Sahlqvist theory is extended to the fragments of the intuitionistic propositional calculus that include the conjunction connective. This allows us to introduce a Sahlqvist theory of intuitionistic character amenable to arbitrary protoalgebraic deductive systems. As an application, we obtain a Sahlqvist theorem for the fragments of the intuitionistic propositional calculus that include the implication connective and for the extensions of the intuitionistic linear logic.

The possibility of multi-location—of one entity having more than one exact location—is required by several metaphysical theories such as the immanentist theory of universals and three-dimensionalism about persistence. One of the most pressing challenges for multi-location theorists is that of making sense of exact location—in that extant definitions of exact location entail a principle called ‘functionality’, according to which nothing can have more than one exact location. Recently in a number of promising papers, Antony Eagle has proposed and defended a (...) definition of exact location in terms of weak location that does not entail functionality. This paper provides the first thorough assessment of Eagle’s proposal. In particular, we argue that it cannot account for the location of immanent universals, the multi-location of mereologically changing three-dimensional objects, the multi-location of mereologically complex objects, and that it makes extended simples impossible. (shrink)

Priority monism is the view that the cosmos is the basic concrete entity on which each of its parts depend. Kovacs has recently argued that none of the classical notions of dependence could be used to spell out priority monism. I argue that four notions of dependence – namely rigid existential dependence, generic existential dependence, explanatory dependence, and generalised explanatory dependence – can indeed be used to spell out priority monism, and specify the conditions under which this is possible.

This article focuses on the frontier between the technological domain of production of artefacts and the naturalistic domain of the sciences of life and cognition. It shows that, since the 1940s, this frontier has become the place of production of an innovative kind of scientific knowledge??synthetic knowledge.? The article describes the methodology and the main characteristics of synthetic knowledge, and formulates a hypothesis on its epistemological genealogy. Accordingly, it characterizes synthetic knowledge as one of the most advanced expressions of a (...) heterodox tradition of research which, since the 1930s, has been promoting the development of a ?non-representationalist???constructivist??science. (shrink)

This collection offers a set of new readings on the history, meanings, and cultural innovations of the grotesque as defined by various current critical theories and practices. Since the grotesque frequently manifests itself as striking incongruities, ingenious hybrids, and creative deformities of nature and culture, it is profoundly implicated in early modern debates on the theological, philosophical, and ethical role of images. This consideration serves as the central focus from which the articles in the collection then move outward along different (...) lines of conceptualization, chronology, cultural relevance, place, and site. They cover a wide spectrum of artistic media, from prints to drawings, from sculptures to gardens, from paintings to stuccos. As they do this, they engage with, and bring together, theoretical perspectives from writers as diverse as Plato and Paleotti, Vitruvius and Vasari, Molanus to Montaigne. Whether travelling a short distance from Nero's Domus Aurea to Raphael's Vatican logge, or across the ocean from Italy to New Spain, this volume goes further than any previous study in defining the historic understanding of grotesque and, in so doing, providing us with a more nuanced resource for our understanding of an art form once viewed as peripheral. (shrink)

Relativity theory is often said to support something called ‘the four-dimensional view of reality’. But there are at least three different views that sometimes go by this name. One is ‘spacetime unitism’, according to which there is a spacetime manifold, and if there are such things as points of space or instants of time, these are just spacetime regions of different sorts: thus space and time are not separate manifolds. A second is the B-theory of time, according to which the (...) past, present, and future are all equally real and there is nothing metaphysically special about the present. A third is perdurantism, according to which persisting material objects are made up of different temporal parts located at different times. We sketch routes from relativity to unitism and to the B-theory. We then discuss some routes to perdurantism, via the B-theory and via unitism. (shrink)

Indice del capitolo: 1. introduzione; 2. primo sguardo alla bibliografia e punti fermi; 3. la "negazione simbolica" al fondo della strategia anti-gender; 4. il gender come sfida antropologica per la teologia cattolica; 5. teologia del maschile e del femminile, mistero nuziale; 6. unità duale; 7. complementarietà e reciprocità asimmetrica; 8. una caro, fenomenologia dei gesti, integrazione; 9. una teologia inclusiva per un'antropologia adeguata; 10. matrimonio, verginità, relazione pura; 11. note sulla teologia trinitaria della famiglia; 12. antropologia trinitaria; 13. conclusione.

