While growing empirical evidence suggests a continuity between human and non-human psychology, many philosophers still think that only humans can act and form beliefs rationally. In this paper, we challenge this claim. We first clarify the notion of rationality. We then focus on the rationality of beliefs and argue that, in the relevant sense, humans are not the only rational animals. We do so by first distinguishing between unreflective and reflective responsiveness to epistemic reasons in belief formation and revision. We (...) argue that unreflective responsiveness is clearly within the reach of many animals. We then defend that a key demonstration of reflective responsiveness would be the ability to respond to undermining defeaters. We end by presenting some empirical evidence that suggests that some animal species are capable of processing these defeaters, which would entail that even by the strictest standards, humans are not the only rational animals. (shrink)

This essay gives an account of epistemic deference for agents with imprecise credences. I look at the two main imprecise deference principles in the literature, known as Identity Reflection and Pointwise Reflection (Moss, 2021). I show that Pointwise Reflection is strictly weaker than Identity Reflection, and argue that, if you are certain you will update by conditionalisation, you should defer to your future self according to Identity Reflection. Then I give a more general justification for Pointwise and Identity Reflection from (...) the assumption that you defer to someone whenever you consider their doxastic state to be better than yours, in the sense of leading to better decision-making. (shrink)

This book aims to introduce the Armenian version of Philo's writings also to those scholars not acquainted with Armenian Studies. The subject is approached from different perspectives - historical, hermeneutical, philological, linguistic - with special attention given to the reception of Philo in Armenian Christianity.

One important distinction in the debate over the nature of epistemic justification is the one between propositional and doxastic justification. Roughly, while doxastic justification is a property of beliefs, propositional justification is a property of propositions. On a rather common view, which accounts for doxastic justification in terms of propositional justification plus the so-called ‘basing relation’, propositional justification is seen as the prior notion, and doxastic justification is explained in terms of it. According to the opposing view, the direction of (...) explanation needs to be reversed, and doxastic justification should be seen as primary. I distinguish between two notions of priority, and I argue that they give different verdicts with respect to the issue of which notion of justification comes first. The lesson may be taken to be that propositional and doxastic justification are in a relation of intertwinement. (shrink)

In this book Giacomo Marramao focuses on the work of two great Central European writers, Elias Canetti and Herta Müller, each of whom, in different periods and contexts, offered a philosophical genealogy of forms of domination and a radical diagnosis of power, command and law. This book explores the issue of power from a philosophical literary perspective. It tackles the linguistic and literary relations between the notions of "power" and "potential".

A lot of attention has recently been devoted to the notion of Trustworthy AI (TAI). However, the very applicability of the notions of trust and trustworthiness to AI systems has been called into question. A purely epistemic account of trust can hardly ground the distinction between trustworthy and merely reliable AI, while it has been argued that insisting on the importance of the trustee’s motivations and goodwill makes the notion of TAI a categorical error. After providing an overview of the (...) debate, we contend that the prevailing views on trust and AI fail to account for the ethically relevant and value-laden aspects of the design and use of AI systems, and we propose an understanding of the notion of TAI that explicitly aims at capturing these aspects. The problems involved in applying trust and trustworthiness to AI systems are overcome by keeping apart trust in AI systems and interpersonal trust. These notions share a conceptual core but should be treated as distinct ones. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that the standard interpretation of Russell as a causal eliminativist is partial and misleading. Instead, I defend the thesis that his criticism of causality was actually part of the more ambitious project of transposing the common- sense concept of “cause” in the categories that articulate the representations of modern science. I also show that Russell endorsed such a project all along his philosophical career, despite the numerous changes of mind that characterized the development of this (...) thought. (shrink)

Taking the inspiration from some points made by Scott Sturgeon and Albert Casullo, I articulate a view according to which an important difference between undermining and overriding defeaters is that the former require the subject to engage in some higher-order epistemic thinking, while the latter don’t. With the help of some examples, I argue that underminers push the cognizer to reflect on the way she formed a belief by challenging the epistemic worthiness of either the source of justification or the (...) specific justificatory process. By contrast, overriders needn’t pose any such challenge. I also consider some problems for the proposed view, and I put forward some possible solutions. Finally, I provide some details on how undermining defeat works in different cases. (shrink)

