This article aims to demonstrate the interdependence of semantics and noetics against the referentialist trend in Abelard studies conceiving semantics as confined to the truth/falsity function. The article takes as a turning point of the argument Abelard’s question “can a true proposition generate a false understanding?” which secondary literature does not take into account. Starting from the analysis of this question, the article aims to show the development of an enhanced notion of understanding compared to the Boethian one. The core (...) of this enhanced notion of understanding is the action of attentio, which is the condition for the elaboration of a coherent and global definition of signification. The analysis of the mental action of attentio entails the description of other kinds of mental actions, leading one to conceive understanding as a multi-layered complex of actions. (shrink)

Cet article se présente comme une contribution à l’historiographie de la phénoménologie contemporaine. Il s’agit en effet d’analyser les transformations qu’a subies la notion d’« événement » (et ses différents présupposés) pour devenir non seulement un concept proprement phénoménologique, mais également le pivot autour duquel s’est défini un usage contemporain inédit de la phénoménologie, celui de la « phénoménologie française ». De ce point de vue, l’article prend position à l’égard de Neue Phänomenologie in Frankreich, qui retrace le « tournant (...) événementiel » de la phénoménologie française exclusivement dans la métabolisation du concept d’Ereignis de Heidegger ; au contraire, on tente de souligner l’importance d’autres influences – heideggeriennes et non-heideggeriennes. Ainsi, on montre qu’à l’intérieur du champ phénoménologique se mêlent en réalité l’influence de la phénoménologie heideggerienne de l’inapparent, la matrice bergsonienne et les influences structuralistes et post-structuralistes. On analyse ensuite les cas des auteurs de tradition française qui s’intéressent à la phénoménologie et qui exploitent le thème de l’événement (Levinas, Derrida, Marion, Romano). Cela permet finalement de proposer une reconstruction textuelle et une cartographie de l’utilisation de la notion et du thème d’« événement » dans la phénoménologie française contemporaine. -/- Cet article se présente comme une contribution à l’historiographie de la phénoménologie contemporaine. Il s’agit en effet d’analyser les transformations qu’a subies la notion d’« événement » (et ses différents présupposés) pour devenir non seulement un concept proprement phénoménologique, mais également le pivot autour duquel s’est défini un usage contemporain inédit de la phénoménologie, celui de la « phénoménologie française ». De ce point de vue, l’article prend position à l’égard de Neue Phänomenologie in Frankreich, qui retrace le « tournant événementiel » de la phénoménologie française exclusivement dans la métabolisation du concept d’Ereignis de Heidegger ; au contraire, on tente de souligner l’importance d’autres influences – heideggeriennes et non-heideggeriennes. Ainsi, on montre qu’à l’intérieur du champ phénoménologique se mêlent en réalité l’influence de la phénoménologie heideggerienne de l’inapparent, la matrice bergsonienne et les influences structuralistes et post-structuralistes. On analyse ensuite les cas des auteurs de tradition française qui s’intéressent à la phénoménologie et qui exploitent le thème de l’événement (Levinas, Derrida, Marion, Romano). Cela permet finalement de proposer une reconstruction textuelle et une cartographie de l’utilisation de la notion et du thème d’« événement » dans la phénoménologie française contemporaine. -/- . (shrink)

In their theoretical and experimental reflections on the capacities and behaviours of living systems, neuroscientists often formulate generalizations about the behaviour of neural circuits. These generalizations are highly idealized, as they omit reference to the myriads of conditions that could perturb the behaviour of the modelled system in real-world settings. This article analyses an experimental investigation of the behaviour of place cells in the rat hippocampus, in which highly idealized generalizations were tested by comparing predictions flowing from them with real-world (...) experimental results. The aim of the article is to identify under what conditions even single prediction failures regarding the behaviour of single cells sufficed to reject highly idealized generalizations, and under what conditions prima facie counter-examples were deemed to be irrelevant to the testing of highly idealized generalizations. The results of this analysis may contribute to understanding how idealized models are tested experimentally in neuroscience and used to make reliable predictions concerning living systems in real-world settings. (shrink)

