Pietro Pomponazzi.--Simnoe Porzio.--Maria d'Aragona marchesa del Vasto.--Andrea Cesalpino.--Giovan Battista de la Porta.--Giordano Bruno.--Tommaso Campanella.--Giulio Cesare Vanini.--Trajano Boccalini.

On the one hand, after Matteo d'Acquasparta's distinction between the three types of eternity and the temporal necessity of the past, Meyronnes radicalized Scotus's dynamic vision of duration, conceiving the modality as a relation of implication between predicate and existing subject, and time as relationship between Creator and creature. On the other hand, after Ockham denied the real simultaneity of opposed potencies, the Ochamist extension of temporal necessity to the present was denied by Gregory of Rimini, who was favourable, together (...) with Wodeham, to the mutability of the past in a divided sense. Mirecourt, strong on the English subtleties, appears to follow Gregory and tries to find a solution to the interaction between the two contingencies, from top to bottom, which had been formalized by Gregory: if I, performing or not performing X, can act as if God, as the supreme intellect from eternity, could have known or not known X to come, and, if God as agent, absolutely willing omnipotent and unimpeadable from eternity can act as if X happened or did not happen, then can I act as if X, which is from eternity, did not happen from eternity? (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Le prime quattro Collationes Parisienses sulle tracce di Giovanni Duns ScotoFrancesco Fiorentino (bio)Come si è visto altrove, l'attribuzione delle Collationes è abbastanza dubbia, propriamente parlando: questa opera non può essere ricondotta a Giovanni Duns Scoto in quanto autore secondo i concetti moderni di proprietà intellettuale e di responsabilità privata, che non risultano pertinenti ai processi materiali di produzione del libro tardo-medievale in quanto opera collettiva, fondata sulla co-autorialità (...) distribuita tra maestro in quanto ideatore e apprendista in quanto compilatore. Questa impossibilità consegue al genere letterario delle Collationes in quanto esercitazioni baccellierali o studentesche, sotto la supervisione di un magister studentium.1 I contemporanei a Scoto non rispettavano i criteri filologici del Terzo Millennio al punto da includere, nel corpus scotiano, il primo libro del commento sentenziario di Enrico di Harclay secondo la redazione del ms. Città del Vaticano, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vat. lat. 13687.2Tuttavia, la considerazione di questi fattori materiali non svaluta né le Collationes che attestano l'esistenza di un ambiente culturale, prossimo a Scoto, né lo stesso Scoto che ha probabilmente partecipato alle Collationes come moderatore o come interlocutore.3 Questa particolare natura delle Collationes ne condiziona l'attribuzione che non può essere associata con la ricerca dell'autore in senso stretto, ma con la considerazione di un plesso di opinioni concorrenti e risalenti all'insegnamento [End Page 115] di Scoto, non sempre in prima scena.4 Scoto, in cinque luoghi testuali dell'Ordinatio, si riferisce apertamente alle Collationes che sono incluse in un discreto numero di testimoni manoscritti del trecento e del quattrocento che tramandano opere sicuramente scotiane, e nella Tabula Scoti redatta da Giacomo d'Ascoli. Guglielmo di Alnwick si dichiara reportator di una collatio, presumibilmente di Parigi, sulla connessione delle virtù morali.5Queste evidenze consentono d'inserire le Collationes nel corpus scotiano, secondo un grado di autenticità significativo, ma non perfettamente conforme ai criteri filologici attuali. Ciò non significa de virtute sermonis che le Collationes sono di Scoto o che non sono di Scoto, ma, più precisamente, che le Collationes non possono essere attribuite a Scoto secondo i criteri filologici attuali, pur avendo avuto buona probabilità di essere attribuite a Scoto dai suoi contemporanei secondo i loro specifici criteri filologici. Infatti è la cornice che dà significato al quadro, è l'orizzonte che dà senso al paesaggio, è la forma che fa la sostanza. Queste ultime annotazioni apparentemente erudite potrebbero risultare scomode per un eventuale progetto di edizione critica che volesse sostenere una stretta autorialità scotiana delle Collationes. Sarebbe più saggio mantenere l'anonimato dell'opera nel rispetto del rigore scientifico sperimentale.A seconda del luogo in cui queste conferenze sono state svolte, ossia Parigi o Oxford, le Collationes sono state distinte in Parisienses e Oxonienses. Queste ultime sono state edite da Marina Fedeli e Guido Alliney.6 Alliney e Fedeli hanno messo in luce la natura, la tradizione, la datazione, l'attribuzione e i contenuti storico-dottrinali di tutte le Collationes, incluse quelle di Parigi.Le Collationes Parisienses sono conservate in sette testimoni manoscritti già descritti da Carlo Balic, Guido Alliney, Marina Fedeli e Franz Pelster7: [End Page 116]Cambridge, Peterhouse College, MS 241, fols. 1r–45r;London, British Library, Add MS 7696, fols. 2r–38v;Cittá Vaticana, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vat. lat. 876, fols. 311r–323v;Oxford, Balliol College, MS 209, fols. 114r–141v;Oxford, Magdalen College, MS 194, fols. 2v–20v;Oxford, Merton College, MS 65, fols. 90r–109v;Oxford, Merton College, MS 90, fols. 155r–199VQuesti testimoni sembrano essere distribuiti in due redazioni distinte: l'una completa e l'altra incompleta. La prima appare tramandata dai primi due testimoni, entrambi risalenti al secolo XV, mentre la seconda redazione si trova negli altri testimoni di cui solo il ms. Vat. lat. 876 data al secolo XIV. A questi testimoni occorre aggiungere altri due: il ms. Cittá Vaticana, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vat. lat. 890, fols. 4v–5v che contiene solo un estratto, e il ms. Barcelona, Arxiu de la Corona d'Aragó, ms. Ripoll 95, ff. 35r–37r che custodisce solo la prima collatio di Parigi.8Le Collationes Parisienses si dividono almeno in quattro gruppi: il primo gruppo, dalla prima alla quarta collatio, verte sulle virtù morali... (shrink)

