A major programme of irrigated rice extension in the Middle Senegal River Valley has further limited the river’s natural flooding in the floodplain (Waalo), initially reduced by drought. We conducted a transdisciplinary (TD) and gendered study in the region to explore links between agricultural biodiversity and family diets using a social analysis of women’s practices. The results showed how rice expansion impacts local agrobiodiversity, diet quality and the cultural way of life. Disappearance of the singular agropastoral and fishing system of (...) the Senegal River Valley is profoundly modifying the landscape, limiting wooded riverine settings, and is undermining the traditional diversified flood-recession cropping system in the Waalo. This is causing an overconsumption of rice by reducing alternative food sources, such as sorghum, vegetables and animal products (fish, milk and meat). In particular, flood-recession sorghums are in danger of disappearing, yet they are more nutritious than rice and now sell for twice as much, or more. The way of life is being disrupted, notably sociabilities previously based on territorial complementarities, and women are disadvantaged in terms of recognition and added workload. Women’s groups have launched collective irrigated gardens, organic or not, only supported by the local NGO, but any surplus is hardly ever sold on the weekly markets in the neighbourhood. Moreover, this diet imbalance increases nutritional risk factors for health, such as vitamin and iron deficiencies, especially for women, hypertension and diabetes. We argue that, firstly, gendered TD experiences are relevant for documenting women’s activities in order for them to gain political support and, secondly, that targeting women’s care tasks gives more value and impact to TD research results. (shrink)

Lowe claims that having knowledge of the essence of an object is a precondition for thinking about it. Lowe supports this claim with roughly the following argument: you cannot think about something unless you know what you are thinking about; and to know what it is that you are thinking about just is to know its essence. I will argue that this line of reasoning fails because of an equivocation in the expression ‘what a thing is’, which can be used (...) to indicate the essence of the thing but also, more commonly, some description of that thing which is useful in the context to identify it. I will then consider some possible variations of the argument, both in its premises and in its conclusion, and I will argue that they either fail to produce a sound argument or they weaken the conclusion too much to preserve the philosophical interest of the result. (shrink)

It is commonly hypothesized that scientists are more likely to engage in data falsification and fabrication when they are subject to pressures to publish, when they are not restrained by forms of social control, when they work in countries lacking policies to tackle scientific misconduct, and when they are male. Evidence to test these hypotheses, however, is inconclusive due to the difficulties of obtaining unbiased data. Here we report a pre-registered test of these four hypotheses, conducted on papers that were (...) identified in a previous study as containing problematic image duplications through a systematic screening of the journal PLoS ONE. Image duplications were classified into three categories based on their complexity, with category 1 being most likely to reflect unintentional error and category 3 being most likely to reflect intentional fabrication. We tested multiple parameters connected to the hypotheses above with a matched-control paradigm, by collecting two controls for each paper containing duplications. Category 1 duplications were mostly not associated with any of the parameters tested, as was predicted based on the assumption that these duplications were mostly not due to misconduct. Categories 2 and 3, however, exhibited numerous statistically significant associations. Results of univariable and multivariable analyses support the hypotheses that academic culture, peer control, cash-based publication incentives and national misconduct policies might affect scientific integrity. No clear support was found for the “pressures to publish” hypothesis. Female authors were found to be equally likely to publish duplicated images compared to males. Country-level parameters generally exhibited stronger effects than individual-level parameters, because developing countries were significantly more likely to produce problematic image duplications. This suggests that promoting good research practices in all countries should be a priority for the international research integrity agenda. (shrink)

In this paper, I take issue with the idea that Michel Foucault might be considered a theorist of epistemic injustice, and argue that his philosophical premises are incompatible with Miranda Fricker’s. Their main disagreement rests upon their divergent ways of conceiving the relationship between reason and power, giving rise to the contrasting forms of normativity that characterize their critical projects. This disagreement can be helpfully clarified by addressing the different use they make of the genealogical method. While Fricker’s genealogy of (...) Testimonial Justice aims to ground her claim that reason and power can be neatly pulled apart, thus avoiding the reductionist and relativist conclusions entailed by Foucault’s genealogies, I argue that Foucault’s mature, overlooked definition of genealogy is based on a sophisticated distinction between games and regimes of truth, and is thus not vulnerable to these criticisms. Consequently, Foucault’s genealogical inquiries prove helpful for understanding issues that normally fall under the umbrella of epistemic injustice in a new light, while also allowing us to avoid some of the main objections that threaten Fricker’s project. (shrink)

