In this paper, I want to address once more the venerable problem of intentional identity, the problem of how different thoughts can be about the same thing even if this thing does not exist. First, I will try to show that antirealist approaches to this problem are doomed to fail. For they ultimately share a problematic assumption, namely that thinking about something involves identifying it. Second, I will claim that once one rejects this assumption and holds instead that thoughts are (...) constituted either by what they are about, their intentional objects, or by what determines their proposition-like intentional contents, one can address the problem of intentional identity in a different way. One can indeed provide a new solution to it that basically relies on two factors: a) what sort of metaphysical nature intentional objects effectively possess, once they are conceived as schematic objects à la Crane (2001, 2013); b) whether such objects really belong to the overall ontological inventory of what there is. According to this solution, two thoughts are about the same nonexistent intentional object iff i) that object satisfies the identity criterion for objects of that metaphysical kind and ii) objects of that kind belong to the overall ontological inventory of what there is, independently of whether they exist (in a suitable first-order sense of existence). As such, this solution is neither realist nor antirealist: only if condition ii) is satisfied, different thoughts can be about the same nonexistent intentionale; otherwise, they are simply constituted by the same intentional content (provided that this content is not equated with that intentionale). Third, armed with this solution, I will hold that one can find a suitable treatment of the specific and related problem of whether different people may mock-think about the same thing, even if there really is no such thing. Finally, I will try to show that this treatment can be also applied to the case in which different thoughts are, according to phenomenology, about the same intentionale and yet this intentionale is of a kind such that there really are no things of that kind. For in this case, such thoughts are about the same intentionale only fictionally. (shrink)

In (1959), Carnap famously attacked Heidegger for having constructed an insane metaphysics based on a misconception of both the logical form and the semantics of ordinary language. In what follows, it will be argued that, once one appropriately (i.e., in a Russellian fashion) reads Heidegger’s famous sentence that should paradigmatically exemplify such a misconception, i.e., “the nothing nothings”, there is nothing either logically or semantically wrong with it. The real controversy as to how that sentence has to be evaluated—not as (...) to its meaning but as to its truth—lies at the metaphysico- ontological level. For in order for the sentence to be true one has to endorse an ontology of impossibilia and Leibniz’s principle of the identity of indiscernibles. (shrink)

In H-N. Castañeda's ontology, a fundamental Fregean distinction is drawn between unsaturated and saturated entities, the former corresponding to predicative aspects of reality, the latter to individuals, that is, to items which can be referred to by means of singular terms1. Within saturated entities, Castañeda attempts to distinguish between abstract and concrete individuals. Sets and Platonic Forms of the F-ness-type are the typical examples of the former category2. As to the latter category instead, concrete individual guises represent both the bottom (...) layer in a hypothetical ontological hierarchy of individuals which has Platonic Forms at its top, and the first step in the psychological process of world cognition, which moves from the most concrete object to the most abstract3. Among concrete individual guises, moreover, Castañeda draws a further ontological distinction between possible and impossible guises, according to the different behavior guises display with respect to the possibility of existing4. Both kinds of guises, however, share that feature which enables to qualify them as guises, i.e. that of being bundles of properties. Every guise is indeed constituted out of (a certain set of) properties, or better predicative aspects5. The predication to a guise of one of its constitutive properties is taken by Castañeda as the primary sense of predication. He calls it Meinongian, or internal, predication (in symbols: "a(F)", where "a" stands for a guise and "F" for one of its constitutive properties)6. For Castañeda, moreover, the main linguistic tool by means of which a guise is denoted is a definite description, insofar as such a description clearly reveals the properties which a guise internally possesses7. Thus, we can say that "the F- er is F" is a typical expression of an internal predication of a property F to the guise denoted by the definite description "the F". If we take "F" as a metavariable for properties, we can say that the above formulation corresponds to what Routley has called the Characterization Postulate8. Now what we want to scrutinize in this paper is, first, whether the following four theses of Castañeda's Guise Theory are really compatible.. (shrink)

