Prior research indicates that time perspective (TP; views of past, present and future) is related to decision making style. By contrast, no prior study considered relations between time perspective and decision-making competence. We therefore investigated associations between dimensions of the Swedish Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory (S-ZTPI) and performance on the Adult Decision-Making Competence (A-DMC) battery in a sample of older adults (60-90 years, N = 346). A structural equation model involving four A-DMC components as indicators of a general DMC factor (...) and the six TP dimensions as the predictors revealed a significant negative association between the Present Fatalistic dimension and DMC. Given that age-related differences were apparent in DMC and that Present Fatalistic orientation increased with age, we tested a model by which the age-related differences in DMC were mediated by age-related differences in Present Fatalistic attitudes and in working memory. The results were consistent with full mediation of the age effects, with Present Fatalistic and working memory jointly accounting for a substantial amount of the variance in DMC (51%). The finding that DMC among older adults, in particular more cognitively demanding aspects such as applying decision rules, can be undermined by increased present fatalistic attitudes and declines in working memory is discussed in terms of theoretical frameworks highlighting the contribution of both motivational and cognitive factors to effective decision making. (shrink)

This individual differences study examined the relationships between three executive functions (updating, shifting, and inhibition), measured as latent variables, and performance on two cognitively demanding subtests of the Adult Decision Making Competence battery: Applying Decision Rules and Consistency in Risk Perception. Structural equation modelling showed that executive functions contribute differentially to performance in these two tasks, with Applying Decision Rules being mainly related to inhibition and Consistency in Risk Perception mainly associated to shifting. The results suggest that the successful application (...) of decision rules requires the capacity to selectively focus attention and inhibit irrelevant (or no more relevant) stimuli. They also suggest that consistency in risk perception depends on the ability to shift between judgement contexts. (shrink)

We propose a new integrative framework of external time monitoring in prospective memory (PM) tasks and its relation with performance. Starting from existing empirical regularities and our theoretical analysis, the framework predicts that external monitoring in PM tasks comprises a first stage of loose monitoring to keep track of the passage of time, and a subsequent stage of finer-grained monitoring, based on interval reduction, to meet the PM deadline. Following our framework, we predicted and observed in three different datasets (N (...) = 375): (1) a marked increase in external monitoring frequency in the final part of the period of the PM task, well captured by a proportional rate exponential growth function; (2) a positive association between individual compliance with this monitoring pattern and PM performance; (3) a positive relation between monitoring frequency in the time window immediately preceding the PM deadline and PM performance at the individual level; and (4) good individual compliance with an interval reduction pattern in external monitoring, especially in the time window closer to the PM deadline. These results support the proposed integrative framework, which has the potential to foster future research on external monitoring in PM and in other fields of cognitive science. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that the temporal connective prima (‘before’) is a comparative adverb. The argument is based on a number of grammatical facts from Italian, showing that there is an asymmetry between prima and dopo (‘after’). On the ground of their divergent behaviour, I suggest that dopo has a different grammatical status from prima. I propose a semantic treatment for prima that is based on an independently motivated analysis of comparatives which can be traced back to Seuren (in: (...) Kiefer and Ruwet (eds.) Generative grammar in Europe, 1973). Dopo is analyzed instead as an atomic two-place predicate which contributes a binary relation over events to the sentence meaning. The different semantic treatments of the two connectives provide an explanation for the grammatical asymmetries considered at the outset; interestingly, they also shed some light on other asymmetries between prima and dopo, which are known to hold for the English temporal connectives before and after as well: these asymmetries are related to the veridicality properties, the distribution of NPIs, and the logical properties of these connectives first described in Anscombe (Philos Rev 73:3–24, 1964). (shrink)

The article reviews some analyses of temporal language in logical approaches to natural language semantics. It considers some asymmetries between past and future, manifested in language, which motivate the “standard view” of the non-reversibility of time and the persistence of the past. It concludes with a puzzle about the changing past which challenges the standard view.

