The Second World War offered an excellent opportunity for some U.S. think tanks to influence foreign-policy-making processes and get involved in transatlantic diplomacy. This study seeks to demonstrate that the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) challenged the stalemate between the U.S. and French authorities by gathering together U.S. experts and non-collaborationist French leaders. A first-hand reconstruction of this informal network is based on the unreleased Peace Aims Group’s records. This was a unique CFR exchange programme for European governments-in-exile’s representatives. In (...) the first part, a general reconstruction of Council on Foreign Relations’ planning introduces an original assessment of the meetings with some prominent French intellectuals and politicians. It is argued that these conferences can be interpreted as rare examples of wartime public diplomacy. The second part discloses new historical evidence demonstrating the participation of Jean Monnet in a Peace Aims session. This discovery proves the existence of a long-term partnership between one of the key protagonists of the European integration process and the most authoritative foreign-policy think tank working for the Roosevelt administration. Overall, the analysis of Peace Aims Group’s off-the-record discussions sheds new light on the WWII transatlantic debate on postwar Europe and France. (shrink)

This anthology contains selected papers from the 'Science as Culture' conference held at Lake Como, and Pavia University Italy, 15-19 September 1999. The conference, attended by about 220 individuals from thirty countries, was a joint venture of the International History, Philosophy and Science Teaching Group (its fifth conference) and the History of Physics and Physics Teaching Division of the European Physical Society (its eighth conference). The magnificient Villa Olmo, on the lakeshore, provided a memorable location for the presentors of the (...) 160 papers and the audience that discussed them. The conference was part of local celebrations of the bicentenary of Alessandro Volta's creation of the battery in 1799. Volta was born in Como in 1745, and for forty years from 1778 he was professor of experimental physics at Pavia University. The conference was fortunate to have had the generous financial support of the Italian government's Volta Bicentenary Fund, Lombardy region, Pavia University, Italian Research Council, and Kluwer Academic Publishers. The papers included here, have or will be, published in the journal Science & Education, the inaugural volume (1992) of which was a landmark in the history of science education publication, because it was the first journal in the field devoted to contributions from historical, philosophical and sociological scholarship. Clearly these 'foundational' disciplines inform numerous theoretical, curricular and pedagogical debates in science education. Contemporary Concerns The reseach promoted by the International and European Groups, and by the journal, is central to science education programmes in most areas of the world. (shrink)

Television series seem to be made of images and sounds just like films, but Luca Bandirali and Enrico Terrone suggest an alternate framework for understanding television series: as concepts whereby narratives made of images and sounds can be constructed.

Emotionally arousing events may disrupt the ability to bind together different features of items to their context; this holds true both for spatial binding and temporal binding. Nonetheless, memory for emotional events may be enhanced in certain situations. A key factor that might explain the memory–emotion relation is represented by individual differences in cognition. The present study investigated temporal binding for neutral and negative events in a group of 50 undergraduate students, focusing on the role of individual differences in working (...) memory. Temporal binding was assessed with sorting accuracy of various pictorial scripted events, 24 h after encoding. Results showed that higher backward digit span predicted higher binding accuracy; importantly, this was qualified by the interaction with valence, such that higher backward digit span predicted better performance for negative, but not neutral, events. It is concluded that working memory facilitates binding of emotional events to their temporal context during encoding, creating a strong representation, and favouring later retrieval of such bound representations. (shrink)

Molecular interactions are at the origin of life. How molecules get at different locations in the cell and how they locate their partners is a major and partially unresolved question in biology that is paramount to signaling. Spatio‐temporal correlations of fluctuating fluorescently tagged molecules reveal how they move, interact, and bind in the different cellular compartments. Methods based on fluctuations represent a remarkable technical advancement in biological imaging. Here we discuss image analysis methods based on spatial and temporal correlation of (...) fluctuations, raster image correlation spectroscopy, number and brightness, and spatial cross‐correlations that give us information about how individual molecules move in cells and interact with partners at the single molecule level. These methods can be implemented with a standard laser scanning microscope and produce a cellular level spatio‐temporal map of molecular interactions. (shrink)

The presence of Persian sources in Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra has been a topic of debate for decades. This paper summarizes the main results of a comparative study of Nietzsche and the ancient Persian scripture Avestā. In addition to several secondary sources Nietzsche repeatedly encountered, there is strong evidence that he read Johann Friedrich Kleuker’s German translation of the Avestā texts reconstructed by Abraham Hyacinthe Anquetil-Duperron. Analyzing Nietzsche’s diverse sources of Zoroastrianism as well as his knowledge of this religion, this (...) paper shows that many metaphors, references and claims in both Thus Spoke Zarathustra and in Nietzsche’s notebooks can be traced back to Zoroastrianism. Taking these sources into consideration contributes significantly to our understanding of one of Nietzsche’s major works. (shrink)

