This article sketches out the key features of the debate on the analytic-synthetic distinction between phenomenology and logical empiricism, which took place in the early part of the twentieth century. On the one side, the author reconstructs the debate itself from an historical angle; on the other, he gives a theoretical account of the different positions and arguments. In particular, he has three main aims: a) to clarify how, according to Husserl, the analyticsynthetic opposition is to be understood as the (...) form-matter opposition; b) to show how this position has been misunderstood by neo-empiricist philosophers, in particular by Schlick in his paper against the theory of the factual a priori; c) to point out that Husserlian theory anticipates some relevant features in the matter of analyticity (i.e. the distinction between logical analytic and extra-logical analytic truths) which will be made fully explicit only by Carnap and Quine, philosophers of the following generation. (shrink)

This paper recognizes a specific correspondence between biological evolution and technological development and on this basis tries to set up a semioticapproach to the evolutionary phenomenon of exaptation. To do this, the existence of a historical-structural and pragmatic analogy between organs and tools is shown, which in turn implies on a communicative ground the dissolution of some of their traditional distinctive att ributes. Finally, a philosophical-analytical approach to natural and cultural functions is applied to define three types of exaptations.

A level of adequacy of a given model with physical world represents an important element of physics. In an “ideal” model each element in the model would correspond exactly to one element in the physical world. In such a model each element would have a direct epistemological correlation with exactly one element of the physical world. Such a model would become a perfect picture of the physical world. The possibility of misinterpretation, in a sense that one searches for physical existence (...) of purely theoretically predicted elements of the model, would be excluded. In order to develop such a model we apply bijective function of set theory. Bijective function applied on time research shows model of space–time has no direct epistemological correlation in physical reality. Time is duration of changes which run in space. Duration does not run in time, duration is time. (shrink)

Nel 1881, per i tipi dell’editore Brigola di Milano, vedeva la luce Macchiette parigine, un compendio di profili biografici che lo scrittore siciliano Emanuele Navarro della Miraglia (1838-1919) dedicava a eminenti personalità della cultura letteraria e artistica francese di metà Ottocento.Francesista, a lungo residente a Parigi (1864-1872), in contatto a Milano con gli ambienti della scapigliatura lombarda (1872-1882) e da ultimo professore di Lingua e letteratura francese presso l’Istituto superiore di magistero femminile di Roma (1883-1913), Navarro della Miraglia includeva fra (...) le sue “macchiette” anche due ritratti d’artisti dedicati rispettivamente a Gustave Courbet e a Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux.Questo contributo si propone di definire il contesto e le ricadute di una lettura non allineata alla tempestiva e più “ortodossa” discussione della lezione di Courbet promossa da Diego Martelli presso i macchiaioli toscani, a beneficio di una geografia culturale diversamente articolata fra le aperture cosmopolite del naturalismo meridionale e le frange più avanzate della scapigliatura lombarda. Allo stesso modo il resoconto dell’atelier di Carpeaux è riconsiderato alla luce del coevo dibattito sulla scultura monumentale e delle ricerche in corso a Milano su un modellato più mosso e nervoso. (shrink)

L'ingegneria concettuale è una branca della filosofia caratterizzata da un approccio normativo nei confronti della rappresentazione. Assunzione fondamentale è che i nostri dispositivi rappresentazionali possano essere difettosi. Si configura dunque come l'attività che consiste nell'identificare i difetti in tali dispositivi e mettere in atto strategie di miglioramento. Verranno illustrate le questioni fondamentali a cui una teoria di ingegneria concettuale deve rispondere: in cosa consiste esattamente questa attività? Come possiamo attuarla? Quali meccanismi regolano la formazione dei dispositivi rappresentazionali? Possiamo influire su (...) tali meccanismi? Verrà inoltre presentata un'obiezione all'ingegneria concettuale e varie risposte. -/- Conceptual engineering is a branch of philosophy characterised by a normative approach towards representation. The fundamental assumption of it is that our representational devices can be defective. Conceptual engineering is then the activity consisting of identifying the defects of such devices and putting in place ameliorative strategies. This paper illustrates the fundamental issues for a theory of conceptual engineering: what does this activity consist of? How can we implement it? What mechanisms regulate the formation of representational devices? Can we have an influence over those mechanisms? Moreover, it will be presented an objection to conceptual engineering and various responses to it. (shrink)