If you utter sentence ‘Obama was born in 1961’ now, you say something true about the past. Since the past will always be such that the year 1961 has the property of being a time in which Obama was born, it seems impossible that could ever be false in a future context of utterance. We shall consider the case of a sentence about the past exactly like , but which was true when uttered a few years ago and is no (...) longer true now. On this basis, we shall conclude that the past has changed. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the interpretation of the Italian approximative adverb quasi 'almost' by primarily looking at cases in which it modifies temporal connectives, a domain which, to our knowledge, has been largely unexplored thus far. Consideration of this domain supports the need for a scalar account of the semantics of quasi (close in spirit to Hitzeman's semantic analysis of almost, in: Canakis et al. (eds) Papers from the 28th regional meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society, 1992). When paired with (...) suitable analyses of temporal connectives, such an account can provide a simple explanation of the patterns of implication that are observed when quasi modifies locational (e. g. quando 'when'), directional (e. g. fino 'until' and da 'since'), and event-sequencing temporal connectives (e. g. prima 'before' and dopo ' after'). A challenging empirical phenomenon that is observed is a contrast between the modification of fino and da by quasi, on the one hand, and the modification of prima and dopo by the same adverb, on the other. While quasi fino and quasi da behave symmetrically, a puzzling asymmetry is observed between quasi prima and quasi dopo. To explain the asymmetry, we propose an analysis of prima and dopo on which the former has the meaning of the temporal comparative più presto 'earlier', while the latter is seen as an atomic predicate denoting temporal succession between events (Del Prete, Nat Lang Semantics 16: 157-203, 2008). We show that the same pattern of implication observed for quasi prima is attested when quasi modifies overt comparatives, and propose a pragmatic analysis of this pattern that uniformly applies to both cases, thus providing new evidence for the claim that prima is underlyingly a comparative. A major point of this paper is a discussion of the notion of scale which is relevant for the semantics of quasi', in particular, we show that the notion of Horn (entailment-based) scale is not well-suited for handling modification of temporal connectives, and that a more general notion of scale is required in order to provide a uniform analysis of quasi as a cross-categorial modifier. (shrink)

Nowadays, social media analysis systems are feeding on user contributed data, either for beneficial purposes, such as emergency management, or for user profiling and mass surveillance. Here, we carry out a discussion about the power and pitfalls of public accessibility to social media-based systems, with specific regards to the emergency management application EARS. We investigate whether opening such systems to the population at large would further strengthen the link between communities of volunteer citizens, intelligent systems, and decision makers, thus going (...) in the direction of developing more sustainable and resilient societies. Our analysis highlights fundamental challenges and provides interesting insights into a number of research directions with the aim of developing human-centered social media-based systems. (shrink)

It is common practice in formal semantics to assume that the context specifies an assignment of values to variables and that the same variables that receive contextually salient values when they occur free may also be bound by quantifiers and λs. These assumptions are at work to provide a unified account of free and bound uses of third person pronouns, namely one by which the same lexical item is involved in both uses. One way to pursue this account is to (...) treat quantifiers and λs as monsters in Kaplan’s sense. We argue that this move should be avoided and explore an alternative route based on the idea that there is a variable assignment coordinate in the context and a variable assignment coordinate in the circumstance of evaluation, with the definition of truth in context identifying them. One fundamental challenge that arises in pursuing a unified account is to explain the difference in the way the gender presuppositions of bound and free pronouns project. The proposal that emerges from the attempt to meet this challenge is a non-indexical account of free third person pronouns and a new conception of the role and structure of assignment functions. (shrink)

The article reviews some analyses of temporal language in logical approaches to natural language semantics. It considers some asymmetries between past and future, manifested in language, which motivate the “standard view” of the non-reversibility of time and the persistence of the past. It concludes with a puzzle about the changing past which challenges the standard view.