In one of its latest papers Timothy Williamson has drawn a distinction between two readings of the phrase "possible F", where "F" is a predicate variable: the predicative and the attributive. In what follows, on the one hand I will hold that the first reading naturally applies to the phrase "possible object", thereby supporting a moderata conception of possibilia as entities that possibly exist. Moreover, I will maintain that one such conception provides the best possible account of Tractarian objects. On (...) the other hand, I will claim that the second reading of the phrase "possible state of affairs" supports a parsimonious ontology of states of affairs, according to which a possible state of affairs is nothing over and above the de re possibility its constituents have of being related in a certain way to each other. As a result facts, i.e. possible states of affairs actually obtaining, are the only genuine states of affairs that there are, or, to put it differently, for any given state of affairs it is redundant that it is a fact. Besides, I will also claim that, appearances notwithstanding, this ontology of Sachverhalten underlies the Tractatus itself. Finally, I will try to show how, again appearances notwithstanding, this thrifty ontology of Sachverhalten squares with the semantic theses of the Tractatus according to which an elementary proposition presents a possible state of affairs as its sense and it is true if ‘that’ possible states of affairs obtains. (shrink)

Our lives are commonly involved with fictionality, an activity that adults share with children. After providing a brief reconstruction of the most important cognitive theories on pretence, we will argue that pretence has to do with metarepresentations, albeit in a rather weakened sense. In our view, pretending entails being aware that a certain representation does not fit in the very same representational model as another representation. This is a minimal metarepresentationalism, for normally metarepresentationalism on pretense claims that pretending is or (...) entails representing a representation qua representation, i.e. as conceptualised as a representation, in its very content. In the final section we will try to draw some consequences of our view as to the debate in cognitive science on mindreading. Given this minimal metarepresentationalism, the two main positions on mindreading, the ‘theory theory’ and the ‘simulation theory’, turn out to be closer than one would have originally supposed. (shrink)

On the basis of a new criterion for a property to be perceivable–a property is perceivable iff it is not only given immediately and non-volitionally, but also grasped via a holistic form of attention–in this paper we will claim that not only facial properties, but other high-order properties located in a hierarchy of high-order properties, notably gender and racial properties, are perceivable as well. Such claims will be both theoretically and empirically justified.

In this paper I want to do the following things. First I want to show that in the part of the Theaetetus where the relationship between knowledge and perception is examined, the concept of knowledge that is in question is very clearly characterized. We are left in no doubt as to what is to count as knowing. Secondly I want to unravel in some detail the case that Socrates puts on Protagoras’ behalf where he draws on what Protagoras actually wrote (...) (151 E-152C); as opposed to what he may have taught secretly to his pupils (152C-160D). Thirdly I wish to argue that if we let the dialogue speak for itself, it is manifest that this case put up on Protagoras’ behalf at 151 E-152C is not overthrown; it is not even shaken. (shrink)

In this paper I want to do the following things. First I want to show that in the part of the Theaetetus where the relationship between knowledge and perception is examined, the concept of knowledge that is in question is very clearly characterized. We are left in no doubt as to what is to count as knowing. Secondly I want to unravel in some detail the case that Socrates puts on Protagoras’ behalf where he draws on what Protagoras actually wrote (...) ; as opposed to what he may have taught secretly to his pupils. Thirdly I wish to argue that if we let the dialogue speak for itself, it is manifest that this case put up on Protagoras’ behalf at 151 E-152C is not overthrown; it is not even shaken.In that part of the dialogue where the question is under examination whether or not knowledge and perception are the same, Socrates uses an idealized concept of knowledge. That is, he restricts the use of the word by setting down what he will consider to be the essential characteristics of knowledge, the sufficient and necessary conditions of its being instantiated. An excellent piece of philosophical procedure. (shrink)

