The ``Many Sides of Logic'' is a volume containing a selection of the papers delivered at three simultaneous events held between 11-17 May 2008 in Paraty, RJ, Brazil, continuing a tradition of three decades of Brazilian and Latin-American meetings and celebrating the 30th anniversary of an institution congenital with the mature interest for logic, epistemology and history of sciences in Brazil: CLE 30 - 30th Anniversary of the Centre for Logic, Epistemology and the History of Science at the State University (...) of Campinas (UNICAMP) XV EBL -15th Brazilian Logic Conference XIV SLALM - 14th Latin-American Symposium on Mathematical Logic Several renowned logicians, philosophers and mathematicians gathered in colonial Paraty, a historic village on the Brazilian coast founded in the 17th Century and surrounded by the luscious Atlantic rain forest to deliver lectures and talks celebrating the many sides of logic: the philosophical, the mathematical, the computational, the historical, and the multiple facets therein. The topics of the joint conferences, well represented here, included philosophical and mathematical Logic and applications with emphasis on model theory and proof theory, set theory, non-classical logics and applications, history and philosophy of logic, philosophy of the formal sciences and issues on the foundations of mathematics. The events have been preceded by a Logic School planned for students and young researchers held at the UNICAMP campus in Campinas, SP. (shrink)

Decision-making assisted by algorithms developed by machine learning is increasingly determining our lives. Unfortunately, full opacity about the process is the norm. Would transparency contribute to restoring accountability for such systems as is often maintained? Several objections to full transparency are examined: the loss of privacy when datasets become public, the perverse effects of disclosure of the very algorithms themselves, the potential loss of companies’ competitive edge, and the limited gains in answerability to be expected since sophisticated algorithms usually are (...) inherently opaque. It is concluded that, at least presently, full transparency for oversight bodies alone is the only feasible option; extending it to the public at large is normally not advisable. Moreover, it is argued that algorithmic decisions preferably should become more understandable; to that effect, the models of machine learning to be employed should either be interpreted ex post or be interpretable by design ex ante. (shrink)

Deductive inference is usually regarded as being “tautological” or “analytical”: the information conveyed by the conclusion is contained in the information conveyed by the premises. This idea, however, clashes with the undecidability of first-order logic and with the (likely) intractability of Boolean logic. In this article, we address the problem both from the semantic and the proof-theoretical point of view. We propose a hierarchy of propositional logics that are all tractable (i.e. decidable in polynomial time), although by means of growing (...) computational resources, and converge towards classical propositional logic. The underlying claim is that this hierarchy can be used to represent increasing levels of “depth” or “informativeness” of Boolean reasoning. Special attention is paid to the most basic logic in this hierarchy, the pure “intelim logic”, which satisfies all the requirements of a natural deduction system (allowing both introduction and elimination rules for each logical operator) while admitting of a feasible (quadratic) decision procedure. We argue that this logic is “analytic” in a particularly strict sense, in that it rules out any use of “virtual information”, which is chiefly responsible for the combinatorial explosion of standard classical systems. As a result, analyticity and tractability are reconciled and growing degrees of computational complexity are associated with the depth at which the use of virtual information is allowed. (shrink)

In our information societies, tasks and decisions are increasingly outsourced to automated systems, machines, and artificial agents that mediate human relationships, by taking decisions and acting on the basis of algorithms. This raises a critical issue: how are algorithmic procedures and applications to be appraised and governed? This question needs to be investigated, if one wishes to avoid the traps of ICTs ending up in isolating humans behind their screens and digital delegates, or harnessing them in a passive role, by (...) curtailing their freedom and autonomy. (shrink)

In this paper we provide a detailed proof-theoretical analysis of a natural deduction system for classical propositional logic that (i) represents classical proofs in a more natural way than standard Gentzen-style natural deduction, (ii) admits of a simple normalization procedure such that normal proofs enjoy the Weak Subformula Property, (iii) provides the means to prove a Non-contamination Property of normal proofs that is not satisfied by normal proofs in the Gentzen tradition and is useful for applications, especially in formal argumentation, (...) (iv) naturally leads to defining a notion of depth of a proof, to the effect that, for every fixed natural k, normal k-depth deducibility is a tractable problem and converges to classical deducibility as k tends to infinity. (shrink)