The 3sg pronouns “he” and “she” impose descriptive gender conditions on their referents. These conditions are standardly analysed as presuppositions. Cooper argues that, when 3sg pronouns occur free, they have indexical presuppositions: the gender condition must be satisfied by the pronoun’s referent in the actual world. In this paper, we consider the behaviour of free 3sg pronouns in conditionals and focus on cases in which the pronouns’ gender presuppositions no longer seem to be indexical and project locally instead. We compare (...) these cases to previously reported shifty readings of indexicals in so-called “epistemic conditionals” :359–406, 2012) and propose a unified account of locally projected gender presuppositions and shifty indexicals based on the idea that indicative conditionals are Kaplanian monsters. (shrink)

The chapter considers two semantic issues concerning will-sentences: Stalnaker’s Asymmetry and modal subordination in Karttunen-type discourses. The former points to a distinction between will and modal verbs, seeming to show that will does not license non-specific indefinites. The latter, conversely, suggests that will-sentences involve some kind of modality. To account for the data, the chapter proposes that will is semantically a tense, hence it doesn’t contribute a quantifier over modal alternatives; a modal feature, however, is introduced in the interpretation of (...) a will-sentence through a supervaluational strategy universally quantifying over possible futures. That this is not part of will’s lexical semantics is shown to have consequences that ultimately contribute to explain Stalnaker’s Asymmetry. Furthermore, that a modal quantification is present in the interpretation of a will-sentence is shown to imply the availability of modal subordination in Karttunen-type discourses. (shrink)

We examine the Doubly Inflected Construction of Sicilian (DIC; Cardinaletti and Giusti 2001, 2003, Cruschina 2013), in which a motion verb V1 from a restricted set is followed by an event verb V2 and both verbs are inflected for the same person and tense features. The interpretation of DIC involves a complex event which behaves as a single, integrated event by linguistic tests. Based on data drawn from different sources, we argue that DIC is an asymmetrical serial verb construction (Aikhenvald (...) 2006). We propose an analysis of DIC in which V1 and V2 enter the semantic composition as lexical verbs, with V1 contributing a motion event and projecting a theme and a goal argument which are identified, respectively, with an agent and a location argument projected by V2. A morphosyntactic mechanism of feature-spread requires that the person and tense features be realized both on V1 and on V2, while, semantically, these features are interpreted only once, in a position from which they take scope over the complex predicate resulting from the combination of V1 and V2. The semantic analysis is based on an operation of event concatenation, defined over spatio-temporally contiguous events which share specific participants, and is implemented in a neo-Davidsonian framework (Parsons 1990). (shrink)

The Radical Machiavelli: Politics, Philosophy and Languageoffers a partial and even partisan reading of Machiavelli, whose thought continues to divide interpreters, forcing them to confront their responsibility as contemporary thinkers in a global society.

Objective: To assess the psychological distress of healthcare providers working in the field of obstetrics during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic and to identify factors associated with psychological distress at the individual, interpersonal, and organizational level.Design: Cross-sectional survey study.Setting: Four University hospitals in Italy.Participants: HCPs working in obstetrics, including gynecologists, residents in gynecology and obstetrics, and midwives.Methods: The 104-item survey Impatto PSIcologico COVID-19 in Ostetricia was created by a multidisciplinary expert panel and administered to HCPs in obstetrics in May 2020 (...) via a web-based platform.Main Outcome Measures: Psychological distress assessed by the General Health Questionnaire-12 included in the IPSICO survey.Results: The response rate to the IPSICO survey was 88.2%, and that for GHQ-12 was 84.4%. Just over half of the GHQ-12 respondents reported a clinically significant level of psychological distress. Psychological distress was associated with either individual, interpersonal, and organizational factors in dealing with the pandemic.Conclusions: Results confirm the need for monitoring and assessing the psychological distress for HCPs in obstetrics. Interventions at the individual, interpersonal, and organizational level may relieve the psychological distress during the COVID-19 pandemic and foster resilience skills in facing emotional distress. (shrink)

