This paper takes a close look at the thought that mereological relations on material objects mirror, and are mirrored by, parallel mereological relations on their exact locations. This hypothesis is made more precise by means of a battery of principles from which more substantive consequences are derived. Mereological harmony turns out to entail, for example, that atomistic space is an inhospitable environment for material gunk or that Whiteheadian space is not a hospitable environment for unextended material atoms.

In this paper I examine the relation between modern transhumanism and Nietzsche’s philosophy of the superhuman. Following Loeb, I argue that transhumanists cannot claim affinity to Nietzsche’s philosophy until they incorporate the doctrine of eternal recurrence to their project of technological enhancement. This doctrine liberates us from resentment against time by teaching us reconciliation with time and something higher than all reconciliation. Unlike Loeb, however, I claim that this “something higher” is not a new skill (prospective memory), but rather a (...) love for the past in the form of loving that aspect of it that is still with us, namely, the will to power itself, which is the engine of all life. Love of the past is thus equivalent to love of life. Since human beings are conscious incarnations of the will to power, in our case, love of life manifests itself as love of our humanity or love for that aspect of ourselves that connects us to each other, for we recognize it to be the same in all of us. Thus, learning this kind of love enables us to joyfully coordinate our wills in the pursuit of Zarathustra’s superhuman ideal without turning it into a destructive mockery of itself. While learning this kind of love would facilitate a joyful version of transhumanism, I conclude by suggesting that it is unlikely to be achieved through technological interventions of the sort envisioned by transhumanists. Instead, it requires the kind of participatory pedagogical program that Nietzsche thought his Zarathustra would fulfill. (shrink)

Dans une société comme la nôtre, ébranlée par de multiples crises, et dans un monde en voie de globalisation générale, il semble manifeste, aux yeux de certains philosophes, sociologues ou théologiens, que nous assistons à une crise de la conscience collective. Or il ne fait aucun doute que les crises, de quelque ordre qu'elles soient, nous appellent à des remises en question et à des transformations, parfois radicales. Dans ce livre-entretien à trois voix, chaque interlocuteur partage ses interprétations "positives" de (...) nos crises actuelles : le théologien par rapport à la déchristianisation apparente et ses effets en termes de spiritualité, le sociologue par rapport aux nouveaux enjeux de société devant la globalisation galopante du monde et l'écrivain-thérapeute par rapport à l'individu en quête d'intériorisation et de recherche du sens de notre destinée. Que chacun et chacune puisse y trouver des pistes de réflexion dans sa quête de sens et des motifs d'espérance devant ces crises, vraisemblablement annonciatrices d'une future renaissance. Que chacun d'entre nous se persuade qu'il est toujours temps de quitter le monde des apparences pour atteindre la dimension profonde de l'humanité. Il est temps d'Être et non plus seulement de faire, de savoir et de connaître. (shrink)

The interpretation of the violation of Bell-Clauser-Horne inequalities is revisited, in relation with the notion of extension of QM predictions to unmeasurable correlations. Such extensions are compatible with QM predictions in many cases, in particular for observables with compatibility relations described by tree graphs. This implies classical representability of any set of correlations 〈A i 〉, 〈B〉, 〈A i B〉, and the equivalence of the Bell-Clauser-Horne inequalities to a non void intersection between the ranges of values for the unmeasurable correlation (...) 〈A 1 A 2〉 associated to different choices for B. The same analysis applies to the Hardy model and to the “perfect correlations” discussed by Greenberger, Horne, Shimony and Zeilinger. In all the cases, the dependence of an unmeasurable correlation on a set of variables allowing for a classical representation is the only basis for arguments about violations of locality and causality. (shrink)

The Islamic contestation of the last twenty years has in many aspects called into question the legitimacy of current juridical systems of supposedly MuslimCountries. Their adoption of another rationality of the law is today a well affirmed process but has left many consequences.In the article we will try to explain in which way the šarî'a, being a religious law, is completely controlled by the usage given to it by the State through the supremacy of the Constitution, its means, institutions and (...) actors. It is therefore a question of the level of its integration into « the law » of various countries with the emphasis on the necessity of change of perspective, where the "secularisation of Islamic law" should rather be regarded as "islamisation of the Positive law", at least when referring to Family law and, above all, when dealing with specific political conditions. (shrink)

Wording the world and worlding the word -- The kenotic utopianism of language -- God and the fallacy of identity: a theological disintoxication of the west -- The secular, a Christian contribution to the east/west dialogue -- No Christ no Jesus -- Christ beyond Christ -- Language & Co: the conditioning of God, a foray.

