“Whistleblowing” has entered the scholarly and the publicdebate as a way of describing the exposure by the memberof an organization of episodes of corruption, fraud, or generalabuses of power within the organization. We offer acritical survey of the main normative theories ofwhistleblowing in the current debate in political philosophy,with the illustrative aid of one of the epitomic figures of awhistleblower of our time: Edward Snowden. After conceptuallyseparating whistleblowing from other forms ofwrongdoing disclosures, we introduce and discuss two familiesof normative views (...) of this practice: the “Extrema Ratio”and the “Deontic” views. We show how the two views canbe usefully considered in tandem to offer an all-roundassessment of the moral justification of whistleblowingeither as an extraordinary individual conscientious act ofindictment or as an ordinary dutiful organizational practiceof answerability that enables the capacity of self-correctionof an organization. (shrink)

Maps and mapping are fundamentally political. Whether they are authoritarian, hegemonic, participatory or critical, they are most often guided by the desire to have control over space, and always involve power relations. _The Politics of the Mapping _takes stock of the knowledge acquired and the debates conducted in the field of critical cartography over some thirty years on a range of subjects: the cartography of modern states, the challenges of the digital age, maps produced by Indigenous peoples or migrant organisations (...) in Europe, and citizen participation. This introduction traces the stages of critical approaches to political cartography and recalls its epistemological foundations. (shrink)

Risk is an intrinsic part of our lives. In the future, the development and growth of the Internet of things allows getting a huge amount of data. Considering this evolution, our research focuses on developing a novel concept, namely Holistic Risk Assessment (HRA), that takes into consideration elements outside the direct influence of the individual to provide a highly personalized risk assessment. The HRA implies developing a methodology and a model. This paper is related to the epistemological positioning of this (...) research. We consider this research as an artificial science under the constructivism paradigm. We also introduce the positioning of this research in the complexity science paradigm. We end this paper by presenting a methodology based on an adapted Design Thinking Model. (shrink)

This study demonstrates that, for British Romantic authors writing in the 1815 – 1820 period, autumn—with its frequently nebulous weather, its variated atmospheric aesthetics, and its cultural clout as the season of both fruitfulness and decay—was an apt aesthetico-temporal trope to represent the tempestuous climate—or spirit—of their age. I argue that Mary Shelley's _Frankenstein _(1818), Jane Austen's _Persuasion _(1818), and John Keats's _To Autumn_ (1820) depict autumn as the season of missed time: an interval during which Victor Frankenstein, Anne Elliot, (...) and Keats's speaker find themselves in states of melancholy suspension in time and space, which is generative, at worse, of paralyzing and alienating perplexity, and, at best, of alleviating and grounding sensoriality in the here-and-now. The autumnal aesthetics and temporality of the three texts, I suggest, represent Shelley's, Austen's, and Keats's literary engagement with, and response to the temporality of acceleration and contingency, as well as the climate of elusiveness and uncertainty of the age 1815 – 1820. (shrink)

_The thesis investigates metaphysical models of spin as a physical property instantiated by microphysical systems as described in non-relativistic quantum mechanics. The thesis is dived into two parts. The first part concerns foundational issues in meta-metaphysics. In particular, the author defends a naturalized approach to metaphysics, according to which metaphysical investigations have to be motivated and supported by our current best scientific theories. Furthermore, it is argued that naturalized metaphysics is in tension with (standard presentations of) scientific realism, and possible (...) ways out from the tension are outlined. In the second part, the author investigates how spin has to be metaphysically modelled. After having introduced how spin is characterised in non-relativistic quantum mechanics and which approach to the metaphysics of quantum mechanics is assumed, it is argued that scientific realists must commit to spin’s existence as a physical property. Then, the author introduces the recent debate on quantum indeterminacy, and he presents new arguments against a widely shared approach to such indeterminacy. In the last part of the thesis, the author introduces an original characterisation of spin as a property through the determinable-determinate machinery. Such metaphysical machinery is instrumental to present a taxonomy of possible metaphysical models. Finally, a new and original view about spin is introduced and it is defended as a genuine contender in the debate which deserves more attention from the literature._. (shrink)

According to contemporary philosophical accounts of hope, a hopeful emotion involves an element of imagination as input, part, or output of hope. A typical description of a hopeful episode often goes with mental imagery or immersion into the hoped-for scenario: as Ariel is hoping to win the dance competition on Saturday night, he projects himself in the scenario where he visualizes his name appearing on the screen display, quasi-hears the crowd cheering, feels proud, and starts thinking about the national dance (...) competition. This raises the question: how does hope exactly interact with the processes required to produce a mental image or even an immersive exploration of the desired reality? This is the question we tackle in our paper. Rather than putting forward a new account of the nature of hope, we explore the interactions between hope and the different kinds of imagination. (shrink)

