L’articolo si concentra sull’analisi della filosofia come istituzione affermatasi neutrale che, tuttavia, si rivela sessuata al maschile attraverso la comprensione del concetto di «differenza sessuale» per come teorizzato da Adriana Cavarero. Utilizzando il quadro concettuale della filosofia come «pratica» intrecciata alle pratiche di vita sviluppato da Carlo Sini, e quello di «ordine del discorso» fornito da Michel Foucault, vengono esplicitate le premesse e le conseguenze dell’ordine del discorso nell’elaborazione dei concetti, per poi presentare delle possibilità di un suo ripensamento attraverso (...) la prassi teorica di Adriana Cavarero – di cui viene proposta un’analisi e sono presentati dei risultati rilevanti anche per il contesto attuale. L’ipotesi in esame suggerisce che la pretesa di neutralità e universalità della filosofia sia minata dalla consapevolezza che il pensatore è un essere vivente la cui esperienza di vita, compresa la propria sessuazione, permea sia il mondo della vita che il mondo del sapere. Dunque, la formazione dei concetti filosofici risulta vincolata alla prospettiva sessuata del soggetto che li elabora. Di conseguenza, l’ordine del discorso neutrale rappresenta tanto lo scacco del pensiero delle donne quanto l’occasione di essere ripraticato. Infine, l’articolo propone una riflessione sui cambiamenti istituzionali avvenuti tra gli anni Ottanta, il periodo di riferimento per la formulazione teorica di Cavarero su cui l’articolo si sofferma, e la situazione attuale dell’Università Italiana in relazione alle questioni di genere. (shrink)

De Marchi and Lorenzetti :253-261, 2016) have recently argued that in fields where the journal impact factor is not calculated, such as in the humanities, it is key to find other indicators that would allow the relevant community to assess the quality of scholarly journals and the research outputs that are published in them. The authors' suggestion is that information concerning the journal's rejection rate and the number of subscriptions sold is important and should be used for such assessment. The (...) question addressed by the authors is very important, yet their proposed solutions are problematic. Here I point to some of these problems and illustrate them by considering as a case in point the field of philosophy. Specifically, here I argue for four main claims. First, even assuming that IF provides a reliable indicator of the quality of journals for the assessment of research outputs, De Marchi and Lorenzetti have failed to validate their suggested indicators and proxies. Second, it has not been clarified why, in absence of IF, other journal-based metrics that are currently available should not be used. Third, the relationship between IF and rejection rate is more complex than the authors suggest. Fourth, accepting the number of sold subscriptions as a proxy would result in discrimination against open access journals. The upshot of my analysis is that the question of how to assess journals and research outputs in the humanities is still far from resolved. (shrink)

The question is discussed how noise gained a functional meaning in the context of biology. According to the common view, noise is considered a disturbance or perturbation. I analyze how this understanding changed and what kind of developments during the last 10 years contributed to the emergence of a new understanding of noise. Results gained during a field study in a synthetic biology laboratory show that the emergence of this new research discipline—its highly interdisciplinary character, its new technologies and novel (...) modeling strategies—provided essential impulses, which led to the observed change in the concept of noise. The laboratory study is combined with a historical analysis, which explores the general question as to how concepts travel between disciplines and, specifically, how noise was transferred from engineering and physics into biology. In the past, scientists, such as Lotka and Goodwin, tried to introduce a statistical mechanics into biology and discussed the problem of “unfitting” concepts. The change in the meaning of the concept can be interpreted as a way of making it fit to the novel context in which it is applied. (shrink)

Several experimental studies have reported that an otherwise robust regularity—the disparity between Willingness-To-Accept and Willingness-To-Pay—tends to be greatly reduced in repeated markets, posing a serious challenge to existing reference-dependent and reference-independent models alike. This article offers a new account of the evidence, based on the assumptions that individuals are affected by good and bad deals relative to the expected transaction price (price sensitivity), with bad deals having a larger impact on their utility (`bad-deal’ aversion). These features of preferences explain the (...) existing evidence better than alternative approaches, including the most recent developments of loss aversion models. (shrink)

