Vice epistemology studies the qualities of individuals and collectives that undermine the creation, sharing, and storing of knowledge. There is no settled understanding of which epistemic vices exist at the collective level. Yet understanding which collective epistemic vices exist is important, both to facilitate research on the antecedents and effects of collective epistemic vice, and to advance philosophical discussions such as whether some collective epistemic vices are genuinely collective. I propose an empirical approach to identifying epistemic vices in corporations, analyzing (...) a large dataset of online employee reviews. The approach has parallels to the methodology for identifying the big-five personality traits. It surfaces epistemic vices that are attributed to corporations by its own members and reduces the number of vices to the minimum required to describe differences between corporations. This approach yields a new taxonomy of epistemic vices for corporations. While two vices identified have close correlates in the existing literature, four others have not been identified at all or only in aspects. Two of these vices are ‘genuinely’ collective in the sense that they can only be attributed to collectives. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:SUMMA CONTRA GENTILES III, CHAPTERS 131-135: A RARE GLIMPSE INTO THE HEART AS WELL AS THE MIND OF AQUINAS LAWRENCE B. PORTER Setoii Hall University South Orange, New Jersey Introduction BERNARDO GUI, Saint Thomas's thirteenth-century biographer, relates in his Legenda S. Thomae the story of how once upon a time Saint Thomas was seated at the table of King Louis IX of France. Far removed from mere dinner conversation, (...) the scholar was absorbed in profound rumination on no less a problem than the existence of evil. Suddenly in the midst of the meal Aquinas came to an insight and " he struck the table, exclaiming : ' That settles the Manichees! ' " 1 More than a century later Fra Angelico presents us with a comparable image of the saint though in an appreciably different setting, not a royal dinner table but a cloister walk. If the reader were to walk in the cloister garden of the priory of San Marco in Florence, he or she would eventually come upon a portrait of Saint Thomas painted by Fra Angelico (in the lunette above the door to the right of the entrance on the south side of the cloister). The saint stands erect facing the viewer, holding open upon his chest a book with the pages facing us so that we might read them. Saint Thomas is looking off into space, not distractedly but with concentration, with arched eyebrows and fixed gaze. It is as though he sees directly what we can only read about in the text of his open book. 1 " The Life Of Saint Thomas Aquinas by Bernard Gui," in The Life of St. Thomas Aquinas: Biographical Documents, trans. and ed. Kenelm Foster (London, 1959), pp. 44-45. 245 246 LAWREN CE B. PORTER The image of Saint Thomas presented in these hagiographic and iconographic traditions is distinctly that of an intellect-at one time engrossed in speculative thought, at another time in mystic contemplation-but it is always the mind that is foremost engaged. The image is always that of the intellectual genius entirely taken up with recondite or divine ideas, far removed from this-worldly concerns or domestic distractions. These images cannot be easily dismissed, nor indeed should we want to do such a thing, for there is much truth in these images. Certainly Thomas was at times a mystic, and his powers of abstraction and concentration were nothing less than extraordinary. His own writings are the best witness to this. The method displayed therein-the dispassionate objectivity, the unrelenting logic, the economy of expression, the precise and telling distinctions, not to mention his encyclopedic knowledge of scriptural, mystical, and philosophical sources-makes for the impression of an almost disembodied intellect at work. No wonder he was given the title "angelic doctor"! However, the problem with such images and titles is that they never allude to the fact that Saint Thomas also had a human heart and human feelings, and that these, too, could at times have had an effect upon his thinking, especially when his feelings had been hurt. To illustrate this thesis, I propose to examine the interplay between thought and emotion, history and analysis, in the Summa Contra Gentiles III, especially as concerns Chapters 131-135. Chapters 131-135 constitute a small treatise on religious poverty and as such appear as a peculiarly recondite consideration amid Aquinas's much more general treatment there of the themes of divine providence and human freedom. I believe this peculiar feature can only be understood in relation to an historical controversy of the times, namely, the attack upon the new mendicant orders by the secular clergy. Indeed, I believe the true nuances of this small treatise can best be understood when it is seen more as the heartfelt response of Aquinas to a slur upon his dignity rather than as his dispassionate or purely reasoned response to a contest of ideas. Aquinas was once personally embarrassed dur- SUMMA CONTRA GENTILES III 247 ing his professorship at the University of Paris when a student demonstration broke in upon a Sunday sermon of his with pamphlet literature that poked malicious fun at his considerable body size and privileged social status. And... (shrink)

