La filosofía de la ciencia se desarrolló durante la primera mitad del siglo xx bajo el supuesto de que la ciencia podía caracterizarse por la estructura lógica tanto del conocimiento articulado en las teorías más exitosas como de sus explicaciones. En la segunda mitad del siglo xx se cuestiona fuertemente esa idea, pero se sigue asumiendo que la filosofía de la ciencia debe hacerse siguiendo los cánones de una epistemología fundamentalista que considera que el avance de la ciencia pasa por (...) una ontología cada vez mas austera guiada por la idea de "mientras menos mejor". Desde esta perspectiva fundamentalista, el que las diferentes ciencias hablen de diferentes tipos de cosas es un obstáculo al entendimiento, producto de la imperfección del conocimiento actual. Este ideal nos invita a pensar que la epistemología debe hacerse reflexionando sobre el conocimiento articulado en nuestras teorías más austeras y nos compromete con propuestas reduccionistas problemáticas que no permiten explicar la diversidad de recursos epistémicos que de hecho utilizan los científicos. En este libro promovemos una epistemología que no sigue el lema de "mientras menos mejor", sino el de "organizar nuestros recursos epistémicos de manera que se genere entendimiento". Así, la misma estructura de las explicaciones y las prácticas (que incluye métodos y normas respecto de lo que se considera plausible y valioso) es lo que nos da la pauta para responder a la pregunta de qué es lo que hay. Esta estrategia epistémica nos obliga a hacer una filosofía de la ciencia muy cercana a la ciencia, reconociendo la pluralidad de sus métodos, objetivos y prácticas, sin reducir la filosofía de la ciencia a la sociología o a cualquier otra ciencia en particular. (shrink)

The search for understanding is a major aim of science. Traditionally, understanding has been undervalued in the philosophy of science because of its psychological underpinnings; nowadays, however, it is widely recognized that epistemology cannot be divorced from psychology as sharp as traditional epistemology required. This eliminates the main obstacle to give scientific understanding due attention in philosophy of science. My aim in this paper is to describe an account of scientific understanding as an emergent feature of our mastering of different (...) (causal) explanatory frameworks that takes place through the mastering of scientific practices. Different practices lead to different kinds of representations. Such representations are often heterogeneous. The integration of such representations constitute understanding. (shrink)

I construct a quantum-logical model of the type of situation that seems to be at the root of the problem of interpreting the projection postulate (Luders' rule) as a criterion of minimal disturbance. It is shown that the most natural way of characterizing minimal disturbance leads to contradictory conclusions concerning the final state.

-/- Did the US president who signed the order to use the atomic bomb stain his hands with blood or just ink? Are there cases in which a war is just? In such cases, is any war justifiable? Is ending the life of a terminally ill person different from murder? Do we need to agree on the definition of the embryo as a 'person' to know whether any action on the embryo is prohibited? Is the prohibition of contraception justified even (...) if it is perfectly legitimate to plan births? Anscombe, taking up Wittgenstein, Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, elaborates a theory of action that places "intention" at the centre, an alternative to the conception of action dominant since Descartes. On this basis, he conducts an indictment against the superficiality of modern moral philosophy, lumping together the Oxford philosophers, utilitarianism and Kantian ethics. And finally, she puts her virtue ethics to work on problems of applied ethics: in the field of public ethics, the just war; in the field of bioethics, questions of the end of life and the beginning of life. This book, edited by Sergio Cremaschi, brings together Anscombe's contributions on ethical issues, allowing for the first time a comprehensive overview of this decisive figure's contribution to twentieth-century philosophy. (shrink)

An effective method to increase the number of potential cadaveric organ donors is to make people donors by default with the option to opt out. This non-coercive public policy tool to influence people’s choices is often justified on the basis of the as-judged-by-themselves principle: people are nudged into choosing what they themselves truly want. We review three often hypothesized reasons for why defaults work and argue that the as-judged-by-themselves principle may hold only in two of these cases. We specify further (...) conditions for when the principle can hold in these cases and show that whether those conditions are met is often unclear. We recommend ways to expand nationwide surveys to identify the actual reasons for why defaults work and discuss mandated choice policy as a viable solution to many arising conundrums. (shrink)

A response to review essays by Chrisoula Andreou, John Brunero, Matthias Haase, Erasmus Mayr, and Sarah Paul on Sergio Tenenbaum's _Rational Powers in Action_.

