Medicine and astronomy were both scientific disciplines to which visual demonstration proved helpful, were taught in the universities, and were deeply influenced by humanism and by the development of print culture, but they did not use printed images in the same way. Thus, all the aspects of astronomical activity benefited from the accompaniment of printed images, whereas, even for anatomy, illustration does not seem to have been seen as a necessity in Renaissance medical books. To explore such a difference, the (...) chronology of the development of illustration in both fields (from the first illustrated incunabula to the mid-sixteenth century) is compared, and some explanations (economical, epistemological, cultural) are proposed and questioned. -/- . (shrink)

Nelle Bucoliche i giovani, figure assai presenti già in Teocrito, compaiono sempre accanto a personaggi più anziani. Questi ultimi, i senes, sono rappresentanti autorevoli della comunità pastorale, spesso in quanto depositari di una tradizione poetica prestigiosa; i pueri, anch’essi per lo più già poeti, aspirano al pieno riconoscimento poetico da parte della comunità, che viene loro conferito per bocca o tramite dei seniores. Tale consacrazione è talvolta segnalata dalla consegna della zampogna e, quindi, del patrimonio poetico del suo vecchio possessore. (...) Si tratta di un momento di passaggio, in cui il giovane entra a pieno diritto nella comunità adulta dei pastori-cantori e diviene erede della sua tradizione: la continuità generazionale garantisce la continuità della tradizione poetica, che così può sopravvivere. Mentre nell’Eneide le morti premature di tanti pueri che aspirano al riconoscimento come viri mettono in discussione questo processo, nelle Bucoliche la speranza della continuità appare come l’unica via attraverso la quale la comunità può cercare, per quanto fragile, un suo equilibrio. (shrink)

Die Arbeit beschäftigt sich mit der Frage, wie Subjektivität als wesentlich geschichtlich gefasst werden kann. Ein aktuelles Problem besteht darin, den Begriff der Subjektivität mit der Idee der Geschichtlichkeit in Einklang zu bringen. Um dieses Problem zu lösen, schlägt die Arbeit vor, auf Schellings Frühwerk, insbesondere das System des transzendentalen Idealismus, und auf Heideggers Daseinsphilosophie zurückzugreifen. Im ersten Teil wird eine Perspektive auf Subjektivität entwickelt, die auf einer Praxisauffassung basiert. Dabei werden Schelling und Heidegger kritisch interpretiert und in den aktuellen (...) Debatten zum Naturalismus und zur Perspektive der ersten Person angewendet. Im zweiten Teil wird der Fokus themenspezifisch auf die Geschichtlichkeit gerichtet. Hierbei werden insbesondere Schellings früher Zeitbegriff und Heideggers Theorie der Geschichtlichkeit des Daseins diskutiert und mit Blick auf die Frage der personalen Identität in der Zeit aktualisiert. Die Monografie richtet sich an Forscherinnen und Forscher der klassischen deutschen Philosophie, der Hermeneutik, der Philosophie der Praxis sowie der breit gefassten Philosophie des Geistes. (shrink)

Il seguente contributo presenta una ricognizione sulla teoria della postegemonia e di quella parte al suo interno che può essere raggruppata nella definizione di fondazionale. Questa area di studi si definisce a partire dal rifiuto della relazione tra subalternità ed egemonia, dichiarando la fine della seconda. La particolarità della postegemonia si trova nella radice di questa idea, derivata dall’intreccio tra l’idea di subalternità dei Subaltern Studies e la teoria dell’egemonia sviluppata da Ernesto Laclau e Chantal Mouffe. Dal punto di vista (...) degli studi gramsciani verranno analizzate le due concezioni chiave di subalternità ed egemonia, in particolare come sono state elaborate nelle due correnti menzionate formando le basi della postegemonia. Successivamente sarà analizzata la stessa postegemonia nelle sue due principali ramificazioni, una legata all’infrapolitica e l’altra alla moltitudine. (shrink)

