The first modern edition of the Instituzione d’ogni stato lodevole delle donne cristiane (1575), and the Ricordi di Monsignor Agostino Valier Vescovo di Verona lasciati alle monache nella sua visitazione fatta l’anno del santissimo Giubileo 1575 (1575) by Cardinal Agostino Valier (Venice, 7 April 1531 – Rome, 23 May 1606). The Instituzione includes three texts meant respectively for unmarried women, widows, and married women (Del modo di vivere delle vergini che si chiamano demesse; Della vera e perfetta viduità; (...) Instruzione delle donne maritate), while the Ricordi is a book for nuns on monastic life. The texts by Agostino Valier are an important example of conduct literature for and about women in Counter-Reformation Italy. Contents include: a historical introduction to the author and his works; the Italian texts with notes; an index of names cited in the treatises; a bibliography. (shrink)

This books offers an annotated edition of Nifo’s De intellectu (1503), including an extensive analytical summary of the contents, as well as a chronology of Nifo’s life and works, and a full index of the chapters of this work.

Decision-making assisted by algorithms developed by machine learning is increasingly determining our lives. Unfortunately, full opacity about the process is the norm. Would transparency contribute to restoring accountability for such systems as is often maintained? Several objections to full transparency are examined: the loss of privacy when datasets become public, the perverse effects of disclosure of the very algorithms themselves, the potential loss of companies’ competitive edge, and the limited gains in answerability to be expected since sophisticated algorithms usually are (...) inherently opaque. It is concluded that, at least presently, full transparency for oversight bodies alone is the only feasible option; extending it to the public at large is normally not advisable. Moreover, it is argued that algorithmic decisions preferably should become more understandable; to that effect, the models of machine learning to be employed should either be interpreted ex post or be interpretable by design ex ante. (shrink)

This paper studies the topological duality between diagonalizable algebras and bi-topological spaces. In particular, the correspondence between algebraic properties of a diagonalizable algebra and topological properties of its dual space is investigated. Since the main example of a diagonalizable algebra is the Lindenbaum algebra of an r.e. theory extending Peano Arithmetic, endowed with an operator defined by means of the provability predicate of the theory, this duality gives the possibility to study arithmetical properties of theories from a topological point of (...) view. We find topological characterization of $\Sigma_1$-sound theories and of sentences that are $\Sigma_1$-conservative over such a theory. (shrink)

This paper examines cognitive processes from an evolutionary, ecological and systemic perspective. Starting from Darwinian theory and the development of Extended Evolutionary Synthesis, the reference to evolutionary biology allows a rethinking of minds as complex phenomena "at the crossroads" between organisms and the environments they inhabit and contribute to build. It is proposed that this vision opens a space to overcome philosophical traditions that see in the minds "things" and in cognition a mirroring or representation of the world, to come (...) to an understanding of the former in terms of complex systems and to interpret the latter through the concept of "enaction". (shrink)

: While putting forward the proposal of a “philosophy of technology in the nominative case,” grounded on the concept of Neoenvironmentality, this paper intends to argue that the best definition of our current age is not “Anthropocene.” Rather, it is “Technocene,” since technology represents here and now the real “subject of history” and of nature, i.e. the environment where man has to live.This proposal culminates in a new definition of man’s humanity and of technology. Switching from natura hominis to conditio (...) humana, the peculiarity of man can be defined on the basis of an anthropic perimeter, the core of which consists of man’s worldhood: man is that being that has a world, while animal has a mere environment. Both man’s worldhood and animal’s environmentality are derived from a pathic premise, namely the fundamental moods that refer them to their respective findingness.From this anthropological premise, technology emerges as the oikos of contemporary humanity. Technology becomes the current form of the world – and so gives birth to a Technocene – insofar as it introduces in any human context its ratio operandi and so assimilates man to an animal condition, i.e. an environmental one. Technocene corresponds on the one side to the emergence of technology as environment and on the other to the feralization of man. The spirit of Technocene turns out to be the complete redefinition of the anthropic perimeter.While providing a non-ideological characterization of the current age, this paper proposes the strategy of an ‘anthropological conservatism,’ that is to say a pathic desertion understood as a possible condition for the beginning of an authentic Anthropocene, i.e. the age of an-at-last-entirely-human-man. (shrink)

To understand the continuing importance of John Rawls’s work, we need to understand the background, the object and the method of his fifty-year quest as a political thinker. The background to Rawls’s investigation was a (carefully circumscribed) acknowledgement of a certain kind of evaluative pluralism. The object of Rawls’s work was to develop a method of commensuration that would enable us, the free and equal citizens of a democratic society, to identify a common basis for our dealings, in search of (...) mutual benefit, with one another. Finally, the method used by Rawls in his work was broadly, though tacitly rather than explicitly, pragmatist in character, especially in the sense that Rawls was aiming, now explicitly, to develop principles of political association that generate their own support in the attitudes and actions of those whose behavior they are intended to guide. (shrink)

