How can sound and space be connected not only in a metaphorical sense? Over the last decades, philosophy of sound, aesthetics, and musicology have shown increasing interest in space inquiry. However, the way we interact with each other, communicate in space, and gather information about/in space is rooted in sound in a completely different way from those of musical metaphors. In this paper, I present an analysis of the role sound plays in the constitution of both space and relations of (...) intimacy within it. Starting from the wealthy tips that E. T. Hall gives to us in order to delineate a new understanding of proxemics that includes sound experience, I argue that sound, silence, and noise are essential to determine the intimate space and the way we interact with it. Moving from a classical proxemics perspective, the analysis will focus on the intimate relation between sound, space, and body, dialoguing with phenomenology, anthropology, semiotics, and philosophy of space. (shrink)

I suoni e le immagini sembrano appartenere a due forme dell’esperienza profondamente distinte. Due registri sensoriali antitetici cui corrispondono due fenomeni accostabili, ma mai completamente unibili. Eppure si ricorre spesso all’espressione immagine sonora, che cosa si intende precisamente? Esiste un punto in cui i suoni e le immagini si appartengono reciprocamente? Può un’immagine risuonare e un suono essere anche un’immagine? Il testo cerca di rispondere a questi quesiti scavando e intarsiando una concettualizzazione dell’immagine sonora attraverso un dialogo con la semiotica, (...) la fenomenologia e la filosofia dell’arte. Arricchendosi di una riflessione sul rapporto con il pensiero, l’indagine sull’immagine sonora si declina in tre momenti distinti: il suono con un fondamento d’immagine in cui l’elemento fondante è dato dalla presenza dell’immagine nel suono; il suono e l’immagine che si equivalgono orizzontalmente fondendosi l’uno con l’altra; l’immagine con un fondamento sonoro, in cui si rintracciano presenze sonore nell’immagine visiva. (shrink)

Whilst arguing for sounds as repeatable objects does not seem suitable to our auditory experience, considering them as events can then help us understand some of their main features. In this sense, sounds are events happening to material objects; they have a beginning and an end; they are ephemeral entities that we cannot grasp as ordinary objects. Nevertheless, supporters of event theory usually focus on the autonomous status that sounds manifest from the things in the world. Conversely, when we hear (...) sounds, we hear what and where they are sounding even in those theories that I will call detached-sound theories; in hearing them we hear how different materials create different sounds. Within the different positions of the event theory to pure-event or acousmatic proposal, the importance and role that the material has in the creation of diverse sounds does not always seem to be recognized. In this paper, I therefore aim to show how the materiality of resonating bodies and objects is given in all forms of auditory experience, not until analyzed the differences between object and event accounts in the philosophy of sound. (shrink)

The notion of hyle seems problematic for a phenomenological foundation of experience. For this very reason, its completed invalidity was generally postulated. At the same time, there are many reflections in Husserlian writings that help us understand it better. This paper attempts to show how hyletic experience, by existing in the lived body, triggers in parallel rhythmic, vibrating, and sonorous experiences as bodily experiences. Sounds are experienced by the body before any reflections or conscious experiences of them. In this way, (...) the aporetical instance of hyletic data founds a proposal of resolution in the fundamental corporeal experience of sound. (shrink)

This paper analyses Spalding’s Betrachtung über die Bestimmung des Menschen (1748) through a translation proposal that tries to point out the human disposal to act ethically. In accord with modern German use, I argue for a translation of Bestimmung as disposition. In the first part of the article, I deal with the relevant issues for a philosophy of human experience that are present in Spalding’s text. In the second one, I bring the translation proposal into the philosophical domain showing how (...) the Bestimmung as disposition suits the human nature, in particular for what concerns the ethics, namely the way humans are arranged to act with others, and things in a non-egoistic mode. The analysis rests on two philosophical concepts: Sorge (Heidegger) and Liebe (Jaspers), that give a description of the essential relational component of human beings in which to take care, to love, and to discover our surrounding world are the key points. (shrink)

