Cultural evolutionary theory has been alternatively compared to a theory of forces, such as Newtonian mechanics, or the kinetic theory of gases. In this article, I clarify the scope and significance of these metatheoretical characterisations. First, I discuss the kinetic analogy, which has been recently put forward by Tim Lewens. According to it, cultural evolutionary theory is grounded on a bottom-up methodology, which highlights the additive effects of social learning biases on the emergence of large-scale cultural phenomena. Lewens supports this (...) claim by arguing that it is a consequence of cultural evolutionists’ widespread commitment to population thinking. While I concur with Lewens that cultural evolutionists often actually conceive cultural change in aggregative terms, I think that the kinetic framework does not properly account for the explanatory import of population-level descriptions in cultural evolutionary theory. Starting from a criticism of Lewens’ interpretation of population thinking, I argue that the explanatory role of such descriptions is best understood within a dynamical framework—that is, a framework according to which cultural evolutionary theory is a theory of forces. After having spelled out the main features of this alternative interpretation, I elucidate in which respects it helps to outline a more accurate characterisation of the overarching structure of cultural evolutionary theory. (shrink)

The Price equation is currently considered one of the fundamental equations —or even the fundamental equation— of evolution. In this article, we explore the role of this equation within cultural evolutionary theory. More specifically, we use it to account for the explanatory power and the theoretical structure of a certain generalised version of dual-inheritance theory. First, we argue that, in spite of not having a definite empirical content, the Price equation offers a suitable formalisation of the processes of cultural evolution, (...) and provides a powerful heuristic device for discovering the actual causes of cultural change and accumulation. Second, we argue that, as a consequence of this, a certain version of the Price equation is the fundamental law of cultural evolutionary theory. In order to support this claim, we sketch the ideal structure of dual-inheritance theory and we stress the unificatory role that the Price equation plays in it. (shrink)

Este artigo trata da possibilidade de renovar o entendimento da eugenia no mundo contemporâneo. A biologia e a genética são fontes científicas da eugenia, mas não fazem parte de seu núcleo filosófico. Essa é a razão pela qual vemos a ontologia subjacente à eugenia como nossa principal preocupação. O estatuto da eugenia como uma prática está mudando rapidamente e a vida é tanto o objeto como a dimensão oculta dessa mudança. Entendida por meio da história dos seres, a dispersão da (...) ontologia permite um entendimento renovado tanto da humanidade quanto da animalidade. Como se pode entender que uma ciência completamente reconhecida no início do século XX se tenha tornado uma prática silenciosa no século XXi? A disseminação das novas técnicas genéticas e a discrição atual acerca da eugenia parecem estar ligadas ao avanço de sua reabilitação. Ainda estamos em um estágio inicial de nosso entendimento da genética humana. Não há razão para pensar que esse conhecimento não será explorado pela eugenia. A plasticidade de nossa condição humana encontra nisso uma de suas possibilidades. This article is about the possibility of renewing the understanding of eugenics in contemporary world. Biology and genetics are scientific resources of eugenics, but they are not alone at its philosophical core. This is the reason why we regard the ontology behind eugenics as our main concern. The status of eugenics as a practice is rapidly changing, and life is both the object and the hidden dimension of this change. Understood through the history of being(s), ontology's dispersion allows a renewed understanding of both humanity and animality. How can we understand that a fully recognized science at the beginning of the twentieth century became a silent practice of the twenty-first century? The dissemination of new genetic techniques and today's discretion with respect to eugenics appear to be connected within steps towards its rehabilitation. We are still at an early stage of our understanding of human genetics. There's no reason to think that such knowledge will not be explored through eugenics. After all, the plasticity of our human condition finds in it one of its possibilities. (shrink)

