Examining the period from the 1920s to the 1970s, one of the key features of the Rivista di filosofia is a lasting interest in the Renaissance and Vico, while the focus on seventeenth-century metaphysics is significantly more time-bound and linked to the activity of some prominent figures in the journal such as Piero Martinetti, Eugenio Colorni, and Gioele Solari. The rise of the Neo-Enlightenment caused a radical change in the editorial choices, and turned the journal’s focus toward the empiricist (...) tradition and the debate on historiographical methodologies. (shrink)

This paper considers the boundaries of "civility" in civil disobedience, by focusing on an extreme form of protest, namely, bossnapping. The latter involves workers 'kidnapping' their bosses, in order to force them to listen to their grievances. I argue that, notwithstanding its use of force, bossnapping may, under some circumstances, fulfil the requirements of a "civil" act of disobedience.

Socialism is a political ideology that proposes that the state should control the means of production to manage a planned economy. The possibility of realizing this thesis has been debated throughout the 20th century. The Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) includes technologies such as artificial intelligence or big data that could reopen the debate through the formulation of new digital models of planned economy. This qualitative research presents some theoretical models proposed in academia to update socialism in the 4IR. It describes (...) six new theoretical forms of digital socialism: Platform Economy, Socialist Feedback Infrastructure, Algorithmic Central Planning, Cyber-Communism, Fully Automated Luxury Communism (FALC), and Open Loop In Natura Economic Planning. The study concludes that the study of political ideologies and the debate about the future of society would benefit from further analysis of these models. (shrink)

The technological innovations of the Fourth Industrial Revolution have facilitated the formulation of strategies to transcend human limitations; strategies that are widely supported by the transhumanist philosophy. The purpose of this article is to explain the relationship between ‘transhumanism’ and ‘technological singularity’, to which end the Fourth Industrial Revolution and transhumanism are also briefly covered. Subsequently, the three main models of technological singularity are evaluated and a definition of this futuristic concept is offered. Finally, the author provides a reflection on (...) the relationship between technological singularity and the transhumanist philosophy, and concludes that they are not synonymous, but rather that the former is an eventuality that will allow the latter. (shrink)

The nationalist phenomenon has played an important role in contemporary history. We are currently entering the fourth industrial revolution, a process of social and political change driven by artificial intelligence, 5G connectivity and other cutting-edge technologies. This paper explores the manifestation of nationalism in the fourth industrial revolution, in particular the concepts of techno-nationalism and digital nationalism, their relationship and their differences. Subsequently, the article explains how digital media affect the rise of techno-nationalism and offers a broader definition of the (...) concept, including the ideas of digital territory, digital culture and digital identity. The article concludes that techno-nationalism is a complex manifestation of nationalism that includes not only a country’s quest for technological sovereignty, but also has an ideological component strongly linked to the political use of cutting-edge technologies. (shrink)

Purpose/Background. The present research focuses on the debate on transhumanism/bioconservatism from the perspective of empirical bioethics, that is, making use of em-pirical evidence in the process of moral reasoning. Its objective is to propose a metho-dological guide for the approach and resolution of moral problems concerning human enhancement. Methodology/Approach. The method Step-wise Ethical Human Enhancemet (SWEH) is proposed. It is a guide consisting of 11 questions that are the result of the adaptation of the guidelines for identifying a human enhancement (...) procedure as ethical developed by Julian Savulescu to the method of Step-wise Empirical Contributions elaborated by Pascal Borry. An applicative example on the morality of biohacking RFID implants is provided. Results/Findings. SWEH proposes that human enhancement procedures might be approached as specific problems and that the identified moral norm might be rewritten as a descriptive proposition that serves as a hypothesis that will be evaluated in the light of empirical evidence. The evaluation of the proposition, and thus of moral reasoning, will be done with the help of the information gathered by the 11 questions. Discussion/Conclusions/Contributions. SWEH can serve to provide a first answer on the morality of a specific human enhancement procedure, but not an absolute one, as the result may vary depending on the information obtained in the future. It also highli-ghts gaps in empirical research related to the procedure it addresses. The method is a first methodological guide that could be revised and improved. (shrink)

