Most epistemologists hold that knowledge entails belief. However, proponents of this claim rarely offer a positive argument in support of it. Rather, they tend to treat the view as obvious and assert that there are no convincing counterexamples. We find this strategy to be problematic. We do not find the standard view obvious, and moreover, we think there are cases in which it is intuitively plausible that a subject knows some proposition P without—or at least without determinately—believing that P. Accordingly, (...) we present five plausible examples of knowledge without (determinate) belief, and we present empirical evidence suggesting that our intuitions about these scenarios are not atypical. (shrink)

Our usual method" is an expression that Aristotle uses in a passage of the Politics (I.1, 1252a17-20) to describe the technique of subdividing a composite object of study into the elements that make it up, in order to study the possible combinations. What theory is the basis for this method? Is it really a usual method for Aristotle? Enrico Rini responds to these questions, starting with the analysis of some passages of the Aristotelian corpus that refer to concepts of (...) the part and the whole. From these passages, Rini attempts to extrapolate a theory that Aristotle states explicitly only on occasion. The mereology that emerges from this study is not a formal theory, unlike the logical mereology present today, and therefore takes into account different types of the whole and the part, with a scope that has applications for the field of biology. (shrink)

The integration of standardized biomedical terminologies into a single, unified knowledge representation system has formed a key area of applied informatics research in recent years. The Unified Medical Language System (UMLS) is the most advanced and most prominent effort in this direction, bringing together within its Metathesaurus a large number of distinct source-terminologies. The UMLS Semantic Network, which is designed to support the integration of these source-terminologies, has proved to be a highly successful combination of formal coherence and broad scope. (...) We argue here, however, that its organization manifests certain structural problems, and we describe revisions which we believe are needed if the network is to be maximally successful in realizing its goals of supporting terminology integration. (shrink)

This paper deals with the recent policies introduced in Brazil in order to foster a public interest towards science. Persuasive messages and strategies aiming at increasing a public awareness of the importance of scientific literacy for the development of the country are introduced at different levels and targeting different kinds of publics. These policies are analysed in view of classical models of social influence and persuasion.

Vanity and pride have been condemned by Christian thinkers for centuries. Therefore, it may seem curious that Paul-Henri Thiry, Baron d’Holbach, one of the fiercest critics of religion, decried these passions. Holbach’s work is interspersed with remarks about vanity and pride which have gone unnoticed in the literature. This chapter analyzes Holbach’s account of vanity, delving into the role it plays in the establishment and maintenance of religion. I show that the desire for prestige is at the very core of (...) religious practices, which aim to justify the alleged superiority of man over nature. Holbach’s well-known critique of religion, therefore, cannot be fully understood without reference to his lesser known account of vanity and pride. The study of these passions is also essential to grasping Holbach’s conception of philosophy and how the philosophe should be: an individual free from prejudices, who has abandoned every trace of vanity in order to move forward in their journey towards the truth. (shrink)

The World Health Organization has published a global priority list of antibiotic-resistant bacteria to guide research and development of new antibiotics. Every pathogen on this list requires R&D activity, but some are more attractive for private sector investments, as evidenced by the current antibacterial pipeline. A “pipeline coordinator” is a governmental/non-profit organization that closely tracks the antibacterial pipeline and actively supports R&D across all priority pathogens employing new financing tools.

The present paper argues that, despite appearance to the contrary, Kierkegaard’s writings offer promising argumentational resources for addressing the problem of evil. According to Kierkegaard, however, in order to make use of these resources at all, one must necessarily be willing to shift the battleground, so to speak: from a third- to a genuine first-person perspective, namely the perspective of what Climacus dubs Religiousness A. All (yet also only) those who seek deliberate self-annihilation before God—a God in relation to whom (...) they perceive themselves always in the wrong—shall discover the ideal that an unwavering and in fact unconditional thankfulness (namely, for being forgiven) is to be considered the only appropriate attitude towards God and as such both necessary and sufficient for coming to terms with evil and suffering, at least in the life of someone making that discovery. I will argue that Kierkegaard’s (non-)pseudonymous writings provide reasons, at times unwittingly, for adopting the perspective of Religiousness A; however, I will also and ultimately argue that the principle of infinite thankfulness as a corollary of that perspective flounders when it comes to making sense of (the eschatological implications of) the suffering of others. (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)