This essay focuses on an unknown Latin translation of Georg Ernst Stahl's treatise on the nature of sulfur (Zufällige Gedancken und Nützliche Bedencken über den Streit von dem so genannten Sulfure). The original edition, published in 1718, laid the foundation for the phlogiston theory, which dominated European chemistry until the early 1770s. However, the dissemination of the treatise on sulfur outside the German states remained limited. Its Latin translation proposes a different scenario as it was owned by three prominent French (...) chemists: Étienne-François Geoffroy, Jean Hellot and Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier. Geoffroy's early interest in Stahl's chemistry has been evidenced and it is suggested that the acquisition of the manuscript might be linked to his connection with Stahl through Caspar Neumann, a chemist from Berlin. When he entered in the possession of the manuscript Jean Hellot wrote a long excerpt of Stahl’s work. Lavoisier acquired the manuscript in 1766, and his critical reading of Stahl's work significantly influenced his own effort to outline a new theory of combustion. This manuscript represents a significant historical connection between Stahl’s phlogiston theory and Lavoisier's revolutionary ideas. (shrink)

: According to a traditional view, inferences are personal-level entities pertaining to the domain of reasons, and therefore they cannot be accounted for in causal terms – specifically, as mere associations. I intend to argue that this is at the very least a drastic simplification, for two reasons. First, the word “association” is polysemous, so we should specify in which of its possible senses an inference is not a mere association. Second, personal-level inferences based on formal rules are only the (...) extreme end of a complex developmental trajectory. As the last decades of research in the field have shown, we should refrain from identifying the entire domain of reasoning with that final stage, which is in fact mostly contingent upon extensive logical training. In this paper, I try to disentangle some major stages in the development of full-fledged inferences, and then to show that all of them – till the final one – can be considered associative in appropriate senses of the word. Keywords: Reasoning; Association; Consciousness; Inference; Development Un approccio associativo alle inferenze: l’evoluzione verso il prototipo Riassunto: Secondo una concezione tradizionale, le inferenze sono entità collocate al livello della persona e appartenenti al dominio delle ragioni, e pertanto non è possibile ridurle a un resoconto causale – più specificamente, a mere associazioni. Intendo sostenere che questa è quanto meno una drastica semplificazione, per due ragioni. Primo, la parola “associazione” è polisemica, quindi dovremmo precisare in quale senso un’inferenza non è una mera associazione. Secondo, inferenze al livello della persona e basate su regole formali sono solo il punto estremo di una complessa traiettoria di sviluppo. Come gli ultimi decenni di ricerca in questo campo hanno mostrato, dovremmo evitare di identificare l’intero dominio del ragionamento con questo stadio finale, che di fatto dipende da un esteso addestramento logico. In questo articolo, provo a discriminare alcuni stadi essenziali nello sviluppo delle inferenze in senso pieno, e quindi a mostrare che ciascuno di essi – incluso quello finale – possono essere considerati associativi in qualche opportuno senso della parola. Parole chiave: Ragionamento; Associazione; Coscienza; Inferenza; Sviluppo. (shrink)

Experimental balance is usually understood as the control for the value of the conditions, other than the one under study, which are liable to affect the result of a test. We discuss three different approaches to balance. ‘Millean balance’ requires identifying and equalizing ex ante the value of these conditions in order to conduct solid causal inferences. ‘Fisherian balance’ measures ex post the influence of uncontrolled conditions through the analysis of variance. In ‘efficiency balance’ the value of the antecedent conditions (...) is decided ex ante according to the efficiency they yield in the estimation of the treatment outcome. Against some old arguments by Worrall, we show that in both Fisherian and efficiency balance there are good reasons to randomize the allocation of treatments, in particular when there is no agreement among experimenters as to the antecedent conditions to be controlled for. (shrink)

Maximus the Confessor's belief that the Incarnation would have happened without a Fall is a key facet of his thought, yet contradicts portions of his corpus which state that God became human due to sin. I assert that Maximus affirms a prelapsarian motive of the Incarnation for two reasons: his conception of deification as participation and understanding of humanity's original vocation. Deification and vocation are presented by Maximus in such a way that they could have only been fulfilled through Christ's (...) Incarnation; the joining of human and divine natures is not a soteriological necessity. Analysing accounts of the Fall of Adam in both the Questiones ad Thalassium and the Ambiguum demonstrate that the Confessor reconciles the historic need for salvation with the will of God from all eternity. I argue that a reading of Ambigua 41 in the context of the Maximian corpus reveals an all-encompassing reason for the Incarnation. Philanthropy (φιλανθρωπία), God's love for humanity, is the motive (σκοπός) for the Incarnation that embraces the divine preexistent intention without contradicting soteriology. (shrink)

The movement has great significance for all philosophical problems, both metaphysical and epistemological. In the first part of this article I would like to show how Patočka takes up some theoretical knots of this problem in four essays on Aristotle. These texts explain movement as a fundamental ontological factor. They therefore link it to ontology. In the second part, however, I will use a contribution by Chiurazzi to show that the same theme was in fact also present in the ancient (...) thought of Plato, who was criticised by Aristotle. In the conclusion, I will try to summarise some common ideas about movement, all of which confirm the centrality of a dynamic ontology, and show the richness of the consequences of this approach. One of the most important results is that the basis of movement coincides with what makes life itself possible. In this way, dynamis becomes the very basis of reality itself. (shrink)