Lettura prospettica di un caposaldo del pensiero hobbesiano: il sorgere del rapporto tra l'uomo ed il potere, tra la naturale condizione umana e la nozione di civiltà, attraverso due frammenti particolarmente rappresentativi della concezione hobbesiana del passaggio dallo stato di natura alla civiltà: il tredicesimo capitolo del Leviathan, sulla condizione naturale dell'uomo, ed il quinto capitolo, sulle cause ed origini della civitas, del De cive, giacché la mera esistenza dell'uomo ed il suo riconoscimento di una legge naturale, a giudizio di (...) Hobbes, non implica affatto necessariamente una qualsiasi forma consolidata di organizzazione sociale. Sebbene il De cive (pubblicato in latino nel 1642 e, in inglese, nel 1651) preceda cronologicamente il Leviathan (pubblicato, viceversa, dapprima in inglese, nel 1651, poi in latino, nel 1668), nell'ordine logico dell'esposizione qui presentata, il brano del Leviathan può essere considerato propedeutico al quinto capitolo del De cive, delineandone i presupposti, segnatamente la condizione di continuo pericolo per tutti causata dallo stato generale di reciproca guerra, che costituisce forse l'aspetto più noto (e frainteso) del pensiero hobbesiano. Per una migliore comprensione dei testi e delle differenti (spesso opposte) interpretazioni cui hanno dato vita, si è ritenuto di proporre, per quanto concerne i brani di Hobbes, tanto la loro traduzione in lingua italiana quanto le stesure originali in latino e inglese, presentate con i testi a fronte; tale scelta fornisce l'opportunità di osservare l'accurata scelta di alcuni dei vocaboli chiave della filosofia di Hobbes, la cui trasposizione da una lingua all'altra è stata spesso causa di fraintendimenti o volgarizzazioni in tutto o in parte ingiustificate. Allo scopo di offrire una più completa prospettiva del pensiero hobbesiano delineato nei brani selezionati, si è ritenuto di affiancare ad essi dei frammenti di interpreti novecenteschi (con delle sintetiche schede bio-bibliografiche) di alcuni concetti formulati da Hobbes e, segnatamente, di F. Tönnies, M. Horkheimer, L. Strauss, C. Schmitt, T. Parsons, N. Bobbio, H. Warrender. (shrink)

Famously, Kripke has argued that the central portion of the Philosophical Investigations describes both a skeptical paradox and its skeptical solution. Solving the paradox involves the element of the community, which determines correctness conditions for rule-following behavior. What do such conditions precisely consist of? Is it accurate to say that there is no fact to the matter of rule following? How are the correctness conditions sustained in the community? My answers to these questions revolve around the idea that a rule (...) is followed insofar as a convention is in place. In particular, I consider the game-theoretic definition of convention offered by David Lewis and I show that it illuminates essential aspects of the communitarian understanding of rule-following. Make the following experiment: say “It’s cold here” and mean “It’s warm here”. Can you do it?Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 1953, §510.I can’t say “it’s cold here” and mean “it’s warm here”—at least, not without a little help from my friends.David Lewis, Convention. (shrink)

When we witness a great actor, musician, or sportsperson performing, we share something of their experience. Only recently has it become clear just how this sharing of experience is realised within the human brain. 'Mirrors in the brain' provides an accessible overview of mirror neurons, written by the man who first discovered them.

In this paper I address issues related to the problem of future contingents and the metaphysical doctrine of fatalism. Two classical responses to the problem of future contingents are the third truth value view and the all-false view. According to the former, future contingents take a third truth value which goes beyond truth and falsity. According to the latter, they are all false. I here illustrate and discuss two ways to respectively argue for those two views. Both ways are similar (...) in spirit and intimately connected with fatalism, in the sense that they engage with the doctrine of fatalism and accept a large part of a standard fatalistic machinery. (shrink)

We focus on Timothy Williamson’s recent attack on the epistemological significance of the a priori–a posteriori distinction, and offer an explanation of why, fundamentally, it does not succeed. We begin by setting out Williamson’s core argument, and some of the background to it and move to consider two lines of conciliatory response to it—conciliatory in that neither questions the central analogy on which Williamson's argument depends. We claim, setting aside a methodological challenge to which Williamson owes an answer, that no (...) satisfactory such reconciliation is in prospect. Rather, as we then argue, —and it is on this that we base our overall negative assessment of his argument—Williamson’s core analogy is flawed by an oversight. We conclude with some brief reflections on Williamson’s ideas about the imagination as a source of knowledge. Our principal conclusion is only that Williamson’s argument fails to perform as advertised. A constructive case for confidence, to the contrary, that the intuitive contrast between a priori and a posteriori reflects something of fundamental epistemological significance is prefigured in our final section, but will not be elaborated here. (shrink)

Nostalgia for the present -- Identity and contingency: zones of conflict -- Dämmerung: the twilight of sovereignty: state, subjects, and fundamental rights -- The exile of the Nomos: Carl Schmitt and the Globale Zeit -- Gift, exchange, obligation: Karl Polanyi and social philosophy -- Universalism and politics of difference: democracy as a paradoxical community -- The oriental mirror: Voltaire and the roots of intolerance -- Ciphers of difference -- Europe after the Leviathan: technology, politics, constitution -- After Babel: towards a (...) cosmopolitanism of difference. (shrink)