The logic of proofs was introduced by Artemov in order to analize the formalization of the concept of proof rather than the concept of provability. In this context, some operations on proofs play a very important role. In this paper, we investigate some very natural operations, paying attention not only to positive information, but also to negative information (i.e. information saying that something cannot be a proof). We give a formalization for a fragment of such a logic of proofs, and (...) we prove that our fragment is complete and decidable. (shrink)

In the eighties of the nineteenth century Ubu comes into the world. Thanks to Alfred Jarry, in around ten years this imaginary tyrant with unrestrained longings will rise to an outstanding position in the Parisian theatrical arena. Ubu, anyway, is not a mere culture phenomenon: he is also – better, he is first of all – the outcome of an unprecedented and primitive reflection on power. So Ubu, from the beginning, is the embodiment of the excess, the expression of tyranny (...) as the childish power par excellence, driven by a bulimic imagination and dragged by overwhelming yearnings, always associated with the denial of any decorum and mediation. Ubu is, to a certain extent, one of the most prophetic and accurate anticipations of that imbalance between the autocrat’s longings and the endurance degree of the environment around him: a political pathology which will be the eminent and dramatic feature of the terrible catastrophes of the 20th century. Jarry’s work is even more significant when, in the last of its plays, describes an institutional system protected by a brittle glass bell, unbreakable only by those who hesitate to strike it, and an administrative apparatus so much subject to arbitrary power that it seems built «by the tyrant himself». (shrink)

Answering a question raised by Shavrukov and Visser :569–582, 2014), we show that the lattice of \-sentences ) over any computable enumerable consistent extension T of \ is uniformly dense. We also show that for every \ and \ refer to the known hierarchies of arithmetical formulas introduced by Burr for intuitionistic arithmetic) the lattices of \-sentences over any c.e. consistent extension T of the intuitionistic version of Robinson Arithmetic \ are uniformly dense. As an immediate consequence of the proof, (...) all these lattices are also locally universal. (shrink)

It is universally recognized that in the fragments of Hipponax there are many references to Homer, in both language and content. In this paper I analyse the relationship between Hipponax’ poetic persona and the character of Odysseus.

Journal Name: Philologus Issue: Ahead of print.

In this paper I analyze the rhetorical function of compositional neologisms in Cercidas’ versification, in order to provide a new semantical and/or syntactical explanation for single words that have not been correctly interpreted before. In particular I analyze the fragments 1.41–50 Lom., 2.25–7 Lom. and 60 Lom., focusing especially on the correct interpretation of τεθνακοχαλκίδης, συοπλουτοσύνη and μεταμελλοδύνη. At the end of the paper, final considerations on the rhetorical function of neologism in Cercidas’ text are offered.

The main purpose of this exploratory analysis is to understand whether, based on evidence gathered from international best practices selected among corporations which adopt the Global Reporting Initiative guidelines in sustainability reporting (SR), stakeholders are significantly consulted and involved—as international literature would indicate—by assurance providers, during assurance processes of SR. We aim at verifying if this practice—known as stakeholder assurance—is in fact widespread in SR assurance by carrying out empirical research, through content analysis, into a sample of 161 assurance statements (...) of international corporations, in order to test characteristics of any stakeholder assurance implemented. (shrink)

The adoption and reporting of CSR policies have important ethical and managerial implications that need scrutiny. This study answers the call of CSR scholars for further studies in controversial sectors by focusing on the voluntary reporting practices of companies that market products or services that generate addiction among consumers. It contributes to the debate on organizational legitimacy and corporate reporting by empirically analyzing whether and how corporations in the tobacco, alcohol and gambling industries disclose their CSR actions and what reactions (...) such disclosures generate in stakeholders. Drawing on legitimacy theory and organizational façades, we apply a consequent mixed-methods design (initiation approach) built on (i) a content analysis of reports prepared by a large set of companies listed on the European, British, US, Canadian, Australian and New Zealand stock exchanges and (ii) an experiment on how different actions taken by the companies (preventive vs. remedial) elicit different perceptions of company hypocrisy and action effectiveness. While previous analyses have focused on “sin” or “harm” industries, this is one of the first to assess how companies account for “addiction”, which is more difficult for them to report and legitimate due to long-term negative consequences. This study contributes to the literature on the instrumental use of CSR reporting by empirically investigating how addiction companies shape their organizational façades and manage organizational legitimacy through disclosure. Moreover, the experimental evidence advances the knowledge of how cognitive mechanisms influence stakeholders in terms of legitimacy assessment and the perceived hypocrisy/effectiveness of CSR disclosure. (shrink)