ABSTRACT A belief is correct if and only if the believed proposition is true. Some philosophers argued that from this standard of correctness it is possible to derive the statement of a norm, a claim about what a subject ought to do. Many formulations of the standard in terms of an ‘ought’-claim have been suggested, but all resulted affected by some problem. My aim in this article is to suggest a new formulation of the standard in ‘ought’-terms based on an (...) analysis of the relations occurring between the notions of correctness and ‘ought’. My suggested formulation is that, for any subject S and proposition p, according to the standard of correctness, given that S believes that p, it ought to be that p. (shrink)

This paper challenges the common assumption that some phenotypic traits are quantitative while others are qualitative. The distinction between these two kinds of traits is widely influential in biological and biomedical research as well as in scientific education and communication. This is probably due to both historical and epistemological reasons. However, the quantitative/qualitative distinction involves a variety of simplifications on the genetic causes of phenotypic variability and on the development of complex traits. Here, I examine three cases from the life (...) sciences that show inconsistencies in the distinction: Mendelian traits, Mendelian diseases, and polygenic mental disorders. I show that these traits can be framed both quantitatively and qualitatively depending, for instance, on the methods through which they are investigated and on specific epistemic purposes. This suggests that the received view of quantitative and qualitative traits has a limited heuristic power—limited to some local contexts or to the specific methodologies adopted. Throughout the paper, I provide directions for framing phenotypes beyond the quantitative/qualitative distinction. I conclude by pointing at the necessity of developing a principled characterisation of what phenotypic traits, in general, are. (shrink)

My claim in this article is that the thesis that Buddhism has no God, insofar as it is taken to apply to Buddhism universally, is false. I defend this claim by interpreting a central text in East-Asian Buddhism – The Awakening of Faith in Mahāyāna – through the lenses of perfect being theology (PBT), a research programme in philosophy of religion that attempts to provide a description of God through a two-step process: (1) defining God in terms of maximal greatness; (...) (2) inferring the properties or attributes that God must have in virtue of satisfying the definition. My argument comprises two steps. First, I argue that, since PBT is a method for providing a description of God starting from a definition of God, any text that contains a PBT ipso facto contains a notion of God. Second, I argue through textual evidence that The Awakening articulates a PBT, concluding that it contains a notion of God. Since the method of PBT leaves open what descriptions are to be inferred, my argument allows me to conclude that a text contains a notion of God without previously committing to any particular conception of the divine, which makes it particularly versatile and powerful. (shrink)

In this paper, we investigate the expressiveness of the variety of propositional interval neighborhood logics , we establish their decidability on linearly ordered domains and some important subclasses, and we prove the undecidability of a number of extensions of PNL with additional modalities over interval relations. All together, we show that PNL form a quite expressive and nearly maximal decidable fragment of Halpern–Shoham’s interval logic HS.

Davide Serpico describes his research at the Special Collection dedicated to the distinguished population geneticist John R. G. Turner at the University of Leeds’ Library.

While environmental claims are increasingly used by companies to appeal consumers, they also attract greater scrutiny from independent parties interested in consumer protection. Consumers are now able to compare corporate environmental claims against external, often disconfirming, information to form their brand attitudes and purchase intentions. What remains unclear is how the level of information specificity of both the environmental claims and external disconfirming information interact to influence consumer reactions. Two experiments address this gap in the CSR communication literature. When specific (...) claims are countered by specific external information, consumers report more negative brand attitudes and lower purchase intentions. The effect is serially mediated by skepticism toward the claims and lack of corporate credibility. We conclude by discussing strategies that firms can utilize to avoid information dilution and ensure that external disconfirming information percolates to consumers as specific. (shrink)

The aim of this article is Schröder’s treatment of the so called solution problem [Auflösungsproblem]. First, I will introduce Schröder’s ideas; then I will discuss them taking into account Peirce’s considerations in The Logic of Relatives ([13, pp. 161–217] now republished in [9, pp. 288–345]).

The paper investigates what type of motivation can be given for adopting a knowledge-based decision theory. KBDT seems to have several advantages over competing theories of rationality. It is commonly argued that this theory would naturally fit with the intuitive idea that being rational is doing what we take to be best given what we know, an idea often supported by appeal to ordinary folk appraisals. Moreover, KBDT seems to strike a perfect balance between the problematic extremes of subjectivist and (...) objectivist decision theory. We argue that these alleged advantages do not stand up to a closer scrutiny: KBDT inherits the same kinds of problems as alternative decision theoretic frameworks but doesn’t retain any of the respective advantages. Moreover, differently from other knowledge-action principles advanced in the literature, KBDT cannot fully explain the intuitive connections between knowledge and rational action. We conclude that the most serious challenge for knowledge-based decision theorists is to provide a substantive rationale for the adoption of such a view. (shrink)

