The so-called “disquotational theory of truth” has not previously been developed much beyond the thesis that saying, for example, that ‘Snow is white’ is true amounts only to saying that snow is white. Marian David has set out to see what further sense can be made of the disquotational theory, and to compare its merits with those of correspondence theories of truth. His prognosis is that an intelligible disquotational theory of truth can be developed but will suffer from drastic shortcomings (...) that make it all but unusable. (shrink)

Noise in behavior is often viewed as a nuisance: while the mind aims to take the best possible action, it is let down by unreliability in the sensory and response systems. How researchers study cognition reflects this viewpoint – averaging over trials and participants to discover the deterministic relationships between experimental manipulations and their behavioral consequences, with noise represented as additive, often Gaussian, and independent. Yet a careful look at behavioral noise reveals rich structure that defies easy explanation. First, both (...) perceptual and preferential judgments show that sensory and response noise may potentially only play minor roles, with most noise arising in the cognitive computations. Second, the functional form of the noise is both non-Gaussian and non-independent, with the distribution of noise being better characterized as heavy-tailed and as having substantial long-range autocorrelations. It is possible that this structure results from brains that are, for some reason, bedeviled by a fundamental design flaw, albeit one with intriguingly distinctive characteristics. Alternatively, noise might not be a bug but a feature: indeed, we suggest that noise is fundamental to how cognition works. Specifically, we propose that the brain approximates probabilistic inference with a local sampling algorithm, one that uses randomness to drive its exploration of alternative hypotheses. Reframing cognition in this way explains the rich structure of noise and leads to a surprising conclusion: that noise is not a symptom of cognitive malfunction but plays a central role in underpinning human intelligence. (shrink)

The Structure of the ' Scienza Nuova ' One of the main reasons for the failure of Vico's Scienza Nuova to establish itself as a widely read philosophical ...

Building on the seminal work of Kit Fine in the 1980s, Leon Horsten here develops a new theory of arbitrary entities. He connects this theory to issues and debates in metaphysics, logic, and contemporary philosophy of mathematics, investigating the relation between specific and arbitrary objects and between specific and arbitrary systems of objects. His book shows how this innovative theory is highly applicable to problems in the philosophy of arithmetic, and explores in particular how arbitrary objects can engage with the (...) nineteenth-century concept of variable mathematical quantities, how they are relevant for debates around mathematical structuralism, and how they can help our understanding of the concept of random variables in statistics. This fully worked through theory will open up new avenues within philosophy of mathematics, bringing in the work of other philosophers such as Saul Kripke, and providing new insights into the development of the foundations of mathematics from the eighteenth century to the present day. (shrink)

This book presents a study of the nature and conditions of historical knowledge, conducted through a study of the relevant theories of Hume, Hegel and Vico. It is usually thought that in order to establish historical facts, we have to have a theory of human nature to support our arguments. Hume, Hegel and Vico all subscribed to this view, and are therefore discussed in detail. Professor Pompa goes on to argue that there is in fact no way of discovering anything (...) about human nature except through historical investigation. It is necessary therefore to find a different way of thinking about how we discover historical facts. This is done in the last chapter where, in opposition to almost all present views, it is argued that we must have a framework of inherited knowledge before we can believe in anything which results from historical enquiry. (shrink)

Professor Pompa's study of Vico has done a great deal to stimulate and inform the growing interest in the English-speaking world in this remarkable figure. It remains the only work devoted almost exclusively to an interpretation of the New Science and offers a comprehensive guide to the main theoretical problems to which the text gives rise. For this second edition Professor Pompa has responded to the reactions of reviewers and critics and added a new chapter which analyses Vico's conception of (...) the principles which govern the development of law. (shrink)

Professor Pompa's study of Vico has done a great deal to stimulate and inform the growing interest in the English-speaking world in this remarkable figure. It remains the only work devoted almost exclusively to an interpretation of the New Science and offers a comprehensive guide to the main theoretical problems to which the text gives rise. For this second edition Professor Pompa has responded to the reactions of reviewers and critics and added a new chapter which analyses Vico's conception of (...) the principles which govern the development of law. (shrink)

We propose that observables in quantum theory are properly understood as representatives of symmetry-invariant quantities relating one system to another, the latter to be called a reference system. We provide a rigorous mathematical language to introduce and study quantum reference systems, showing that the orthodox “absolute” quantities are good representatives of observable relative quantities if the reference state is suitably localised. We use this relational formalism to critique the literature on the relationship between reference frames and superselection rules, settling a (...) long-standing debate on the subject. (shrink)

Giambattista Vico is now acknowledged to be one of the most important figures in the history of European philosophy and social thought and increasingly attention is being focused on his writings. These, however have been difficult to obtain in English and many have never been translated. A real need therefore exists and to meet this Professor Pompa has here translated and introduced a selection of the central, representative texts, where the most important and seminal of Vico's ideas are developed. The (...) volume will make a major contribution towards the study of Vico's thought and this period in the history of philosophy. It will be invaluable to students of those subjects and of the social sciences generally. (shrink)

