Supposition is frequently invoked in many fields within philosophy, including aesthetics, philosophy of mind, philosophy of science and epistemology. However, there is a striking lack of consensus about the nature of supposition. What is supposition? Is supposition a sui generis type of mental state or is it reducible to some other type of mental state? These are the main questions Margherita Arcangeli explores in this book. She examines the characteristic features of supposition, along the dimensions of phenomenology and emotionality, (...) among others, in a journey through the imaginative realm. An informed answer to the question “What is supposition?” must involve an analysis of imagination, since supposition is so often defined in opposition to the latter. She assesses rival explanations of supposition putting forward a novel view, according to which the proper way of seeing supposition is as a primitive type of imaginative state. Supposition and the Imaginative Realm: A Philosophical Inquiry will be of great interest to students of philosophy of psychology, aesthetics, philosophy of mind, philosophy of science and epistemology. (shrink)

Presenting twelve breakthrough practices for bringing creativity into all human endeavors, The Art of Possibility is the dynamic product of an extraordinary partnership. The Art of Possibility combines Benjamin Zander's experience as conductor of the Boston Philharmonic and his talent as a teacher and communicator with psychotherapist Rosamund Stone Zander's genius for designing innovative paradigms for personal and professional fulfillment. The authors' harmoniously interwoven perspectives provide a deep sense of the powerful role that the notion of possibility can (...) play in every aspect of life. Through uplifting stories, parables, and personal anecdotes, the Zanders invite us to become passionate communicators, leaders, and performers whose lives radiate possibility into the world. (shrink)

It is well known that Hegel departs from tradition in his treatment of the concept of contradiction in a way that is scandalous to some. This book explores the question of what Hegel means by contradiction and how it can be made useful for philosophy. Bekannt ist, dass Hegel in seiner Behandlung des Widerspruchs in einer für manche skandalösen Art von der Tradition abweicht. Vorliegendes Buch geht der Frage nach, was Hegel unter einem Widerspruch überhaupt versteht und auf welche Weise (...) er für die Philosophie dienstbar gemacht werden kann. (shrink)

Among the attempts to oppose tobacco control legislation, the tobacco industry has alleged violations of its right to commercial speech. While the disputes that took place in some jurisdictions like the United States (US), Canada, or the European Union (EU) have been already analyzed, much less is known about how, globally, this doctrine has influenced the adoption of tobacco control measures. This article contributes to filling this gap by illustrating how the commercial speech doctrine influenced the negotiations of the Framework (...) Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). Moreover, using the Tobacco Control Database of Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, it shows that arguments on commercial speech have been used to challenge tobacco control measures in an increasing number of countries. (shrink)

Here I critically assess an argument put forward by Kuorikoski et al. (Br J Philos Sci, 61(3):541–567, 2010) for the epistemic import of model-based robustness analysis. I show that this argument is not sound since the sort of probabilistic independence on which it relies is unfeasible. By revising the notion of probabilistic independence imposed on the models’ results, I introduce a prima-facie more plausible argument. However, despite this prima-facie plausibility, I show that even this new argument is unsound in most (...) if not all cases of model-based robustness analysis. This I do to demonstrate that the epistemic import of model-based robust analysis cannot be satisfactorily defended on the basis of probabilistic independence. (shrink)

Mental imagery has often been taken to be equivalent to “sensory imagination”, the perception‐like type of imagination at play when, for example, one visually imagines a flower when none is there, or auditorily imagines a music passage while wearing earplugs. I contend that the equation of mental imagery with sensory imagination stems from a confusion between two senses of mental imagery. In the first sense, mental imagery is used to refer to a psychological attitude, which is perception‐like in nature. In (...) the second sense, mental imagery refers to a mental content, which can be grasped via different attitudes. I will show that failure to acknowledge the distinction between these senses of mental imagery has muddled philosophical discussion. This distinction brings much needed clarity to debates where sensory imagination and mental imagery are invoked, shedding light on issues such as the nature of imagistic mental states, and the representational powers and limits of mental imagery. I will conclude by sketching a general attitudinal account of imagination that does justice to both senses of mental imagery, outlining a promising framework for understanding imagination. (shrink)