Recent years have been blessed with an abundance of logical systems, arising from a multitude of applications. A logic can be characterised in many different ways. Traditionally, a logic is presented via the following three components: 1. an intuitive non-formal motivation, perhaps tie it in to some application area 2. a semantical interpretation 3. a proof theoretical formulation. There are several types of proof theoretical methodologies, Hilbert style, Gentzen style, goal directed style, labelled deductive system style, and so on. The (...) tableau methodology, invented in the 1950s by Beth and Hintikka and later per fected by Smullyan and Fitting, is today one of the most popular, since it appears to bring together the proof-theoretical and the semantical approaches to the pre of a logical system and is also very intuitive. In many universities it is sentation the style first taught to students. Recently interest in tableaux has become more widespread and a community crystallised around the subject. An annual tableaux conference is being held and proceedings are published. The present volume is a Handbook a/Tableaux pre senting to the community a wide coverage of tableaux systems for a variety of logics. It is written by active members of the community and brings the reader up to frontline research. It will be of interest to any formal logician from any area. (shrink)

We show that Smullyan's analytic tableaux cannot p-simulate the truth-tables. We identify the cause of this computational breakdown and relate it to an underlying semantic difficulty which is common to the whole tradition originating in Gentzen's sequent calculus, namely the dissonance between cut-free proofs and the Principle of Bivalence. Finally we discuss some ways in which this principle can be built into a tableau-like method without affecting its analytic nature.

We investigate the semantics of the logical systems obtained by introducing the modalities and into the family of substructural implication logics (including relevant, linear and intuitionistic implication). Then, in the spirit of the LDS (Labelled Deductive Systems) methodology, we "import" this semantics into the classical proof system KE. This leads to the formulation of a uniform labelled refutation system for the new logics which is a natural extension of a system for substructural implication developed by the first two authors in (...) a previous paper. (shrink)

We present an informational view of classical propositional logic that stems from a kind of informational semantics whereby the meaning of a logical operator is specified solely in terms of the information that is actually possessed by an agent. In this view the inferential power of logical agents is naturally bounded by their limited capability of manipulating “virtual information”, namely information that is not implicitly contained in the data. Although this informational semantics cannot be expressed by any finitely-valued matrix, it (...) can be expressed by a non-deterministic 3-valued matrix that was first introduced by W.V.O. Quine, but ignored by the logical community. Within the general framework presented in [21] we provide an in-depth discussion of this informational semantics and a detailed analysis of a specific infinite hierarchy of tractable approximations to classical propositional logic that is based on it. This hierarchy can be used to model the inferential power of resource-bounded agents and admits of a uniform proof-theoretical characterization that is half-way between a classical version of Natural Deduction and the method of semantic tableaux. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to argue that logic can play an important role in the “toolbox” of molecular biology. We show how biochemical pathways, i.e., transitions from a molecular aggregate to another molecular aggregate, can be viewed as deductive processes. In particular, our logical approach to molecular biology — developed in the form of a natural deduction system — is centered on the notion of Curry-Howard isomorphism, a cornerstone in nineteenth-century proof-theory.

In this paper we explore a generalization of traditional abduction which can simultaneously perform two different tasks: given an unprovable sequent Γ ⊢ G, find a sentence H such that Γ, H ⊢ G is provable ; given a provable sequent Γ ⊢ G, find a sentence H such that Γ ⊢ H and the proof of Γ, H ⊢ G is simpler than the proof of Γ ⊢ G . We argue that the two tasks should not be distinguished, (...) and present a general procedure for finding suitable hypotheses or lemmas. When the original sequent is provable, the abduced formula can be seen as a cut formula with respect to Gentzen's sequent calculus, so the abduction method is cut-based. Our method is based on the tableau-like system KE and we argue for its advantages over existing abduction methods based on traditional Smullyan-style Tableaux. (shrink)

Some real life processes, including molecular ones, are context-sensitive, in the sense that their outcome depends on side conditions that are most of the times difficult, or impossible, to express fully in advance. In this paper, we survey and discuss a logical account of context-sensitiveness in molecular processes, based on a kind of non-classical logic. This account also allows us to revisit the relationship between logic and philosophy of science (and philosophy of biology, in particular).

