According to Reid, color sensations are not extended nor are they arranged in figured patterns. Reid further claimed that ‘there is no sensation appropriated to visible figure.’ Reid justified these controversial claims by appeal to Cheselden's report of the experiences of a young man affected by severe cataracts, and by appeal to cases of perception of visible figure without color. While holding fast to the principle that sensations are not extended, Dugald Stewart tried to show that ‘a variety of colour (...) sensations is a necessary means for the perception of visible figure.’ According to John Fearn, two motives appear to be central to Reid's views about color sensations and extension: his commitment to the Cartesian doctrine of the immateriality of the soul, and his attempt to evade ‘Hume's dilemma’ about the existence and immateriality of the soul. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Schizophrenic Delusions, Embodiment, and the BackgroundGiovanni Stanghellini (bio)Keywordsschizophrenia, delusion, embodiment, common sense, phenomenologyIn their article Delusions, Certainty, and the Background, Rhodes and Gipps (2008) argue for a Background theory of delusions. Their central argument may be summed up as follows:• The formation and maintenance of delusions becomes intelligible once they are seen to reflect a basic disturbance. When studying delusions, the focus should be on providing an adequate framework (...) for understanding, rather than providing empirical hypotheses to be tested.• The basic disturbance in delusions, and insanity in general, is not a deficiency in reasoning or a defect in the content of experience, but rather something more fundamental.• Delusions––this is their central claim––are caused by a failure of the Bedrock of beliefs (Wittgenstein) or the Background (Searle) to adequately inform or constrain the process of belief formation.• Our Bedrock certainties are defined––following Wittgenstein––as ultimately constituted by our ability to act in the world and demonstrate our primary engagement with the world. They are born out of our everyday experience of the world, conveying our direct, pre-reflective, and practical grasp of the world, rather than expressing judgments we make about it.• Similarly, the Background is defined as those abilities and dispositions that are neither representations nor rules, that function before we can make sense of our experiences.• Wittgenstein’s Bedrock and Searle’s Background in great part overlap with Blankenburg’s pre-reflective natural self-evidence and Stanghellini’s common sense, namely, our own unreflecting know-how, a set of nonpropositional skills, capacities, and dispositions that attune us with the world.• Without a fully functioning Background, the distinctions between imaginary and real (mind and world), self and non-self, and cause and coincidence fail to be adequately drawn within experience. Also, grasping the meaning of others’ behaviors and a weakening of contextual influences are entailed by an erosion of Background sensibilities.I feel extremely sympathetic to this account and, as Rhodes and Gipps report, there are remarkable points of overlap between their and my own ideas about the formation of schizophrenic delusions. I would like to add some comments on the main theories on the basic disorders entailed in the pathogenesis of delusions and conclude with some suggestions to integrate the Background theory of delusions. [End Page 311]Syntagmatic Versus Paradigmatic Models of DelusionsLet me raise first an epistemological point: paradigmatic models of delusions––defining what a delusion is in itself and what are its borders with similar phenomena––proved to be unsatisfactory in psychopathology. As Schneider and Huber (1975) put it more that 40 years ago, “[w]hat counts in delusions is not the delusion itself... but snagging the course of the lived experience, rather than its product” (p. 2042). What we do need, to understand what delusions really are, are syntagmatic models how––delusions (in this case, delusions in persons with schizophrenia) are connected to other phenomena within a structure or a process. What we should look for, then, are the phenomena that contribute as motivationally (or causally) necessary vulnerability, that is, the basic disturbance for the development of delusions. This logically implies that we need studying delusions in fieri, or the pathways that lead to delusions themselves. I subscribe to the principle that studying delusion by merely concentrating exclusively on its crystallized forms would be like studying stroke victims to know more about hypertension (Parnas and Sass 2001). This methodological move from crystallized delusions to delusions in-the-making is quintessential to define the subtle, basic, phenomenal invariant core that characterizes a given psychopathological phenomenon and that emerges across the manifold facets of the phenomenon itself and shapes them and keeps them meaningfully interconnected.A syntagmatic model should account for (at least) the following features of schizophrenic delusions:• abnormalities in symbolization (loss of commonsense meaning of a given thing or fact),• formal aspects (e.g., revelation character, experience of centrality), and• specificity of content (e.g., metaphysical tinge).It should also be compatible with those phenomena like self-disorders (loss of sense of ownership and of agency) that are entailed in most schizophrenic symptoms (e.g., verbal–acoustic hallucinations and experiences of alien control). Finally, it should keep meaningfully... (shrink)

According to Reid, opinions that contradict the principles of common sense are not only false but also absurd. Nature has given us an emotion that reveals the absurdity of an opinion: the emotion of ridicule. An appeal to ridicule in philosophical arguments may easily be discounted as a logical fallacy in the same manner as an appeal to the common consent of people. This essay traces the origins of Reid's defense of ridicule in the works of Addison, Hutcheson, Shaftesbury and (...) Campbell. Reid rejected a non-epistemic view of the sense of ridicule. According to Reid, ridicule includes both a feeling and a particular act of judgment based on the principles of common sense. (shrink)