This article addresses some crucial assumptions that are rarely acknowledged when organisms and machines are compared. We begin by presenting a short historical reconstruction of the concept of “machine.” We show that there has never been a unique and widely accepted definition of “machine” and that the extant definitions are based on specific technologies. Then we argue that, despite the concept's ambiguity, we can still defend a more robust, specific, and useful notion of machine analogy that accounts for successful strategies (...) in connecting specific devices (or mechanisms) with particular living phenomena. For that purpose, we distinguish between what we call “generic identity” and proper “machine analogy.” We suggest that “generic identity”—which, roughly stated, presumes that some sort of vague similarity might exist between organisms and machines—is a source of the confusion haunting many persistent disagreements and that, accordingly, it should be dismissed. Instead, we endorse a particular form of “machine analogy” where the relation between organic phenomena and mechanical devices is not generic but specific and grounded on the identification of shared “invariants.” We propose that the machine analogy is a kind of analogy as proportion and we elucidate how this is used or might be used in scientific practices. We finally argue that while organisms are not machines in a generic sense, they might share many robust “invariants,” which justify the scientists' use of machine analogies for grasping living phenomena. (shrink)

Digital physics claims that the entire universe is, at the very bottom, made out of bits; as a result, all physical processes are intrinsically computational. For that reason, many digital physicists go further and affirm that the universe is indeed a giant computer. The aim of this article is to make explicit the ontological assumptions underlying such a view. Our main concern is to clarify what kind of properties the universe must instantiate in order to perform computations. We analyse the (...) logical form of the two models of computation traditionally adopted in digital physics, namely, cellular automata and Turing machines. These models are computationally equivalent, but we show that they support different ontological commitments about the fundamental properties of the universe. In fact, cellular automata are compatible with a rather traditional form of physicalism, whereas Turing machines support a dualistic ontology, which could be understood as a realism about the laws of nature or, alternatively, as a kind of panpsychism. (shrink)

Um dos aspectos característicos da fundamentação epistemológica da etologia de Konrad Lorenz é a tentativa de síntese entre a teoria darwiniana e a gnosiologia kantiana. A partir dessa premissa, delinearemos, antes de tudo, uma breve história da tradição transcendentalista, focalizando a atenção em alguns elementos que seus críticos consideraram insustentáveis. Em segundo lugar, analisaremos a tentativa de Lorenz de implantar a estrutura transcendental em suas pesquisas etológicas, com uma consequente naturalização do conceito de "a priori". Em terceiro lugar, veremos como (...) a atribuição de a priori próprios das espécies particulares abre a possibilidade de interpretar a epistemologia de Lorenz de duas maneiras distintas, aparentemente conflitantes. Finalmente, preferiremos uma dessas interpretações e mostraremos como ela permite o entendimento das distintas modalidades de conhecimento animal e humano. One of the main features of Konrad Lorenz's epistemological foundation of ethology is the attempt of synthesis between Darwinian theory and Kantian gnosiology. Starting from this premise I will outline, first of all, a brief history of transcendentalist tradition, focusing attention on some elements that its critics have regarded as untenable. Secondly, I will analyze Lorenz's attempt to implant the transcendental structure in his ethological researches as being a consequence of the naturalization of the concept of "a priori". Thirdly, I will see how the attribution of a priori proper to single species opens the possibility of interpreting the epistemology of Lorenz in two apparently conflicting ways. Finally, I will prefer one of these interpretations and I will show that it enables us to understand the distinct modalities of animal and human knowledge. (shrink)

No âmbito do debate sobre as unidades envolvidas nos processos seletivos, a controvérsia sobre a possibilidade de comportamentos genuinamente altruístas tem um lugar destacado. Partindo de uma posição declaradamente pluralista, discutir-se-ão, neste artigo, algumas questões relevantes para esse tópico. Em primeiro lugar, o altruísmo será concebido como uma propriedade fenotípica dos grupos biológicos, e não apenas de seus membros. Essa caraterização levará, em um segundo momento, à discussão sobre a relação entre grupos em sociedades complexas, como é o caso das (...) sociedades humanas. Nesse contexto, será esboçado um modelo sobre como os comportamentos altruístas e os comportamentos egoístas se solapam em níveis diferentes das dinâmicas sociais. Finalmente, será sugerido um método de análise dirigido a determinar quais forças evolutivas entram em jogo, e sobre que tipo de comportamento, em casos empíricos concretos. In the debate on the units of selection, the controversy about the possibility of genuinely altruistic behavior has a prominent place. By assuming a pluralistic position, some relevant issues on the topic will be discussed in this paper. Firstly, altruism will be conceived as a phenotypic property of biological groups, not just of their members. Secondly, this characterization will be applied to the discussion on the relationship between groups in complex societies, as humans ones. In that context, a model about how altruistic and egoistic behaviors overlap at different levels of social dynamics will be outlined. Finally, a method aimed at determining what kinds of evolutionary forces influence behavior in empirical cases will be suggested. (shrink)