The papers collected in this volume are based on the best contributions to the conference of the Italian Society for Logic and Philosophy of Science (SILFS) that took place in Milan on 8-10 October 2007. The aim of the Society, since its foundation in 1952, has always been that of bringing together scholars - working in the broad areas of Logic, Philosophy of Science and History of Science - who share an open-minded approach to their disciplines and regard them as (...) essentially requiring continuous confrontation and bridge-building to avoid the danger of over-specialism. In this perspective, logicians and philosophers of science should not indulge in inventing and cherishing their own "internal problems" - although these may occasionally be an opportunity for conceptual clarification - but should primarily look at the challenging conceptual and methodological questions that arise in any genuine attempt to extend our objective knowledge. As Ludovico Geymonat used to put it: " good] philosophy should be sought in the folds of science itself." Contributions are distributed into six sections, five of which - "Logic and Computing," "Physics and Mathematics," "Life Sciences," "Economics and Social Sciences," "Neuroscience and Philosophy of Mind" - are devoted to the discussion of cutting-edge problems that arise from current-day scientific research, while the remaining section on "General Philosophy of Science" is focused on foundational and methodological questions that are common to all areas. (shrink)

This handbook offers a deep analysis of the main forms of legal reasoning and argumentation from both a logical-philosophical and legal perspective. These forms are covered in an exhaustive and critical fashion, and the handbook accordingly divides in three parts: the first one introduces and discusses the basic concepts of practical reasoning. The second one discusses the main general forms of reasoning and argumentation relevant for legal discourse. The third one looks at their application in law as well as at (...) the different areas of legal reasoning. The handbook’s division in three parts reflects its conceptual architecture, since legal reasoning and argumentation are considered in relation to the more general types of reasoning. (shrink)

Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic is asking health care workers to meet extraordinary challenges. In turn, HCWs were experiencing tremendous psycho-social crisis as they have had to deal with unexpected emotional requirements arising from caring for suffering and dying patients on a daily basis. In that context, recent studies have highlighted how HCWs working during the COVID-19 outbreak manifested extreme emotional and behavioral reactions that may have impacted their mental health, increasing the risk for developing post-traumatic stress symptoms.Purpose: The aim of (...) the study was to investigate post-traumatic stress symptoms, such as intrusion symptoms, as a potential mediator of the link between ERs and crying at work, and whether rumination moderates the relationship between ERs and intrusion-based PTS symptoms among HCWs who have had to deal with patients dying from COVID-19.Methods: An online cross-sectional study design was performed. A total of 543 Italian HCWs participated in the study. Participation was voluntary and anonymous. We used the SPSS version of bootstrap-based PROCESS macro for testing the moderated mediation model.Results: ERs had an indirect effect on crying at work through the mediating role of intrusion symptoms. Results from the moderated mediation model showed that rumination moderated the indirect effect of ERs on crying at work via intrusion symptoms, and this effect was significant only for high rumination. Furthermore, when we tested for an alternative model where rumination moderates the direct effect of ERs on crying at work, this moderation was not significant.Conclusions: As the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic is ongoing, there is an urgent need for decision-makers to rapidly implement interventions aimed at offering timely psychological support to HCWs, especially in those contexts where the risk of emotional labor associated to patients dying from COVID-19 is higher. (shrink)

Ce travail porte sur le problème de la mort du point de vue de la phénoménologie husserlienne ; la question est de savoir si une analyse du phénomène de la mort, en tant que phénomène limite, est possible. Nous proposons ici trois voies pour aborder la question : les voies générative, génétique et analogique. En partant de la voie générative nous verrons comment la mort peut être constituée en tant qu?événement mondain ; ensuite, par la voie génétique ? d?un point (...) de vue immanent ?, nous montrerons en quel sens le flux vivant peut être conçu comme immortel. Enfin, il faudrait analyser le phénomène de la mort effectivement en première personne, en tant que non-donation pure ; de cette façon, la mort devient inévitablement un phénomène irreprésentable. D?où la nécessité de chercher une voie analogique dans les expériences limites comme le sommeil sans rêve et le dépérissement charnel. (shrink)

