Au-dela des idees convenues, comment penser les fondements d'une crise sociale inscrite dans le temps long? La guerre civile perpetuelle evalue dans plusieurs domaines les ravages politiques de la philosophie de la modernite. Cette etude examine d'abord sa capacite a detruire a la racine la possibilite du lien social naturel, pour tenter par la suite de le recreer au moyen de divers artifices. Loin de se limiter au simple constat d'echec, l'originalite et la force de cet ouvrage resident dans l'analyse (...) des causes d'un processus logique qui tend a imposer sa violence intrinseque au coeur de la relation sociale. Avec les contributions de: Miguel Ayuso Torres, Guillaume Bernard, Jacques Bonnet, Danilo Castellano, Bernard Dumont, Gilles Dumont, Jose Miguel Gambra, Carlo Gambescia, Isabelle Huten, Aude de Kerros, Teodoro Katte Klitsche de la Grange, Marc de Launay, Pierre de Lauzun, Alain Mescheriakoff, Dalmacio Negro Pavon, Monica Papazu, Claude Polin, Christophe Reveillard, Giovanni Turco. (shrink)

_Philosophy of Molecular Medicine: Foundational Issues in Theory and Practice_ aims at a systematic investigation of a number of foundational issues in the field of molecular medicine. The volume is organized around four broad modules focusing, respectively, on the following key aspects: What are the nature, scope, and limits of molecular medicine? How does it provide explanations? How does it represent and model phenomena of interest? How does it infer new knowledge from data and experiments? The essays collected here, authored (...) by prominent scientists and philosophers of science, focus on a handful of mainstream topics in the philosophical literature, such as _causation_, _explanation_, _modeling_, and _scientific inference_. These previously unpublished contributions shed new light on these traditional topics by integrating them with problems, methods, and results from three prominent areas of contemporary biomedical science: _basic research_, _translational_ and _clinical research_, and _clinical practice_. (shrink)

A radical reform of the agri-food biotech regulation in the EU is considered in many quarters as a pressing necessity. Indeed, two important decisions on the legal status of the so-called New Breeding Techniques are expected shortly. In order to clarify some basic aspects of the complex scenario, after a brief introduction regarding the “GMO” fallacy, we offer our point of view on the following facets: A faulty approach is frequent in the discussion of the agri-food regulation; NBTs, genome editing (...) may lead to the disappearance of the “GMO” meme; Beyond health and safety issues: socio-economic considerations; Sustainability: the comprehensive, meaningful starting point of a positive reform; The theoretical and legal basis for the reform are already contained in the EU’s general guidelines to legislation. (shrink)

Assuming a radical stance on embodied cognition, according to which the information ac- quired through basic cognitive processes is not contentful (Hutto and Myin, 2013), and as- suming that perception is a source of rationally grounded knowledge (Pritchard, 2012), a pluralistic account of perceptual knowledge is developed. The paper explains: (i) how the varieties of perceptual knowledge fall under the same broader category; (ii) how they are subject to the same kind of normative constraints; (iii) why there could not be (...) a conflict between the different varieties of perceptual knowledge; and (iv) why the traditional episte- mological inquiry is inclined to overestimate the role of propositional perceptual knowledge. (shrink)

The Decameron was written in the wake of the Black Death, a shattering epidemic which had shaken Florence's confident entrepreneurial society to its core. In a country villa outside the city, ten young noble men and women who have escaped the plague decide to tell each other stories. Boccaccio's skill as a dramatist is masterfully displayed in this virtuoso performance of one hundred tales, vivid portraits of people from all stations in life, with plots which revel in a bewildering variety (...) of human reactions. Themes are playfully restated from one story to another within an elegant and refined framework. One of Chaucer's most fruitful sources for the Canterbury Tales, Boccaccio's work artfully combines the essential ingredients of narrative: fate and desire, crises and quick-thinking. This new translation by Guido Waldman captures the exuberance and variety and tone of Boccaccio's masterpiece. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more. (shrink)

