following two questions: what kind of discourse is that which attempt to found or defend the autonomy or the boundaries of a discipline? Why do such discourses tend to turn into normative, dogmatic-excommunicating discourses between disciplines, schools or scholars? I will argue that an adequate answer may be found if we conceive disciplines as dogmatics, where such discourses often take the form of a discourse on the foundation of a discipline, a foundation in the (...) name of which the scholar speaks and with which he/she entertains an identity relationship. To this purpose I will re-examine the methodological discourses of (and debates between) Pareto, Croce and Einaudi on the demarcation issue between philosophy, economics and value-judgments as highly instructive to understand such issues. (shrink)

[The Soul Chariot Allegory in Plato and the Kaṭha Upaniṣad].

Reasoning by default is a relevant aspect of everyday life that has traditionally attracted the attention of many fields of research, from psychology to the philosophy of logic, from economics to artificial intelligence. Also in the field of law, default reasoning is widely used by lawyers, judges and other legal decision-makers. In this paper, a philosopher of language (Carlo Penco) and a philosopher of law (Damiano Canale) attempt to explore some uses of default reasoning that are scarcely considered by legal (...) theory. In particular, the dialogue dwells on the notion of literal meaning, witness testimony, and the problem of disagreement among experts in legal proceedings. The paper is intended as a sort of brain storming useful to identify new lines of research straddling philosophy of law, cognitive psychology and philosophy of language. (shrink)

In this afterword I will try to re-launch the inquiry into the causes of good-bad polity and good-bad relationships between man and society, individual and institutions. Through an analogy between Einaudi’s search for good government and Calvino’s “Invisible cities”, I will sketch an account of the human and invisible foundations – first of all: trust/distrust – of any good-bad polity.

Statements about the future are central in everyday conversation and reasoning. How should we understand their meaning? The received view among philosophers treats will as a tense: in ‘Cynthia will pass her exam’, will shifts the reference time forward. Linguists, however, have produced substantial evidence for the view that will is a modal, on a par with must and would. The different accounts are designed to satisfy different theoretical constraints, apparently pulling in opposite directions. We show that these constraints are (...) jointly satisfied by a novel modal account of will. On this account, will is a modal but doesn't work as a quantifier over worlds. Rather, the meaning of will involves a selection function similar to the one used by Stalnaker in his semantics for conditionals. The resulting theory yields a plausible semantics and logic for will and vindicates our intuitive views about the attitudes that rational agents should have towards future-directed contents. (shrink)

[Does the gymnosophist’s reply to Alexander’s question on the origin of time indeed reflect an Indian doctrine?] The episode of Alexander’s interview with the gymnosophists has come down to us in several versions, among which the one in Plutarch’s Vita Alexandri is the most renowned. In this connection, the question arises whether the solutions given by the naked philosophers to the puzzles propounded by Alexander can be shown to reflect genuine Indian doctrines. Challenging Dumézil’s reply in the affirmative, the author (...) contends that they cannot. While most questions and answers are scarcely relevant to the investigation, as being of little (if any) philosophical import, the analysis concentrates on the more significant ones, and especially on the solution offered to the question as to which of the two — day or night — came first. According to Dumézil, the gymnosophist’s answer reported by Plutarch, i. e. that the day came first, by one day, reflects the vedic doctrine of the primeval cosmogonic role of Dawn and Light. Against this may be argued in the first place that such doctrine does not enjoy any prominent status in the Vedas themselves — quite to the contrary, it stands up disadvantegeously to many all-important texts, such as the Nāsadīyasūkta, which assign the primeval status to Darkness — and cannot therefore be regarded as being specifically Indian any more than its opposite. Secondly, it is shown that the Greek tradition is at great variance on this very point, to the extent that all logically conceivable solutions (i. e., precedence of day by one day / day by one night / night by one day / night by one night) are represented in some version or other. This inconsistency appears to stem from the fact that no particular doctrine (Indian or whatever) was envisaged; according to the present author, we have reason to believe that the gymnosophist’s reply was rather meant to set off by means of a paradox the sheer impossibility of a solution (all four alternatives being equivalent to that effect). This interpretation is reinforced by the gymnosophist’s own remark confessing the aporetical nature of his reply, and finally by a further recourse to paradox — this time a variant of the well-known “paradox of the liar” — which the author lays bare in the otherwise inexplicable dénouement of the anecdote. (shrink)