This paper explores the theory and practice of embodied epistemology or mindful embodiment in ethics case consultation. I argue that not only is this epistemology an ethical imperative to safeguard the integrity of this emerging profession, but that it has the potential to improve the quality of ethics consultation (EC). It also has implications for how ethics consultants are trained and how consultation services are organized. My viewpoint is informed by ethnographic research and by my experimental application of mindful embodiment (...) to the development of an ethics consultation service. My argument proceeds in four phases. First I explore the notion of ‘situatedness’ in the bioethics literature, identifying gaps in the field's theories as they apply to EC. I then describe my theoretical approach to embodiment grounded in critical-interpretive medical anthropology and autoethnography. I use embodiment to refer to a moral epistemology grounded in the body, comprised of the interplay of physical, symbolic, intersubjective and political elements. Third, I describe how mindful embodiment can inform the role of the ethics consultant and the development of effective training techniques, vocabularies and processes for EC. I also discuss the benefits of this orientation, and the potential harms of ignoring the embodied dimensions of EC. My goals are to expose the fallacy of the ‘theory-practice gap’, to demonstrate how my own EC practice is deeply informed by this theoretical orientation, and to argue for a wider definition of what ‘counts’ as relevant theory for ethics consultation. (shrink)

The essay discusses Donald Davidson’s concept of anomalous monism in the framework of Husserlian phenomenology. It develops in four stages. Section 1 is devoted to a critical presentation of the argument for anomalous monism. Section 2 succinctly examines those Husserlian notions that best provide the ground for a discussion parallel to Davidson’s. In Sect. 3, the aporetic status of “mental causation” is analyzed by providing a genetic-phenomenological account of efficient causation. Section 4 draws some general conclusions concerning the kind of (...) efficaciousness that must be attributed to consciousness and discusses the sense in which anomalous monism can be defended in a phenomenological framework, but not in a naturalistic one. (shrink)

The notion of social practice and a family of notions akin to it play an essential role in contemporary philosophical reflection, with particular reference to the conceptualisation of historical processes. Stephen Turner's book A Social Theory of Practices has provided a major challenge to this family of notions, and our purpose is to outline a grounding account of the notion of social practice in the form of an answer to Turner's criticisms. We try to answer three questions: first, if it (...) is necessary to grant a tacit dimension to transmittable habits; second, if and how a tacit dimension of "meaning" could be intersubjectively transmitted; third, what is the possible role of rationality in changing social practices. Our discussion moves from Wittgenstein's argument on rule-following; in its wake we try to examine the nature of habits as a basis for rules and discuss their temporal sedimentation, inertia and modes of intersubjective transmission. In conclusion we support the idea that social practices must rely on a tacit dimension, that their tacit dimension does not represent a hindrance to intersubjective transmission, and that the possible dogmatism of social practices is not due to their "hidden" side, but to their explicit quasi-rational side. (shrink)

