Repeatedly, in Western democracies, sophisticated marketing techniques are used to manipulate consensus. In this context, "free" markets are interesting only because they contain potential buyers and it is possible to buy consensus. In many European countries (e.g., Italy), in Italy, for example, political scientists apply marketing techniques (advertising, psychological effects) to get (i.e., to buy) political consensus. They work on the premise that the decision to buy a product and the decision to vote for a candidate are equivalent. Their interest (...) is not in convincing, but in shaping an expedient cognitive model. (shrink)

This article introduces the concepts of System, Autonomous System, Intelligent System, Multiple System, and Collective Being. It deals with issues related to managing these different levels of systemic aggregation. The author then discusses applications related to Architecture and design with particular reference to cities.

This research project proposes the modeling of collective behaviors such as flocks, industrial districts, and markets. Unlike many other approaches, the aim is to identify ways to recognize, change, and maintain the coherence of collective behaviors, as well as inducing their emergence in configurations of elements that only interact without acquiring properties. The basic assumption is that currently collective behavior is not adequately modeled for the purpose described above when intended as given by sequences of states adopted by the same (...) system over time. Here the sequence of states of a collective behavior in time is considered as corresponding to sequences of different states adopted by systems made up of the same elements interacting with different structures. Sequences of structures are considered to establish meta-structures and their properties correspond to the coherence acquired. The project is based on the use of mesoscopic variables to represent such structural dynamics considered in turn to represent the continuous emergence of coherent collective behavior. Mesoscopic variables are specified and their properties considered as meta-structural properties (properties of sequences of structures). The purpose of this research project is to search for meta-structural properties within processes of computational emergence (computer simulated). I discuss the problem of prescribing meta-structural properties to non-coherent, disordered collective behaviors. I introduce possible approaches for applications to social systems. (shrink)

We consider the peculiarity of unique events, such as those of a natural, evolutionary, and social nature. In particular, we consider unique social events that have had either the claim or the vocation of being salvific for humanity, such as the introduction over time of the Torah, Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam. We question how the claimed, general salvific vocation contrasts, or is inconsistent with, the non-retroactive temporality and locality of such events, which could not have happened otherwise. This undeclared (...) and philosophically unsolved inconsistency then reappears in subsequent cultural contradictions and inadequacies, political and social allowances such as, for instance, homo-centrism and a pathological relation with Nature. In the case of Christianity, this inconsistency is represented by the painting reproduced in the article, a work in which the excluded humans and other living beings are represented as astonished by the occurrence in this moment, and in such an unnatural context. Furthermore, we consider the original understanding as related to concepts of classical physics, or of such concepts naively adopted within the texts considered sacred. However, in some religions, such as Christianity, the inconsistency is theologically solved. We stress the need to update the ancient original elementary, naïve, pre-classic philosophical and conceptual frameworks used so that these alleged inconsistencies and contradictions may be not only theologically solved, but also conceptually solved in more complex understandings of the world, for example, considering relativistic time, long-range interdependence, quantum entanglement, and theories of the universe. Without this update, the unique saving events can affect only religiously, that is, optionally, on the scientific and philosophical conceptions used. Without this adjustment, homo-centrist illusion and egoism prevail as the natural, linear consequential attitude without raising these questions. It rather assumes that the intervention is for involved human beings, and moreover for those who have had and are lucky enough to receive and practice it, ignoring the enormous inconsistency within the message itself, and its presumed general and available salvific nature. This requires theological, philosophical, and scientific interdisciplinarity. The theme concerns inconsistencies within and superficiality of the narratives and their treatment of the unique, salvific events, without any reference to possible general and retroactive effects of how these events are represented in the painting. We conclude that the subject should be debated by taking into account contemporary understandings, such as relativistic space and time, quantum physics, and of the universe, with new philosophical and anthropological approaches. This should be a matter of responsible philosophical and theological interdisciplinary debate involving science, suitable to establish new understandings. (shrink)

We consider processes of emergence within the conceptual framework of the Information Loss principle and the concepts of systems conserving information; systems compressing information; and systems amplifying information. We deal with the supposed incompatibility between emergence and computability tout-court. We distinguish between computational emergence, when computation acquires properties, and emergent computation, when computation emerges as a property. The focus is on emergence processes occurring within computational processes. Violations of Turing-computability such as non-explicitness and incompleteness are intended to represent partially the (...) properties of phenomenological emergence, such as logical openness, given by the observer’s cognitive role; structural dynamics where change regards rules rather than only values; and multi-modelling where multiple non-equivalent models are required to model such structural dynamics. In this way, we validate, from an epistemological viewpoint, models and simulations of phenomenological emergence where the sequence of events constitutes the natural, analogical non-Turing computation which a cognitive complex system can reproduce through learning. Reproducibility through learning is different from Turing-like computational iteration. This paper aims to open a new, non-reductionist understanding of the conceptual relationship between emergence and computability. (shrink)