ENGLISH: The author investigates whether the model prevalent today of an “humble reason” - based on fallibilism and epistemic humility - is the most appropriate to express the theological truth, even in the light of the debate within the contemporary theism (rational theology). To answer this question it is necessary to examine the epistemological status of “human truth” and the “truth of faith”, in order to develop a common approach to sciences, philosophy and theology. Finally, the author shows how the (...) communitarian dimension and the “choice” (a call for freedom) are inherent to theology understood as “critical faith”, whose peculiarity is to posit itself without nostalgia in the middle between fideism, rationalism and a certain relativism. From the path, finally, it emerges the proposal of a new “cristeologia”. ITALIAN: Il rapporto tra fede e ragione è la questione meta-teologica per eccellenza. L’autore si propone dunque d’indagare se il modello oggi prevalente di “ragione umile” – basato su fallibilismo e umiltà epistemica – sia il più adeguato per esprimere le verità teologiche, anche alla luce del dibattito interno al teismo contemporaneo (teologia razionale). Per rispondere a questa domanda è necessario esaminare lo statuto epistemologico della verità umana e della verità di fede, per poter elaborare un metodo comune alle discipline scientifiche, filosofiche e teologiche, capace di trovare un equilibrio tra fideismo e positivismo teologico. Dopo una breve panoramica storica dei rapporti tra fede e ragione nel pensiero occidentale (con particolare attenzione alla dottrina dei praeambula fidei), l’articolo cercherà di mostrare come, nel paradigma della verità relazionale e del fallibilismo sia necessario integrare il problema delle fonti, dell’autorità, del concetto di ispirazione e della nozione di “rivelazione”, giacché contraddistinguono la teologia rispetto alla filosofia. Si mostrerà infine come la dimensione comunitaria e della scelta (appello alla libertà) siano connaturate alla teologia intesa come fede critica, la cui peculiarità è di collocarsi senza nostalgie nel mezzo tra fideismo, razionalismo e un certo relativismo. Dal percorso emergerà infine la proposta di una nuova "cristeologia". (shrink)

The Monster Objection has often been considered one of the main reasons to explore non-standard mereological views, such as hylomorphism. Still, it has been rarely discussed and then only in a cursory fashion. This paper fills this gap by offering the first thorough assessment of the objection. It argues that different metaphysical stances, such as presentism and three- and four-dimensionalism, provide different ways of undermining the objection.

The author analyzes the interpretation of Boethius’ “timelessness solution” developed in contemporary Analytic Philosophy of Religion, and the main objections that have been moved to it, trying to draw some conclusions about its effectiveness (a) in solving the antinomy between omniscience and human freedom; (b) in weakening the argument of Open Theism. La nuova prospettiva teoretica proposta dall’Open Theism impone un approfondimento e una rivalutazione delle soluzioni “classiche” all’antinomia tra onniscienza divina e libertà umana. Tra queste “soluzioni” vi è, com’è (...) noto, quella di Boezio, ripresa e resa più sofisticata da molti autori nel dibattito contemporaneo, all’interno della filosofia analitica della religione. L’Autore intende analizzare, quindi, l’interpretazione della timelessness solution sviluppata in tale contesto e le principali obiezioni che le sono mosse, cercando di tracciare alcune conclusioni circa la sua efficacia nel risolvere l’antinomia e nell’indebolire le tesi dell’Open Theism. (shrink)

L’esame di un passo della Vita di Platone laerziana (III 2) – e di luoghi paralleli riferibili alla medesima tradizione – permette di mettere a fuoco un motivo mitico cruciale nei racconti sulla concorrenza tra essere umano e divinità nel gamos con una mortale: il divieto, che il nume impone al ‘rivale’ di inferiore natura, di congiungersi con la donna che reca in grembo il suo seme, finché l’eroina non abbia portato a termine la gravidanza. Le storie di personaggi femminili (...) colpevoli di duplice gamos – prima con il dio e poi, a breve distanza di tempo, con il mortale – si focalizzano sulle conseguenze nefaste del secondo contaminante connubio: uno per tutti il caso di Coronide madre di Asclepio (e forse il motivo era associato anche ad altre note madri mitiche, come Arianna, Semele e Alcmena). In questi esempi, tuttavia, in genere non è esplicitato il tema della proibizione divina, come invece accade nel bios di Diogene Laerzio. Qui infatti Apollo, dopo aver concepito Platone con Perictione, appare ad Aristone per vietargli il rapporto sessuale con la parthenos. (shrink)