A presente pesquisa explora o ensaio de ontologia de Albert Camus (1913-1960), intitulado O mito de Sísifo (1942), no qual ele introduz sua teoria do absurdo, cujo propósito é questionar o sentido do mundo e da vida para o sujeito. Perguntando-se, o sujeito se depara com o sentimento de absurdo que manifesta o desejo de clareza frente a opacidade do mundo. Este sentimento é apresentado como uma experiência imediata frente ao não sentido do mundo e da vida. Uma das vias (...) que será analisada e tratada como uma resposta insuficiente para o sentimento de absurdo será o método fenomenológico proposto por Husserl que, através da intencionalidade - descrita como a experiência imediata do sujeito - é visto como uma medida que distancia o si de sua experiência. Distanciando-se da experiência, o método é compatível com uma das consequências do absurdo: a questão filosófica do suicídio. Outra consequência do absurdo será a revolta que é entendida como o que sustenta o sujeito a viver no desejo de clareza frente a irracionalidade do mundo que, posteriormente, resultará em uma Fenomenologia da Revolta. Para sustentar esta fenomenologia, será articulado a teoria do filósofo e fenomenólogo Michel Henry (1922-2002) através das suas obras L'essence de la manifestation (1963) e Fenomenología Material (1990). Nestas obras, Henry introduz o conceito de afetividade e páthos-com, que serão necessários para compreender o absurdo como uma afecção e condição de fragilidade que é compartilhada entre todos sujeitos resultando em uma intersubjetividade. Tanto a Revolta quanto o páthos-com revelam como o sujeito pode viver com o sentimento do absurdo e, desse modo, é possível afirmar a vida do si na solidão. Contudo, a conclusão presente nesta pesquisa constitui o argumento de que, pela Revolta enquanto coletividade que liga os sujeitos pela experiência absurda e pela essência constituinte da Vida, essa afirmação da vida de todos os sujeitos se torna mais forte. (shrink)

This article proposes the thesis that archeofuturism is a postmodern project of the International Alt-Right (IAR). By postmodern project we mean that: i) it is a project for a time after modernity; and ii) it is a project that, due to its content, can be classified as related to the ideas against modernity called postmodernism. As it is part of the IAR, archeofuturism is also a project of a fascist or far-right nature. To prove our thesis, we will first analyze (...) the Archefouturism developed by the French political scientist Guillaume Faye, a member of the IAR. Then what is IAR will be defined and its relationship with postmodernism will be evidenced. Finally, based on that connection called reactionary postmodernism, the existence of other archeofuturists theses that combine fascist rhetoric with postmodernism will be proposed. (shrink)

Some of the manuscripts once part of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola’s collection transmit autograph notes, which have been useful to reconstruct his library. A peculiar case is represented by the notes transmitted in a codex containing the Latin translation of Moses Maimonides’ Guide of the Perplexed. These notes are actual corrections to the translation made mostly on the basis of a comparison with the Hebrew text, while in some other cases they derive from a specific interpretation. The aim of this (...) paper is to present some characteristics of the textual revisions, in particular with reference to the Hebrew source. The palaeographic data demonstrate Pico’s direct involvement, which leads to the question of the authorship of these notes, namely if they were the result of an autonomous work or of a collaboration with some other scholar. (shrink)

In juxtaposition with the myth and tragedy of Ovid’s Medea, this paper investigates the possibility within the Kantian conception of agency of understanding moral evil as acting against one’s better judgment. It defends the thesis that in Kant self-deception, i. e. the intentional untruthfulness to oneself, provides the fundamental structure for choosing against the moral law. I argue that, as Kant’s thought progresses, self-deception slowly proceeds to become the paradigmatic case of moral evil. This is discussed with regard to two (...) important topics in his later moral philosophy: the doctrine of radical evil and the crucial role of the duty of truthfulness in ethics. The inquiry into Kant’s theory of conscience unfolds both against this theoretical background and in light of its historical roots in the polemic against casuistry and probabilism. This contribution closes with a brief look at the tools Kant implements to counter this tendency to self-deception in moral judgment and particularly at the role casuistry plays within his conception of moral education. (shrink)

Transhumanism is a philosophical system that proposes the use of advanced technologies directly in the human body to modify and improve its biological condition. That is the core idea of transhumanism and it can be adopted by various ideological systems in different ways. It will depend on their ethical approach and what they define as “improvement”. In this article we will quickly review the difference between transhumanist philosophy, Transhumanism and Transhumanisms.

Can Marxist-Leninist philosophy disregard dialectical materialism, the analysis of material and social contradictions, the need to overcome and resolve them in the service of revolutionary transformation? ‘Does the lecturer acknowledge that the philosophy of Marxism is dialectical materialism’, as Lenin asked Bogdanov one day in May 1908? What had 'official Soviet Marxism' really become, capable of combining ideological dictatorship with militant philosophical ignorance, in turn justified by the achievements of modern science, skilfully used as an instrument of domination and preservation (...) of the established order? How can one conceptually dominate reality and its contradictions, knowing well that knowledge is never neutral but is class-based? These questions are answered by Evald Ilyenkov, one of the greatest Marxist philosophers of the 20th century, re-examining Lenin's Materialism and Empiriocriticism at the end of the 1970s with a text entitled Leninist Dialectics and the Metaphysics of Positivism, still unpublished in Italy, and identifying in the revolutionary leader an exceptional theoretical ally. Just as Lenin had had to fight the attacks promoted by the theories of Bogdanov, who approached the empirio-criticism of Mach, Avenarius and Berman, seeing it as dogmatic and reactionary materialism directed against the natural sciences, so Ilyenkov fought against the penetration of positivism into Soviet politics and philosophy, criticizing the rejection of the dialectic only functional to the technocratic project of building 'socialism' in the Brezhnev era, a disguised heir of the empirio-criticism denounced by Lenin as the natural metaphysical conclusion to the logic of positivism. (shrink)