This paper will critically assess Popper’s evolutionary philosophy. There exists a rich literature on the topic with which we have many reservations. We believe that Popper’s evolutionary philosophy should be assessed in light of the intriguing theoretical insights offered, during the last 10 years or so, by the philosophy of biology, evolutionary biology and molecular biology. We will argue that, when analysed in this manner, Popper’s ideas concerning the nature of selection, Lamarckism and the theoretical limits of neo-Darwinism can be (...) appreciated in their full biological and philosophical value. (shrink)

Este artigo destina-se a introduzir a conferência de Heisenberg "A doutrina goethiana e newtoniana das cores à luz da física moderna", proferida em 1941, cuja tradução é aqui publicada. Analisa-se primeiramente o projeto filosófico de uma ordenação da realidade, desenvolvido pelo físico no início da década de 1940, o qual subjaz à discussão sobre as doutrinas das cores em Goethe e Newton. No segundo momento, faz-se uma exposição de algumas das implicações filosóficas da teoria quântica, com ênfase na interpretação da (...) assim denominada escola de Copenhague. Por fim, procura-se mostrar como a querela entre Goethe e Newton é utilizada para defender as abstrações da física teórica dos ataques da assim denominada "física ariana" e, ao mesmo tempo, preservar o valor das considerações intuitivas de Goethe. This paper aims at exposing the Heisenberg's conference "The teachings of Goethe and Newton on colors in the light of modern physics", presented in 1941, whose translation is presented here. In the first place the paper analyzes the philosophical project of an ordination of the reality, developed by the physicist in the early 1940s and which is the basis for the discussion of the "Teachings of Goethe and Newton on colors". Secondly it exposes some philosophical implications of the quantum theory by emphasizing the point of view of the Copenhagen school. Finally, it shows how the dispute between Goethe and Newton is exploited to defend the abstractions of the theoretical physics against the attacks of the so called "German physicists" and, at the same time, to preserve the worth of the Goethe's intuitive analysis. (shrink)

1. Introduzione Dalla pubblicazione de La costruzione della realtà sociale di John Searle sono oramai passati più di dieci anni. In questo periodo il dibattito è stato così intenso da arrivare a definire una vera e propria disciplina filosofica: la cosiddetta “ontologia della realtà sociale”. Nonostante gli studi in quest’ambito si siano concentrati su aspetti anche molto distanti fra di loro (dalla normatività degli atti istituzionali alla possibilità d’esistenza dell’intenzionalità colletti...

This book offers to the international reader a collection of original articles of some of the most skillful historians and philosophers of biology currently working in Latin American universities. During the last decades, increasing attention has been paid in Latin America to the history and philosophy of biology, but since many local authors prefer to write in Spanish or in Portuguese, their ideas have barely crossed the boundaries of the continent. This volume aims to remedy this state of things, providing (...) a good sample of this production to the English speaking readers, bringing together contributions from researchers working in Brazilian, Argentinean, Chilean, Colombian and Mexican universities. The stress on the regional provenance of the authors is not intended to suggest the existence of something like a Latin American history and philosophy of biology, supposedly endowed with distinctive features. On the contrary, the editors firmly believe that advances in this field can be achieved only by stimulating the integration in the international debate. Based on this assumption, the book focuses on two topics, life and evolution, and presents a selection of contributions addressing issues such as the history of the concept of life, the philosophical reflection on life manipulation and life extension, the structure and development of evolutionary theory as well as human evolution. Life and Evolution – Latin American Essays on the History and Philosophy of Biology will provide the international reader with a rather complete picture of the ongoing research in the history and philosophy of biology in Latin America, offering a snapshot of this dynamic community. It will also contribute to contextualize and develop the debate concerning life and evolution, and the relation between the two phenomena. (shrink)