Assisted reproductive technologies have greatly increased our control over reproductive choices, leading some bioethicists to argue that we face unprecedented moral obligations towards progeny. Several models attempting to balance the principle of procreative autonomy with these obligations have been proposed. The least demanding is the minimal threshold model (MTM), according to which every reproductive choice is permissible, except creating children whose lives will not be worth living. Hence, as long as the future child is likely to have a life worth (...) living, prospective parents may be allowed to use preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) to select embryos with genetic diseases or disabilities. Assuming a consequentialist person‐affecting view of morality, this paper investigates whether the MTM is an appropriate tool to guide procreative decisions given the continuous development of reproductive genetic technologies. In particular, I consider germline genome editing (GGE) and I argue that its application in human reproduction, unlike PGD, should be conceived as person‐affecting towards future progeny. I claim that even if we assume the plausibility of the MTM within PGD, we are committed to accepting that a greater moral obligation towards progeny should guide procreative decisions if GGE were available. In this case, the MTM should no longer be considered an appropriate instrument to guide procreative choices. Finally, I investigate when we face this greater moral obligation, concluding that it applies only when prospective parents have already engaged in the in vitro fertilization process. (shrink)

The model of human intelligence that is most widely adopted derives from psychometrics and behavioral genetics. This standard approach conceives intelligence as a general cognitive ability that is genetically highly heritable and describable using quantitative traits analysis. The paper analyzes intelligence within the debate on natural kinds and contends that the general intelligence conceptualization does not carve psychological nature at its joints. Moreover, I argue that this model assumes an essentialist perspective. As an alternative, I consider an HPC theory of (...) intelligence and evaluate how it deals with essentialism and with intuitions coming from cognitive science. Finally, I highlight some concerns about the HPC model as well, and conclude by suggesting that it is unnecessary to treat intelligence as a kind in any sense. (shrink)

According to intentionalism, the phenomenal character of experience is one and the same as the intentional content of experience. This view has a problem with moods (anxiety, depression, elation, irritation, gloominess, grumpiness, etc.). Mood experiences certainly have phenomenal character, but do not exhibit directedness, i.e., do not appear intentional. Standardly, intentionalists have re-described moods’ undirectedness in terms of directedness towards everything or the whole world (e.g., Crane, 1998; Seager, 1999). This move offers the intentionalist a way out, but is quite (...) unsatisfying. More recently, Angela Mendelovici (2013a, b) has suggested something that looks more interesting and promising: instead of re-describing moods’ phenomenology, she accepts its undirectedness at face value and tries to explain it in intentionalist terms. In this paper, I focus on and criticize Mendelovici’s proposal. As I will show, despite its prima facie virtues, the view is poorly motivated. For, contrary to what Mendelovici argues, introspection does not support her proposal—arguably, it provides some evidence against it. So, the problem that intentionalism has with moods is not solved, but is still there. (shrink)

Recent trends in psychiatry involve a transition from categorical to dimensional frameworks, in which the boundary between health and pathology is understood as a difference in degree rather than as a difference in kind. A major tenet of dimensional approaches is that no qualitative distinction can be made between health and pathology. As a consequence, these approaches tend to characterize such a threshold as pragmatic or conventional in nature. However, dimensional approaches to psychopathology raise several epistemological and ontological issues. First, (...) we review major sources of evidence usually recruited in support of the dimensional trend (focusing on clinical observation and biological data), and we show that these are connected to different conceptualizations of how dimensional traits extend across health and pathology. Second, we criticize two unquestioned assumptions that stand at the core of the dimensional trend: a) that there is continuity from health to pathology at the symptomatic level; b) that such continuity reflects an underlying continuity in the genetic liability for pathological conditions. Third, we argue against the idea of a conventional threshold by showing that such a view implies a linear relationship between the genotype and the phenotype. Fourth, drawing on epigenetics and developmental biology, we offer a characterization of mental disorders as stable and dynamic constellations of multi-level variables that differ qualitatively from ‘healthy states’. We conclude by showing that our account has several theoretical advantages over both categorical and dimensional approaches. Notably, it provides crucial insights into psychological development over time and individual differences, with major implications in terms of intervention and clinical decision-making. (shrink)

This paper offers an original interpretation of the Daodejing 道德經 as containing a distinctive account of creation. In my reading, the Daodejing envisions the creation of the cosmos by Dao (1) as a movement from the absence of phenomenal forms to phenomenal forms and (2) as a movement from nothingness to existence. I interpret creation as a unique metaphysical operation that explains how (1) and (2) are possible. The paper is organized into two sections. First, I introduce the distinctions between (...) the lack and presence of phenomenal forms (§1.1) and between nothingness and existence (§1.2), using them to map the distinction between Dao and the created world. Then, I propose my account of the Daodejing’s metaphysics of creation (§2.1) and elaborate on its connection with the previously drawn distinctions while answering a potential objection (§2.2). I conclude with some considerations about the connections between the Daodejing’s view of creation and its soteriology. (shrink)