Thomas Reid (1710–1796) presented a two-dimensional geometry of the visual field in his Inquiry into the human mind (1764), whose axioms are different from those of Euclidean plane geometry. Reid’s ‘geometry of visibles’ is the same as the geometry of the surface of the sphere, described without reference to points and lines outside the surface itself. Interpreters of Reid seem to be divided in evaluating the significance of his geometry of visibles in the history of the discovery of non-Euclidean geometries. (...) The question will be reexamined with particular attention given to his unpublished manuscripts. These include comments on Saccheri’s work and Reid’s repeated attempts to derive Euclid’s parallel postulate from the axioms of incidence. (shrink)

Research in the field of management has increasingly focused on strategies and tools related to corporate sustainability. Of the tools examined, codes of ethics have been found to play a primary role. Many studies have investigated the content of such codes, as well as their capacity to condition the behaviour of people within organizations. However, few studies have considered the intrinsic quality of codes of ethics. This study aims to investigate the impact that specific factors—firm size, degree of internationalization and (...) industry effect—can have on the quality of codes of ethics. Based on a sample of 248 listed Italian companies, the results of the empirical analysis show that the quality standard is particularly high in larger companies and in those firms operating in industries in which relationships established with critical stakeholders—and disclosure to those stakeholders—play a crucial role. These results have interesting implications for both researchers and practitioners. (shrink)

Richard Owen has been condemned by Darwinians as an anti-evolutionist and an essentialist. In recent years he has been the object of a revisionist analysis intended to uncover evolutionary elements in his scientific enterprise. In this paper I will examine Owen's evolutionary hypothesis and its connections with von Baer's idea of divergent development. To give appropriate importance to Owen's evolutionism is the first condition to develop an up-to-date understanding of his scientific enterprise, that is to disentagle Owen's contribution to the (...) modernization of typology and morphology. I will argue that Owen's Platonic essentialism is rhetorical and incongruous. On the contrary, an interpretation of the archetype based on Aristotle's biological works makes possible a new conception of type, based on a homeostatic mechanism of stability. The renewal of morphology hinges on homological correspondences and a homeostatic process is also the origin of serial and special homology. I will argue that special homology shows an evolutionary orientation insofar as it is a typically inter-specific character while serial homology is determined through an elementary usage of the categories of developmental morphology. (shrink)

Two problems related to the biological identity of living beings are faced: the who-problem (which are the biological properties making that living being unique and different from the others?); the persistence-problem (what does it take for a living being to persist from a time to another?). They are discussed inside a molecular biology framework, which shows how epigenetics can be a good ground to provide plausible answers. That is, we propose an empirical solution to the who-problem and to the persistence-problem (...) on the basis of the new perspectives opened by a molecular understanding of epigenetic processes. In particular, concerning the former, we argue that any living being is the result of the epigenetic processes that have regulated the expression of its genome; concerning the latter, we defend the idea that the criterion for the persistence of its identity is to be indicated in the continuity of those epigenetic processes. We also counteract possible objections, in particular (1) whether our approach has something to say at a metaphysical level; (2) how it could account for the passage from the two phenotypes of the parental gametes to the single phenotype of the zygote; (3) how it could account for the identity of derivatives of one living being that continue to live disjoined from that original living being; (4) how it could account for higher mental functions. (shrink)

Harrigan and Spekkens, introduced the influential notion of an ontological model of operational quantum theory. Ontological models can be either “epistemic” or “ontic.” According to the two scholars, Einstein would have been one of the first to propose an epistemic interpretation of quantum mechanics. Pusey et al. showed that an epistemic interpretation of quantum theory is impossible, so implying that Einstein had been refuted. We discuss in detail Einstein’s arguments against the standard interpretation of QM, proving that there is a (...) misunderstanding in Harrigan and Spekkens’ attribution of an epistemic perspective to Einstein, whose point of view was actually statistical, but in a quasi-classical sense. (shrink)

Based on Pritchard's distinction between favoring and discriminating epistemic grounds, and on how those grounds bear on the elimination of skeptical possibilities, I present the dream argument as a moderate skeptical possibility that can be reasonably motivated. In order to block the dream argument skeptical conclusion, I present a version of phenomenological disjunctivism based on Noë's actionist account of perceptual consciousness. This suggests that perceptual knowledge is rationally grounded because it is a form of embodied achievement - what I call (...) embodied rationality -, which offers a way of dissolving the pseudo-problem of epistemic immodesty, namely, the seemingly counterintuitive thesis that one can acquire rationally grounded knowledge that one is not in a radical skeptical scenario. (shrink)