In the first part of this paper, published in issue 1 of Augustinianum 63 (2023), 9-45, we examined the question of whether Irenaeus of Lyons depended on the Exposition of Logia about the Lord of Papias of Hierapolis. In this second and final part we focus on the way Irenaeus used information which, since the first decades of the second century, had been attributed to presbyters of Asia and then in particular on the way he identifies the succession of presbyters (...) with that of bishops (primarily in Rome). He links the latter with Christian origins but also profoundly alters the function traditionally attributed to the presbyters themselves, within a system he devised in order to respond to urgent problems, in a context quite different from the era in which the traditions to which he appeals were born. (shrink)

This book addresses a seemingly marginal and as yet sparsely discussed policy problem that turns out to open a window into longstanding debates at the very heart of normative ethics, metaethics, and practical rationality more broadly: Should we contact the last uncontacted peoples? Over the course of this book, I will explore grounds for three responses to this question: yes, no, and rejecting the question. First, I aim to show that even though the case of uncontacted people stirs up some (...) hard problems for theories of justice and well-being, they still warrant a presumption in favour of intervention: It seems that we would have similar duties towards uncontacted people as we are regularly taken to have towards contacted people similarly placed – if being contacted would be good for them. And it looks as though it would be, based on considerations of welfare more broadly and reasons of autonomy in particular. Still, intuitively there seems to be a strong presumption against intervention – or so widely accepted policies of non-intervention would suggest. I go on to explore two options for why intervention may be wrong overall: It may turn out to be harmful or impermissibly risky upon closer inspection of contingent circumstances; or it may be that extinguishing uncontacted cultures is bad independently of the interests of those living in them. Two further options challenge the viability of the question: I consider whether the case of uncontacted peoples undermines the very bases of our moral judgments, perhaps instantiating what Bernard Williams sought to capture with the idea of a relativism of distance. Lastly, I address whether the question of one’s self-interest in this matter challenges practical rationality more fundamentally by being a transformative choice or one between incomparable options. (shrink)

Statements about the behavior of biochemical entities (e.g., about the interaction between two proteins) abound in the literature on molecular biology and are increasingly becoming the targets of information extraction and text mining techniques. We show that an accurate analysis of the semantics of such statements reveals a number of ambiguities that have to be taken into account in the practice of biomedical ontology engineering: Such statements can not only be understood as event reporting statements, but also as ascriptions of (...) dispositions or tendencies that may or may not refer to collectives of interacting molecules or even to collectives of interaction events. (shrink)

Il volume affronta i complessi problemi sollevati dalla musica a studiosi, critici, filosofi, e che riguardano cio che ruota attorno a questa arte dalle molteplici facce. Punto chiave della riflessione sono le avanguardie del Novecento, poiché le sue profonde trasformazioni mettono a nudo ed evidenziano, a volte in modo drammatico, gli interrogativi di fondo a cui la musica ci ha sempre posto di fronte. Il tema centrale è il rapporto tra una supposta universalità dell'esperienza musicale in senso lato e la (...) sua innegabile storicità, tema su cui si dibatte nel pensiero occidentale sin dai tempi di Pitagora. Pur essendo un linguaggio chiuso nella sua specificita, la musica ci spinge di continuo ad andare oltre: allude sempre a qualcosa che sta al di fuori dei suoni stessi e ci invita a esplorare i luoghi a cui segretamente tende"--Back cover. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that Rawlsians have largely misunderstood the idea of an overlapping consensus of reasonable comprehensive doctrines, thereby failing to delineate in an appropriate way the place of comprehensive doctrines in political liberalism. My argument rests on two core claims. The first claim is that (i) political liberalism is committed to three theses about the overlapping consensus. The first thesis concerns the subject of the overlapping consensus; the second thesis concerns the function of the overlapping consensus; the (...) third thesis explains how the overlapping consensus can serve its function in accordance with political liberalism’s commitment to epistemic neutrality. The second claim on which my argument relies is empirical: (ii) Rawlsians typically deny at least one of the three theses to which political liberalism is committed. Based on (i) and (ii), I conclude that Rawlsians have hitherto provided unconvincing accounts of the place of comprehensive doctrines in political liberalism. (shrink)

Over the past two decades, virtue ethicists have begun to devote increasing attention to applied ethics. In particular, the application of virtue ethical frameworks to the environmental ethics debate has flourished. This chapter reviews recent contributions to the literature in this field and highlights some strengths and weaknesses of thinking about climate change through a virtue ethical lens. Section “Two Benefits of Virtue Ethical Approaches to Climate Change” explores two benefits of applying virtue ethics to climate change: (a) we can (...) better capture the phenomenology of our moral experience, and (b) we avoid the problem of inconsequentialism. Section “A Catalogue of Environmental Virtues” analyzes various practical proposals that have been put forward in the form of specific environmental virtues. Section “An Objection to Virtue-Oriented Approaches to Climate Change” reconstructs a fundamental objection to the idea of using a virtue ethical normative approach to tackling the urgent and imminent dangers of climate change. (shrink)