Enrico Berti has had a profound influence on the birth and development of Italian studies in ancient philosophy. His sizable work has shaped a great part of Italian studies on Aristotle and other ancient philosophers. To celebrate him and express their gratitude for his work, some of his disciples, under the impulse of the late Franco Volpi, have brought together a volume in his honour, requesting the participation of some foreign scholars particularly close to him. The volume comprises essays (...) by Pierre Aubenque, Jonathan Barnes, Terence H. Irwin, Tomás Calvo-Martínez, Jaap Mansfeld, Pierre Pellegrin, Gerhard Seel and Alejandro G. Vigo. The main themes are Aristotle's metaphysics and practical philosophy. A Selected Bibliography by E. Berti himself completes the volume."--Publisher's website. (shrink)

Numenius is an author who straddles the line between Middle Platonism and Neoplatonism. In this contribution, I focus on the differences between the second and the third God, which emerge from analyses of the relevant fragments. Numenius emphasizes, on several occasions, how the second God (i.e., the demiurge) has a dual nature. In this paper, I investigate the role of the demiurge in Numenius and examine in what sense the second and third God are “one.” On the one hand, Numenius (...) seems to be stressing the unity of the second and third levels of reality, but on the other hand, he also appears to be differentiating them. The present analyses concentrate on fragments 19F, 24F, 29T and 30T (respectively 11, 16, 21, and 22 in des Places’ edition). My purpose is to demonstrate that, according to Numenius, the second and the third God are one because they both can be regarded as demiurgic. Thus, Numenius conceives a kind of “double demiurgy,” which preserves the distinction between the second and the third God, who are distinguished from an ontological point of view, but who, at the same time, share a demiurgic function. The second God is then the paradigm, whereas the third God is immanent in matter as a ruling principle of the cosmos, which is similar to the World Soul, as he operates on matter in order to make it rationally ordered. (shrink)

. “The Notebook Corner,” edited by Enrico Pattaro, makes its first appearance here as a new section of Ratio Juris. This new section can be described in a sense as an offshoot of the project for A Treatise of Legal Philosophy and General Jurisprudence, a work still in progress composed of five theoretical volumes and six historical ones. The theoretical volumes receive a brief presentation in the paper immediately below, with a specific focus on Volume 1, entitled The Law (...) and the Right: A Reappraisal of the Reality That Ought to Be. This volume is then discussed as well by Rosaria Conte and Cristiano Castelfronchi in the second paper of this “Notebook Corner”. (shrink)

The idea of an ?inversion principle?, and the name itself, originated in the work of Paul Lorenzen in the 1950s, as a method to generate new admissible rules within a certain syntactic context. Some fifteen years later, the idea was taken up by Dag Prawitz to devise a strategy of normalization for natural deduction calculi (this being an analogue of Gentzen's cut-elimination theorem for sequent calculi). Later, Prawitz used the inversion principle again, attributing it with a semantic role. Still working (...) in natural deduction calculi, he formulated a general type of schematic introduction rules to be matched ? thanks to the idea supporting the inversion principle ? by a corresponding general schematic Elimination rule. This was an attempt to provide a solution to the problem suggested by the often quoted note of Gentzen. According to Gentzen ?it should be possible to display the elimination rules as unique functions of the corresponding introduction rules on the basis of certain requirements?. Many people have since worked on this topic, which can be appropriately seen as the birthplace of what are now referred to as ?general elimination rules?, recently studied thoroughly by Sara Negri and Jan von Plato. In this study, we retrace the main threads of this chapter of proof-theoretical investigation, using Lorenzen's original framework as a general guide. (shrink)

In Categories 12 (14b11–22), Aristotle famously claims that [1] true sentences and reality stand in a mutually implicative relationship, and that [2] reality causes the truth of sentences but not vice versa. In this paper, I first argue that Boethius’ reading of the above passage led medieval logicians to assess [1] and [2] within the framework of a theory of consequence. Then, I consider two important questions raised by Boethius and later logicians in relation to [1] and [2], and, namely, (...) whether the implication described in [1] really satisfies the requirement for consequence, and whether the truthmaking relation posited in [2] can be boiled down to the relation of consequence. Boethius himself, I argue, answered affirmatively to both questions and thus (much like some contemporary truthmaker theorists) committed himself to an account of truthmaking as entailment. I then consider criticisms to Boethius’ account found in the writings of William of Champeaux, two anonymous authors connected to the school of Jocelyn of Soissons, Peter Abelard, and the author of the Ars Meliduna. Here, I argue that the emergence of a concern for relevance drives the need for abandoning Boethius’ account as well as his conception of truthmaking as entailment. (shrink)