Biohacking is a grass-roots movement that brings the knowledge and experimen-tal practice of biological sciences to a non-specialized public. This article seeks to identify biohacking as a type of transhumanism and not just as a movement influenced by the latter. To do so, it examines the constitution, history, practi-ces, and moral codes of the biohacker movement. Subsequently, it compares the results with the definition of transhumanism, finding points of similarity in the hypotheses of both, as well as an adaptation of (...) transhumanist values to biohac-king. It concludes by identifying biohacking as a type of transhumanism. (shrink)

The ethical debate on human enhancement has motivated to discuss about animal enhancement. In this nascent discussion, various concepts that refer to the technological modification of animals are sometimes used indistinctly, including animal enhancement, animal uplift, animal augmentation and animal disenhancement. The purpose of this article is to provide a more precise definition of the above concepts. For this, the available literature on the debate was reviewed and it was concluded that these terms, although similar, refer to different types of (...) technological modifications. (shrink)

The following article provides a descriptive approach to the Latin American neoconservative movement led by Argentinian political scientist Agustín Laje. This group has become a new reactionary movement in the region and has brought together different intellectuals around a discourse against to the political left and progressivism. The article is divided into 4 sections: the first dedicated to its classification, the second to its origins, composition and activities, the third to its narrative and the fourth is an approach to its (...) discursive strategies. It is concluded that the movement does not fit exactly into an existing right-wing classification, has a unified discourse, is constantly active and it is suggested that uses communicational strategies of a great populist and intuitive nature. (shrink)

O presente trabalho visa apresentar a relação do método terapêutico da médica e psiquiatra Nise da Silveira (1905-1999) com a Fenomenologia da Vida do filósofo e fenomenólogo Michel Henry (1922-2002). Nise da Silveira revolucionou o tratamento psiquiátrico de sua época indo contra a psiquiatria tradicional e desenvolvendo um método revolucionário para o tratamento de pacientes esquizofrênicos, constituído através da arte, da cultura e, sobretudo, do que ela chama de afeto catalisador. Como método investigativo deste trabalho, a relação entre o afeto (...) catalisador, de Nise da Silveira, e a afetividade originária, de Michel Henry, é desenvolvida através das obras “Imagens do Inconsciente” (1981), de Nise, bem como “A Barbárie” (1987), “Encarnação: por uma filosofia da carne” (2013) e “Filosofia e Fenomenologia do corpo: ensaio sobre a ontologia biraniana” (2012) de Henry. O filósofo, assim como Nise que buscou uma terapia mais afetiva, em sua filosofia busca refletir sobre aquilo que foi deixado de lado pela filosofia clássica e pela fenomenologia tradicional: a vida tal qual como ela é. As teorias/abordagens de ambos autores buscam, de certa maneira, apontar para aquilo que a ciência e a racionalidade não conseguem penetrar: a carne afetiva da invisibilidade da vida na sua subjetividade absoluta. Diante disso, através do estabelecimento da relação do método de Nise à Fenomenologia da Vida de Henry, este trabalho visa realizar uma releitura fenomenológica da teoria das imagens. (shrink)

In epoca medievale si è molto discusso su alcuni concetti chiave come prova o giustificazione. La teoria della prova contenuta nei trattati di logica medievale prende il nome tecnico di consequentia, che è un tipo di ragionamento fondato sul passaggio dalla concessione (o negazione) di uno o più enunciati denominati antecedenti alla concessione (o negazione) di uno o più enunciati denominati conseguenti. Questo tipo di teoria ha avuto un correlato a livello dei singoli termini che compongono l’enunciato all'interno della teoria (...) nota come suppositio terminorum. Prende, infatti, il nome di descensus, la regola che permette la verifica del passaggio da un termine maggiore (un termine comune) ad un termine minore (che denota individui). La stessa definizione di alcune ramificazioni della teoria della suppositio è col-legata alla possibilità di ammettere o meno il descensus cioè questa "discesa" da un termine comune ad una congiunzione o disgiunzione di termini singolari. Il presente lavoro intende descrivere la teoria del descensus come un tipo particolare di consequentia mostrandone le connessioni con le moderne tecniche logiche. I trattati che si affronteranno appartengono al XIV e al XV secolo, cioè ad un periodo caratterizzato da una sistemazione della materia che li rende confrontabili con un quadro teorico unitario. (shrink)

