Mauro Bonazzi is well known among scholars of ancient philosophy for his many valuable contributions in the area of late ancient philosophy. His papers on Antiochus, Eudorus, Plutarch, and the Anonymous commentator of the Theaetetus are interesting, learned and thought provoking. In his new book he sets out to offer a synthetic overview of the history of Platonism from Antiochus to Plotinus. This is an extremely rich period of the history of Platonism. To begin with, we encounter as diverse (...) p... (shrink)

Le terme platonisme est ambigu : il peut désigner soit le contenu de la philosophie de Platon, soit l’histoire de sa réception et de ses interprétations. C’est en suivant les méandres de cette seconde acception que Mauro Bonazzi (MB) propose une étude du platonisme dans un parcours allant de Speusippe jusqu’aux derniers diadoques de l’école d’Alexandrie. L’ouvrage, qui entre rapidement dans son objet, comporte quatre chapitres bien équilibrés : 1. « L’Académie antique » (p. 3-37) ; 2. « Plato...

Ce volume est consacré aux biographies de philosophes rédigées pendant l’Antiquité, depuis l’époque des élèves de Platon et d’Aristote jusqu’aux dernières écoles de philosophie de l’Antiquité. Le volume commence par deux études consacrées aux travaux biographiques réalisés dans les écoles de Platon et d’Aristote, travaux dont nous n’avons plus que des extraits et des comptes rendus auxquels manque le contexte original nous permettant de mieux en évaluer la portée. Nous sommes ainsi réduits à...

Les neuf contributions composant le volume se succèdent selon l’ordre chronologique des philosophes examinés et essaient de mettre en lumière les stratégies et les modes selon lesquels un exégète juif de la Bible (Philon) et des philosophes platoniciens (Plutarque, Jamblique, Proclus) ou néo‑pythagoriciens (Nicomaque) s’approprient, en les réinterprétant, des thèmes, des doctrines et des textes pythagoriciens anciens et tardifs, provenant notamment de l’ancienne Académie et de la littérature...

It is doubtful whether the famous adagium that Western philosophy is a series of footnotes to Plato counts among Alfred North Whitehead’s most profound ideas. This sentence, however, captures a flourishing trend in recent scholarship. During the last two decades, studies on ancient Platonism and its posterity have been impressive for both their number and their quality. I would recall Matthias Baltes’s collection of sources Der Platonismus in der Antike, which aims to reconstruct the basic tenets of ancient Platonism by (...) providing a translated edition with commentary on its fundamental texts (the... (shrink)

This paper argues that Deonna and Teroni's attitudinal theory of emotions faces two serious problems. The first is that their master argument fails to establish the central tenet of the theory, namely, that the formal objects of emotions do not feature in the content of emotions. The second is that the attitudinal theory itself is vulnerable to a dilemma. By pointing out these problems, our paper provides indirect support to the main competitor of the attitudinal theory, namely, the perceptual theory (...) of emotions. (shrink)

Thomas Kuhn is mostly known for his contributions to the philosophy of science. However, it was chiefly to investigations in philosophy of language that he dedicated the last part of his career. The aim of this paper is to present a systematic view of Kuhn’s main ideas on this subject. I start by describing his theory of concept, in particular what he says about kind terms. Such terms, acquired in blocks that form contrast sets or “taxonomies,” are learned through ostensible (...) definitions. Next, I analyze Kuhn’s concepts of “meaning” and “truth.” Finally, I discuss a second type of kinds terms, not fully investigated by him, which is learned together with scientific laws. Resumo Thomas Kuhn é conhecido principalmente por suas contribuições para a filosofia da ciência. No entanto, foi em grande medida à filosofia da linguagem que ele dedicou a última parte de sua carreira. O objetivo deste artigo é apresentar uma visão sistemática das principais ideias de Kuhn sobre esse assunto. Começo descrevendo sua teoria do conceito, em particular o que ele diz sobre termos para espécie. Tais termos, aprendidos em blocos que formam conjuntos de contraste ou “taxonomias”, são aprendidos através de definições ostensivas. Em seguida, analiso as concepções de Kuhn de “significado” e “verdade”. Finalmente, discuto um segundo tipo de termo para espécies, não totalmente investigado por ele, que é aprendido junto com as leis científicas. (shrink)

Though the target article is not without fertile suggestions, at least two problems limit its overall validity: (1) the extended gene-culture coevolutionary framework is not an alternative to standard evolutionary theory; (2) the proposed model does not explain how much time is necessary for selective pressure to determine the stabilization of a new aspect of the genotype.