This paper considers the nature of schizophrenic autism and urges its importance for understanding the phenomenological core of schizophrenia. Different clinical manifestations of schizophrenic autism are demonstrated, and it is asked whether these might reflect different aspects of one underlying phenomenologically intelligible phenomenon. Four phenomenological hypotheses are put forward: that autism is a function of semantic drifting, emotional drifting, ontological incompleteness, or a particular ethic rejecting common sense. By way of conclusion an integrative hypothesis is considered: that autism is intelligible (...) in terms of the experience of disembodiment. (shrink)

As correctly noticed by Vincent Colapietro, one of the few authors who have approached the topic, pragmatism and psychoanalysis followed parallel paths. The most obvious comparison between James and Freud did not seem to cast new light neither on the understanding of psyche nor on the two movements of thought. However, a different and less obvious comparison between Peirce and Jung might be more fruitful, notwithstanding the progressive antipsychologism of Peirce’s approach to logic. As we are going to see, this (...) unusual comparison is due to the strong epistemic and philosophical import of Jung’s mature theories as well as to Peirce’s tendency to provide a general theory of the mind, both conscious and unconscious. Therefore, this paper will try to understand the attitude that Peirce had towards psychology (I), to recall the part of Jung’s theory that has to do with Peirce’s pragmatism (II), to assess the relationship between the two authors and the reciprocal advantage in mutually integrating their theories (III). (shrink)

In this paper I will compare the concept of explication à la Carnap and the concept of explication à la Kant. This essay should primarily be seen as a comparison of two different philosophical styles, but it is also intended as a vindication of what Kant wrote and what Carnap forgot to read.

Thomas Reid presented a two-dimensional geometry of the visual field in his Inquiry into the Human Mind (1764). The axioms of this geometry are different from those of Euclidean plane geometry. The ‘geometry of visibles’ is the same as the geometry of the surface of the sphere, described without reference to points and lines outside the surface itself. In a recent article, James Van Cleve has argued that Reid can secure a non-Euclidean geometry of visibles only at the cost of (...) abandoning his direct realist theory of perception, and reintroducing sense-data. The question will be reexamined by considering two aspects of Reid’s theory of vision: the claim that we do not directly perceive distance by sight and Reid’s characterization of visible figure as a partial notion of an external object. (shrink)

In this paper I will compare the concept of explication à la Carnap and the concept of explication à la Kant. This essay should primarily be seen as a comparison of two different philosophical styles, but it is also intended as a vindication of what Kant wrote and what Carnap forgot to read.

In 1685, during the heyday of Scottish Cartesianism, regent Robert Lidderdale from Edinburgh University declared Cartesianism the best philosophy in support of the Reformed faith. It is commonplace that Descartes was ostracised by the Reformed, and his role in pre-Enlightenment Scottish philosophy is not yet fully acknowledged. This paper offers an introduction to Scottish Cartesianism, and argues that the philosophers of the Scottish universities warmed up to Cartesianism because they saw it as a newer, better version of their own traditional (...) Reformed scholasticism, chiefly in metaphysics and natural philosophy. (shrink)

The duality between general frames and modal algebras allows to transfer a problem about the relational (Kripke) semantics into algebraic terms, and conversely. We here deal with the conjecture: the modal algebra A is subdirectly irreducible (s.i.) if and only if the dual frame A* is generated. We show that it is false in general, and that it becomes true under some mild assumptions, which include the finite case and the case of K4. We also prove that a Kripke frame (...) F is generated if and only if the dual algebra F* is s.i. The technical result is that A is s.i. when the set of points which generate the dual frame A* is not of zero measure. (shrink)