Referring to Reichlin’s reflections, the author analyzes the aporias arised in the debate on euthanasia, proposes to establish some general principles (e.g. inviolability of human life, the prohibition of extend unnecessary suffering, the principle of autonomy) and a method of application of them to controversial cases. The combinatorial ethics that emerges can probably solve the aporias and can harmonize the common sense (about the possibility of euthanasia in extreme cases) with Catholic doctrine – specifically referring to the Natural Moral Law (...) theory – in an attempt to integrate the results of combinatorial ethics with the principles established in this doctrine. The conclusions, although admittedly provisional, are translated into indications for an hypothetical legislator, in order to overcome the legislative aporia. In the final part, analyzing the religious aporia, the author proposes to include some forms of euthanasia in a total rethinking of the meaning of death, starting with the teachings of Christian faith. Basandosi sulle riflessioni di Massimo Reichlin e James Rachels, l’Autore intende analizzare le principali aporie che emergono nella riflessione etica sull’eutanasia – quella filosofico-metodologica, deontologica, legislativa e religiosa. Attraverso quest’analisi, l’Autore propone di riprendere alcuni principi generali (tra cui l’indisponibilità della vita, il divieto di prolungare sofferenze inutili e il principio di autonomia), fornendo poi un metodo d’applicazione ai casi concreti. L’etica combinatoria che emerge da questa impostazione, riesce in buona misura a risolvere le aporie analizzate, armonizzando alcune intuizioni comuni (circa la liceità dell’eutanasia in casi particolarissimi ed estremi) con la dottrina cattolica corrente in materia. Nel confronto con la morale cattolica, in particolare, viene analizzata e discussa la teoria della legge morale naturale, nel tentativo di integrare i risultati dell’etica combinatoria con i principi affermati in questa dottrina. Le conclusioni teoretiche, anche se dichiaratamente provvisorie, si traducono poi in indicazioni praticate per un ipotetico legislatore, nel tentativo di superare l’ultima grande aporia, quella legislativa. Nella parte conclusiva, analizzando l’aporia religiosa, l’Autore propone di iscrivere la liceità di alcune forme di eutanasia all’interno di un complessivo ripensamento del significato della morte, partendo dal dato di fede cristiano, nel tentativo di superare la “logica della rimozione” che sembra caratterizzare la nostra contemporaneità. (shrink)

The author investigates whether the model prevalent today of an “humble reason” - based on fallibilism and epistemic humility - is the most appropriate to express the theological truth, even in the light of the debate within the contemporary theism (rational theology). To answer this question it is necessary to examine the epistemological status of “human truth” and the “truth of faith”, in order to develop a common approach to sciences, philosophy and theology. Finally, the author shows how the communitarian (...) dimension and the “choice” (a call for freedom) are inherent to theology understood as “critical faith”, whose peculiarity is to posit itself without nostalgia in the middle between fideism, rationalism and a certain relativism. From the path, finally, it emerges the proposal of a new “cristeologia”. Il rapporto tra fede e ragione è la questione meta-teologica per eccellenza. L’autore si propone dunque d’indagare se il modello oggi prevalente di “ragione umile” – basato su fallibilismo e umiltà epistemica – sia il più adeguato per esprimere le verità teologiche, anche alla luce del dibattito interno al teismo contemporaneo (teologia razionale). Per rispondere a questa domanda è necessario esaminare lo statuto epistemologico della verità umana e della verità di fede, per poter elaborare un metodo comune alle discipline scientifiche, filosofiche e teologiche, capace di trovare un equilibrio tra fideismo e positivismo teologico. Dopo una breve panoramica storica dei rapporti tra fede e ragione nel pensiero occidentale (con particolare attenzione alla dottrina dei praeambula fidei), l’articolo cercherà di mostrare come, nel paradigma della verità relazionale e del fallibilismo sia necessario integrare il problema delle fonti, dell’autorità, del concetto di ispirazione e della nozione di “rivelazione”, giacché contraddistinguono la teologia rispetto alla filosofia. Si mostrerà infine come la dimensione comunitaria e della scelta (appello alla libertà) siano connaturate alla teologia intesa come fede critica, la cui peculiarità è di collocarsi senza nostalgie nel mezzo tra fideismo, razionalismo e un certo relativismo. Dal percorso emergerà infine la proposta di una nuova "cristeologia". (shrink)