The Quantum Measurement Problem is arguably one of the most debated issues in the philosophy of Quantum Mechanics, since it represents not only a technical difficulty for the standard formulation of the theory, but also a source of interpretational disputes concerning the meaning of the quantum postulates. Another conundrum intimately connected with the QMP is the Wigner friend paradox, a thought experiment underlining the incoherence between the two dynamical laws governing the behavior of quantum systems, i.e the Schrödinger equation and (...) the projection rule. Thus, every alternative interpretation aiming to be considered a sound formulation of QM must provide an explanation to these puzzles associated with quantum measurements. It is the aim of the present essay to discuss them in the context of Relational Quantum Mechanics. In fact, it is shown here how this interpretative framework dissolves the QMP. More precisely, two variants of this issue are considered: on the one hand, I focus on the “the problem of outcomes” contained in Maudlin (1995)—in which the projection postulate is not mentioned—on the other hand, I take into account Rovelli’s reformulation of this problem proposed in Rovelli (2022), where the tension between the Schrödinger equation and the stochastic nature of the collapse rule is explicitly considered. Moreover, the relational explanation to the Wigner’s friend paradox is reviewed, taking also into account some interesting objections contra Rovelli’s theory contained in Laudisa (2019). I contend that answering these critical remarks leads to an improvement of our understanding of RQM. Finally, a possible objection against the relational solution to the QMP is presented and addressed. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the _ethics of how_ to approach the introduction of MAiD as an organizational ethics challenge, a focus that diverges from the traditional focus in healthcare ethics on the _ethics of why_ MAiD is right or wrong. It describes a method co-designed and implemented by ethics and medical leadership at a tertiary hospital to develop a values-based, grassroots response to the decriminalization of assisted dying in Canada. This organizational ethics engagement method embodied core tenants that drew inspiration (...) from a variety of sources, including poetic ones. These tenants are: make the problem bigger; focus on values; cultivate open moral spaces; and trust emergence. The paper describes how these tenants were put into practice in order to create a rigorous and sustainable MAiD program that delivers high-quality care to patients and families while honoring the moral diversity of the hospital workforce. One of the goals in sharing this method is to provide a roadmap for healthcare organizations in Canada and other jurisdictions around the world that are facing the challenge of responding to patient requests for MAiD following the decriminalization of this care option. (shrink)

InThus Spoke Zarathustra(2006), Nietzsche presents Zarathustra as a sage and parodic prophet, who acquires and offers insight over the narrated journey of his spiritual development. Nietzsche’s conception ofZarathustraas a gift (to “all and none”) endorses learning as the kind of emulation condensed into Zarathustra’s complex formulation: rather than “corpses that I carry with me wherever I want... I need living companions who follow me because they want to follow themselves—wherever I want.” Thus I aim, firstly, to follow the text closely (...) to see what is given. However, noting thatZarathustrais deeply imbued with figures of laughter, I also impose an interpretation. “Repeating differently,” as demanded by Zarathustra, I outline a practicable, spiral‐shaped “learning curve” of traversal and return to various “shades of laughter,” advancing from the worst laughters to “goldenlaughter,” which embraces complexity. This represents what it means to laugh well. In so doing, I hope to demonstrate that the complex ethos of affirmative laughter inZarathustraremains strikingly pertinent for a contemporary era urgently tasked with embracing complexity. (shrink)

As Dieter Lohmar (Citation2002; Citation2012) has shown, in the Logical Investigation Husserl sketches a peculiar type of reduction, the so-called “Reduktion auf den reellen Bestand.” Husserl does not explicitly put this kind of reduction forward, though, and he does definitely not clarify how it works, and what its elements properly are. Lohmar proposes to understand it as a kind of empiricist reduction to mere sense-data. On the contrary, I believe that it should be considered as entailing also the apprehensional forms (...) of sense-data, though not the so-called apprehensional senses. In this article, I will offer some arguments and textual evidence in favour of this claim, and I will conclude by proposing that, despite Husserl’s unclarity on the issue, the reduction to the real components of experience, rather than being simply an ancestor of the transcendental-phenomenological reduction, should be seen as the regulative model of all later forms of reduction. (shrink)

In the films of the Alien franchise featuring Sigourney Weaver, Ripley's maternal instinct is an integral part of who she is as both survivor and protector—and as a destroyer, too. In Alien, Ripley's misplaced maternal instincts save her from the death‐by‐alien that is the fate of her crew mates as she hurries off in search of the ship's resident cat, Jones. When Ripley hears Jonesy's meow, she responds like a mother to a crying baby. Ridley Scott's Alien begins with an (...) image of near‐naked bodies in capsules, awakening from sleep, slightly dazed, slightly confused—intimating birth, or rebirth. In her theory, Stone harks back to the approach of psychoanalysis, claiming that each experience of motherhood repeats the mother's own infantile past and her own traumatic separation from the maternal body. In Alien: Resurrection, Ripley is reclaimed through a purposeful symbiosis of mother and child; human and alien; self and “other”. (shrink)