La vita e le opere di Landolfo Caracciolo O.F.M. sono state descritte in modo sistematico da Salerno.1 Rispetto a questa descrizione, che ha posto il bacellierato sentenziario di Caracciolo intorno al 1320, va assunta la ricostruzione di Schabel, che ha spiegato come Caracciolo abbia letto le Sententiae a Parigi dopo Pietro Aureolo e prima di Francesco d’Ascoli e Francesco di Meyronnes.2 Successivamente Landolfo avrebbe ricevuto la prima cattedra in teologia dello Studium fran-cescano di Napoli, inaugurandovi la tradizione scotista.3Landolfo (...) fu ministro provinciale della Terra di Lavoro e svolse parecchie missioni diplomatiche per conto della regina Giovanna I di Napoli. Nel 1327 fu designato vescovo di.. (shrink)

M. Leone / L. Valente, Libertà e determinismo. Riflessioni medievali, Aracne, Roma 2017.

This article presents the recent edition which the research team, direct-ed by Olivier Bertrand, undertook in order to give back to the schol-arly community concerned with Augustine of Hippo the translation, in Middle French, by Raoul de Presles of De civitate Dei commissioned by Charles V, the Good, King of France, while he was involved in the recapture of Brittany after the Treaty of Bretigny dur-ing the Hundred Years’ War. This translation, which originally enjoyed an enormous market success, has finally (...) appeared in a critical edition consisting of five volumes. Until now, only the first two volumes have been available, containing, respectively, books I-III and IV-V. (shrink)

The fallen state of man is characterized by the disappearance of wisdom and the lack of freedom, according to Ugo and the anonymous author of Summa Sententiarum. Ugo assimilates this person to the insipid and stupid in the book of Job. Such a person should blend infused wisdom with the triple cognition of God, himself and the good to be done. This task follows a precise historical development, which is initiated by the weak in faith and which can be schematized (...) in five steps: 1) fear; 2) education; 3) wisdom; 4) history; 5) study of the Bible. Studying, man assimilates himself to God as the supreme exemplary form of wisdom and individualizes the works of condition and reparation. But whereas the anonymous author subdues the moral value of divine action to a social criterion, Ugo distinguishes three degrees of good and connects moral value to the activity or passivity of the divine will. (shrink)