Les philosophies de Schelling et Schopenhauer ont souvent été mises en relation, soit sur la base d'une influence supposée du premier sur le second (en relation avec le concept de Volonté), soit en raison d'une série de catégories simplificatrices (irrationalisme, pessimisme) qui n'ont pas contribué à la formulation d'un jugement fondé sur la connaissance et la compréhension des textes. L'objectif de cette étude est d'utiliser les notions de temps et d'éternité comme une première clé théorétique permettant d'éclairer les relations et (...) les différences entre ces deux philosophies. Cette analyse conduit à une reconsidération de la position historique de deux pensées qui, selon la thèse de l'auteur, doivent être toutes deux ramenées à leur contexte philosophique originaire, celui du post-kantisme, dans lequel il faut inclure toutes les pensées, idéalisme inclus, qui se sont développées à partir d'une réflexion sur les concepts mis à disposition par l'oeuvre kantienne. (shrink)

Lorsque l’on s’interroge sur l’éthique du numérique, deux approches sont possibles. La première consiste à la considérer comme une éthique appliquée, une branche de l’éthique générale. Les principes éthiques généraux nous donneraient la capacité de discerner le bien et le mal ; les appliquer au numérique nous permettrait ainsi d’expliciter, à partir de ces principes, des normes de comportements dans ce domaine particulier. Mais cette approche ne prend pas en compte le fait que les principes éthiques puissent découler des conditions (...) concrètes de leurs applications. Nous pouvons donc considérer une seconde approche, qui consisterait à partir de l’analyse du domaine du numérique pour fonder sur ses caractéristiques la réflexion morale. Par conséquent, l’éthique du numérique ne serait pas une éthique appliquée, mais une éthique première. Cet article tente de poser les bases pour une réflexion sur l’éthique du numérique qui prendrait en considération les changements de culture et de valeurs engendrés par les nouvelles technologies. (shrink)

Marcello Musto examine les dernières publications de la Marx-Engels-Gesammtausgabe (MEGA 2 ), tâche de faire un bilan des documents et informations qu’elle fournit, et s’interroge sur la manière dont l’avancée de cette grande entreprise éditoriale modifie notre image de Marx. L’article s’arrête d’abord sur la formation de la conception matérialiste de l’histoire dans les années 1840, puis sur la longue et tortueuse genèse du Capital, sur l’activité politique commune de Marx et Engels au sein de l’AIT, et enfin sur (...) les travaux – importants et originaux, longtemps mal connus, qui occupèrent les deux hommes dans leurs dernières années. (shrink)

Pour la plupart des systèmes de représentation de la connaissance orientés concept, l’un des problèmes principaux relève de la commodité technique. A savoir, la représentation de connaissance en termes prototypiques, tout comme la possibilité d’exploiter des formes de raisonnement conceptuel basées sur la typicalité, ne sont pas autorisées. Au contraire, dans les sciences cognitives, il existe des données en faveur de concepts prototypiques, et des formes non-monotoniques de raisonnement conceptuel ont été largement étudiées. Ce fossé cognitif concernant la représentation et (...) le raisonnement constitue un problème pour les systèmes computationnels, puisque l’information prototypique joue un rôle crucial dans plusieurs tâches importantes. Dans la lignée des théories du raisonnement et de la rationalité dites du double processus, nous soutenons que la représentation conceptuelle dans les systèmes computationnels devrait dépendre de (au moins) deux composantes représentationnelles, chacune spécialisée dans le traitement de différents genres de processus de raisonnement. Dans cet article, nous présentons les avantages computationnels de cette approche en termes de double processus, et les comparons brièvement avec d’autres solutions d’orientation logique, adoptées pour traiter du même problème. (shrink)