On the basis of Mackey's axiomatic approach to quantum physics or, equivalently, of a “state-event-probability” (SEVP) structure, using a quite standard “fuzzification” procedure, a set of unsharp events (or “effects”) is constructed and the corresponding “state-effect-probability” (SEFP) structure is introduced. The introduction of some suitable axioms gives rise to a partially ordered structure of quantum Brouwer-Zadeh (BZ) poset; i.e., a poset endowed with two nonusual orthocomplementation mappings, a fuzzy-like orthocomplementation, and an intuitionistic-like orthocomplementation, whose set of sharp elements is an (...) orthomodular complete lattice. As customary, by these orthocomplementations the two modal-like necessity and possibility operators are introduced, and it is shown that Ludwig's and Jauch-Piron's approaches to quantum physics are “interpreted” in complete SEFP. As a marginal result, a standard procedure to construct a lot of unsharp realizations starting from any sharp realization of a fixed observable is given, and the relationship among sharp and corresponding unsharp realizations is studied. (shrink)

In this article, we engage critically with the understanding of majority-minority relations in a liberal democracy as relations of toleration. We make two main claims: first, that appeals to toleration are unable to capture the procedural problems concerning the unequal socio-political participation of minorities, and, second, that they do not offer any critical tool to establish what judgements the majority is entitled to consider valid reasons for action with respect to some minority. We suggest supplementing the reference to toleration with (...) a specific interpretation of respect for persons; all persons should be treated equally as self-legislators and as if they were opaque to our judgement as regards their agential abilities, on which their capacity for self-legislation supervenes. Minorities are disrespected in this sense whenever are treated merely as the addressees of the rules constraining the formulation and pursuit of their life-plans, rather than as their co-authors on an equal footing with the majority, and whenever their treatment in politics and society is considered as legitimately influenced by the majority's judgement of their agential abilities, either directly or by indirect inference from the evaluation of the content of their beliefs and practices. (shrink)

The aim of this study was to implement the teaching personal and social responsibility model in a competitive context analyzing the differences between the intervention and the control group on personal and social responsibility, prosocial behaviors, and self-efficacy in youth soccer players. Participants were 34 youth soccer players between the ages of 14 and 16 years old divided into two different soccer teams of 17 members, corresponding to the control and intervention groups. The implementation of the TPSR model took place (...) during 9 months, including initial and ongoing coach training, program implementation, and a series of expert-led seminars for athletes. The questionnaires used to collect data were the Personal and Social Responsibility Questionnaire, Prosocial Behavior Scale, and two Children’s Self-efficacy Scales. Results indicated that the TPSR intervention group obtained an increase in post-test levels of personal and social responsibility, prosocial behavior, and self-efficacy due to the application of the TPSR model compared with control group that used a conventional sport teaching methodology. The conclusion is that the TPSR model has the potential to be adapted and implemented with flexibility in youth sport competition contexts in order to improve personal and social responsibility, prosocial behavior, and self-efficacy. (shrink)

Le cas finlandais est exemplaire sur les ambivalences du revenu universel. Il se voit défendu aussi bien par certains segments de la gauche que par certains courants de la droite – mais pour des raisons très différentes. Cette analyse suggère qu’il est le lieu d’un déplacement des luttes politiques vers un terrain d’avenir – qui sera tout aussi clivé qu’aujourd’hui. La question centrale pour se situer dans ce clivage repositionné est celle du montant envisagé pour le revenu universel.

(2000). Towards a new Ecological and social sustainability: The evolution of planetary consciousness in the light of brain coherence research. World Futures: Vol. 55, Challenges of Evolution at the Turn of the Millennium: Part III: The Chllenges of Globalization and Sustainability, pp. 129-136.

La nota es una presentación, que no pretende ser exhaustiva, de los principales momentos de la tradición doxográfica sobre los términos "filósofo"y "filosofía" mostrando sus variaciones de significado. Se discute la atribución a Pitágoras de la creación de esos términos a partir de la importancia decisiva de Platón y Aristóteles en el establecimiento y configuración de la doxografía.