Come ho osservato altrove2, il ms. Oxford, Merton, 284 è composito: consiste di 117 fogli prevalentemente cartacei, tranne i primi quattro di guardia e i ff. 112–113, che sono pergamenacei. Esso misura mediamente 287 × 223 mm3. L’esame della filigrana attesta la produzione delle carte a Siena intorno al 13404. Sul verso della terza carta di guardia si trova una nota marginale che denuncia l’origine e il possesso del codice, ossia «Liber Iohannis Bloxham ex legat’ M. Symonis Lamborne / Iste (...) liber datur domui scolarium de Merton’ in Oxon’ ad iacendum in libraria incatenatum quamdiu durare poterit ad usum et utilitatem sociorum eiusdem domus et dabatur dicto Iohanni superius nominato per magistrum Symonum... (shrink)

Alnwick distances himself from Scotus, as he appears in Lectura Oxoniensis and the commentary on Metaphysics, though the natural propensity of the will is affirmed in q. 9 d. 49 of Book Four of Reportata Parisiensia. However, this question could be spurious, or else more susceptible to the Parisian influence of teaching of Henry of Ghent, with whom Alnwick aligns himself when he sanctions without any doubt the fact that man desires to pass from a lesser good, guaranteed by philosophical (...) speculation of an Aristotelian- Averroist matrix, to a supreme good, which coincides with the clear vision of divine essence, because man knows that essence both naturaliter and supernaturaliter. Alnwick tenaciously debates natural knowledge in the prologue to the Commentary on the Sentences, thanks to the use of discursus, which serves to set up a chain of syllogistic deductions in order to arrive at quidditative concepts of divinity in both an affirmative and negative sense. These concepts assure the wayfarer a general k... (shrink)

Questo Congresso è nato in occasione del Settimo Centenario della morte del beato Giovanni Duns Scoto, uno dei pensatori più infleunti ed innovativi della Grande Scolastica. Il Congresso conmdensa molti studi ed edizioni di importanti studiosi nazionali ed internazionali, che vertono sulle principali tematiche del pensiero scotista es sull'erdità di scoto. Questa eridità è alquanto complessa e meritvole di approfondimento, perché riserva sorprese inaspettate. Essa è considerata secondo due criteri: uno temporale e l'altro spaziale. Secondo il criterio temporale il Congresso (...) spazia dal secolo XIV all'epoca contemporanea, mentre il criterio spaziale restringe il Congresso al Mezzogiorno d'Italia. (shrink)

This volume contains the Latin-Italian translation of the Ordinatio Prologue of John Duns Scotus. It is the second volume in the series 'Traditiones: Testi del pensiero tardo-antico, medieval e umanistico', directed by Armando Bisogno. While it is not the first Italian translation of the Ordinatio Prologue, it does offer a rich and detailed introduction that situates Scotus's text in the more general context of his historical milieu, including the effects of the Condemnation of 1277. After a general overview of the (...) life and works of Scotus, including his major positions, the author aids the reader in understanding the significance of Scotus's predecessors... (shrink)

Economists and biologists have proposed a distinction between two mechanisms – “strong” and “weak” reciprocity – that may explain the evolution of human sociality. Weak reciprocity theorists emphasize the benefits of long-term cooperation and the use of low-cost strategies to deter free-riders. Strong reciprocity theorists, in contrast, claim that cooperation in social dilemma games can be sustained by costly punishment mechanisms, even in one-shot and finitely repeated games. To support this claim, they have generated a large body of evidence concerning (...) the willingness of experimental subjects to punish uncooperative free-riders at a cost to themselves. In this article, I distinguish between a “narrow” and a “wide” reading of the experimental evidence. Under the narrow reading, punishment experiments are just useful devices to measure psychological propensities in controlled laboratory conditions. Under the wide reading, they replicate a mechanism that supports cooperation also in “real-world” situations outside the laboratory. I argue that the wide interpretation must be tested using a combination of laboratory data and evidence about cooperation “in the wild.” In spite of some often-repeated claims, there is no evidence that cooperation in the small egalitarian societies studied by anthropologists is enforced by means of costly punishment. Moreover, studies by economic and social historians show that social dilemmas in the wild are typically solved by institutions that coordinate punishment, reduce its cost, and extend the horizon of cooperation. The lack of field evidence for costly punishment suggests important constraints about what forms of cooperation can or cannot be sustained by means of decentralised policing. (shrink)