Entre phénoménologie et neurologie. Merleau-Ponty, Goldstein, SacksLa phénoménologie de Merleau-Ponty a traité des matériaux et des éléments de réflexion importants de diverses études sur des pathologies psychiques et physiques. La confrontation et l’entrelacement entre la pensée du philosophe français et certaines recherches de neuropsychologie, comme Kurt Goldstein ou Oliver Sacks, font émerger la possibilité de nouvelles approches de la dimension de la maladie, entre narration, spéculation et recherche scientifique. Un dialogue fécond entre disciplines et champs de recherche différents met en (...) lumière comment toute modalité perceptive, même quand elle se présente comme déficitaire ou déviante, constitue de fait une vraie recréation ou re-constitution du monde et non pas seulement un enregistrement. Ce processus de création continue est lié à une des questions de fond soulevée par l’expérience de la maladie: celle des modes et des conditions de la singularité, de l’identité d’un soi, à la recherche de reconnaissance et d’acceptation de la part d’un regard ou d’un geste que nous savons contribuer de manière inédite à la relation entre sujets humains.Between Phenomenology and Neurology. Merleau-Ponty, Goldstein, SacksMerleau-Ponty’s phenomenology deals with materials and elements of important reflections in diverse studies on psychological and physical pathologies. The confrontation and the connections between French philosophical thought and certain research in neuropsychology, such as that of Kurt Goldstein or Oliver Sacks, allow the possibility of new approaches to the dimension of sickness to emerge, approaches between narration, speculation, and scientific research. A fertile dialogue between disciplines and fields of different research brings to light how every perceptual modality, even when it presents itself as deficient or deviant, constitutes in fact a true re-creation or reconstitution of the world and not only a recording. This process of continuous creation is linked to one of the basic questions raised by the experience of sickness: the question of the modes and conditions of singularity, of the identity of a self in pursuit of recognition or acceptance from another’s gaze or gesture, a gaze or gesture that, in the relation between human subjects, we have the ability to contribute ever in a unique manner. (shrink)

Entre phénoménologie et neurologie. Merleau-Ponty, Goldstein, SacksLa phénoménologie de Merleau-Ponty a traité des matériaux et des éléments de réflexion importants de diverses études sur des pathologies psychiques et physiques. La confrontation et l’entrelacement entre la pensée du philosophe français et certaines recherches de neuropsychologie, comme Kurt Goldstein ou Oliver Sacks, font émerger la possibilité de nouvelles approches de la dimension de la maladie, entre narration, spéculation et recherche scientifique. Un dialogue fécond entre disciplines et champs de recherche différents met en (...) lumière comment toute modalité perceptive, même quand elle se présente comme déficitaire ou déviante, constitue de fait une vraie recréation ou re-constitution du monde et non pas seulement un enregistrement. Ce processus de création continue est lié à une des questions de fond soulevée par l’expérience de la maladie: celle des modes et des conditions de la singularité, de l’identité d’un soi, à la recherche de reconnaissance et d’acceptation de la part d’un regard ou d’un geste que nous savons contribuer de manière inédite à la relation entre sujets humains.Between Phenomenology and Neurology. Merleau-Ponty, Goldstein, SacksMerleau-Ponty’s phenomenology deals with materials and elements of important reflections in diverse studies on psychological and physical pathologies. The confrontation and the connections between French philosophical thought and certain research in neuropsychology, such as that of Kurt Goldstein or Oliver Sacks, allow the possibility of new approaches to the dimension of sickness to emerge, approaches between narration, speculation, and scientific research. A fertile dialogue between disciplines and fields of different research brings to light how every perceptual modality, even when it presents itself as deficient or deviant, constitutes in fact a true re-creation or reconstitution of the world and not only a recording. This process of continuous creation is linked to one of the basic questions raised by the experience of sickness: the question of the modes and conditions of singularity, of the identity of a self in pursuit of recognition or acceptance from another’s gaze or gesture, a gaze or gesture that, in the relation between human subjects, we have the ability to contribute ever in a unique manner. (shrink)