Lo studio sonda l’incidenza della Völkerpsychologie di Lazarus e Steinthal nei primi testi filosofici di Croce . A partire da quest’angolo prospettico propone un’analisi del complesso atteggiamento del filosofo verso i plessi tematici della Prelezione labrioliana prevalentemente ispirati dalla psicologia dei popoli. Croce non solo interpreta diversamente da Labriola la Völkerpsychologie, rigettandola in quanto illegittimo tentativo di fondazione psicologica degli studi storici maturato nel clima positivistico della seconda metà dell’Ottocento, ma respinge anche il piano generale e le linee strutturanti la (...) filosofia della storia di Labriola, in cui la psicologia dei popoli perde la paradossalità della ricerca di leggi del corso storico per diventare un’analisi delle forme di categorizzazione del fatto storico. Da questo confronto emerge, infine, il compito di classificazione trascendentale assegnato da Croce, nella sua produzione giovanile, alla filosofia. (shrink)

Ageing is one of the main risk factors for Covid-19. In this paper, we delineate four alternative conceptualisations of ageing, each of which determines different understandings of its causal role to the susceptibility to Covid-19 as well as to the severity of its symptoms and adverse health outcomes.

John Dewey’s theory of education, despite having become a reference point for the pedagogical sciences, has been subjected to much criticism. One of the most significant attacks came from Jerome Bruner, who questioned Dewey’s principles as set forth in his “My Pedagogic Creed”.1 Bruner chose that book for criticism because it foreshadowed much of the later writing on education by the American philosopher, and he assessed the five articles of faith contained therein against the background of the deep changes that (...) had occurred in conceptions of society, social institutions, and man. Then, paralleling Bruner, Kieran Egan stressed more recently the necessity to reconsider some of Dewey’s.. (shrink)

In the recent literature, it has been shown that the wave function in the de Broglie–Bohm theory can be regarded as a new kind of field, i.e., a "multi-field", in three-dimensional space. In this paper, I argue that the natural framework for the multi-field is the original second-order Bohm’s theory. In this context, it is possible: i) to construe the multi-field as a real-valued scalar field; ii) to explain the physical interaction between the multi-field and the Bohmian particles; and iii) (...) to clarify the status of the energy-momentum conservation and the dynamics of the theory. (shrink)

In this paper, we aim at rethinking the concept of obesity in a way that better captures the connection between underlying medical aspects, on the one hand, and an individual’s developmental history, on the other. Our proposal rests on the idea that obesity is not to be understood as a phenotypic trait or character; rather, obesity represents one of the many possible states of a more complex phenotypic trait that we call ‘energy metabolism.’ We argue that this apparently simple conceptual (...) shift can help solve important theoretical misconceptions regarding the genetics, epigenetics, and development of obesity. In addition, we show that our proposal can be fruitfully paired with the concept of developmental channeling of a trait, which connects to the study of the plasticity and canalization of complex traits. Finally, we discuss the potential impact of our approach on the assessment, treatment, and social narratives of obesity. (shrink)