La Cuarta Revolución Industrial es un conjunto de transformaciones sociales que están y seguirán siendo provocadas en los próximos años por la irrupción de tecnologías que parecieran propias de las narraciones de ciencia ficción. Se trata de un grupo de tecnologías convergentes, es decir, que tienden a complementarse y cubrir áreas más allá del rubro o disciplina desde y para el que fueron diseñadas. A partir del informe de los talleres sobre tecnologías convergentes impulsados por el National Science Foudnation (NSF) (...) de Estados Unidos en el año 2002, estas fueron conocidas con el nombre de tecnologías NBIC, por sus siglas Nanotecnologías, Biotecnologías, Infotecnologías (tecnologías de la información) y de las ciencias cognitivas. Como indicó el presidente del Foro Económico Mundial, Klaus Schwab (2016), el impacto de estas tecnologías será tal que no solo prometen cambiar el qué y cómo hacemos las cosas, sino también el quiénes somos, por lo que conocer algunas de las características de este nuevo horizonte tecnológico es fundamental para el debate sobre el futuro. Veamos a continuación algunas de estas. (shrink)

This study reflects on Harold Kincaid and Jule Zahle’s view that there is no necessary association between methodological individualism and agent-based models because the analysis of social phenomena in terms of the latter cannot always be regarded as an implementation of the former. Their view remains in contention with the standpoint of several philosophers of science and social scientists, including Chen and Di Iorio. Kincaid and Zahle’s main argument against such a standpoint is that agent-based simulation is compatible with holistic (...) explanations that are at odds with methodological individualism. The following study argues that Kincaid and Zahle’s conclusion remains untenable since it stems from inaccurate historical assumptions concerning the tradition of methodological individualism and the way the individualism-holism debate is understood within this tradition. (shrink)

Advances in neuroscience implicate reentrant signaling as the predominant form of communication between brain areas. This principle was used in a series of masking experiments that defy explanation by feed-forward theories. The masking occurs when a brief display of target plus mask is continued with the mask alone. Two masking processes were found: an early process affected by physical factors such as adapting luminance and a later process affected by attentional factors such as set size. This later process is called (...) masking by object substitution, because it occurs whenever there is a mismatch between the reentrant visual representation and the ongoing lower level activity. Iterative reentrant processing was formalized in a computational model that provides an excellent fit to the data. The model provides a more comprehensive account of all forms of visual masking than do the long-held feed-forward views based on inhibitory contour interactions. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that there is an important anomaly to the causalist/compatibilist paradigm in the philosophy of action and free will. This anomaly, which to my knowledge has gone unnoticed so far, can be found in the philosophy of Harry Frankfurt. Two of his most important contributions to the field – his influential counterexample to the Principle of Alternate Possibilities and his ‘guidance’ view of action – are incompatible. The importance of this inconsistency goes far beyond the issue (...) of coherence within Frankfurt’s philosophy. I shall argue that this inconsistency represents an important anomaly within the causalist/compatibilist framework; so that we should start to seriously consider having to move on from the established paradigm. (shrink)

‘No-fault unbelief’ can be named the view that there are those who do not believe in God through no moral or intellectual fault of their own. This view opposes a more traditional one, which can be named ‘flawed unbelief’ view, according to which religious unbelief signals a cognitive or moral flaw in the non-believer. Since this charge of mental or moral flaw causes a certain uneasiness, I oppose the former view, i.e. ‘no-fault unbelief’, with a strategy that has nothing to (...) do with the latter. I assume that ‘no-fault unbelief’ is correct and show what consequences follow for both unbelievers and believers. I conclude that the assumption in question is superficially beneficial but deeply detrimental to unbelievers, and by contrast, it is superficially detrimental and deeply beneficial to believers. (shrink)

The literature on algorithmic fairness has examined exogenous sources of biases such as shortcomings in the data and structural injustices in society. It has also examined internal sources of bias as evidenced by a number of impossibility theorems showing that no algorithm can concurrently satisfy multiple criteria of fairness. This paper contributes to the literature stemming from the impossibility theorems by examining how informational richness affects the accuracy and fairness of predictive algorithms. With the aid of a computer simulation, we (...) show that informational richness is the engine that drives improvements in the performance of a predictive algorithm, in terms of both accuracy and fairness. The centrality of informational richness suggests that classification parity, a popular criterion of algorithmic fairness, should be given relatively little weight. But we caution that the centrality of informational richness should be taken with a grain of salt in light of practical limitations, in particular, the so-called bias-variance trade off. (shrink)