L'absence de travaux sur les missions intérieures jésuites en Espagne et au Portugal ne correspond pas à l'abondance des documents qui attestent une forte activité missionnaire depuis la deuxième moitié du XVIe siècle. Le caractère fondamentalement quadragésimal de l'activité initiale des jésuites déterminera le sens pénitentiel des missions ibériques et, par conséquent, les stratégies missionnaires elles-mêmes. Les formes de « présentation » des jésuites et le genre de prédication qu'ils adressent aux fidèles sont des exemples de ces stratégies, vouées à (...) l'objectif final, propres aux missions pénitentielles, de mener les fidèles à la « conversion ». Toutefois, cette idée de conversion prend un sens politique, qui trouve sa manifestation la plus évidente dans l'activité de pacification des communautés. L'action accomplie par les jésuites auprès des saisonniers dans les madragues de Conil et de Zahara en Andalousie montre le rôle joué par la mission intérieure comme moyen d'articulation du corps social, selon les modèles de comportement et d'organisation politique de l'époque. (shrink)

El autor de este artí-culo, que ya ha publicado con ante-rioridad otros dedicados a la misma temática, expone aquí la legisla-ción general de la Iglesia sobre este delicado y complejo tema, que tanta repercusión ha tenido y está teniendo en la actualidad: describe el cambio de actitud de la Iglesia cató-lica frente a estos comportamientos delictivos de sus clérigos y religiosos, y analiza los cambios operados tanto en la legislación general de la Iglesia como en las disposiciones reciente-mente adoptadas por (...) algunas Confe-rencias Episcopales para responder más eficaz y rápidamente ante estas dolorosas situaciones. Las medidas adoptadas por la Iglesia abarcan tres grandes campos: el de la preven-ción de estas situaciones mediante la debida formación y selección de los candidatos, atención a sus nece-sidades, formación permanente, etc. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to make a rational reconstruction of the use of the proportionality test in contexts of judicial adjudication of constitutional social rights. This reconstruction will be developed in two stages. Firstly, I will deal with the question of whether the proportionality test in its variation by omission (that is, in cases of positive rights) exhibits or not a different structure with respect to its (better known and developed) variation by excess (that is, in cases of (...) negative rights). Secondly, I will describe the rules and forms of argumentation implied in the use of the proportionality test by omission, which constitute its respective sub-tests of suitability, necessity and proportionality stricto sensu. Lastly, I will present a brief summary. (shrink)

My conclusion is that Mendel deliberately, though without any real falsification, tried to suggest to his audience and readers an unlikely and substantially wrong reconstruction of the first and most important phase of his research. In my book I offer many reasons for this strange and surprising behavior,53 but the main argument rests on the fact of linkage. Mendelian genetics cannot account for linkage because it was based on the idea of applying probability theory to the problem of species evolution. (...) Central to the theory is the law of probability according to which the chance occurrence of a combination of independent events is the product of their separate probabilities. This is the common basis of Mendel's first and second laws, but this is why Mendel's second law on independent assortment is enunciated in too general a way. From Morgan's work we now know that characters may not always be independent if their genes are located very close one to the other on the same chromosome. And this was also the basis of Mendel's personal drama: he surely observed the effects of linkage, but he had no theoretical tools with which to explain it. So he presented his results in a logical structure consistent with the central idea of his theory. Had he described the real course of his experiments he would have had to admit that his law worked for only a few of the hundreds of Pisum characters — and it would thus have been considered more of an exception than a rule. This is why he insisted on the necessity of testing the law on other plants, and this is why in his second letter to Carl Nägeli he admits that the publication of his data was untimely and dangerous.54.We can argue that already in 1866 Mendel was less confident that his so-called second law had the same general validity as the first — and that later he lost his confidence altogether. Contemporary testimony indicates that in the end he became as skeptical as all his contemporaries as to the scientific relevance of his theory.55 But he was wrong. His research is in no way the fruit of methodological mistakes or forgery, and it remains a landmark in the history of science. He was only the victim of a strange destiny in which the use of probability theory was responsible, at the same time, for the strength and for the weakness of his theory. We must still consider him the father and founder of genetics. (shrink)