In this paper, I focus on Gianni Vattimo’s and Paolo Diego Bubbio’s notion of kenosis showing that (1) they both understand kenotic sacrifice in a strongly hermeneutical sense, and connect it with a perspectival account of truth and knowledge; (2) they both emphasize that kenotic sacrifice has a fundamentally ethical aspect; and (3) they both maintain that kenotic sacrifice is an “un-natural” act that is implied in the withdrawal of one’s self. However, I intend to show that nature can be (...) understood positively through the notion of kenosis, and that it is possible to envisage an ethical theory that concretely tackles the self-proclaimed centrality of human agency within nature, therefore, implementing an effective and non-anthropocentric form of kenotic sacrifice. In this sense, I conclude by arguing that kenotic sacrifice can primarily be seen as an act of making room for other ways of being. (shrink)

It has been claimed that deliberation is capable of overcoming so- cial choice theory impossibility results, by bringing about single- peakedness. Our aim is to better understand the relationship be- tween single-peakedness and collective justifications of preferences.

This paper presents an enrichment of the Gabbay–Woods schema of Peirce’s 1903 logical form of abduction with illocutionary acts, drawing from logic for pragmatics and its resources to model justified assertions. It analyses the enriched schema and puts it into the perspective of Peirce’s logic and philosophy.

Philosophical analysis of mathematical knowledge are commonly conducted within the realist/antirealist dichotomy. Nevertheless, philosophers working within this dichotomy pay little attention to the way in which mathematics evolves and structures itself. Focusing on mathematical practice, I propose a weak notion of objectivity of mathematical knowledge that preserves the intersubjective character of mathematical knowledge but does not bear on a view of mathematics as a body of mind-independent necessary truths. Furthermore, I show how that the successful application of mathematics in science (...) is an important trigger for the objectivity of mathematical knowledge. (shrink)

In this article I reconstruct the philosophical conditions for the emergence of the notion of counter-conduct within the framework of Michel Foucault’s study of governmentality, and I explore the reasons for its disappearance after 1978. In particular, I argue that the concept of conduct becomes crucial for Foucault in order to redefine governmental power relations as specific ways to conduct the conduct of individuals: it is initially within this context that, in Security, Territory, Population, he rethinks the problem of resistance (...) in terms of counter-conduct. However, a few months later, in What is Critique?, Foucault replaces the notion of counter-conduct with that of critical attitude, defined as the particular form that counter-conduct takes in modern times. This notion allows him to highlight the role played by the will in resistance to governmental strategies. But since the notion of counter-conduct is conceptually wider than that of critical attitude, I suggest in conclusion that it could be worth reactivating it as a “historical category which, in various forms and with diverse objectives, runs through the whole of Western history.”. (shrink)

Analytic pragmatism is a framework of analysis elaborated by Robert Brandom, whose goal is to explain the relations between meaning and use according to a systematic and general method of inquiry. In April 2009, a workshop was organized to discuss the recent developments of this new theoretical approach. Brandom delivered three lectures, where he explored some aspects of analytic pragmatism and addressed the motivating themes of this enterprise, while the contribution from the other speakers ranged over specific aspects of the (...) theory. This special issue is the outcome of that workshop. In this introduction we briefly outline the context of the debate and present the contribution to this issue selected from a much wider range of papers, using the reviewing process of Philosophia. (shrink)