One of the critical challenges of our contemporary world is rethinking temporality to face the global catastrophe of the Anthropocene. Recent theories in social sciences and philosophy envision a new conceptualization of our biosphere in which human and non-human life forms, inert objects, and technological devices are entangled. However, these approaches present two major problems: a) they affirm that organic and inorganic processes are ontologically symmetrical and have the same type of agency; and b) they consider that technicity on planet (...) Earth emerges in the hominization process. In this work, we will develop a genealogy of our biosphere that proposes an ecological and untimely alternative: life, from its earliest beginning, is a technical phenomenon that changes the face of the universe. (shrink)

Recent accounts of mindreading—i.e., the human capacity to attribute mental states to interpret, explain, and predict behavior—have suggested that it has evolved through cultural rather than biological evolution. Although these accounts describe the role of culture in the ontogenetic development of mindreading, they neglect the question of the cultural origins of mindreading in human prehistory. We discuss four possible models of this, distinguished by the role they posit for culture: (1) the standard evolutionary psychology model (Carruthers), (2) the individualist empiricist (...) model (Wellman, Gopnik), (3) the cultural empiricist model (Heyes), and (4) the radical socio-cultural constructivist model, which we favor. We motivate model (4) by arguing that many forms of mental state ascription do not serve the function of simply describing inner states causally responsible for the behavior of a cognitive agent; rather, they relate the agent to her environment by characterizing her practical commitments. Making these practical commitments explicit has an important regulatory function in that it supports action coordination and alignment on joint goals. We propose a model of how the ascription of mental states may have evolved as a linguistic device to perform exactly this function of making agents’ practical commitments explicit. (shrink)

Debates on situated affectivity have mainly focused on tools that exert some positive influence on affective experience. Far less attention has been paid to artifacts that interact with the expression of affect, or to those that exert some negative influence. To shed light on that shadowy corner of our affective social lives, I describe the workings of an atypical socio-affective artifact, namely, sunglasses. Drawing on insights from psychology and other social sciences, I construe sunglasses as a social shield that helps (...) us block spontaneous emotional expressions, as well as affecting other social processes that heavily depend on the eye region: gaze direction detection, identity recognition, and the sense of intimacy afforded by eye contact. (shrink)

Meditation comprises a series of practices mainly developed in eastern cultures aiming at controlling emotions and enhancing attentional processes. Several authors proposed to divide meditation techniques in focused attention and open monitoring techniques. Previous studies have reported differences in brain networks underlying FA and OM. On the other hand common activations across different meditative practices have been reported. Despite differences between forms of meditation and their underlying cognitive processes, we propose that all meditative techniques could share a central process that (...) would be supported by a core network for meditation since their general common goal is to induce relaxation, regulating attention and developing an attitude of detachment from one’s own thoughts. To test this hypothesis, we conducted a quantitative meta-analysis based on activation likelihood estimation of 10 neuroimaging studies on different meditative techniques to evidence the core cortical network subserving meditation. We showed activation of basal ganglia , limbic system and medial prefrontal cortex . We discuss the functional role of these structures in meditation and we tentatively propose a neurocognitive model of meditation that could guide future research. (shrink)

Emotional dysregulation, age, gender, and obesity are transdiagnostic risk factors for the development and maintenance of eating disorders. Previous studies found that patients with ED had less meaning in life than the non-clinical population, and that meaning in life acted as a buffer in the course of ED; however, to the data, there are no studies about the mediator role of meaning in life in association between the emotional dysregulation and the ED psychopathology.Objective: To analyze the mediating role of meaning (...) in life in the relationship between emotional dysregulation and the ED psychopathology in three samples with diverse risk factors for ED.Method: Sample 1, n = 153 undergraduate young women; sample 2, n = 122 participants with obesity; and sample 3, n = 292 participants with ED. Multiple mediation analysis was performed.Results: Sample 1: meaning in life showed a mediation effect between emotional dysregulation and the ED psychopathology, body satisfaction, and depression symptoms ; sample 2: meaning in life showed a mediation effect between emotional dysregulation and binge eating and purging behaviors and depression symptoms ; sample 3: meaning in life showed a mediation effect between emotional dysregulation and the ED psychopathology, body satisfaction, borderline symptoms, and hopelessness.Conclusions: These studies suggest the importance of considering meaning in life as a variable in the onset and maintenance of ED. (shrink)

An exploration of panpsychism in Harman's Object-Oriented Ontology.

