The New Economic Windows Series, derived from Massimo Salzano's ideas and work, incorporates material from textbooks, monographs and conference proceedings that deals with both the theoretical and applied aspects of various sub-disciplines ...

We assess Aristotle's doctrine of the four causes in relation to current research on the development of organisms. Our goals are four-fold: first, to present and critically challenge what has become an orthodox interpretation of Aristotle among biologists; second, to present and defend a more adequate account of organismal development; third, to elaborate and justify a novel account of Aristotle's natural teleology, one at odds with the orthodox interpretation; and fourth, to illustrate how our reading of Aristotle, if right, permits (...) a more fruitful encounter between Aristotle and modern biology than that imagined by Aristotle's latter-day biological interpreters. (shrink)

Evidentialism is the doctrine that rational belief should be proportioned to one’s evidence. By “one’s evidence,” I mean evidence that we possess and know that we possess. I specifically exclude from “evidence” the following: information of which we are unaware that our brain might rely on in constructing experience or in the formation of beliefs. My initial interest is with the doctrine of Evidentialism as it applies to a quandary that arises in the Sci-Fi movie Contact, the “Contact Paradox” as (...) I will call it. In this movie one of the main characters, Ellie, is a cosmologist working in a radio-telescope research facility searching for signals from intelligent life in the cosmos. The entity whose epistemological status is at issue in her quandary is her deceased father but there is an obvious parallel between the quandary of a rational believer in God and Ellie’s quandary, a parallel extensively explored in the movie itself. My first thesis is that in Ellie’s case Evidentialism is false: in certain cases, it is rational to believe in the existence of an entity in spite of the fact that the empirical evidence overall is contrary, and the Contact Paradox is one such case. Later in the paper I turn attention to the issue of Evidentialism regarding beliefs in the existence of God. My second thesis is that Evidentialism is false there as well. (shrink)

Bold and pioneering, this book makes a detailed historical and systematic case that Descartes's theory of knowledge is an elegant and powerful combination of a priori, naturalistic, and dialectical elements meriting serious consideration by both contemporary analytic philosophers and postmodern thinkers. In the course of making this case Thomas Vinci develops a broad reinterpretation of Cartesian thought that unlocks novel solutions to many of the most vexed questions in Cartesian scholarship.

Appearing in English for the first time, Schelling’s 1842 lectures develop the idea that many philosophical concepts are born of religious-mythological notions.

This paper starts with one of Chalmers’ basic points: first-hand experience is an irreducible field of phenomena. I claim there is no ‘theoretical fix’ or ‘extra ingredient’ in nature that can possibly bridge this gap. Instead, the field of conscious phenomena requires a rigorous method and an explicit pragmatics for its exploration and analysis. My proposed approach, inspired by the style of inquiry of phenomenology, I have called neurophenomenology. It seeks articulations by mutual constraints between phenomena present in experience and (...) the correlative field of phenomena established by the cognitive sciences. It needs to expand into a widening research community in which the method is cultivated further. (shrink)

With precision and profundity born of 30 years of devoted study, John Boyle offers an essential introduction to St. Thomas Aquinas on Scripture, shedding helpful light on the goals, methods, and commitments that animate the Angelic Doctor's engagement with the sacred page. Because the genius of St. Thomas's approach to the Bible lies not so much in its novelty but rather in the fidelity and clarity with which he recapitulates the riches of the preceding interpretive Tradition, this initiation into St. (...) Thomas's vision of Scripture is itself an orientation to the Church's vision of Scripture, from the Fathers through and beyond the Middle Ages. St. Thomas's embeddedness within the Church's Tradition and his own historical context is integral to his approach to Scripture, yet it sets him at some distance from modern readers, for whom his interpretive vision may seem perplexing or even impenetrable. In this Primer, Boyle first provides an acclimation to this medieval context through a survey and explanation of pertinent technical terminology used by St. Thomas and characteristic of the scholastic theology of the time. With an eye to the medieval practice of considering Scripture according to the fourfold division of causes, Boyle builds on this initial foundation by exploring in turn St. Thomas's accounts of the end or use of Scripture (final cause), its divine and human authorship (efficient cause), its order and division (material cause), and its literary styles or genres (formal cause). Drawing on writings from across St. Thomas's corpus, but especially his work On the Commendation and Division of Sacred Scripture and the prologues to his biblical commentaries, Boyle masterfully elucidates both the hermeneutical principles and deep wisdom of the Angelic Doctor's approach to Scripture, imparting invaluable guidance not only for reading and understanding St. Thomas and other great masters of the Tradition, but also-and ultimately-for understanding Scripture in light of this Tradition and reading it with greater benefit and joy. (shrink)