This paper considers two issues raised by the claim that fictional characters are abstract artifacts. First, given that artifacts normally have functions, what is the function of a fictional character? Second, given that, in experiencing works of fictions, we usually treat fictional characters as concrete individuals, how can such a phenomenology fit with an ontology according to which fictional characters are abstract artifacts? I will indirectly address the second issue by directly addressing the first one. For this purpose, I will (...) rely on the notion of a mental file. I will argue that the function of fictional characters is the generation of mental files of a special kind. I will show that our experience of fictional characters as concrete individuals depends on the kind of mental files that are generated by fictional characters as abstract artifacts. I will conclude that an appreciator of a work of fiction can open two files about a certain fictional character; one about the character as an individual in the fictional world, and the other about the character as an abstract artifact in the actual world. In this sense, our relation to a fictional character is characterized by a duality of files or ‘twofileness’. (shrink)

In section 1 we argue that the adoption of a tenseless notion of truth entails a realistic view of propositions and provability. This view, in turn, opens the way to the intelligibility of theclassical meaning of the logical constants, and consequently is incompatible with the antirealism of orthodox intuitionism. In section 2 we show how what we call the potential intuitionistic meaning of the logical constants can be defined, on the one hand, by means of the notion of atemporal provability (...) and, on the other, by means of the operator K of epistemic logic. Intuitionistic logic, as reconstructed within this perspective, turns out to be a part of epistemic logic, so that it loses its traditional foundational role, antithetic to that of classical logic. In section 3 we uphold the view that certain consequences of the adoption of atemporal notion of truth, despite their apparent oddity, are quite acceptable from an antirealist point of view. (shrink)

v. 1. Demoniaco e problema del male. Umanesimo e pensiero simbolico. Tempo e temporalità -- v. 2. Ermeneutica e demitizzazione. Storia della filosofia. Filosofia della religione.

In this paper I set out to read Hägerström through his own eyes, adhering to the terminology he uses in his own original work and attempting to make sense of the variance and uniformity alike that one finds in his linguistic usage. The translations we have of Hägerström's works are quite liberal, using the same word in English where the original uses different ones, and, vice versa, using different words in English where the original uses a single one in different (...) contexts. These misleading translations of Hägerström have contributed in some measure to Hägerström's reputation for obscurity. Further, and most importantly, I will take seriously what Hägerström says about his own thought, namely, that it is dependent on that of Kant and independent of the currents of thought contemporary with Hägerström. In Section 1, I will briefly take up the problem of consciousness that Hägerström proceeds from, and will recall something that Bertrand Russell once said, in 1928, in regard to the revolt staged in the early 20th century in Europe against German idealism. In Sections 2 and 4.1, I will instead take up Kant for the purpose of clarifying Hägerström's theory of judgment as treated in Section 3. In Section 4.2, I will illustrate the difference between the notions of nothing, R-reality, and W-reality in Hägerström. In Sections 5 and 6, I will examine the analysis that Hägerström offers of the principle of contradiction, and will summarize the three types of judgment he singled out, including the type he called impossible judgment. In Section 7, I will consider Hägerström views as grounding, in a transcendental way, the presupposition of the primacy of the external spatio-temporal world, a world independent of our representations: I will consider in particular the W-real complexes that are merely represented, as well as the spatio-temporal world as the only W-real complex that is not merely represented. Finally, in Section 8, I will briefly consider some of those who have commented and translated Hägerström, this to conclude that R-reality and W-reality are coextensive but not synonymous. (shrink)

This paper develops Richard Wollheim’s claim that the proper appreciation of a picture involves not only enjoying a seeing-in experience but also abiding by a standard of correctness. While scholars have so far focused on what fixes the standard, thereby discussing the alternative between intentions and causal mechanisms, the paper focuses on what the standard does, that is, establishing which kinds, individuals, features and standpoints are relevant to the understanding of pictures. It is argued that, while standards concerning kinds, individuals (...) and features can be relevant also to ordinary perception, standards concerning standpoints are specific to pictorial experience. Drawing on all this, the paper proposes an ontology of depiction according to which a picture is constituted by both its visual appearance and its standard of correctness. (shrink)