Current theories propose that our sense of curiosity is determined by the learning progress or information gain that our cognitive system expects to make. However, few studies have explicitly tried to quantify subjective information gain and link it to measures of curiosity. Here, we asked people to report their curiosity about the intrinsically engaging perceptual ‘puzzles’ known as Mooney images, and to report on the strength of their aha experience upon revealing the solution image (curiosity relief). We also asked our (...) participants (279) to make a guess concerning the solution of the image, and used the distribution of these guesses to compute the crowdsourced semantic entropy (or ambiguity) of the images, as a measure of the potential for information gain. Our results confirm that curiosity and, even more so, aha experience is substantially associated with this semantic information gain measure. These findings support the expected information gain theory of curiosity and suggest that the aha experience or intrinsic reward is driven by the actual information gain. In an unannounced memory part, we also established that the often reported influence of curiosity on memory is fully mediated by the aha experience or curiosity relief. We discuss the implications of our results for the burgeoning fields of curiosity and psychoaesthetics. (shrink)

The Aristotelian view of universals, according to which each universal generically depends for its existence on its instantiations, has recently come under attack by a series of ground-theoretic arguments. The last such arguments, presented by Raven, promises to offer several significant improvements over its predecessors, such as avoiding commitment to the transitivity of ground and offering new reasons for the metaphysical priority of universals over their instantiations. In this paper, we argue that Raven's argument does not effectively avoid said commitment (...) and that Raven's new reasons fail. Moreover, we present a novel ground-theoretic interpretation of the Aristotelian view, referred to as strong immanence, and introduce a new argument against the Aristotelian view, intended to sidestep any commitment to the transitivity of ground. (shrink)

The author contextualizes the Problem of Evil in Open Theism system, listing its main theses, primarily the logic-of- love-defense (and free-will-defense) connected to Trinitarian speculation. After evaluating the discussion in Analytic Philosophy of Religion, the focus is on the personal mystery of evil, claiming that, because of mystery and vagueness, the Problem of Evil is undecidable. Recalling other schools of thought (Pareyson: ontology of freedom; Moltmann: Dialectical theology; Kenotic theology; Original Sin hermeneutics), the author tries to grasp their common insights. (...) One of them is the evident explanatory failure of theodicies, expressed in the antinomian statements ‘God is not innocent’. The author follows these insights, developing the concept of Eternal Immolation (Bulgakov), arguing that, without a proper understanding of its mystery (what is, and what is not), theistic theodicy could remain compromised. ‘Eternal Immolation’ is considered consequent – or already present – in recent speculations, it stands or falls when we accept that these reveal some unresolved points in Christian doctrine. Hence, ‘Eternal Immolation’ becomes a coordinating-concept, able to bring together their assumptions: several kinds of kenosis, the ontology of freedom with a logic-of-love defense, strongly linked to a libertarian human freedom, and the acknowledgement of the unresolved mystery of evil. (shrink)

The notion of affordance has been introduced by Gibson (1977, 1979) as the feature of an object or the environment that allows the observer to perform an action, a set of “environmental supports for an organism’s intentional activities” (Reybrouck 2005). Studied under very different perspectives, this concept has become a crucial issue not only for the ecological psychology, but also for cognitive sciences, artificial intelligence studies, and philosophy of mind. This variety of approaches has widened the already ambiguous definition originally (...) provided by Gibson, contributing to the development of different standpoints in open contrast with each other (see Zipoli Caiani 2011). During the last two decades, moreover, many researchers tried to extend the notion also to musical experience, aiming to draw a coherent theory of musical affordances (e.g. Clarke 2005; Nussbaum 2007; Krueger 2011a; 2011b). In this paper, we will argue for a particular concept of musical affordances, that is, as we see it, one narrower and less ambiguous in scope and more closely related to its original. Taking the discovery of canonical neurons as our starting point, we will (i) introduce the general notion of affordance, (ii) discuss some significant contributions in this area of research, mostly focusing on musical affordances and (iii) propose a motor-based interpretation of musical affordances. (shrink)