This Handbook offers a broad yet unified treatment of many philosophical issues connected with climate change, ranging from foundational puzzles to detailed applications. It extends to many branches of philosophy that are relevant to the understanding of the premises and implications of the impacts of climate change on human and nonhuman life on Earth. More specifically, the handbook examines the scientific accounts of climate change as well as its causes. It explores the tools offered by social sciences and humanities to (...) study the societal premises and impacts of climate change as well as delving deeper into the ethical and political issues connected with and resulting from climate change. By doing so, it puts it all in an ecological and historical context. In addition, the book offers solutions to some important philosophical puzzles and problems, and indicates paths of interaction between philosophy and other disciplines. The discussion about climate change and the mitigation/adaptation policies spans many areas and levels – from abstract science and philosophy to current on-the-ground politics. However, climate change is also a great a philosophical puzzle. Indeed, its existential and practical relevance can be thought to largely derive from the philosophical complications it engenders. Climate change is applied philosophy par excellence. Preventing dangerous anthropogenic climate change needs very good philosophy applied to concrete and specific practical issues. Climate change is an area where scholars from very different provenances should cooperate on equal terms, having in view a common, and really important, purpose – contribute to preventing great burdens and even the extinction of humankind and the destruction of hospitable and valuable non-human nature. (shrink)

O positivismo jurídico é predominantemente ensinado e aplicado há décadas por profissionais da área jurídica brasileira, geralmente com referência à construção teórica de Hans Kelsen (1881-1973), deixando à margem muitos outros estudos que oferecem importantes formulações e conceitos para a compreensão do Direito contemporâneo. Este artigo se junta a algumas poucas pesquisas sobre outros referenciais teóricos acerca do positivismo jurídico, analisando a regra de reconhecimento no pensamento teórico de Herbert Hart (1907-1992), apresentando-a como incremento e superação da teoria imperativista de (...) John Austin (1790-1859). A partir de pesquisa bibliográfica, mostramos que, em Hart, a regra de reconhecimento (modalidade de regra secundária) apresenta-se indispensável para a certeza necessária ao Direito, bem como para aferir a validade do sistema jurídico. (shrink)

This article examines the legacy of Gramscian thought in Anglophone social sciences. It focuses in particular on three currents or disciplines, namely Cultural Studies, Anthropology, and Gender Studies. All three have sought and sometimes found in Gramscian categories a number of theoretical and political instruments through which to think the structures of domination, individual or collective subjectivity, and their relation to culture, in particular through the use of the dialectical relationship of hegemony/subalternity. Demonstrating how Gramsci was received in the intellectual (...) and political Anglophone context, the article highlights certain genealogies which have sometimes led to what amounts to a number of fully-fledged “translations” of Gramscian concepts, but also to a series of “lighter”, more distant uses. In this perspective, the article focuses on the translation of Gramsci undertaken by the New Left in the Seventies, insofar as this detour has proved of capital importance for the successive interpretations of Gramscian theories in the Anglophone social sciences. (shrink)

Knowledge (jñāna) in the Advaita Vedanta school of Hindu philosophy; a study.

Nietzsche’s four Untimely Meditations are a set of works generally rather neglected of this author. They are, however, the outcome of a project placed in a critical situation, along the development of Nietzsche as philosopher. By beginning, particularly, with an analysis of the first Meditation, David Strauss, the Confessor and the Writer, and of the third one, Schopenhauer as educator, we will try to show two philosophical perspectives which, launched in the Meditations, will carry Nietzsche’s path until its end: the (...) path of an “ontology of the modernity”, according with the expression of Foucault, and that of a philosophy as “way of life”, according with the expression of Hadot. (shrink)

Gianfranco Ravasi ha voluto "ripensare" ciò che era già stato indagato e meditato durante la lunga avventura del pensiero umano, a partire dalle culture primitive e dalle antiche civiltà. E ha analizzato le due sorgenti che alimentano il concetto occidentale di anima: le Sacre Scritture e la cultura greca, con i miti di Psiche e di Orfeo e pensatori come Platone, Aristotele e Plotino. Giunti alla fine di questa riflessione ci si rende conto che la storia dell'anima coincide con (...) la storia dell'uomo, creatura di Dio. E un dubbio affiora: che l'agitarsi febbrile dell'umanità contemporanea non sia un avanzare ma un insensibile retrocedere, o uno strano volteggiare sempre sullo stesso spazio, e che proprio “l'anima, con la sua fame di eterno e di infinito” sia ciò che invece ci costringerà a muoverci “sempre oltre, verso un Oltre illimitato”. (shrink)

In my article, I want to focus on the critique Cristina Lafont makes to expertocracy and epistocracy, mainly through the institution of judicial review, to which she dedicates chapter 7 and part of...

