Risk management is a well-known method to face technological challenges through a win–win combination of protective and proactive approaches, fostering the collaboration of operators, researchers, regulators, and industries for the exploitation of new markets. In the field of autonomous and unmanned aerial systems, or UAS, a considerable amount of work has been devoted to risk analysis, the generation of ground risk maps, and ground risk assessment by estimating the fatality rate. The paper aims to expand this approach with a tool (...) for managing data protection risks raised by drones through the design of flight maps. The tool should allow UAS operators choosing the best air corridor for their drones based on the so-called privacy by design principle pursuant to Article 25 of the EU data protection regulation, the GDPR. Among the manifold applications of this approach, the design of fly zones for drones can be tailored for public authorities in the phase of authorization of new operations, much as for national Data Protection authorities that have to control the lawfulness of personal data processing by UAS operations. The overall aim is to present the first win–win approach to data protection issues, aerospace engineering challenges, and risk management methods for the threats posed by this technology. (shrink)

In this essay, I appeal to the mental file approach in order to give an anti-realist semantic analysis of statements containing fictional names. I claim that fictive and parafictive uses of them express conceptual, though not general, propositions constituted by mental files, anchored in the conceptual world of the corresponding fictional story. Moreover, by positing a referential shift determined by the presence of a simulative referential intention characteristic of those uses, it is possible to take them to be true with (...) respect to those conceptual worlds. As for metafictive uses, since they are grounded on mixed intentions, they are considered to express hybrid propositions, partly conceptual and partly referential. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to explore the impact of Darwinism in metaethics and dispel some of the confusion surrounding it. While the prospects for a Darwinian metaethics appear to be improving, some underlying epistemological issues remain unclear. We will focus on the so-called Evolutionary Debunking Arguments (EDAs) which, when applied in metaethics, are defined as arguments that appeal to the evolutionary origins of moral beliefs so as to undermine their epistemic justification. The point is that an epistemic disanalogy (...) can be identified in the debate on EDAs between moral beliefs and other kinds of beliefs, insofar as only the former are regarded as vulnerable to EDAs. First, we will analyze some significant debunking positions in metaethics in order to show that they do not provide adequate justification for such an epistemic disanalogy. Then, we will assess whether they can avoid the accusation of being epistemically incoherent by adopting the same evolutionary account for all kinds of beliefs. In other words, once it is argued that Darwinism has a corrosive impact on metaethics, what if its universal acid cannot be contained? (shrink)

The coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic has strongly affected oncology patients. Many screening and treatment programs have been postponed or canceled, and such patients also experience fear of increased risk of exposure to the virus. In many cases, locus of control, coping flexibility, and perception of a supportive environment, specifically family resilience, can allow for positive emotional outcomes for individuals managing complex health conditions like cancer. This study aims to determine if family resilience, coping flexibility, and locus of control can mitigate (...) the negative affect caused by the pandemic and enhance positive affect in breast cancer patients. One hundred and fifty-four female patients with breast cancer completed the Walsh’s Family Resilience Questionnaire, the Perceived Ability to Cope With Trauma Scale, the Positive-Negative Affect Schedule, and the Mini Locus of Control Scale. Family resilience and internality of locus of control contribute significantly to positive affective responses. Family resilience is responsible for mitigating the negative affect perceived during the pandemic and is enhanced by external locus of control. Evidence suggests that clinical psychologists should develop and propose programs to support oncology patients’ family resilience, coping flexibility, and internal locus of control, allowing for decreased stress and improved adaptability for effectively managing cancer treatment during the pandemic. (shrink)