_"There is no better book on fascism's complex and vexed relationship with truth."––Jason Stanley, author of _How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them__ In this short companion to his book_ From Fascism to Populism in History__, _world-renowned historian Federico Finchelstein explains why fascists regarded simple and often hateful lies as truth, and why so many of their followers believed the falsehoods. Throughout the history of the twentieth century, many supporters of fascist ideologies regarded political lies as truth (...) incarnated in their leader. From Hitler to Mussolini, fascist leaders capitalized on lies as the base of their power and popular sovereignty. This history continues in the present, when lies again seem to increasingly replace empirical truth. Now that actual news is presented as “fake news” and false news becomes government policy, _A Brief History of Fascist Lies_ urges us to remember that the current talk of “post-truth” has a long political and intellectual lineage that we cannot ignore. (shrink)

The focus of this paper is the prima facie plausible view, expressed by the principle of Counter-Closure, that knowledge-yielding competent deductive inference must issue from known premises. I construct a case that arguably falsifies this principle and consider five available lines of response that might help retain Counter-Closure. I argue that three are problematic. Of the two remaining lines of response, the first relies on non-universal intuitions and forces one to view the case I construct as exhibiting a justified, true (...) belief to which none of the usual diagnoses of knowledge failure in Gettier cases apply. The second line involves claiming that Fake Barns and its ilk are misdiagnosed by epistemological orthodoxy as Gettier cases. We are thus confronted by a trilemma: either the case I discuss undermines the first-blush plausible principle of Counter-Closure; or the case I discuss instantiates a novel kind of Gettier case; or a popular conception of a key range of alleged Gettier cases must be rejected. No matter which horn we choose, the case points to a philosophically curious conclusion. (shrink)

Desires matter. What are desires? Many believe that desire is a motivational state: desiring is being disposed to act. This conception aligns with the functionalist approach to desire and the standard account of desire's role in explaining action. According to a second influential approach, however, desire is first and foremost an evaluation: desiring is representing something as good. After all, we seem to desire things under the guise of the good. Which understanding of desire is more accurate? Is the guise (...) of the good even right to assume? Should we adopt an alternative picture that emphasizes desire's deontic nature? What do neuroscientific studies suggest? -/- Essays in the first section of the volume are devoted to these questions, and to the puzzle of desire's essence. In the second part of the volume, essays investigate some implications that the various conceptions of desire have on a number of fundamental issues. For example, why are inconsistent desires problematic? What is desire's role in practical deliberation? How do we know what we want? -/- This volume will contribute to the emergence of a fruitful debate on a neglected, albeit crucial, dimension of the mind. (shrink)

According to a wrong interpretation of the Bell theorem, it has been repeatedly claimed in recent times that we are forced by experiments to drop any possible form of realism in the foundations of quantum mechanics. In this paper I defend the simple thesis according to which the above claim cannot be consistently supported: the Bell theorem does not concern realism, and realism per se cannot be refuted in itself by any quantum experiment. As a consequence, realism in quantum mechanics (...) is not something that can be simply explained away once and for all on the basis of experiments, but rather something that must be conceptually characterized and discussed in terms of its foundational virtues and vices. To assess it, we cannot rely on experimentation but rather on philosophical discussion: realism is not a phlogiston-like notion, despite the efforts of the contemporary quantum orthodoxy to conceive it in Russellian terms as the relics of a bygone age. (shrink)

COVID19 pandemic has clarified that public health policies are central for the future of human societies from several perspectives. As a matter of fact, they are based on certain premises that are practical-political (e.g., ensuring the health of citizens), moral (e.g., health is a value), or epistemological (e.g., certain ideas concerning expertise and shared knowledge). Indeed, effective policies require first and foremost not only to be based on reliable data and models (i.e., so-called evidence-based policy) but also to ensure that (...) these policies are democratically accepted, shared (e.g., considering both cognitive and social dimensions), and hopefully formed after a deliberative process involving experts from various fields alongside citizens. (shrink)

According to a widespread view, the Bell theorem establishes the untenability of so-called ‘local realism’. On the basis of this view, recent proposals by Leggett, Zeilinger and others have been developed according to which it can be proved that even some non-local realistic theories have to be ruled out. As a consequence, within this view the Bell theorem allows one to establish that no reasonable form of realism, be it local or non-local, can be made compatible with the (experimentally tested) (...) predictions of quantum mechanics. In the present paper it is argued that the Bell theorem has demonstrably nothing to do with the ‘realism’ as defined by these authors and that, as a consequence, their conclusions about the foundational significance of the Bell theorem are unjustified. (shrink)