Summary This paper presents and contextualizes the construct of Aesthetic Relational Knowing (ARK), as the intuitive experience of the therapist that emerges from the phenomenological field created in a meeting between therapist and client. The concept of isomorphism is considered as an epistemological turning point and a possible bridge connecting Gestalt therapy, Gestalt theory and Neurosciences. An example of the clinical consequences of this change of perspective is given. Moreover, a validation pilot study has shown that ARK is described by (...) three factors: empathy, resonance and bodily awareness. The ARK can be defined as a three-dimensional construct that supports the positive use of the therapist’s perception in terms of aesthetic knowing of the phenomenological field of the therapeutic situation. The construct of Aesthetic Relational Knowing can be considered a phenomenological, aesthetic and field-oriented contribution to psychotherapy training, supervision and research. (shrink)

We attribute the capability of imagination to the madman as to the scientist, to the novelist as to the metaphysician, and last but not least to ourselves. The same, apparently, holds for thought experimentation. Ernst Mach was the first to draw an explicit link between these two mental acts; moreover -in his perspective- imagination plays a pivotal role in thought experimentation. Nonetheless, it is not clear what kind of imagination emerges from Mach’s writings. Indeed, heated debates among cognitive scientists and (...) philosophers turn on the key distinction between sensory and cognitive imagination. Generally speaking, we can say that sensory imagination shares some processes with perception, cognitive imagination with the formation of belief. Both the vocabulary used in the literature on thought experiments and what I refer to as “Machian tradition” indicate imagination as a notion of central importance in the reasoning involved in thought experiments. However, most authors have really focused on sensory (in particular, visual) imagination, but have neglected the second kind. Moreover, some authors attribute to Mach the idea that it is visual imagery that is primarily at work in thought experiments. I claim another interpretation is possible, according to which Mach can be said to deal with cognitive imagination. The main aim of this paper is to retrace Mach’s original arguments and establish a connection with the cognitive literature on imagination. I will argue that imagination tout court could play a role in thought experimentation. Once imagination is seen as the key to the “cognitive black-box” of the thought experiment, we will have moved a step closer to a simulative imagining-based account of thought experimentation. (shrink)

The scientist’s toolkit counts at least three practices: real, thought and numerical experiments. Although a deep investigation of the relationships between these types of experiments should shed light on the nature of scientific enquiry, I argue that it has been compromised by at least four factors: (i) a bias for the epistemological superiority of real experiments; (ii) an almost exclusive focus on the links between either thought or numerical experiments, and real experiments; (iii) a tendency to try and reduce one (...) kind to another; and (iv) an excessive attention to the outputs of these types of experiments, more than to their processes. In this paper I support an unbiased triangular comparative analysis that focuses on the processes involved in real, thought and numerical experiments, and claim that all three types of experimentation are fundamental to scientific research. I do so by clarifying different notions of experimental processes, and by introducing a distinction between two varieties of mental simulation that play a role in them (i.e., mental models and imaginings). I then compare real, thought and numerical experiments in light of this distinction, showing their similarities, but also fundamental differences, which suggest that none of them is dispensable. (shrink)

In his *Bāhyārthasiddhikārikā (BASK), “Verses on the Establishment of the External Object”—extant only in Tibetan translation—Śubhagupta (720–780 CE), a philosopher connected with the logical-epistemological school of Buddhism, argues the reality of external objects of cognitions. In this article, I shall provide an account of Śubhagupta's theory of the cognitive process, as expressed in BASK 35–44, particularly in light of his view that the images (ākāra) of those objects do not appear in cognition. BASK is part of an internal Buddhist debate (...) over the reality of external supports of perceptions, wherein Śubhagupta disproves the views of thinkers like Diṅnāga and Vasubandhu. On the other hand, he is one of the main opponents addressed in the Bahirarthaparīkṣā (BAP) of the Tattvasaṅgraha (TS) by Śāntarakṣita (725–788 CE) and the Tattvasaṅgrahapañjikā (TSP) by Kamalaśīla (740–795 CE). Therein, the two authors, while demonstrating the absence of the characteristics of apprehended (grāhya) and apprehender (grāhaka) with regard to cognition, keenly refute his ideas and quote selected Sanskrit verses that can be identified as the original Sanskrit of stanzas in BASK. Accordingly, I shall examine Śubhagupta’s theory of the cognitive process in two steps: (i) analyzing the arguments that Śāntarakṣita and Kamalaśīla advance against him based on their interpretation of Śubhagupta’s views; and (ii) analyzing the arguments that he brings forward against his opponents (namely, Diṅnāga and Vasubandhu), by means of the investigation of BASK 35–44 in their original context. (shrink)

The essay investigates desire in Shakespeare’s Richard III as connected to Deleuze and Guattari’s line of flight and war machine.