The goal of this paper is to offer a new theory of moods, according to which moods are perceptual experiences that represent undetermined objects as possessing specific evaluative properties. I start by listing a series of features that moods are typically taken to possess and claim that a satisfactory theory of moods must be able either to explain why moods genuinely possess these features or to explain these appearances away in a non-ad hoc way. I show that my account provides (...) a plausible explanation of all the main features of moods. I conclude by addressing some objections against my account. (shrink)

Mechanisms are a way of explaining how biological phenomena work rather than why single elements of biological systems are there. However, mechanisms are usually described as physiological entities, and little or no attention is paid to malfunction as an independent theoretical concept. On the other hand, malfunction is the main focus of interest of applied sciences such as medicine. In this paper I argue that malfunctions are parts of pathological mechanisms, which should be considered separate theoretical entities, conceptually having a (...) priority over physiological sequences. While pathological mechanisms can be described in terms of a Cummins-like mechanistic explanation, they show some unnoticed peculiarities when compared to physiological ones. Some features of pathological mechanisms are considered, such as outcome variability, ambivalence and dependence on a range. (shrink)

In this article, I focus on the reading of Heidegger's Kant that Derrida offers in his recently published 1978-9 seminar Donner le temps II (§§12–3). Here Derrida tracks across Heidegger's text the auto-affective or auto-dative structure (namely, the originary synthesis of spontaneity and receptivity) in which the Kantian conceptions of the experience of time and of transcendental imagination converge, and which is seen as scandalously underpinning the conception of respect. In particular, I draw attention to the moment in which Derrida (...) originally accounts for the structure of the Kantian respect as the movement of abandonment or delivery over to the event which he also ascribes to other figures of freedom (or unconditionality without sovereignty) explored in his later writings. My hypothesis is that, in doing so, Derrida may be building a bridge between two thoughts of imagination: on the one hand, imagination as a figure of his early differance, and, on the other hand, imagination as the non-sovereign freedom that undergirds his late work on sovereignty. (shrink)

I aim to present a solution to the apparent paradox of the Tractatus by means of a minimalist reading grounded in the idea that the correct logical symbolism alone “finally solves” in essentials the philosophical problems. I argue that although the sentences of the Tractatus are nonsensical, rules presented in its symbolism are not. The symbolism itself expresses only a priori rules of logic through schematic variables that do not say anything. I argue that this reading correctly expresses the ladder (...) structure of the book, and that it can account for Wittgenstein's critique of the Tractatus in Some Remarks on Logical Form. (shrink)

In the preface of the Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein says that his “most fruitful ideas” are due to the stimulus of Sraffa's criticism, but Sraffa is not mentioned anywhere else in the book. It remains a puzzle in the literature how and why Sraffa influenced Wittgenstein. This paper presents a solution to this puzzle. Sraffa's criticism led Wittgenstein away from the calculus conception of language of the Big Typescript (arguably, an adaptation of the calculus of the Tractatus), and towards the “anthropological (...) view,” which structures both the opening sections of the Philosophical Investigations and Wittgenstein's later philosophy of mathematics. (shrink)

Highlights Merleau-Ponty’s interest in film and connects it to his aesthetic theory.

The aim of this article is to amend some misunderstandings about Franz Brentano's thesis of intentionality, defending a different interpretation from the current one about the nature of intentional object and intentional correlate, and proposing an analysis of the origin of this conceptual confusion. The main problem lies in his student Anton Marty's interpretation of the immanent object, paving the way for an immanentist reading of Brentano's theory of intentionality.