In this paper I discuss a widespread cultural phenomenon, superstition, from an adaptive point of view. At first, I propose a general interpretative framework, based on the concept of abduction. Then, I analyze two reductionist theories. The first one, Sociobiology, considers superstition as a strategy to control the population growth, an extension of an adaptive biological behavior. The second one, Memetics, transfers the adaptive role of superstition to an evolutionary mechanism separated from the biological one. I criticize both proposals and (...) I suggest an alternative non-reductionist interpretation: superstitions can be considered as strategies aimed at the cohesion of a population. (shrink)

En este artículo se hace una crítica de los enfoques teóricos, aquí llamados por analogía o analógicos, que pretenden abstraer conceptos darwinistas del sustrato biológico para aplicarlos a dominios ontológicos (parcialmente) distintos, estrategia adoptada por versiones de la epistemología evolutiva y, sobre todo, por la teoría memética. Para ello se utiliza el argumento de la exclusión causal, tomado en préstamo de la filosofía de la mente; se hace evidente la existencia de un paralelismo entre causalidad mental y memética, y se (...) muestra cómo cualquier posible caracterización de la segunda a partir de la primera conduce a graves problemas metafísicos y epistemológicos. En las conclusiones se esbozan, sin intención de exhaustividad, algunas ideas sobre cómo evitar posiciones reduccionistas sin adoptar una postura teórica analógica. The main purpose of this paper is criticize theoretical approaches -here called by analogy, or analogical- which aim to extract Darwinian concepts from a biological substrate to apply them to (partially) different ontological domains. This strategy is adopted by some versions of evolutionary epistemology and, especially, by memetics theory. An argument borrowed from philosophy of mind, namely, the argument of causal exclusion, is used to carry out the critique. The existence of a parallelism between memetics and mental causation will be shown, and it will be argued that any possible characterization of the first in terms of the second implies serious metaphysical and epistemological problems. In the conclusions, with no intention of completeness, some ideas on how to avoid reductionist positions, without taking an analogical posture, will be outlined. (shrink)

The debate on the possibility of an evolutionary theory of cultural change has heated up, over the last years, due to the supposed incompatibilities between the two main theoretical proposals in the field: dual inheritance theory and cultural epidemiology. The former, first formulated in the 1980’s by a group of biologists and anthropologists mostly hosted at Californian universities, supports an analogy between genetic inheritance and cultural transmission. Cultural epidemiology, more recently formulated by Dan Sperber and his collaborator, denies the defensibility (...) of such an analogy and put forward a partially alternative model. But how much do these proposals actually differ with each other? In this article, I shall argue that less than what cultural epidemiologists use to think. (shrink)

The debate on the possibility of an evolutionary theory of cultural change has heated up, over the last years, due to the supposed incompatibilities between the two main theoretical proposals in the field: dual inheritance theory and cultural epidemiology. The former, first formulated in the 1980’s by a group of biologists and anthropologists mostly hosted at Californian universities, supports an analogy between genetic inheritance and cultural transmission. Cultural epidemiology, more recently formulated by Dan Sperber and his collaborator, denies the defensibility (...) of such an analogy and put forward a partially alternative model. But how much do these proposals actually differ with each other? In this article, I shall argue that less than what cultural epidemiologists use to think. (shrink)

1 Introduzione Per Searle, la realtà sociale è un enorme ontologia invisibile che comprende obblighi, promesse, matrimoni, proprietà, governi e in generale tutti quegli enti che non sono solamente fisici, tangibili, ma neppure esclusivamente mentali, privati. Alla sua base c’è la capacità intrinseca all’uomo di attribuire funzioni agli oggetti che lo circondano. La costruzione della realtà sociale è precisamente un processo attraverso il quale l’intenzionalità umana dispone della possibilità,...