Recently some epistemologists have approached the question whether epistemic justification comes in degrees from a linguistic perspective. Drawing insights from linguistic analyses of gradable adjectives, they investigate whether epistemic occurrences of ‘justified’ are gradable and if yes what type of gradability they involve. These authors conclude that the adjective passes standard tests for gradability, but they classify it as belonging to different categories: as either an absolute or a relative gradable adjective. The aim of this paper is to further clarify (...) the question of what kind of gradability is instantiated by epistemic uses of ‘justified’, and to investigate the consequences that this may have on epistemological theorizing. In particular, we challenge the alleged evidence provided by Siscoe (2021: 517–59) for the relative gradability of ‘justified’ and we provide positive arguments for the claim that ‘justified’ is a specific kind of absolute gradable adjective (a totally closed scale absolute with default minimal reading). We consider some important philosophical implications of these results. We also argue that the scale type of ‘justified’ is ordinal, and we consider which other properties typically associated to justification possess a similar type of scale. We argue that several popular contemporary models of graded justification, such as probabilistic and reliabilist accounts and various kinds of Lockean views, do not fit well with our results about the gradability of ‘justified’. Linguistic data rather favour normalcy and plausibility accounts of graded justification. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:diacritics 30.2 (2000) 113-126 [Access article in PDF] Dissenting Words:A Conversation with Jacques Rancière 1 Davide Panagia:In your writings you highlight the political efficacy of words. In The Names of History, for instance, this emphasis is discussed most vividly in terms of what you refer to as an "excess of words" that marks the rise of democratic movements in the seventeenth century. Similarly, in On The Shores of (...) Politics, you begin your discussion with an excursus on the end of politics as the end of the promise. Finally, in Dis-agreement you speak of "the part of those who have no-part" as voicing a "wrong" for the sake of equality.In each of these instances, however, your treatment of words (and language more generally) is very different from those thinkers of the "linguistic turn" in political philosophy who expound on an ethics of deliberation as the first virtue of modern democracies. For that matter, your approach is quite different from those thinkers who focus on the aporias of language as such.Could you discuss this thematic of the proliferation of words in your thinking about democratic politics?Would it be fair to characterize your research on and exposition of democratic thinking as a "poetics of politics"?Rancière's Reply:In order to address your question adequately, it would be wise to enlarge the sense of "linguistic turn" you invoke. In its most generally accepted sense, the linguistic turn in philosophy consists in ascribing to linguistic processes certain phenomena and specifiable modes of relating objects attributed, in a previous instance, either to factual processes or lines of thought. This approach is not limited to the two figures you invoke in your question. The linguistic turn also has two stages of development that, from my experience, have been more noticeable in France than in the United States. The first phase, then, emerged with Lévi-Strauss and his structural approach to social relations founded on a linguistic model of relationality, subsequently reprised in Lacan's psychoanalytic notion that "the unconscious is structured like a language" that, in its turn, conjoins the energetic mental processes Freud discusses to linguistic practices. The primacy of "the linguistic" thus granted language all the properties of the Freudian unconscious [End Page 113] along with those of a Marxist notion of infrastructure. The Saussurian opposition between langue and parole provided a privileged status to a linguistic model whose role was that of a general law that unconsciously structures the behavior of individuals and societies. It is on the basis of these parameters that the structuralist moment of the linguistic turn was constituted. At one and the same time, the analysis of speech acts became first and foremost a "symptomatic" analysis of those procedures of misrecognition that linguistically structured both the behavior of individuals and social relations. When we "read" Le Capital with Althusser, the interpretive and methodological schema for linguistic phenomena operated like a kind of "policing of the enunciated": that is, a search for those unsuccessful (i.e., inadequate) modes of expression that exemplify such symptomatic procedures of misrecognition.The second phase of the linguistic turn constituted itself more ambiguously. For those who shared intellectual experiences similar to my own, this version involved a critique of the langue/infrastructure model; that is, a further and more favorable consideration of the value of the political and the linguistic games therein that, according to the Althusserian/Marxist model (and, indeed, with structuralism more generally), were to be treated as ideological artifacts. In a very real sense, it all began with the May '68 assertion that "we are all German Jews"--an entirely ideological statement, the validity of which, if analyzed at the level of its content, one finds to rest entirely on the capacity to overturn the political relationship between the order of designations and that of events by emphasizing the gap that separates subject and predicate. From there, an entire field of understanding speech acts as political gestures opened up: a field that reconfigured the division between words and things while rearranging the distinction between legitimate... (shrink)

In this paper, I analyze the ethical implications of genetic enhancement within the specific framework of the “child’s right to an open future” argument (CROF). Whilst there is a broad ethical consensus that genetic modifications for eradicating diseases or disabilities are in line with – or do not violate – CROF, there is huge disagreement about how to ethically understand genetic enhancement. Here, I analyze this disagreement and I provide a revised formulation of the argument in the specific field of (...) genetic enhancement. First, I argue that CROF is not in contrast with every kind of enhancement. I subsequently discuss whether CROF requires some moral obligations to enhance progeny. My argument is that parents do not have the moral obligation to open as many options as possible for their children. Rather, they should provide them with a reasonable range of opportunities. Finally, I contend that the moral obligations required by CROF are directly dependent on what Allen Buchanan calls the ‘dominant cooperative framework’ in a given society. I conclude by claiming that, at present, parents are not morally obliged to genetically enhance their children since a non-enhanced person already might have access to a reasonable range of opportunities. However, the moral obligation to enhance progeny might arise if a structural modification of the dominant cooperative framework occurs. (shrink)