According to Reid, color sensations are not extended nor are they arranged in figured patterns. Reid further claimed that ‘there is no sensation appropriated to visible figure.’ Reid justified these controversial claims by appeal to Cheselden's report of the experiences of a young man affected by severe cataracts, and by appeal to cases of perception of visible figure without color. While holding fast to the principle that sensations are not extended, Dugald Stewart tried to show that ‘a variety of colour (...) sensations is a necessary means for the perception of visible figure.’ According to John Fearn, two motives appear to be central to Reid's views about color sensations and extension: his commitment to the Cartesian doctrine of the immateriality of the soul, and his attempt to evade ‘Hume's dilemma’ about the existence and immateriality of the soul. (shrink)

In order to illustrate the difference between sensation and perception, Reid imagines a blind man that by ‘some strange distemper’ has lost all his notions of external objects, but has retained the power of sensation and reasoning. Reid argues that since sensations do not resemble external objects, the blind man could not possibly infer from them any notion of primary qualities. Condillac proposed a similar thought experiment in the Treatise on Sensations. I argue that Condillac can reach a conclusion opposite (...) to that of Reid only by assuming that some particular collections of sensations do indeed resemble the qualities of external objects. Reid had considered a similar case in a manuscript, but he again notices that such complex collections sensations do not resemble the qualities of external objects. (shrink)

This paper wishes to make a contribution to the study of how seventeenth-century scholasticism adapted to the new intellectual challenges presented by the Reformation. I focus in particular on the theory of accidents, which Reformed scholastic philosophers explored in search of a philosophical understanding of the rejection of the Catholic and Lutheran interpretations of the Eucharist. I argue that the Calvinist scholastics chose the view that actual inherence is part of the essence of accidents because it was coherent with their (...) theology. In this paper, I bring to attention the Reformed scholastic philosophy which was taught in the Scottish universities in the first half of the seventeenth century, an area so far neglected by scholars. In so doing, I compare Scottish scholasticism with coeval Calvinist sources, and highlight the differences from authoritative Catholic and Lutheran philosophers. The conclusion is that Calvinist scholasticism, both Scottish and Continental, brought about fundamental changes in seventeenth-century metaphysics, which are coherent with a humanist interpretation of Aristotle, and anticipate some themes of early modern philosophy. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to argue that logic can play an important role in the “toolbox” of molecular biology. We show how biochemical pathways, i.e., transitions from a molecular aggregate to another molecular aggregate, can be viewed as deductive processes. In particular, our logical approach to molecular biology — developed in the form of a natural deduction system — is centered on the notion of Curry-Howard isomorphism, a cornerstone in nineteenth-century proof-theory.

Telemedicine is a complex field including various applications and target groups. Especially telehealthcare is seen by many as a means to revolutionize medicine. It gives patients the opportunity to take charge of their own health by using self-tracking devices and allows health professionals to treat patients from a distance. To some, this means an empowerment of patient autonomy as well as an improvement in the quality of care. Others state the dangers of depersonalization of medicine and the pathologization of daily (...) life. This paper examines the ethical implications of telehealthcare, focusing on patient autonomy and quality of care by analyzing metareviews, randomized controlled trials and narrative ethical analyses on the topic. As a result, we conclude that the technically enhanced encounter between patients and health professionals may mean an empowerment of patient autonomy when it goes along with a personal relationship based on trust, assistance and support. When it comes to the quality of care, telehealthcare may lead to an improvement as long it is adopted to the patient’s individual needs. (shrink)

In our paper, we propose a relativisticand metaphysically neutral identity criterionfor biological entities. We start from thecriterion of genidentity proposed by K. Lewinand H. Reichenbach. Then we enrich it to renderit more philosophical powerful and so capableof dealing with the real transformations thatoccur in the extremely variegated biologicalworld.