The pressures that led to the evolution of episodic memory have recently seen much discussion, but a fully satisfactory account of them is still lacking. We seek to make progress in this debate by taking a step backward, identifying four possible ways that episodic memory could evolve in relation to simulationist future planning—a similar and seemingly related ability. After distinguishing each of these possibilities, the paper critically discusses existing accounts of the evolution of episodic memory. It then presents a novel (...) argument in favor of the view that episodic memory is a by-product of the evolution of simulationist future planning. The paper ends by showing that this position allows for the maintenance of the traditional view that episodic memory operates on stored memory traces, as well as explaining a number of key features of episodic memory: its being subject to frequent and systematic errors, its neural co-location with the capacity for simulationist future planning, and the potential existence of non-human episodic memory. (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)

This article examines how theology and social science can contribute to the specific task of talking about God in management without compromising the integrity of the Triune God. To talk about God in management studies initially requires a discussion on the character of modernity and about whether modernity is absence or transformation of religious forms; to follow is an examination of the governing assumptions operating in social theory from a religious perspective. The conclusion is that without the correct hermeneutics, what (...) management scholars mean by God cannot be more than an idea. (shrink)

'Io poi ho sempre pensato--scrive Henri Matisse nel 1935--che gran parte della bellezza di un quadro derivi dalla lotta impegnata dall'artista con i limiti del suo mezzo espressivo.'" Le sue parole riassumono bene il tema di questo libro, la lotta dell'artista con la materia dell'arte, dunque il ruolo fondamentale della costruzione concreta dell'arte rispetto all'idea. L'opera d'arte--una composizione, un romanzo, un dipinto, una scultura, un film--è il risultato di un atto intellettuale consapevole--dunque di un'idea--dove tuttavia entra in gioco l'azione concreta, (...) materiale del fare artistico, che inevitabilmente pervade e condiziona l'opera fin dal momento in cui essa inizia a prendere forma sul pentagramma, sulle righe, sulla tela, sulla pellicola. L'immagine iniziale o idea può mantenere inalterata la sua forza oppure trasformarsi nel corso del lavoro, ma il più delle volte serve soprattutto da stimolo, perché a poco a poco--come scrive Italo Calvino--la materia resta padrona del campo e offre il suo prezioso, indispensabile alimento all'immaginazione. È solo mentre si scrive o dipinge che la fantasia dona i suoi frutti, in astratto la materia è ancora troppo lontana per suggerire combinazioni, accostamenti, soluzioni, scoperte. Le testimonianze dei maggiori protagonisti delle arti del '900, qui ampiamente riportate, confermano nella sostanza la tesi del libro: anche il pittore più desideroso di trasmettere un messaggio e di contribuire attraverso la sua arte alla crescita civile della società, quando riflette sul proprio lavoro difficilmente può negare che l'opera sia il risultato talvolta inatteso di un percorso accidentato nel quale l'azione concreta, materiale del fare artistico entra in gioco giungendo in alcuni casi a modificare in modo radicale le intenzioni originali. L'arte--scrivono Fellini, Mirò, Calvino, Stravinsky e tanti altri--si fa facendola. Sul piano interpretativo ciò comporta un radicale ridimensionamento del ruolo messianico dell'artista, il quale spesso non ha alcuna intenzione o pretesa di comunicare qualcosa di fondamentale, è perso in questo mondo esattamente come tutti noi. 'Giornalisti curiosi e amatori di pittura'--scrive Picasso--vengono a vederci per trarre da noi verità dogmatiche o definizioni che potrebbero spiegare loro la nostra arte, mettendo in rilievo il suo valore pedagogico, valore che io nego categoricamente. Noi facciamo della pittura. Vorrebbero forse che, per aggiunta, noi fossimo fabbricanti di verità e di massime?'"--Back cover. (shrink)

Medical discoveries have led to an unprecedented level of competence in the field, but it is as if the patient is finding it increasingly difficult to get the right holistic care. Medicine must be put on a path towards being humanised.