A précis of Sergio Tenenbaum's Rational Powers in Action (Oxford 2021).

Definiciones de epistemología hay muchas, al igual que clases y estilos. Sin embargo, más allá de esta diversidad, es necesario contar con una definición básica que guíe nuestra comprensión del tema. Dos serán las preguntas que nos ayuden a ello en este artículo: a) ¿qué es la epistemología? y b) ¿para qué le sirve al científico?

In this paper we advance a new solution to Quinn’s puzzle of the self-torturer. The solution falls directly out of an application of the principle of instrumental reasoning to what we call “vague projects”, i.e., projects whose completion does not occur at any particular or definite point or moment. The resulting treatment of the puzzle extends our understanding of instrumental rationality to projects and ends that cannot be accommodated by orthodox theories of rational choice.

We explore the contribution made by oscillatory, synchronous neural activity to representation in the brain. We closely examine six prominent examples of brain function in which neural oscillations play a central role, and identify two levels of involvement that these oscillations take in the emergence of representations: enabling (when oscillations help to establish a communication channel between sender and receiver, or are causally involved in triggering a representation) and properly representational (when oscillations are a constitutive part of the representation). We (...) show that even an idealized informational sender–receiver account of representation makes the representational status of oscillations a non-trivial matter, which depends on rather minute empirical details. (shrink)

Our limited a priori-reasoning skills open a gap between our finding a proposition conceivable and its metaphysical possibility. A prominent strategy for closing this gap is the postulation of ideal conceivers, who suffer from no such limitations. In this paper I argue that, under many, maybe all, plausible unpackings of the notion of ideal conceiver, it is false that ideal negative conceivability entails possibility.

A short reconstruction of the discussion of the place of economies in societies starting with Adam Smith's idea of modes of subsistence and going thorugh Marx, the German historical school, Durkheim, Talcott Parsons and Karl Polanyi.

Preface -/- 1. 'Anima' and 'res cogitans'. The Cartesian idea of nature and mind as a residual concept. The first chapter discusses the genesis of the concept of mind in Cartesian Philosophy; the claim is advanced that 'res cogitans' is a residual concept, defined on the basis of a previous definition of matter as 'res extensa'. As a consequence, a contradictory ontology of the mind is Descartes's poisoned bequest to the following tradition of 'scientific' psychology. -/- 2. The Mathematical method (...) in the theory of the mind and the passions. The second chapter discusses the first ambitious attempt in this direction, namely Spinoza's theory of the mind and the passions in Ethics II and III; the topics treated are Spinoza's program of a mathematical science of the mind and his transformation of the genre 'treatise of the passions' into a would-be mathematical science of the motions of the soul. -/- 3. The definition of affections and the impossibility of reducing inadequate to adequate ideas. The third chapter discusses a tension in Spinoza project of a theory of the passions, namely a need to reduce concepts to pure mathematical definitions and the opposite need to keep inadequate imaginative definitions of the phenomena under scrutiny, namely the passions, in order to avoid a radical reduction of the subject-matter to the only truly existing reality (the world order in itself) that would leave the theory without any subject-matter at all. -/- 4. 'Conatus', 'potentia', 'vis'. Concepts of force in the theory of passions and the impossibility of eliminating occult qualities. The fourth chapter discusses the troubles arising in the original project deriving from difficulties in the treatment of dynamic concepts, such as the notion of conatus, which were an unavoidable consequence of Cartesian assumptions. -/- 5. Overview and discussion. Chapter five tries to draw a general discussion, focusing on the tension between the Cartesian assumptions and the actual practice in the new post-Galilean sciences, including attempts at giving birth to psychology or science of man. -/- Appendices I. The mind-body problem in Spinoza. II. Concepts of force in Newton and Spinoza. III. Materialist readings of Newton and Spinoza. IV. On the opposition of materialism and spiritualism and Geisteswissenschaften and natural science. V. Conatus, the idea of liberation and social theory in Spinoza. (shrink)