It is widely accepted that necessity comes in different varieties, often called ‘kinds': metaphysical necessity, logical necessity, natural necessity, conceptual necessity, moral necessity, to name but a few – and the same goes for the varieties of possibility. What is usually not fully appreciated, however, is that modal variety is not simply ‘unidimensional': it does not only involve one main variable – kind, whose values are the particular kinds of necessity. Rather, I argue, it is ‘bidimensional', involving two distinct variables (...) – domain and strength. In the first part of the paper, I introduce and develop the proposed bidimensional picture of modal variety, defending it against the common, unidimensional one. In the second part, I consider how the main available accounts of necessities and their relations rely, at least to a significant extent, on the latter picture, pointing out important limitations that they face as a result. I also show how, accordingly, alternative accounts based on a clear and systematic distinction between domain and strength would overcome those limitations. I conclude that, beyond the particular bidimensionalist view defended, our understanding of the modal realm may benefit from more direct debate on whether and how it is multidimensional. (shrink)

The thesis argues that a basic ontology of dóxa and appearances (and more in general mental episodes) can be gleaned from a careful analysis of Plato's early dialogues. To this aim, the first part (chapter 1) discusses the main issues concerning Plato's language of dóxa and appearances, both from the linguistic and from the philosophical point of view, and argues that dóxa is best understood as judgement. The second part develops a three-stage argument: chapter 2 argues that dóxa and appearances (...) are for Plato affections (páthe); chapter 3 that affections are for Plato fundamentally relational events; chapter 4 that, therefore, appearances are for Plato fundamentally relational events. The third and last part (chapter 5) investigates Plato's ontology of evaluative appearances (and desire) by focussing on the interplay between the ontology of appearances and the ontology of values (“goods and evils”) as one can extract it from the dialogue Gorgias. The three parts are secluded within a general introduction and conclusions. Four appendices complement the thesis with: a philosophical glossary of mental events; a table of frequencies of terms for mental episodes in the Platonic corpus; a list of all the occurrences of 'phaínomai' and 'dokéo' in the early dialogues; and a semi-formal appendix discussing the logical form of Plato's statements about metaphysical explanations. (shrink)

Past research on folk aesthetics has suggested that most people are subjectivists when it comes to aesthetic judgment. However, most people also make a distinction between good and bad aesthetic taste. To understand the extent to which these two observations conflict with one another, we need a better understanding of people's everyday concept of aesthetic taste. In this paper, we present the results of a study in which participants drawn from a representative sample of the US population were asked whether (...) they usually distinguish between good and bad taste, how they define them, and whether aesthetic taste can be improved. Those who answered positively to the first question were asked to provide their definition of good and bad taste, while those who answered positively to the third question were asked to detail by what means taste can be improved. Our results suggest that most people distinguish between good and bad taste, and think taste can be improved. People's definitions of good and bad taste were varied, and were torn between very subjectivist conceptions of taste and others that lent themselves to a more objectivist interpretation. Overall, our results suggest that the tension Hume observed in conceptions of aesthetic taste is still present today. (shrink)

This dissertation may be divided into two parts. The first part is about the Extended Gricean Model of information transmission. This model, introduced here, is meant to better explain how humans communicate and understand each other. It has been developed to apply to cases that were left unexplained by the two main models of communication found in contemporary philosophy and linguistics, i.e. the Gricean (pragmatic) model and the code (semantic) model. In particular, I show that these latter two models cannot (...) apply to cases where one communicate through spontaneous emotional expressions and how the Extended Gricean Model of information transmission does. The second part of the dissertation is about what emotional signs mean, in various senses of the term ‘mean'. I review existing theories of meaning and see how they apply to emotional signs, i.e. signs which give us information about the affective state of the sign producer. (shrink)

Exploring Textual Action questions how we analyse works of art after the performative turn and shows how the interplay of performativity (textual action), space and topography, and the converging of genres and art forms is essential in modern drama, theatre, prose fiction, poetry and film. The volume also fosters a keen concern for the development of congenial theory. Its 14 detailed essays analyse works of art ranging from Balzac, Melville and George Eliot, to Breton, Kafka, Benjamin, Blixen and Woolf; and (...) from W.C. Williams, Bresson and Scorsese, to Sarraute, Duras, Reygadas, Dumont and Waltz. The approach of these studies discloses the art works as creative and dynamic utterances with active and shaping forces so powerful, and consequential, that they have the potential to transform human perception and blur clear distinctions between art and "real" life. Using an alternative and dynamic method and suggesting a direction towards the detailed analysis of literature, art, media and culture, Exploring Textual Action addresses current debates within the humanities. (shrink)

Collectives are familiar items in Wyclif's ontology. They are characterized as aggregates – aggregata – and this is the technical term I first took to be a trustworthy lexical indicator for collectives in Wyclif. But his use of that technical term turned out to be way too wide, for aggregata are all over the place in Wyclif. Here are some examples. Wyclif calls aggregates, in logic: propositions, truths, and inferences; in metaphysics: individual substances, relations, mixed bodies, integral wholes and universals; (...) in ethics: passions, virtues and vices, but also sins, and so on and so forth. So while the term aggregatum does indeed catch all the collectives, it appears also to designate many items that, at least prima facie, are not collectives. In this paper, I will first briefly evaluate the reasons given for considering Wyclif's mereology as being deviant; second, I will consider the objection of infinite regress addressed to the wyclifian theory of the aggregate man; third, I will try to connect Wyclif's mereology with two other central aspects of his thought, namely is broader metaphysics and his Trinitarian theology. (shrink)