In this paper, I pursue two main goals. The first is to raise three objections against Tom Roberts and Joel Krueger’s recent account of loneliness (2021). The second is to sketch an alternative, receptive account. Roberts and Krueger focus on loneliness conceived of as an occurrent emotion. According to their account, loneliness involves two components: (1) a pro-attitude (e.g., a desire) towards certain social goods and (2) an awareness that such goods “are missing and out of reach, either temporarily or (...) permanently” (p. 186). My first objection is that having a pair of pro-attitudes and cognitive states of the sort that Roberts and Krueger have in mind is neither sufficient nor necessary for an individual to experience loneliness. The second is that Roberts and Krueger’s account has trouble accounting for the unpleasant phenomenology of loneliness. The third is that their account has trouble demarcating loneliness from other negative emotions that one may experience within romantic, friendship or social relationships. Next, I sketch my own account of loneliness. According to the receptive theory (Tappolet 2022) to which I adhere, emotions are receptive experiences that non-conceptually represent their intentional objects as possessing specific evaluative properties. Accordingly, I argue that loneliness consists in a receptive experience that represents the absence of certain relational goods as bad in a particular way. I draw a distinction between the intentional object and the intentional locus of loneliness, and clarify the role that some of the individual’s pro-attitudes play in loneliness. I also show how a receptive account can explain the phenomenology of loneliness and demarcate it from other emotion types, and offer an account of degrees of loneliness, which distinguishes between the intensity and the centrality of episodes of loneliness. (shrink)

I argue that Wittgenstein’s engagement with Russell’s The Analysis of Mind was crucial for the development of his new method. First, I show that Wittgenstein’s criticism of the causal theory of meaning (namely: that it generates an infinite regress and that it does not determine the depiction of a fact) is motivated by its incompatibility with the pictorial conception of language. Second, I show that in reacting against that theory he comes to invent the calculus conception of language. Third, I (...) argue that the calculus conception is vulnerable to critiques that parallel those presented against Russell’s theory (a rule-following regression and the indeterminacy of depicted facts). Fourth, the striking similarity between the problems present in Russell’s theory and in Wittgenstein’s own views makes him realize that both were working under misleading trains of thought and false analogies. It is this realization that brings Wittgenstein to the view that his task is to investigate the genesis of philosophical puzzlement in order to stop philosophical theorizing right from the beginning. Thus, in explaining the invention of Wittgenstein’s new method I show its relation to Russell’s philosophy and indicate the origins of the rule-following problem. (shrink)

In this article, I aim to cast light on the genetic analyses of the apperception of the other that the phenomenologist Marc Richir develops in his late masterwork Phénoménologie en esquisses (2000). My reading hypothesis is that these analyses consist in the original contribution that Richir makes to the standard phenomenological account of empathy from within his overall project of a non-standard revision/refoundation of the Husserlian genetic phenomenology. To test this hypothesis, I trace Richir’s reinterpretation of two texts from Husserl’s (...) so-called phenomenology of intersubjectivity (Hua XIII, 10 and 13), in which Husserl interweaves together the questions of the I’s implication in phantasy and of the apprehension of the other’s living body by presentification. As my examination develops, I show that Richir finds in these texts the phenomenological attestation of the nomadic and presubjective phantasia that, on his reading, Husserl had discovered in his earlier 1904–05 lectures on phantasy. (shrink)

The paper argues against the growing tendency to interpret Brentano’s conception of inner consciousness in self-representational terms. This trend has received support from the tendency to see Brentano as a forerunner of contemporary same-order theories of consciousness and from the view that Brentano models intransitive consciousness on transitive consciousness, such that a mental state is conscious insofar as it is aware of itself as an object. However, this reading fails to take into account the Brentanian concept of object, which is (...) ultimately derived from ancient and medieval philosophy, as well as the secondary, elusive character that Brentano attributes to inner perception. According to Brentano, we have an aspectual but transparent consciousness of transcendent objects, whereas our awareness of our own mental acts is always complete but incidental, and ultimately opaque. Reversing the relationship between intentionality and consciousness faces difficulties at the textual interpretative level, but also raises theoretical problems, for it risks treating Brentano’s theory of mind as a form of subjectivism and idealism. (shrink)

