Theabstract variable binding calculus (VB-calculus) provides a formal frame-work encompassing such diverse variable-binding phenomena as lambda abstraction, Riemann integration, existential and universal quantification (in both classical and nonclassical logic), and various notions of generalized quantification that have been studied in abstract model theory. All axioms of the VB-calculus are in the form of equations, but like the lambda calculus it is not a true equational theory since substitution of terms for variables is restricted. A similar problem with the standard formalism (...) of the first-order predicate logic led to the development of the theory of cylindric and polyadic Boolean algebras. We take the same course here and introduce the variety of polyadic VB-algebras as a pure equational form of the VB-calculus. In one of the main results of the paper we show that every locally finite polyadic VB-algebra of infinite dimension is isomorphic to a functional polyadic VB-algebra that is obtained from a model of the VB-calculus by a natural coordinatization process. This theorem is a generalization of the functional representation theorem for polyadic Boolean algebras given by P. Halmos. As an application of this theorem we present a strong completeness theorem for the VB-calculus. More precisely, we prove that, for every VB-theory T that is obtained by adjoining new equations to the axioms of the VB-calculus, there exists a model D such that T s=t iff D s=t. This result specializes to a completeness theorem for a number of familiar systems that can be formalized as VB-calculi. For example, the lambda calculus, the classical first-order predicate calculus, the theory of the generalized quantifierexists uncountably many and a fragment of Riemann integration. (shrink)

This volume presents the results of the research PRIN project “Perception, performativity, and cognitive sciences”, which has been financed by MIUR over the three years period 2016–2019 and carried out by a team of academics: Antonino Pennisi, Vittorio Gallese, Ruggero Eugeni, Claudio Paolucci, Pietro Montani, Marco Mazzone, Franco Lo Piparo, Guglielmo Tamburrini. During 2017 Nunzio Allocca has joined the roman unity, while Marco Carapezza joined the unity of Palermo. All the news about the state of research and the scientific (...) initiatives involving our research group are available on the web and described in 2/2017 of “Reti Saperi Linguaggi. Italian Journal of Cognitive Sciences”. (shrink)

Franco Eugeni remembers Bruno Rizzi: in this brief introduction, I would like to remember an afternoon spent in “ Roma Tre ” with Bruno, since we were both Ordinary Professors at that University. We passed it doing a dense program of work for the next three years. At 6.00 pm, I left for “Roseto degli Abruzzi”. At six o'clock a.m. of the next morning, I still have the voice in my ears. A phone call from the Headmaster Ciro d'Aniello, (...) who told me " The Professor is dead" In that afternoon, Emilio Ambrisi and I went to Rome; we were stunned and desperate. Not many days later, a conference was held at the University of Teramo; it was the conference that we had prepared for Bruno, to celebrate his 60th birthday, but it was his memory. In the opening conference, Prof. Antonino Giambo, also fraternal friend of Bruno, burst into a tearful cry, which expressed in a moment, the senses of friendship and love that we all had for the missing friend! Starting from this work with Fabrizio Maturo, the study of some problems left open by the works of Eugeni and Rizzi will be investigated. Sunto Ricordo di Franco Eugeni su Bruno Rizzi: in questa brevissima introduzione vorrei ricordare un pomeriggio passato a Roma Tre con Bruno, visto che allora eravamo entrambi Professori Ordinari in quella Università. Lo passammo a fare un denso programma di lavoro per i successivi tre anni. Alle 18.00 ripartii per Roseto degli Abruzzi. Alle sei del mattino successivo, ho ancora la voce nelle orecchie, una telefonata del Preside Ciro d’Aniello, che mi diceva “ Il Professore è morto” Nel pomeriggio Emilio Ambrisi ed io ci recammo a Roma, eravamo attoniti e disperati. Non molti giorni dopo si tenne presso l’Università di Teramo un Convegno, era il Convegno che avevamo preparato per Bruno, per festeggiare i suoi 60 anni, fu invece il ricordo. Nella conferenza di apertura il prof. Antonino Giambò, anche lui, come noi, fraterno amico di Bruno, scoppiò in un pianto dirotto, che espresse in un attimo, i sensi dell’amicizia e dell’amore, che tutti noi avevamo per l’amico scomparso! A partire da questo lavoro con Fabrizio Maturo verrà approfondito lo studio di alcune problematiche rimaste aperte dai lavori di Eugeni e Rizzi. (shrink)