Giles of Rome developed his personal positions about signification in general and linguistic signification discussing contemporary and immediately preceding authors’ views, such as Robert Kilwardby’s, Albert the Great’s and probably various authors of the Modistic milieu. In this article, Giles’ positions on signs and linguistic signification will be shortly described, his discussions about homonymy will be linked to contemporary debates, and finally some of Giles’ positions that were discussed, criticized and sometimes misunderstood by later Modists, such as Simon of Faversham, (...) the Anonymous of Prague and Radulphus Brito, in their commentaries on the Sophistical Refutations around the end of XIIIth century, will be commented upon. (shrink)

This discussion of pride, shame, and guilt centers on the beliefs involved in the experience of any of these emotions. Through a detailed study, the author demonstrates how these beliefs are alike--in that they are all directed towards the self--and how they differ. The experience of these three emotions are illustrated by examples taken from English literature. These concrete cases supply a context for study and indicate the complexity of the situations in which these emotions usually occur.

Those who wish to claim that all facts about grounding are themselves grounded (“the meta-grounding thesis”) must defend against the charge that such a claim leads to infinite regress and violates the well-foundedness of ground. In this paper, we defend. First, we explore three distinct but related notions of “well-founded”, which are often conflated, and three corresponding notions of infinite regress. We explore the entailment relations between these notions. We conclude that the meta-grounding thesis need not lead to tension with (...) any of the three notions of “well-founded”. Finally, we explore the details of and motivations for further conditions on ground that one might add to generate a conflict between the meta-grounding thesis and a well-founded constraint. We explore these topics by developing and utilizing a formal framework based on the notion of a grounding structure. (shrink)

L'A. esamina la teoria egidiana delle passioni, sviluppata in quattro declarationes in apertura del suo commento al II libro della Retorica. I temi analizzati sono la definizione di passio animae, la distinzione tra la facoltà irascibile e la concupiscibile, le passioni della facoltà concupiscibile e dell'irascibile. Fonte principale e punto costante di riferimento nella trattazione egidiana è la dottrina dell'Aquinate. L'A. mette costantemente a confronto le posizioni dei due filosofi evidenziando i tentativi di Egidio di staccarsi da Tommaso e criticarne (...) la dottrina, in particolare rispetto alla trattazione dell'ira. (shrink)

Gabriel Richardson Lear presents a bold new approach to one of the enduring debates about Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics: the controversy about whether it coherently argues that the best life for humans is one devoted to a single activity, namely philosophical contemplation. Many scholars oppose this reading because the bulk of the Ethics is devoted to various moral virtues--courage and generosity, for example--that are not in any obvious way either manifestations of philosophical contemplation or subordinated to it. They argue that (...) Aristotle was inconsistent, and that we should not try to read the entire Ethics as an attempt to flesh out the notion that the best life aims at the "monistic good" of contemplation. In defending the unity and coherence of the Ethics, Lear argues that, in Aristotle's view, we may act for the sake of an end not just by instrumentally bringing it about but also by approximating it. She then argues that, for Aristotle, the excellent rational activity of moral virtue is an approximation of theoretical contemplation. Thus, the happiest person chooses moral virtue as an approximation of contemplation in practical life. Richardson Lear bolsters this interpretation by examining three moral virtues--courage, temperance, and greatness of soul--and the way they are fine. Elegantly written and rigorously argued, this is a major contribution to our understanding of a central issue in Aristotle's moral philosophy. (shrink)

In his commentaries on Porphyry and Aristotle’s Organon and in his other works, John Duns Scotus shows his knowledge of both the modistic theory of language and the theory of supposition. My contribution sheds some light on the relationship between Scotus’ philosophy of language and the theory of supposition, collecting and commenting on all the passages in which he makes use of it or discusses some theoretical points. I take into special account the almost unknown commentary on the Topics, which (...) is preserved in a Vatican manuscript. (shrink)