Just as the pleasant experience differs from the non-pleasant or unpleasant, and the aesthetic from the non-aesthetic, internally or qualitatively, and not merely in degree, or externally or relationally, so, it is natural to expect, a moment of moral living differs from a moral or immoral moment. Indeed, from many quarters, and most emphatically from the Stoic and Christian, we have been wont to hear that if we but leave our sinful or indifferent lives and put on righteousness or goodness, (...) we shall become new men or men reborn, even creatures of a different species. But according to many analyses of morality these promises of transfiguration or translation are nonsensical lies: for the moral experience, as exhibited in these analyses, differs from the non-moral or immoral only in respect of external relations, or at the most in degree. Whether the truth resides in the promises or in the analyses is, obviously, a question of no mean import. It is also a vast one, while the time and space that can be given up to an article are brief; hence the following will be barely more than a raising of the question, or a provocation, by means of rough statements, some dogmatic, others hypothetical. (shrink)

Parte de la dificultad presentada a la hora de establecer la relación entre filosofia y filología en la teoría hermenéutica viquiana surge del hecho de que Vico vaciló entre dos formas de entender esa relación, las cuales dieron lugar a dos diferentes concepciones de la relación entre hermenéutica y metafísica: entre una hermenéutica metafísica (predominante en SNP) y una metafísica hermenéutica (predominante en SNS). La primera, conforme al deseo viquiano de elaborar un "arte diagnóstica", hace dependiente a la interpretación de (...) la metafísica y hoy es inviable. La segunda comporta una relación mucho más compleja entre interpretación y metafísica y ofrece un método de investigación hermenéutica de considerable relevancia para la filosofía actual. (shrink)

El autor ofrece un análisis filosófico de la teoría viquiana de las instituciones jurídicas en el que –considerando las tesis de Vico sobre el desanrollo de la sociedad y abordando la relación entre las instituciones propias de un determinado momento histórico y las formas juridicas– hace emerger la figura del legislador como personificación del ideal de equidad y de la idea común de justicia, que opera a través del uso de la tópica y de la retórica en la búsqueda de (...) la verdad.The author offers an account of the Vichian theory about legal institutions in which –on the basis of Vico’s claims about the development of society and the relationship between institutions framed within a particular historical period and legal forms– aims to present the legislator as the embodiment of the ideal of equity as well as the common idea related with that of justice, which is shaped up by the topics and rethoric in the pursue of truth. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Knowledge of Historical Fact Explanation and Understanding Objectivity and Value Narrative and Realism Conclusion.

The claim that Descartes could have derived the certainty of his existence from the infallibility of the self?referential use of T is rejected because it fails to take account of the hyperbolical hypothesis. Recognizing the constraints which the latter involved, Descartes tried to secure Sum by an argument in modus ponens, which requires an incorrigible statement about experience as a minor premiss. Because he had an incorrect conception of the nature of statements, Descartes failed to realize that the circumstances described (...) in the hypothesis exclude the conditions necessary for any statements or thoughts whatsoever. This, in turn, led to a systematic conflation of statements with sentences. The incoherence of the argument follows from the fact that Cogito could at best be a sentence and not a statement and, as such, could not provide the required minor premiss. It is a further consequence of Descartes's conflation of statements with sentences that the subject of the hypothesis cannot be identical with the subject responsible for the hypothesis and that Descartes's hypothesis cannot therefore be about himself. (shrink)

My aim in this paper is to outline and discuss Vico's conception of the nature and importance of hermeneutics. Vico never used the word ‘hermeneutics’ but since we would now recognize one aspect of what he was offering in his New Science as a theory for the interpretation and understanding of past cultures, I shall occasionally talk in terms of a theory of hermeneutics. My procedure will be to indicate first the context which led Vico to think that it was (...) important to have a theory of hermeneutics and why he thought that such a theory ought to have a certain form. I shall then try to show that there are two forms of the theory. The first, in which hermeneutics is dependent upon metaphysics, involves certain unacceptable features which arise from the context in which he originally formulated it. The second, in which metaphysics is dependent upon hermeneutics, requires that the theory be freed from an important aspect of this context. Finally, I shall ask whether, in this second form, the theory has something to commend it to contemporary thinkers. (shrink)

Recensión crítica de tres obras recientes que tocan ciertos problemas políticos, morales y científicos de gran importancia en relación con Vico.Critical review of three recent books , which touch some political, moral and scientific points of great consequence with regard to Vico.

According to Vico, philosophy and history had been too narrowly conceived. Philosophy had ignored the historical and empirical conditions which affect human nature, while history had ignored the metaphysical conditions. Vico therefore developed a science which would wed the two disciplines. Philosophy would provide a theory of human nature and an empirical theory about the determinate historico-sociological laws which govern human history. An "ideal external history" would be deduced from these and confirmed by its capacity to provide the systematic assumptions (...) required for the conversion of historical evidence into historical fact. Since neither knowledge of laws nor knowledge of facts could be established independently, historico-sociological theory and historical investigation would be revealed as necessary aspects of a single epistemological enterprise. (shrink)

The last decade has seen a rise in big data approaches, including in the humanities, whereby large quantities of data are collected and analysed. In this paper, we discuss long-form audio recordings that result from individuals wearing a recording device for many hours. Linguists, psychologists and anthropologists can use them, for example, to study infants’ or adults’ linguistic behaviour. In the past, recorded individuals and communities have resided in high-income countries (HICs) almost exclusively. Recognising the need for better representation of (...) all cultures and linguistic experiences, researchers have more recently started to collect long-form audio recordings in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). We aim to help researchers to collect, analyse and use these recordings ethically. To do so, we identify four main ethical challenges linked to research that relies on long-form recordings in LMICs. We provide recommendations to overcome these challenges. These considerations should be useful to researchers employing other big data techniques collected via wearables. (shrink)