In the first part of the dissertation, chapters 1 to 3, I criticize several views which tend to set philosophy apart from other cognitive achievements. I argue against the popular views that 1) Intuitions, as a sui generis mental state, are involved crucially in philosophical methodology 2) Philosophy requires engagement in conceptual analysis, understood as the activity of considering thought experiments with the aim to throw light on the nature of our concepts, and 3) Much philosophical knowledge is a priori. (...) I do not claim to have a proof that nothing in the vicinity of these views is correct; such a proof might well be impossible to give. However, I consider several versions, usually prominent ones, of each of the views, and I show those versions to be defective. Quite often, moreover, different versions of the same worry apply to different versions of the same theory. In the fourth chapter I discuss the epistemology of the judgements involved in philosophical thought experiments, arguing that their justification depends on their being the product of a competence in applying the concepts involved, a competence which goes beyond the possession of the concepts. I then offer, drawing from empirical psychology, a sketch of the form this cognitive competence could take. The overall picture squares well with the conclusions of the first part. In the last chapter I consider a challenge to the use of thought experiments in contemporary analytic philosophy coming from the ‘experimental philosophy’ movement. I argue that there is no way of individuating the class of hypothetical judgements under discussion which makes the challenge both interesting and sound. Moreover, I argue that there are reasons to think that philosophers possess some sort of expertise which sets them apart from non-philosophers in relevant ways. (shrink)

Accompagnée d’une aspiration générale à une plus grande égalité entre les sexes et d’une remise en cause de l’autorité paternelle, le dernier tiers du xxe siècle a été une période de transformation profonde et rapide des organisations familiales traditionnelles. Alors que les familles étaient en partie structurées autour des pratiques séculaires de dénomination, neuf contributions franco-québécoises explorent les modalités d’un système en mutation. Il faut d’abord souligner la triple original...

My paper concerns Berkeley’s notion of theology. After brief considerations on the general attitude toward religion by Berkeley, I try to assess the immaterialistic approach to three main topics of theology: the ground of any theological knowledge, natural theology, revealed theology. My argument takes in consideration particularly Berkeley’s criticism of Scholasticism. My claim is the following: Berkeley holds that all men have an immediate experience of God’s presence, but this experience is not direct conceptual knowledge. I shortly compare my views (...) with D.Berman’s in section two of the paper. The third section deals with the lines of direction of immaterialistic theology. I claim that Berkeley argues for a twofold source of the experience of the divine. The first is natural and regards all human kind. Platonism is the context of Berkeley’s treatment. The second is historical and concerns just Christians. Reference is to the Bible. I treat the problem of the consistency of these two different ways to make an experience of God, comparing my position with that by J.S.Spiegel. Finally I briefly consider Berkeley’s defence of historico-critical reading of the Bible, as a consequence of his attitude towars the second source of theology. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that a serious philosophical investigation of the domain of the perlocutionary is both possible and desirable, and I show that it possesses a distinctively moral dimension that has so far been overlooked. I start, in Section II, by offering an original characterisation of the distinction between the illocutionary and the perlocutionary derived from the degree of predictability and stability that differentiates their respective effects. In Section III, I argue that, in order to grasp the specificity (...) of the perlocutionary, we must focus on the total speech situation, which I define as conversation. Then, in Section IV, I show that an investigation of the domain of the perlocutionary requires us to draw a conceptual distinction between recognition and acknowledgment. This distinction proves to be crucial, because the success of perlocutions normally depends on something more than what Austin calls the ‘securing of uptake’: the reciprocity condition for illocutions needs to be supplemented, in the case of perlocutions, with an analysis of what I call the ‘grammar of acknowledgment.’ Lastly, in Section V, I elaborate the notion of ‘perlocutionary responsibility,’ a specific form of moral responsibility for the consequences of utterances that are not (entirely) predictable. (shrink)

Graham Priest proposed an argument for the conclusion that ‘nothing’ occurs as a singular term and not as a quantifier in a sentence like (1) ‘The cosmos came into existence out of nothing’. Priest's point is that, intuitively, (1) entails (C) ‘The cosmos came into existence at some time’, but this entailment relation is left unexplained if ‘nothing’ is treated as a quantifier. If Priest is right, the paradoxical notion of an object that is nothing plays a role in our (...) very understanding of reality. In this note, we argue that Priest's argument is unsound: the intuitive entailment relation between (1) and (C) does not offer convincing evidence that ‘nothing’ occurs as a term in (1). Moreover, we provide an explanation of why (1) is naturally taken to entail (C), which is both plausible and consistent with the standard, quantificational treatment of ‘nothing’. (shrink)