Many oppose the use of profile evidence against defendants at trial, even when the statistical correlations are reliable and the jury is free from prejudice. The literature has struggled to justify this opposition. We argue that admitting profile evidence is objectionable because it violates what we call “equal protection”—that is, a right of innocent defendants not to be exposed to higher ex ante risks of mistaken conviction compared to other innocent defendants facing similar charges. We also show why admitting other (...) forms of evidence, such as eyewitness, trace, and motive evidence, does not violate equal protection. (shrink)

Many philosophers have pointed out that statistical evidence, or at least some forms of it, lack desirable epistemic or non-epistemic properties, and that this should make us wary of litigations in which the case against the defendant rests in whole or in part on statistical evidence. Others have responded that such broad reservations about statistical evidence are overly restrictive since appellate courts have expressed nuanced views about statistical evidence. In an effort to clarify and reconcile, I put forward an interpretive (...) analysis of why statistical evidence should raise concerns in some cases but not others. I argue that when there is a mismatch between the specificity of the evidence and the expected specificity of the accusation, statistical evidence—as any other kind of evidence—should be considered insufficient to sustain a conviction. I rely on different stylized court cases to illustrate the explanatory power of this analysis. (shrink)

In 1931, Evgeny Pashukanis, the distinguished Soviet jurist, author of “The General Theory of Law and Marxism”, following an invitation to celebrate the centenary of Hegel’s death, published an assay entitled “Hegel, the State and Law” (Гегель. Государство и право) aimed to demistify, through a brief retrospective of Hegelian’s philosophy, its specific use, something achieved through the bourgeois ideology which, at some point in history, abandoned Kantism and its followers to embrace Neo-Hegelianism as a philosophy of domination and social control. (...) In this unpublished text, Pashukanis reflects, from a Marxist and Leninist point of view, on the ability to use Hegel as a bourgeois defense tool, when a particular society, specifically the one from the 1920s to the 1930s, began to be affected by the fear of communism and by the crises that endanger its very survival. From this angle, the capitalist interest - following Pashukanisian interpretation of Hegel - will only develop in the terms of a scientific elimination of all those subversive potentials that the economic crisis is destined to produce, thus reformulating the notions of State and Law which, in between obedience, discipline and defense of the homeland, come to assert the official recognition of the inexorably crushed proletariat in a condition in which all relations of production and social reproduction are transferred to the realm of exploitation, as its definitive subsumption to capital. (shrink)

Both Husserl and Sartre speak of quasi-presence in their descriptions of the lived experience of imagination, and for both philosophers, accounting for quasi-presence means developing an account of the hyle proper to imagination. Guided by the perspective of fulfillment, Husserl’s theory of imaginary quasi-presence goes through three stages. Having experimented first with a depiction-model and then a perception-model, Husserl’s mature theory appeals to his innovative conception of inner consciousness. This elegant account nevertheless fails to do justice to the facticity and (...) bodily involvement of our imaginary experience. Sartre’s theory of analogon, based on his conception of imaginary quasi-presence as ‘magical’ self-affection, embodies important insights on these issues. Kinesthetic sensations and feelings are the modes in which we make use of own body to possess and be possessed by the imaginary object, thus lending it a semblance of bodily presence. (shrink)

Smith argues that, unlike other forms of evidence, naked statistical evidence fails to satisfy normic support. This is his solution to the puzzles of statistical evidence in legal proof. This paper focuses on Smith’s claim that DNA evidence in cold-hit cases does not satisfy normic support. I argue that if this claim is correct, virtually no other form of evidence used at trial can satisfy normic support. This is troublesome. I discuss a few ways in which Smith can respond.

On the verge of the 1917 October revolution, Lenin reads and elaborates on the Hegel's Science of Logic, as if he were attempting to outline, from it, specific effects. Theoretical effects, because human activity is never uncoupled from the logic objective, through which the real matter unfolds and to whom each individual indissolubly belongs. Practical effects, because if Hegelian philosophy is good for the Church, for the bourgeoisie, for the capital, by changing the order of some of its factors it (...) may as well turn out good for guiding the practical-cognitive development of an urgent proletarian revolution. (shrink)