Research in the field of management has increasingly focused on strategies and tools related to corporate sustainability. Of the tools examined, codes of ethics have been found to play a primary role. Many studies have investigated the content of such codes, as well as their capacity to condition the behaviour of people within organizations. However, few studies have considered the intrinsic quality of codes of ethics. This study aims to investigate the impact that specific factors—firm size, degree of internationalization and (...) industry effect—can have on the quality of codes of ethics. Based on a sample of 248 listed Italian companies, the results of the empirical analysis show that the quality standard is particularly high in larger companies and in those firms operating in industries in which relationships established with critical stakeholders—and disclosure to those stakeholders—play a crucial role. These results have interesting implications for both researchers and practitioners. (shrink)

In 1685, during the heyday of Scottish Cartesianism, regent Robert Lidderdale from Edinburgh University declared Cartesianism the best philosophy in support of the Reformed faith. It is commonplace that Descartes was ostracised by the Reformed, and his role in pre-Enlightenment Scottish philosophy is not yet fully acknowledged. This paper offers an introduction to Scottish Cartesianism, and argues that the philosophers of the Scottish universities warmed up to Cartesianism because they saw it as a newer, better version of their own traditional (...) Reformed scholasticism, chiefly in metaphysics and natural philosophy. (shrink)

In this note a T1 formal space is a formal space whose points are closed as subspaces. Any regular formal space is T1. We introduce the more general notion of a formal space, and prove that the class of points of a weakly set-presentable formal space is a set in the constructive set theory CZF. The same also holds in constructive type theory. We then formulate separation properties for constructive topological spaces , strengthening separation properties discussed elsewhere. Finally we relate (...) the properties for ct-spaces with corresponding properties of formal spaces. (shrink)

This paper wishes to make a contribution to the study of how seventeenth-century scholasticism adapted to the new intellectual challenges presented by the Reformation. I focus in particular on the theory of accidents, which Reformed scholastic philosophers explored in search of a philosophical understanding of the rejection of the Catholic and Lutheran interpretations of the Eucharist. I argue that the Calvinist scholastics chose the view that actual inherence is part of the essence of accidents because it was coherent with their (...) theology. In this paper, I bring to attention the Reformed scholastic philosophy which was taught in the Scottish universities in the first half of the seventeenth century, an area so far neglected by scholars. In so doing, I compare Scottish scholasticism with coeval Calvinist sources, and highlight the differences from authoritative Catholic and Lutheran philosophers. The conclusion is that Calvinist scholasticism, both Scottish and Continental, brought about fundamental changes in seventeenth-century metaphysics, which are coherent with a humanist interpretation of Aristotle, and anticipate some themes of early modern philosophy. (shrink)

The paper provides a conceptual distinction between evidence assessment criteria and standards of proof. Evidence must be assessed in order to check whether it satisfies a relevant standard of proof, and the assessment is operated with some criterion; so both criteria and standards are necessary for fact-finding. In addition to this conceptual point, the article addresses three main questions: Why do some scholars and decision-makers take assessment criteria as standards of proof and vice versa? Why do systems differ as to (...) criteria and standards? How can a system work if it neglects one of these things? The answers to the first and second question come from the historical and procedural differences between the systems. The answer to the third focuses on the functional connection between criteria and standards. (shrink)

Up to equivalence, a substitution in propositional logic is an endomorphism of its free algebra. On the dual space, this results in a continuous function, and whenever the space carries a natural measure one may ask about the stochastic properties of the action. In classical logic there is a strong dichotomy: while over finitely many propositional variables everything is trivial, the study of the continuous transformations of the Cantor space is the subject of an extensive literature, and is far from (...) being a completed task. In many-valued logic this dichotomy disappears: already in the finite-variable case many interesting phenomena occur, and the present paper aims at displaying some of these. (shrink)

It is a curious feature of Hegelian studies in English that its practitioners seem incapable of tackling their subject without first disclaiming any adherence to the more metaphysical side of Hegel's thought, be it called “speculative metaphysics,” “dialectical logic” or whatever. I say “curious” because I doubt that the same scholars would feel obliged to enter an equivalent disclaimer at the head of a study on, say, Aristotle, Descartes, Spinoza or even Newton—even though all of these classics have a metaphysical (...) side at least as abstruse as any of Hegel's worse romantic excesses. Hegel himself, if he could witness the practice, would be flattered by it. He would not see it as an indication that “the problems of [his] logic remain alien and artificial to us in ways that the problems of Cartesian and Kantian philosophy do not” but, on the contrary, as a hidden acknowledgement that, whether for good or bad, his philosophy is still alive, still so close to our culture that we instinctively feel the need of exorcizing it ritually, like a demon capable of frightening us. (shrink)

SummaryHaving termed any physical difference a “signal” and having methodologically distinguished the ambit of syntactic rules from that of the semantic references, we regard the relations between these signals as lying on a single plane, without distinction between concepts, objects and expressions. Signals‐significants and meanings at the same time‐are the nodes of a network of connections whose syntactic and semantic aspects are inseparable. Thus: 1. we reject the critique of AI that claims it is necessary to separate semantics from syntax; (...) 2. we define the conditions for adequate scientific communication. (shrink)