Ernst Cassirer’s epistemological trilogy – Substanzbegriff und Funktionsbegriff (1910), Zur Einsteinschen Relativitätstheorie (1921) and Determinismus und Indeterminismus (1937) – is well known to Western scholars, some of whom recently devoted a number of in-depth and interesting studies to Cassirer’s epistemology. Nonetheless, they overlooked aspects of Cassirer’s concept of idealisation and his model of science as found in his last epistemological work: Determinismus und Indeterminismus. In this essay I will consider these two almost disregarded aspects of Cassirer’s epistemology in order to (...) provide a better understanding of his idea of science. (shrink)

Dieser Titel aus dem De Gruyter-Verlagsarchiv ist digitalisiert worden, um ihn der wissenschaftlichen Forschung zugänglich zu machen. Da der Titel erstmals im Nationalsozialismus publiziert wurde, ist er in besonderem Maße in seinem historischen Kontext zu betrachten. Mehr erfahren Sie hier.

Nel contributo, partendo da una prospettiva teoretica, ci si prefigge di analizzare i rapporti fra la filosofia indiana di Śaṃkara (il massimo filosofo del Vedānta, vissuto nell’VIII sec. d. C.) e il pensiero di Bergson. Da un simile punto di vista diviene infatti possibile una riflessione critica e interpretativa sui testi dei due autori, utile a chiarire alcuni problemi ermeneutici del pensiero śaṃkariano. Reciprocamente, la conoscenza del pensiero di Śaṃkara permette di illuminare e chiarire aspetti problematici della filosofia bergsoniana, in (...) particolare il rapporto fra materia e memoria e l’autentico significato di élan vital. Il saggio utilizza il concetto di advaita (non-dualità) - uno degli elementi chiave della filosofia vedantica – verso un superamento del dualismo materia/spirito, così come è stato affrontato anche dal filosofo francese nel xx secolo. Per svolgere questa interpretazione si approfondiscono poi i concetti di coscienza nei due filosofi, e la nozione di brahman-ātman intesa come trascendentale “non kantiano”, nella logica di smarcamento dalla prospettiva kantiana che era l’obiettivo dichiarato fin dai primi sviluppi della filosofia bergsoniana, contenuti nell’opera del 1889, Saggio sui dati immediati della coscienza. (shrink)

Die Entwicklung der zeitgenossischen Philosophie ist durch Hegels Denken entscheidend beeinflusst worden. Die Grunde fur seine andauernde Aktualitat aber sind selten verstanden worden. Im Gegensatz zu vielen Hegel-Interpreten wird hier der -absolute Idealismus- als das Wesen der Philosophie Hegels erkannt. Die -dialektische Methode- und das -System- bilden eine untrennbare Einheit. Auf dieser Grundlage erfolgt in einer streng theoretisch-systematischen Perspektive eine konsistente Auslegung von Hegels -Philosophie des unendlichen Selbstbewusstseins-. Einen besonderen Schwerpunkt legt die Arbeit auf die Auseinandersetzung mit dem gegenwartigen amerikanischen (...) Hegelianismus. Ubereinstimmung besteht mit E.E. Harris und R.D. Winfield, wahrend R.B. Brandom entschieden kritisiert wird.<BR> Contemporary philosophy's development has been decisively influenced by Hegel's thought, yet only rarely have the grounds for its everlasting up-to-dateness been understood. Contrary to many Hegel-interpreters, -Absolute Idealism- is here regarded as the core of Hegel's philosophy. The -dialectical method- and the -system- constitute an inseparable unity. On this basis a consistent interpretation of Hegel's -philosophy of infinite self-consciousness- is outlined. Attention is focused especially on the discussion of contemporary American Hegelianism, largely agreeing with E. E. Harris and R. D. Winfield, while sharply criticizing R. B. Brandom.". (shrink)