In a 1992 interview with Linda Niemann, Silko describes how she overcame a writing block by setting aside her manuscript of Almanac of the Dead in order to read Sigmund Freud. She begins by likening the writing process to psychoanalysis: “It's like do-it-yourself psychoanalysis. It's sort of dangerous to be a novelist. I really learned it with this one – you're working with language and all kinds of things can can escape with the words of a narrative.” Silko then moves (...) abruptly from the issue of the generative power of language to evoke the figure of Freud: “... About two-thirds of the way through, I just finally had to stop and read Freud, and I read all eighteen volumes, one right after the other” (Arnold, ed. 2000, p. 109). In this essay, I explore the role of Freudian theories of language in Almanac of the Dead in connection with Silko's heteroglossic narrative style and, in particular, the role of the narrative voice as a means of translating an indigenous epistemology into the conventions of English-language literature. Central to my concerns is Freud's late work, especially Moses and Monotheism (1939), in which he develops the theory first proposed in Totem and Taboo (1913) that personal and social dysfunction originate in guilt inherited from a foundational historical act of violence. Freud argues that the transformation of this inherited historical guilt informs cultural ritual and figurative language, most intensely in the development of religious practices but also in patterns of social violence and compulsive neurotic behaviors. This essay asks how the cluster of issues explored by Freud has been used by Silko in Almanac of the Dead. (shrink)

One strand of comparative didactics aims at discussing the relationships between the theoretical constructions developed within subject didactics and how these can contribute to research about teaching and learning. This article explores the relationships between categories for analysing joint actions of teacher and students (didactic contract, milieu, mesogenesis, topogenesis, chronogenesis) and categories used in the pragmatist approach of classroom discourse analysis (practical epistemology and epistemological moves). We combine both frameworks to feature different types of breaches in the didactic contract and (...) the building of continuity in teaching and learning actions for dealing with these breaches. Analyses are carried out through examples of classroom events in science education and physical education. We argue that these frameworks, when elaborated on and compared, enable us to characterise both generic and specific dimensions of teaching and learning in different subjects. (shrink)

We sometimes experience pleasures and displeasures simultaneously: whenever we eat sfogliatelle while having a headache, whenever we feel pain fading away, whenever we feel guilty pleasure while enjoying listening to Barbara Streisand, whenever we are savouring a particularly hot curry, whenever we enjoy physical endurance in sport, whenever we are touched upon receiving a hideous gift, whenever we are proud of withstanding acute pain, etc. These are examples of what we call " mixed feelings ". Mixed feelings are cases in (...) which one and the same person experiences pleasure and displeasure at the same time. Mixed feelings raise two questions: (1) If pleasure and displeasure are contraries, how can mixed feelings be possible? (2) Does the excess of pleasure (or displeasure) that we feel when experiencing mixed feelings itself constitute a new feeling, that results from the co-occurrence of the first two? I will argue (1) that mixed feelings are possible and that their existence does not threaten the contrariety of pleasure and displeasure, and (2) that there are no resultant feelings: having a lot of pleasure and a little displeasure does not result in having additional mild pleasure. Finally, I will suggest (3) that although both false, scepticism towards the existence of mixed feelings, as well as the idea according to which resultant feelings exist, are inspired from a single and correct idea: that pleasure and displeasure do fuse in some cases. (shrink)

This lecture is structured like a Hegelian triade. The initial thesis states the fundamental equality of all human beings, which is the core of the human rights philosophy. The antithesis acknowledges the fact of the nation-state which is a serious obstacle to the full implementation of human rights because of its intrinsic exclusive nature. The synthesis sketches a reconciliation of the two first thesis by introducing the concept of regional integration, typically the European Union, as a framework of an inchoate (...) cosmopolitan order which would respect both human rights and national sovereignties. (shrink)

Bas Van Fraassen is a nifty philosopher of science. He received his PhD in Pittsburgh in 1966, under the guidance of Adolf Grünbaum, he taught at Yale University, the university of Toronto, the University of Southern California, he has been McCosh Professor of Philosophy in Princeton, and eventually joined the department of philosophy at San Francisco State University, where he has the title of Distinguished Professor of Philosophy. He first gained attention with his book An Introduction to the Philosophy of (...) Time and Space where he tried to develop a formal theory of space and time based on the notion of causality. The book had an enormous legacy, with experts of the likes of John Earman and David Malament joining the debate. However, he achieved V.I.P. status with his classic The Scientific Image, where he defends a combination of empiricism and antirealism towards unobservable entities based on a re-definition of what the scientific enterprise is. His last achievement is the tome Scientific Representation: Paradoxes of Perspectives, where he combines his scientific empiricism with the view that theories are best thought as models or structures, rather than sets of sentences. In this interview, we talk about his philosophical influences and the birth of The Scientific Image during a journey through North-Africa, Turkey and Eastern Europe, we talk about saving the phenomena and suspending judgement over the existence of unobservable entities, living in world full of mysteries and leaving unanswerable questions unanswered, rationality and irrationality, living in a simulation, the historical interplay between theorizing and experimenting, the meaning of particle detectors for an empiricist, the unity of science and physicalism, the condemnation of Galilei by the Church, and the distinction between Appearance and Reality…. (shrink)