There are some complex experiences, such as the experiences that allow us to understand linguistic expressions and pictures respectively, which seem to be very similar. For they are stratified experiences in which, on top of grasping certain low-level properties, one also grasps some high-level semantic-like properties. Yet first of all, those similarities notwithstanding, a phenomenologically-based reflection shows that such experiences are different. For a meaning experience has a high-level fold, in which one grasps the relevant expression’s meaning, which is not (...) perceptual, but is only based on a low-level perceptual fold that merely grasps that expression in its acoustically relevant properties. While a pictorial experience, a seeing-in experience, has two folds, the configurational and the recognitional fold, in which one respectively grasps the physical basis of a picture, its vehicle, and what the picture presents, its subject, that are both perceptual, insofar as they are intimately connected. For unlike a meaning experience, in a seeing-in experience one can perceptually read off the picture’s subject from the picture’s vehicle. Moreover, this phenomenological difference is neurologically implemented. For not only the cerebral areas that respectively implement such experiences are different, at least as far as the access to those experiences’ respective high-level content is concerned. As is shown by the fact that one can selectively be impaired in the area respectively implementing the meaning vs. the seeing-in experience without losing one’s pictorial vs. semantic competence respectively. But also, unlike meaning experiences, the area implementing the seeing-in experiential folds is perceptual as a whole. For not only a picture’s subject can be accessed earlier than an expression’s meaning, but also the neural underpinnings of such folds are located in the perceptual areas of the brain. (shrink)

It is not quite as easy to see that there is in fact no formula of this modal language having the same truth conditions (in terms of S5 Kripke semantics) as (1). This was rst conjectured by Allen Hazen2 and later proved by Harold Hodes3. We present a simple direct proof of this result and discuss some consequences for the logical analysis of ordinary modal discourse.

Because anticipated and retrospective regret play important roles in practical deliberation and motivation, better understanding them can illuminate the contours of human agency. However, the possibility of self-ignorance and the fact that we change over time can make regret—especially anticipatory regret—not only a poor predictor of where the agent will be in the future but also an unreliable indicator of where the agent stands. Granting these, this paper examines the way in which prospective and, particularly, retrospective regret can nevertheless yield (...) important insight into the sorts of creatures we are, both generally and individually. The experience of retrospective regret can show a person she values something in a way she did not know or that she is (or was) a different person than she had thought, insights which can factor into forward-looking, or prospective, deliberation. Such instances of revelatory regret reveal something to the agent about herself as agent. I examine two cases of agential self-ignorance. In the first, the experience of regret reveals what the agent values, not only to others but even to the agent himself. In the second, the agent anticipates experiencing regret for an action but does not experience the regret, suggesting that the agent did not value the rejected alternative in the way she thought. Anticipatory regret is forward-looking and can play an important role in practical deliberation. But insofar as anticipatory regret flows from one’s imperfect judgment and prospection about oneself, retrospective regret can be an important corrective in helping the agent understand her own standpoint. (shrink)

In this paper we claim, first, that there are high-level visual experiences of grouping properties, i.e., properties that an array of elements we see can have to be organised in a certain way. Second, we argue that there are auditory experiences of groupings that share certain important properties with visual experiences of groupings, thereby being perceptual and high-level as well. Third, these results enable us to understand the nature and structure of our meaning experiences. We claim that, although meaning experiences (...) depend on the auditory experiences we discuss, they are not perceptual, for they lack one of the features that make those auditory experiences perceptual; namely, being holistically attended to. (shrink)

The present book is intended to help students overcome difficulties by presenting Jaspers' thoughts in comparatively clear and straightforward fashion. While it denies that philosophy is "practical" in any cheap and obvious sense, it follows Jaspers in attempting to avoid the otiose and emphasize the relevance of philosophy to matters of ultimate concern. Those who wish a more theoretical and systematic presentation may well call to mind that, as Heidegger's followers express it, Jaspers, like Kierkegaard- and to some extent Sartre- (...) quite deliberately spurned the "ontological" in favor of the "ontic.". (shrink)

In this paper, we first want to defend the idea that reference intentionality is the relation of constitution holding between an intentional state, a thought, and the object it is about, its intentional object. As such, reference intentionality is for a thought an essential property, whose predication to that thought is true in virtue of the nature of such a thought. We will take this to be one of the main lessons of serious externalism, according to which the intentional object (...) occurs in the individuation conditions of the thought about it. Moreover, we want to draw some consequences of this idea. First, in conformity with serious externalism we will claim that an objectual thought is nothing but its intentional object in a cogitative modality, which is nothing but a certain motivational role for that object to play with respect to a subject. Second, we will claim that one such thought, both as a type and as a token, is an abstract particular, respectively a kind and a relational trope. (shrink)