This essay tackles the core question of machine emotion research—“Can machines have emotions?”—with regard to “social robots”, the new class of machines designed to function as “social partners” for humans. Our aim, however, is not to provide an answer to that question. Rather we argue that “robotics of emotion” moves us to ask a different question—“Can robots establish meaningful affective coordination with human partners?” Developing a series of arguments relevant to theory of emotion, philosophy of AI and the epistemology of (...) synthetic models, we argue that the answer is positive, and lays grounds for an innovative ethical approach to emotional robots. This ethical project, which elsewhere we introduced as “synthetic ethics”, rejects the diffused ethical condemnation of emotional robots as “cheating” technology. Synthetic ethics focuses on the sustainability of emerging mixed human–robot social ecologies. Therefore, it rejects the purely negative ethical approach to social robotics, and promotes a critical case-by-case inquiry into the type of human flourishing that can result from human–robot affective coordination. (shrink)

The philosophical thought of Massimo Cacciari and the conceptual issues of « open theism » are two speculative routes apparently very distant from each other. This contribution highlights the common goal in their going to the root of philosophic problems in order to seek an answer: they think of a divine way of becoming explaining the reason of both the reality of the world and the paradoxical reality of human freedom. The two routes tend to converge and recover concepts pertaining (...) to the Trinitarian speculation whose philosophical « translation » in philosophy passes, today, through the relational and trinitarian ontology, and also the « iperphatic » theology. In this convergence there is ground for thinking not only a truly Trinitarian theism, but also a Trinitarian philosophy, which considers Trinity as the essential summit of a good metaphysics. (shrink)

C’è bisogno di una nuova sintesi. Inter- e intradisciplinare, con una visione d’insieme coerente, scientifica, senza pregiudizi, al servizio di una Chiesa che – con papa Francesco – è alla ricerca di nuove analisi e di proposte pratiche innovative. Necessaria è la prospettiva della piena integralità umana delle persone omosessuali, che interroghi il loro amore in tutta la sua complessità. La psicoanalisi, per prima, può contribuire a elaborare una visione dell’affettività omosessuale complessiva, integrale e positiva. La teologia può ascoltarne le (...) conclusioni, senza rinunciare alle sue categorie etiche, ma aggiornando la propria posizione, proponendo una visione pienamente cattolica della persona e della sua sessualità. Visione che si traduce in indicazioni pastorali in grado di aiutare una persona omosessuale a vivere in serena pienezza la propria situazione, la propria affettività e spiritualità cristiana. (shrink)

The essay explores the possibilities afforded by Heidegger’s thought for addressing the question of the reality of the phenomenon within the framework of the theory of quantum mechanics. Heidegger’s conception of the task of phenomenology is seen to provide a crucial axis along which the phenomenon of quantum physics can be connected both to its appearance in language and to the historical unfolding of the horizon that grounds the possibility of an encounter with the phenomenon itself. The determinations of this (...) horizon, i.e. of the order of “phenomenality” that makes the appearance of the phenomenon possible, are analyzed in the instance of quantum mechanics, and compared to the ones presented by Heidegger in his considerations concerning the appearing of the phenomenon in Aristotelian and classical physics. The three main directives that structure the analysis of this order of phenomenality are the determinations of the conditions of experience of the phenomenon, of the function of language that makes this appearance possible, and of the subject function that constitutes, and is in turn constituted by, this experience. (shrink)

I develop a definition of mereological endurantism which overcomes objections that have been proposed in the literature and thereby avoids the charge of obscurity put forward by Sider against the view.

The ontology of Bohmian mechanics includes both the universal wave function and particles. Proposals for understanding the physical significance of the wave function in this theory have included the idea of regarding it as a physically-real field in its 3N-dimensional space, as well as the idea of regarding it as a law of nature. Here we introduce and explore a third possibility in which the configuration space wave function is simply eliminated—replaced by a set of single-particle pilot-wave fields living in (...) ordinary physical space. Such a re-formulation of the Bohmian pilot-wave theory can exactly reproduce the statistical predictions of ordinary quantum theory. But this comes at the rather high ontological price of introducing an infinite network of interacting potential fields which influence the particles’ motion through the pilot-wave fields. We thus introduce an alternative approach which aims at achieving empirical adequacy with a more modest ontological complexity, and provide some preliminary evidence for optimism regarding the program of trying to replace the configuration space wave function with a set of fields in ordinary physical space. (shrink)