Pour la plupart des systèmes de représentation de la connaissance orientés concept, l’un des problèmes principaux relève de la commodité technique. A savoir, la représentation de connaissance en termes prototypiques, tout comme la possibilité d’exploiter des formes de raisonnement conceptuel basées sur la typicalité, ne sont pas autorisées. Au contraire, dans les sciences cognitives, il existe des données en faveur de concepts prototypiques, et des formes non-monotoniques de raisonnement conceptuel ont été largement étudiées. Ce fossé cognitif concernant la représentation et (...) le raisonnement constitue un problème pour les systèmes computationnels, puisque l’information prototypique joue un rôle crucial dans plusieurs tâches importantes. Dans la lignée des théories du raisonnement et de la rationalité dites du double processus, nous soutenons que la représentation conceptuelle dans les systèmes computationnels devrait dépendre de deux composantes représentationnelles, chacune spécialisée dans le traitement de différents genres de processus de raisonnement. Dans cet article, nous présentons les avantages computationnels de cette approche en termes de double processus, et les comparons brièvement avec d’autres solutions d’orientation logique, adoptées pour traiter du même problème. (shrink)

Fictif, artificiel, imaginaire, trompeur, immatériel, irréel, impalpable, invisible, mystérieux... Lorsque l'on pense au virtuel, une foule d'idées nous submerge. Concept aux valeurs sémantiques multiformes et aux différents usages, sa signification reste floue et son sens en perpétuel mouvement. Qu'est-ce " réellement " que le virtuel? Quel rapport entre le sens philosophique et son emploi dans le domaine du numérique? Quelles sont ses implications politiques? Quelle conception de la réalité en découle?Ce livre se veut une cartographie offrant des repères stables pour (...) s'orienter et naviguer à travers le concept de virtuel. L'effet d'un phare en plein brouillard... Ainsi, le présent ouvrage expose et analyse plusieurs aspects de la cryptographie et leurs interactions avec les avancées théoriques et pratiques de plusieurs disciplines scientifiques et techniques. (shrink)

Il est évident que le statut du texte change profondément à cause de l’impact des technologies numériques. D’une part, dans les environnements numériques le texte est partout : les images, les vidéos, les clics, les objets et même les actions sont en réalité des séries de caractères. D’autre part, le texte acquiert une valeur opérationnelle. Comme le montrent Souchier et Jeanneret avec la notion d’“architexte”, le texte fait des choses, il produit d’autres textes ou des actions. La thèse de cet (...) article est que ces changements en impliquent un autre: le texte devient un matériel architectural, dans le sens propre du mot – à savoir, et en dehors des métaphores, il est l’élément qui structure matériellement l’espace dans lequel nous vivons. Cette thèse est à la base de la théorie de l’éditorialisation, notion qui peut être définie comme “l’ensemble des dynamiques qui produisent l’espace numérique.”. (shrink)