Linguistics of Saying is to be analyzed in the speech act conceived as an act of knowing. The speaking, saying and knowing subject, based on contexts and the principles of congruency and trust in the speech of other speakers, will create meanings and interpret the sense of utterances supplying the deficiencies of language by means of the intellective operations mentally executed in the act of speech. In the intellective operations you can see three steps or processes: first the starting point, (...) intuition or aísthesis; second, the process of abstraction; and third, the inverse: the process of determination or fixing the construct created. (shrink)

Linguistics of saying studies language in its birth. Language is the mental activity executed by speaking subjects. Linguistics of saying consists in analyzing speech acts as the result of an act of knowing. Speaking subjects speak because they have something to say. Tthey say because they define themselves before the circumstance they are in. And this is possible because they are able to know. Speaking, then, is speaking, saying and knowing. In this sense there is a progressive determination. Knowing makes (...) possible saying, and saying determines speaking, or, in other words: speaking involves saying and knowing, and saying involves knowing. The problem thus is to determine the meaningful intentional purpose of the individual speaker to say something in every speech act. (shrink)

This is the first Italian translation of Bentham’s “Deontology”. The translation goes with a rather extended apparatus meant to provide the reader with some information on Bentham’s ethical theory's own context. Some room is made for so-called forerunners of Utilitarianism, from the consequentialist-voluntarist theology of Leibniz, Malebranche, John Gay, Thomas Brown and William Paley to Locke and Hartley's incompatible associationist theories. After the theoretical context, also the real-world context is documented, from Bentham’s campaigns against the oppression of women and cruelty (...) to animals to his projects of political reform. Another section illustrates the ideas of Bentham's followers as well as the objections raised by nineteenth- and twentieth-century critics of utilitarianism. -/- Table of contents I. BEFORE THE TEXT 1. Bentham’s legacy 2. Bentham the Reformer 3. Bentham and the enlightenment project of a reformed morality 4. The principle of utility 5. Deontology or private morality 6. Utilitarianism as «eudemonologism» -/- II. TEXT Deontology I. Deontology: theoretical II. Deontology: practical III. -/- III. CO-TEXT 1. Biography 2. The reform of legislation 3. The Philosophic Radicals between the French revolution and the Industrial revolution -/- IV. CONTEXT 1. Forerunners of Utilitarianism 2. Psychological associationism 3. The oppression of women 4. Cruelty against animals 5. Parsimony and industry in Hogarth’s prints 6. Followers 6.1. John Stuart Mill 6.2. Henry Sidgwick 7. Critics 7.1. Romantic, conservative, and Christian critics 7.2. Socialist critics 8. Consequences: neo-utilitarianism 9. Consequences: critics of utilitarianism 9.1. Deontological critics 9.2. Perfectionists critics 9.3. Sceptical critics 10. Bentham’s legacy for contemporary ethics, by Bikhu Parekh Bibliography Lexicon Index of names and concepts -/- READER'S GUIDE . (shrink)

I respond to an objection recently formulated by Barlassina and Hayward against first-order imperativism about pain, according to which it cannot account for the self-directed motivational force of pain. I am going to agree with them: it cannot. This is because pain does not have self-directed motivational force. I will argue that the alternative view—that pain is about dealing with extramental, bodily threats, not about dealing with itself—makes better sense of introspection, and of empirical research on pain avoidance. Also, a (...) naturalistic theory of body-involving commands falls straightforwardly out of our most prominent naturalistic metasemantic accounts, while the token-reflexive contents that would underlie self-directed motivation are more problematic. (shrink)