In the mid fourth century b.c. some Roman gentes drew on a Pythagorean tradition. In this tradition, Numa's role of Pythagoras’ disciple connected Rome with Greek elites and culture. The Marcii, between 304 and 300 b.c., used Numa's figure, recently reshaped by the Aemilii and the Pinarii for their propaganda, to promote the need for a plebeian pontificate. After the approval of the Ogulnium plebiscite, the needs for this kind of propaganda fell away. When Marcius Censorinus became censor, Numa's pontificate (...) was no longer relevant for promoting the gens. For this reason, the Marcii used another genealogy for similar propagandistic effect: the figure of Marsyas, a symbol of plebeian ideals. (shrink)

What is knowledge? What should knowledge be like? Call an epistemological project that sets out to answer the first question ‘descriptive’ and a project that sets out to answer the second question ‘normative’. If the answers to these two questions don’t coincide—if what knowledge should be like differs from what knowledge is like—there is room for a third project we call ‘revisionary’. A revisionary project starts by arguing that what knowledge should be differs from what knowledge is. It then proposes (...) that we revise our account of knowledge accordingly. Our aim in this paper was to develop a methodology for revisionary projects in epistemology. Put roughly, the thought is that we start by looking at the various things that we expect knowledge to do for us. Once we have a list of the various things we expect knowledge to do for us we have a ‘job description’; a list of tasks we need done, and that we expect knowledge to perform. With the job description in hand, we can ask what knowledge would hav.. (shrink)

During the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy, practitioners had to make tragic decisions regarding the allocation of scarce resources in the ICU. The Italian debate has paid a lot of attention to identifying the specific regulatory criteria for the allocation of resources in the ICU; in this paper, however, we argue that deciding such criteria is not enough for the implementation of fair and transparent allocative decisions. In this respect, we discuss three ethical issues: (a) in the (...) Italian context, the treating physician, rather than a separate committee, was generally the one responsible for the allocation decision; (b) although many allocative guidelines have supported moral equivalence between withholding and withdrawing treatments, some health professionals have continued to consider it a morally problematic aspect; and (c) the health workers who have had to make the aforementioned decisions or even only worked in ICU during the pandemic often experienced moral distress. We conclude by arguing that, even if these problems are not directly related to the above-mentioned issues of distributive justice, they can nevertheless directly affect the quality and ethics of the implementation of allocative criteria, regardless of those chosen. (shrink)

In 1976, the Genetics Society of America published a document entitled “Resolution of Genetics, Race, and Intelligence.” This document laid out the Society’s position in the IQ controversy, particularly that on scientific and ethical questions involving the genetics of intellectual differences between human populations. Since the GSA was the largest scientific society of geneticists in the world, many expected the document to be of central importance in settling the controversy. Unfortunately, the Resolution had surprisingly little influence on the discussion. In (...) 1979, William Provine analyzed the possible factors that decreased the impact of the Resolution, among them scientists’ limited understanding of the relationship between science and ethics. Through the analysis of unpublished versions of the Resolution and exchanges between GSA members, I will suggest that the limited impact of the statement likely depended on a shift in the aims of the GSA due to the controversies that surrounded the preparation of the document. Indeed, the demands of the membership made it progressively more impartial in both scientific and political terms, decreasing its potential significance for a wider audience. Notably, the troubled history of the Resolution raises the question of what can make effective or ineffective the communication between scientists and the public—a question with resonance in past and present discussions on topics of social importance. (shrink)

I introduce and defend a view about knowledge that I call Moderate Skeptical Invariantism. According to this view, a subject knows p only if she is practically certain that p, where practical certainty is defined as the confidence a rational subject would have to have for her to believe that p and act on p no matter the stakes. I do not provide a definitive case for this view, but I argue that it has several explanatory advantages over alternative views (...) and I show how it can avoid two pressing problems commonly addressed to similar approaches. (shrink)

The aim of this virtual special issue is to bring together philosophical and historical perspectives to address long-standing issues in the interpretation, utility, and impacts of quantitative genetics methods and findings. Methodological approaches and the underlying scientific understanding of genetics and heredity have transformed since the field's inception. These advances have brought with them new philosophical issues regarding the interpretation and understanding of quantitative genetic results. The contributions in this issue demonstrate that there is still work to be done integrating (...) old and new methodological and conceptual frameworks. In some cases, new results are interpreted using assumptions based on old concepts and methodologies that need to be explicitly recognised and updated. In other cases, new philosophical tools can be employed to synthesise historical quantitative genetics work with modern methodologies and findings. This introductory article surveys three general themes that have dominated philosophical discussion of quantitative genetics throughout history: (1) how methodologies have changed and transformed our knowledge and interpretations; (2) whether or not quantitative genetics can offer explanations relating to causation and prediction; and (3) the importance of defining the phenotypes under study. We situate the contributions in this virtual special issue within a historical framework addressing these three themes. (shrink)

