Der vorliegende Band befasst sich zentral mit dem Problem der Anwendung der Transzendentalphilosophie auf die praktische Philosophie. Zu Ehren von Marco Ivaldo haben sich einige der führenden Fichte-Interpreten zusammengetan, um das Thema diachronisch zu behandeln. Angefangen bei Kant bis hin zur zeitgenössischen Philosophie werden einige der philosophischen Hauptpositionen (Kant, Fichte, Hegel, Husserl, Deleuze und viele weitere) auf ihre Verträglichkeit mit dem transzendentalphilosophischen Ansatz in praktischer Hinsicht geprüft. ********************** The present volume deals with the problem of the application of transcendental (...) philosophy to practical philosophy. In honour of Marco Ivaldo, some of the leading experts on Fichte have teamed up to treat the subject diachronically. From Kant to contemporary philosophy, some of the main philosophical positions (Kant, Fichte, Hegel, Husserl, Deleuze, and many others) are examined in view of their compatibility with the transcendental-philosophical approach in a practical way. (shrink)

One of the legacies of modern philosophy is to have separated or bifurcated the human from nature. Marco Altamirano offers a critique of the modern concept of nature in order to chart a new trajectory for the philosophy of nature. -/- By examining the history of the concept of nature, Altamirano shows how a spatial and epistemological concept of nature emerged in Descartes, where a subject confronts an object in space and subsequently wonders about her mode of access to (...) that object. He then argues that a time-based concept of nature is necessary in order to reinstall the subject within its eventual ecology. Deploying conceptual resources from Bergson, Deleuze, Guattari, Foucault, and Leroi- Gourhan (among others), Altamirano shows how the concept of technology harbors an escape route from the spatial and epistemological picture of nature. Ultimately, this book draws the profile of a concept of nature based on time and technology that bypasses the nature-artifice distinction that has mired the philosophy of nature since modern philosophy. (shrink)

What is mathematics about? And if it is about some sort of mathematical reality, how can we have access to it? This is the problem raised by Plato, which still today is the subject of lively philosophical disputes. This book traces the history of the problem, from its origins to its contemporary treatment. It discusses the answers given by Aristotle, Proclus and Kant, through Frege's and Russell's versions of logicism, Hilbert's formalism, Gödel's platonism, up to the the current debate on (...) Benacerraf's dilemma and the indispensability argument. Through the considerations of themes in the philosophy of language, ontology, and the philosophy of science, the book aims at offering an historically-informed introduction to the philosophy of mathematics, approached through the lenses of its most fundamental problem. (shrink)

Human social life is structured by social norms creating both obligations and entitlements. Recent research has found that young children enforce simple obligations against norm violators by protesting. It is not known, however, whether they understand entitlements in the sense that they will actively object to a second party attempting to interfere in something that a third party is entitled to do — what we call counter-protest. In two studies, we found that 3-year-old children understand when a person is entitled (...) to do something, and so they actively defend this person’s entitlement against unjustified interference from second parties. In some cases, they even enforce second-order entitlements, for example, in the case of ownership where an owner is entitled to entitle others to use the owner’s property. (shrink)

A standard approach to examining Deleuze's concept of difference in Difference and Repetition is to follow his critique of representation through an overturning of Platonism, which Deleuze finds to be the definitive task of philosophy after Nietzsche. While engaging this largely critical project, however, there is a tendency to overlook the dimensions of Platonism that Deleuze rehabilitates in a differential and immanent register. This paper aims to recover the essential dimensions of Platonism at the very heart of Deleuze's philosophy of (...) difference. This recovery is accomplished by distinguishing Nietzsche's overturning of Platonism through his evaluation of the reactive politics of the Idea from Deleuze's own reversal of Platonism through his evaluation of the active politics of simulacra. (shrink)

Heterogeneity of Being goes beyond the standard interpretations of Octavio Paz as a thinker of national identity and proposes a radical rethinking of the relationship between literature and philosophy. Dorfsman analyzes how Paz’s “tradition of rupture” properly displays a continuity between self and other, identity and difference, time and space.

Dr. Marco Forgione (University of Milan), COSMOS team member, interviewed Prof. Peter Galison (Harvard University) in occasion of the event “Photographs from Outer Space”.