Starting from Jaspers’ analysis of attitudes in Psychologie der Weltanschauungen and analyzing their causes, we find an essential description of the human being. The human condition of being in the world (Heidegger, Jaspers) can be troubled (Freud, Jung). However, this is characteristic for human life (Jaspers, Schellenbaum). Among all attitudes, the enthusiastic one is the more consistent with human being’s dynamic nature (Bergson, Jaspers, Schellenbaum). The human being feels himself deeply touched (Scheler, Jaspers) and becomes stunned. The aim of the (...) paper is to show that the enthusiastic view is well exposed by the act of singing. Traditionally analysed in connection with art (Cassirer, Solger, Wackenroder), the enthusiastic view gives us a “sound image” of the human being since his childhood (Gehlen, Leydi). In everyday life and by all its difficulties (Freud, Jung, Schellenbaum, Jaspers), the human being discloses his nature in acoustic manifestations (Keil, Kafka, Wackenroder) by expressing the enthusiastic mode. (shrink)

Heidegger’s ontologische Differenz imposes methodological limits which strictly mark his philosophy for rigor and determinacy. If it is not possible to think Being from the categories of the entity, it is also true that the difference is a tank of possibilities and developments to which Heidegger himself hints at. From the accuracy of the early works to the overturning of the problem in the later works, the ontological difference is a constant of Heideggerian thought. This paper seeks to push Existenz (...) from a mode of being of Dasein to a mode of giving of Seiende. In accordance with his late writings, bringing the question of the Being­-existence bond towards the perspective of the entity – and not only the entity among entities that poses the question –, the development of the problem in Heidegger’s meditation is analysed through the questions of ontological difference – the mode of negation, the between of distinction, the specific situatedness that defines experience, the Being, as a member of ontological difference, in its connection to the Nichts, the Event as a relaxation of the connection between Sein and Seiende. The entity that is exist­ent is the convergence point of the Event where Being and existent, Being and existence, are not in contrast, but protrude (ragen) towards each other revealing the traits of a Seyende des Seyns, of the entity of Being. (shrink)

Listening is not an incorporeal experience; we do not listen with our non-extended minds. We listen with all our body, and music can change completely our personal structure. It is through sound experience that we change and asset ourselves. Studies in the doctrine of affects often use sonorous metaphors and concepts such as Stimmung, resonance, consonance, that refer to sound experience. In this paper, I try first of all to show how listening is rooted in body experience. Then, I argue (...) for a new consideration of the notion of person that takes into account the fundamental sonorous basis – psycho-acoustic – of its constitution. Thanks to sounds we can reach a new conceptualization of emotional relations between persons which we attain through the person’s ordo amoris. Additionally, with the analysis of sounds we grasp some aspects of emotional experience related to the singular person (intra-personal). So, if sounds are profoundly related to corporeal experience, so strongly involving affects as to modify our personal structure and form a person’s constitution, and affects can really do that, their relationship need to be inquired where both sound experience and affection are rooted: corporeity. (shrink)

Psychological and neuroscientific inquiry pointed out the value of attention for auditory perception. Recent studies have identified that the problem is not one of finding a location for a given task, but of identifying how and what one wants to do with a given stimulus. This radicalises the problem of attention in perception. In this paper I try bring experimental research into dialogue with social role of emotions and attention in sonorous and musical field from the point of view of (...) anthropology and ethnomusicology. (shrink)

Metamorphosis as it is represented by some pre-historical artists seems problematic for our occidental point of view. In fact, it seems to be strongly against identity and law of non-contradiction. Becoming in general is also viewed as an error or exception by our classic point of view. This very claim can conduct to theories of non-classical logic. Deleuze and Guattari in their monumental work had tried to offer enormous contributions in order to comprehend the becoming phenomenon. Through a pre-historical representations (...) analysis, with also an intrusion in contemporary art's field, I want to confront with possible metamorphosis representations remain theoretically founded in the deleuzian proposal in dialogue with phenomenological inquiry. New principle of individuation and analysis of expression provide new looks to arisen problems with classical logic and metamorphosis representations, which will be acceptable and comprehensible as art shows. (shrink)