I. In analytic philosophy, so-called 'univocalism' is the prevailing interpretation of the meaning of terms such as 'being' or 'existence', i.e. the thesis that these terms have only one meaning (see Russell, White, Quine, van Inwagen). But some analytical philosophers, inspired by Aristotle, maintain that 'being' has many senses (Austin, Ryle). II. Aristotle develops an argument in favour of this last thesis, observing that 'being' and 'one' cannot be a single genus, because they are predicated of their differences (Metaph. B (...) 3). III. But 'being' for Aristotle has also a unity, i.e. 'focal meaning', which coincides with substance (Metaph. Γ 2), and substance has not only an ontological priority, but also a logical priority, in respect to the other beings, as was shown by G. E. L. Owen. IV. This 'focal meaning' cannot be identified with primary substance, i.e. with the unmovable mover, as some interpreters pretend, because this latter has only an ontological, not a logical, priority in respect to the world. V. The impossibility of this interpretation results from Aristotle's rejection of an essence and a substance of being (Metaph. B 4), i.e. the rejection of what the Christian philosophers called esse ipsum subsistens. (shrink)

Regardless of whether one agrees or disagrees with Stacie Friend’s claim that fiction is a genre, her notion of genre can be fruitfully applied to a paradigmatic genre such as science fiction. This article deploys Friend’s notion of genre in order to improve the influential characterization of science fiction proposed by Darko Suvin and to defend it from a criticism recently raised by Simon Evnine. According to Suvin, a work of science fiction must concern “a fictional ‘novum’ validated by cognitive (...) logic.” While Suvin conceives of his characterization as a necessary and sufficient condition for membership in the genre, I propose to cast the notions of “fictional novum” and “cognitive validation” as standard features of the genre, which works of science fiction should have but might lack. I argue that this amended version of Suvin’s characterization can better account for two basic properties of science fiction as a genre, namely its historicity and its relevance to appreciation. Lastly, I show that the amended version can shed some light on the affinity between works of science fiction and philosophical thought experiments. (shrink)

Moving from a cinematic reinterpretation of Borges’s Library of Babel, I attempt to provide a new answer to the old ontological question: “What kind of being is a film?”. This answer, which takes into account the coming of digital era, is developed through a comparison with Carroll’s philosophy of motion pictures. While discussing, criticizing and trying to complete his theory, I will examine the concept of a film under four different aspects: as a material object, as an ideal object, as (...) a mental object, and as a social object. Finally, our ontology of film will be applied to clarify some traditional theoretical dualisms: i.e. film vs. reality, film vs. narration, film vs. discourse, film vs. art. (shrink)

I rely on Frascolla's interpretation of the Tractatus ontology to develop an account of depiction in which a picture is conceived of as a visual structure constituted by pixels that are conceived of, in their turn, as elementary propositions. Then I argue that such an account is complementary to the considerations about «noticing aspects» in the Philosophical Investigations, to the extent that the visual structure constituted by pixels provides a design allowing the picture’s viewer to notice aspects. Finally I argue (...) that a joint reading of the considerations about pictures in the Tractatus and in the Philosophical Investigations allows us to address some important issues in the contemporary philosophical debate about depiction. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Italian historiographers of the second half of the seventeenth century often establish parallels between early modern republics, comparing Genoa and Venice with the United Provinces, considered as similar political entities despite their evident political differences. The article, taking into account four different sources, investigates the meaning of those comparisons, published when the absolutist model was taking root all around Europe. In the twilight of the republican state, when the power and reputation of the Italian republics was maybe at its (...) weakest, those comparisons served both as a way to boost a supranational republican identity, and to question the strength of the classical republican constitution. This survey explores how these authors claim that, in order to survive in the Europe of absolute monarchies, those republics have to undergo a radical political change. Only by avoiding splitting the sovereignty among too many subjects, and reinforcing the monarchical element in their constitution, these republican states, no more based on the principle of equality, could compete in the new seventeenth-century political scenario. For this reason, Italian authors looked with great interest, and often celebrated the Dutch republic, considered a stronger government than that of Venice, even if it was regarded as an imperfect republic. (shrink)

In the first decades of the twentieth century, many philosophers and philosophical movements attempted to make philosophy scientific by analogy with science. Such attempts vary with respect to the strategies adopted for implementing the analogy. In this article, I single out the specificity of logical empiricism’s strategy, by comparing it to some of its most relevant contemporary scientific philosophies, such as Russell’s method of analysis, Husserl’s phenomenology, neo-Kantianism, and American pragmatism. Logical empiricism sees philosophy as continuous with science, by reducing (...) the problems of philosophy to problems in mathematical logic. The other scientific philosophies postulate a specificity of philosophy, by maintaining a special domain for it and also a specific methodology, while requiring this methodology to be scientific in a manner analogous to the general method of the special sciences. I argue that this distinction helps to revise and possibly to settle some of the debates concerning our understanding of both the genealogy and the development of the movement, such as the conjectural derivation of its scientific philosophy from Russell’s analytic philosophy or from a special brand of Austrian philosophy and the complex relationship with its German and American contemporaries. (shrink)