The Continuum Encyclopedia of British Philosophy" employs a wide construal of 'philosophy' that was common in former centuries. Its biographical entries include writers on mainstream philosophical topics whose individual contribution was small. But the encyclopedia also includes celebrated figures from other intellectual domains, who had something to say on topics that count as broadly philosophical. This interdisciplinary approach, coupled with sophisticated indexing and cross-referencing, makes "CEBP" easily accessible to students and specialists across a huge range of subjects. It will become (...) a highly important resource to support teaching and research in literature, history, classics, cultural studies, politics, economics, language, aesthetics, psychology and science, as well as in mainstream philosophy itself. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the treatment of prudence by Adam Smith. Smith was one of the few philosophers to conceive of it as a moral virtue. Smithian prudence is the care of one's own happiness that is limited and ennobled, respectively, by the sense of justice and that of self-command. A reconstruction of Smith's view of prudence helps to clarify three central points in his thought: the interaction between the agent's economic and moral dimensions, the relationship between the self and (...) the other, and the dialectical tension between partiality and impartiality. Furthermore, Smithian prudence is important, in itself, as an approach to the above-mentioned points that is still viable. These three points are recurrent crucial issues in the history of ethics. (shrink)

Risk management is a well-known method to face technological challenges through a win–win combination of protective and proactive approaches, fostering the collaboration of operators, researchers, regulators, and industries for the exploitation of new markets. In the field of autonomous and unmanned aerial systems, or UAS, a considerable amount of work has been devoted to risk analysis, the generation of ground risk maps, and ground risk assessment by estimating the fatality rate. The paper aims to expand this approach with a tool (...) for managing data protection risks raised by drones through the design of flight maps. The tool should allow UAS operators choosing the best air corridor for their drones based on the so-called privacy by design principle pursuant to Article 25 of the EU data protection regulation, the GDPR. Among the manifold applications of this approach, the design of fly zones for drones can be tailored for public authorities in the phase of authorization of new operations, much as for national Data Protection authorities that have to control the lawfulness of personal data processing by UAS operations. The overall aim is to present the first win–win approach to data protection issues, aerospace engineering challenges, and risk management methods for the threats posed by this technology. (shrink)

The paper explores the interplay among moral progress, evolution and moral realism. Although it is nearly uncontroversial to note that morality makes progress of one sort or another, it is far from uncontroversial to define what constitutes moral progress. In a minimal sense, moral progress occurs when a subsequent state of affairs is better than a preceding one. Moral realists conceive “it is better than” as something like “it more adequately reflects moral facts”; therefore, on a realist view, moral progress (...) can be associated with accumulations of moral knowledge. From an evolutionary perspective, on the contrary, since there cannot be something like moral knowledge, one might conclude there cannot even be such a thing as moral progress. More precisely, evolutionism urges us to ask whether we can acknowledge the existence of moral progress without being committed to moral realism. A promising strategy, I will argue, is to develop an account of moral progress based on moral understanding rather than moral knowledge. On this view, moral progress follows increases in moral understanding rather than accumulations of moral knowledge. Whether an understanding-based account of moral progress is feasible and what its implications for the notion itself of moral progress are, will be discussed. (shrink)

The so-called Evolutionary Debunking Arguments are arguments that appeal to the evolutionary genealogy of our beliefs to undermine their justification. When applied to morality, such arguments are intended to undermine moral realism. In this paper I will discuss Andreas Mogensen’s recent effort to secure moral realism against EDAs. Mogensen attempts to undermine the challenge provided by EDAs in metaethics through the distinction between proximate and ultimate causes in biology. The problem with this move is that the proximate/ultimate distinction is misconceived. (...) If ultimate and proximate causes are properly understood to be complementary, such distinction cannot affect EDAs in metaethics. Therefore, I will argue, Mogensen’s argument fails and moral realism is still in danger. (shrink)

This paper is about paradigmatic slurs, i.e. expressions that are prima facie associated with the expression of a contemptuous attitude concerning a group of people identified in terms of its origin or descent, race, sexual orientation, ethnia or religion, gender, etc. Our purpose is twofold: explaining their expressive meaning dimension in terms of a version of stereotype semantics and analysing their original and most typical uses as insults, which will be called with a neologism ‘insultive’, in terms of a speech (...) act theory. (shrink)