L'articolo analizza i fondamenti delle indagini percettive nell'impostazione fenomenologica. In particolare l'ambito uditivo si struttura in modalità, ricezioni ed analisi che, attraverso la critica di vari autori (Husserl, Heidegger, Dufrenne, Ihde, Schaeffer), si mostrano articolate in due direzioni (soggetto-oggetto e oggetto-soggetto). L' analisi delle componenti costitutive porta a riconoscere come ricorrente tra autori differenti quell'impostazione del problema la quale asserisce che, se da un lato non può prescindere dall'attività percettiva, come attività propria del soggetto, dall'altro questa stessa cerca una legittimità (...) emergente dalle cose stesse. La costituzione, una volta riconosciuto il darsi dell'oggetto sonoro, risiede, tuttavia, nelle attività percettive che delineano così il differenziarsi degli ascolti. (shrink)

-/- In Kafka's work there are many examples of metamorphic instances. Die Verwandlung is obviously the first case that we are used to know as a real metamorphic example. However, it is not the only one, for examples Odradek, but also the way Kafka describes the encounter between characters or the characteristics of some of them (Das Schloss). The paper tries to conceptualize the metamorphosis through a distinction between two forms: (1) metamorphosis or transformation that allows us to know from (...) where what is transformed comes (start) and where it arrives (arrival); (2) becoming that shows a tension between two different conditions or that not allows us to grasp something because of his intangibility. All this will be examined using the monumental work of Deleuze and Guattari and a phenomenology of metamorphosis developed by Conci. (shrink)

The relationship between knowledge and vision seems really consolidated. It started in ancient Greece and we can found its basis in Plato. The history of logos as reason and as western foundation of culture gives us enormous examples in terms of metaphors and approaches in the knowledge-vision relationship. «I see it» is like «I know it». However if we look at the basis of logos we find the deep meaning of gathering, composition, bond and bind (lèghein), so as to we (...) could choose «to gather» as the best translation of logos (Hoffmann). My aim is to show how this key feature is represented by sounds. To think is to link information, memories and so on and the principal property of sound is union and merger. We can argue for a «sonorous thought» but in reality this property is simply the founding element of thought and reason. In fact if we analyse the limits of our knowledge (Kant, Plessner) we discover the incorrectness of knowledge-vision relationship – like the knowledge-discourse relationship. We should investigate this guideline as the recent research for Covid-19 vaccine has shown. (shrink)

Metamorphosis seems problematic for our occidental point of view. Becoming in general is viewed as an error or exception by our classic standpoint. In fact, it is strongly against identity and law of non-contradiction: A is fundamentally something different from B and for A it is impossible to be at the same time B. We need to think A as what-becomes-B in order to make metamorphosis possible. Anyway, how can A become B? As a matter of fact, this very claim (...) has been historically the most common critic opposed to becoming. Deleuze and Guattari in their monumental work had tried to offer an enormous contribution to a few related problems. Redefining the subject as an event described by movement and affect can exceed the metamorphosis’ aporia. This new principle of individuation provides a new look upon arisen questions primarily because affects and movements are constant coordinates that define how metamorphosis is experienced. The paper tries to show how the betweenness in action in the encounter with people, human beings, things, animals, plants and minerals defines the logic field of metamorphosis. This is shown in dialogue with the ontological turn in anthropology that is particularly focused on this affective and lively dimension of encounter especially among Amazonian populations. Actually this is also what happens in our – occidental and classical but live – relation with things and objects, as long as we try to think a real conceptualisation of experience. (shrink)

Man avoids solitude through _divertissement_ because he is afraid of what staying alone entails: thinking about himself (Pascal). Furthermore, man seeks isolation in order to gain ambition and reputation (Montaigne). However, solitude is really different from isolation and it is a fundamental emotional condition. Heidegger’s analysis of the forms of boredom adapts to and relates to the specific dynamic of solitude, showing that it is a part of human being’s structure despite his experience appearing controversial. Even if man lives in (...) modern apartments and one-room apartments, he is in a condition of co-isolation (Sloterdijk) that differs from solitude. There is a space solitude (Foucault) that involves – or can involve – human isolation, but we only experience essential solitude in sleep (Merleau-Ponty, Blanchot, Perec) where man detached himself from himself and he is really alone, from himself and the others. The forms of solitude lead the analysis towards impersonal activity. (shrink)