Nel Tesoro del Duomo di Monza si conservano tre celebri dittici eburnei relativi alla dotazione di suppellettili liturgiche di Berengario del Friuli (inizi X secolo): il dittico di Stilicone e quello del Poeta e della Musa, entrambi tardo antichi; il dittico di re Davide e san Gregorio Magno, di datazione e lettura più controverse (VI secolo ed età carolingia). Primo editore dei pezzi è Anton Francesco Gori nel secondo volume del Thesaurus veterum diptychorum consularium et ecclesiasticorum (1759), corredato di (...) tre tavole di Andrea Scacciati. Pur non avendo mai visionato i manufatti, l’erudito fiorentino dedica ad essi un’ampia disamina critica basandosi essenzialmente sugli acquerelli del pittore Girolamo Ferroni, reclutato dal marchese milanese e prezioso intermediario Alessandro Teodoro Trivulzio. Nel 1794 il padre della storiografia monzese, il canonico Anton Francesco Frisi, risolve di rieditare i dittici in apertura del terzo tomo delle sue Memorie storiche di Monza e sua corte. Consigliato da quel don Carlo Trivulzio erudito e proprietario di un ricco nucleo di avori antichi, supportato dalle modeste incisioni di Giulio Cesare Bianchi, offre una rilettura che puntualizza ed emenda in parte quanto scritto dal Gori, condita da una vena polemica contro «chi non ha esaminati personalmente i Monumenti, sui quali ragiona». Sullo sfondo del contesto culturale dell’epoca e delle personalità che vi presero parte, con l’ausilio della documentazione divisa tra la Veneranda Biblioteca Ambrosiana di Milano, l’Archivio della Fondazione Trivulzio e la Biblioteca Marucelliana di Firenze, il contributo intende proporre una ricostruzione degli avvenimenti con attenzione al rapporto tra originale (i dittici monzesi) e copia (disegni e incisioni che ne scaturirono). (shrink)

Economists and biologists have proposed a distinction between two mechanisms – “strong” and “weak” reciprocity – that may explain the evolution of human sociality. Weak reciprocity theorists emphasize the benefits of long-term cooperation and the use of low-cost strategies to deter free-riders. Strong reciprocity theorists, in contrast, claim that cooperation in social dilemma games can be sustained by costly punishment mechanisms, even in one-shot and finitely repeated games. To support this claim, they have generated a large body of evidence concerning (...) the willingness of experimental subjects to punish uncooperative free-riders at a cost to themselves. In this article, I distinguish between a “narrow” and a “wide” reading of the experimental evidence. Under the narrow reading, punishment experiments are just useful devices to measure psychological propensities in controlled laboratory conditions. Under the wide reading, they replicate a mechanism that supports cooperation also in “real-world” situations outside the laboratory. I argue that the wide interpretation must be tested using a combination of laboratory data and evidence about cooperation “in the wild.” In spite of some often-repeated claims, there is no evidence that cooperation in the small egalitarian societies studied by anthropologists is enforced by means of costly punishment. Moreover, studies by economic and social historians show that social dilemmas in the wild are typically solved by institutions that coordinate punishment, reduce its cost, and extend the horizon of cooperation. The lack of field evidence for costly punishment suggests important constraints about what forms of cooperation can or cannot be sustained by means of decentralised policing. (shrink)

According to Chomsky, creativity is a critical property of human language, particularly the aspect of ?the creative use of language? concerning the appropriateness to a situation. How language can be creative but appropriate to a situation is an unsolvable mystery from the Chomskyan point of view. We propose that language appropriateness can be explained by considering the role of the human capacity for Mental Time Travel at its foundation, together with social and ecological intelligences within a triadic language-grounding system. Our (...) proposal is based on the change of perspective from the analysis of individual sentences to the flux of speech in which the temporal dimension of language is much more relevant. (shrink)

Objective correlates—behavioral, functional, and neural—provide essential tools for the scientific study of consciousness. But reliance on these correlates should not lead to the ‘fallacy of misplaced objectivity’: the assumption that only objective properties should and can be accounted for objectively through science. Instead, what needs to be explained scientifically is what experience is intrinsically— its subjective properties—not just what we can do with it extrinsically. And it must be explained; otherwise the way experience feels would turn out to be magical (...) rather than physical. We argue that it is possible to account for subjective properties objectively once we move beyond cognitive functions and realize what experience is and how it is structured. Drawing on integrated information theory, we show how an objective science of the subjective can account, in strictly physical terms, for both the essential properties of every experience and the specific properties that make particular experiences feel the way they do. (shrink)