La teoría médica (humoral) que explicó la existencia de la melancolía permaneció inmutable desde su formulación hipocrático-galénica en la Antigüedad hasta bien entrada la Modernidad, pero su valoración social sufrió, en cambio, sucesivas transformaciones. El neoplatonismo florentino, con su postulación de la libertad humana como máxima dignidad del hombre y con su asociación entre genio y locura, permitió concebir la melancolía como un don deseable (y ya no sólo como una enfermedad producida por exceso de bilis negra en el cuerpo): (...) don en que se adivinó una estética característica y que tuvo simultáneas asociaciones con la teología, el amor, la estética, la ciencia y el arte. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Structure, Change, and Survival: A Response To Winthrop-youngFranco Moretti (bio)Geoffrey Winthrop-Young’s is the sort of review article one dreams of: long, intelligent, and very generous. So, first of all, thanks. And thanks also for the clarity with which disagreements are expressed. In the same spirit, here is a brief response.The first area of disagreement comes early in the article, when Winthrop-Young claims that in the Atlas, “the here and (...) now of a specific location suffers something akin to the fate of a Barthesian myth: its specificity is subordinated to a signifying function as part of an established narrative sequence. But as Moretti chooses not to address the question of how this transformation is achieved, his discussion tends to gloss over the differences between geographical, literary, and imaginary locations” [7]. Frankly, I don’t think this is true. I often do exactly what Winthrop-Young demands, using a sequence of maps to clarify the successive steps by which a geographical space ends up supporting a specific narrative strucure: see the Austen maps that open the book, or the picaresque sequence in the first chapter, or the Balzac and Dickens maps in the second chapter—where I also address the issue in conceptual terms in a section entitled “Stories of the Third.” It’s true that I don’t do so in every case (as perhaps I should), and Winthrop-Young may of course disagree with the way I chart the transformation of space into narrative, but he cannot deny that I am doing so. The fact that those maps compose sequences of increasing complexity (as is particularly clear for Austen and Our Mutual Friend) proves precisely that I am indeed mapping a “transformation” of relatively simple beginnings into a complicated final structure. Incidentally, I do something similar in Modern Epic, where I describe how Joyce’s stream of consciousness “grows” from rather slim paragraphs to the plump ones we read now, or follow the slow rise of Ulysses’s polyphony. Again: my theses may be wrong—but they are an attempt to follow the step-by-step structuration of a text (or genre). This, after all, is the basic test of critical materialism: if we cannot describe the how and the why of the various steps, we are implicitly invoking “creativity” as an explanation for literary products. Which is a bit like invoking God. But on the futility of this, Winthrop-Young and I probably agree.The second disagreement regards the tempo of literary history: does morphological change occur in brief bursts separated by long periods of stasis (as in Eldredge and Gould’s punctuated equilibria)—or is it more evenly distributed across time? Here, Winthrop-Young claims [36, fn 5] that my attempt to see Schwarz’s account of Brazilian modernism and the genesis of magic realism as a single instance of punctuated equilibria is contradicted by historical evidence. He is right. Years ago, I adopted punctuated equilibria because it proved better than any rival theory at explaining the peculiar rapidity of many literary turning points (baroque drama; the rise of the British novel; the modernist season of European literature). From this initial conviction, I was (unconsciously) led to generalize, and to treat every case of major morphological change as an instance of punctuated equilibria. This was silly, and Winthrop-Young is right in criticizing me. However, he would probably agree that a single (or even a few) contrary [End Page 41] instances do not invalidate a theory in its entirety, and that what we most need is to know more about how literary change occurs. Only after such an empirical reconnaissance will the testing of theories be on a truly sound basis. Personally, I wouldn’t be surprised if we discovered that literary change can occur in more than one way, and that we need more than one theory to account for it; still, all I know of literary history suggests that punctuated equilibria will be the theory with greatest explanatory power.The last disagreement concerns literary selection: specifically, whether my view of it is indeed Darwinian, or whether I Lamarck-like “transform the concept of selection from the traditional passive filter... (shrink)

Listening and Voice is an updated and expanded edition of Don Ihde's groundbreaking 1976 classic in the study of sound.