Different summarized shape indices, like mean shape index (MSI) and area weighted mean shape index (AWMSI) can change over multiple size scales. This variation is important to describe scale heterogeneity of landscapes, but the exact mathematical form of the dependence is rarely known. In this paper, the use of fractal geometry (by the perimeter and area Hausdorff dimensions) made us able to describe the scale dependence of these indices. Moreover, we showed how fractal dimensions can be deducted from existing MSI (...) and AWMSI data. In this way, the equality of a multiscale tabulated MSI and AWMSI dataset and two scale-invariant fractal dimensions has been demonstrated. (shrink)

Guaspari (J Symb Logic 48:777–789, 1983) conjectured that a modal formula is it essentially Σ1 (i.e., it is Σ1 under any arithmetical interpretation), if and only if it is provably equivalent to a disjunction of formulas of the form ${\square{B}}$ . This conjecture was proved first by A. Visser. Then, in (de Jongh and Pianigiani, Logic at Work: In Memory of Helena Rasiowa, Springer-Physica Verlag, Heidelberg-New York, pp. 246–255, 1999), the authors characterized essentially Σ1 formulas of languages including witness comparisons (...) using the interpretability logic ILM. In this note we give a similar characterization for formulas with a binary operator interpreted as interpretability in a finitely axiomatizable extension of IΔ 0 + Supexp and we address a similar problem for IΔ 0 + Exp. (shrink)

Manetti's Latin treatise Adversus Iudaeos et Gentes (Against the Jews and Gentiles) offers a polemical defense of the Christian religion. This volume, which includes the first four books,surveys human history from the Creation to the life,teaching, and resurrection of Christ. Book I begins with the creation and fall of man in the Biblical account. There follows a long digression adversus gentes (the Gentiles, i.e., pagans), which reviews central points of ancient Greek and Roman philosophy and religion, and censures the (...) ancients for their senseless doctrines and bloody rites. Manetti then returns to the Jews, whose beliefs and practices are praised from Abraham to Moses. During their centuries of "true" piety, Manetti calls the chosen people "Hebrews." But from the time of the Exodus onwards, he censures them as "Jews" because they observe the absurd and cruel practices of Pentateuchal legislation, which he views as analogous to pagan rites. Manetti stresses several themes in Jewish history: the early development of the concept of righteousness, the Exodus, the Mosaic Law and its inadequacy--thus providing a "preparation for the Gospel" in Eusebius' sense. The next three books provide a synoptic biography of Jesus in three stages. Book II describes the life of Christ up to the raising of Lazarus; Book III relates his teaching, and Book IV offers an account of Christ's passion, death, and resurrection. (shrink)

Manetti's account of dignitas and excellentia is covered in four books. The first three books praise the body, the soul and the body/soul composite. Manetti's last book turns from informing an audience to defeating opponents--from persuasion to polemic. He denounces a picture of human life so bleak that death seems better, and he retraces ground explored by the three previous books. The heart of his optimist Christian anthropology is a transcendent ideal, immortality: this is what makes imperfect, embodied (...) humans authentically like a perfect, bodiless God. Other facts about humans show that goodness--also a divine ideal--belongs naturally to them and their earthly world, governed by God with providential care. The natural state of humans is original justice, not original sin, which defiles nature but does not liquidate it. Human life on earth is happy, even joyous, made so by pleasures--including sexual pleasure--that are good and part of God's plan. A sublime piece of God's craftwork is the human body--including the naked body, outside and inside, guts and all--whose image in art is mankind's visible divinity, whether painted on a church wall or carved in antique marble. The art itself--like technology and other vehicles of material culture--manifests human thought in action. Energy, effort, ingenuity and invention are forces of cultural, intellectual and material progress.'Progressive' seems the right word--adjusted for time and place--to use about these attitudes of Manetti's. To call them enlightened is also fair to his ideas about dignitas, which are ideas rooted in antiquity and renewed in the Renaissance, not ideas about the dignity invented in the Enlightenment. (shrink)