An open question in the semantics of modality is what relations there are among different modal flavours. In this article, we consider the thorny issue of whether ascribing to an agent the obligation to φ implies that it is possible for the agent to φ. Traditionally, this issue has been interpreted as whether ‘ought’ implies ‘can’. But another linguistic interpretation is available as well, namely, whether ‘must’ implies ‘can’ (MIC). We show that ‘must’ does imply ‘can’ via a convergent argument. (...) The first strand of the argument is theoretical: it consists in proving MIC from a well-established theory of modality in natural language, i.e., that proposed by Kratzer. The second strand is empirical: we present novel acceptability judgment studies showing that MIC predicts and explains the linguistic behaviour of native English speakers. (shrink)

Introduction to genericity in the nominal, verbal and sentential domain.

The 3sg pronouns “he” and “she” impose descriptive gender conditions (being male/female) on their referents. These conditions are standardly analysed as presuppositions (Cooper in Quantification and syntactic theory, Reidel, Dordrecht, 1983; Heim and Kratzer in Semantics in generative grammar, Blackwell, Oxford, 1998). Cooper argues that, when 3sg pronouns occur free, they have indexical presuppositions: the gender condition must be satisfied by the pronoun’s referent in the actual world. In this paper, we consider the behaviour of free 3sg pronouns in conditionals (...) and focus on cases in which the pronouns’ gender presuppositions no longer seem to be indexical and project locally instead. We compare these cases to previously reported shifty readings of indexicals in so-called “epistemic conditionals” (Santorio in Philos Rev 121(3):359–406, 2012) and propose a unified account of locally projected gender presuppositions and shifty indexicals based on the idea that indicative conditionals are Kaplanian monsters. (shrink)

The paper considers sentences in which “now” occurs in initial position and shows that the meaning they convey differs from the meaning of sentences that are otherwise identical except for “now” occurring in final position. We argue that the occurrence of “now” in initial position triggers a particular kind of modal reading for the sentence to which the adverb is prefixed. A general notion of modal forcing is proposed to provide a uniform account of this kind of reading. Armed with (...) this account, we offer a solution to two tense-modal puzzles, which have to do with fatalism and the possibility of a changing past. (shrink)

This book provides an up-to-date introduction to the study of generics and pursues the enterprise of the influential Generic Book edited by Gregory Carlson and Jeffry Pelletier, which was published in 1995. Genericity is a key notion in the study of human cognition as it reveals our capacity to organize our perceived reality into classes and to describe regularities. The generic can be expressed at the level of a word or phrase (ie the potato in The Irish economy became dependent (...) upon the potato) or an entire sentence (eg in John smokes a cigar after dinner, the generic aspect is a property of the expression, rather than any single word or phrase within it). This book gathers new work from senior and young researchers to reconsider the notion of genericity, examining the distinct contributions made by the determiner phrase (eg the notions of kind/individual) and the verbal predicate (eg the notions of permanency, disposition, ability, habituality, and plurality). Finally, in connection with the whole sentence, the analytic/synthetic distinction is discussed as well as the notion of normality. The book will appeal to both students and scholars in linguistics, philosophy and cognitive science. (shrink)

We propose a semantic analysis of the particles afinal (European Portuguese) and alla fine (Italian) in terms of the notion of truth unpersistence, which combines both epistemic modality and constraints on discourse structure. We argue that the felicitous use of these modal particles requires that the truth of a proposition p* fail to persist through a temporal succession of epistemic states, where p* is incompatible with the proposition modified by afinal/alla fine, and that the interlocutors share knowledge of a previous (...) epistemic attitude toward p*. We analyze two main cases, that of plan-related propositions and that of propositions without plans. We also discuss the connections between truth unpersistence and evidentiality. (shrink)