While putting forward the proposal of a “philosophy of technology in the nominative case,” grounded on the concept of Neoenvironmentality, this paper intends to argue that the best definition of our current age is not “Anthropocene.” Rather, it is “Technocene,” since technology represents here and now the real “subject of history” and of (a de-natured) nature, i.e. the (neo)environment where man has to live.This proposal culminates in a new definition of man’s humanity and of technology. Switching from natura hominis to (...) conditio humana, the peculiarity of man can be defined on the basis of an anthropic perimeter, the core of which consists of man’s worldhood: man is that being that has a world (Welt), while animal has a mere environment (Umwelt). Both man’s worldhood and animal’s environmentality are derived from a pathic premise, namely the fundamental moods (Grundstimmungen) that refer them to their respective findingness (Befindlichkeit).From this anthropological premise, technology emerges as the oikos of contemporary humanity. Technology becomes the current form of the world – and so gives birth to a Technocene – insofar as it introduces in any human context its ratio operandi and so assimilates man to an animal condition, i.e. an environmental one. Technocene corresponds on the one side to the emergence of technology as (Neo)environment and on the other to the feralization of man. The spirit of Technocene turns out to be the complete redefinition of the anthropic perimeter.While providing a non-ideological characterization of the current age, this paper proposes the strategy of an ‘anthropological conservatism,’ that is to say a pathic desertion understood as a possible (pre)condition for the beginning of an authentic Anthropocene, i.e. the age of an-at-last-entirely-human-man. (shrink)

Alguno leyendo el título de esta breve investigación pensará tal vez que se trata de una estrategia publicitaria destinada más a llamar la atención que a proponer un argumento. En realidad no; el título está estrechamente unido a la realidad. Agustín había prometido escribir un libro sobre las nociones de herejía y nunca lo hizo. Pretendo en este artículo explicar brevemente: En qué ocasión lo prometió; Por qué no lo escribió: Qué habría dicho si lo hubiese escrito.

Book Information Relativism. By Paul O'Grady. Acumen. Chesham. 2002. Pp. xi + 196. Paperback, £12.95.

This book was published in 2003.This volume presents a detailed examination of incommensurability in the value-theoretical sense. Exploring how choosers deal with problems and constraints of choice, the author draws on work in cognitive psychology, in sociology, in jurisprudence, in economics, and in the theory of value to show how choosers learn to make trade-offs when there is potential incommensurability among the options they are considering. The analysis is also informed by recent work in the tradition of Michel Foucault. With (...) so many modern devices and ideals of government dependent on the comparability of options, this book is timely and can inform public debate about de-regulation, user-pays, accountability, and the substitution of market mechanisms for government regulation and supply. (shrink)

Riassunto: L’articolo di Caterina Villani intende mostrare come, per risolvere la “sfida dei concetti astratti”, all’ Embodied Cognition occorra concepire l’astrattezza da una prospettiva “multidimensionale”. Questo commento contiene due considerazioni. La prima riguarda il nesso logico tra la sfida dei concetti astratti e il cosiddetto “problema della generalizzazione”. La seconda discute alcune possibili tensioni dell’approccio multidimensionale stesso. Parole chiave: Concetti astratti; Concetti concreti; Embodied Cognition; Approccio multidimensionale; Generalizzazione Two Challenges for the Multidimensional Approach: Caterina Villani’s paper aims to show how, (...) in order to solve the “challenge of abstract concepts”, the paradigm of Embodied Cognition might have to conceive of abstractness from a “multidimensional” perspective. The present commentary includes two considerations. The first addresses the logical relationship that is supposed to hold between the challenge of abstract concepts and what is called the “generalization problem”. The second concerns possible tensions involved in the multidimensional approach itself. Keywords: Abstract Concepts; Concrete Concepts; Embidied Cognition; Multidimensional Approach; Generalization. (shrink)

It has frequently been suggested that Rawls’s characteristic method of justification, a method crucially involving the notion of reflective equilibrium, is in some sense relativistic in its implications. No sustained development of this suggestion has been undertaken by those who advance it; likewise, no sustained attempt to refute this suggestion has been made by those who are otherwise sympathetic to Rawls’s account of justification. I here attempt to fill these gaps in the already extensive literature associated with the method of (...) reflective equilibrium. At below, I review claims that Rawls’s method has relativistic implications. I also attempt, for purposes of argument, to buttress these claims by citing remarks of Rawls which could be interpreted as relativistic in character. At below, I consider problems of political reasoning as these arise in societies which are ill- and well-ordered in Rawls’s sense. At below, I consider problems of political reasoning as these arise between the members of two or more well-ordered societies, each of which is regulated by a different conception of justice. I also there adapt Williams’s distinction between notional and real confrontations between incompatible systems of beliefs in order to distinguish two kinds of conflict with respect to fundamental political principles. Finally, I show how a notion of broad reflective equilibrium can be deployed in order to solve those problems of political adjudication which may arise between the members of societies which have distinct conceptions of justice. At this point it should be clear that Rawls’s method of justification is not, in intention at least, relativistic in its implications. (shrink)

Free Public Reason examines the idea of public justification, stressing its importance but also questioning the coherence of the concept itself. Although public justification is employed in the work of theorists such as John Rawls, Jeremy Waldron, Thomas Nagel, and others, it has received little attention on its own as a philosophical concept. In this book Fred D'Agostino shows that the concept is composed of various values, interests, and notions of the good, and that no ranking of these is (...) possible. The notion of public justification itself is thus shown to be contestable. In demonstrating this, D'Agostino undermines many current political theories that rely on this concept. Having broken down the foundations of public justification, D'Agostino then offers an alternative model of how a workable consensus on its meaning might be reached through the interactions of a community of interpreters or delegates at a constitutional convention. (shrink)