Kant’s views on the relation between freedom and moral law seem to undergo a major, unannounced shift. In the third section of the Groundwork, Kant seems to be using the fact that we must act under the idea of freedom as a foundation for the moral law. However, in the Critique of Practical Reason, Kant claims that our awareness of our freedom depends on our awareness of the moral law. I argue that the apparent conflict between the two texts depends (...) on a reading of the opening paragraphs of Groundwork III, and on an interpretation of Kant’s claim that we “act under the idea of freedom”, that is implausible on textual and on philosophical grounds. I then present an alternative interpretation of what Kant means by “acting under the idea of freedom” and of the opening paragraphs of Groundwork III. I argue that the only substantive conclusion of these paragraphs is that no theoretical proof of freedom is necessary. Moreover I argue that although these paragraphs raise concerns about the validity of the moral law, these concerns and Kant’s answers to them, do not give rise to any significant conflict with his views in the Critique of Practical Reason. (shrink)

A New Italian translation of Principia Ethica coming almost 60 years after the 1964 translation by Gianni Vattimo with Nicola Abbagnano’s preface. The new edition makes room for the English text alongside the Italian translation; it includes the 1922 Preface, a bibliography of Moore’s ethical writings with critical literature, a chronology of Moore’s life and works, and an Index. The Introduction by Sergio Cremaschi reconstructs the background of ideas, concerns and intentions from which Moore’s Principia Ethica originated. It stresses (...) the role of religious concerns, as well as that of the Idealist legacy. I argue that PE is more a patchwork of incompatible lines of argument than a consistent work. It compares PE with Rashdall’s almost contemporary ethical work, suggesting that the latter defends the same general claims in a different and more plausible way, which manages to answer decisive objections. It ends with the suggestion that the emergence of Analytic Ethics was a more multi-faceted phenomenon than the received view would make us believe and the analytic tradition's wheat, that is, what logic can do for philosophy, has to be separated from the chaff, that is, the confused, and besides mutually incompatible, legacies of Utilitarianism and Idealism. (shrink)

Abstract The paper reconstructs the reception of Descartes's work by the Scottish Enlighteners, from Colin MacLaurin to Dugald Stewart. The Scots' image of Descartes was a byproduct of a scientific controversy; philosophical arguments were brought into the picture more as asides than as a primary focus of interest. As soon as the Cartesian physics withered away as a real alternative to Newtonian physics, only the philosophical arguments were left, with no memory of the context out of which they originated, and (...) the focus of the discussion shifts from physics to the philosophy of mind and the theory of knowledge. (shrink)

Abstract The paper reconstructs the reception of Descartes's work by the Scottish Enlighteners, from Colin MacLaurin to Dugald Stewart. The Scots' image of Descartes was a byproduct of a scientific controversy; philosophical arguments were brought into the picture more as asides than as a primary focus of interest. As soon as the Cartesian physics withered away as a real alternative to Newtonian physics, only the philosophical arguments were left, with no memory of the context out of which they originated, and (...) the focus of the discussion shifts from physics to the philosophy of mind and the theory of knowledge. (shrink)

Most contemporary action theorists accept – or at least find plausible – a belief condition on intention and a knowledge condition on intentional action. The belief condition says that I can only intend to ɸ if I believe that I will ɸ or am ɸ-ing, and the knowledge condition says that I am only intentionally ɸ-ing if I know that I am ɸ-ing. The belief condition in intention and the knowledge condition in action go hand in hand. After all, if (...) intending implies belief, and if ɸ-ing intentionally implies intending to ɸ, then in ɸ-ing, I intend to be ɸ-ing, and, by the belief condition, I believe that I am ɸ-ing, and if this belief is justified, and we are not in a Gettier situation, etc., then, I will also satisfy the knowledge condition. Moreover, the claim that when intentions properly result in action, the corresponding belief constitutes knowledge is a relatively safe assumption, at least as an assumption about what it is generally the case. (shrink)