While historians of the microscope currently consider that no programme of microscopy took place during the Enlightenment, the thesis challenges this view and aims at showing when and where microscopes were used as research tools. The focus of the inquiry is the research on microscopic animalcules and the relationship of European microscope making and practices of microscopy with topical trends of the industrial revolution, such as quantification. Three waves of research are characterised for the research on animalcules in the Enlightenment: (...) 1. seventeenth-century observations on animalcules crowned by Louis Joblot's 1718 works in the milieu of Paris Académie royale des sciences, 2. mid eighteenth-century observations and experiments on polyps and animalcules (Trembley, Baker and Hill) and, 3. between 1760 and 1790, OF Müller's establishment of the systematics of infusoria in Denmark and Germany. (shrink)

The general aim is to present and clarify the notion of grounding, and promote its application to different debates in the philosophy of science. Along the way, I digress about a few specific questions regarding the metaphysics of grounding. As a result, my title ‘Grounding in the Philosophy of Science' is deceiving in at least two ways. First, it suggests a level of argumentative unity that is typical of monographs, when the present dissertation lumps together a series of almost independent (...) arguments. Secondly, it implies a restriction of field to the philosophy of science, when much of the content extends far beyond these confines. (shrink)

What is an emotion? No one will seriously doubt that it is a psychological entity of some sort. Rich and lively philosophical debates have failed to generate any stable picture regarding the nature of emotions that extends much beyond this platitude, however. At most, a bare majority of philosophers would agree that emotions exemplify the following features. First, emotions are characterized by a certain phenomenology: they are felt. Second, they are intentional phenomena and, as such, are in one way or (...) another directed to various sorts of entities in the world (one is amused by the joke, sad at the death of a dear friend or proud that one is a self-made man). Third, they are closely connected with evaluations of these entities Ð amusement connects with a positive evaluation of the joke, sadness with a negative evaluation of the death. Fourth, emotions are relatively short-lived: unlike other phenomena that are closely related to them, such as character traits and sentiments that may endure for substantial stretches of one's life, emotions endure at most for some hours. Beyond that, disagreement reigns and the debates, which have become increasingly important in the past two decades or so, have almost exclusively revolved around the identification of the necessary and sufficient conditions of the emotions. (shrink)

Biological modalities (e.g., biological possibility, necessity and counterfactuality) play an important explanatory role in biological practice. However, biological modalities lack truth conditions and the inferential relationship between biological and other modalities is unclear. This thesis addresses these problems, first, by improving upon Daniel Dennett's Library of Mendel. Second, a family of modal logics is introduced. In the simplest model, states are interpreted as codons, the binary relation is interpreted as single substitution mutation and the valuation induces a partition of blocks (...) of codons that code for some amino acid. In addition, the proposed framework allows for a grading of biological possibility and captures various competing notions of biological possibility. Applications include a model checker and a lawless Lewis-style semantics for biological counterfactuals. In short, this thesis lays the groundwork for a theory of biological modalities. (shrink)

There are close links between emotions and values, or at least this is what our ordinary ways of talking suggest. For many, if not all, types of emotion it is thus possible to find a corresponding evaluative term, one often derived from the name of the emotion in question. These are for example evaluative terms such as ‘shameful', ‘offensive, ‘annoying', ‘dangerous', ‘contemptible', ‘admirable', ‘amusing', ‘exciting', ‘boring', and the like. Starting perhaps from these linguistic observations, the philosophical task is of course (...) to elucidate the nature of the links between emotions and values, and attempts at doing so have traditionally revolved around the following three questions: first, what is the role of emotions in elucidating the nature of value? For example, should dangerousness be understood in term of the fear response? Second, what is the role of emotions in our getting access to values? For example, what may be the role of fear in becoming aware that a given animal is dangerous? Third, what value do emotions have? For example, is fear of special value because it helps behaving appropriately towards its object? We hall take up these questions in turn and survey the most important answers they have received in the literature. As we shall discover, answering the first question amounts to surveying a variety of theories according to which there is an ontological relation between values and emotions since the former should be elucidated in terms of the latter (Sec. 1). Addressing the second question consists in reviewing theories according to which there is an intentional relation between emotions and values because the former are apprehensions of value or evaluations (Sec. 2). Grappling with the third question, we shall explore some reasons for thinking that emotions can exemplify values (Sec. 3). (shrink)

This thesis aims at bringing support to the general thesis of essentialism about modality: all necessity is fully grounded in essence, and possibility is defined accordingly. First, it motivates essentialism about metaphysical necessity (including logical, conceptual and mathematical necessities as special cases of it). Second, and most importantly, it defends an essentialist account of natural modality. On this account, in particular, natural necessity (e.g. causal laws of nature) is homogeneous, absolute, unconditional, and fully grounded in the essences of natural entities (...) (kinds, properties, objects). Third, relying on those bases, it suggests a perfectly homogeneous essentialist account of 'absolute' modality, and then considers how essentialism may be extended to all of modality, including non-abolute kinds of modality. (shrink)