Il Teatro Sociale di Sondrio, inaugurato nel 1824, rappresenta tra XIX e XX secolo il più importante centro teatrale dell’intera Valtellina. Considerando anche l’importanza che riveste nella storia locale, il teatro sondriese può essere preso come esempio attraverso cui riconoscere, da un punto di vista particolare, le evoluzioni a cui va incontro la drammaturgia italiana a cavallo dei due secoli. Lo studio dei manifesti conservati negli archivi e lo spoglio dei periodici locali hanno permesso di analizzare le modalità e le (...) tempistiche con cui venivano allestiti gli spettacoli e l’accoglienza di questi da parte del pubblico e della critica di Sondrio: su queste basi, il seguente studio cerca di offrire una fisionomia del pubblico teatrale otto-novecentesco, un pubblico provinciale, lontano da quello delle grandi città ma che, come si vuole dimostrare, condivide con quest’ultimo gli stessi gusti: dalla ricerca della novità alla passione per i drammi sentimentali, dalla pièce bien faite alla nuova drammaturgia borghese. (shrink)

Este trabajo, desarrollado en el contexto del giro teológico de la fenomenología francesa, reflexiona sobre la significación de la Vida en Michel Henry, Vida y pasividad que no resultan de la volición de un sujeto moderno que parecería haber sido hoy superado. Estamos en los umbrales de una filosofía primera que no deja absolutamente de lado la intencionalidad de otrora, así como su carácter activo en la donación de significado, pero subordina ambos a un fundamento primero, único e irreductible: la (...) Vida. Hemos titulado este trabajo Gloria de la pasividad puesto que, en efecto, el ego no aparece como el artífice originario de la constitución del mundo, de sus significados y de sus idealidades. Una pasividad primitiva del sujeto antecedería al ego constituyente de la fenomenología clásica, una pasividad viejísima, que no cabría, sin lugar a duda, en ninguna memoria. No hemos querido, sin embargo, introducirnos al pensamiento de Henry sin antes darnos una idea de lo que significa la pasividad del sujeto reflejada en algunas líneas de Marion, cuya comprensión se da en el marco de una fenomenología de lo invisible y de una fenomenología abierta al exceso de evidencia. (shrink)

The recent publication of the second edition of this monumental work by Hösle on Hegel’s philosophical system, which appeared for the first time in 1988, is surely to be regarded as one of the most important and encouraging events in continental philosophy this past decade. For, on the one hand, the very necessity of a second edition obviously indicates that the first fortunately did not escape the attention of a wide readership. On the other hand, it adds a postscript, in (...) which a forthright self-critique is provided with respect to what seems to me to be the most questionable thesis presented in this work, i.e. the primacy of the category of intersubjectivity over that of subjectivity. A brief but interesting paper on Hegel and Spinoza follows the Postscript. Such a self-critique, together with some enlightening remarks on the shortcomings of contemporary Marxist and historicist interpretations of Hegel’s absolute idealism—which should be construed as the completion of the tradition of Western idealistic metaphysics initiated by Parmenides and Plato—unquestionably shows that the development of Hösle’s thought in these years has moved in the very direction which is logically required by the peculiar character of its original “systematic-theoretical” approach to Hegelian philosophy. (shrink)

Che cosa vuol dire per le espressioni del nostro linguaggio avere un significato? Secondo un approccio oggi sostanzialmente standard in semantica, avere significato vuol dire prima di tutto avere un contenuto rappresentazionale, cioè poter rappresentare qualcosa. Secondo un inferenzialista come Robert Brandom, invece, le espressioni del nostro linguaggio hanno contenuto perché sono inserite in una rete di relazioni inferenziali, rispetto alla quale possono essere utilizzate per dare e richiedere ragioni. Il libro di Pietro Salis, Pratiche discorsive razionali, presenta e discute (...) alcuni degli aspetti più interessanti dell'inferenzialismo normativo di Brandom. Si tratta della seconda monografia in lingua italiana dedicata alla filosofia del linguaggio brandomiana dopo quella di Giovagnoli (2004). Per trovare elementi di paragone con il lavoro di Salis occorre allora guardare alle pubblicazioni in lingua inglese. Tra queste ci sono le raccolte di saggi curate da Stekeler-Weithofer (2008), Prien e Schweikard (2008), e Weiss e Wanderer (2010). Ma anche le introduzioni monografiche di Wanderer (2008) e Turbanti (2017). La prima di queste introduzioni, in particolare, è quella più simile al libro di Salis, soprattutto dal punto di vista tematico. (shrink)