RESUMO O objetivo deste artigo é mostrar que as interpretações "tradicional" e "resoluta" não livraram o "Tractatus" da aparente autoderrota paradoxal. Argumento que essas leituras apresentam apenas uma nova roupagem ao paradoxo. A leitura "tradicional" de Hacker acaba atribuindo uma conspiração metafísica ao "Tractatus", o que é incompatível com os objetivos do livro. A leitura "resoluta" de Diamond e Conant atribui a Wittgenstein uma conspiração autoral, o que contradiz suas opiniões sobre autoria e método. Com base nas dificuldades encontradas em (...) ambos os lados do debate atual, concluo este artigo propondo vários requisitos que a correta interpretação do "Tractatus" deve preencher. (shrink)

In 1790, Edmund Burke was among the first to brand the French representative government as democracy. Revolutionary France was generating the spectre of ancient Greece and that of direct participation in government. In his battle Burke went beyond these rhetorical tropes and transformed the concept of democracy into a complex polemic target. In fact, he analyzed the features of the emerging political order highlighting the dangers and weaknesses therein and demonizing it completely. In so doing, Burke ascribed a wealth of (...) new meanings to the idea of democracy, going beyond the experience of the ancients and contributing to a wholly negative assessment of the Revolution that posed it as the antithesis to the gallant civilization of the Old Regime. Burke radically rejected the idea that the right to vote could be based on an abstract natural right and criticized the so-called ‘revolt of enterprising talents’ in all fields, because it would have led to the destruction of aristocracy and religion. He also described the religious dimension of the democratic project, which turned democracy into a secularized religion and addressed the issue of power legitimacy: a democratic order posed dire and unpredictable dangers and offered no guarantees of surviving over time. (shrink)

This paper offers a critical assessment of the current state of the debate about the identity and individuality of material objects. Its main aim, in particular, is to show that, in a sense to be carefully specified, the opposition between the Leibnizian ‘reductionist’ tradition, based on discernibility, and the sort of ‘primitivism’ that denies that facts of identity and individuality must be analysable has become outdated. In particular, it is argued that—contrary to a widespread consensus—‘naturalised’ metaphysics supports both the acceptability (...) of non-qualitatively grounded (both ‘contextual’ and intrinsic) identity and a pluralistic approach to individuality and individuation. A case study is offered that focuses on non-relativistic quantum mechanics, in the context of which primitivism about identity and individuality, rather than being regarded as unscientific, is on the contrary suggested to be preferable to the complicated forms of reductionism that have recently been proposed. More generally, by assuming a plausible form of anti-reductionism about scientific theories and domains, it is claimed that science can be regarded as compatible with, or even as suggesting, the existence of a series of equally plausible grades of individuality. The kind of individuality that prevails in a certain context and at a given level can be ascertained only on the basis of the specific scientific theory at hand. (shrink)

What is the relation between virtue and wellbeing? Our claim is that, under certain conditions, virtue necessarily tends to have a positive impact on an individual’s wellbeing. This is so because of the connection between virtue and psychological happiness, on the one hand, and between psychological happiness and wellbeing, on the other hand. In particular we defend three claims: that virtue is constituted by a disposition to experience fitting emotions, that fitting emotions are constituents of fitting happiness, and that fitting (...) happiness is a constituent of wellbeing. What follows is that, under certain conditions, virtue disposes the individual to experience wellbeing-constituting states. We end with a discussion of two objections that may be raised against our proposal. (shrink)

The article addresses how societal inequalities shape market arrangements. While business scholars developed important work about the interplay of organizations and societal economic inequalities, less has been said about the embeddedness of markets in unequal social structures. We argue that this issue may be addressed by cross-fertilizing the sociological approach of Bourdieu and the Strategic Action Fields perspective. To demonstrate our view, we assessed the extreme case of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) recycling markets in Brazil, conducting a qualitative study based on (...) the precepts of abductive analysis and using data from different secondary sources, interviews, and participant observation. We verified the existence of correspondences between the power of strategic action fields and the positions the individuals controlling them occupy in what Bourdieu calls the social space and show how these differences enable inter field connections that tend to reproduce social hierarchies. (shrink)