Why think that emotions are kinds of evaluations? This chapter puts forward an original account of emotions as evaluations apt to circumvent some of the chief difficulties with which alternative approaches find themselves confronted. We shall proceed by first introducing the idea that emotions are evaluations (sec. I). Next, two well-known approaches attempting to account for this idea in terms of attitudes that are in and of themselves unemotional but are alleged to become emotional when directed towards evaluative contents are (...) explored. According to the first approach, emotions are nothing but evaluative judgments. Sec. II reminds the reader of the problems associated with this idea: one of its consequences is to deprive creatures with limited cognitive capacities of any sort of partaking of emotional life. According to the second approach, which is often praised for its capacity to avoid the pitfalls facing an appeal to evaluative judgments, emotions are perception-like experiences of evaluative properties and are as such within the reach of creatures bereft of conceptual capacities. This perceptual theory is taken up in sect. III, in which we explain why it remains unsatisfactory insofar as it shares with the evaluative judgement theory the idea that what makes emotions evaluations is the specific contents that they have. On this basis, we proceed by outlining in sect. IV an alternative—the attitudinal theory of emotions. Its main point of departure from current theorizing about the emotions consists in elucidating the fact that emotions are evaluations not in terms of what they represent, but rather in terms of the sort of attitude subjects take towards what they represent. We explore here what sorts of attitudes emotions are and defend the idea that they are felt bodily attitudes. (shrink)

In mathematics, students learn about vectors and translation, in physics they model forces, speed, acceleration, etc. with vectors and study movements of translation. Do they make the connection between these concepts introduced in different disciplines or do they put things in separate boxes? In this paper we will start with some partial considerations on the history of vectors and we will give some references. Then we will show some examples of naïve illustrations of vectors from physics in mathematics textbooks. We (...) will then present a non-conventional example and the difficulties it created for both mathematics and physics teachers. Finally we will develop an example of a possible collaboration between teachers of both disciplines in relation to movement of translation. (shrink)

Several contributions in this book tell of doctors' increasing emigration from developing countries where they are in critical shortage, especially from the underserved rural and public sectors of countries in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and South Asia. They point out the severe harm from that migration to some of the world's poorest and sickest populations who have no other doctors to turn to, and gain little from their emigration. Since significant harm to the badly off is bad, decline in that migration (...) is usually a good development. But how to strive to achieve it? (shrink)

Bioethics has changed considerably over the years, the increasing diversity of topics of bioethical interest having led to specialisation if not fragmentation. In this context the term “neuroethics" emerged, and it soon became clear that it could be understood in two ways. The “ethics of neuroscience” assesses the ethical and philosophical implications of research in neuroscience and of the application of these discoveries, especially as regards enhancement of “normal” human faculties or new challenges to privacy. The “neuroscience of ethics” basically (...) turns the tables on ethics: it is ethical reasoning itself that becomes the object of neuroscience research. This provides a “behind the scenes” glance into moral reasoning, challenging aspects of moral philoso-phy and of the conventional philosophical interpretation of human action and free will. On the more practical side, neuroethics increases the level of awareness of the relatively neglected area of diseases of the brain-mind. (shrink)

The book introduces Ramsey's main doctrines and assesses their contemporary significance. In particular, Jérôme Dokic and Pascal Engel are interested in Ramsey's thoughts on truth and belief, and his pragmatic thesis that the truth of one's beliefs guarantees the success of one's actions. From this, it is a short step to what may be called "Ramsey's principle": the content of a belief is constituted by the success of one's actions. This principle finds its current expression in the work of philosophers (...) who offer evolutionary conceptions of mental states, according to which the success conditions of a belief are constituted by its biological functions. (publisher, edited). (shrink)

Against the view that the normativity of mental content is social content, I argue that it is not, examining the views of Wittgenstein, Davidson, Brandom and Pettit.

The knowledge of one's surroundings is not fixed in time, but rather consists in a constantly evolving set of propositions (scientific, social, cultural, legal, etc.) and experiences (including emotions, perceptions, actions, and imaginations) that are updated through trial and error. An individual's ecological knowledge is idiosyncratic; it arises from a unique four-dimensional interaction between the organism and its sociocultural and physical environment. On a societal level, transforming this incommensurable epistemic body is incredibly arduous. However, the literary medium has the potential (...) to convey a form of knowledge that moves beyond individualism: literary narratives have the ability to aestheticize nonlinear, dynamic and complex systems and to immerse readers in a fictional world. In the Australian Aboriginal episteme, knowledge (experiential or linguistic) and art (plastic, graphic, or performance) are ecological: in one way or another, they always refer to the matrix of interdependence and intersubjectivity of Country. In this essay, I argue that Alexis Wright's The Swan Book dramatizes an indigenous ecopoetic way of knowing that reveals to the reader the enmeshment of organism and environment and that invites the reader to reconsider the notion of Text as an ecological process. Through self-reflexivity, relational landscapes, and a metaleptic "epistemontology" (i.e., a neologism that underscores the indivisibility of knowing and being), The Swan Book enables readers to adjust their knowledge system and adopt what Gregory Bateson, Tim Ingold and Ted Toadvine have respectively called a "systemic view", a "dwelling perspective" and an "ecophenomenological understanding". (shrink)