This paper provides a semantic analysis of the particles afinal (European Portuguese) and alla fine (Italian) in terms of the notion of truth unpersistence, which can be situated at the intersection of epistemic modality and discourse structure. In the analysis proposed, the particles are propositional operators and require that the truth of a proposition p* fail to persist through a temporal succession of epistemic states, this proposition being incompatible with the prejacent, and that the interlocutors share knowledge of a previous (...) epistemic attitude toward p*. We analyze two main cases (plan-related and non plan-related propositions) and also show that these particles are indexical to one (or more) epistemic agent(s) and allow for shifts in perspective. (shrink)

This paper analyzes a non-temporal interpretation of the adverb sempre “always” in European Portuguese and Italian, in which the adverb expresses persistence of the truth of a proposition over time and displays specific contextual constraints (TP-sempre). Despite an overlap in the contexts in which TP-sempre may occur in both languages, we provide data showing that its distribution is not exactly the same in European Portuguese and Italian. In view of these data, we propose that TP-sempre is a modal operator of (...) confirmation in both languages, but that it is more restricted in Italian in that it has a plan presupposition only in this language. (shrink)

According to the actualist view, what is essential to the truth conditions of a future-tensed sentence ‘it will be the case that ϕ’ is reference to the unique course of events that will become actual. On the other hand, the modal view has it that the truth conditions of such a sentence require that the truth of ϕ be already “settled” at the time of utterance, where “being settled at time t” is defined by universal quantification over a domain of (...) courses of events, the futures compatible with what has happened up to time t. On the proposal we discuss in this paper, the actualist view and the modal view are seen as two related attitudes that speakers can have when they evaluate future-tensed sentences, and the corresponding interpretations undergo a unified semantic treatment based on a contextual notion of settledness. A central feature of our approach is a dynamic view of contexts of utterance, whereby the world of the utterance is not fixed once and for all, as different worlds, by the passing of time, can play this role in turn. Finally, one major goal of the paper is to show how the unified analysis we propose accounts for a particularly interesting interpretation of future-tensed sentences, often referred to as ‘epistemic reading’. (shrink)

There are sentences that express the same temporally fully specified proposition at all contexts--call them 'context-insensitive, temporally specific sentences.' Sentence (1) 'Obama was born in 1961' is a case in point: at all contexts, it expresses the proposition ascribing to the year 1961 the property of being a time in which Obama was born. Suppose that someone uttered (1) in a context located on Christmas 2000 in our world. In this context, (1) is a true sentence about the past. Moreover, (...) it seems impossible that (1) will be false in a successive context (one located, say, on Christmas 2020 in our world). More generally, one might be tempted to endorse the following principle: if a context-insensitive, temporally specific sentence is uttered in a context in which it is about the past and takes a certain truth value in this context, it cannot be the case that it takes a different truth value in a successive context located in the same world. In this paper, we present linguistic evidence that shows that this principle fails. On this basis, we draw an apparently crazy conclusion: the past can change. We then explain why this conclusion is not that crazy, after all. (shrink)

​In risposta all’ipotesi di estendere la categoria del falso valutativo alle motivazioni di una sentenza, l’articolo tenta una ricostruzione critica della progressiva apertura del falso intellettuale ad atti dispositivi e giudizi tecnici, ponendone in evidenza alcune aporie e proponendo specifici temperamenti. Tanto la teoria dei fatti psichici, quanto quella delle attestazioni implicite e del vero legale, nella loro congiunta sovrapposizione alla struttura della fattispecie penale, possono scadere in una violazione del divieto di analogia in materia penale. Il caso da cui (...) parte l’analisi attiene una procedura di selezione per la chiamata di professore universitario di prima fascia e la sentenza del T.A.R. che decide sul ricorso di un candidato. Falsity of the judicial decision. Implicit statements, legal truth and technical judgments. In response to the hypothesis of extending the category of "evaluative" falsehood to the motivations of a judicial decision, the paper attempts a critical reconstruction of the progressive evolution of these crimes in matter of acts of will and technical judgments, highlighting some aporias and proposing some corrections. Both the theory of psychic facts, as well as the theory of implicit attestations and the legal truth, in their joint action, can violate the prohibition of analogical interpretation in criminal matters. The controversial case from which the analysis starts concerns a public competition for a university professorship and the T.A.R.’s judgment that decides on a candidate's appeal. (shrink)