Alexithymic traits, which entail finding it difficult to recognize and describe one’s own emotions, are linked with poor trait emotional intelligence and difficulties in identifying and managing stressors. There is evidence that alexithymia may have detrimental consequences for wellbeing and health, beginning in adolescence. In this cross-sectional study, we investigated the prevalence and incidence of alexithymia in teenage girls, testing the statistical power of TEI and student burnout to discriminate between high- and low-alexithymic subjects. A sample of 884 female high (...) school students attending three Italian academic-track high schools completed self-report measures of alexithymia, school burnout, and TEI. Main descriptive statistics and correlational analysis preceded the discriminant analysis. The mean alexithymia scores suggest a high prevalence of alexithymia in female adolescents; as expected, this trait was negatively correlated with TEI and positively associated with school burnout. Participants with high vs. low alexithymia profiles were discriminated by a combination of TEI and burnout scores. High scores for the emotionality and self-control dimensions of TEI were strongly associated with membership of the low alexithymia group; high scores for the emotional exhaustion dimension of school burnout were indicative of membership of the high alexithymia group. These findings suggest crucial focuses for educational intervention: efforts to reduce the risk of emotional exhaustion and school burnout should especially concentrate on enhancing emotional awareness and self-control skills, both strongly associated with low levels of alexithymia. (shrink)

The chora is one of the most perplexing as well as neglected concepts in Whitehead's metaphysics. Explicitly drawing on Plato's Receptacle, Whitehead reinterprets the chora as the place, in between physics and metaphysics, where connections among actual entities happen. However, the relation between Whitehead's and Plato's choral remains widely unexplored. This article aims to correct this oversight By comparing the two philosophers, I intend to argue that, differences aside, the two philosophers adopted the chora to answer the common question as (...) to how things can be identified in the flux of events. In this way, I hope not only to clarify the obscure role of the chora in Whitehead's metaphysics and its relation to Plato, but also to explore the complex process of identification. (shrink)

Risk management is a well-known method to face technological challenges through a win–win combination of protective and proactive approaches, fostering the collaboration of operators, researchers, regulators, and industries for the exploitation of new markets. In the field of autonomous and unmanned aerial systems, or UAS, a considerable amount of work has been devoted to risk analysis, the generation of ground risk maps, and ground risk assessment by estimating the fatality rate. The paper aims to expand this approach with a tool (...) for managing data protection risks raised by drones through the design of flight maps. The tool should allow UAS operators choosing the best air corridor for their drones based on the so-called privacy by design principle pursuant to Article 25 of the EU data protection regulation, the GDPR. Among the manifold applications of this approach, the design of fly zones for drones can be tailored for public authorities in the phase of authorization of new operations, much as for national Data Protection authorities that have to control the lawfulness of personal data processing by UAS operations. The overall aim is to present the first win–win approach to data protection issues, aerospace engineering challenges, and risk management methods for the threats posed by this technology. (shrink)

Other-perspective taking, distancing, time discounting as well as risk and loss aversion highly affect decision-making. Even though they influence each other, so far these cognitive processes have been unrelated or only partly related to each other in neuroscience. This article proposes a philosophical interpretation of these cognitive processes that is elaborated in the updated theory of Adam Smith’s prudence. The UTSP is inspired by Smith’s account of prudence and is in line with the neuroscientific and behavioral studies on OPT, distancing, (...) time discounting as well as risk and loss aversion. The UTSP represents a framework aiming to interpret and connect these cognitive processes and providing a consistent and empirically sound account of a “Smithianly” prudent style of decision-making. The two pillars of the UTSP are the shift of perspective in space and time and loss aversion. On the basis of this theory, a normative updated theory of Smithian prudence is outlined. The latter is useful for moral philosophy for two reasons: firstly, according to preliminary evidence, it is effective in guiding the agent in decisional contexts in which her well-being is at stake and she can affect other people with her actions. Secondly, since the NUTSP is based on neuroscientific findings on decision-making, it has a sound empirical basis that prevents a source of alienation for the agent. (shrink)

In chapter 3 of the very welcome and enjoyable Roads to Reference, “Proper Names and Referential Indeterminacy”, Mario Gómez Torrente proposes a set of conventions establishing merely sufficient conditions for the fixation and transmission of the reference of proper names. There are some aspects of the undoubtedly very original and rigorous proposal that have prompted me the brief comments that follow, grouped into three sections.