The notion of 'symbol' in Eriugena's writing is far from clear. It has an ambiguous semantic connection with other terms such as 'signification', 'figure', 'allegory', 'veil', 'agalma', 'form', 'shadow', 'mystery' and so on. This paper aims to explore into the origins of such a semantic ambiguity, already present in the texts of the pseudo-Dionysian corpus which Eriugena translated and commented upon. In the probable Neoplatonic sources of this corpus, the Greek term symbolon shares some aspects of its meaning with other (...) words inherited from the ancient tradition, such as synthēma , eikōn , homoiotēs. Some of them, such as eikōn and homoiotēs, belong to the field of images and are associated with linguistic semantics in the Neoplatonic commentaries not only to Plato but also to Aristotle's logical works. Among the late ancient Neoplatonists, particular attention is paid to Proclus and to his use of the term agalma. In fact, the textual history of this word seems to be a privileged perspective from which to reconstruct the Neoplatonic semantic blending of symbol and image, as well as the main role played by linguistic issues in this conflation. (shrink)

Transdisciplinary and intermedial analysis of the experience of music. Nowadays musical semiotics no longer ignores the fundamental challenges raised by cognitive sciences, ethology, or linguistics. Creation, action and experience play an increasing role in how we understand music, a sounding structure impinging upon our body, our mind, and the world we live in. Not discarding music as a closed system, an integral experience of music demands a transdisciplinary dialogue with other domains as well. Music, Analysis, Experience brings together contributions by (...) semioticians, performers, and scholars from cognitive sciences, philosophy, and cultural studies, and deals with these fundamental questionings. Transdisciplinary and intermedial approaches to music meet musicologically oriented contributions to classical music, pop music, South American song, opera, narratology, and philosophy. (shrink)

Il genere della _medieval crime fiction_ ha preso il volo dall ’ inizio degli anni ’ 80 del secolo scorso, grazie ai romanzi di Ellis Peters e soprattutto di Umberto Eco. Da allora a oggi oltre 150 tra autrici e autori hanno proposto storie di indagine criminale ambientate nel Medioevo. In questo articolo saranno esaminati alcuni casi interessanti che stanno a cavallo tra romanzo storico medievale e _medieval crime fiction_, in cui le autrici o gli autori hanno fatto ricorso a (...) personaggi impegnati a vario titolo nella riflessione filosofica, teologica o medica medievale. Oggetto di analisi saranno in particolare sia le descrizioni del loro aspetto fisico che i rispettivi ruoli attanziali e narrativi. _The genre of _medieval crime fiction_ took off from the beginning of the 1980s, thanks to the novels of Ellis Peters and especially by Umberto Eco. Since then, more than 150 authors have proposed criminal investigation stories set in the Middle Ages. In this article we will examine some interesting cases that straddle medieval historical novel and _medieval crime fiction_, in which the authors have resorted to characters engaged in various capacities in philosophy, theology or medicine. In particular, both the descriptions of their physical aspect and their actantial and narrative roles will be analyzed_. (shrink)

Giles of Rome developed his personal positions about signification in general and linguistic signification discussing contemporary and immediately preceding authors’ views, such as Robert Kilwardby’s, Albert the Great’s and probably various authors of the Modistic milieu. In this article, Giles’ positions on signs and linguistic signification will be shortly described, his discussions about homonymy will be linked to contemporary debates, and finally some of Giles’ positions that were discussed, criticized and sometimes misunderstood by later Modists, such as Simon of Faversham, (...) the Anonymous of Prague and Radulphus Brito, in their commentaries on the Sophistical Refutations around the end of XIIIth century, will be commented upon. (shrink)

In the Posterior Analytics Aristotle contrasts demonstrations with syllogisms through signs. In the Prior Analytics he defines a sign as a demonstrative premise. One is thus led to ask: is a sign a demonstration? This book reconstructs the history of the notion of "demonstration through signs" from roughly the third through to the thirteenth century. It examines the work of Aristotle's Greek, Arabic, and Latin commentators, both within and outside the tradition of the Posterior Analytics.