In this article we tackle the core question of machine emotion research – “Can machines have emotions?” – in the context of “social robots”, a new class of machines designed to function as “social partners” for humans. Our aim, however, is not to provide an answer to the question “Can robots have emotions?” Rather we argue that the “robotics of emotion” moves us to reformulate it into a different one – “Can robots affectively coordinate with humans?” Developing a series of (...) arguments relevant to theory of emotion, philosophy of AI, and the epistemology of synthetic models, we argue that the answer to this different question is positive, and that it lays grounds for an innovative ethical approach to emotional robots. This ethical project, which we introduced elsewhere as “synthetic ethics”, rejects the diffused ethical condemnation of emotional robots as “cheating” technology. Synthetic ethics focuses not on an ideological refusal, but on the concrete sustainability of the emerging mixed human-robot social ecologies. On this basis, in contrast to a purely negative ethical approach to social robotics it promotes an analytical case by case ethical inquiry into the type of human flourishing that can result from human-robot affective coordination. (shrink)

It is well known that experts’ opinion and testimony take on a decisive weight in judicial fact-finding, raising issues and perplexities that have long been under scholarly scrutiny. In this paper I argue that expert’s opinions have a much wider impact on legal decision-making. In particular, they may generate a problem that I will call ‘the opacity of law’. A legal text, such as a statute or regulation, becomes opaque if a legal authority is not able to grasp its full (...) linguistic content but is nevertheless in a position to use it, thanks to an expert’ opinion, in legal decision-making. When this occurs, not only do experts contribute to fact-finding but also to determining the content of the law. In the paper I analyse the linguistic and cognitive sources of this phenomenon, its characteristics and troublesome consequences, and the different kinds of opacity that may affect legal decision-making. (shrink)

Aim of this paper is to support the view that all human practical identities are contingent by arguing against the view that there is at least one necessary practical identity shared by all human beings, namely Humanity. The view that Humanity is a necessary practical identity is explicitly defended by Christine M. Korsgaard (Korsgaard, C. M. 1996. The Sources of Normativity, edited by O. O’Neill. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Korsgaard, C. M. 2009. Self-Constitution: Agency, Identity, and Integrity. New York: Oxford (...) University Press) and indirectly by Marya Schechtman (Schechtman, M. 2014. Staying Alive: Personal Identity, Practical Concerns, and the Unity of a Life. New York: Oxford University Press). Korsgaard understands Humanity both in terms of pure self-legislation, and as deep sociality. In the first case, Humanity as self-legislation faces what I call ‘Existential dilemma’: either Humanity has specific content, typical of contingent practical identities, but stops being necessary for all human beings; or Humanity is emptied of its content and is conceived of as necessary self-legislation, but stops being a practical identity. In the second case, i.e., Humanity as deep sociality, Korsgaard confuses the necessary natural fact that human beings are social creatures, with contingent contexts of human socialization, which are the true sources of specifically human practical identities. I articulate this confusion in the guise of what I call ‘Nature/nurture dilemma’, which also applies to the morally neutral account of human personhood advocated by Schechtman (Schechtman, M. 2014. Staying Alive: Personal Identity, Practical Concerns, and the Unity of a Life. Oxford University Press). In conclusion, I address the worry that without the necessary practical identity of Humanity we might not be able to extend our practical and moral concerns to distant fellow human beings by sketching an alternative path to extend such concerns. (shrink)

We remark that the A Contrario Argument is an ambiguous technique of justification of judicial decisions. We distinguish two uses and versions of it, strong and weak, taking as example the normative sentence “Underprivileged citizens are permitted to apply for State benefit”. According to the strong version, only underprivileged citizens are permitted to apply for State benefit, so stateless persons are not. According to the weak, the law does not regulate the position of underprivileged stateless persons in this respect. We (...) propose an inferential analysis of the two uses along the lines of the scorekeeping practice as described by Robert Brandom, and try to point out what are the ontological assumptions of the two. We conclude that the strong version is justified if and only if there is a relevant incompatibility between the regulated subject and the present case. (shrink)

Interpretation without Truth is the result of thirty years of research that Pierluigi Chiassoni has devoted to legal interpretation and legal reasoning. More generally, the book represents one of t...