The general aim of this volume is to investigate the nature of the relation between pictorial experience and aesthetic appreciation. In particular, it is concerned with the character and intimacy of this relationship: is there a mere causal connection between pictorial experience and aesthetic appreciation, or are the two relata constitutively associated with one another? The essays in the book's first section investigate important conceptual issues related to the pictorial experience of paintings. In Section II, the essays discuss the notion (...) of styles, techniques, agency, and facture, and also take into account the experience of photographic and cinematic pictures. The Pleasure of Pictures goes substantially beyond current debates in the philosophy of depiction to launch a new area of reflection in philosophical aesthetics. (shrink)

In this paper, we first set out three requirements that each e-theory – a theory whose task is to explain data – must fulfill in order to be one such good theory: i) an ontological requirement, i.e. adequate simplicity, ii) a methodological requirement, i.e. plurality of research procedures, iii) an epistemological requirement, i.e. compatibility with the best available epistemical procedures. Moreover, we will claim that from the metaphilosophical point of view, unlike scientific naturalism on the one hand and supernaturalism on (...) the other, liberal naturalism is the only philosophical approach capable of fulfilling all such requirements. (shrink)

We maintain that no extant argument in favor of phenomenal external- ism is really convincing. PE is the thesis that the phenomenal properties of our experiences must be individuated widely insofar as they are constituted by worldly properties. We consider what we take to be the five best arguments for PE. We try to show that none of them really proves what it aims at proving. Unless better arguments in favor of phenomenal externalism show up in the debate, we see (...) no reason to relinquish an idea that seems intuitive and appeals to many cognitive sci- entists: that phenomenology is narrow, i.e., that phenomenal properties are intrinsic properties of our experiences. This idea grounds the opposite philosophical position, phenomenal internalism. (shrink)

Queremos mostrar que ninguno de los argumentos conocidos a favor del externismo fenoménico es convincente. PE es la tesis de que las propiedades fenoménicas de nuestras experiencias se tienen que individuar en modo amplio en la medida en la que están constituidas por propiedades del mundo. Examinamos los que nos parecen los cinco mejores argumentos a favor de PE. Intentamos mostrar que ninguno de ellos puede establecer el resultado deseado. Mientras no aparezcan argumentos mejores en el debate, no tenemos razón (...) para renunciar a una idea que parece intuitiva y atractiva para muchos psicólogos cognitivos: que la fenomenología es estrecha, es decir, que las propiedades fenoménicas son propiedades intrínsecas de nuestras experiencias. Esta idea subyace a la posición filosófica opuesta, el internismo fenoménico. (shrink)

In ontology, realism and anti-realism may be taken as opposite attitudes towards entities of different kinds, so that one may turn out to be a realist with respect to certain entities, and an anti-realist with respect to others. In this book, the editors focus on this controversy concerning social entities in general and fictional entities in particular, the latter often being considered nowadays as kinds of social entities. More specifically, fictionalists (those who maintain that we only make-believe that there are (...) entities of a certain kind) and creationists (those who believe that entities of a certain kind are the products of human activity) present themselves as the champions of the anti-realist and the realist stance, respectively, regarding the above entities. By evaluating the pros and cons of both these positions, this book intends to focus new light on a longstanding debate. (shrink)

Leading scholars discuss whether some of the main tenets or theses that are currently or traditionally ascribed to Wittgenstein are still both theoretically and exegetically viable, by focusing on three well-established Wittgensteinian themes: mind, meaning, and metaphilosophy.