The beliefs involved in the placebo effect are often assumed to be self-fulfilling, that is, the truth of these beliefs would merely require the patient to hold them. Such a view is commonly shared in epistemology. Many epistemologists focused, in fact, on the self-fulfilling nature of these beliefs, which have been investigated because they raise some important counterexamples to Nozick’s “tracking theory of knowledge.” We challenge the self-fulfilling nature of placebo-based beliefs in multi-agent contexts, analyzing their deep epistemological nature and (...) the role of higher-order beliefs involved in the placebo effect. (shrink)

Rhetoric and aesthetics in Plotinus -- Philosophy and culture of Gregory of Nyssa -- Sculpting and painting between metaphor and didacticism -- Gold and light -- The paradoxes of beauty -- Aesthetics and the ineffable beauty.

This is an exploratory paper whose aim is to investigate the potentialities of bilattice theory for an adequate definition of the deduction apparatus for multi-valued logic. We argue that bilattice theory enables us to obtain a nice extension of the graded approach to fuzzy logic. To give an example, a completeness theorem for a logic based on Boolean algebras is proved.

In the last few years, several philosophers have highlighted the social dimension of imagination. In this paper I argue that thought experiments prompt social uses of imaginings if we understand them as props in games of make-believe. In prescribing to imagine stories that develop through fictional narratives, authors of thought experiments prompt their readers to engage in the same imaginative project—at least in its salient aspects—and to endorse their conclusions. Contributions on this topic focus on cases where coordination across imaginers (...) is immediately successful. However, this is not the end of the story. I draw attention to situations where this is not the case, as the practice of thought experimentation often proceeds through criticism, rejections, and amendments. I focus on cases where imaginers do not endorse the conclusion proposed by the author of a thought experiment and either (i) fully reject the principles of generation, (ii) draw different fictional truths from the same principles, or (iii) amend the principles. Although cases of imaginative disharmony are usually dismissed as failures, I acknowledge them as fruitful steps in the cognitive advancement achievable by thought experiments. Cooperative imaginers challenge the rules of the game in meaningful ways, which leads to enhancing fictional scenarios and framing them through different perspectives. (shrink)

Whistleblowing is the public disclosure of information with the purpose of revealing wrongdoings and abuses of power that harm the public interest. This book presents a comprehensive theory of whistleblowing: it defines the concept, reconstructs its origins, discusses it within the current ethical debate, and elaborates a justification of unauthorized disclosures. Its normative proposal is based on three criteria of permissibility: the communicative constraints, the intent, and the public interest conditions. The book distinguishes between two forms of whistleblowing, civic and (...) political, showing how they apply in the contexts of corruption and government secrecy. The book articulates a conception of public interest as a claim concerning the presumptive interest of the public. It argues that public interest is defined in opposition to corporate powers and its core content identified by the rights that are all-purposive for the distribution of social benefits. A crucial part of the proposal is dedicated to the impact of security policies and government secrecy on civil liberties. It argues that unrestrained secrecy limits the epistemic entitlement of citizens to know under which conditions their rights are limited by security policies and corporate interests. When citizens are denied the right to assess when these policies are prejudicial to their freedoms, whistleblowing represents a legitimate form of political agency that safeguards the fundamental rights of citizens against the threat of unrestrained secrecy by government power. Finally, the book contributes to shifting the attention of democratic theory from the procedures of consent formation to the mechanisms that guarantee the expression of dissent. It argues that whistleblowing is a distinctive form of civil dissent that contributes to the demands of institutional transparency in constitutional democracies and explores the idea that the way institutions are responsive to dissent determines the robustness of democracy, and ultimately, its legitimacy. What place dissenters have within a society, whether they enjoy personal safety, legal protection, and safe channels for their disclosure, are hallmarks of a good democracy, and of its sense of justice. (shrink)