In the present work Berkeley's theory of vision is considered in its historical origins, in its relation to Berkeley's general philosophical conceptions, and in its early reception. Berkeley's theory replaces an account of vision according to which distance and other spatial properties are deduced from elementary data through an unconscious geometric inference. This account of vision in terms of "natural geometry" was first introduced by Descartes and Malebranche. Among Berkeley's immediate sources of knowledge of the geometric theory of perception, a (...) key role was played by the treatise of dioptrics of William Molyneux, Dioptrica Nova. Berkeley's understanding of "natural geometry" relies closely on Molyneux's description of the mechanism of vision which avoids the complexities of the accounts of Descartes and Malebranche. In the first chapter Berkeley's theory is presented by way of contrast with Molyneux's theory. In the second chapter I consider the relation between the theory of vision and immaterialism. In the final chapter I examine one of the first criticisms of Berkeley's theory, that which is found in William Porterfield's Treatise on the Eye. Dept. of Philosophy. Paper copy at Leddy Library: Theses & Major Papers - Basement, West Bldg. / Call Number: Thesis1997.G72. Source: Masterss International, Volume: 37-01, page: 0076. Adviser: John P. Wright. Thesis --University of Windsor, 1997. (shrink)

According to Daniel Flage, Berkeley thinks that all necessary truths are founded on acts of will that assign meanings to words. After briefly commenting on the air of paradox contained in the title of Flage’s paper, and on the historical accuracy of Berkeley’s understanding of the abstractionist tradition, I make some remarks on two points made by Flage. Firstly, I discuss Flage’s distinction between the ontological ground of a necessary truth and our knowledge of a necessary truth. Secondly, I discuss (...) Flage’s attempt to show that, according to Berkeley, the resemblance relation does not constitute a necessary connection. (shrink)

Two theses appear to be central to Reid’s view of the visual field. By sight, we do not originally perceive depth or linear distance from the eye. By sight, we originally perceive the position that points on the surface of objects have with regard to the centre of the eye. In different terms, by sight, we originally perceive the compass direction and degree of elevation of points on the surface of objects with reference to the centre of the eye. I (...) consider various problems about distance perception and perception of position with regard to the centre of the eye raised by Reid’s texts. These questions are relevant to Reid’s description of the geometry of visibles as the “intrinsic” geometry of the surface of the sphere. (shrink)

According to Thomas Reid, the development of natural sciences following the model of Newton's Principia and Optics would provide further evidence for the belief in a provident God. This project was still supported by his student, Dugald Stewart, in the early nineteenth century. John Fearn , an early critic of the Scottish common sense school, thought that the rise of ‘infidelity’ in the wake of scientific progress had shown that the apologetic project of Reid and Stewart had failed. In reaction (...) to Reid and Stewart, he proposed an idealist philosophy that would dispense with the existence of matter, and would thus cut at the root what he thought was the main source of modern atheism. In this paper, I consider Fearn's critique of Reid and Stewart in his main works: First Lines of the Human Mind and Manual of the Physiology of Mind . I also consider Fearn's arguments against Hume and in favour of a renewed apologetics in An Essay on the Philosophy of Faith and the Economy of Revelatio.. (shrink)

Questo libro presenta per la prima volta in lingua italiana, tradotto dall'ebraico, il testo poco noto di un grande umanista ebreo consulente e maestro di Pico della Mirandola, pubblicato da un lontano nipote rabbino di Amsterdam nel 1629 e presente nella biblioteca di Spinoza. Si tratta dell'Esame della religione (Beḥinat ha-dat) del cretese askenazita Elia del Medigo, personalità di primo piano non solo nella cultura ebraica di fine Quattrocento, ma anche nel mondo accademico latino, in particolare di ascendenza aristotelica."--P. [vii].

This article explains how Derrida’s notion of an originary or generalised metaphoricity can be understood in terms of the analyses presented in Voice and Phenomenon (1967) in response to Eugen Fink’s question of a ‘transcendental logos’ and of the paradoxical ontological status of phenomenological language. Tracing Fink’s impact on Derrida, as well as the key differences between them, the article shows that underlying Derrida’s reappropriation of the phenomenological concept of ‘life’ is an expansion of indicative relations—which in Husserl typify the (...) function of signs within intersubjective communication and modes of judgement characterised by the non-presence of the intended object—to a general feature of the ‘living present’. While for Fink the indicative or metaphorical nature of the transcendental concept of ‘life’ does not threaten the founding unity it serves to name, for Derrida it is this very unity which is undermined by the proliferation of indication at the core of temporal experience. (shrink)

Beginning with the origins of Western philosophy, the profound creation of the Hellenic genius, Reale presents an appreciation of the Naturalists, the Sophists, Socrates, and the Minor Socratics.

1. Dalle origini a Socrate.--2. Platone e Aristotele.--3. I sistemi dell'età ellenistica.--4. Le scuole dell'età imperiale.--5. Lessico, indici e bibliografia.