Philodemus’ De signis is one of the classical texts of greatest semiotic interest. It reports the debate which arose between the Epicureans and an opposing school, usually identified as the Stoics, concerning semiotic inference. The Epicureans proposed to construct semiotic inferences based on generalizations resting on similarity, ultimately configuring their method as a form of induction. Their opponents attacked the Epicurean proposal in a twofold way: on the one hand, they argued that the Epicureans’ method intrinsically lacked cogency, invalidating their (...) inferences from a logical point of view. On the other, they criticized the notion of similarity, arguing that it is generally a vague notion, and in some cases impossible to implement, as when one is faced with unique cases. The debate is very complex and is divided into replies and rejoinders. The ultimate impression one gets is that the Epicureans were able, for the first time in antiquity, to propose a real method to construct semiotic inferences, even though the latter were subject to fallibility, while their opponents did not propose a method, but a test, “elimination,” able only to check the logical soundness of semiotic inferences. In doing so, they placed themselves in a tradition extending back to the theory of signs formulated – albeit in a significantly different way – by Aristotle. (shrink)

This article contributes to the growing scholarship on the topic of assurance services for sustainability reports. We first synthetically illustrate the main international standards for the implementation of assurance services regarding the subject documents. The second part of our article is an empirical analysis of reports drawn up on the basis of the current Global Reporting Initiative 2006 guidelines, and looks at how effectively these standards have been implemented, analyzing the different typologies of assurance statement.

This paper is part of a project that is based on the notion of a dialectical system, introduced by Magari as a way of capturing trial and error mathematics. In Amidei et al. (2016, Rev. Symb. Logic, 9, 1–26) and Amidei et al. (2016, Rev. Symb. Logic, 9, 299–324), we investigated the expressive and computational power of dialectical systems, and we compared them to a new class of systems, that of quasi-dialectical systems, that enrich Magari’s systems with a natural mechanism (...) of revision. In the present paper we consider a third class of systems, that of p-dialectical systems, that naturally combine features coming from the two other cases. We prove several results about p-dialectical systems and the sets that they represent. Then we focus on the completions of first-order theories. In doing so, we consider systems with connectives, i.e. systems that encode the rules of classical logic. We show that any consistent system with connectives represents the completion of a given theory. We prove that dialectical and q-dialectical systems coincide with respect to the completions that they can represent. Yet, p-dialectical systems are more powerful; we exhibit a p-dialectical system representing a completion of Peano Arithmetic that is neither dialectical nor q-dialectical. (shrink)

In her recent article “The Ontology of Social Groups”, Thomasson (Synthese 196:4829–4845, 2019) argues that social groups can be characterized in terms of the norms that surround them. We show that according to Thomasson’s normativity-based criterion, the dead constitute a social group, since there are widespread and well-defined social norms as to how to treat the dead, such as the norm expressed in the title (“Speak no ill of the dead”). We argue that the example of the dead must not (...) be interpreted as a counterexample to this criterion, and that, rather, there are good reasons to think of the dead as a genuine social group. Furthermore, the dead as a social group exist, regardless of whether or not the dead (i.e. the members of this social group) exist as persons. This view is clearly incompatible with the idea that social groups can be explained by citing features of their members, which is why we take the case of the dead to pose a challenge for the thesis of individualism. We consider the ontological implications of this example and suggest that social groups ought to be seen as reifications of social norms. Another implication of taking the dead to be a social group is that the presence of external norms is sufficient for the existence of a social group, and therefore internal norms are not necessary. We defend this implication against some potential theoretical and moral problems. (shrink)

This conspicuously unassuming book—dedicated, in fact, to the incredible life and career of an extraordinary humanist—poses a challenge to the intellectual historian of the Italian Renaissance and...