This article suggests that Buber's idea of the community may hint at an alternative to the more common foundations of political thought, usually grounded on notions of power or rationality. Showing how Buber's idea of the community developed from a neo-romantic form (in his early writings) to a principle informed by the dialogical dimension of human life (from I and Thou onwards), I will point out the vertical dimension of political life ensuing from Buber's discourse. A discussion of the theopolitical (...) principle as expressed in Buber's Kingship of God will lead to the conclusion that, both descriptively and normatively, politics needs an openness to transcendence. (shrink)

It is often assumed that, except perhaps in a few rare cases, people with addiction can be aptly held responsible for having acquired the condition. In this chapter, I consider the argument that supports this view and draw attention to a number of challenges that can be raised against it. Assuming that early decisions to use drugs were made in possession of normal-range psychological capacities, I consider the key question of whether drug users who later became addicted should have known (...) that addiction was a likely outcome of their decisions to use drugs in a way that makes them blameworthy for their lack of foresight. I focus on three different points of contention surrounding this claim: how likely the outcome to be predicted was, how tolerable risk should be weighed against the expected value of decisions to use, and how reliable the relevant predictive abilities of the average person are. Once we consider in some detail what would have to be true in order for someone to be aptly held responsible for becoming addicted, the prospects for making a convincing case to that effect look, I argue, somewhat more uncertain than they might at first appear. (shrink)

In this work we discuss logical structures related to indistinguishable particles. Most of the framework used to develop these structures was presented in [17, 28] and in [20, 14, 15, 16]. We use these structures and constructions to discuss possible ontologies for identical particles. In other words, we use these structures in order to characterize the logical structure of quantum systems for the case of indistinguishable particles, and draw possible philosophical implications. We also review some proposals available in the literature (...) which may be considered within the framework of the quantum logical tradition regarding the problem of indistinguishability. Besides these discussions and constructions, we advance novel technical results, namely, a lattice theoretical structure for identical particles for the finite dimensional case. This kind of approach was not present in the scarcely literature of quantum logic and indistinguishable particles. (shrink)

Human cerebral organoids are three-dimensional biological cultures grown in the laboratory to mimic as closely as possible the cellular composition, structure, and function of the corresponding organ, the brain. For now, cerebral organoids lack blood vessels and other characteristics of the human brain, but are also capable of having coordinated electrical activity. They have been usefully employed for the study of several diseases and the development of the nervous system in unprecedented ways. Research on human cerebral organoids is proceeding at (...) a very fast pace and their complexity is bound to improve. This raises the question of whether cerebral organoids will also be able to develop the unique feature of the human brain, consciousness. If this is the case, some ethical issues would arise. In this article, we discuss the necessary neural correlates and constraints for the emergence of consciousness according to some of the most debated neuroscientific theories. Based on this, we consider what the moral status of a potentially conscious brain organoid might be, in light of ethical and ontological arguments. We conclude by proposing a precautionary principle and some leads for further investigation. In particular, we consider the outcomes of some very recent experiments as entities of a potential new kind. (shrink)

In this article, we will present a number of technical results concerning Classical Logic, ST and related systems. Our main contribution consists in offering a novel identity criterion for logics in general and, therefore, for Classical Logic. In particular, we will firstly generalize the ST phenomenon, thereby obtaining a recursively defined hierarchy of strict-tolerant systems. Secondly, we will prove that the logics in this hierarchy are progressively more classical, although not entirely classical. We will claim that a logic is to (...) be identified with an infinite sequence of consequence relations holding between increasingly complex relata: formulae, inferences, metainferences, and so on. As a result, the present proposal allows not only to differentiate Classical Logic from ST, but also from other systems sharing with it their valid metainferences. Finally, we show how these results have interesting consequences for some topics in the philosophical logic literature, among them for the debate around Logical Pluralism. The reason being that the discussion concerning this topic is usually carried out employing a rivalry criterion for logics that will need to be modified in light of the present investigation, according to which two logics can be non-identical even if they share the same valid inferences. (shrink)