The experience of owning a body is built upon the integration of exteroceptive, interoceptive, and proprioceptive signals. Recently, it has been suggested that motor signals could be particularly important in producing the feeling of body part ownership. One thus may hypothesize that the strength of this feeling may not be spatially uniform; rather, it could vary as a function of the degree by which different body parts are involved in motor behavior. Given that our dominant hand plays a leading role (...) in our motor behavior, we hypothesized that it could be more strongly associated with one’s self compared to its non-dominant counterpart. To explore whether this possible asymmetry manifests as a stronger implicit association of the right hand with the self, we administered the Implicit Association Test to a group of 70 healthy individuals. To control whether this asymmetric association is human-body specific, we further tested whether a similar asymmetry characterizes the association between a right animal body part with the concept of self, in an independent sample of subjects. Our results revealed a linear relationship between the magnitude of the implicit association between the right hand with the self and the subject’s handedness. In detail, the strength of this association increased as a function of hand preference. Critically, the handedness score did not predict the association of the right-animal body part with the self. These findings suggest that, in healthy individuals, the dominant and non-dominant hands are differently perceived at an implicit level as belonging to the self. We argue that such asymmetry may stem from the different roles that the two hands play in our adaptive motor behavior. (shrink)

The Anthropocene has been observed as an opportunity to generate new legal imaginaries capable of revising incumbent assumptions of legal and political thought. What opportunities do such ambitions afford for communication between geological and legal thought? Responding to Birrell & Matthews attempt to ‘re-story a law for, rather than of, the Anthropocene,’ I wish to describe some ways in which the Anthropocene Working Group, who are pursuing formalisation of the Anthropocene as an official geological unit, are involved in a similar (...) exercise of re-storying geology. The Anthropocene theme is brought to bear as a geological reality through material practices of measurement and correlation, as well as through the invocation of previous judgements of the evaluative committees associated with the formalisation of new geological unit. This effort amounts to a redefinition of the practices of geological observation, i.e. what counts as geologically relevant and why. In keeping with the theme of an ‘ethics of encounter’, as encouraged by Birrell and Matthews, this article suggests that the AWG’s effort provides a model with which the elaboration of ‘laws for the Anthropocene’ might correspond. (shrink)

This essay centres on two contributions—Giorgio Agamben’s What is Real? and Karen Barad’s Meeting the Universe Halfway —that deal with what they see as the import the quantum turn has...

Several legal arguments use the notion of ratio legis in order to sustain a normative conclusion, in particular the argument from analogy and some forms of teleological argumentation. However, determining the ratio is often a difficult and controversial task. In this paper we look firstly at the speech acts typically performed by legal practitioners in order to determine the ratio and, secondly, we take into account the argumentative commitments they undertake in so doing and the argumentative constraints put on them. (...) This will lead us to distinguish different uses of the notion of ratio legis and to ask on what conditions each of them is justified. (shrink)

"Cover " -- "Title Page " -- "Copyright " -- "Contents " -- "Preface to the English Edition" -- "Introduction" -- "1. The Substitute" -- "2. Animals, Machines, Cyborgs, and the Taxi " -- "3. Mind, Emotions, and Artificial Empathy " -- "4. The Other Otherwise " -- "5. From Moral and Lethal Machines to Synthetic Ethics " -- "Notes" -- "Works Cited" -- "Acknowledgments" -- "Credits.

In this paper we consider whether a pragmatics of semantic content can be a useful approach to legal interpretation. More broadly speaking, since a pragmatic conception of meaning is a component of inferential semantics, we consider whether an inferentialist approach to legal interpretation can be useful in dealing with some problems of this important aspect of law. In other words, we ask whether Legal Inferentialism is a suitable conception for legal interpretation. In Section 1 we briefly consider the semantics/pragmatics debate (...) in contemporary philosophy of language and in relation to legal interpretation. In Section 2 we discuss the relations between a pragmatics of semantic content and an inferentialist conception of content. In Section 3 we consider how Inferentialism can be applied to legal interpretation. Finally, in Section 4 we consider some possible advantages and drawbacks of Inferentialism applied to legal interpretation and adjudication. (shrink)