The immanent approach adopted by most contemporary representatives of the Critical Theory tradition has generally the purpose of offering a foundation for social criticism that, without relying exclusively on explicit or factually accepted principles, avoids both the potential arbitrariness of subjective judgment and the appeal to transcendent criteria. However, this project has not yet paid much attention to the socio-epistemic elements related to the intersubjective praxis of criticism. Based on this concern, I intend to explore the possibility of immanent criticism (...) by using the epistemic category of dissonance. I will begin by showing how Davidson’s notion of irrationality can overcome the problematic separation between healthy and pathological behavior found in Festinger’s classical theory of cognitive dissonance and serve as an indicator of epistemic contradictions that can lead to social change. Thereafter, I will explain the link between these approaches and both Brandom’s inferential semantics and Honneth’s normative reconstruction. At the end of the first part, I expect to show an articulated picture of how dissonance can serve as a key for the analysis of inconsistencies present both in the belief systems and in the institutions and practices that constitute forms of life. In the second part, I will reconstruct three possible objections to this comprehensive approach in relation to the role of the individual in processes of social criticism and to the notions of progress and rationality that the approach adopts. I will analyze here what kind of meta-criterion is necessary to overcome the discomfort generated by the experience of dissonance so that it leads to social change. Taking up the Hegelian-Pragmatist idea of accumulation of experiences, I will argue that such a meta-criterion refers to the possibility of gathering and using available and non-endogenous socio-epistemic resources that allow reconfiguring the foundations of the questioned form of life. (shrink)

In this paper we analyse the conditions for attributing to AI autonomous systems the ontological status of “artificial moral agents”, in the context of the “distributed responsibility” between humans and machines in Machine Ethics (ME). In order to address the fundamental issue in ME of the unavoidable “opacity” of their decisions with ethical/legal relevance, we start from the neuroethical evidence in cognitive science. In humans, the “transparency” and then the “ethical accountability” of their actions as responsible moral agents is not (...) in contradiction with the unavoidable “opacity” (unawareness) of the brain process by which they perform their moral judgements on the right action to execute. In fact, the moral accountability of our actions depends on what is immediately before and after our “moral judgements” on the right action to execute (formally, deontic first order logic (FOL) decisions). I.e., our moral accountability depends on the “ethical constraints” we imposed to our judgement before performing it in an opaque way. Anyway, our moral accountability depends overall on the “ethical assessment” or explicit “moral reasoning” after and over the moral judgement before executing our actions (deontic higher order logic (HOL) assessment). In this way, in the light of the AI “imitation game”, the consistent attribution of the status of ethically accountable artificial moral agents to autonomous AI systems depends on two similar conditions. Firstly, it depends on the presence of “ethical constraints” to be satisfied in their Machine Learning (ML) supervised optimization algorithm during its training phase, to give the system ethical skills (“competences”) in its decisions. Secondly – and definitely—, it depends on the presence in an AI autonomous system of a deontic HOL “ethical reasoner” to perform an automatic, and fully transparent assessment (metalogical deontic valuation) about the decisions taken by the ethically skilled ML algorithm about the right action to execute, before executing it. Finally, we show that the proper deontic FOL and HOL for this class of artificial moral agents is Kripke’s modal relational logic, in its algebraic topological formalization. This is naturally implemented in the dissipative QFT unsupervised deep learning of our brains, based on the “doubling of the degrees of freedom” (DDF), and then in the so-called “deep-belief” artificial neural networks for the statistical data pre-processing. This unsupervised learning procedure is also compliant with the usage of the “maximin fairness principle”, used as a balancing aggregation principle of the statistical variables in Sen’s formal theory of fairness. (shrink)

This contribution is an essay of formal philosophy—and more specifically of formal ontology and formal epistemology—applied, respectively, to the philosophy of nature and to the philosophy of sciences, interpreted the former as the ontology and the latter as the epistemology of the modern mathematical, natural, and artificial sciences, the theoretical computer science included. I present the formal philosophy in the framework of the category theory (CT) as an axiomatic metalanguage—in many senses “wider” than set theory (ST)—of mathematics and logic, both (...) of the “extensional” logics of the pure and applied mathematical sciences (=mathematical logic), and the “intensional” modal logics of the philosophical disciplines (=philosophical logic). It is particularly significant in this categorical framework the possibility of extending the operator algebra formalism from (quantum and classical) physics to logic, via the so-called “Boolean algebras with operators” (BAOs), with this extension being the core of our formal ontology. In this context, I discuss the relevance of the algebraic Hopf coproduct and colimit operations, and then of the category of coalgebras in the computations over lattices of quantum numbers in the quantum field theory (QFT), interpreted as the fundamental physics. This coalgebraic formalism is particularly relevant for modeling the notion of the “quantum vacuum foliation” in QFT of dissipative systems, as a foundation of the notion of “complexity” in physics, and “memory” in biological and neural systems, using the powerful “colimit” operators. Finally, I suggest that in the CT logic, the relational semantics of BAOs, applied to the modal coalgebraic relational logic of the “possible worlds” in Kripke’s model theory, is the proper logic of the formal ontology and epistemology of the natural realism, as a formalized philosophy of nature and sciences. (shrink)