With fascinating historical anecdotes and incisive scientific analysis, this important work combines ancient thought with modern theory to reveal a new way of viewing our universe that can expand our awareness, our lives, and may well point the way to a new science for the twenty-first century.

This is an English translation of Schelling's Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature (first published in 1797 and revised in 1803), one of the most significant works in the German tradition of philosophy of nature and early nineteenth-century philosophy of science. It stands in opposition to the Newtonian picture of matter as constituted by inert, impenetrable particles, and argues instead for matter as an equilibrium of active forces that engage in dynamic polar opposition to one another. In the revisions of (...) 1803 Schelling incorporated this dialectical view into a neo-Platonic conception of an original unity divided upon itself. The text is of more than simply historical interest: its daring and original vision of nature, philosophy, and empirical science will prove absorbing reading for all philosophers concerned with post-Kantian German idealism, for scholars of German Romanticism, and for historians of science. (shrink)

This book argues that science and metaphysics are closely and inseparably interwoven in the work of Descartes, such that the metaphysics cannot be understood without the science and vice versa. In order to make his case, Thomas Vinci offers a careful philosophical reconstruction of central parts of Descartes' metaphysics and of his theory of perception, each considered in relation to Descartes' epistemology. Many authors of late have written on the relation between Descartes' metaphysics and his physics, especially insofar as (...) the former was intended to justify the latter. Vinci's work does not focus on this relation. It takes as a broad interpretive principle that Descartes wanted to justify a certain picture of matter with his metaphysics, but it focuses its own efforts on the way in which metaphysics and science meet in Descartes' theory of sense-perception. Vinci aims to show that Descartes gave an important positive role to sense-perception in his epistemology, and also that he used his reflections on sense-perception to frame his criticism of previous theories of the sensory qualities of objects. (shrink)

I begin by criticizing an elaboration of an argument in this journal due to Hawley , who argued that, where Leibniz’s Principle of the Identity of Indiscernibles faces counterexamples, invoking relations to save PII fails. I argue that insufficient attention has been paid to a particular distinction. I proceed by demonstrating that in most putative counterexamples to PII , the so-called Discerning Defence trumps the Summing Defence of PII. The general kind of objects that do the discerning in all cases (...) form a category that has received little if any attention in metaphysics. This category of objects lies between indiscernibles and individuals and is called relationals: objects that can be discerned by means of relations only and not by properties. Remarkably, relationals turn out to populate the universe. (shrink)

"Not only one of the best but also the most comprehensive treatment of Stoicism written in this century." --Times Literary Supplement.

"The chief business of twentieth-century philosophy” is “to reckon with twentieth-century history," claimed R. G. Collingwood. In this remarkable collection of essays, Frank Ankersmit demonstrates the prescience of that remark and goes a long way toward meeting its challenge. Responding to the work of Hayden White, Arthur Danto, and Hans-Georg Gadamer, he examines such issues as the difference between historical representation and artistic expression, the status of metaphor in historical description, and the relation of postmodernism to historicism. Ankersmit's fluent grasp (...) of European thought and his ability to incorporate concepts from literary theory, art history, the philosophy of science, and political thought into his analyses assure that this collection will interest readers throughout the humanities. (shrink)

This landmark work provides a systematic introduction to systems of modal logic and stands as the first presentation of what have become central ideas in philosophy of language and metaphysics, from the "new theory of reference" and non-linguistic necessity and essentialism to "Kripke semantics.".