Understanding Institutions proposes a new unified theory of social institutions that combines the best insights of philosophers and social scientists who have written on this topic. Francesco Guala presents a theory that combines the features of three influential views of institutions: as equilibria of strategic games, as regulative rules, and as constitutive rules. -/- Guala explains key institutions like money, private property, and marriage, and develops a much-needed unification of equilibrium- and rules-based approaches. Although he uses game theory concepts, (...) the theory is presented in a simple, clear style that is accessible to a wide audience of scholars working in different fields. Outlining and discussing various implications of the unified theory, Guala addresses venerable issues such as reflexivity, realism, Verstehen, and fallibilism in the social sciences. He also critically analyses the theory of “looping effects” and “interactive kinds” defended by Ian Hacking, and asks whether it is possible to draw a demarcation between social and natural science using the criteria of causal and ontological dependence. Focusing on current debates about the definition of marriage, Guala shows how these abstract philosophical issues have important practical and political consequences. -/- Moving beyond specific cases to general models and principles, Understanding Institutions offers new perspectives on what institutions are, how they work, and what they can do for us. (shrink)

Pragmatic vindicatory genealogies provide both a cause and a rationale and can thus affect the space of reasons. But how far is the space of reasons affected by this kind of genealogical argument? What normative and evaluative implications do these arguments have? In this paper, I unpack this issue into three different sub-questions and explain what kinds of reasons they provide, for whom are these reasons, and for what. In relation to this final sub-question I argue, most importantly, that these (...) arguments are ambiguous about what they give us reasons for, meaning that they can be interpreted both as justifications for recognizing the normative standing of certain norms, values, and practices - and thus for living by them - and as excuses for those that do so. I illustrate this point by reference to the genealogical vindication of honour cultures, showing how the vindicatory argument can illuminate such case as one of excusing moral ignorance. Drawing on legal theory and moral philosophy, I show that different evaluative and normative implications hang on the result of the interpretation as either justification or excuse, and show that this ambiguity is a virtue rather than a limitation. (shrink)

Manufacturing and industry practices are undergoing an unprecedented revolution as a consequence of the convergence of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, robotics, cloud computing, virtual and augmented reality, among others. This fourth industrial revolution is similarly changing the practices and capabilities of operators in their industrial environments. This paper introduces and explores the notion of the Operator 4.0 as well as how this novel way of conceptualizing the human operator necessarily implicates human values in the technologies that constitute it. (...) The design approach known as value sensitive design (VSD) is used to explore how these Operator 4.0 technologies can be designed for human values. Expert elicitation surveys were used to determine the values of industry stakeholders and examples of how the VSD methodology can be adopted by engineers in order to design for these values is illustrated. The results provide preliminary adoption strategies that industrial teams can take to Operator 4.0 technology for human values. (shrink)

In this paper, we take a meta-theoretical stance and aim to compare and assess two conceptual frameworks that endeavor to explain phenomenal experience. In particular, we compare Feinberg & Mallatt’s Neurobiological Naturalism (NN) and Tononi’s and colleagues' Integrated Information Theory (IIT), given that the former pointed out some similarities between the two theories (Feinberg & Mallatt 2016c-d). To probe their similarity, we first give a general introduction to both frameworks. Next, we expound a ground plan for carrying out our analysis. (...) We move on to articulate a philosophical profile of NN and IIT, addressing their ontological commitments and epistemological foundations. Finally, we compare the two point-by-point, also discussing how they stand on the issue of artificial consciousness. (shrink)

The experimental approach in economics is a driving force behind some of the most exciting developments in the field. The 'experimental revolution' was based on a series of bold philosophical premises which have remained until now mostly unexplored. This book provides the first comprehensive analysis and critical discussion of the methodology of experimental economics, written by a philosopher of science with expertise in the field. It outlines the fundamental principles of experimental inference in order to investigate their power, scope and (...) limitations. The author demonstrates that experimental economists have a lot to gain by discussing openly the philosophical principles that guide their work, and that philosophers of science have a lot to learn from their ingenious techniques devised by experimenters in order to tackle difficult scientific problems. (shrink)