Scientific concepts, laws, theories, models and thought experiments are representations but uniquely different. In On Scientific Representation each is given a full philosophical exploration within an original, coherent philosophical framework that is strongly rooted in the Kantian tradition (Kant, Hertz, Vaihinger, Cassirer). Through a revisionist historical approach, Boniolo shows how the Kantian tradition can help us renew and rethink contemporary issues in epistemology and the philosophy of science.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Schizophrenic Delusions, Embodiment, and the BackgroundGiovanni Stanghellini (bio)Keywordsschizophrenia, delusion, embodiment, common sense, phenomenologyIn their article Delusions, Certainty, and the Background, Rhodes and Gipps (2008) argue for a Background theory of delusions. Their central argument may be summed up as follows:• The formation and maintenance of delusions becomes intelligible once they are seen to reflect a basic disturbance. When studying delusions, the focus should be on providing an adequate framework (...) for understanding, rather than providing empirical hypotheses to be tested.• The basic disturbance in delusions, and insanity in general, is not a deficiency in reasoning or a defect in the content of experience, but rather something more fundamental.• Delusions––this is their central claim––are caused by a failure of the Bedrock of beliefs (Wittgenstein) or the Background (Searle) to adequately inform or constrain the process of belief formation.• Our Bedrock certainties are defined––following Wittgenstein––as ultimately constituted by our ability to act in the world and demonstrate our primary engagement with the world. They are born out of our everyday experience of the world, conveying our direct, pre-reflective, and practical grasp of the world, rather than expressing judgments we make about it.• Similarly, the Background is defined as those abilities and dispositions that are neither representations nor rules, that function before we can make sense of our experiences.• Wittgenstein’s Bedrock and Searle’s Background in great part overlap with Blankenburg’s pre-reflective natural self-evidence and Stanghellini’s common sense, namely, our own unreflecting know-how, a set of nonpropositional skills, capacities, and dispositions that attune us with the world.• Without a fully functioning Background, the distinctions between imaginary and real (mind and world), self and non-self, and cause and coincidence fail to be adequately drawn within experience. Also, grasping the meaning of others’ behaviors and a weakening of contextual influences are entailed by an erosion of Background sensibilities.I feel extremely sympathetic to this account and, as Rhodes and Gipps report, there are remarkable points of overlap between their and my own ideas about the formation of schizophrenic delusions. I would like to add some comments on the main theories on the basic disorders entailed in the pathogenesis of delusions and conclude with some suggestions to integrate the Background theory of delusions. [End Page 311]Syntagmatic Versus Paradigmatic Models of DelusionsLet me raise first an epistemological point: paradigmatic models of delusions––defining what a delusion is in itself and what are its borders with similar phenomena––proved to be unsatisfactory in psychopathology. As Schneider and Huber (1975) put it more that 40 years ago, “[w]hat counts in delusions is not the delusion itself... but snagging the course of the lived experience, rather than its product” (p. 2042). What we do need, to understand what delusions really are, are syntagmatic models how––delusions (in this case, delusions in persons with schizophrenia) are connected to other phenomena within a structure or a process. What we should look for, then, are the phenomena that contribute as motivationally (or causally) necessary vulnerability, that is, the basic disturbance for the development of delusions. This logically implies that we need studying delusions in fieri, or the pathways that lead to delusions themselves. I subscribe to the principle that studying delusion by merely concentrating exclusively on its crystallized forms would be like studying stroke victims to know more about hypertension (Parnas and Sass 2001). This methodological move from crystallized delusions to delusions in-the-making is quintessential to define the subtle, basic, phenomenal invariant core that characterizes a given psychopathological phenomenon and that emerges across the manifold facets of the phenomenon itself and shapes them and keeps them meaningfully interconnected.A syntagmatic model should account for (at least) the following features of schizophrenic delusions:• abnormalities in symbolization (loss of commonsense meaning of a given thing or fact),• formal aspects (e.g., revelation character, experience of centrality), and• specificity of content (e.g., metaphysical tinge).It should also be compatible with those phenomena like self-disorders (loss of sense of ownership and of agency) that are entailed in most schizophrenic symptoms (e.g., verbal–acoustic hallucinations and experiences of alien control). Finally, it should keep meaningfully... (shrink)

According to Reid, opinions that contradict the principles of common sense are not only false but also absurd. Nature has given us an emotion that reveals the absurdity of an opinion: the emotion of ridicule. An appeal to ridicule in philosophical arguments may easily be discounted as a logical fallacy in the same manner as an appeal to the common consent of people. This essay traces the origins of Reid's defense of ridicule in the works of Addison, Hutcheson, Shaftesbury and (...) Campbell. Reid rejected a non-epistemic view of the sense of ridicule. According to Reid, ridicule includes both a feeling and a particular act of judgment based on the principles of common sense. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is methodological. I begin by showing the methodological frailties of both the heart and brain approach to the criteria of death used in connection with organ transplantation. I then clarify what a definition is. Finally, I propose to abandon the definition of death, and suggest a pragmatic definition of ‘explantability window’.