This work focuses on three topics: the social value of motor cognition (i.e. experimental studies in human and non-human primates showing that the parieto-frontal mirror circuit plays a crucial role in action understanding before and below mindreading abilities); motor encoding of action anomalies in individuals with autism spectrum disorder that may explain – to a degree – their limited social abilities; failure of social agreement resulting in criminal actions that may be clarified thanks to neuroscience data in forensic psychiatric evaluation. (...) Describing the role of experimental data – notably the functional role of cortical motor system – in clarifying social experience, this work reverses also the way in which we consider ourselves as agents in social interactions. This work focuses on behaviours, brain and concepts. This work draws a synergetic view integrating conceptual, experimental, clinical and forensic perspectives. This work, for saving phenomena, forces the categories. (shrink)

What can philosophy tell us about ethics and public policy? What can the ethics of public policy tell us about philosophy? Those are the questions that Jonathan Wolff addresses in his wonderful little book. At one level, of course, the answer is straightforward – ethics is a branch of philosophy, so philosophy can tell us about the ethics of public policy, understood as a matter of deciding ‘what we should do' in a manner that is institutionalised and collectively binding. But (...) at another level, as Wolff shows, there is something deeply puzzling about the idea that philosophy can tell us anything very useful about public policy and about the ethical dilemmas that it raises. Those dilemmas arise as a result of political constraints, struggles and resources which generally have little to do with philosophy and, for the most part, rather little to do with ethics. So what, exactly, should philosophers expect from an engagement with public policy? (shrink)

In Being in Time I articulate and defend a theory of diachronic identity based on a new account of the relation between objects and time. Traditionally, the relation between objects and time has been considered to be a direct one, analogous to the one they have with space, and accordingly called location. In my dissertation, I argue that this locative approach is metaphysically problematic insofar as it commits us to questionable consequences about the nature of objects or about the metaphysics (...) of location. In particular, the locative approach, depending on how it is specified, requires that objects do not persist, have multiple exact locations, divide into temporal parts, or are extended simples. In place of this locative approach, and drawing from an analysis of our temporal semantics, I put forward an account of the relation between objects and time – transcendentism, to give it a name – according to which this relation is indirect, and has to be analysed in terms of the events in which objects participate. Accordingly, for a object to exist at a time is for it to participate in an event which is located at that time. As such, transcendentism is not yet a theory of persistence – insofar as objects may be in time without persisting, i.e. by existing at an instant alone –. Transcendentism is an open option for every kind of persistence theorist – be one an endurantist, a perdurantist, or an exdurantist –. However, the combination of transcendentism and endurantism may reveal itself to be a semantically grounded and metaphysically fruitful choice. Semantically grounded, insofar as the analysis of our temporal semantics speaks against the locative approach and in favour of endurantism. Metaphysically fruitful, insofar as it allows us to frame a theory of persistence that avoids all questionable consequences mentioned before – a theory according to which objects persist without having temporal parts and without being extended simples or multilocated entities. The dissertation consists of four self-standing chapters in which (i) I systematize and highlight the problematicity of the locative approach, (ii) I put forward and articulate the transcendentist alternative, (iii) I develop a suitable metaphysics of events, and (iv) I reply to five objections that have been moved against the view both in official communications and in print. (shrink)

Essentialists claim that we can distinguish between an object's essential and its accidental properties. Following important developments in modal logic during the 1960s and 70s, the orthodox view was that the essential properties of an object are its necessary properties. In his influential 1994 paper "Essence and Modality", Kit Fine argues that the orthodox view is wrong. His two main claims are that first, essentiality cannot be defined in terms of necessity and second, that necessity should instead be defined in (...) terms of essentiality. In my dissertation, I aim to undermine both of his claims in order to defend a variation of the orthodox view. To do this, I first develop Fine's proposal for an essentialist definition of necessity into a more general essentialist theory of modality. I then raise a series of problems for the resulting theory. Finally, I introduce and defend a novel definition of essentiality in terms of metaphysical necessity and a notion of metaphysical dependence. (shrink)

This thesis examines the relevance of the epistemological concept of “paradigm” to the analysis of late medieval literary texts. The related notions of “example” and “exemplarity” are used to allow for a discussion of the rhetorical genre of the exemplum and of the gestural and linguistic cluster designating “manner”. The first chapter considers the paradigmatic relation from the perspective of Malory's authorial gestures of exemplification of his preceding Arthurian tradition in the "Morte Darthur". The second chapter examines the interaction of (...) the theological paradigm of the glorious body with literary texts such as Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales" and the anonymous popular romance "Le Bone Florence of Rome". The third chapter focuses on Gower's use of “manner” in his "Confessio Amantis" from a perspective intersecting the narrative use of exempla, the literary convention of fin amor and the phenomenology of fiction and the creative imagination. The analytical frame of the work draws on conceptual approaches in philosophy (Agamben, Wittgenstein, Deleuze), literary theory (Macé, Bolens) and literary criticism. (shrink)