I investigate the extent to which there might be, now or in the future, non-human animals that partake in the kind of fully human-style consciousness that has been taken by many philosophers to be the basis of normative personhood. I first sketch a conceptual framework for considering the question, based on a range of philosophical literature on relationships between consciousness, language and personhood. I then review the standard basis for largely a priori skepticism about the possibility that any non-human animal (...) could experience FHSC and be a person to any extent, and indicate empirically motivated grounds for rejecting such skepticism, at least with respect to a select group of hypersocial candidate species with communication systems we do not currently know are not languages: corvids, parrots, elephants, and toothed whales. Relevant facts about elephants are reviewed in some detail, as a mini case study. While it is suggested that elephants might partake in the sort of consciousness characteristic of personhood to some extent, grounds are given for expecting that this extent is sharply limited by comparison with normal humans. As these grounds are mainly aspects of elephants’ external niche, however, rather than known limitations in their inboard cognitive or representational capacities, the surprising conclusion emerges that elephants might acquire FHSC, and thereby become persons, if they can be brought into conversation with humans, a possibility opened by considerations canvassed in the paper. (shrink)

What is Albert Einstein’s place in the history of twentieth-century philosophy of science? Were one to consult the histories produced at mid-century from within the Vienna Circle and allied movements (e.g., von Mises 1938, 1939, Kraft 1950, Reichenbach 1951), then one would find, for the most part, two points of emphasis. First, Einstein was rightly remembered as the developer of the special and general theories of relativity, theories which, through their challenge to both scientific and philosophical orthodoxy made vivid the (...) need for a new kind of empiricism (Schlick 1921) whereby one could defend the empirical integrity of the theory of relativity against challenges 1 coming mainly from the defenders of Kant. Second, the special and general theories of relativity were wrongly cited as straightforwardly validating central tenets of the logical empiricist program, such as verificationism, and Einstein was wrongly represented as having, himself, explicitly endorsed those same philosophical principles. As we now know, logical empiricism was not the monolithic philosophical movement it was once taken to have been. Those associated with the movement disagreed deeply about fundamental issues concerning the structure and interpretation of scientific theories, as in the protocol sentence debate, and about the overall aims of the movement, as in the debate between the left and right wings 2 of the Vienna Circle over the role of politics in science and philosophy. Along with such differences went subtle differences in the assessment of Einstein’s legacy to logical empiricism. Philipp Frank–himself a dissenter from central points of right-wing Vienna Circle doctrine–deserves.. (shrink)