I intend to: a) clarify the origins and de facto meanings of the term relativism; b) reconstruct the reasons for the birth of the thesis named “cultural relativism”; d) reconstruct ethical implications of the above thesis; c) revisit the recent discussion between universalists and particularists in the light of the idea of cultural relativism.. -/- 1.Prescriptive Moral Relativism: “everybody is justified in acting in the way imposed by criteria accepted by the group he belongs to”. Universalism: there are at least (...) some judgments which are valid inter-culturally Absolutism: there are at least some particular prescriptions which are valid without exception everywhere and always -/- 2. The traditional proof of prescriptive moral relativism: the argument from variability: Judgments, rules, and shared values are de facto variable in time and space. The traditional counter-proof: examples of variability do not prove what skeptics contend. -/- 3. Pre-history of the doctrine -Ancient sophists: either immoralist or contractualist -Modern moral scepticism (xvii c.): variability as an historical and ethnographic fact supports a sceptical conclusion more moderate than sheer immoralism. - Voltaire, Kant, Reid counter-attack pointing at a universally shared moral sense - Romantics and idealists stage an even more moderate reformulation: instead of universally shared moral sense they point at the Spirit of a People which is: a)alternative to abstract and universal philosophical systems as far as it is lived ‘culture’; b) indivisible unity with an inner harmony and a source of normative standards; c) dynamic, in so far as it is a manifestation of the Spirit through the becoming of National cultures. -/- 4. The birth of Cultural Relativism and its ethical implications 4.1. The 18th c. doctrine was the noble savage (a non-historical doctrine: state of nature vs. social state) 4.2 Edward Tylor (1832-1817) and ethnocentric historicism Savage moral standards are real enough, but they are far and weaker than ours. 4.3 Boas and Malinowski and an holistic reaction to ethnocentric historicism -/- Franz Boas (1858-1942): a) Development of civilizations is not ruled by technical progress nor does it follow a one-way path; instead there are parallel developments (for ex. Agriculture does not follow stock-raising); b) racial characters have no relevance in development of civilization; c) we are not yet in a position to compare externally identical kinds of behaviour till we have not yet understood beliefs and intentions laying at their roots (for ex.: “From an ethnological point of view murder cannot be considered as a single phenomenon”; d) we should distinguish among different practices which are only superficially similar (fro ex. practices traditionally classified under the label “tabù”); e) there is as a fact just one normative ethic, constant in its contents but varying in its extension; f) the implication is not that we cannot judge behavior by members of other groups; it is only a recommendation of caution. -/- Bronislaw Malinowski (1884-1942): a) against Tylor’s and Frazer’s “magpie” methodology, field-work is required, a culture as a whole should be observed from inside; individual elements are incomprehensible; b) a culture is an organic whole; c) its elements are accounted for by their function (economy), avoiding non-observables (empio-criticism). -/- Ruth Benedict and Melville Herskovitz identify Boas’s approach with “cultural relativism”. Benedict: what is normal and abnormal is to be judged on a culture’s own standards, not on our own (“Anthropology and the Abnormal”). Herskovits: “Boas adumbrates what we have come to call cultural relativism” (The Mind, p. 10); “Judgements are based on experience, and experience is interpreted by each individual in terms of his own enculturation” (Man and his Works). -/- 4. How analytic philosophy understood and misunderstood the discussion 4.1. At the beginning of the 20th c., the new view in ethics was non-cognitivism (emotivist and subjectivist). Eric Westermark combines this view with an old-style ethnographic approach in support of relativity of moralities. Moralities are codes, or systems of emotive ‘disinterested’ reactions selected by evolution on their usefulness in terms of survival value for the society that is the carrier of such systems or codes. The moral relativity thesis: there are cases of disagreement that cannot be settled even after agreement about facts. 4.2 Anti-realists Brandt, Mackie, Gilbert, Harman adopt Westermark’s approach in a more sophisticated version: a) moralities are codes with an overall function and may be appraised only as wholes; b) variability is an argument for moral subjectivism; c) apparent legitimacy of deriving shift from ought is legitimized only within one institution d) morality should not be described but instead made, and existing moralities may be improved. Is it ‘real’ relativism? It is clearly subjectivism (a metaethical thesis). The normative thesis is that there better and worse codes, and survival values is the normative standard. -/- 4.3 Particularists MacIntyre, Sandel, Taylor, Wiggins, McDowell ‘Wittgensteinian’ prospectivist arguments bent to support weak-relativist claims MacIntyre: there is ‘incommensurability’ between different theoretical systems in both science and ethics. No argument is possible through different systems Different traditions may coexist for a long time without being able to bring their conflicts to a rational solution. -/- 4.4 Kantian universalists Baier, Gewirth, Rawls, Apel, Habermas