An overview of current scholarship in ontology places one before two parallel lines that never meet: on the one hand there are essays in so-called “analytic ontology”, on the other hand, there are studies developed within so-called Aristotelian-Thomistic ontology. However, even though it is frequently ignored, there is an interesting philosophical current of thought within so-called “analytical Thomism”, which joins contemporary debates of “analytic ontology” from the perspective of an Aristotelian-Thomistic ontology. The main contributors to this current are P. Geach (...) and B. Miller, who have proposed a new theory about existence, called “two sense theory”. It is a view intermediate between the well known Fregean and Meinongian views, arguing for the possibility of two senses of “exists”: as first- and as second-order predicate. The object of this paper is to present this current of thought, and to evaluate it from the point of view of the history of ontology and of “continental” Thomism. (shrink)

We argue that, in the case of research biobanks, there is a need to replace the currently used informed consent with trusted consent. Accordingly, we introduce a proposal for the structure of the latter. Further, we discuss some of the issues that can be addressed effectively through our proposal. In particular, we illustrate: i) which research should be authorized by donors; ii) how to regulate access to information; iii) the fundamental role played by a Third Party Authority in assuring compliance (...) with the reciprocal expectations and obligations of donors and scientists. Finally, we briefly analyse two issues that might represent important elements of a ‘new alliance’ between researchers and donors to which the trusted consent could pave the way: i) the correlations between needs and rights of the two parties, and ii) possible economic transactions. (shrink)

On the collection of points of a formal space.

While Hume had a favorable opinion of the new commercial society, Reid envisioned a utopian system that would eliminate private property and substitute the profit incentive with a system of state-conferred honors. Reid’s predilection for a centralized command economy cannot be explained by his alleged discovery of market failures, and has to be considered in the context of his moral psychology. Hume tried to explain how the desire for gain that motivates the merchant leads to industry and frugality. These, in (...) their turn, benefit all society. Reid still saw the desire for money as a degenerate form of the desire for power. The contrast between Hume and Reid, however, has not to be taken too far. On some particular matters of economic policy, such as paper credit, Hume and Reid eventually came to similar views. (shrink)

Based on Pritchard’s distinction (2012, 2016) between favoring and discriminating epistemic grounds, and on how those grounds bear on the elimination of skeptical possibilities, I present the dream argument as a moderate skeptical possibility that can be reasonably motivated. In order to block the dream argument skeptical conclusion, I present a version of phenomenological disjunctivism based on Noë’s actionist account of perceptual consciousness (2012). This suggests that perceptual knowledge is rationally grounded because it is a form of embodied achievement – (...) what I call embodied rationality –, which offers a way of dissolving the pseudo-problem of epistemic immodesty, namely, the seemingly counterintuitive thesis that one can acquire rationally grounded knowledge that one is not in a radical skeptical scenario. (shrink)

In a recent article on Reid’s theory of single and double vision, James Van Cleve considers an argument against direct realism presented by Hume. Hume argues for the mind-dependent nature of the objects of our perception from the phenomenon of double vision. Reid does not address this particular argument, but Van Cleve considers possible answers Reid might have given to Hume. He finds fault with all these answers. Against Van Cleve, I argue that both appearances in double vision could be (...) considered visible figures of the object, and show how this solution might preserve Reid’s direct realism. However, this solution is not compatible with the single appearance of an object predicted by Reid’s theory of single and double vision. This consequence will appear evident once we consider the critique of Reid’s theory of single and double vision formulated by William Charles Wells (1757-1817). Wells argues that Reid’s theory is either incomplete or incompatible with other claims made by Reid. It is incomplete since it fails to specify the unique direction in which we the object in single vision; if it not incomplete and is compatible with the law of monocular direction given by Reid, then it is incompatible with Reid’s claim that we do not perceive immediately distance by sight. (shrink)