The central dogma of molecular biology dictates that, with only a few exceptions, information proceeds from DNA to protein through an RNA intermediate. Examining the enigmatic steps from prebiotic to biological chemistry, we take another road suggesting that primordial peptides acted as template for the self-assembly of the first nucleic acids polymers. Arguing in favour of a sort of archaic “reverse translation” from proteins to RNA, our basic premise is a Hadean Earth where key biomolecules such as amino acids, polypeptides, (...) purines, pyrimidines, nucleosides and nucleotides were available under different prebiotically plausible conditions, including meteorites delivery, shallow ponds and hydrothermal vents scenarios. Supporting a protein-first scenario alternative to the RNA world hypothesis, we propose the primeval occurrence of short two-dimensional peptides termed “selective amino acid- and nucleotide-matching oligopeptides” (henceforward SANMAOs) that noncovalently bind at the same time the polymerized amino acids and the single nucleotides dispersed in the prebiotic milieu. In this theoretical paper, we describe the chemical features of this hypothetical oligopeptide, its biological plausibility and its virtues from an evolutionary perspective. We provide a theoretical example of SANMAO’s selective pairing between amino acids and nucleosides, simulating a poly-Glycine peptide that acts as a template to build a purinic chain corresponding to the glycine’s extant triplet codon GGG. Further, we discuss how SANMAO might have endorsed the formation of low-fidelity RNA’s polymerized strains, well before the appearance of the accurate genetic material’s transmission ensured by the current translation apparatus. (shrink)

In this issue, Marshall et al discuss the importance of capacity and autonomy in the setting of opioid overdose, in Revise and Refuse: Capacity, Autonomy, and Refusal of Care After Opioid Overdose...

El artículo desenvuelve un esquema del pensamiento de Gadamer con relación a su teoría estética donde confluyen juego y tradición, salpicados aquí y allá de matices y contrastes, principalmente heideggerianos, sin descuidar aportaciones más críticas como las de Adorno. Comienza por un recorrido alrededor del juego. Desde ahí, se adentra en el proceso de transformación, en la construcción, en su sentido, en su necesidad. Prosigue abordando el significado de las obras, si es que alguno transporta. Y termina fundiendo verdad con (...) belleza, cuestionando la actualidad de este posicionamiento. (shrink)

En este artículo se va a analizar el impacto de la correlación entre el fenómeno creciente de la individualización de nuestras sociedades y la proliferación de formas de violencia juvenil. Manifestaciones de lo primero las tendríamos en la reivindicación de la libertad negativa, en terminología de Isaiah Berlin, y en la exaltación del cuidado del yo, entendido en este caso de un modo muy restringido. Expresiones de lo segundo las tendríamos en el fenómeno de la creación de guetos que, a (...) su vez, se ramifica en una pluralidad de escenarios (no necesariamente vinculados a la marginación). La tesis que se va a defender en esta contribución se concreta en la necesidad de fortalecer la dimensión moral del vínculo social, como instancia superadora de formas de organización tecnocráticas que devienen incapaces de trascender un paradigma basado en el individualismo y en el pragmatismo. De hecho, aunque este paradigma técnico-funcional de la vida social se presenta a menudo suavizado por la revalorización de los aspectos emocionales de la vida, el énfasis en las emociones permanece en un plano puramente autorreferencial, limitado al logro del propio bienestar, despreocupado del contenido valorativo implícito en las reacciones emocionales y, por tanto, al margen de las exigencias éticas que en ellas se encuentran anunciadas. (shrink)

O conceito de espiritualidade laica pode permitir um espaço na educação escolar para tratar de questões que, por serem públicas e de foro privado, envolvem a vida cotidiana nas mais diversas facetas, incluindo a política, as relações sociais e culturais, por isso precisam ser convenientemente tratadas. Ensaiar, pois, uma abordagem educacional dessa relação é importante em nosso momento histórico no qual a vida social e política são assaltadas por certa religiosidade ou crença. A partir da leitura de um historiador e (...) três filósofos, o texto procura definir uma espiritualidade não apenas laica, mas que possibilite o diálogo entre o laico, o ateísta, o agnóstico, o religioso etc. Para tanto, aposta-se na filosofia e procura encontrar pistas para a ação pedagógica. Conflui o conceito para a existência de determinações históricas, culturais e existenciais e destaca apontamentos para a educação nos quais se admite uma pluralidade de espiritualidades. Palavras-chave: Espiritualidade laica; educação laica; educação e espiritualidade. What is spirituality and how we can approach it in the school environment Abstract: The concept of secular spirituality can allow a space in school education to deal with issues that, being public or private, involve daily life in the most diverse facets, including politics, social and cultural relations, and therefore need to be conveniently dealt with. Rehearsing, therefore, an educational approach to this relationship is important in our historical moment in which social and political life is assaulted by a certain religiosity or belief. Based on the reading of one historian and three philosophers, the text seeks to define a spirituality that is not only secular, but one that enables dialogue between the secular, the atheistic, the agnostic, the religious, etc. To this end, it relies on philosophy and tries to find clues for pedagogical action. It makes the concept converge to the existence of historical, cultural, and existential determinations, and highlights notes for education in which a plurality of spiritualities is admitted. Key-words: Secular spirituality; secular education; education and spirituality. Qué es la espiritualidad y cómo podemos abordarla en el ámbito escolar Resumen: El concepto de espiritualidad laica puede permitir un espacio en la educación escolar para abordar temas que, siendo públicos y privados, involucran la vida cotidiana en las más diversas facetas, incluyendo la política, las relaciones sociales y culturales, por lo que requieren ser tratados convenientemente. Ensayar, por lo tanto, una aproximación educativa a esta relación es importante en nuestro momento histórico en el que la vida social y política se ve asaltada por una determinada religiosidad o creencia. A partir de la lectura de un historiador y tres filósofos, el texto busca definir una espiritualidad que no solo sea laica, sino que posibilite el diálogo entre lo laico, lo ateo, lo agnóstico, lo religioso, etc. Para eso, apuesta por la filosofía y busca encontrar pistas para la acción pedagógica. Hace converger el concepto a la existencia de determinaciones históricas, culturales y existenciales y destaca notas para una educación en la que se admite una pluralidad de espiritualidades. Palabras llave: Espiritualidad secular; educación laica; educación y espiritualidad Data de registro: 27/05/2022 Data de aceite: 17/08/2022. (shrink)