The purpose of the present article is to disentangle both Parfit’s and Whitehead’s views on personal identity. Issues regarding what it means to be a singular individual, how a person can remain the same over time, and what makes an individual an original being with specific characteristics will be examined.

Methodical doubt is usually associated with Descartes. However, it is with Francis Bacon that its function and scope are first recognized – as a preliminary stage in the attainment of knowledge, and as an epistemological tool (a rule) for achieving true knowledge. In this paper, I follow the various steps of construction and use of Baconian doubt as it appears in the first book of the New Organon. I will argue that Bacon - in distancing himself from traditional scepticism – (...) will come to conceive methodical doubt not only as a procedure for renovating knowledge, but more specifically as a prescriptive condition for identifying what 'mind' is required to pursue the aim of renovating knowledge. (shrink)

In this essay I examine authority from the viewpoint of the paradigm of recognition: this theoretical framework, as I wish to demonstrate, is particularly suitable for both a clear definition and a consistent practical-normative analysis of authority. In section I propose a definition of authority which, resting on the normative meaning intrinsic to the concept of recognition, allows to systematically differentiate between legitimate and illegitimate forms of authority. After delineating the characteristics of a legitimate political authority, I focus on authority (...) as a means of domination, on the one hand, and of emancipation, on the other. Firstly I consider the long-standing question of why social groups sometimes support an authority oppressing them, and I determine what, instead, can cause a struggle for recognition to occur. Then I discuss hegemony, understood as an intra-group leadership aimed at fostering struggles against domination: can it constitute a legitimate, emancipat.. (shrink)

L’interlocuzione con la psicologia e la psicoanalisi, in particolare con il pensiero di Sigmund Freud, costituiva una delle componenti fondamentali dell’approccio multidisciplinare della prima generazione della Scuola di Francoforte. Ridimensionato da Habermas, tale aspetto torna ad assumere una posizione di rilievo nella concezione elaborata da Axel Honneth, ad oggi considerato il più autorevole prosecutore dell’eredità francofortese. In questo articolo mi propongo di ripercorrere criticamente gli sviluppi attraversati dalla concezione psicologica elaborata da Honneth. Inizialmente riassumerò la prospettiva originaria che Honneth delinea (...) in Lotta per il riconoscimento, la quale permane fin nell’articolo del 1999 Teoria delle relazioni oggettuali e identità postmoderna. Nel secondo paragrafo mi concentro invece sui temi delle origini psicologiche del misconoscimento e del «negativo», rispetto ai quali, in una serie di articoli pubblicati tra il 2001 e il 2002, Honneth compie diverse messe a punto della sua concezione, con esiti talvolta problematici. Nel paragrafo successivo considero infine la fase più recente delle riflessioni psico-analitiche honnethiane, che è anche la più vicina al programma della prima generazione di teorici critici francofortesi: qui Honneth rivolge la sua attenzione alle condizioni psicologiche individuali della cittadinanza democratica, giungendo a una interessante sistematizzazione delle sue prospettive. Tuttavia, come proverò a mostrare nelle conclusioni, tali riflessioni sarebbero state condotte alle loro coerenti conseguenze politiche e sociali solo se, nell’esporle, Honneth avesse messo a tema anche le necessarie condizioni sostantive – di tipo materiale, relazionale e culturale – che, per preservare una disposizione alla democrazia e al pensiero critico, andrebbero assicurate nella società a tutti i cittadini. (shrink)