In the past few decades, much political-philosophical reflection has been dedicated to the realm of "the political." Many of the key figures in contemporary political theory—Jacques Rancière, Alain Badiou, Reinhart Koselleck, Giorgio Agamben, Ernesto Laclau, and Slavoj i ek, among others—have dedicated themselves to explaining power relations, but in many cases they take the concept of the political for granted, as if it were a given, an eternal essence. In An Archaeology of the Political, Elías José Palti argues that the (...) dimension of reality known as the political is not a natural, transhistorical entity. Instead, he claims that the horizon of the political arose in the context of a series of changes that affirmed the power of absolute monarchies in seventeenth-century Europe and was successively reconfigured from this period up to the present. Palti traces this series of redefinitions accompanying alterations in regimes of power, thus describing a genealogy of the concept of the political. Perhaps most important, An Archaeology of the Political brings to theoretical discussions a sound historical perspective, illuminating the complex influences of both theology and secularization on our understanding of the political in the contemporary world. (shrink)

Organisms change their shape and behavior during ontogenesis in response to incentives—what biologists call “phenotypic plasticity” or what is called here more specifically “behavioral plasticity.” Such plasticity is usually in the direction of enhancing welfare or fitness. In light of basic concepts in economics, such behavioral plasticity is nothing but rationality. Such rationality is not limited to organisms with neural systems. It also characterizes brainless organisms such as plants, fungi, and unicellular organisms. The gist of the article is the distinction (...) between rationality and intelligence. Whereas rationality is ubiquitous in all organisms, intelligence varies in degrees depending on division of labor that may involve the evolution of a neural system. This article aims to defend the universality of rationality—the Organismus oeconomicus hypothesis. It argues that neither the notion of bounded rationality of behavioral economics nor Herbert Simon’s “procedural rationality” can ultimately undermine the Organismus oeconomicus hypothesis. (shrink)

The book deeply analyses the bilateral relations between Switzerland and the European Union and their effect on the former's sovereignty in the context of Europeanisation. This touches on philosophical debates on the complexity of sovereignty. What sovereignty is at stake when talking about Swiss-EU relations? This issue not only faces the elusiveness of sovereignty as a concept, but also the proliferation of hypocrisy on its presence within states. The book encounters the deconstructionist hypothesis stating that there is nothing to worry (...) about but the belief there is something to worry about. Derrida's deconstruction of sovereignty allows indeed one to grasp the fictional essence of sovereignty based on the metaphysics of presence. The presence of self-positing sovereign inches per secondeity is fictional since absent in the present, but spectrally present in the belief of its presence to come. Sovereignty is a matter of credibility, or the credible promise of a normative statement to come. Hence, the book challenges the realist/neorealist argument stating that states are credibly sovereign until proven otherwise and explains that the debate on state sovereignty calls for the unveiling of this hypocritical epistemology cunningly disguised as an objective presence. Swiss-EU relations thus become the cornerstone to not only theorise but also test sovereignty and deconstruct the two ontological and epistemological sides of the same coin, or the modern hypocrisy of sovereignty. This deconstruction constitutes the very problématique of any attempt to understand whether and how a state can be sovereign and solve the problem as to how to neutralise the différance and identify the difference between credible and incredible claims of sovereignty. This problématique connects the theory and practice of sovereignty innovatively, providing positivist evidence on the arguable credibility of the Swiss claim of sovereignty and confirming the presence of a theological dimension within politics.<. (shrink)

This volume examines the historical end of the Platonic tradition in relation to creation theories of the natural world through the Neoplatonist philosopher Proclus' (412-485) elaboration of an investigation of Plato's theory of metaphysical archetypal Forms. Proclus proceeds to a systematic construction of this theory and grounds it in ontological monism. He presents the Forms as constructing, through their combinations, the presuppositions for the creation of the natural world, in such a way that it functions in an orderly and harmonious (...) way, showing the natural world is not produced by chance or means of automatizations, but on the basis of a teleological planning. This volume also reflects Proclus' dealing with the topics of objective reality and the nature of the "universals.". (shrink)