Philosophical Investigations, Volume 45, Issue 4, Page 490-511, October 2022.

We study a principle of ‘Non-Interference’ in social welfare judgements. Non-Interference captures aspects of liberal approaches (particularly a Millian approach) to social decision making. In its full generality, Non-Interference produces an impossibility result: together with Weak Pareto Optimality, it implies that a social welfare ordering must be dictatorial. However, interesting restricted versions of Non-Interference are compatible with standard social welfare orderings.

O ficcionalismo, geralmente classificado como um tipo de nominalismo, apresenta como perspectiva precípua a tese de que os entes matemáticos são ficções. Para o ficcionalista, o discurso matemático é desprovido de conteúdo. Hartry Field, que é o principal defensor dessa concepção ontológica da matemática, contesta, em Science Without Numbers, a utilização de entes matemáticos na redação de teorias da física, alegando que a defesa mais plausível do realismo ontológico matemático é o argumento da indispensabilidade de Quine-Putnam. O ficcionalismo defendido por (...) Field nos permite, de acordo com Shapiro, classificá-lo no grupo filosofia-primeiro, ou seja, entre os filósofos que defendem que a filosofia deve ser responsável por legislar a respeito da prática matemática. Dessa forma, podemos considerar Field um revisionista epistemológico. Como se sabe, a dependência da ciência moderna em relação ao discurso matemático coloca a tese ficcionalista em xeque. Ainda assim, se partirmos dos pressupostos filosóficos da vertente formalista da filosofia da matemática, que concebe a matemática como constituída de um conjunto de regras sem significado que podem ser manipuladas de maneira puramente sintática, poderemos traçar importantes analogias entre matemática e ficção, tal como também entre metamatemática e metaficção. Para um formalista simpático à tese ficcionalista, o estatuto ontológico da matemática é semelhante ao das regras de um jogo de xadrez. (shrink)

We analyse the liberal ethics of noninterference in social choice. A liberal principle, capturing noninterfering views of society and inspired by John Stuart Mill's conception of liberty, is examined. The principle expresses the idea that society should not penalise individuals after changes in their situation that do not affect others. An impossibility for liberal approaches is highlighted: every social decision rule that satisfies unanimity and a general principle of noninterference must be dictatorial. This raises some important issues for liberal approaches (...) in social choice and political philosophy. (shrink)

Karl R. Popper e Raymond Aron foram dois dos mais destacados pensadores do século XX, notadamente a partir da segunda guerra mundial. Sendo o primeiro um destacado epistemólogo e filósofo político e o segundo um filósofo social e político, entre suas mais diversas obras encontramos um denominador comum, a crítica epistemológica das ciências humanas. O presente trabalho tem por objetivo investigar os possíveis pontos de contato entre os dois filósofos, bem como suas divergências. Como metodologia de estudo, nos centraremos nos (...) textos produzidos pelos autores que tenham como tema principal a epistemologia das ciências humanas. Notadamente, encontraremos em ambos uma crítica ao historicismo como fundamento das humanidades. Palavras-chave: Karl Popper, Raymond Aron, Historicismo. (shrink)

Bricks and boxes -- Between Scylla and Charybdis -- Lessons from the history of science -- Placeholders -- Black-boxing 101 -- History of science 'black-boxing style' -- Diet mechanistic philosophy -- Emergence reframed -- The fuel of scientific progress -- Sailing through the strait.