Abstract. Con il presente contributo si propone una rilettura critica del concetto di “verità legale”, ove propugnato per estendere l’area di prensione punitiva delle false comunicazioni sociali anche ai giudizi discrezionali. Il disaccordo con l’impianto motivazionale delle Sezioni Unite – nel contesto argomentativo dei valori monetari intesi come “traduzione” di fatti obbiettivi – si radica in particolare nell’assunto del «ridotto margine di opinabilità» delle scienze contabili. L’affermazione, come si vedrà, è foriera di fraintendimenti. Si attribuisce al parametro adottato (normativo prima (...) che scientifico) proprietà che non gli appartengono, legittimandolo ad integrare il contenuto della norma penale. Il “falso per inosservanza” assume, così, i connotati di un mero strumento sanzionatorio in bianco di regole tracciate altrove, con ripercussioni tanto nella prospettiva della riserva di legge, quanto in ordine alla genericità del precetto. SOMMARIO: 1. Premessa. – 2. Una distanza incolmabile tra fatto e giudizio. – 3. All’origine dei “fatti materiali”. Raffronto con la frode fiscale previgente. – 4. Raffronto con il falso societario previgente. Tra indici positivi contrastanti e ambiguità terminologiche. – 5. La materialità nella mutata economia della fattispecie. – 6. La soluzione della sentenza Giovagnoli – 7. La mutata prospettiva delle Sezioni Unite e le scienze a ridotto margine di opinabilità. – 8. Dalla realtà obiettiva all’obiettività della sua rappresentazione. – 9. I limiti dell’equiparazione fatto-giudizio. Trascurabilità del margine d’errore e mero accertamento tecnico. – 10. Il parametro della verità coerente nella sentenza Coopcostruttori. – 11. Conclusioni. (shrink)

The author of this article discusses several passages from Πρὸς Διόγνητον and in particular he suggests a new reading of five problematical loci of the work. In 2, 3, the addition of καί before the words ἔτι καὶ νῦν makes the reading καὶ ἔτι καὶ νῦν more suitable for the style of the entire clause. In 3, 5, a very economical change – τὸ δὲ δοκεῖ[ν] τινά παρέχειν τῷ μηδενὸς προσδεομένῳ – gives the correct meaning to a widely discussed sentence. (...) In 7, 4, the clause ὡς βασιλεὺς πέμπων υἱὸν βασιλέα ἔπεμψεν, ὡς ϑεὸς πέμπων πρὸς ἀνϑρώπους ἔπεμψεν, ὡς σώζων ἔπεμψεν is probably the correct reading, taking into account both the author’s theology and the rhythm of the three anaphoric sentences. In 8, 11, the words of the manuscript tradition ἰδεῖν καὶ ποιῆσαι are out of context; ; ἰδιοποιῆσαι, a conjectural emendation, plausibly restores to the revised clause καὶ μετασχεῖν τῶν εὐεργεσιῶν αὐτοῦ καὶ ἰδιοποιῆσαι its correct sense. In 10, 1, the very economical conjectural emendation καταλάβῃς for the καὶ λάβῃς of the manuscript tradition offers both a correct reading for the revised passage ταύτην καὶ σὺ τὴν πίστιν ἐὰν ποϑήσῃς, καταλάβῃς πρῶτον μὲν ἐπίγνωσιν πατρός and a good connection to the following clause. (shrink)

En el vórtice del tiempo -- La digestión del conocimiento -- De la noble virtud -- Retrodicción del futuro -- Taki Onqoy -- Guernica -- Máximas e interludios -- De retorno al crepúsculo -- Bitácora.