Shared claim: justice concerns the right and is universal in so far as it may be based on minimal assumptions Other virtues are relative to context in so far as they are related to comprehensive views of the good - O’Neill criticism: a) it is an assumption shared by both alignments; b) after an alleged crisis brought about by alleged loss of metaphysical certainties, theories of justice have dropped demanding assumptions and kept universalism, virtue theories have kept demanding assumptions and dropped universalism; c) the opposition of virtue and justice has arisen in an unjustified way. O’Neill’s positive proposal: ‘constructive’ procedures may be adopted both (i) concerning all the range of virtues and (ii) across cultures once we abandon idealization and confine ourselves to abstraction from real-world cases. -/- 4.5 A metaethical relativist and anti-relativist normative ethicists: Bernard Williams Williams: vulgar relativism may be assumed to claim that: a) 'just' means 'just in a given society'; b) 'just in a given society' is to be understood in functionalist sense; c) it is wrong for one society’s members to condemn another society’s values. It is inconsistent since in (c) uses ‘just’ in a non-relative way that has been excluded in (a). William’s positive proposal: i) keep a number of substantive or thick ethical concepts that will be different in space and time; ii) admit that public choices are to be legitimized through recourse to more abstract procedures and relying on more thin ethical concepts. -/- 5. Critical remarks 5.1 The only real relativism available is ‘vulgar’ relativism (Westermark?) 5.2. Descriptive universalism (or absolutism) has a long pedigree, from Cicero on, reaching Boas himself but it is useless as an answer to normative questions 5.3. Twentieth-century philosophical discussion seems to discuss an ad hoc doctrine reconstructed by assembling obsolete philosophical ideas but ignoring the real theory of cultural relativism as formulated by anthropologists. -/- 6. A distinction between ethoi and ethical theories as a way out of confusions a)There are systems of conventions de facto existing. These may be studies from outside as phenomena or facts. b)There is moral argument and this, when studies from outside, is a fact, but this does not influence in any degree the possible validity of claims advanced. c) the difference between the above claims and Mackie’s criticism to Searle’s argument of the promising game is that promises, arguments etc. are also phenomena, but they are also communicative phenomena with a logical and pragmatic structure. -/- 7.Conclusions: a) cultural relativism, as a name for Boas’s methodology is a valuable discovery, and in this sense we are all relativists; b) ethical relativism, as an alleged implication of cultural relativism, has been argued in a philosophically quite unsophisticated way by Benedict and Herskovits; philosophers apparently discussed ethical relativism in the basis of a rather faint impression of what cultural relativism had been. c) a full-fledged ethical relativism has hardly been defended by anybody among philosophers; virtually no modern philosopher really argued a prescriptive version of the thesis; d) we may accept the grain of truth in ethical relativism by including relativist critique to ethical absolutism into a universalist normative doctrine that be careful in separating open-textured formulations of universal claims from culturally conditioned particular prescriptions. -/- . 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I discuss the three theses defended by Anscombe in 'Modern Moral Philosophy'. I argue that: a) her answer to the question "why should I be moral?" requires a solution of the problem of theodicy and ignores any attempts to save the moral point of view without recourse to divine retribution; b) her notion of divine law is an odd one, more neo-Augustinian than Biblical or Scholastic; c) her image of Kantian ethics and intuitionism is the impoverished image manufactured by consequentialist (...) opponents for polemical purposes, which she seems to endorse even though it is an image manufactured by the same writers she choose as a polemical target; d) the difficulty to identify the "relevant descriptions" of acts is not an argument in favor of an ethics of virtue and against consequentialism or Kantian ethics, and indeed the role of judgment in the latter is precisely a response to difficulties raised by the case of judgment concerning future action, a case for which Anscombe herself has nothing better to offer. (shrink)

The thesis that gives the discourse its characteristic liberal twist is that of the possibility not just of arguing on values in principle but of effective communication about values between different social subjects, instead of, for example, mere compromise between opposing interests that are unable to understand each other's reasons or imposition of one interest on another. From this thesis derives the possibility of the proposal of combining "science" and "ethics".

A critical discussion of DAVID WILSON and WILLIAM DIXON, A History of Homo Economicus. The nature of the moral in economic theory, London and New York, Routledge, pp. xviii+123 ISBN 978-0-415-59568-1. I declare agreement with one basic idea in this book, that economic discourse is performative, or economic theory is not pure theorìa. I add several objections to the historical reconstruction carried out os such authors as Malthus and Ricardo and I object to the definition adopted of homo economicus.