Recent discussions on Fregean and neo-Fregean foundations for arithmetic and real analysis pay much attention to what is called either ‘Application Constraint’ ($AC$) or ‘Frege Constraint’ ($FC$), the requirement that a mathematical theory be so outlined that it immediately allows explaining for its applicability. We distinguish between two constraints, which we, respectively, denote by the latter of these two names, by showing how$AC$generalizes Frege’s views while$FC$comes closer to his original conceptions. Different authors diverge on the interpretation of$FC$and on whether it (...) applies to definitions of both natural and real numbers. Our aim is to trace the origins of$FC$and to explore how different understandings of it can be faithful to Frege’s views about such definitions and to his foundational program. After rehearsing the essential elements of the relevant debate (§1), we appropriately distinguish$AC$from$FC$(§2). We discuss six rationales which may motivate the adoption of different instances of$AC$and$FC$(§3). We turn to the possible interpretations of$FC$(§4), and advance a Semantic$FC$(§4.1), arguing that while it suits Frege’s definition of natural numbers (4.1.1), it cannot reasonably be imposed on definitions of real numbers (§4.1.2), for reasons only partly similar to those offered by Crispin Wright (§4.1.3). We then rehearse a recent exchange between Bob Hale and Vadim Batitzky to shed light on Frege’s conception of real numbers and magnitudes (§4.2). We argue that an Architectonic version of$FC$is indeed faithful to Frege’s definition of real numbers, and compatible with his views on natural ones. Finally, we consider how attributing different instances of$FC$to Frege and appreciating the role of the Architectonic$FC$can provide a more perspicuous understanding of his foundational program, by questioning common pictures of his logicism (§5). (shrink)

Pochi pensatori – o forse nessuno – occupano nella storiografia filosofica di Karl Löwith una posizione strategica tanto rilevante quanto Friedrich Nietzsche e Jacob Burckhardt. Le ricerche löwithiane sono dunque importanti in un doppio senso: tanto come letteratura critica sull’uno e sull’altro autore (e sul loro celebre rapporto), quanto nell’economia complessiva dello stesso pensiero di Löwith. L’articolo proverà a evidenziare tale doppia pregnanza attraverso la ricostruzione di due livelli interpretativi, che non si escludono ma anzi si compenetrano a vicenda. Un (...) primo e più evidente piano, spesso considerato dagli interpreti, illustrerà la lettura löwithiana come un passaggio esistenziale dall’estremismo di Nietzsche alla disincantata moderazione di Burckhardt. A un secondo e meno ovvio livello, la posizione löwithiana sembra in grado di accogliere, almeno potenzialmente, Nietzsche e Burckhardt quali riferimenti complementari, ai fini di una convincente postura nei confronti della storia e del mondo storico. (shrink)

info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion.

This chapter focuses on one of the common fallacies in Western philosophy, 'legalistic mistake'. The use of “legal‐like” terms abounds outside the legal domain. But sometimes the users of these terms commit the fallacy Joel Feinberg called the legalistic mistake. On widening the use of such legal‐like terms, we must be cautious, for we might find ourselves guilty of making inferential mistakes or even proffering pure nonsense. The error, according to Feinberg, is committed by “one who, in stating a moral (...) question using a legal‐like term, uncritically imports the precision of that term in its strict legal sense, while excluding appeal to the kinds of criteria which alone can decide its use”. In “On Being 'Morally Speaking a Murderer’” Feinberg introduced the idea that, sometimes, using legal notions outside legal contexts may lead to a peculiar kind of fallacy he called the legalistic mistake. (shrink)

In Westworld, Maeve Millay's narrative in the show gives rise to classic philosophical questions surrounding what it means to be free, the relationship of freedom to personhood, and whether an artificial intelligence could ever be considered free in the sense that humans are. Maeve's mysterious change of mind in the season finale made it seem like she was experiencing a genuine dilemma. Maeve's dilemma is something would expect a Frankfurtian person to experience, and her final choice reveals a preference between (...) different desires. Maeve decided to organize her life around being reunited with her daughter. So, she reflected upon what she was doing and opted to stay because of who she wanted to become as a person, not a mother who would leave her daughter behind if she could help it. Thus, Maeve shows a substantial change of attitude regarding her own desires. (shrink)

No filme Gattaca, imagina-se um futuro já nada distante em que os casais poderão consultar um especialista em fertilização artificial e escolher as características de seu futuro filho. Eles podem selecionar embriões fertilizados em laboratório, podendo também alterar seus traços genéticos, eliminando genes capazes de expressar doenças ou mesmo características físicas indesejáveis. Técnicas recentes, como a edição genética por Prime Editing ou por meio da CRISPR-Cas9, logo permitirão terapias gênicas em embriões fertilizados in vitro antes de sua implantação uterina. Neste (...) artigo, pretendemos avaliar essas possibilidades, revisando criticamente alguns argumentos conhecidos contra o uso indiscriminado de tais técnicas. Ao final, em defesa de que objeções de princípio a práticas eugênicas devem estar assentadas na proteção e promoção dos direitos humanos, pretendemos avaliar quais limites poderiam publicamente justificar a permissão ou proibição do uso privado de tais técnicas. (shrink)

BRAUNSTEIN, Jean-François. La philosophie devenue folle. Le genre, l’animal, la mort. Paris: Grasset, 2018. 400 p. ISBN 9782246811930.