The Amazon rainforest is one of the most important topics of transnational activism. Based on the assumption that the consumption of timber in the Northern hemisphere is largely responsible for deforestation, campaigners have focused on the global timber trade. From a strategy of boycotting tropical timber in the 1980s, environmentalists shifted their approach to one influenced by a discourse on ‘sustainable development’ in the 1990s. Believing that they could persuade loggers to use less predatory practices, the mainstream NGOs developed a (...) certification scheme in association with timber companies known as the FSC – Forest Stewardship Council. Since then, the NGOs have gained influence over international policies. The focus on the so-called ‘Amazon forestry vocation’, however, may lead to doubtful results when sustainability of local societies and ecosystems is considered. This article discusses some dimensions of the new Amazon policies that are driven by a global market perspective and which may consequently render local and diverse cultures invisible. (shrink)

Through a reading of Merleau-Ponty’s late courses on Nature, this essay presents a new reflection on technique and makes explicit the ontological significance of a rethinking of technique in this period. After an analysis of the historical sense of the notion of Nature and of animal behavior, we turn to cybernetics. The need to rethink man on the basis of his contingency, that is, on the basis of his relationship with the world and with the technical objects through which this (...) relationship is structured, arises in the essay. Merleau-Ponty’s course on Nature has thus allowed us to investigate the ontological significance of the notion of technique by considering technical objects that Merleau-Ponty himself references. Technique, by prolonging Nature, becomes the keystone to the contact between man and Being, thus illustrating the necessity, for philosophy and for culture, of a return to the contact with brute being that founds and inhabits it. (shrink)

This paper outlines a truth-conditional view of logical form, that is, a view according to which logical form is essentially a matter of truth-conditions. The main motivation for the view is a fact that seems crucial to logic. As _§_1 suggests, fundamental logical relations such as entailment or contradiction can formally be explained only if truth-conditions are formally represented.§2 spells out the view. _§_3 dwells on its anity with a conception of logical form that has been defended in the past. (...) _§§_4-6 draw attention to its impact on three major issues that concern, respectively, the extension of the domain of formal explanation, the semantics of tensed discourse, and the analysis of quantication. (shrink)

Much research has focused on the effects of pathogenic mitochondrial mutations on health. Notwithstanding, the mechanisms regulating the link between these mutations and their effects remain elusive in several cases. Here, we propose that certain mitochondrial mutations may disrupt function of a set of mitochondrial‐transcribed small RNAs, perturbing communication between mitochondria and nucleus, leading to disease. Our hypothesis synthesises two lines of supporting evidence. First, several mitochondrial mutations cannot be directly linked to effects on energy production or protein synthesis. Second, (...) emerging studies have described the existence of small RNAs encoded by the mitochondria and proposed their involvement in RNA interference. We present a roadmap to testing this hypothesis. (shrink)

In this paper, I provide a qualified defense of the claim that cognitive biases are not necessarily signs of irrationality, but rather the result of using normative standards that are too narrow. I show that under certain circumstances, behavior that violates traditional norms of rationality can be adaptive. Yet, I express some reservations about the claim that we should replace our traditional normative standards. Furthermore, I throw doubt on the claim that the replacement of normative standards would license optimistic verdicts (...) about human rationality. (shrink)

Philosophia brings together, for the first time, the work of three major women thinkers of this century, producing a developing commentary on the human condition as an alternative to the mainstream, masculine, philosophical tradition.

Business Ethics: A European Review, EarlyView.