Thomas C. Vinci argues that Kant's Deductions demonstrate Kant's idealist doctrines and have the structure of an inference to the best explanation for correlated domains. With the Deduction of the Categories the correlated domains are intellectual conditions and non-geometrical laws of the empirical world. With the Deduction of the Concepts of Space, the correlated domains are the geometry of pure objects of intuition and the geometry of empirical objects.

Resumo: Esse ensaio buscará sondar as relações entre filosofia e literatura, no pensamento de Gilles Deleuze, a despeito de sua parceria conjunta com Félix Guattari, atentando tanto para as concepções de escrita expressas ao longo de sua obra quanto para o modo como essas concepções teriam influenciado o estilo de seus escritos filosóficos. Partindo da premissa deleuziana de que a escrita possui um acentuado lastro clínico, sendo a responsável pela elaboração de um diagnóstico das forças capazes de aprisionar ou calar (...) a vida, procurar-se-á esmiuçar as ressonâncias desse lastro clínico, na concepção de filosofia como ato criativo, elaborada pelo autor. Como hipótese a ser aqui trabalhada, defende-se que a escrita deleuziana - compreendida como portadora de uma literalidade, conforme sustenta François Zourabchivili, ou como encrustada de uma poética imanentista, tal qual sugere Anita Costa Malufe - procuraria produzir uma zona de vizinhança ou indiscernibilidade entre a escrita filosófica, de caráter mais exegético, e a escrita literária, mais afectiva, de modo a produzir um deslocamento na relação do leitor com o ato de pensar.: In this essay we pretend to study the relationship between philosophy and literature in Gilles Deleuze’s thought, despite of his partnership with Félix Guattari, mapping the conceptions of writing throughout his work and considering the influence of these conceptions to forge a certain style in his philosophical texts. Starting from the deleuzian premise that writing has a strong clinical backing - being responsible for the elaboration of a diagnosis of the forces liable to imprison or silence life -, we will examine the resonances of this clinical backing in his conception of philosophy as a creative act. Our hypothesis is that the deleuzian writing - having a certain literality, as François Zourabchivili argues, or encrusted with an immanentism poetics, as Anita Costa Malufe suggests - would produce a so-called neighborhood zone or zone of indiscernibility between philosophical writing, with a more exegetical character, and literary writing, which is more affective, in order to produce a shift in the reader’s relationship with the act of thinking. (shrink)

Despite extinction-based processes demonstrating efficacy in the animal extinction and human anxiety literatures, extinction for substance use disorders has shown poor efficacy. Reasons for this lack of success include common threats to extinction, such as renewal and reinstatement. In recent decades, research on mindfulness for SUD has flourished, and a key aspect of these mindfulness-based interventions includes teaching individuals to stay present with whatever experience they have, even if unpleasant, without trying to change/escape/avoid it. Similarly, CET teaches individuals to not (...) escape/avoid conditioned responses by engaging in drug use behavior. This paper discusses how mindfulness-based research and practices could positively influence CET through future research, with the long-term goal of improving SUD treatment. (shrink)

Ethics for Enemies comprises three original philosophical essays on torture, terrorism, and war. F. M. Kamm deploys ethical theory in her challenging new treatments of these most controversial practical issues. First she considers the nature of torture and the various occasions on which it could occur, in order to determine why it might be wrong to torture a wrongdoer held captive, even if this were necessary to save his victims. In the second essay she considers what makes terrorism wrong--whether it (...) is the intention to harm civilians, rather than harm to them being 'collateral damage,' or something else--and whether terrorism is always wrong. The third essay discusses whether having a right reason, in the sense of a right intention, is necessary in order for a war to be just. Kamm then examines ways in which the harms of war can be proportional to the achievement of the just cause and other goods that war can bring about, so as to make the declaration of war permissible. (shrink)

It seems generally agreed that a theory of sensory episodes that mentions sensory objects and a sensing relation — the ‘act-object’ theory — is unacceptable and should be replaced by some other account. A chief competitor is the Adverbial Theory, and one of its chief advocates is Wilfrid Sellars. While it is clear that there are serious difficulties for the act-object theory not facing the adverbial theory, I will argue that the latter has difficulties of its own.