RESUMOA climatologia está no centro de um dos debates mais polarizados da atualidade, apresentado como confronto entre os defensores da existência de um aquecimento global antropogênico e aqueles que rejeitam sua existência. A instituição chave para esse tema é o Painel Intergovernamental sobre Mudanças Climáticas, um corpo simultaneamente científico e político. O debate surge aí mesclado com a discussão política sobre as respostas adequadas ao aquecimento global. Mas, rechaçados nesse terreno, os negacionistas transpõem o debate para a mídia, onde mobilizam (...) a pseudociência para deslegitimar as conclusões das disciplinas científicas ligadas ao entendimento do clima. Temos, assim, uma produção consciente da ignorância em larga escala sobre o tema do aquecimento global, demandando o uso da agnotologia para desvendar o mecanismo de produção da ignorância. A climatologia revela-se, então, um campo exemplar para o estudo da inserção histórico-social do conhecimento científico e das tensões e trajetórias conflitivas no seu interior, dos dilemas éticos que coloca e das possibilidades universalistas do conhecimento científico na era da tecnociência. ABSTRACTClimatology is at the center of one of the most polarized debates of today. It is presented as a confrontation between supporters of the existence of anthropogenic global warming and those who deny its existence. The key institution for this theme is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which is both a scientific and political body. In this context, the debate arises merged with the political discussion on appropriate responses to global warming. However, contested on this ground, the deniers transfer the debate to the media, mobilizing pseudo-science to delegitimize the conclusions of the scientific disciplines related to climate understanding. Therefore, we have a deliberate production of large-scale ignorance on this subject, which requires the use of agnotology to unravel it. Thus, climatology reveals itself an exemplary space to study the historical and social roots of scientific knowledge and the tensions and conflicting trajectories inside it, the ethical dilemmas posed and the universalist possibilities of scientific knowledge in the age of technoscience. (shrink)

Due to its high degree of complexity and its historical nature, evolutionary biology has been traditionally portrayed as a messy science. According to the supporters of such a view, evolutionary biology would be unable to formulate laws and robust theories, instead just delivering coherent narratives and local models. In this article, our aim is to challenge this view by showing how the Price equation can work as the core of a general theoretical framework for evolutionary phenomena. To support this claim, (...) we outline some unnoticed structural similarities between physical theories and evolutionary biology. More specifically, we shall argue that the Price equation, in the same way as fundamental formalisms in physics, can serve as a heuristic principle to formulate and systematise different theories and models in evolutionary biology. (shrink)

This volume sets out to give a philosophical "applied" account of violence, engaged with both empirical and theoretical debates in other disciplines such as cognitive science, sociology, psychiatry, anthropology, political theory, ...

Theoretical and manipulative abduction conjectures and manipulations : the extra-theoretical dimension of scientific discovery. -- Non-explanatory and instrumental abduction : plausibility, implausibility, ignorance preservation. -- Semiotic brains and artificial minds : how brains make up material cognitive systems. -- Neuromultimodal abduction : pre-wired brains, embidiment, neurospaces. -- Animal abduction : from mindless organisms to srtifactual mediators. -- Abduction, affordances, and cognitive niches : sharing representations and creating chances through cognitive niche construction. -- Abduction in human and logical agents : hasty (...) generalizers, hybrid abducers, fallacies. -- Morphodynamical abduction : causation of hypotheses by attractors dynamics. (shrink)

This book aims to develop the tradition of philosophical hermeneutics, the theoretical account of interpretive (as opposed to explanatory) understanding--the account of meanings and contexts rather than causes and predictions--usually restricted to the domain of literary and textual analysis, in new directions by exploiting its potential as an instrument of critique. It refutes commonly held claims that hermeneutic analyses are necessarily relativistic, Eurocentric, or critically impotent and demonstrates how hermeneutic procedures can inform analyses of urgent current and cross-cultural issues such (...) as the biology of race, female genital excision, and the so-called "culture of poverty" thesis. Lorenzo Simpson demonstrates that a robust methodology of philosophical hermeneutics is well positioned to intervene in critical political and social issues in global ethics and justice in concert with critical theory's emancipatory aims. (shrink)