The principle of self-determination, as commonly established, is based on a formal and individualistic view of liberty rights. This perspective, however, is inconsistent with the needs of a community and particularly with the necessity to promote integration between subjects and a relatively stable social order. I propose a different perspective, the one that not only takes into account individuals but also relationships. In particular, what I propose is: 1) that any community is aware of a specific social order, which consists (...) of a set of practices, 2) that these practices express specific values, 3) that these values are the result of historical and cultural circumstances, 4) that they are subject to a permanent public debate, and finally 5) that the individual praxis can lead to recognition of rights only if it is consistent with these values. In this perspective there is no general liberty for self-determination of the subject outside specific relationships. It only could be stated that one has a practical liberty (not a right) to do and behave as one wants, but one's rights depend on the relationships in which the person is engaged. El principio de auto- determinación, como comúnmente se pretende, se plantea sobre una visión formal e individualista de los derechos de libertad. Esta perspectiva, sin embargo, es incompatible con las necesidades de una comunidad, y en particular con la necesidad de promover un orden social estable, y una integración entre los sujetos. Yo propongo una perspectiva diferente, que tenga en cuenta las relaciones y no solo los individuos. En particular, lo que argumento es que 1) cualquier comunidad se da cuenta de un determinado orden social, que es un conjunto de prácticas; 2) que estas prácticas expresan valores específicos; 3) que están sujetos a un debate público permanente y, finalmente, 5) que solo si la praxis individual es consistente con estos valores puede llevar al reconocimiento de los derechos. En esa perspectiva, no existe una libertad general para que un sujeto pueda auto-determinarse, sin considerar una relación específica. Solo se podría afirmar que uno tiene una libertad concreta (y no un derecho) de hacer y de actuar como quiera, pero los derechos dependen de las relaciones en las que participa la persona. (shrink)

Una de las críticas recurrentes a la concepción de la guerra de Maquiavelo es que considera este fenómeno como algo totalmente “natural”. La guerra pertenece a la “naturaleza de las cosas” y por lo tanto es inútil preguntarse si es posible que exista un mundo libre de guerras, ni si la forma de hacer la guerra tiene que obedecer a un sistema de reglas establecidas en el ámbito de la ley. Sin embargo, la idea maquiaveliana de la guerra como algo (...) “natural” no resulta del “sentido común” o de la experiencia inmediata. Al contrario, se trata de una concepción filosófica, se podría decir incluso ontológica, que depende de una idea de “orden” y de “naturaleza” que remite, en última instancia, al atomismo antiguo. (shrink)

Le principali concezioni del progresso scientifico sono tre: la concezione epistemica, secondo cui il progresso si verifica quando si verifica un incremento della conoscenza; la concezione semantica, secondo cui il progresso si verifica quando vi è un incremento delle verità; la concezione problem-solving, secondo cui il progresso si verifica quando si verifica un incremento del numero dei problemi che si è in grado di risolvere. La concezione epistemica è ritenuta la più compatibile con una prospettiva realista. Di recente, Dellsén ha (...) proposto la concezione “noetica”, secondo cui il progresso si verifica quando vi è un incremento dell’understanding di un fenomeno da parte degli scienziati. Dellsén sostiene che la concezione noetica sia una concezione realista del progresso più adeguata di quella epistemica. Scopo di questo articolo è valutare se la concezione noetica sia più adeguata della concezione epistemica. (shrink)