For centuries, the Sorites Paradox has spurred philosophers to think and argue about the problem of vagueness. This volume offers a guide to the paradox which is both an accessible survey and an exposition of the state of the art, with a chapter-by-chapter presentation of all of the main solutions to the paradox and of all its main areas of influence. Each chapter offers a gentle introduction to its topic, gradually building up to a final discussion of some open problems. (...) Students will find a comprehensive guide to the fundamentals of the paradox, together with lucid explanations of the challenges it continues to raise. Researchers will find exciting new ideas and debates on the paradox. (shrink)

Recently, a number of scholars have warned against the risk of a new form of deliberately deceptive communication companies use to assure stakeholders of their good intentions in the adoption and development of digital technologies and advanced information systems based on artificial intelligence. This corporate behaviour, defined as machinewashing, in an attempt to empower engagement processes in the stakeholders’ network and satisfy stakeholder expectations with regard to the ethical implications of the use of artificial intelligence, has, in the final instance, (...) the prevailing purpose of achieving better levels of corporate performance and reputation. However, thus far, scholars have not provided any empirical studies on the existence of corporate machinewashing strategies, and there is a significant lack of clarity as to how to measure machinewashing. Utilising the corporate digital responsibility theory, this paper offers an original methodological contribution to the nascent research field dedicated to machinewashing behaviour. Particularly, this paper provides considerations for detecting machinewashing through an analysis based on the comparison between the information capacity of the reporting and the information reliability level as a proxy for machinewashing strategies and, thus, for the real impact of digitalisation strategies on stakeholders. To this end, we conducted an exploratory content analysis of the reports of 10 Italian-listed companies from 10 different industries. Overall, looking at the gap between what companies say about the impact of digitalisation from an ethical perspective, and what really happens, our results define a possible path for identifying machinewashing, the fields where it happens and the practices that companies use in order to realise these strategies. (shrink)

The concept of truth arguably plays a central role in many areas of philosophical theorizing. Yet, what seems to be one of the most fundamental principles governing that concept, i.e. the equivalence between P and , is inconsistent in full classical logic, as shown by the semantic paradoxes. I propose a new solution to those paradoxes, based on a principled revision of classical logic. Technically, the key idea consists in the rejection of the unrestricted validity of the structural principle of (...) contraction. I first motivate philosophically this idea with the metaphysical picture of the states-of-affairs expressed by paradoxical sentences as being distinctively . I then proceed to demonstrate that the theory of truth resulting from this metaphysical picture is, in many philosophically interesting respects, surprisingly stronger than most other theories of truth endorsing the equivalence between P and (for example, the theory vindicates the validity of the traditional laws of excluded middle and of non-contradiction, and also vindicates the traditional constraint of truth preservation on logical consequence). I conclude by proving a cutelimination theorem that shows the consistency of the theory. (shrink)

Supervenience is one of the 'hot discoveries' of analytic philosophy, and this collection of essays on the topic represents an examination of it and its application to major areas of philosophy. The interest in supervenience has much to do with the flexibility of the concept. To say that x supervenes on y indicates a degree of dependence without committing one to the view that x can be reduced to y. Thus supervenience is a relationship that has the potential of replacing (...) the traditional notion of dependence, while performing at least part of the function reductive relationships were supposed to fulfil. Moreover, since it is a topic-neutral concept, supervenience has a wide range of applicability. (shrink)

Confidentiality is a central bioethical principle governing the provider–patient relationship. Dating back to Hippocrates, new laws have interpreted it for the age of precision medicine and electronic medical records. This is where the discussion of privacy and technology often ends in the scientific health literature when Internet-related technologies have made privacy a much more complex challenge with broad psychological and clinical implications. Beyond the recognised moral duty to protect patients’ health information, clinicians should now advocate a basic right to privacy (...) as a means to safeguard psychological health. The article reviews empirical research into the functions of privacy, the implications for psychological development and the resigned sentiment taking hold regarding the ability to control personal data. The article concludes with a call for legislative, educational and research steps to readjust the equilibrium between the individual and ‘Big Data’. (shrink)