To date, diagnosing Attention Defi cit Hyperactivity Disorder remains indeed one of the most controversial issues in contemporary psychiatry and behavioural sciences. Most of the conceptual problems regarding the validity of this diagnostic category arise from the heterogeneity of syndromal pictures and the high rate of comorbidity observed in subjects diagnosed with ADHD at all stages of the longitudinal course of the disorder. In this regard, DSM 5 increased complexity by allowing a diagnosis of comorbidity between ADHD and autism spectrum (...) disorders while these two diagnoses were mutually exclusive in DSM-IV-TR. (shrink)

In recent decades, Richard Swinburne has offered an influential view of the relationship between faith and reason. In doing so, he focused to a considerable extent on Aquinas’s view of faith. For Swinburne, Aquinas’ view of faith is that to have faith in God is simply to have a belief-that. In contrast, it is another view of faith, which Swinburne calls ‘Lutheran,’ that involves both theoretical beliefs-that and a trust in the Living God. In this article, I argue that Swinburne’s (...) view is not faithful to Aquinas’s doctrine of faith. In the first section, I will explain Swinburne’s view of belief in detail and its application to Aquinas’s doctrine of faith. In the second section, I will bolster my argument by showing that Swinburne’s reading is inconsistent with Aquinas’ statements regarding three relationships, which are essential to Aquinas’s faith. I am referring to the relationships between faith and will, between faith and merit and between faith and doubt. (shrink)

In this essay, I propose two arguments from Thomas Aquinas’s reflection on theism and faith to rebut Schellenberg’s claim that divine hiddenness justifies atheism. One of those arguments, however, may be employed so as to re-propose Schellenberg’s conviction, which is crucial to his argument, that there are ‘non-resistant’ or ‘inculpable’ unbelievers. I then advance what I call the suffering unbeliever argument. In short, the unbelievers mentioned by Schellenberg are expected to suffer because of their non-belief, which—as Schellenberg says—prevents them from (...) achieving the greatest possible well-being. If they suffer, however, they cannot consider themselves unbelievers, since one cannot suffer from not having been given a certain good if one believes that the good in question has never existed. If they do not suffer, on the other hand, there is simply nothing for which they can consider themselves inculpable. (shrink)

Kant scholars have rarely addressed the centuries-old tradition of casuistry and the concept of conscience in Kant’s writings. This book offers a detailed exploration of the period from Pascal’s Provincial Letters to Kant’s critique of probabilism and discusses his proposal of a (new) casuistry as part of an moral education. *** -/- Die Debatte um Kasuistik und Probabilismus zählt zu den wichtigsten Themen der Moraltheologie und Moralphilosophie der frühen Neuzeit. In der enormen Verbreitung der Literatur über die Gewissensfälle (casus conscientiae) (...) und in der großen Resonanz der Lehre von den wahrscheinlichen Meinungen (opiniones probabiles) in der ersten Hälfte des 17. Jahrhunderts findet sich ein wirkungsmächtiges Modell für die Analyse des moralischen Handelns, in welchem Universalität des Gebots und Kontingenz der Handlung, Notwendigkeit der Norm und individuelle Freiheit miteinander versöhnt werden. Dennoch erregt dieses Modell heftige Kritik, die in Pascals berühmtem Angriff in den Briefen in die Provinz (1656–1657) gipfelt. So beginnt für die Kasuistik und den Probabilismus eine lange Krise, welche die Entstehung der modernen Moralphilosophie und den Siegeszug des kantischen Paradigmas ankündigt. Die Krise von Kasuistik und Probabilismus fällt zusammen mit einer einsetzenden rigoristischen Reaktion der christlichen Moraltheologie sowohl katholischer als auch protestantischer Prägung,welche die moralischen und spekulativen Folgen eines Rückgriffs auf Gewissensfälle und wahrscheinliche Meinungen als inakzeptabel ablehnt. Die Ablehnung geht aber weiter und dringt bis in den Kern der philosophischen Reflexion vor: Die rigoristische Reaktion gegen Kasuistik und Probabilismus entzündet sich im moralphilosophischen Denken Kants als Folge seiner umfassenden kritischen Revision der Grundbegriffe der Moralphilosophie sowie insbesondere seiner Neubestimmung des Verhältnisses von Gewissen und praktischem Urteil. Dem Grundsatz des Probabilismus setzt Kant das Kriterium der moralischen Gewißheit („quod dubitas, ne feceris!“) entgegen, das er als „Postulat des Gewissens“ bezeichnet (RGV 6:185.23–186.9).Und die Kasuistik wird als eine „Critic der Handlungen nach Sophistic“ abgestempelt, als eine „Uebung, um nach der Sophistic das Gewissen zu hintergehen oder es zu chicaniren, insofern man es in Irrthum zu setzen denkt“ (V-MS/Vigil 27:620.2–5). Dennoch weist Kant den kasuistischen Fragen eine herausragende Stellung in der Tugendlehre zu und legt der Kasuistik im Rahmen der ethischen Methodenlehre, also im Hinblick auf pädagogische Anwendungen, letztlich eine positive Funktion bei. Vermutlich ist Kants Angriff auf Kasuistik und Probabilismus durch den Einfluss Pascals philosophisch vermittelt. Kants Verhältnis zu Pascal und, allgemeiner, zu dem historischen Hintergrund, welchem dieser angehört, sind gleichwohl noch erstaunlich wenig erforscht: Trotz der wiederholten (stillschweigenden oder sogar ausdrücklichen) Hinweise an wichtigen Stellen in Kants Schriften richtet die Kant-Forschung ihre Aufmerksamkeit nur selten auf die Jahrhunderte währende Tradition der Kasuistik und den Begriff des Gewissens, der in ihrem Rahmen ausgearbeitet wird. Aus dieser langen Geschichte wird in diesem Band insbesondere der Zeitraum „von Pascal bis Kant“ eingehend untersucht, d.h. der noch wenig erkundete Zeitabschnitt von der beißenden Polemik von Pascals Briefe in die Provinz bis zu Kants eigener Kritik des Probabilismus und seinem Entwurf einer (neuen) Kasuistik als Teil der ethischen Methodenlehre. (shrink)