Deontological theories face difficulties in accounting for situations involving risk; the most natural ways of extending deontological principles to such situations have unpalatable consequences. In extending ethical principles to decision under risk, theorists often assume the risk must be incorporated into the theory by means of a function from the product of probability assignments to certain values. Deontologists should reject this assumption; essentially different actions are available to the agent when she cannot know that a certain act is in her (...) power, so we cannot simply understand her choice situation as a “risk-weighted” version of choice under certainty. (shrink)

The paper reconstructs the reception of Descartes's work by Scottish eighteenth-century philosophers. The Scots' image of Descartes was a by-product of a scientific controversy; philosophical arguments were brought into the picture more as asides than as a primary focus of interest. As soon as the Cartesian physics withered away as a real alternative to Newtonian physics, only the philosophical arguments were left, with no memory of the context out of which they originated, and the focus of the discussion shifted from (...) physics to the philosophy of mind and the theory of knowledge. (shrink)

Imperativism is the view that the phenomenal character of the affective component of pains, orgasms, and pleasant or unpleasant sensory experience depends on their imperative intentional content. In this paper I canvass an imperativist treatment of pains as reason-conferring states.

Inquiry, Volume 57, Issue 3, Page 384-411, June 2014.

Language is nothing but human subjects in as much as they speak, say and know. Language is something coming from the inside of the speaking subject manifest in the intentional meaningful purpose of the individual speaker. A language, on the contrary, is something coming from the outside, from the speech community, something offered to the speaking subject from the tradition in the technique of speaking. The speech act is the performance of an intuition by the subject, both individual and social.

A short presentation of the moral doctrines inspired by the Confucian tradition.

A short presentation of the birth and transformations of utilitarianism.

It seems rather intuitive that if I can save either one stranger or five strangers, I must save the five. However, Kantian (and other non-consequentialist) views have a difficult time explaining why this is the case, as they seem committed to what Parfit calls “innumeracy”: roughly, the view that the values of lives (or the reasons to save them) don’t get greater (or stronger) in proportion to the number of lives saved. This chapter first shows that in various cases, it (...) is permissible to save fewer lives, contrary to what is implied by “numerate” views. Then it argues that in the cases in which it is intuitive that we must save the greater number, Kantians (and other deontologists) can not only deliver this verdict but also explain why it is correct, without presupposing that the value of our action depends on “adding up” the values of the lives saved. (shrink)

A discussion of distinct usages of the term reciprocity in philosophy of language, ethics, logic, anthropology and game theory.

Incommensurability is often introduced with the small improvement argument. Options A and B are shown to be incommensurable when it is neither the case that A is preferred to (or better than) B nor that B is preferred to (or better than) A, but a slightly improved version of A (A+) is still not preferred to B. Since A+ is preferred to A, but not to B, we must also conclude that it is also true that A and B are (...) not indifferent (or equally good). Such incommensurable options seem incompatible with orthodox decision theory (and various forms of value theory) but options that obey the pattern described by this argument seem ubiquitous: my choice between lemon tarts and eclairs at my favourite pastry shop might exhibit this pattern, but so could my choice between jobs or careers. In trying to accommodate incommensurable options within various frameworks, philosophers have argued that we must preserve certain central features of the phenomenon. Among them is the supposed “hardness” of at least some incommensurable options: even if perhaps one would need to be a rather anxious gourmet to describe the choice between lemon tarts and eclairs as hard, the choice among careers could potentially be agonizing. However, it is not clear in which way choices among incommensurable options are “hard,” nor how and whether such hardness poses problems for the various accounts of incommensurable choices. To complicate matters, the deontic verdicts for choices between incommensurable options seem to be relatively straightforward: one appealing view is that in such circumstances I am rationally permitted to choose any option that is not worse than another option. This paper aims to provide a sharper formulation of at least a version of the hardness problem, to argue that various theories of incommensurability fail to account for the hardness of some incommensurable choices, and to propose that the theory of instrumental rationality I develop in Rational Powers in Action, aided by a Kantian insight, promises to provide an adequate explanation of the hardness of choice among incommensurable options. (shrink)