Promotreno iz etimološke perspektive, Petrićev Sretan grad, objavljen između Utopije T. Morea i La città del Sole T. Campanelle, crpi svoje polazište i ključno značenje upravo iz etimologije nazivka ‘sretan’. Taj nazivak sadržava dvojnost, koja je poslužila Petrićevoj zamisli: kao što se čovjek sastoji od duše i tijela, tako se dvojnost uočava i ponavlja u raznim strukturama grada-države. S jedne strane felice znači ‘produktivan’ i ‘uspješan’, a s druge strane pak ‘sretan’ te kod Petrića i ‘blažen’. Stupnjevanje u razumijevanju sreće (...) kod Petrića znači da je njegov grad-država uspješan i blažen, pa se sudjelovanje svih staleža društva sagledava u okviru praktičnog organiziranja društvenog života dvostruko sretnog grada.This paper deals with the etymology, and consequently with the meaning of Frane Petrić’s Happy Town : written after Thomas More’s Utopia and before Tomaso Campanella’s The City of the Sun, Petrić’s Happy Town has its datum-point and key meaning in the etymology of the term felice. This term contains the duality constantly pointed out in Petrić’s conception: since the human being consists of body and soul, the duality is noted and repeated through various structures of this town-state. The term felice means ‘productive’, ‘successful’, ‘happy’, and it has to do with Petrić’s concept of ‘blessedness’ as well. The gradation of the meaning of the term felice explains the fact that Petrić’s town is successful-happy and happy-blessed. All the social levels are part of the productiveness > blessedness process of Petrić’s twice Happy Town. (shrink)

The article presents probable impacts from COVID-19 on 5 components of the food system: social organizations; markets; science and technology; nature (biophysical environment); and public policies. It investigates which proposals contained in the State Plan for Food and Nutritional Security of the State of São Paulo (PLANSAN-SP) can respond to these impacts, mitigating them. The impacts of COVID-19 on food systems are broad and profound, considering the different realities raised by bibliographic research. These impacts directly affect the food consumption of (...) the population from the quarantine dynamics adopted worldwide, in various forms, with negative effects on access and availability of food in the short, medium and long terms. PLANSAN-SP contains several proposals to guarantee the Human Right to Adequate Food (DHAA) and to stimulate Food Sovereignty and Food Nutrition and Security (SAN). The article considers that the dialogue between the organized civil society and the public power is fundamental for the construction of proposals adjusted to a diversity of challenges and realities present in the State of São Paulo. It considers also that PLANSAN-SP, if implemented and monitored could respond positively to the impacts of COVID -19 in the São Paulo food system. (shrink)

In this article I examine the origins and progression of the practice of vivisection in roughly the first half of the sixteenth century, paying particular attention to the types of vivisection procedures performed, the classical sources for those procedures and the changing nature of the concerns motivating the anatomists who performed them. My goal is to reexamine a procedure typically treated as something revived by Vesalius from classical sources as a precursor to early modern discoveries by placing the practice of (...) vivisection in its sixteenth-century context. There were a variety of reasons for employing vivisection in the sixteenth century, including exploring the differences between living and dead bodies, considering how parts of the body worked, and advocating the entirely new idea of the pulmonary transit. By exploring the discussions of Berengario, Niccolò Massa, Vesalius, Colombo and Juan Valverde I try to elaborate on these various reasons and their origins. (shrink)

The political debate surrounding the English revolution shows how rich and complex is the scenery of the English liberties before “modern Liberty”. The ancient libertates of the Realm, the religious and commercial liberties, the liberty of the free states, and lastly the just freedom of Levellers and Diggers: all these perspectives intersect and conflict without finding any political or juridical synthesis. On the contrary, the gradual affirmation of the liberty of the moderns is accompanied by instances of political and social (...) equality, with which it has to confront. Starting from the dispute on the “Norman Conquest” up to James Harrington’s Oceana, this contribution aims to highlight the extent to which the debate on liberties before “liberalism” was composite, conflictual and characterized by the persistence of instances of equality. (shrink)