The aim of the article is to clarify the basic perspective that Immagini cristiane e cultura antica adopted to read the relationship between early Christian iconographic production – the main subject of the book – and the development of the forms of later figurative art, as well as the path leading to modern aesthetics.For this purpose, the article compares the positions of Auerbach – that had an explicit influence on the book – with those of Benjamin, regarding the different ways (...) in which the two Berliner authors interpreted the meaning and the function of allegory. In Auerbach, allegory is understood as the past of the figura whose logic, according to Immagini cristiane e cultura antica, underlies not only the Christian literary production of the first centuries, but also the figurative one. In Benjamin, conversely, allegory is understood as the future of the figura, followed to the definitive crisis of Christian messianism. (shrink)

In this paper, we present a number of problems for intellectualism about knowledge-how, and in particular for the version of the view developed by Stanley & Williamson 2001. Their argument draws on the alleged uniformity of 'know how'-and 'know wh'-ascriptions. We offer a series of considerations to the effect that this assimilation is problematic. Firstly, in contrast to 'know wh'-ascriptions, 'know how'-ascriptions with known negative answers are false. Secondly, knowledge-how obeys closure principles whose counterparts fail for knowledge-wh and knowledge-that. Thirdly, (...) as opposed to knowledge-wh and knowledge-that, knowledge-how is inferentially isolated from further knowledge-that. We close by providing some evidence against the further reduction of knowledge-wh to knowledge-that, which is presupposed by the intellectualist theory under discussion. (shrink)

The problem of merging several ontologies has important applications in the Semantic Web, medical ontology engineering and other domains where information from several distinct sources needs to be integrated in a coherent manner.We propose to view ontology merging as a problem of social choice, i.e. as a problem of aggregating the input of a set of individuals into an adequate collective decision. That is, we propose to view ontology merging as ontology aggregation. As a first step in this direction, we (...) formulate several desirable properties for ontology aggregators, we identify the incompatibility of some of these properties, and we define and analyse several simple aggregation procedures. Our approach is closely related to work in judgment aggregation, but with the crucial difference that we adopt an open world assumption, by distinguishing between facts not included in an agent’s ontology and facts explicitly negated in an agent’s ontology. (shrink)

Cosmopolitics, the concept of a world politics based on shared democratic values, is in an increasingly fragile state.

This book offers a philosophically-based, yet clinically-oriented perspective on current medical reasoning aiming at 1) identifying important forms of uncertainty permeating current clinical reasoning and practice 2) promoting the application of an abductive methodology in the health context in order to deal with those clinical uncertainties 3) bridging the gap between biomedical knowledge, clinical practice, and research and values in both clinical and philosophical literature. With a clear philosophical emphasis, the book investigates themes lying at the border between several disciplines, (...) such as medicine, nursing, logic, epistemology, and philosophy of science; but also ethics, epidemiology, and statistics. At the same time, it critically discusses and compares several professional approaches to clinical practice such as the one of medical doctors, nurses and other clinical practitioners, showing the need for developing a unified framework of reasoning, which merges methods and resources from many different clinical but also non-clinical disciplines. In particular, this book shows how to leverage nursing knowledge and practice, which has been considerably neglected so far, to further shape the interdisciplinary nature of clinical reasoning. Furthermore, a thorough philosophical investigation on the values involved in health care is provided, based on both the clinical and philosophical literature. The book concludes by proposing an integrative approach to health and disease going beyond the so-called “classical biomedical model of care”. (shrink)

Philosophers debate about which logical system, if any, is the One True Logic. This involves a disagreement concerning the sufficient conditions that may single out the correct logic among various candidates. This paper discusses whether there are necessary conditions for the correct logic; that is, I discuss whether there are features such that if a logic is correct, then it has those features, although having them might not be sufficient to single out the correct logic. Traditional rationalist arguments suggest that (...) the necessary conditions of thought are necessary and sufficient conditions singling out the correct logical and mathematical theories. In the contemporary debate, Chalmers advocates a view along this line. Jago, analogously, suggests that the necessary conditions for thought—or, as he calls them, our basic epistemic expectations—single out a family of logical and mathematical theories. Warren and Williamson, on the other hand, argue that there are no necessary conditions of thought. I argue that there are necessary conditions for thought, and these are necessary but not sufficient conditions to be the correct logic; indeed, these are features that all logics—correct or incorrect—share. No view we can understand is ruled out by the necessary conditions for thought, but we cannot understand quite any view. Human linguistic and conceptual abilities are genetically constrained, and these constraints are our best guide to the boundaries of logic. Arguing for this, I tackle two dogmas of modern rationalism: namely, the view that the biological constraints of human cognition have no bearing on the boundaries of the epistemic space, and the view that the boundaries of thought coincide with the boundaries of language. (shrink)