The unresolved dilemma of Marxian theory is whether the overall social constellation may legitimately be called 'mode of production' because mono-causal economic explanations are acceptable or whether there is instead a more complex causality at the level of the 'ökonomische Gesellschaftsformation', i.e. the social constellation as a whole.

A short reconstruction of the origins of the concept of metaphor, the early modern mistrust of metaphor in the name of univocal scientific language, the twentieth century rescue of the cognitive value of metaphor.

This chapter contains sections titled: References.

A short reconstruction of the discussion on the genesis of Western Modern individualism, of the arguments advanced by its critics and by recent vindications of ethical and political individualism.

This is one more edition of Voltaire's "Candide", meant to highlight the wealth of philosophical and theological discussions hidden behind the apparently innocent veil of the most renowned fable of modernity. The rather extended apparatus accordingly consists of a series of short chapters by Filippo Bruni on the Enlightenment and Metaphysics, and in more detail, on theology, Free choice, the problem of evil, and happiness in an imperfect world and another by Sergio Cremaschi on the Enlightenment and morality, and (...) in more detail on moral universalism, religion without metaphysics, toleration, and pacifism. -/- Table of contents I. Before the text A trick for priests A scandalous book Garden with view -/- II. Text Candide or optimism -/- III. Context Biography 1. The seven years war 2. Calvinists and Socinians 3. Jiansenists and Gesuits 4. Marranos and inquisitors 5. Conquistadores and slave-traders 6. Paraguay under the Jesuits -/- IV. Co-text 1. Enlightenment and Metaphysics 1.1. Theology 1.2. Free choice 1.3. The problem of evil 1.4. Being happy in an imperfect world -/- 2. Enlightenment and morality 2.1. Universal morality 2.2. Religion without Metaphysics 2.3. Toleration 2.4. Pacifism -/- 3. Enlightenment and the images of other places 3.1. The image of Eldorado 3.2. The image of Paraguay 3.3 The image of the Islamic world 3.4. The image of the Jew -/- 4. The conte philosophique -/- Bibliography Lexicon Index of names and concepts -/- V. Reader’s guide. (shrink)

Robert Adams argues that often our moral commitment outstrips what we are epistemically entitled to believe; in these cases, the virtuous agent doxastic states are instances of “moral faith”. I argue against Adams’ views on the need for moral faith; at least in some cases, our moral “intuitions” provide us with certain moral knowledge. The appearance that there can be no certainty here is the result of dubious views about second-order or indirect doubts. Nonetheless, discussing the phenomena that lead Adams (...) to postulate moral faith brings to light the nature of the epistemic warrant underlying various kinds of moral commitments. (shrink)