L’articolo ripercorre i principali snodi interpretativi riguardanti la rilevanza penale delle false attestazioni in dichiarazioni sostitutive di certificati e atti notori disciplinate dagli artt. 46 e 47 del D.P.R. n. 445/2000, analizzando le modifiche apportate dai decreti Rilancio e Semplificazioni, nonché i peculiari problemi connessi all’uso di questo strumento istruttorio per la concessione della garanzia statale sui finanziamenti alle imprese. SOMMARIO: 1. Premesse. La semplificazione delle procedure amministrative per l’ottenimento di benefici economici. – 2. Le dichiarazioni sostitutive di certificati e (...) atti notori. – 3. Conseguenze penali delle false attestazioni. Il falso ideologico del privato in atto pubblico. – 3.1. (segue) Il falso per induzione nelle premesse descrittive dell’atto di concessione del beneficio. – 3.1.2. (segue) Interazione tra la condotta del privato e i poteri di controllo sulla sua veridicità del p.u. – 3.1.3. (segue) La struttura logica dello schema della presupposizione. – 4. La garanzia sui finanziamenti concessa da SACE Spa. – 4.2. (segue) Profili di rilevanza penale. – 4.2. (segue) Profili di rilevanza penale della dichiarazione sostitutiva di atto notorio di cui all’art. 1 bis del decreto liquidità. L’attestazione che il finanziamento è destinato a sostenere costi relativi a stabilimenti aventi sede in Italia. – 4.3. (segue) Le altre attestazioni richieste dall’art. 1 bis. – 4.4. (segue) La deroga al potere-dovere di controllo preventivo sulla veridicità dell’autodichiarazione. Operatività del falso per induzione. – 5. Conclusioni. (shrink)

Sacred Landscape and Visual Culture. The Paintings of the Lower Church of the Sacro Speco at Subiaco - The purpose of this article is to investigate the emergence of landscape in visual discourses. The subject of this research is the territory of Subiaco and - more specifically - the monastery of the Sacro Speco, built on the site of St Benedict’s hermitage. It is here, in the vast decorative cycle directed by Magister Conxolus at the end of the thirteenth century, (...) that the “sacred landscape” of Subiaco is bent by the monastic community to claim its possession. Benedict is always portrayed inside his Grotto - which becomes a veritable “attribute” of the saint - and the same discourse also includes the portrayal of Chelidonia, a Benedictine hermit nun who lived between the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Through the experiences of the two saints, the landscape becomes sacralised and acquires an identity value for the Benedictine community which lives there. In this context, the figures of Benedict and Chelidonia create a visual bridge to Francis and Clare, and the frescoes becomes a Benedictine response to the “Franciscan challenge”. (shrink)

- A partire da una rapida presentazione del modo in cui oggi si configura il fenomeno religioso, e da un'altrettanto rapida enucleazione delle ‘sfide' che oggi si moltiplicano al modo tradizionalmente scientifico di studiare la religione, il saggio intende considerare i problemi, i mutamenti, le nuove prospettive che tali sfide hanno imposto e impongono non solo alle scienze delle religioni e alla teologia ma soprattutto alla filosofia della religione.

Critics of Hartian legal positivism have characterized it as an error theory about judicial discourse —more precisely, about judicial argument in contexts of disagreement about proper interpretive methodology—. The critics have also suggested that Hartian positivism, like error theories in other areas of philosophy, is to be presumed false. The purpose of this paper is to give a precise account of the nature and extent of the error assigned to judges by Hartian positivists. It will be argued that Hartian positivism, (...) even if it can be understood as a form of error theory, should not be likened to, say, error theories in metaethics, where the relevant error is pervasive and mysteriously enduring.Resumen:Los críticos del positivismo jurídico hartiano han caracterizado este enfoque como una teoría del error sobre el discurso judicial —concretamente sobre la argumentación judicial en el contexto de desacuerdos relacionados con una metodología de interpretación apropiada—. Los críticos también han sugerido que el positivismo hartiano, al igual que otras teorías del error en otros campos de la filosofía, ha de ser tomada por falsa. El propósito de este artículo es ofrecer una explicación más cuidadosa de la naturaleza y alcance del error que los positivistas hartianos atribuyen a los jueces. Se argumentará que el positivismo hartiano, aun cuando pudiera ser entendida como una forma de teoría del error, no debería ser relacionada con, por ejemplo, teorías del error en metaética, donde el error relevante es omnicomprensivo y misteriosamente permanente. (shrink)