English summary: The Spitzer Manuscript is one of the oldest Sanskrit manuscripts found on the Silk Road. The work preserved in it is unique; no further manuscripts of it have been discovered so far, nor is it transmitted in Tibetan or Chinese translations. The present volume contains an introduction which summarizes previous research and discusses grammatical, lexical and palaeographical aspects of the work, together with an outline of its content. It is followed by a complete facsimile edition of the fragments (...) accompanied by transliterations. These are supplemented by transcriptions of some fragments which are no longer available, recovered from the estate of the Indologist Dr. Moritz Spitzer. A concordance juxtaposes the earlier and present-day arrangements of the fragments, and an extensive character table documents the peculiarities of the Ku'a'a-Brahma script used in the manuscript. A complete word index and a study which aims at reconstructing the last part of the manuscript conclude the volume. As well as Buddhist scholastics the work also deals with a number of non-Buddhist topics, such as a theory of Vaise'ika qualities completely unknown from other sources it contains, inter alia, the oldest list of books of the Mahabharata and an enumeration of the sixty-four arts and sciences. The last part of the work is devoted to dialectics. German description: Das Spitzer-Manuskript ist eine der altesten Sanskrithandschriften, die an der Seidenstrasse gefunden wurde. Das in ihm erhaltene Werk ist ein Unikum; bis jetzt wurden keine weiteren Manuskripte dieses Werkes entdeckt und es ist auch nicht in tibetischer oder chinesischer Ubersetzung uberliefert. Der vorliegende Band enthalt eine Einleitung, die den Forschungsstand zusammenfasst, grammatische, lexikalische und palaographische Aspekte des Werks diskutiert und eine Inhaltsubersicht bietet. \nHierauf folgt eine vollstandige Faksimileausgabe der Fragmente zusammen mit ihren Transliterationen. Diese werden erganzt durch Transkriptionen einiger verloren gegangener Fragmente, die dem Nachlass des Indologen Dr. Moritz Spitzer entnommen wurden. Eine Konkordanz stellt die heutige und fruhere Anordnung der Fragmente gegenuber; eine ausfuhrliche Zeichentabelle dokumentiert die Besonderheiten der Ku'a'a-Brahma -Schrift des Manuskripts. Ein vollstandiger Wortindex und eine Studie, die die Rekonstruktion des letzten Teils des Manuskripts zum Ziel hat, beschliessen den Band. Neben Themen der buddhistischen Scholastik behandelt das Werk auch eine Zahl nicht-buddhistischer Themen, wie eine Vaise'ika-Theorie der Eigenschaften, die aus anderen Quellen nicht bekannt ist; ferner enthalt es u. a. die alteste Liste der Bucher des Mahabharata und eine Aufzahlung der vierundsechzig Kunste und Wissenschaften. Der letzte Teil des Werkes ist der Dialektik gewidmet. (shrink)

We consider the potential contribution of economics to an interdisciplinary research partnership between sociology and neuroscience. We correct a misunderstanding in previous literature over the understanding of humans as ‘social animals’, which has in turn led to misidentification of the potential relevance of game theory and the economics of networks to the social neuroscience project. Specifically, it has been suggested that these can be used to model mindreading. We argue that mindreading is at best a derivative and special basis for (...) social coordination, whereas the general and pervasive phenomenon on which it depends is mindshaping. We then outline the foundations of Conditional Game Theory as a mathematical model of mindshaping, which extends game theory without displacing its classic solution concepts, and which exploits economists’ experience in modeling networks. (shrink)

There are three questions associated with Simpson’s paradox (SP): (i) Why is SP paradoxical? (ii) What conditions generate SP? and (iii) How to proceed when confronted with SP? An adequate analysis of the paradox starts by distinguishing these three questions. Then, by developing a formal account of SP, and substantiating it with a counterexample to causal accounts, we argue that there are no causal factors at play in answering questions (i) and (ii). Causality enters only in connection with action.

"Fortini/Cani" presents Fortini reading excerpts from his book, focusing on his alienation from Judaism and social relations, the rise of fascism in Italy, and the anti-Arab attitude of European culture. The Italian landscape provides a backdrop that highlights the meaning of the text.

This book explores and offers solutions to a range of conceptual and philosophical problems that underlie attempts to understand metaphor processing in the context of cognitive science. The author vigorously criticizes the prevailing philosophical prejudice against traditional «comparison» theories of metaphor, arguing that the problems with the comparison theory are exciting problems that demand solutions, rather than grounds for rejecting the theory itself. Furthermore, it is through these problems that the study of metaphor processing is linked to wider issues in (...) cognitive science, including disputes about computational architectures and neural mechanisms. (shrink)

In this exciting new study, Don Dombowsky proposes that the foundation of Nietzsche's political thought is the aristocratic liberal critique of democratic society. But he claims that Nietzsche radicalizes this critique through a Machiavellian conversion, based on a reading of The Prince , adapting Machiavellian virtbliog— (the shaping capacity of the legislator), and immoralism (the techniques applied in political rule), and that, consequently, Nietzsche is better understood in relation to the political ideology of the neo-Machiavellian elite theorists of his own (...) generation. (shrink)

An assessment of Dennett's philosophy by various philosophers. Includes Dennett's responses.