La Educación Sensible es ayuda para que el “yo” habite en su “hogar interior” y crezca hacia su “apoteosis original” en el “nosotros”, donde se hace cocreador de belleza con libertad, sabiduría y amor. La educación sensible es pedagogía no invasiva pero radicalmente exigente para que la persona acepte desplegar su versión original y vivir con gozo en un “nosotros-maduro”. No es una pedagogía que protege a los sensibles; es una educación que atiende a todas las personas, independientemente de su (...) grado de sensibilidad: alta, media o baja (como intervalos comunes que se manejan en las ciencias de la sensibilidad). La sensibilidad personal es capaz de captar la propia originalidad y disponerse para interpretarla en los dos sentidos: comprenderla y actuarla. La sensibilidad humana necesita la educación sensible para que sea punto de partida de un desarrollo personal auténtico y pleno de la propia originalidad que es alterada y altera la de los “yoes” con quien habita la existencia formando “nosotros”, que a su vez, se impactan con interdependencia. Además de al “yo”, la educación sensible se orienta al “nosotros”, que será tanto más “sensible” en la medida que altera la intimidad de la persona con “amor-maduro” que es fuente de gozo, a pesar de los pesares. Sin educación sensible la vida daña y cuanta mayor es la sensibilidad de la persona, mayor es el daño, pero también es mayor la capacidad para detectarlo cicatrizarlo y ayudar a otros con educación sensible. Así, la educación sensible se manifiesta de tres maneras: como acción sanadora de la persona, destrucción creadora para evolucionar en el tiempo, como la crisálida se transforma en mariposa, y acción desarrollante del propio potencial con originalidad. (shrink)

“Conciencia”, la sección inicial de la Fenomenología de Hegel, se ocupa de la comprensión del mundo físico que nos rodea. La sección siguiente, “Autoconciencia”, comienza a considerar nuestra comprensión de nosotros mismos y de los otros. Este orden de discusión no es ni arbitrario ni meramente conveniente. Por el contrario, una de las principales lecciones que hemos de aprender hacia el final del desarrollo de la “conciencia” es que nuestra mejor concepción del mundo que es el objeto de nuestras actividades (...) cognitivas es inteligible solo como una parte de un relato que además considera la naturaleza del sujeto que se dedica a tales actividades. La razón para esta transición expositiva es un aspecto importante en el idealismo de Hegel. En este capítulo ofrezco una reconstrucción racional de un argumento que veo como el soporte de esta transición y del tipo de idealismo que esta implica. (shrink)

Definiciones de epistemología hay muchas, al igual que clases y estilos. Sin embargo, más allá de esta diversidad, es necesario contar con una definición básica que guíe nuestra comprensión del tema. Dos serán las preguntas que nos ayuden a ello en este artículo: a) ¿qué es la epistemología? y b) ¿para qué le sirve al científico?

We reconstruct the text, that is, we analyse the development of the discussion between Malthus and Ricardo both in the correspondence and in published works, paying special attention to (a) the use of methodological statements, (b) some pragmatic features of the controversy, (c) considerations pertaining to the meta-level of the controversy (assessments of the status of the controversy, of ways of solving it, etc.); then, we reconstruct the co-text, that is, unpublished papers by each opponent that were not made available (...) to the other, records of exchanges between each of these and third parties, etc.; thirdly, we describe the essential features of the context, focusing on events that influenced the course of the controversy; (iv) we draw lessons from our case study on the role of co-text and context, on pragmatic and semantic interpretation, and on "casts of mind”. (shrink)

This book posits that a singular paradigm in social theory can be discovered by reconstructing the conceptual grammar of Gabriel Tarde’s micro-sociology and by understanding the ways in which Gilles Deleuze’s micro-politics and Michel Foucault’s micro-physics have engaged with it. This is articulated in the infinite social multiplicity-invention-imitation-opposition-open system. Guided by infinitist ontology and an epistemology of infinitesimal difference, this paradigm offers a micro-socio-logic capable of producing new ways of understanding social life and its vicissitudes. In the field of social (...) theory, this can be called the infinitesimal revolution. (shrink)

Godfrey-Smith advocates for linking deception in sender-receiver games to the existence of undermining signals. I present games in which deceptive signals can be arbitrarily frequent, without this undermining information transfer between sender and receiver.

Meaning defines language because it is the internal function of language. At the same time, meaning does not exist unless in language and because of language. From the point of view of the speaking subject meaning is contents of conscience. From the point of view of a language, meaning is the objectification of knowledge in linguistic signs. And from the point of view of the individual speaking subject, meaning is the expressive intentional purpose to say something.