It is well known that experts’ opinion and testimony take on a decisive weight in judicial fact-finding, raising issues and perplexities that have long been under scholarly scrutiny. In this paper I argue that expert’s opinions have a much wider impact on legal decision-making. In particular, they may generate a problem that I will call ‘the opacity of law’. A legal text, such as a statute or regulation, becomes opaque if a legal authority is not able to grasp its full (...) linguistic content but is nevertheless in a position to use it, thanks to an expert’ opinion, in legal decision-making. When this occurs, not only do experts contribute to fact-finding but also to determining the content of the law. In the paper I analyse the linguistic and cognitive sources of this phenomenon, its characteristics and troublesome consequences, and the different kinds of opacity that may affect legal decision-making. (shrink)

The new theoretical perspective proposed by the Open Theism theologians, compels us to study in depth and to evaluate the “classic” argumentative tools used to solve the ancient antinomy between divine omniscience and human freedom, to which the thesis of the Open Theism try to give an innovative solution. Among these tools – invoked by many authors in the contemporary debate about omniscience, in analytic philosophy of religion – several ones are part of Thomas Aquinas’ thought: the division in primary (...) and secondary causes, the division of God’s knowledge, the distinction between propositions understood in sensu composito or in sensu diviso, the division between necessity de dicto or de re, and others. This paper aims to analyze the interpretation of these tools developed in the contemporary context and tries to draw some conclusions on the overall efficacy of the “Thomistic Solution” that we can build starting from these tools. La nuova prospettiva teoretica proposta dai sostenitori dell’Open Theism ha reso necessario un approfondimento e una valutazione degli strumenti argomentativi “classici” utilizzati per risolvere l’antica antinomia tra onniscienza divina e libertà umana, alla quale le tesi dell’Open Theism cercano di dare una soluzione innovativa. Tra questi strumenti – recuperati da molti autori nel contemporaneo dibattito sull’onniscienza, all’interno della filosofia analitica della religione – ve ne sono molti attribuiti a Tommaso d’Aquino: la divisione in causa prima e cause seconde, la suddivisione della conoscenza di Dio, la distinzione tra proposizioni intese in senso composto o in senso diviso, quella tra necessità de dicto e necessità de re, e altri. Il presente contributo si propone di analizzarne l’interpretazione sviluppata nel contesto contemporaneo e trarre alcune conclusioni sull’efficacia complessiva della “soluzione tomistica” che si può delineare a partire da questi strumenti. (shrink)

I defend my paper “Aquinas, Geach, and Existence”[1]against objections from Luca Gili, who argued that, according to Aquinas, future contingents do not enjoy genuine existence but exist in God’s mind only.[1] Damiano Costa, “Aquinas, Geach, and existence”, European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 11, no. 3.

This paper develops an endurantist theory of persistence. The theory is built around one basic tenet, which concerns existence at a time – the relation between an object and the times at which that object is present. According to this tenet, which I call transcendentism, for an object to exist at a time is for it to participate in events that are located at that time. I argue that transcendentism is a semantically grounded and metaphysically fruitful. It is semantically grounded, (...) insofar as a semantic analysis of our temporal talk favors it over rivals. It is metaphysically fruitful, insofar as the theory of persistence that can be built around it – the transcendentist theory of persistence, to give it a name – requires neither temporal parts nor the problematic commitments to which all extant forms of endurantism are committed, such as the possibility of extended simples or multilocation. (shrink)

Over the past three decades, the issue of the relationship between divine omniscience and human freedom has been the subject of great debate. Inside it, were compared many authors and many “solutions”. One of these is the one that is inspired by Ockham’s thought. The author, therefore, aims to present the main theoretical nodes of this solution, following the development that it has had in the various publications about this question. The author also tries to show its limits, to make (...) understandable the transition occurred within the debate, which led to the Molinist solution and then to the open theism. (shrink)

The A Simili Argument draws the conclusion that a target case has a normative property Q since it shares a relevant property P with a source case. It can be seen as a complex inference constituted by three inferential steps: An abduction of the relevant property P , an induction of the class having that property, and a deduction of the target's having property Q . A major problem of this argument is the characterization of the property relevance. The standard (...) answer refers to the notion of ratio: It is the ratio that fixes what is relevant for what. But the determination of the ratio is often a difficult and controversial task. This issue is considered here from an inferentialist point of view, claiming that the ratio and relevance are determined by the normative statuses reciprocally attributed by the speakers in the context of legal argumentation. (shrink)