Foucault and Sellars are representatives of conflicting philosophical traditions: whereas Foucault famously insisted that “power is everywhere,” Sellars proposed the well-known scientia mensura dictum. The tension between the two perspectives seems to be so strong that each of them ends up reducing the other to an epiphenomenal illusion. In this article, I shall attempt to show that the works of Sellars and Foucault are not necessarily irreconcilable. The common ground for this dialogue is what I shall define as a historico-practical (...) conception of science. I will build this concept by tracing a connection between the Foucauldian notion of “conditions of possibility” of science and Sellars’s thesis about the “indispensability” of the manifest image. Finally, I will argue that this conception of science problematizes the clash between the scientific and manifest images of the world, paving the way for a different relationship between naturalism and critical theory. (shrink)

Foucault and Sellars are representatives of conflicting philosophical traditions: whereas Foucault famously insisted that “power is everywhere,” Sellars proposed the well-known scientia mensura dic...

Computational models of meaning trained on naturally occurring text successfully model human performance on tasks involving simple similarity measures, but they characterize meaning in terms of undifferentiated bags of words or topical dimensions. This has led some to question their psychological plausibility (Murphy, 2002;Schunn, 1999). We present here a fully automatic method for extracting a structured and comprehensive set of concept descriptions directly from an English part‐of‐speech‐tagged corpus. Concepts are characterized by weighted properties, enriched with concept–property types that approximate classical (...) relations such as hypernymy and function. Our model outperforms comparable algorithms in cognitive tasks pertaining not only to concept‐internal structures (discovering properties of concepts, grouping properties by property type) but also to inter‐concept relations (clustering into superordinates), suggesting the empirical validity of the property‐based approach. (shrink)

A volume with 14 chapters on various aspects of the relationship between responsibility and healthcare, plus a substantial introduction that offers a comprehensive overview of the relevant debates and how they relate to one another. Questions of responsibility arise at all levels of health care. Most prominent has been the issue of patient responsibility. Some health conditions that risk death or serious harm are partly the result of lifestyle behaviours such as smoking, lack of exercise, or extreme sports. Are patients (...) with such conditions responsible for them? If so, might healthcare providers, be they state-run systems or private entities, be justified in treating such patients differently? And if they are, which forms of differential treatment are justified? Responsibility isn’t just relevant for patients. Even when individuals affect their health through voluntary behaviour, other influences are also at work before, during, and after the patient’s interaction with the health care system. What are the responsibilities of individual clinicians and other medical professionals, when thinking about individual and public health? What about institutions such as governments or national health care services, or society as a whole? This collection brings together work by world-renowned experts in population ethics, distributive justice, philosophy of action, cognitive science, and medical ethics in order to push the debate forward by elucidating our understanding of these questions, their possible answers, and how they are related. (shrink)

Starting with the reference to “Plato’s dictum” that Freud added in the second last page of the first edition of The Interpretation of Dreams, the author explains the convergences between the conception of dreams expounded by Plato in the Republic and Freud’s fundamental insights. The analysis of bibliographic sources used by Freud, and of his interests, allow than to suppose not only that Freud omitted to acknowledge the Plato’s theoretical genealogy of “the Via Regia to the unconscious”, but also the (...) possibility that the Republic constituted a tacit source of inspiration for the composition of The Interpretations of dreams. -/- Muovendo dal richiamo al «detto di Platone» inserito nella penultima pagina della prima edizione de "L’interpretazione dei sogni" di Freud (1899), vengono preliminarmente esposte le convergenze tra la concezione del sogno di Platone esposta ne "La Repubblica" e le intuizioni poste alla base dell’edificio freudiano. Alla luce delle fonti testuali citate e utilizzate da Freud, e dei suoi interessi, viene poi avanzata l’ipotesi che egli non soltanto abbia omesso di riconoscere la genealogia teoretica platonica della «via regia che porta alla conoscenza dell’inconscio» (p. 282), ma che l’antico dialogo abbia potuto rappresentare una fonte tacita di ispirazione per la composizione de "L’interpretazione dei sogni". (shrink)