How can the discoveries made in the biological sciences play a role in a discussion on the foundation of ethics? This book responds to this question by examining how evolutionism can explain and justify the existence of ethical normativity and the emergence of particular moral systems. Written by a team of philosophers and scientists, the essays collected in this volume deal with the limits of evolutionary explanations, the justifications of ethics, and methodological issues concerning evolutionary accounts of ethics, among other (...) topics. They offer deep insights into the origin and purpose of human moral capacities and of moral systems. (shrink)

In this paper we propose an approach to vagueness characterised by two features. The first one is philosophical: we move along a Kantian path emphasizing the knowing subject’s conceptual apparatus. The second one is formal: to face vagueness, and our philosophical view on it, we propose to use topology and formal topology. We show that the Kantian and the topological features joined together allow us an atypical, but promising, way of considering vagueness.

In normal observers, gazing at one’s own face in the mirror for a few minutes, at a low illumination level, triggers the perception of strange faces, a new visual illusion that has been named ‘strange-face in the mirror’. Individuals see huge distortions of their own faces, but they often see monstrous beings, archetypal faces, faces of relatives and deceased, and animals. In the experiment described here, strange-face illusions were perceived when two individuals, in a dimly lit room, gazed at each (...) other in the face. Inter-subjective gazing compared to mirror-gazing produced a higher number of different strange-faces. Inter-subjective strange-face illusions were always dissociative of the subject’s self and supported moderate feeling of their reality, indicating a temporary lost of self-agency. Unconscious synchronization of event-related responses to illusions was found between members in some pairs. Synchrony of illusions may indicate that unconscious response–coordination is caused by the illusion–conjunction of crossed dissociative strange-faces, which are perceived as projections into each other’s visual face of reciprocal embodied representations within the pair. Inter-subjective strange-face illusions may be explained by the subject’s embodied representations and the other’s visual face binding. Unconscious facial mimicry may promote inter-subjective illusion–conjunction, then unconscious joint-action and response–coordination. (shrink)

In the second half of the seventeenth century, philosophy teaching in the Scottish universities gradually moved from scholasticism to Cartesianism. Robert Forbes, regent at Marischal College and King's College, Aberdeen, was a strenuous opponent of Descartes. The analysis of the philosophy of Forbes and of his teacher Patrick Gordon sheds light on the relationship between Scottish Reformed scholasticism and the reception of Descartes in Scotland.

Gli antichi Greci la chiamavano métis. Parola comune e anche nome mitologico di divinità. Se consultiamo il vocabolario, ne troviamo due significati: "saggezza" ispirata a "prudenza" e "disegno", nel senso di "piano" concepito da qualcuno. La flessibilità ha a che fare soprattutto con il secondo significato, perché è razionalità strategica e agonistica, in cui la duttilità è insieme ragion d'essere, modo di operare e scopo. Giovanni Bottiroli sostiene da tempo la necessità di elaborare una filosofia di tipo modale, che (...) apra le categorie della logica classica alla coppia rigido/flessibile. In questo saggio porta a compimento una teoria estremamente articolata degli stili di pensiero, la sola che giudica in grado di comprendere l'eterogeneità della mente, il pluralismo logico e semantico, l'identità come polisemia. Se definiamo "rigido" ogni soggetto il cui modo d'essere è la coincidenza con se stesso, la flessibilità non può ridursi infatti a una rigidità indebolita: è inclusiva e avvolgente e le spetta il primato sul piano logico, etico ed estetico. Perché è la flessibilità a renderci liberi. (shrink)

In this paper, the ontological, terminological, epistemological, and ethical aspects of omission are considered in a coherent and balanced framework, based on the idea that there are omissions which are actions and omissions which are non-actions. In particular, we suggest that the approach to causation which best deals with omission is Mackie's INUS conditional proposal. We argue that omissions are determined partly by the ontological conditional structure of reality, and partly by the interests, beliefs, and values of observers. The final (...) upshot is that moral judgments involved in cases of omissions cannot be grounded on, but are the ground for judgments about what INUS conditions count as omissions. (shrink)

In this paper a unified theory of models and thought experiments is proposed by considering them as fictions, la Vaihinger. In order to reach this aim, the Hertzian and Botzmannian interpretation of theories as Bilder is reconsidered.