We argue that a cognitive semantics has to take into account the possibly partial information that a cognitive agent has of the world. After discussing Gärdenfors's view of objects in conceptual spaces, we offer a number of viable treatments of partiality of information and we formalize them by means of alternative predicative logics. Our analysis shows that understanding the nature of simple predicative sentences is crucial for a cognitive semantics.

In this paper I shall adopt a possible reading of the notions of ‘explanatory indispensability’ and ‘genuine mathematical explanation in science’ on which the Enhanced Indispensability Argument proposed by Alan Baker is based. Furthermore, I shall propose two examples of mathematical explanation in science and I shall show that, whether the EIA-partisans accept the reading I suggest, they are easily caught in a dilemma. To escape this dilemma they need to adopt some account of explanation and offer a plausible answer (...) to the following ‘question of evidence’: What is a genuine mathematical explanation in empirical science and on what basis do we consider it as such? Finally, I shall suggest how a possible answer to the question of evidence might be given through a specific account of mathematical explanation in science. Nevertheless, the price of adopting this standpoint is that the genuineness of mathematical explanations of scientific facts turns out to be dependent on pragmatic constraints and therefore cannot be plugged in EIA and used to establish existential claims about mathematical objects. (shrink)

In their work “Political Corruption: The Internal Enemy of Public Institutions,” Ceva and Ferretti defend a conception of corruption as a breach of the duty of accountability for officeholders. I address two key aspects of their proposal. First, I contend that whistleblowing disclosures should be limited to acts of last resort, rather than as a common practice of ensuring answerability. Second, I argue that their account does not adequately distinguish between degrees of involvement in corrupt activities. Within hierarchical organizations, not (...) all officeholders possess the same capacity and power to counteract unjust practices. Different contributory roles entail varying degrees of responsibility within the normative structure of answerability defended by the authors. (shrink)

We attempt to justify the use of synthetic biology in response to the climate crisis, based on the premise that it is impossible to avert runaway climate change without sequestering sufficient greenhouse gases (GHG), which could only become possible through Negative Emissions Technologies (NETs). Then, moving from a consequentialist standpoint, we acquiesce to how the consequences of using NETs through synthetic biology are preferable to the catastrophic consequences of runaway climate change. In conclusion, we show how our analysis of synthetic (...) biology resonates with a zoecentric view of climate science and ethics. (shrink)

This erratum is to correct in the paper of Daniele Chiffi and Ahti-Veikko Pietarinen, On the Logical Philosophy of Assertive Graphs.

ABSTRACTThis paper offers an opportunity to ponder the way the Catholic Church and its methods of information control reshaped, and paradoxically even enabled, the dissemination and practice of science in early modern Italy. Focusing on the activities of Newtonian scholars operating in Rome in the First half of the eighteenth century – especially the Celestine monk Celestino Galiani and prelate Francesco Bianchini – I will argue that major contributions to the spread of Newtonianism in Italy came from individuals operating within (...) the Church, acting more-or-less independently from the Church’s oversight. These scholars realized they were witnessing an inexorable transition and that the medieval scholastic cosmology and physics could not survive. In order to rescue the Church – and to avoid further embarrassment, especially after the Galileo Affair – renewal was needed. Counterintuitively, the dissemination of Italian Newtonianism was largely a Catholic effort. (shrink)