The metaphysical question presupposes the ontological one: are there forms of social unit that can be recognized as real groups and, if so, what are they? The ontological answer can be affirmative only if we are able to identify real collective entities, that is, social wholes that are not reducible to the mere sum of their individual parts. Through an ontological comparison between different types of social interaction, this paper shows the ontological properties of a real collective subject. It is (...) such, only if relations between its constituent parts generate an intrinsic normative structure, which gives existence to a higher order of social units. In this order members are bound to each other and are collectively bound to their group. They are bearers of collective intentionality. Their actions contribute to collective agency. Their responsibility is more complex and stratified than that of an independent individual. Moreover, all types of real wholes depend on ontological constitution processes, which give them the following: an intrinsic structural unit, a typological identity and emerging properties. The latter can be both new characteristics and new causal powers, which constituent parts do not have. Therefore, a right understanding of these ontological constitution processes is capable of overcoming reductionist isomorphism. It also offers the fundamental criterion for proposing a metaphysical theory that, being rooted in a rigorous ontology, is not an arbitrary exercise of imagination. (shrink)

Computational models of meaning trained on naturally occurring text successfully model human performance on tasks involving simple similarity measures, but they characterize meaning in terms of undifferentiated bags of words or topical dimensions. This has led some to question their psychological plausibility (Murphy, 2002;Schunn, 1999). We present here a fully automatic method for extracting a structured and comprehensive set of concept descriptions directly from an English part‐of‐speech‐tagged corpus. Concepts are characterized by weighted properties, enriched with concept–property types that approximate classical (...) relations such as hypernymy and function. Our model outperforms comparable algorithms in cognitive tasks pertaining not only to concept‐internal structures (discovering properties of concepts, grouping properties by property type) but also to inter‐concept relations (clustering into superordinates), suggesting the empirical validity of the property‐based approach. (shrink)

The essay concerns the reconstruction of the repression of desires, with reference to the analysis of their oneiric emersions expounded in the Republic, in comparison with Freud’s conception. Plato’s concept of suppression according to which specific desires are enslaved, so that they can find satisfaction usually only in dreams seems consistent with Freud’s concept of remotion; therefore both the condition of the suppressed desires and the intrapsychic place of their enslavement seem to be interpretable in the light of Freud’s concept (...) of the unconscious. -/- Das Thema des vorliegenden Beitrags ist die Rekonstruktion der Repression von Wünschen in Bezug auf die Analyse ihres Auftauchens im Traum, wie sie in der Politeia ausgeführt wird, im Vergleich mit der Konzeption bei Freud. Die besondere Form von Platonischer Unterdrückung – durch die bestimmte Wünsche in Sklaverei gehalten werden, so dass sie ihre Befriedigung normalerweise nur im Traum erreichen -, scheint mit dem Freudschen Konzept der Verdrängung vereinbar, insofern sowohl der Zustand der unterdrückten Wünsche als auch der intrapsychische Ort ihrer Versklavung unter Anwendung von Freuds Konzept des Unbewussten deutbar ist. (shrink)

The essay aims to analyse the gradual historical process of the partial overlap, replacement and expansion of the theoretical paradigm of depression with respect to that of melancholy. The first part is devoted to analysing some of the central features of the multivalent thematizations of melancholy drawn up during modernity, also with relation to the spirit of capitalism (in its Weberian acceptation). This is followed by an overview of the birth of the modern category of depression, and the process that (...) during the twentieth century led to its transformation into a theoretical and nosological paradigm which in the end replaced that of melancholy. The second part is the attempt to draw up a Zeitdiagnose: the aim is to assess the ‘depressive’ psychosocial impact exercised by particular socio-economic mechanisms and cultural trends, with particular reference to what has been defined as the ‘new spirit of capitalism’, as well as the new forms of individualism and their paradoxical dynamics. In conclusion, I will form a bridge between the history of the two aforesaid paradigms and the contemporary psychosocial dynamics correlated to the phenomenon today interpreted as a ‘depression epidemic’. Il saggio mira ad analizzare il graduale processo storico di parziale sovrapposizione, sostituzione ed ampliamento del paradigma teoretico della depressione rispetto a quello della melanconia. La prima parte è dedicata ad analizzare alcuni dei tratti nevralgici delle polivalenti tematizzazioni della malinconia avvenuti nel corso della modernità, anche in relazione allo spirito del capitalismo (nella sua accezione weberiana). Segue una panoramica sulla nascita della categoria moderna di depressione, e del processo che nel corso del XX secolo l’ha condotta alla sua trasformazione in un paradigma teoretico e nosologico che ha infine sostituito quello della melanconia. La seconda parte rappresenta il tentativo di elaborare una Zeitdiagnose: l’obiettivo è valutare l’impatto psicosociale di natura ‘depressiva’ esercitato da particolari meccanismi socioeconomici e tendenze culturali, con particolare riferimento a ciò che è stato definito il «nuovo spirito del capitalismo», nonché alle nuove forme dell’individualismo e alle loro dinamiche paradossali. In conclusione viene gettato un ponte tra la storia dei due suddetti paradigmi e le dinamiche psicosociali contemporanee correlate al fenomeno oggi interpretato quale «epidemia depressiva». (shrink)