One of the main difficulties with contemporary materialism is the risk of epiphenomenalism: if mental properties systematically depend on physical properties, how can they have causal efficiency? Davidson's anomalous monism' only solves this problem through a "feeble" understanding of the individuation of events and with relative imprecision as to the pertinence of causal explanations formulated in psychological terms. Nor do other conceptions of the individuation of events and the causal power of mental states, as that of Kim and of Jackson (...) and Pettit, solve the problem. It will not then be solved by modifying the theory of the individuation of events. (shrink)

In this paper I want to show that, although it is a common thread of many pragmatist or pragmatist-inspired doctrines, the belief-as-disposition-to-act theme is played on very different tunes by the various philosophical performers. A whole book could be devoted to the topic. I shall limit myself here to the views of Peirce, James, Ramsey, contemporary functionalists, and Isaac Levi. Depending on how they interpret this theme, the pragmatist philosophers can emphasise more or less the role of theory and practice (...) in their respective account of thought, truth and inquiry. When they stress the former pragmatists are what I shall call theoria-pragmatists, when they put the stress on the latter, I'll call them the praxis pragmatists. I suggest that the first variety is much more appealing than the other, and I side with the theoreticist pragmatists. (edited). (shrink)

In his book The Geography of Thought, the psychologist Richard Nisbett defends the view that a significant number of results on cognitive differences between Asians and Europeans show that the structure of thinking among Eastern populations and among Occidental populations strongly diverge. Nisbett claims that these differences affect perception, conceptualisation and reasoning in general. I examine these results in the light of the relativism debate, and in particular in the light of recent arguments against relativism proposed by Paul Boghossian. Nisbett (...) does not claim to be a relativist, but he comes close to being one. I argue that the differences he points out are much less significant that he claims, and that they need not affect structures of thought. So I am sceptical that there is a "geography of thought". (shrink)

«Neither with you nor without you»Francois Truffaut, La femme d’à coté No one can deny that there is a problem between Wittgenstein and analytic philosophers. To put it mildly, there are tensions between Wittgenstein’s and Wittgensteinian styled reflections and the views and practice of a lot of contemporary analytic philosophers, such that they often seem to be strange bedfellows, when they are bedfellows at all. Of course we know that Wittgenstein did not get along very well with Russell, t...

What is that sovereignty apparently at stake when talking about Swiss-EU relations? The research reaches into philosophical debates on the complexity of sovereignty. While aiming at its very essence, the research encounters the deconstructionist hypothesis stating that there is nothing to worry about save the belief there is something to worry about. Claims of sovereignty rest upon the metaphysics of presence whose theological connotation remains, however, unsaid. Challenging (neo)realism, the thesis reveals the purely formalist character of those positions, which are (...) well-disposed to easily (re)claim sovereignty while forgetting to define and to prove it. Accepting the challenge of applying (neo)positivist scientific standards, the research shows that there is a belief in the presence of sovereignty rather than real evidence of its presence. This metaphysical belief should not be carpeted with political realism, and sovereignty both as a political claim and as an ambition should be more openly recognized as theological. (shrink)

Tis paper explores the emergence of the notion of sexuality in late-nineteenth-century medicine by analysing various writings of Paolo Mantegazza such as Fisiologia dell'amore (1873), Elementi di igiene (1875), and Gli amori degli uomini (1885). With this aim in mind, this study discusses first Mantegazza's broader project on the physiology of emotions in order to explain in the second part the role of his contribution to the idea of love as the foundation of sexual medicine. Tus, love is an affection (...) that loses its religious connotation in order to be studied like the other forces of nature according to Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection. Furthermore, Mantegazza's concept of love was not exclusively focused on the anatomical structure of internal and external genital organs, what we understood as sex, but it also included the psychological dimension of the individual,and thus it was understood as a matter of choice and taste, i.e. as sexuality. In this way, Mantegazza's scientific research reveals the shiſt from the old category of love to the emergent concept of sexuality, which transformed the sexual behaviour into an object under the administration and management of medical discourse. Finally, this article shows how love in the time of Darwinism opened the way to the modern category of sexuality as a singular experience considered to be the most important expression of our personality in contemporary society. (shrink)

Deep brain stimulation (DBS) to different sites allows interfering with dysfunctional network function implicated in major depression. Because a prominent clinical feature of depression is anhedonia--the inability to experience pleasure from previously pleasurable activities--and because there is clear evidence of dysfunctions of the reward system in depression, DBS to the nucleus accumbens might offer a new possibility to target depressive symptomatology in otherwise treatment-resistant depression. Three patients suffering from extremely resistant forms of depression, who did not respond to pharmacotherapy, psychotherapy, (...) and electroconvulsive therapy, were implanted with bilateral DBS electrodes in the nucleus accumbens. Stimulation parameters were modified in a double-blind manner, and clinical ratings were assessed at each modification. Additionally, brain metabolism was assessed 1 week before and 1 week after stimulation onset. Clinical ratings improved in all three patients when the stimulator was on, and worsened in all three patients when the stimulator was turned off. Effects were observable immediately, and no side effects occurred in any of the patients. Using FDG-PET, significant changes in brain metabolism as a function of the stimulation in fronto-striatal networks were observed. No unwanted effects of DBS other than those directly related to the surgical procedure (eg pain at sites of implantation) were observed. Dysfunctions of the reward system--in which the nucleus accumbens is a key structure--are implicated in the neurobiology of major depression and might be responsible for impaired reward processing, as evidenced by the symptom of anhedonia. These preliminary findings suggest that DBS to the nucleus accumbens might be a hypothesis-guided approach for refractory major depression. (shrink)