Cet article étudie le rapport entre pouvoir spirituel et pouvoir temporel dans la pensée de l’augustinien Jacques de Viterbe († 1307/8), à la lumière de l’édition de deux sermones de mortuis inédits, écrits et prononcés entre 1303 et 1305, lorsqu’il était archevêque de Naples. Cette étude vise donc à offrir une interprétation de la pensée politique de Jacques, à travers la lecture diachronique de ses œuvres, à partir de la Disputatio prima de quolibet jusqu’à ses derniers écrits, afin de suivre (...) l’évolution de sa théorie politique, de son ouverture progressive à la perspective de Thomas d’Aquin et de la réception du principe aristotélicien de la naturalitas de la société humaine. (shrink)

Dieses Buch ist ein wirklich dringendes Desiderat für alle, die bisher in der einen oder anderen Weise mit dem berühmten Kontobuch des venezianischen Kaufmannes Giacomo Badoer aus seiner Zeit als socio verschiedener Handelsgesellschaften und als correspondente verschiedener Geschäftsfreunde in der spätbyzantinischen Hauptstadt Konstantinopel zu tun gehabt haben. Seit der Edition dieses frühen Zeugnisses entwickelter doppelter Buchführung durch Umberto Dorini und Tommaso Bertelè im Jahre 1956 und in begrenztem Umfang auch schon früher haben Fachvertreter der unterschiedlichsten Disziplinen, Wirtschaftshistoriker, Numismatiker, Mediterranisten (...) und nicht zuletzt Byzantinisten den einzigartigen Quellenwert des Badoer-Buches entdeckt und für ihre verschiedenen wissenschaftlichen Fragestellungen genutzt, und der Verfasser dieser Rezension zählt es noch heute zu den Glücksumständen seines wissenschaftlichen Lebens, daß er gleich zu Beginn seiner Beschäftigung mit dem späten Byzanz ein Exemplar dieses Kontobuches in der Bibliothek des Leipziger Universitätsinstitutes für Allgemeine Geschichte vorfand und es viele Jahre praktisch konkurrenzlos benutzen konnte. Und in den ungezählten Stunden, die er über den wohl in ebenso einsamer Arbeit entstandenen Aufzeichnungen dieses in einer gemieteten Unterkunft hausenden und mit wechselnden Handelsgehilfen und Haussklavinnen arbeitenden und lebenden Venezianers aus vornehmer Familie mit vererbter Profession verbracht hat, sind ihm im Laufe der Zeit immer neue und wichtige Möglichkeiten der Befragung und Auswertung seiner Konten bekannt und bewußt geworden, nicht nur für die Wirtschafts-, sondern auch für die Sozialgeschichte und nicht zuletzt für die politische Geschichte der Zeit, für die Stadt- und die Reichsgeschichte, für Prosopographie und Alltagsgeschichte, und auch das noch längst nicht alles. (shrink)

In this paper I address issues related to the problem of future contingents and the metaphysical doctrine of fatalism. Two classical responses to the problem of future contingents are the third truth value view and the all-false view. According to the former, future contingents take a third truth value which goes beyond truth and falsity. According to the latter, they are all false. I here illustrate and discuss two ways to respectively argue for those two views. Both ways are similar (...) in spirit and intimately connected with fatalism, in the sense that they engage with the doctrine of fatalism and accept a large part of a standard fatalistic machinery. (shrink)

While growing empirical evidence suggests a continuity between human and non-human psychology, many philosophers still think that only humans can act and form beliefs rationally. In this paper, we challenge this claim. We first clarify the notion of rationality. We then focus on the rationality of beliefs and argue that, in the relevant sense, humans are not the only rational animals. We do so by first distinguishing between unreflective and reflective responsiveness to epistemic reasons in belief formation and revision. We (...) argue that unreflective responsiveness is clearly within the reach of many animals. We then defend that a key demonstration of reflective responsiveness would be the ability to respond to undermining defeaters. We end by presenting some empirical evidence that suggests that some animal species are capable of processing these defeaters, which would entail that even by the strictest standards, humans are not the only rational animals. (shrink)