Cognitive Robotics can be defined as the study of cognitive phenomena by their modeling in physical artifacts such as robots. This is a very lively and fascinating field which has already given fundamental contributions to our understanding of natural cognition. Nonetheless, robotics has to date addressed mainly very basic, low­level cognitive phenomena like sensory­motor coordination, perception, and navigation, and it is not clear how the current approach might scale up to explain high­level human cognition. In this paper we argue that (...) a promising way to do that is to merge current ideas and methods of 'embodied cognition' with the Russian tradition of theoretical psychology which views language not only as a communication system but also as a cognitive tool, that is by developing a Vygotskyan Cognitive Robotics. We substantiate this idea by discussing several domains in which language can improve basic cognitive abilities and permit the development of high­level cognition: learning, categorization, abstraction, memory, voluntary control, and mental life. (shrink)

The notion of schema has been given a major role by Recanati within his conception of primary pragmatic processes, conceived as a type of associative process. I intend to show that Recanati’s considerations on schemata may challenge the relevance theorist’s argument against associative explanations in pragmatics, and support an argument in favor of associative (versus inferential) explanations. More generally, associative relations can be shown to be schematic, that is, they have enough structure to license inferential effects without any appeal to (...) genuine inferential processes. Associative processes are thus able to explain a number of pragmatic and linguistic phenomena which have instead been thought to require specialized inferential processes. (shrink)

Integrity is often conceived as a moral virtue that pertains to the coherence between one’s moral convictions and actions, as well as consistency in convictions over time. By contrast, I argue that integrity is primarily an epistemic virtue. To act with integrity, an individual or organisation must engage in responsible inquiry; that is, the collection, processing, sharing, and storage of information in ways that promote truth. Organisational structures such as division of labour and hierarchy present challenges to responsible inquiry, thereby (...) making epistemic integrity in organisations inherently vulnerable and increasing the risk of unintentional unethical behaviour. This epistemic perspective on organisational integrity emphasises the importance of developing virtuous epistemic infrastructure and an ethical epistemic culture. By aligning their beliefs with facts, organisations can also improve moral behaviour and reduce the risk of culpable ignorance. (shrink)

Reductionists in biology claim that all biological events can be explained in terms of genes and macromolecules alone, while antireductionists argue that some biological events must be explained at a higher level. The literature, however, does not distinguish between different kinds of molecular explanation. The goal of this article is to identify and analyze three such kinds. The analysis of molecular explanations herein carries an important philosophical implication; in shunning crude reductionism and extreme versions of holism, we can combine the (...) insights of thoughtful reductionists with sophisticated antireductionism. When this is done, the question of explanatory reductionism becomes less substantial than often supposed. (shrink)

The concept of vagueness is essential to understand some Nietzsche’s main ideas about the relationship between language and reality. In this way, is it precisely vagueness, and not ambiguity or polysemy, which characterizes verbal-conceptual language for Nietzsche? In order to answer this question, firstly I will summarize the functions of the cognitive process, underlying all types of languages. Secondly, I will identify the Nietzsche’s closer concept in relation with the modern concept of ‘vagueness’ and interpret it following the rst section. (...) Thirdly, I will brie y examine what type of symbolic language is mu- sic. Finally, I will develop a comparison between verbal-conceptual language and musical language concerning the property of vagueness. The paper approach will be more theoretical than historio-graphical, because it focuses on the potential of Nietzsche’s thought regarding both the philosophy of language and the philosophy of music. (shrink)

Aleister Crowley (1875-1947) is one of the most famous and significant authors in the history of western esotericism. Crowley has been long ignored by scholars of religion whilst the stories of magical and sexual practice which circulate about him continue to attract popular interest. "Aleister Crowley and the Temptation of Politics" looks at the man behind the myth - by setting him firmly within the politics of his time - and the development of his ideas through his extensive and extraordinarily (...) varied writings. Crowley was a rationalist, sympathetic to the values of the Enlightenment, but also a romantic and a reactionary. His search for an alternative way to express his religious feelings led him to elaborate his own vision of social and political change. Crowley's complex politics led to his involvement with many key individuals, organisations and groups of his day - the secret service of various countries, the German Nazi party, Russian political activists, journalists and politicians of various persuasions, as well as other writers - both in Europe and America. "Aleister Crowley and the Temptation of Politics" presents a life of ideas, an examination of a man shaped by and shaping the politics of his times. (shrink)

En este estudio se intenta comprender el asociativismo deportivo de mujeres, en el contexto de un deporte dicho masculino; se trata de una investigación etnográfica junto a un equipo de futsal femenino de la ciudad de Porto Alegre, en Brasil. Conducidos por el objetivo de comprender cómo y por qué algunas mujeres se asocian para practicar un deporte socialmente considerado como masculino, constatamos que el asociativismo estudiado se vincula al placer de la práctica deportiva y a la homosexualidad. Identificamos una (...) heterogeneidad en lo que se refiere a la forma de vivir el deporte y nos percatamos de que, en ese universo, la homosexualidad es vivida, pero se le da una visibilidad controlada; observamos, también, que el contexto deportivo estudiado se constituye en un espacio de ocio particular, donde la homosexualidad se acepta, siendo, por lo tanto, un espacio privilegiado para que las mujeres homosexuales vivan sus momentos de ocio. (shrink)