Firstly, this contribution proposes to address synthographies – images generated through Text-to-image technologies – by deepening the epistemological shift related to the possibility of transposing the image-creation process from the analogue arts to the notational ones (or, by drawing on Nelson Goodman's terminology, from the “autographic” to the “allographic” forms of art). Secondly, the paper highlights how synthographies can be considered partly autographic and partly allographic, since the linguistic prompts constitute only the notational aspect of the generated images. Furthermore, this (...) contribution argues that the recent critiques around such images, which referenced aspects related to the absence of authorial presence and mechanicality, characterised the history of photography since its beginning. Finally, the contribution explores how the possibility to create synthographies that are almost indistinguishable from photographies easily might further separate the interaction between the detective and the depictive functions to the advantage of the latter, erasing what remains of the visual reliability and documental value of images. (shrink)

The field of genetics has seen major advances in recent decades, particularly in research, prevention and diagnosis. One of the most recent developments, the genomic editing technique Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)-Cas9, has opened the possibility for genetic therapies through genome modification. The technique marks an improvement on previous procedures but poses some serious ethical conflicts. Bioethics is the discipline geared at finding answers to ethical challenges posed by progress in medicine and biology and examining their repercussions for (...) society. It can also offer a conceptualization of these ethical dilemmas. The aim of this paper is to offer a map of the ethical dilemmas associated with this technique by way of a critical analysis of current literature. The main issues can be grouped in four areas: efficacy and security; the types of cells which can be targeted by the technique (somatic, embryonic and gametes); the goal of the therapy; and accessibility and justice. (shrink)

This is the first dedicated commentary to Sextus Empiricus’ treatise _Against the Arithmeticians_, dealing with crucial issues in the history of the sceptical, Platonic and Pythagorean traditions and in the ancient philosophy of mathematics.

Locked and unlocked strategies are at the center of this article, as ways of shedding new light on the cognitive aspects of deep learning machines. The character and the role of these cognitive strategies, which are occurring both in humans and in computational machines, is indeed strictly related to the generation of cognitive outputs, which range from weak to strong level of knowledge creativity. I maintain that these differences lead to important consequences when we analyze computational AI programs, such as (...) AlphaGo, which aim at performing various kinds of abductive hypothetical reasoning. In these cases, the programs are characterized by _locked_ abductive strategies: they deal with weak (even if sometimes amazing) kinds of hypothetical creative reasoning, because they are limited in what I call eco-cognitive openness, which instead qualifies human cognizers who are performing higher kinds of abductive creative reasoning, where cognitive strategies are instead _unlocked_. (shrink)

Equity in Early Modern Legal Scholarship takes the reader through the vast amount of legal writings on equity that were published in continental Europe in early modern times. The book offers the first comprehensive overview of the development of the legal concept of equity through the sixteenth and seventeenth century. During this time, equity scholarship broke with its medieval past and entered a lively debate on the nature and function of the concept. Lorenzo Maniscalco links these developments to the (...) early modern identification of equity with Aristotelian epieikeia, a conceptual shift that brought down the barrier that divided theological and legal writings on equity and led to its development as a tool for the interpretation and amendment of legal rules. (shrink)

Lorenzo Girardi brings together themes of Europe, phenomenology and politics to reveal the relevance of Edmund Husserl and Jan Patočka’s works for contemporary political issues. Addressing the concept of crisis in Europe, this book presents an agonistic conception of liberal democracy based on Patočka’s phenomenological concept of problematicity.