This book presents a novel theory of fictional entities which is syncretistic insofar as it integrates the work of previous authors. It puts forward a new metaphysical conception of the nature of these This This book presents a novel theory of fictional entities which is syncretistic insofar as it integrates the work of previous authors. It puts forward a new metaphysical conception of the nature of these entities, according to which a fictional entity is a compound entity built up from (...) both a make-believe theoretical element and a set-theoretical element. The fictional entity is constructed by imagining the existence of an individual with certain properties and adding a set-theoretical element consisting of the set of properties corresponding to the properties of the imagined entity. Moreover, the book advances a new combined semantic and ontological defence of the existence of fictional entities. (shrink)

__: In this paper, we want to support Kriegel’s argument in favor of the thesis that there is a cognitive form of phenomenology that is both irreducible to and independent of any sensory form of phenomenology by providing another argument in favor of the same thesis. Indeed, this new argument is also intended to show that the thought experiment Kriegel’s argument relies on does describe a genuine metaphysical possibility. In our view, Kriegel has not entirely succeeded in showing that his (...) own argument displays that possibility. We present our argument in two steps. First, we attempt to prove that there is a cognitive phenomenology that is irreducible to any form of sensory phenomenology. Our proof relies on a kind of phenomenal contrast argument that however does not appeal to introspection. Second, by showing that the link between this form of cognitive phenomenology, the phenomenology of having thoughts, and sensory phenomenology in general is extrinsic, we also aim to demonstrate that the former is independent of the latter. _Keywords_: Cognitive Phenomenology; Irreduciblity; Independence; Having Thoughts; Grasping Thoughts _Un altro argomento in favore della fenomenologia cognitiva_ _Riassunto_: In questo articolo intendiamo corroborare l’argomento di Kriegel in favore dell’esistenza di una forma cognitiva di fenomenologia irriducibile a e indipendente da ogni altra forma di fenomenologia della sensibilità, avanzando un altro argomento a sostegno della stessa tesi. Nei fatti, questo nuovo argomento vuole anche mostrare che l’esperimento mentale su cui poggia l’argomento di Kriegel descrive effettivamente una genuina possibilità metafisica; e tuttavia crediamo che l’argomento di Kriegel non abbia mostrato fino in fondo proprio questa possibilità. Vogliamo presentare il nostro argomento in due passi. In un primo momento, tenteremo di provare l’esistenza di una fenomenologia cognitiva irriducibile a ogni altra forma di fenomenologia sensoriale. La nostra prova poggia su un tipo di argomento basato su un contrasto fenomenico che non si appella all’introspezione. In un secondo momento, mostrando che il legame tra questa forma di fenomenologia cognitiva, ossia la fenomenologia del possesso dei pensieri, e la fenomenologia sensoriale è un legame estrinseco, intendiamo dimostrare che la prima è indipendente dalla seconda. _Parole chiave_: Fenomenologia cognitiva; Irriduciblità; Indipendenza; Possesso dei pensieri; Afferramento dei pensieri. (shrink)

Reasons motivate our intentions and thus our actions, justify our beliefs, ground our hopes and connect our feelings of shame and pride to our thoughts. Given that intentions, beliefs and emotions are intentional states, intentionality is strongly connected with normativity. Yet what is more precisely their relationship? Some philosophers, notably Brandom and McDowell, contend at places that intentionality is intrinsically normative. In this paper, we discuss Brandom and McDowell’s thesis and the arguments they provide for its defence. In contrast to (...) what they hold, we argue that neither reference intentionality nor content intentionality are intrinsically normative, although at least content intentionality has normative implications. More precisely, we argue that neither species of intentionality are normative from a semantical viewpoint, because being in an intentional state is not being in a state that is semantically correct or incorrect. Nevertheless, being in a state endowed with content may be a reason for believing or acting. Thus, we argue that content intentionality has normative implications. More precisely, we argue that any content is such that, if it is the content of a state that is sensitive to reasons - as judging paradigmatically is – then it entitles the subject of that state to have further states or to act in certain ways. (shrink)

What is depiction? This is a venerable question that has received many different answers throughout the whole history of philosophy, especially in contemporary times. A Syncretistic Theory of Depiction elaborates a new account on this matter by providing a theory of depiction that tries to combine the merits of the previous theories while dropping their defects. It is argued that a picture is a representation in a pictorial or figurative mode, and its 'figurativity' is given by a special perception, perceiving-in, (...) whose nature is reconceived. Such a perception inter alia grasps some properties which the picture's vehicle has in common with what is perceived in it; by so doing, that perception provides the picture with a figurative content. In contrast, the picture's representational value, its subject or its pictorial content, is given by a conventionally or causally based selection out of that figurative content. (shrink)