The paper examines Posterior Analytics II 11, 94a20-36 and makes three points. (1) The confusing formula ‘given what things, is it necessary for this to be’ [τίνων ὄντων ἀνάγκη τοῦτ᾿ εἶναι] at a21-22 introduces material cause, not syllogistic necessity. (2) When biological material necessitation is the only causal factor, Aristotle is reluctant to formalize it in syllogistic terms, and this helps to explain why, in II 11, he turns to geometry in order to illustrate a kind of material cause that (...) can be expressed as the middle term of an explanatory syllogism. (3) If geometrical proof is viewed as a complex construction built on simpler constructions, it can in effect be described as a case of purely material constitution. (shrink)

The book presents an interdisciplinary exploration aimed at renewing interest in Luigi Einaudi’s search for “good government”, broadly understood as “good society”. Prompted by the Einaudian quest, the essays - exploring philosophy of law, economics, politics and epistemology - develop the issue of good government in several forms, including the relationship between public and private, public governance, the question of freedom and the complexity of the human in contemporary societies.

Apūrvaṃ vyākaraṇakauśalam ity āstām: “let it remain an example of unprecedented grammatical skill” — thus sarcastically remarks the Dvaitin commentator Jayatīrtha on Śaṅkarācārya’s sleight of hand to turn written saṃbhūti into asaṃbhūti at one of the many difficult turns the Īśa Upaniṣad has in store for his strictly monistic stance. But Jayatīrtha’s own master Madhva is renowned in his own right for his “unprecedented skill” in conjuring up whole unattested smṛti passages to corroborate his interpretations. Indeed, more specimens of “unprecedented (...) skill” are displayed in turn by each of the great bhāṣyakāras of the three conflicting schools — Advaita, Dvaita and Viśiṣṭādvaita — on this Upaniṣad, which on account of its extreme pithiness is singularly suited to demonstrate the length dārśanikas are willing to go to make an authoritative text square each with his own preconceived philosophical outlook. A most telling example of the preemptive force of world-views on actual theoretical practice in the Indian context. (shrink)

The article is an experiment that deals with "Embodied Simulation" and " Embodied Cognition". This work follows the procedures of studies of the Parma Group and against them try to demonstrate their failure. The cognition is not embodied at all, maybe a little and at least.

[Dream and Reality between India and Greece].

Debates about the concept of Free Will date back to ancient times. About 40 years ago Benjamin Libet designed an experiment showing that the conscious intention to move is preceded by a specific pattern of brain activation. His finding suggested that unconscious processes determine our decisions. Libet-style experiments have continued to dominate the debate about Free-Will, pushing some authors to argue that the existence of Free Will is a mere illusion. We believe that this dispute is because we often measure (...) free will using arbitrary human decisions rather than deliberate actions. After reviewing the definition of free will and the related literature we conclude that the scientific evidence does not disprove the existence of Free Will. However, our will encounters several constraints and limitations that should be considered when evaluating our deeds’ personal responsibility. (shrink)

Theories and ideas have consequences, like actions do. As a rule, we hold people responsible for their actions. In a similar way, we should reasonably hold intellectuals responsible for their theories and ideas. Among the aims of this paper is to consider whether the fact that Nietzsche’s thought was distorted and manipulated by Fascist and Nazi ideologues is a sufficient condition for releasing Nietzsche from all responsibility for the crimes that were partly justified through the appeal to his philosophy.