The overall objective of this dissertation is to provide an analysis of the standard of correctness of belief. According to this standard, a belief is correct if and only if the believed proposition is true. My analysis consists in the investigation of a set of aspects and properties of the correctness standard of belief. The main point argued in this dissertation is that the correctness standard of belief is a standard of conformity to the satisfaction conditions of a representational function (...) constitutive of belief. Another relevant conclusionreached in my dissertation concerns the appropriate formulation of the standard in an ought-claim. I argued that the proper way of formulating the standard in an ought-claim is: "for any S, p: it ought to be the case that p, given that S believes that p". (shrink)

Linear algebra represents, with calculus, the two main mathematical subjects taught in science universities. However this teaching has always been difficult. In the last two decades, it became an active area for research works in mathematics education in several countries. Our goal is to give a synthetic overview of the main results of these works focusing on the most recent developments. The main issues we will address concern: • the epistemological specificity of linear algebra and the interaction with research in (...) history of mathematics. • the cognitive flexibility at stake in learning linear algebra • three principles for the teaching of linear algebra as postulated by G. Harel • the relation between geometry and linear algebra • an original teaching design experimented by M. Rogalski. (shrink)

In the first part ("Determination"), I consider different notions of determination, contrast and compare modal with non-modal accounts and then defend two a-modality theses concerning essence and supervenience. I argue, first, that essence is a a-modal notion, i.e. not usefully analysed in terms of metaphysical modality, and then, contra Kit Fine, that essential properties can be exemplified contingently. I argue, second, that supervenience is also an a-modal notion, and that it should be analysed in terms of constitution relations between properties. (...) In the second part ("A Theory of Truthmaking"), I first review the literature on ontological commitment, and argue that the notion of truthmaking is better suited to play its explanatory rôle. I then argue that we should take truthmaker theory seriously, and that we should provide actual truthmakers for all truths there are. In the last chapter of this part, I review Armstrong's truthmaker theories and argue that they are unsatisfactory. I generalise my criticism to an argument against truthmaker necessitarianism, the view that truthmakers necessarily make true the truths they are truthmakers of. In the third part ("Properties and their Kind(s)"), I discuss qualitative determination. I present and endorse the truthmaker argument for universals, and defend universalism against friends of tropes, states of affairs and facts. I then give a novel characterisation of the important class of intrinsic properties, building on Lewis' work. With a workable notion of intrinsicness at hand, I argue that relations are ontologically – but not "ideologically" – dispensable: qualitative determination in general is a matter of intrinsic structure. In the future, I plan to add two parts and to publish my thesis as a book: In the fourth part ("Exemplification"), I argue for the existence of an exemplification relation tying universals and particulars together. I derive theoretical benefits from this relation by providing adverbialist theories of modality and tense and identify exemplification with a type of parthood. In the fifth part ("Qua qua qua"), I investigate the curious and interesting ontological category of so-called "qua-objects" (Picasso-as-a-painter, for example) and argue that they exist, are not identical with transworld indidivuals or modal parts and that they provide (contingent) truthmakers for all true predications. (shrink)

This paper aims at characterizing the teaching actions that are used in a primary school mathematics lesson, and their consequences for the learning progression. To proceed, we explore the analytical outcomes of combining two analytical frameworks, namely the Practical Epistemology Analysis of classroom discourse and the triple [Meso; Topo; Chrono]-Geneses featuring didactical transactions in the Theory of Joint Action in Didactics. The analytic approach is exhibited through an empirical sample of a mathematical lesson about the learning of surface area with (...) 4th grade students. Analyses are guided by two questions: 1) testing the PEA for identifying the content learnt in transactions in the case of mathematics; 2) examining how PEA may augment the MTC - Geneses description to characterize the learning progression over time within the teacher‘s and students‘ joint actions. This later question is crucial to understand the generalization of the students' experience against the teaching process unfolded by the teacher. (shrink)

This paper analyzes the origins and specificity of the recent research trend on the development in children of a Theory of mind which has undergone an impressive expansion over past the fifteen years. A comparison with Piaget's approach is proposed regarding the experimental data available on the coordination of perspectives as well as the epistemological foundations. The issues of the naturalization of the mind and its irreducibility are addressed within the framework of recent reductionist theories advanced by the philosophers of (...) mind. Piaget's contribution is considered as one of the most thorough of this century. (shrink)

A commonplace in contemporary philosophy is that mental content has normative properties. A number of writers associate this view to the idea that the normativity of content is essentially connected to its social character. I agree with the first thesis, but disagree with the second. The paper examines three kinds of views according to which the norms of thought and content are social: Wittgenstein’s rule following considerations, Davidson’s triangulation argument, and Brandom’s inferential pragmatics, and criticises each. It is argued that (...) there are objective conceptual norms constitutive of mental content, but that these are not essentially social. (shrink)