In today s world, the increasing progress in biotechnologies has paved the way for profound challenges to basic notions definingthe human existence. Paramount concepts, such as autonomy, dignity and the very assumption of human finitude, need to be reframed in the light of unprecedented innovations and possibilities. The multidisciplinary encounter of literature, bioethics and biolaw offers the opportunity to investigate the impacts on human life stemming from scientific potentialities and pretensions. The aim of this book is to merge the two (...) fields of bioethics and law through the literary text, by taking into consideration the transformations of the concept of persona at which we have nowadays arrived.". (shrink)

In 1754 Véron Duverger de Forbonnais published the two books of his Élemens du Commerce which, as the Avertissement stated, collected together some of the chapters the author had written for the Encyclopédie. The second edition was published in the same year with ‘quelques légères additions’. In 1765, Carlos Lemaur, a French engineer who worked in Spain from 1750 until 1785, translated the text into Spanish. The probable reason for the translation was the importance that Forbonnais attributed to the construction (...) of roads and infrastructure that enabled improved communication between the markets and an increased distribution of money to the small cities located far from big centres. The translator worked as an engineer in a number of remarkable constructions designed to enhance logistics in Spain, and shared Forbonnais’ perspective on Enlightenment principles. My analysis will focus on the translation strategies adopted by Lemaur, and on the adaptation of the source text to the target culture, following the approach taken by Theo Hermans. I will examine the equivalence between the source text and the translation, which was the result of the functionality and dynamism of the translator's technique. (shrink)

One important distinction in the debate over the nature of epistemic justification is the one between propositional and doxastic justification. Roughly, while doxastic justification is a property of beliefs, propositional justification is a property of propositions. On a rather common view, which accounts for doxastic justification in terms of propositional justification plus the so-called ‘basing relation’, propositional justification is seen as the prior notion, and doxastic justification is explained in terms of it. According to the opposing view, the direction of (...) explanation needs to be reversed, and doxastic justification should be seen as primary. I distinguish between two notions of priority, and I argue that they give different verdicts with respect to the issue of which notion of justification comes first. The lesson may be taken to be that propositional and doxastic justification are in a relation of intertwinement. (shrink)

A lot of attention has recently been devoted to the notion of Trustworthy AI (TAI). However, the very applicability of the notions of trust and trustworthiness to AI systems has been called into question. A purely epistemic account of trust can hardly ground the distinction between trustworthy and merely reliable AI, while it has been argued that insisting on the importance of the trustee’s motivations and goodwill makes the notion of TAI a categorical error. After providing an overview of the (...) debate, we contend that the prevailing views on trust and AI fail to account for the ethically relevant and value-laden aspects of the design and use of AI systems, and we propose an understanding of the notion of TAI that explicitly aims at capturing these aspects. The problems involved in applying trust and trustworthiness to AI systems are overcome by keeping apart trust in AI systems and interpersonal trust. These notions share a conceptual core but should be treated as distinct ones. (shrink)

Taking the inspiration from some points made by Scott Sturgeon and Albert Casullo, I articulate a view according to which an important difference between undermining and overriding defeaters is that the former require the subject to engage in some higher-order epistemic thinking, while the latter don’t. With the help of some examples, I argue that underminers push the cognizer to reflect on the way she formed a belief by challenging the epistemic worthiness of either the source of justification or the (...) specific justificatory process. By contrast, overriders needn’t pose any such challenge. I also consider some problems for the proposed view, and I put forward some possible solutions. Finally, I provide some details on how undermining defeat works in different cases. (shrink)

The future is different from the past. What is past is fixed and set in stone. The future, on the other hand, is open insofar as it holds numerous possibilities. Branching-tree models of time account for this asymmetry by positing an ontological difference between the past and the future. Given a time t, a unique unified past lies behind t, whereas multiple alternative existing futures lie ahead of t. My goal in this paper is to show that there is an (...) incompatibility between the way branching-tree models account for the open future and the possibility of time travel. That is, I argue that once time travel enters the picture, branching time fails to model the openness of the future by means of alternative future branches. I show how this holds independently of whether branching-time models are cashed out in A-theoretic or B-theoretic terms. (shrink)