In his newly updated version of The Anatomy of a Constitutional Law Case, Alan F. Westin provides a documentary portrait of historically important constitutional law case, 'Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, ' from its rise in a bargaining dispute in the steel industry during 1952 to the aftermath of its decision by the United States Supreme Court. Westin has added to his classic book additional materials and personal commentaries collected since the work was first published. The new information (...) covers what went on within the Truman administration, what went on within the Supreme Court when analyzing and resolving issues that come before it. Westin includes selections from transcripts, briefs and other official proceedings, adds notes describing each phase of the constitutional process, and a section of commentary and questions relating this case to others. (shrink)

What does social justice require in contemporary societies? What are the requirements of social democracy? Who and where are the individuals and groups that can carry forward agendas for progressive social transformation? What are we to make of the so-called new social movements of the last thirty years? Is identity politics compatible with egalitarianism? Can cultural misrecognition and economic maldistribution be fought simultaneously? What of the heritage of Western Marxism is alive and dead? And how is current critical social theory (...) to approach these and other questions? Much of the most productive work done in recent social theory has revolved around such issues, in particular, around those concerning the relationship between the politics of recognition and the politics of distribution. After the intense theoretical focus over the last fifteen years or so on the issues of recognition politics—multiculturalism, multi-nationalism, identity politics, group-differentiated rights, the accommodation of difference, and so on—some social theorists have worried that attention has been diverted from important issues of distributive equality—systematic impoverishment, increasing material inequality, ‘structural’ unemployment, the growth of oligarchic power, global economic segmentation, and so on. While some critics seem to have adopted a blunt ‘it’s the economy, stupid’ line of criticism,1 others have attempted to develop an overarching, integrative theoretical framework adequate to the diverse issues concerning both economic and cultural justice. For example, Axel Honneth proposes that a suitably developed and normatively robust theory of intersubjective recognition can adequately integrate an analysis of apparently diverse contemporary struggles: those for a just division of labor and hence, a fair distribution of resources and opportunities, as well as those for a culture free of identity-deforming disrespect and denigration. (shrink)

Since Mueller’s 1958 article calling Hegelian dialectics a “legend,” it has been fashionable to deny that Hegel used thesis-antithesis-synthesis dialectics. But in truth, Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit has 28 dialectics hidden on four outline levels, and The Philosophy of History has 10 more on three outline levels. In Phenomenology’s macrodialectic, Hegel’s nonsupernatural Spirit–all reality, everything in the universe, including man and artificial objects–advances from unconscious + union (thesis) to conscious + separation (antithesis) to a synthesis of conscious (from the antithesis) (...) + union (from the thesis). Previous interpretations of Phenomenology have missed this dialectic: they have assumed that Spirit’s journey begins with consciousness, whereas the journey actually begins in the primordial state of nature, before man arrives and provides Spirit with its Mind (the collective mind of man). Mind then misperceives itself as a multitude of separate alien “objects”–things other than itself. The macrodialectic and all other dialectics are based on Christianity’s Johannine separation-and-return mythology; all Hegelian dialectics separate from a concept in the thesis, going to that something’s opposite (antithesis), and then return to the thesis concept. Thus, in Hegel’s master-and-slave dialectic (God = master, man = slave), man advances from potential + freedom to actual + bondage (religiosity) to actual + freedom (atheism). Only Marx and Tillich understood Hegelian dialectics. Marx’s basic dialectic (one of four) saw history separating from and returning to Communism, going from communal ownership + poverty (primitive communism, or gens) to private ownership + wealth (slavery, feudalism, capitalism) to communal ownership + wealth (final communism). Tillich’s basic dialectic (one of many) separates from and returns to God, advancing from Yes to God + Yes to supernaturalism (theism) to No to God + No to supernaturalism (atheism) to Yes to God + No to supernaturalism (humanism: humanity is the nonsupernatural “God above the God of theism”). (shrink)