This paper deals with the political implications of the dedication of a temple to Minerva in Rome by Pompey the Great after his Eastern campaign (61 BC). Among the hypotheses on the reasons for the choice of this goddess by the general, Palmer’s - that this Minerva has to be put in connection with the Athena of Troy - is here considered as the most likely, and is thus analysed in depth. Pompey’s dedication arguably derives its meaning from earlier relationships (...) between the Near East and Rome, and possibly more recent Mithridatic anti-Roman propaganda, and might symbolise the ecumenical character of Pompey’s conquests. (shrink)

This book provides analysis of the expressive aspects of slur-words and their impact in practices of linguistic communication usually related to the discrimination or segregation of certain human groups.

Epistemic transparency tells us that, if an agent S knows a given proposition p , then S knows that she knows that p . This idea is usually encoded in the so-called KK principle of epistemic logic. The paper develops an argument in favor of a moderate version of KK , which I dub quasi-transparency , as a normative rather than a descriptive principle. In the second Section I put forward the suggestion that epistemic transparency is not a demand of (...) ideal rationality, but of ideal epistemic responsibility, and hence that ideally responsible agents verify transparency principles of some sort; I also contend that their satisfaction should not be tied to an internalist epistemology. The central argument in favor of transparency is then addressed in Sections 3 to 8, through the development of a formal system. I show that, in a well-behaved formal setting, a moderate version of transparency is imposed upon us as a result of a number of independent decisions on the structure of higher-order probabilities, as long as we request that our probability and knowledge attributions cohere with each other. Thus I give a rationale to build a model for a hierarchy of languages with different levels of knowledge and probability operators; we obtain an analogous to KK for successive knowledge operators without actually demanding transitivity. The formal argument reinforces the philosophical intuition that epistemic transparency is an important desideratum we should not be too ready to dismiss. (shrink)

In this work I reply to Zoltán Vecsey’s criticisms of the semantic account of fictional names I put forward in Orlando. The main tenet of that proposal is that fictional names refer to individual concepts, which I understand in terms of mental files. In Vecsey, the author presents three main objections: no referential shift can be ascribed to fictional names, fictional names are supposed to play two conflicting functions, and the mental file framework is incompatible with an antirealist view of (...) fictional objects. Although the objections are deep and thoughtful, the challenge they involve can be met if certain aspects of the proposal are clarified and developed. (shrink)

Some propositions are structurally unknowable for certain agents. Let me call them ‘Moorean propositions’. The structural unknowability of Moorean propositions is normally taken to pave the way towards proving a familiar paradox from epistemic logic—the so-called ‘Knowability Paradox’, or ‘Fitch’s Paradox’—which purports to show that if all truths are knowable, then all truths are in fact known. The present paper explores how to translate Moorean statements into a probabilistic language. A successful translation should enable us to derive a version of (...) Fitch’s Paradox in a probabilistic setting. I offer a suitable schematic form for probabilistic Moorean propositions, as well as a concomitant proof of a probabilistic Knowability Paradox. Moreover, I argue that traditional candidates to play the role of probabilistic Moorean propositions will not do. In particular, we can show that violations of the so-called ‘Reflection Principle’ in probability need not yield structurally unknowable propositions. Among other things, this should lead us to question whether violating the Reflection Principle actually amounts to a clear case of epistemic irrationality, as it is often assumed. This result challenges the importance of the principle as a tool to assess both synchronic and diachronic rationality—a topic which is largely independent of Fitch’s Paradox—from a somewhat unexpected source. (shrink)