How questions and why questions interact in complex ways within biological practice. One of the most fruitful accounts to think about this relation is the widely known systemic approach, which has its origin mainly in the works of Robert Cummins (1975, 1983). As we will show, this approach effectively manages to capture much of what biologists do, especially in areas such as molecular biology, neuroscience and neuroethology. Our aim with this work is to discuss the metatheoretical status of the presuppositions (...) behind systemic analysis. We will hold that these assumptions are of an empirical nature, and that they can be reconstructed as parts of a theory. (shrink)

This study investigates the extent to which there is individuality in how structural variation is conditioned over time. Earlier research already classified the diachronically unstable gerund variation as involving a high fraction of mixed-usage speakers throughout the change, whereby the proportion of the conservative variant versus the progressive variant as observable in the linguistic output of individual language users superficially resembles the mean proportion as observable at the population level. However, this study sets out to show that there can still (...) be heterogeneity within such a centralized population in terms of how each individual conditions the observed variation. A random forest and conditional inference tree analysis of over 14,000 gerunds uttered by nineteen seventeenth-century authors is presented to show that, while the most important language-internal factors conditioning the gerund variation are adopted by (and shared between) all authors, we can still attest inter-individual variation (i) at lower levels of variable importance, and (ii) in the breadth of the range of contexts individual authors employ to condition the attested variation. (shrink)

Embora a extensão da dependência entre teorias da estética e modelos da mente seja urna questão de aceso debate, é justo afirmar que as abordagens actuáis da consciência sugerem novas perspectivas sobre a natureza da experiência estética. As recentes descobertas da neurociência têm afetado a nossa forma de ver a estética e a arte. Todavia, enquanto é frequentemente sugerido que a neurociência vai, em breve, obter urna descrição completa da natureza da mente e, portanto, da experiência estética, aqui consideram-se as (...) consequências da recente bifurcação teórica a respeito da localizacão da mente (ou seja, as posições externalistas versus internalistas). A partir deste ponto de vista, as questões da unidade e do significado são usadas para investigar a natureza da experiência estética e da arte. A discussão baseia-se na distinção de William James entre núcleo e periferia, levando a uma perspectiva de convergência entre a psicologia, a fenomenologia e a neurociência. Por fim, a arte é explorada como urna janela para olhar para dentro de aspectos fundamentais da vida mental, quer por meio dos recentes resultados de imagens do cérebro, quer através dos modelos mais abrangentes da mente. While the extent of the dependence between theories of aesthetics and models of the mind is a matter of lively debate, it is fair to claim that current approaches to consciousness suggest new perspectives about the nature of aesthetic experience. Recent findings of neuroscience have affected how we see aesthetics and art. Nevertheless, while it is often suggested that neuroscience will soon offer a comprehensive account of the nature of mind and thus of aesthetic experience, here we consider the consequences on the recent theoretical bifurcation as to where mind is located (namely the externalist vs. the internalist stance). From such a view, the issues of unity and meaning are used to probe into the nature of aesthetic experience and art. The discussion draws upon William James' distinction between nucleus and fringe and puts forward a converging perspective between psychology, phenomenology and neuroscience. Eventually, art is exploited as a window to peer inside fundamental aspects of mental life by means both of recent brain imaging results and more extended models of the mind. (shrink)

The present study attempts to reconstruct Husserl’s account of empirical illusion and hallucination and disclose the significance of sense-deception in Husserl’s phenomenology. By clarifying the relation between the “leibhaftige presence” and “existence” of perceived objects, I shall be able to contend that illusion and hallucination are nullified, invalid perceptions. Non-existence or in-actuality is a form of invalidity: the Ungültigkeit of what demands its insertion in the totality of actual existence. Husserl elaborates an ex-negativo account of in-actuality, in which sensory deception (...) refers to a modal modification, which is always relative and contextual in relation to the total nexus of experience in its intersubjectively validated and harmonious unfolding. (shrink)

This book examines the role of Samuel Beckett in contemporary philosophical aesthetics, primarily through analysis of both his own essays and the various ...