This paper approaches Husserl’s analysis of time-consciousness from a mereological perspective. Taking as inspiration Bergson’s idea that pure durée is a multiplicity of interpenetration, I will show, from within Husserlian phenomenology, that the absolute flow can indeed be described as a whole of interpenetrating parts. This mereological perspective will inform my re-consideration of the much-discussed issue of Husserl’s self-criticism concerning the schema of content and apprehension. It will also reveal a fundamental similarity between Husserl’s conception of the absolute flow and (...) Sartre’s conception of lived temporality. This paper consists of four sections. Section 2 presents the basic elements of Husserl’s mereology. Section 3 introduces the difficulty encountered by Husserl’s early account of time that makes use of the schema. I will examine Barry Dainton’s criticism of Husserl’s theory of time-consciousness against the background of the older debate between Meinong and Stern, a debate that has informed Husserl’s own account. Section 4 distinguishes two common criticisms of the schema from Husserl’s own self-criticism, which is in turn divided into two steps. It is shown how the second step of this self-criticism implies the interpenetration of the absolute flow and responds to Dainton’s criticism. Finally, Sect. 5 concludes with some comparative remarks. I will show how Husserl’s notion of absolute flow, as mereologically interpreted, anticipates Sartre’s conception of consciousness as self-transcendence, as well as how it accommodates the apparently conflicting mereological intuitions of Aristotle and Bergson. (shrink)

Collection of papers for the construction of a new cultural paradigm.

Thinking is overrated: golfers perform best when distracted and under pressure; firefighters make the right calls without a clue as to why; and you are yourself ill advised to look at your steps as you go down the stairs, or to try and remember your pin number before typing it in. Just do it, mindlessly. Both empirical psychologists and the common man have long worked out that thinking is often a bad idea, but philosophers still hang on to an intellectualist (...) picture of human action. This book challenges that picture and calls on philosophers to wake up to the power of mindlessness: it is our habits, skills and conventions that help us cope with a world way too diverse for us to hope to always reinterpret it. The book presents the empirical evidence that has been accumulating over the last few decades and offers a philosophical analysis of mindless phenomena such as habits, skilled activity, automatic actions, emotional and spontaneous reactions and social conventions, arguing that traditional philosophical theories of action should be revised to do justice to this forgotten but important part of our lives: when we act mindlessly, we are free and fully rational even though we neither deliberate nor are aware of what we are doing. (shrink)

Il 2021 segna gli ottant’anni dalla nascita di Mario Perniola, uno dei massimi filosofi italiani del secondo dopoguerra. Questo volume raccoglie interventi che esplorano la sua opera mostrandone la fertilità e sottolineando al tempo stesso la prossimità delle sue idee con le principali sfide del nostro tempo. Dall’Italia al Brasile, passando per gli Stati Uniti, l’Irlanda, la Francia, il Belgio, il Messico e la Cina, gli autori si soffermano su temi che comprendono l’estetica, la politica, la teoria della comunicazione, i (...) queer studies, il pensiero rituale e religioso, la sessualità e la letteratura, restituendo la plurivocità e l’originalità di un filosofo di respiro internazionale e più che mai attuale. (shrink)