Este artigo objetiva pensar o debate envolvendo a questão da literalidade na obra de Gilles Deleuze, mormente naquela escrita em parceria com Félix Guattari, a partir de um recuo pelo pensamento do filósofo Henri Bergson. Apresentada como um modo singular de operar com a escrita, a literalidade deleuze-guattariana exigiria que determinadas formulações, mormente aquelas de teor imagético fossem lidas ao pé da letra (a la lettre) ao invés de interpretadas como metáforas. Tendo adentrado em nosso país por meio do dossiê (...) Entre Deleuze e a Educação, publicado em 2005 no periódico Educação & Sociedade, a questão da literalidade fomentou uma discussão acalorada, nomeadamente no campo educacional – dado o fato de um dos participantes, François Zourabichvili, propor uma pretensa teoria de ensino deleuzeana a partir dessa noção. Longe de querer encerrar tal debate, almejamos pensá-lo sob a égide do pensamento bergsoniano, a fim de propor um escape do binarismo estabelecido. (shrink)

Disjunctivism about perceptual appearances, as I conceive of it, is a theory which seeks to preserve a naïve realist conception of veridical perception in the light of the challenge from the argument from hallucination. The naïve realist claims that some sensory experiences are relations to mind-independent objects. That is to say, taking experiences to be episodes or events, the naïve realist supposes that some such episodes have as constituents mind-independent objects. In turn, the disjunctivist claims that in a case of (...) veridical perception like this very kind of experience that you now have, the experiential episode you enjoy is of a kind which could not be occurring were you having an hallucination. The common strategy of arguments from hallucination set out to show that certain things are true of hallucinations, and hence must be true of perceptions. For example, it is argued that hallucinations must have non-physical objects of awareness, or that such states are not relations to anything at all, but are at best seeming relations to objects. In insisting that veridical perceptual experience is of a distinct kind from hallucination, the disjunctivist denies that any of these conceptions of hallucination challenges our conception of veridical perceptions as relations to mind-independent objects. More specifically, I assume that the disjunctivist advocates naïve realism because they think that this position best articulates how sensory experience seems to us to be just through reflection. If the disjunctivist is correct in this contention, then anyone who accepts the conclusion of the argument from hallucination must also accept that the nature of sensory experience is other than it seems to us to be. In turn, one may complain that any such error theory is liable to lead to sceptical consequences. A Humean scepticism about the senses launches a challenge about our knowledge of the world through questioning the conception we have of what sense experience is, and how it can provide knowledge of the world. (shrink)

There is a current debate about the extent to which Academic Freedom should be permitted in our universities. On the one hand, we have traditionalists who maintain that Academic Freedom should be unrestricted: people who have the appropriate qualifications and accomplishments should be allowed to develop theories about how the world is, or ought to be, as they see fit. On the other hand, we have post-traditional philosophers who argue against this degree of Academic Freedom. I consider a conservative version (...) of post-traditional philosophy that permits restrictions on Academic Freedom only if the following conditions are met, Condition 1: The dissemination of the results of a given research project R must cause significant harm to some people, especially to people from oppressed groups. Condition 2: Condition 1 must possess strong empirical support, and which accepts the following assumptions: (1) there is a world of objective facts that is, in principle, discoverable, (2) rational means are the means of discovering it and, (3) rational means requires strong empirical support. I define strong empirical support for an hypothesis h on evidence e in probabilistic terms, as a ratio of posterior to prior probabilities substantially exceeding 1. I now argue in favour of a research policy that accepts unrestricted Academic Freedom. My argument is that there is a formal and general quandary that arises within the standard theory of probability when we apply this account of empirical support to a set of possible causal hypotheses framed in such a way that the “reverse probabilities”, pr(e/h) are 1. I consider various possible ways to escape this quandary, none of which are without difficulties, concluding that a research policy allowing for unrestricted Academic Freedom is probably the best that we can hope for. (shrink)