We give a brief overview of the evolution of mathematics, starting from antiquity, through Renaissance, to the 19th century, and the culmination of the train of thought of history’s greatest thinkers that lead to the grand unification of geometry and algebra. The goal of this paper is not a complete formal description of any particular theoretical framework, but to show how extremisation of mathematical rigor in requiring everything be drivable directly from first principles without any arbitrary assumptions actually leads to (...) relaxing the computational difficulty along with maximal conceptual clarity. With this, we consider a revision of the foundations of elementary geometry and algebra based on the work of Grassmann and Clifford and apply it to conceptual and practical problems of past and present modern mathematics and mathematical physics. (shrink)

This article contributes to the literature on national varieties of socially responsible investment (SRI) by demonstrating how Scandinavian SRI developed from the 60s and onwards. Combining findings on Scandinavian SRI with insights from previous research and institutional theory, the article accounts for the role of changes in societal values and norms, the mechanisms by which SRI practices spread, and how investors adopt and transform practices to suit their surrounding institutional contexts. Especially, the article draws attention to how different categories of (...) investors act as institutional entrepreneurs during specific historical periods, and how these roles come to shift as institutional rule systems of varying societal levels change. Thus, the insights gained are useful in the future research agenda concerned with advancing knowledge on idiosyncrasies and commonalities of national SRI manifestations, and to understand the reasons underlying such characteristics. (shrink)

According to the naive theory of vagueness, the vagueness of an expression consists in the existence of both positive and negative cases of application of the expression and in the non- existence of a sharp cut-off point between them. The sorites paradox shows the naive theory to be inconsistent in most logics proposed for a vague language. The paper explores the prospects of saving the naive theory by revising the logic in a novel way, placing principled restrictions on the transitivity (...) of the consequence relation. A lattice-theoretical framework for a whole family of “tolerant logics” is proposed and developed. Particular care is devoted to the relation between the salient features of the formal apparatus and the informal logical and semantic notions they are supposed to model. A suitable non-transitive counterpart to classical logic is defined. Some of its properties are studied, and it is eventually shown how an appropriate regimentation of the naive theory of vagueness is consistent in such a logic. (shrink)

Moses Mendelssohn is often described as the founder of modern Jewish thought and as a leading philosopher of the late Enlightenment. One of Mendelssohn's main concerns was how to conceive of the relationship between Judaism, philosophy, and the civic life of a modern state. Elias Sacks explores Mendelssohn's landmark account of Jewish practice--Judaism's "living script," to use his famous phrase--to present a broader reading of Mendelssohn's writings and extend inquiry into conversations about modernity and religion. By studying Mendelssohn's thought in (...) these dimensions, Sacks suggests that he shows a deep concern with history. Sacks affords a view of a foundational moment in Jewish modernity and forwards new ways of thinking about ritual practice, the development of traditions, and the role of religion in society. (shrink)

The paper is concerned with a logical difficulty which Lionel Shapiro’s deflationist theory of logical consequence (as well as the author’s favoured, non-deflationist theory) gives rise to. It is argued that Shapiro’s non-contractive approach to solving the difficulty, although correct in its broad outlines, is nevertheless extremely problematic in some of its specifics, in particular in its failure to validate certain intuitive rules and laws associated with the principle of modus ponens. An alternative non-contractive theory is offered which does not (...) suffer from the same problem. (shrink)

Los argumentos tradicionales contrarios a la disponibilidad de la propia vida conservan alguna fuerza: en algunas sociedades, el intento de suicidio se considera todavía un delito y la colaboración —o complicidad— sigue siendo igualmente una conducta delictiva. No obstante, en los últimos años se ha llevado a cabo un creciente reconocimiento del llamado “derecho a una muerte digna”. De todos modos, ese derecho soporta ciertas condiciones que lo convierten, a mi entender, más en un eslogan pegadizo y engañoso que en (...) un derecho claramente consolidado y reconocido. En el presente artículo intentaré explicar diversos argumentos a favor y en contra de la libre disponibilidad de la propia vida formulados a lo largo de la historia del pensamiento occidental. Posteriormente, trataré de demostrar que la libre disposición de la propia vida encuentra demasiadas restricciones en España y que en algunas de ellas subyacen principios extraseculares impropios de una sociedad democrática, pluricultural y secular como la nuestra. (shrink)