I argue that we should give up the fight to rescue causal theories of action from fundamental challenges such as the problem of deviant causal chains; and that we should rather pursue an account of action based on the basic intuition that control identifies agency. In Section 1 I introduce causalism about action explanation. In Section 2 I present an alternative, Frankfurt’s idea of guidance. In Section 3 I argue that the problem of deviant causal chains challenges causalism in two (...) important respects: first, it emphasizes that causalism fails to do justice to our basic intuition that control is necessary for agency. Second, it provides countless counterexamples to causalism, which many recent firemen have failed to extinguish – as I argue in some detail. Finally, in Section 4 I argue, contra Al Mele, that control does not require the attribution of psychological states as causes. (shrink)

Kant scholars have rarely addressed the centuries-old tradition of casuistry and the concept of conscience in Kant’s writings. This book offers a detailed exploration of the period from Pascal’s Provincial Letters to Kant’s critique of probabilism and discusses his proposal of a (new) casuistry as part of an moral education. / Trotz der Hinweise an wichtigen Stellen in Kants Schriften richtet die Kantforschung ihre Aufmerksamkeit nur selten auf die Jahrhunderte währende Tradition der Kasuistik und den Begriff des Gewissens, der in (...) ihrem Rahmen ausgearbeitet wird. Eingehend untersucht wird in diesem Buch insbesondere der Zeitabschnitt von Pascals »Briefen in die Provinz« bis zu Kants eigener Kritik des Probabilismus und seinem Entwurf einer (neuen) Kasuistik als Teil der ethischen Methodenlehre. (shrink)

Judith Jarvis Thomson has recently proposed a new argument for the thesis that killing the one in the Trolley Problem is not permissible. Her argument relies on the introduction of a new scenario, in which the bystander may also sacrifice herself to save the five. Thomson argues that those not willing to sacrifice themselves if they could may not kill the one to save the five. Bryce Huebner and Marc Hauser have recently put Thomson's argument to empirical test by asking (...) people what they should do in the new trilemma case, in which they may also sacrifice themselves. They found that the majority judge that they should either kill the one or sacrifice themselves; Huebner and Hauser argue that those numbers speak against Thomson's argument. But Thomson's argument was about the dialectical effect of the new trilemma on the traditional dilemma, rather than about the trilemma itself. Here I present the results of a study in which I asked subjects first what they should do in the trilemma and then what they should do in the traditional Trolley Problem. I found that, if asked first about the trilemma, subjects then have the intuition that killing the one in the traditional Bystander at the Switch is not permissible?exactly what Thomson's argument had predicted. (shrink)

This article examines Jacobi's two novels, Allwill and Woldemar indirectly showing how much Allwill prefigures Kierkegaard's Seduce in Either/Or and the plot of Woldemar Hegel's final scene of Section VI of his Phenomenology of Spirit.

I argue against the Doctrine of Double Effect’s explanation of the moral difference between terror bombing and strategic bombing. I show that the standard thought-experiment of Terror Bomber and Strategic Bomber which dominates this debate is underdetermined in three crucial respects: (1) the non-psychological worlds of Terror Bomber and Strategic Bomber; (2) the psychologies of Terror Bomber and Strategic Bomber; and (3) the structure of the thought-experiment, especially in relation to its similarity with the Trolley Problem. (1) If the two (...) worlds are not identical, then it may be these differences between the two worlds and not the Doctrine of Double Effect to explain the moral difference; (2a) if Terror Bomber and Strategic Bomber have the same causal beliefs, then why does Terror Bomber set out to kill the children? It may then be this unwarranted and immoral choice and not the Doctrine of Double Effect that explains the moral difference; (2b) if the two have different causal beliefs, then we can’t rule out the counterfactual that, had Strategic Bomber had the same beliefs as Terror Bomber, she would have also acted as Terror Bomber did. Finally, (3) the Strategic Bomber scenario could also be constructed so as to be structurally equivalent to the Fat Man scenario in the Trolley Problem: but then the Doctrine of Double Effect would give different answers to two symmetrical cases. (shrink)

The primary aim of this chapter is to explain the nature of evidential reasoning, the characteristic difficulties encountered, and the tools to address these difficulties. Our focus is on evidential reasoning in criminal cases. There is an extensive scholarly literature on these topics, and it is a secondary aim of the chapter to provide readers the means to find their way in historical and ongoing debates.

I distinguish between 'hard nudges' and 'soft nudges', arguing that it is possible to show that the latter can be compatible with informed consent - as Cohen has recently suggested; but that the real challenge is the compatibility of the former. Hard nudges are the more effective nudges because they work on less than conscious mechanisms such as those underlying our habits: whether those influences - which are often beyond the subject's awareness - can be reconciled with informed consent in (...) health care is the more challenging question. I suggest two directions for possible answers: on the one hand, looking at the growing empirical literature on mindless judgement and behaviour; and on the other hand considering a more diversified conception of consent, which I sketch. (shrink)