How does science enter policy making, and for what purpose? Surely consulting scientific facts in making policy is done with a view to making policy decisions more reliable, and ultimately more objective. In this paper I address the way/s by which science contributes to achieving objectivity in policy making and social debate, and argue that objectivity is not exhausted by what scientific evidence contributes to either. In policy making and social debates, scientific evidence is taken into account alongside other relevant (...) factors. Such complex contexts of practical interaction constitute a challenge both for the objectivity of scientific evidence, and for the objectivity of the role of the scientist in the policy-making process I analyse a case study - the ongoing debate over the spread of bovine TB in the UK - that displays some of the worries and several of the aspects we ought to keep in mind when we bring scientific objectivity to bear on social debate and policy making. I argue in favour of a picture where scientific objectivity enters a productive and effective dialogue with practical objectivity. (shrink)

Dentro del rico y multiforme panorama de imágenes forjadas en el mundo romano, por su indudable originalidad destacan las iconografías inspiradas en la tierra de los faraones. Concretamente, suscitan interés las representaciones nilóticas animadas por pigmeos provistos de barritas. En el presente trabajo, el objetivo consiste en el identificar, basándose en el estudio de las fuentes clásicas y en las comparaciones iconográficas de las obras examinadas, un fil rouge semántico de estos específicos modelos nilóticos existentes en la cuenca mediterránea entre (...) los siglos I-III d.C. Finalmente, se obtienen ciertas conclusiones acerca de la funcionalidad tanto como del significado de las enigmáticas barritas preservadas hasta nuestros días a través del espejo artístico romano. (shrink)

It is widely acknowledged that metaphors are used in science. Great scientists, such as Darwin and Einstein, believed that the use of metaphors is vital to the development of scientific ideas. The history of science is full of examples of scientific metaphors as tools at the forefront of discoveries of new facts and new concepts.

In this paper I am concerned with the problem of applying the notion of rigidity to general terms. In Naming and Necessity, Kripke has clearly suggested that we should include some general terms among the rigid ones, namely, those common nouns semantically correlated with natural substances, species and phenomena, in general, natural kinds -'water', 'tiger', 'heat'- and some adjectives -'red', 'hot', 'loud'. However, the notion of rigidity has been defined for singular terms; after all, the notion that Kripke has provided (...) us with is the notion of a rigid designator. But general terms do not designate single individuals: rather, they apply to many of them. In sum, the original concept of rigidity cannot be straightforwardly applied to general terms: it has to be somehow redefined in order to make it cover them. As is known, two main positions have been put forward to accomplish that task: the identity of designation conception, according to which a rigid general term is one that designates the same property or kind in all possible worlds, and the essentialist conception, which conceives of a rigid general term as an essentialist one, namely, a term that expresses an essential property of an object. My purpose in the present paper is to defend a particular version of the identity of designation conception: on the proposed approach, a rigid general term will be one that expresses the same property in all possible worlds and names the property it expresses. In my opinion, the position can be established on the basis of an inference to the best explanation of our intuitive interpretation and evaluation, relative to counterfactual circumstances, of statements containing different kinds of general terms, which is strictly analogous to our intuitive interpretation and evaluation, relative to such circumstances, of statements containing different kinds of singular ones. I will argue that it is possible to offer a new solution to the trivialization problem that is thought to threaten all versions of the identity of designation conception of rigidity. Finally, I will also sketch a solution to the so-called 'over-generalization and under-generalization problems', both closely related to the above-mentioned one. (shrink)

This article examines the use of Honorius Augustodunensis’s Elucidarium in the Prohemium of a three-part introduction to the astrological sciences, namely the Liber introductorius by Michael Scot. The investigation into the adoption of the Elucidarium in the Prohemium not only reveals the work of Honorius Augustodunensis as a major source of the Prohemium but, more importantly, challenges the recent consensus on the relation between the two versions in which the Liber quatuor distinctionum—the first book of the Liber introductorius—has been transmitted. (...) The present contribution will argue that the Long Version is indeed prior to the Short one. The use of the Elucidarium both by Michael Scot and by Godfrey of Viterbo is explored within the article and highlights the need for further research to clarify whether they shared an intellectual framework, or even drew on a common textual source. (shrink)