In Italy, during the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Italian Society of Resuscitators and Pain Therapists (SIAARTI) and the Italian National Bioethics Committee (CNB) published ethical guidance on the allocation of scarce intensive care resources. In this paper, we outline and compare these documents in detail, highlighting differences and similarities. In particular, we argue that major differences exist with respect to the principles and values underpinning the documents and the normative allocation criteria proposed. Conversely, similarities can be traced (...) with respect to a functional rather than substantial endorsement of the age criterion, the importance of transparency, and the consideration over healthcare professionals’ responsibility regarding allocative decisions. In conclusion, we argue that Italy has lacked a comprehensive and publicly-accountable policy articulating principles and operational criteria geared to strengthen the “ethical preparedness” of the country in dealing with current and possible future public health emergencies. (shrink)

Biologists and philosophers often use the language of determination in order to describe the nature of developmental phenomena. Accounts in terms of determination have often been reductionist. One common idea is that DNA is supposed to play a special explanatory role in developmental explanations, namely, that DNA is a developmental determinant. In this article we try to make sense of determination claims in developmental biology. Adopting a manipulationist approach, we shall first argue that the notion of developmental determinant is causal. (...) We suggest that two different theses concerning developmental determination can be articulated: determination of occurrence and structural determination. We shall argue that, while the first thesis is problematic, the second, opportunely qualified, is feasible. Finally, we shall argue that an analysis of biological causation in terms of determination cannot account for entangled dynamics. Characterising causal entanglement as a particular kind of interactive causation whereby difference-making causes ascribable to different levels of biological organisation influence a particular ontogenetic outcome, we shall, via two illustrative examples, diagnose some potential limits of a reductionist, molecular and intra-level understanding of biological causation. (shrink)

This paper contributes to the growing discussion about how to mitigate pharmaceutical pollution, which is a threat to human, animal, and environmental health as well as a potential driver of antimicrobial resistance. It identifies market approval of pharmaceuticals as one of the most powerful ways to shape producer behavior and highlights that applying this tool raises ethical issues given that it might impact patients’ access to medicines. The paper identifies seven different policy options that progressively give environmental considerations increased priority (...) in the approval process, identifies ethically relevant interests affected by such policies, and makes explicit tensions and necessary tradeoffs between these interests. While arguing that the current European regulation gives insufficient weight to environmental considerations, the paper highlights concerns with the strongest policy options, on the grounds that these may very well endanger patients’ access to effective medication. (shrink)

Since the 1990s the so-called transparency of experience has played a crucial role in core debates in philosophy of mind. However, recent developments in the literature have made transparency itself quite opaque. The very idea of transparent experience has become quite fuzzy, due to the articulation of many different notions of transparency and transparency theses. Absent a unified logical space where these notions and theses can be mapped and confronted, we are left with an overall impression of conceptual chaos. This (...) is a problem, given the constant and ubiquitous references to transparency in the literature and its prominent position in the contemporary philosophy of mind. My goal in this paper is to restore clarity through proper analysis of the mutual relations between the different transparency theses. This allows me to uncover a unitary multidimensional logical space where existing (as well as possible) views can be properly singled out and located. (shrink)

We show that intuitionistic logic is deductively equivalent to Connexive Heyting Logic ($$\textrm{CHL}$$ CHL ), hereby introduced as an example of a strongly connexive logic with an intuitive semantics. We use the reverse algebraisation paradigm: $$\textrm{CHL}$$ CHL is presented as the assertional logic of a point regular variety (whose structure theory is examined in detail) that turns out to be term equivalent to the variety of Heyting algebras. We provide Hilbert-style and Gentzen-style proof systems for $$\textrm{CHL}$$ CHL ; moreover, we (...) suggest a possible computational interpretation of its connexive conditional, and we revisit Kapsner’s idea of superconnexivity. (shrink)

Uchiyama et al. provide a theoretical framework to explain the gap between reported gene–environment interactions and real-life epidemiological statistics. Through cultural evolution, informed behavioral approaches mitigate the impact of environmental risk on disease onset. Similarly, here we propose that fostering certain behavioral traits, transmitted culturally or through access to scientific knowledge, could confer resilience to mental illnesses such as schizophrenia.

