Der Geschichtswissenschaft, und nicht nur ihr, ist unmerklich der Begriff der Wahrheit abhanden gekommen, und mit ihm auch derjenige von Tatsache und Quelle. Uber die Rankesche Absicht, lediglich zu sagen, wie es eigentlich gewesen, lacheln die Kenner. Wenn alles Text ist und alles Rhetorik, wenn man nicht mehr wissen will, was war, sondern nur noch, wie daruber geredet wurde, wenn vorgeblich die Beobachtung das Beobachtete schafft und alle Erinnerung irreparabel alles verfalscht, dann verschwimmen die Grenzen zwischen Wahrheit und Fiktion, geht (...) die Wirklichkeit verloren. Dabei ist wahr/nicht wahr der Code und das Gesetz aller Wissenschaft. Der Essay bezieht Stellung zu der Frage, ob der Historiker vergangene Wirklichkeiten erkennen kann, und ladt dazu ein, unbeeindruckt von zahllosen turns Wahrheit, Quelle, Tatsache weiterhin als Grundkategorien der Geschichtswissenschaft gelten zu lassen.". (shrink)

The first modern edition of the Instituzione d’ogni stato lodevole delle donne cristiane (1575), and the Ricordi di Monsignor Agostino Valier Vescovo di Verona lasciati alle monache nella sua visitazione fatta l’anno del santissimo Giubileo 1575 (1575) by Cardinal Agostino Valier (Venice, 7 April 1531 – Rome, 23 May 1606). The Instituzione includes three texts meant respectively for unmarried women, widows, and married women (Del modo di vivere delle vergini che si chiamano demesse; Della vera e perfetta viduità; (...) Instruzione delle donne maritate), while the Ricordi is a book for nuns on monastic life. The texts by Agostino Valier are an important example of conduct literature for and about women in Counter-Reformation Italy. Contents include: a historical introduction to the author and his works; the Italian texts with notes; an index of names cited in the treatises; a bibliography. (shrink)

This books offers an annotated edition of Nifo’s De intellectu (1503), including an extensive analytical summary of the contents, as well as a chronology of Nifo’s life and works, and a full index of the chapters of this work.

This paper examines cognitive processes from an evolutionary, ecological and systemic perspective. Starting from Darwinian theory and the development of Extended Evolutionary Synthesis, the reference to evolutionary biology allows a rethinking of minds as complex phenomena "at the crossroads" between organisms and the environments they inhabit and contribute to build. It is proposed that this vision opens a space to overcome philosophical traditions that see in the minds "things" and in cognition a mirroring or representation of the world, to come (...) to an understanding of the former in terms of complex systems and to interpret the latter through the concept of "enaction". (shrink)

Michael Root argues, in Philosophy of Social Science, that social scientific investigations do not and cannot meet the liberal requirement of "neutrality" most familiar to social scientists in the form of Max Weber's requirement of value-freedom. He argues, moreover, that this is for "institutional," not idiosyncratic, reasons: methodological demands (e.g., of validity) impel social scientists to pass along into their "objective" investigations the values of the people, groups, and cultures they are studying. In this paper, I consider the implications of (...) Root's claims for the use of social scientific results in the formation of policy in a democratic society. In particular, I argue that Root's results amplify familiar "post-modernist" conclusions: there is no "neutral" and "objective" basis for policy-making. (shrink)

Alguno leyendo el título de esta breve investigación pensará tal vez que se trata de una estrategia publicitaria destinada más a llamar la atención que a proponer un argumento. En realidad no; el título está estrechamente unido a la realidad. Agustín había prometido escribir un libro sobre las nociones de herejía y nunca lo hizo. Pretendo en este artículo explicar brevemente: En qué ocasión lo prometió; Por qué no lo escribió: Qué habría dicho si lo hubiese escrito.

It has frequently been suggested that Rawls’s characteristic method of justification, a method crucially involving the notion of reflective equilibrium, is in some sense relativistic in its implications. No sustained development of this suggestion has been undertaken by those who advance it; likewise, no sustained attempt to refute this suggestion has been made by those who are otherwise sympathetic to Rawls’s account of justification. I here attempt to fill these gaps in the already extensive literature associated with the method of (...) reflective equilibrium. At below, I review claims that Rawls’s method has relativistic implications. I also attempt, for purposes of argument, to buttress these claims by citing remarks of Rawls which could be interpreted as relativistic in character. At below, I consider problems of political reasoning as these arise in societies which are ill- and well-ordered in Rawls’s sense. At below, I consider problems of political reasoning as these arise between the members of two or more well-ordered societies, each of which is regulated by a different conception of justice. I also there adapt Williams’s distinction between notional and real confrontations between incompatible systems of beliefs in order to distinguish two kinds of conflict with respect to fundamental political principles. Finally, I show how a notion of broad reflective equilibrium can be deployed in order to solve those problems of political adjudication which may arise between the members of societies which have distinct conceptions of justice. At this point it should be clear that Rawls’s method of justification is not, in intention at least, relativistic in its implications. (shrink)

Is expertise in applied ethics compatible with individual autonomy and democratic self‐governance? This depends on whether a ‘tracking condition’ is satisfied for expert claims about issues in applied ethics. This condition requires that, when expert deliberations are properly conducted they ‘track’ the courses of reasoning that the experts’ clients would themselves have undertaken if they had (perhaps subject to certain conditions) considered the matters for themselves. Pluralism of the kind thematised by Isaiah Berlin and Stuart Hampshire suggests that the tracking (...) condition typically will not be satisfied and, hence, that whatever experts are praticising in applied ethics they are doing it contrary to democratic principles of autonomy and self‐government. The implications of this result are sketched and some standard objections briefly considered. (shrink)

Whether and how music is involved in evoking emotions is a matter of considerable debate. In the target article, Juslin & Vll (J&V) argue that music induces a wide range of both basic and complex emotions that are shared with other stimuli. If such a link exists, it would provide a common basis for considering the interactions among music, emotion, timing, and time perception.

This book was published in 2003.This volume presents a detailed examination of incommensurability in the value-theoretical sense. Exploring how choosers deal with problems and constraints of choice, the author draws on work in cognitive psychology, in sociology, in jurisprudence, in economics, and in the theory of value to show how choosers learn to make trade-offs when there is potential incommensurability among the options they are considering. The analysis is also informed by recent work in the tradition of Michel Foucault. With (...) so many modern devices and ideals of government dependent on the comparability of options, this book is timely and can inform public debate about de-regulation, user-pays, accountability, and the substitution of market mechanisms for government regulation and supply. (shrink)