Complementarity tells us we cannot know precisely the values of all the properties of a quantum object at the same time: the precise determination of one property implies that the value of some other (complementary) property is undefined. E.g. the precise knowledge of the position of a particle implies that its momentum is undefined. Here we show that a Schrödinger cat has a well defined value of a property that is complementary to its “being dead or alive” property. Then, thanks (...) to complementarity, it has an undefined value of the property “being dead or alive”. In other words, the cat paradox is explained through quantum complementarity: of its many complementary properties, any quantum system, such as a cat, can have a well defined value only of one at a time. Schrödinger’s cat has a definite value of a property which is complementary to “being dead or alive”, so it is neither dead nor alive. Figuratively one can say it is both dead and alive. While this interpretation only uses textbook concepts (the Copenhagen interpretation), apparently it has never explicitly appeared in the literature. We detail how to build an Arduino based simulation of Schrödinger’s experiment based on these concepts for science outreach events. (shrink)

The social contract approach to the study if institutions aims at providing a solution to the problem of compliance with rational agreements in situations characterized by a conflict between individual rationality and social optimality. After a short discussion of some attempts to deal with this problem from a rational choice perspective, we focus on John Rawls's idea of 'sense of justice' and its application to the explanation of the stability of a well-ordered society. We show how the relevant features of (...) Rawls's theory can be captured by a behavioral game theory model of beliefs dependent dispositions to comply, and we present the results of two experimental studies that provide support to the theory. (shrink)

When the Canonical Ramsey’s Theorem by Erdős and Rado is applied to regressive functions, one obtains the Regressive Ramsey’s Theorem by Kanamori and McAloon. Taylor proved a “canonical” version of Hindman’s Theorem, analogous to the Canonical Ramsey’s Theorem. We introduce the restriction of Taylor’s Canonical Hindman’s Theorem to a subclass of the regressive functions, the $$\lambda $$ λ -regressive functions, relative to an adequate version of min-homogeneity and prove some results about the Reverse Mathematics of this Regressive Hindman’s Theorem and (...) of natural restrictions of it. In particular we prove that the first non-trivial restriction of the principle is equivalent to Arithmetical Comprehension. We furthermore prove that the well-ordering-preservation principle for base-$$\omega $$ ω exponentiation is reducible to this same principle by a uniform computable reduction. (shrink)

Lorenzo Valla (1407–1457) ranks among the greatest scholars and thinkers of the Renaissance. He secured lasting fame for his brilliant critical skills, most famously in his exposure of the “Donation of Constantine,” the forged document upon which the papacy based claims to political power. Lesser known in the English-speaking world is Valla's work in the philosophy of language—the basis of his reputation as the greatest philosopher of the humanist movement. Dialectical Disputations, translated here for the first time into any (...) modern language, is his principal contribution to the philosophy of language and logic. With this savage attack on the scholastic tradition of Aristotelian logic, Valla aimed to supersede it with a new logic based on the actual historical usage of classical Latin and on a commonsense approach to semantics and argument. Valla provides a logic that could be used by lawyers, preachers, statesmen, and others who needed to succeed in public debate—one that was stylistically correct and rhetorically elegant, and thus could dispense with the technical language of the scholastics, a “tribe of Peripatetics, perverters of natural meanings.” Valla's reformed dialectic became a milestone in the development of humanist logic and contains startling anticipations of modern theories of semantics and language. Volume 1 contains Book I, in which Valla refutes Aristotle's logical works on the categories, transcendentals, and predicables, with excursions into natural and moral philosophy and theology. (shrink)

This paper attempts a reconstruction of reason’s contribution to empirical truth in connection with Kant’s definition of truth as the agreement of cognition with its object. I argue that Kant’s treatment of truth in the Transcendental Analytic gets completed in the Appendix to the Transcendental Dialectic with an often neglected but compelling argument (what I shall call the Variety Argument). This argument postulates such a variety in the appearances as to undermine any attempt at formulating empirical truths. Crucially, I argue (...) that this variety does not depict an extreme-case scenario, but our own epistemic situation without reason. Reason completes Kant’s theory of truth by allowing the understanding (i.) to form empirical concepts and (ii.) approximate to empirical truth. (shrink)