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)

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)

Eine Kritik der Hoffnung ist nicht nur nicht unzeitgemäß, sondern überhaupt zeitlos. Denn die existentielle Erfahrung, zu hoffen und enttäuscht zu werden, ist mit der menschlichen Situation untrennbar verknüpft. Der Grund, warum Schopenhauer als Gewährsmann einer solchen bemüht wird, ist, dass er vielfältige Ansätze dazu vorgelegt hat, die in diesem Buch zusammengefasst sind. Die vorliegende Untersuchung lässt sich in den größeren Rahmen von Schopenhauers «Pessimismus» einordnen, stellt aber den Begriff der Hoffnung in Nahaufnahme dar. Das Nachdenken über die Hoffnung vereinigt (...) Aspekte von Wahrheit und Irrtum, Wille und Intellekt, Wahrscheinlichkeit und Erwartung, und verdeutlicht die im Zusammenhang zwischen Sicherheit und Zweifel sich manifestierenden Seelenzustände von Hoffnung und Verzweiflung. Über Begriffsklärung und Analyse hinaus wird nach dem Wert oder Unwert der Hoffnung für das Leben gefragt. (shrink)

Während die bisherige Forschung überwiegend auf Rekonstruktion und Analyse des philosophischen und pädagogischen Werkes von Theodor Litt bezogen war, konzentrieren sich gegenwärtige Untersuchungen bedingt durch die Zunahme von ...

The main accounts of the documentary in contemporary analytic aesthetics have difficulties in dealing with the distinction between documentaries and docudramas. On the one hand, the assertion-based accounts proposed by Carroll, Ponech and Plantinga cannot properly differentiate documentaries from docudramas. On the other hand, Currie’s account can do so by relying on the notion of trace but this involves an undesirable side-effect, namely, the exclusion, from the documentary, of those documentaries that do not include traces of their subjects, as for (...) instance documentaries that resort to reenactments. Is there a way to exclude docudramas from the documentary without also excluding other films that we usually treat as documentaries? The paper affirmatively answers to this question by relying on the notion perceptual belief, that is, a belief that one can form by endorsing one's perception. Documentaries are defined as films that mandate us to form perceptual beliefs. Even if a docudrama mandates us to form beliefs, it does not mandate us to form perceptual beliefs, and thus does not count as a documentary. By contrast, a documentary that resorts to reenactments still mandates us to form perceptual beliefs and thus properly satisfies the definition proposed. (shrink)

A rigorous ab initio derivation of the (square of) Dirac’s equation for a particle with spin is presented. The Lagrangian of the classical relativistic spherical top is modified so to render it invariant with respect conformal changes of the metric of the top configuration space. The conformal invariance is achieved by replacing the particle mass in the Lagrangian with the conformal Weyl scalar curvature. The Hamilton-Jacobi equation for the particle is found to be linearized, exactly and in closed form, by (...) an ansatz solution that can be straightforwardly interpreted as the “quantum wave function” of the 4-spinor solution of Dirac’s equation. All quantum features arise from the subtle interplay between the conformal curvature acting on the particle as a potential and the particle motion which affects the geometric “pre-potential” associated to the conformal curvature itself. The theory, carried out here by assuming a Minkowski metric, can be easily extended to arbitrary space-time Riemann metric, e.g. the one adopted in the context of General Relativity. This novel theoretical scenario appears to be of general application and is expected to open a promising perspective in the modern endeavor aimed at the unification of the natural forces with gravitation. (shrink)

The book series Linguistische Arbeiten (LA) publishes high-quality work in linguistics that addresses current issues in synchrony and diachrony, theoretically or empirically oriented.

During much of the past century, it was widely believed that phonemes--the human speech sounds that constitute words--have no inherent semantic meaning, and that the relationship between a combination of phonemes (a word) and its referent is simply arbitrary. Although recent work has challenged this picture by revealing psychological associations between certain phonemes and particular semantic contents, the precise mechanisms underlying these associations have not been fully elucidated. Here we provide novel evidence that certain phonemes have an inherent, non-arbitrary emotional (...) quality. Moreover, we show that the perceived emotional valence of certain phoneme combinations depends on a specific acoustic feature--namely, the dynamic shift within the phonemes' first two frequency components. These data suggest a phoneme-relevant acoustic property influencing the communication of emotion in humans, and provide further evidence against previously held assumptions regarding the structure of human language. This finding has potential applications for a variety of social, educational, clinical, and marketing contexts. (shrink)

Conceiving of fictional characters as types allows us to reconcile intuitions of sameness and difference about characters such as Batman that appear in different fictional worlds. Sameness occurs at the type level while difference occurs at the token level. Yet, the claim that fictional characters are types raises three main issues. Firstly, types seem to be eternal forms whereas fictional characters seem to be the outcome of a process of creation. Secondly, the tokens of a type are concrete particulars in (...) the actual world whereas the alleged tokens of a fictional character are concrete particulars in a fictional world. Thirdly, many fictional characters, unlike Batman, only appear in one work of fiction, and therefore one can wonder whether it does make sense to treat them as types. The main aim of this paper is to address these issues in order to defend a creationist account of fictional characters as types. (shrink)