A key philosophical feature of Peter Jackson’s film interpretation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings is its use of fantasy to inspire a “recovery” of the actual or, in other words, a reawakening to the beauty of nature and the many possible ways of living in healthier ecological relation to the world. Though none of these ways is perfectly achieved, this pluralistic view is demonstrated in the various lifeways of Hobbits, Elves, Men, and Ents. All of the positive (...) relationships embodied in the films—to trees, mountains, horses, and vegetable gardens—involve loving care and attention, receiving nourishment and livelihood without instrumentalization, or reducing nature to mere resource. The films also vividly display a variety of ugly and destructive ways of using the land to accrue power and wealth. These noxious ways, specifically because they actively destroy the lands that they use, always need more. They will thus eventually annihilate the beautiful ways of being if they are not actively resisted. Some of those who would rather be tending their own trees, gardens, or horses or even wandering in the wild forests must therefore turn their attention to struggle and resistance instead. This is a struggle full of grief, and at times even verging on despair, but it is marked by the refusal to give up hope. Indeed, what Jackson and Tolkien have to say about hope is as important in responding to the ecological crisis as anything they have to say about nature, inasmuch as they help to remind us that even in our own times, “there is still hope.”. (shrink)

Whiskey Lao -- Fair warning -- Randomness at large -- We the addicted -- The best possible world -- The importance of being doomed -- Moral responsibility -- The upper limit to the value of possible worlds.

"Not only one of the best but also the most comprehensive treatment of Stoicism written in this century." --Times Literary Supplement.

In recent years, there has been a heated debate about how to interpret findings that seem to show that humans rapidly and automatically calculate the visual perspectives of others. In the current study, we investigated the question of whether automatic interference effects found in the dot-perspective task (Samson, Apperly, Braithwaite, Andrews, & Bodley Scott, 2010) are the product of domain-specific perspective-taking processes or of domain-general “submentalizing” processes (Heyes, 2014). Previous attempts to address this question have done so by implementing inanimate (...) controls, such as arrows, as stimuli. The rationale for this is that submentalizing processes that respond to directionality should be engaged by such stimuli, whereas domain-specific perspective-taking mechanisms, if they exist, should not. These previous attempts have been limited, however, by the implied intentionality of the stimuli they have used (e.g. arrows), which may have invited participants to imbue them with perspectival agency. Drawing inspiration from “novel entity” paradigms from infant gaze-following research, we designed a version of the dot-perspective task that allowed us to precisely control whether a central stimulus was viewed as animate or inanimate. Across four experiments, we found no evidence that automatic “perspective-taking” effects in the dot-perspective task are modulated by beliefs about the animacy of the central stimulus. Our results also suggest that these effects may be due to the task-switching elements of the dot-perspective paradigm, rather than automatic directional orienting. Together, these results indicate that neither the perspective-taking nor the standard submentalizing interpretations of the dot-perspective task are fully correct. (shrink)

Negli ultimi vent’anni si è instaurato nella filosofia analitica un clima confusamente naturalistico, in cui non sempre si è distinto tra il progetto di riportare ricerche tradizionalmente filosofiche entro l’ambito delle scienze naturali e l’idea che la filosofia stessa sia “continua con la scienza”, cioè che non ci sia una distinzione di principio tra ricerche scientifiche e ricerche filosofiche. Questa seconda idea si contrappone alla tradizionale immagine, che vuole la filosofia come un’i...

In this paper, we first set out three requirements that each e-theory – a theory whose task is to explain data – must fulfill in order to be one such good theory: i) an ontological requirement, i.e. adequate simplicity, ii) a methological requirement, i.e. plurality of research procedures, iii) an epistemological requirement, i.e. compatibility with the best available epistemical procedures. Moreover, we will claim that from the metaphilosophical point of view, unlike scientific naturalism on the one hand and supernaturalism on (...) the other, liberal naturalism is the only philosophical approach capable of fulfilling all such requirements. (shrink)