Elias Baumgarten taught philosophy at the University of Michigan-Dearborn from 1972 to 2018. He was born in Brooklyn, grew up in California, and went to schools in Boston and Chicago. He was one of the first recipients of the campus’s “Distinguished Teaching Award.” He taught a wide variety of courses including Medical Ethics, Ethics of War and Peace, Ethics of Nationalism, and Darwinism and Philosophy. Most of his publications are in ethics, including “Zionism, Nationalism, and Morality” and “Curiosity as a (...) Moral Virtue.” Dr. Baumgarten also served for over 30 years on hospital ethics committees at the University of Michigan Health System in Ann Arbor. A child of immigrants, Prof. Baumgarten was passionate, both as teacher and citizen, in celebrating multicultural diversity both on our campus and in our country. He sees travel as a form of education and traveled to over 70 countries. (shrink)

In Crull it is argued that, in order to confront outstanding problems in cosmology and quantum gravity, interpretational aspects of quantum theory can by bypassed because decoherence is able to resolve them. As a result, Crull concludes that our focus on conceptual and interpretational issues, while dealing with such matters in Okon and Sudarsky, is avoidable and even pernicious. Here we will defend our position by showing in detail why decoherence does not help in the resolution of foundational questions in (...) quantum mechanics, such as the measurement problem or the emergence of classicality. (shrink)

The Consistent Histories (CH) formalism aims at a quantum mechanical framework which could be applied even to the universe as a whole. CH stresses the importance of histories for quantum mechanics, as opposed to measurements, and maintains that a satisfactory formulation of quantum mechanics allows one to assign probabilities to alternative histories of a quantum system. It further proposes that each realm, that is, each set of histories to which probabilities can be assigned, provides a valid quantum-mechanical account, but that (...) different realms can be mutually incompatible. Finally, some of its proponents offer an “evolutionary” explanation of our existence in the universe and of our preference for quasiclassical descriptions of nature. The present work questions the validity of claims offered by CH proponents asserting that it solves many interpretational problems in quantum mechanics. In particular, we point out that the interpretation of the framework leaves vague two crucial points, namely, whether realms are fixed or chosen and the link between measurements and histories. Our claim is that by doing so, CH overlooks the main interpretational problems of quantum mechanics. Furthermore, we challenge the evolutionary explanation offered and we critically examine the proposed notion of a realm-dependent reality. (shrink)

A unified answer is offered to two distinct fundamental questions: whether a nonclassical solution to the semantic paradoxes should be extended to other apparently similar paradoxes and whether a nonclassical logic should be expressed in a nonclassical metalanguage. The paper starts by reviewing a budget of paradoxes involving the logical properties of validity, inconsistency, and compatibility. The author’s favored substructural approach to naive truth is then presented and it is explained how that approach can be extended in a very natural (...) way so as to solve a certain paradox of validity. However, three individually decisive reasons are later provided for thinking that no approach adopting a classical metalanguage can adequately account for all the features involved in the paradoxes of logical properties. Consequently, the paper undertakes the task to do better, and, building on the system already developed, introduces a theory in a nonclassical metalanguage that expresses an adequate logic of naive truth and of some naive logical properties. (shrink)

Although he was born in Gaza, Palestine, Elias Rashmawi was issued a permanent deportation order by the Israeli High Court because of his involvement in Palestinian organizing while a student in the United States. In November 2000, as the Second Intifada raged on, Rashmawi’s father passed away, and he was granted a limited permit to his homeland to attend the funeral. “How many fathers must die before we are all allowed to return,” he asks in this essay that reifies the (...) brevity and pain of his truncated visit. (shrink)