According to the Rational Threshold View, a rational agent believes p if and only if her credence in p is equal to or greater than a certain threshold. One of the most serious challenges for this view is the problem of statistical evidence: statistical evidence is often not sufficient to make an outright belief rational, no matter how probable the target proposition is given such evidence. This indicates that rational belief is not as sensitive to statistical evidence as rational credence. (...) The aim of this paper is twofold. First, we argue that, in addition to playing a decisive role in rationalizing outright belief, non-statistical evidence also plays a preponderant role in rationalizing credence. More precisely, when both types of evidence are present in a context, non-statistical evidence should receive a heavier weight than statistical evidence in determining rational credence. Second, based on this result, we argue that a modified version of the Rational Threshold View can avoid the problem of statistical evidence. We conclude by suggesting a possible explanation of the varying sensitivity to different types of evidence for belief and credence based on the respective aims of these attitudes. (shrink)

Obligations can be affected by knowledge. Several approaches exist to formalize knowledge-based obligations, but no formalism has been developed yet to capture the dynamic interaction between knowledge and obligations. We introduce the dynamic extension of an existing logic for knowledge-based obligations here. We motivate the logic by analyzing several scenarios and by showing how it can capture in an original manner several fundamental deontic notions such as absolute, prima facie and all-things-considered obligations. Finally, in the dynamic epistemic logic tradition, we (...) provide reduction axioms for the dynamic operator of the new logic. (shrink)

This essay asks how we might articulate a political theory of algorithms. To do so, I propose a political ontology of the algorithm dispositif that elaborates how algorithms arrange the movement of energies in space and time, and how they do so automatically. This force of arrangement is what I refer to as the dispositional power of algorithms that I identify as a political physics of vital processes. The essay is divided into three sections. The first provides readers of Political (...) Theory with a discussion of three notable works in the field of critical algorithm studies relevant to a political theory of algorithms. The subsequent sections of the essay elaborate an understanding of the political ontology of the algorithm dispositif by focusing (first) on the difference that a virtual ontology introduces to our political reflections and (second) on the cybernetic operation of negative feedback that I identify as foundational to understanding an algorithm’s political physics of vital processes. I conclude that any political theory engagement with technical media can’t simply rest on an epistemic analysis of the normative effects of media but must also pursue an investigation into a medium’s modes of existence in the world. (shrink)

The aim of the present contribution is to defend a specific version of moderate skeptical invariantism, which I call Practical Skeptical Invariantism (PSI). The view is a form of skepticism to the extent that it denies knowledge of many facts that we ordinarily think or claim to know. It is moderate to the extent that it is supposed to be compatible with a quite weak, non-radical form of skepticism. According to this view, the threshold on evidential support required for knowledge (...) should be partially fixed by the practical circumstances of the subject: someone is in a position to know a proposition p only if she would be rational to act as if p even if the practical stakes on p were maximally high. I consider and address what I take to be the most pressing problem for the view, namely, that the view can’t avoid a collapse into a radical form of skepticism. Moreover, I propose a positive argument for this view. The argument relies on the claim that judgments in high stakes are generally more reliable than in low stakes. (shrink)

Status anxiety, the constant concern about individuals’ position on the social ladder, negatively affects social cohesion, health, and wellbeing. Given previous findings showing that status anxiety is associated with economic inequality, we aimed in this research to test this association experimentally. A cross-sectional study was run in order to discard confounding effects of the relationship between perceived economic inequality and status anxiety, and to explore the mediating role of a competitive climate. Then we predicted that people assigned to a condition (...) of high inequality would perceive more status anxiety in their social context, and they would themselves report higher status anxiety. Thus, in an experimental study PEI was manipulated. In Study 1, PEI uniquely predicted status anxiety, and perceived competitiveness mediated the relationship. In Study 2 PEI increased perceived contextual status anxiety, a specific form of perceived competitiveness based on socioeconomic status. Moreover, preliminary evidence of an indirect effect was found from PEI to personal status anxiety, through perceived contextual status anxiety. These preliminary findings provide experimental evidence for the effects of economic inequality on status anxiety and the mechanism involved. Economic inequality makes people feel that they live in a society where they are constantly concerned and competing with each other for their SES. These results could have important implications as health and wellbeing could be promoted by reducing economic inequalities and the competitive and materialistic environments of our societies. (shrink)

The concept of authority crosses many social sciences, but there is a lack of common taxonomy and definitions on this topic. The aims of this review are: to define the basic characteristics of the authority relationship, reaching a definition suitable for the different domains of social psychology and social sciences; to bridge the gap between individual and societal levels of explanation concerning the authority relationship, by proposing an interpretation within the framework of social representations. The authority relationship can be conceived (...) as a negotiation of meanings and it is closely linked to shared value orientation and the attribution of meanings negotiated within a society. We assume that the authority relationship is socially constructed and represents both a shared representation of society and a normative principle of social life. A multidisciplinary approach is adopted, crossing definitions and studies provided in sociology, political science, law and social psychology. (shrink)