L’articolo si propone di analizzare il pragmatismo di Giovanni Papini, riferendolo in particolar modo al rapporto con il pensiero di William James; nello specifico, si vuole mettere in luce come il rapporto tra Papini e James sia stato tanto di gradevole collaborazione quanto di reciproche influenza ed ammirazione. Per fare ciò, verranno ripercorse le tappe dello sviluppo della teoria pragmatista di Papini, evidenziandone sia il legame con la speculazione jamesiana sia l’originalità e rilevanza teoretica, in grado di affermarsi anche oltre (...) i confini nazionali. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In this paper, I demonstrate that the concept of resistance is fundamental in order to understand Schelling’s account of freedom. First, I argue that Schelling, in his early works, contends that the resistance opposed by nature to our individual will is fundamental for human beings to actualise freedom. Moreover, I show that Schelling maintains the centrality of resistance even in his philosophy of nature, and I demonstrate that resistance is that fundamental ontological occurrence which grounds the opposition between the (...) basic forces of matter, and without which matter itself would not exist. Accordingly, resistance is also that material occurrence through which freedom can concretely take place in its being limited and constrained by necessity. Finally, I also show that Schelling reiterates such an understanding in his Freiheitsschrift, namely I argue that resistance is a fundamental occurrence even for the struggle between good and evil, which in turn implies that resistance inevitably influences our individual will and actions. On these grounds, I conclude by arguing that freedom can be understood as a matter of resistance, since it arises and is made possible only through resistance itself. (shrink)

This book offers a cutting-edge interpretation of the philosophy of F.W.J. Schelling by critically reconsidering the interpretations of some of his "successors". It argues that Schelling's philosophy should be read as an ontology of immanence, highlighting its relevance for ongoing debates on ethics and freedom. The book builds on a key notion from Schelling's Philosophy of Revelation where he outlines the process through which transcendence must return to immanence in order to be grasped and understood. The author identifies Jaspers, Heidegger, (...) and Deleuze as the main interpreters of Schelling's philosophical activity, highlighting their relevance for subsequent Schelling scholarship. Heidegger and Jaspers refer to Schelling's philosophy in negative terms, namely as an incomplete and unviable philosophical system, whereas Deleuze holds the immanent core of Schelling's ontological discourse in high regard. The author's analysis demonstrates that reading Schelling's philosophy as an ontology of immanence not only avoids Heidegger's and Jaspers's criticisms but is also more fitting to Schelling's original meaning. Accordingly, his reading allows us to fully grasp Schelling's thought in all its strength and consistency: as a philosophy that avoids metaphysical abstractions and maintains the concreteness of concepts like God, nature, freedom by binding them to a solid and material account of Being. Finally, the author uses Schelling to propose an innovative reading of freedom as a matter of resistance, and of philosophy as an activity whose main purpose is that of seeking the actual extent and place of (human) life and freedom within nature. The author originally emphasises the relevance of these conclusions on contemporary debates in Postcolonial Critical Theory and Environmental Ethics. Schelling, Freedom, and the Immanent Made Transcendent. From Philosophy of Nature to Environmental Ethics will appeal to scholars and advanced students working in 19th-century Continental philosophy, German idealism, and Postcolonial Critical Theory and Environmental Ethics. (shrink)

In his recent John Locke Lectures, Robert Brandom defends a view of pragmatism as an extension of the classical project of semantic analysis powerful enough as to incorporate not only relations among meanings, but also, and more fundamentally, relations among meaning and use. The paper explores one of the core aspects of this project – the relation between modal, normative, and empirical vocabularies. Brandom’ focus on a general semantics for non-logical vocabularies intends to meet and answer the empiricist concerns about (...) the intelligibility of modal concepts, which are themselves couched in a modal metavocabulary. Brandom’s purpose is to show that, in using ordinary empirical vocabulary, «in order to be able to talk at all, to make claims and inferences, one must already know how to do everything necessary in principle to deploy modal and normative vocabulary». This is the so-called «Kant-Sellars thesis». In the first part, I present the general framework of analytic pragmatism, the rationale for that project, and its normative foundation. Although the project is in continuity with the goal, pursued in Making It Explicit, of explaining inferential semantics in terms of a normative pragmatics, more structure is added, which clarifies the foundation of the overall enterprise. In the second part, I focus on some objections to the complementary structure of normative and modal vocabularies, and defend a different interpretation of its foundational structure. The goal is to show the modal vocabulary underlies the conceivability and the very inferential practices in which normative vocabulary is involved. (shrink)