This paper introduces a new kind of explanation that we describe as ‘purely theoretical’. We first present an example, E, of what we take to be a case of purely theoretical explanation. We then show that the explanation we have in mind does not fit neatly into any of the existing categories of explanation. We take this to give us prima facie motivation for thinking that purely theoretical explanation is a distinctive kind of explanation. We then argue that it can (...) earn its keep via application to two existing literatures: the literature on how we explain the truth of true negative existential propositions and the literature on how we explain the truth of true propositions about the past. We reply to some possible concerns regarding the introduction of purely theoretical explanations. We conclude that there is nothing obviously wrong with them and explore the ramifications for particular debates in metaphysics. (shrink)

This paper addresses a particular interpretation of quantum mechanics, i.e. superdeterminism. In short, superdeterminism i) takes the world to be fundamentally deterministic, ii) postulates hidden variables, and iii) contra Bell, saves locality at the cost of violating the principle of statistical independence. Superdeterminism currently enjoys little support in the physics and philosophy communities. Many take it to posit the ubiquitous occurrence of hard-to-digest conspiratorial and coincidental events; others object that violating the principle of statistical independence implies the death of the (...) scientific methodology. In this paper, we offer a defense to these and other objections. To counter the conspiracy objection, we draw upon the philosophical literature on time travel, and conclude that the picture of the world offered by the superdeterminist does not need to be particularly surprising or conspiratorial. We then move on to other recent objections, in particular those that focus on the methodology of science and the nature of the physical laws compatible with superdeterminism. A key ingredient of our arguments is that the principle of statistical independence may be violated in theory, but valid for practical purposes. Our overarching goal is to offer a defense of superdeterminism with respect to its main objections, so that it can earn its keep as a legitimate contender among the possible interpretations of quantum mechanics. (shrink)

Branching time is a popular theory of time that is intended to account for the openness of the future. Generally, branching-time models the openness of the future by positing a multiplicity of concrete alternative futures mirroring all the possible ways the future could unfold. A distinction is drawn in the literature among branching-time theories: those that make use of moment-based structures and those that employ history-based ones. In this paper, I introduce and discuss a particular kind of openness relative to (...) the possibility that time ends (doomsday). I then show that whereas moment-based branching structures cannot represent this kind of openness, history-based structures can account for it. The conclusion is that history-based structures have an advantage over moment-based ones. (shrink)

The goal of this paper is to defend the general tenet that time travelers cannot change the past within B-theoretical models of time, independently of how many temporal dimensions there are. Baron Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 98, 129–147 offered a strong argument intended to reach this general conclusion. However, his argument does not cover a peculiar case, i.e. a B-theoretical one-dimensional model of time that allows for the presence of internal times. Loss Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 96, 1–11 used the latter model (...) to argue that time travelers can change the past within such model. We show a way to debunk Loss’s argument, so that the general tenet about the impossibility of changing the past within B-theoretical models is maintained. (shrink)

We focus on Timothy Williamson’s recent attack on the epistemological significance of the a priori–a posteriori distinction, and offer an explanation of why, fundamentally, it does not succeed. We begin by setting out Williamson’s core argument, and some of the background to it and move to consider two lines of conciliatory response to it—conciliatory in that neither questions the central analogy on which Williamson's argument depends. We claim, setting aside a methodological challenge to which Williamson owes an answer, that no (...) satisfactory such reconciliation is in prospect. Rather, as we then argue, —and it is on this that we base our overall negative assessment of his argument—Williamson’s core analogy is flawed by an oversight. We conclude with some brief reflections on Williamson’s ideas about the imagination as a source of knowledge. Our principal conclusion is only that Williamson’s argument fails to perform as advertised. A constructive case for confidence, to the contrary, that the intuitive contrast between a priori and a posteriori reflects something of fundamental epistemological significance is prefigured in our final section, but will not be elaborated here. (shrink)