Review of Silvia Goldbaum Tarabini: _Danske jøders liv og død i Theresienstadt. _Köpenhamn: Gyldendal, 2023.

Girls have much lower mathematics self-efficacy than boys, a likely contributor to the underrepresentation of women in STEM. To help explain this gender confidence gap, we examined predictors of mathematics self-efficacy in a sample of 1,007 9th graders aged 13–18 years (54.2% girls). Participants completed a standardized math test, after which they rated three indices of mastery: an affective component (state self-esteem), a meta-cognitive component (self-enhancement), and their prior math grade. Despite having similar grades, girls reported lower mathematics self-efficacy and (...) state self-esteem, and were less likely than boys to self-enhance in terms of performance. Multilevel multiple-group regression analyses showed that the affective mastery component explained girls’ self-efficacy while cognitive self-enhancement explained boys’. Yet, a chi-square test showed that both constructs were equally relevant in the prediction of girls’ and boys’ self-efficacy. Measures of interpersonal sources of self-efficacy were not predictive of self-efficacy after taking the other dimensions into account. Results suggest that boys are advantaged in their development of mathematics self-efficacy beliefs, partly due to more positive feelings and more cognitive self-enhancement following test situations. (shrink)

Awe seems to be a complex emotion or emotional construct characterized by a mix of positive (contentment, happiness), and negative affective components (fear and a sense of being smaller, humbler or insignificant). It is striking that the elicitors of awe correspond closely to what philosophical aesthetics, and especially Burke and Kant, have called “the sublime.” As a matter of fact, awe is almost absent from the philosophical agenda, while there are very few studies on the experience of the sublime as (...) such in the psychological literature. The aim of this paper is to throw light on the complex relationship between awe (as understood by psychologists) and the experience of the sublime (as discussed by philosophers). We distinguish seven ways of conceiving this relationship and highlight those that seem more promising to us. Once we have a clearer picture of how awe and the experience of the sublime are related, we can use it to enhance collaboration between these domains. We would be able to use empirical results about awe in a philosophical analysis of the experience of the sublime, which in turn can help us to design novel experimental hypotheses about the contexts in which we experience awe. (shrink)

Nearly 400 million adults have been vaccinated against COVID-19. Children have been excluded from the vaccination programmes owing to their lower vulnerability to COVID-19 and to the special protections that apply to children’s exposure to new biological products. WHO guidelines and national laws focus on medical safety in the process of vaccine approval, and on national security in the process of emergency authorisation. Because children suffer much from social distancing, it is argued that the harms from containment measures should be (...) factored in a broader perspective on the good of the child. Considering the available knowledge on the disease, vaccine, and coping strategies, the decision about vaccine access to children is a public responsibility. The ultimate choice is a matter of paediatric informed consent. Moreover, jurisdictions that permit non-participation in established childhood vaccination programmes should also permit choice of vaccines outside of the approved programmes. Even if vaccine supply is too short to cover the paediatric population, the a priori exclusion of children is unjust. It may also exacerbate local and global inequalities. The second part of the paper delineates a prudent and ethical scheme for gradual incorporation of minors in vaccination programmes that includes a rigorous postvaccination monitoring. This is a theoretical paper in ethics that uses the Pfizer vaccine as a stock example, without discussing possible differences among existing vaccines. The key purpose is reflection on the good of the child in emergencies and vaccine policymaking. All data relevant to the study are included in the article and in its refernces. (shrink)

Dans le domaine de l’analyse des données textuelles (ADT), les chercheurs s’intéressent à la relation entre le texte et son support d’exploration. Ces dernières années, l’évolution de l’informatique a profondément modifié notre rapport au texte induisant le développement de nouveaux outils d’étude et critères d’analyse. Dans ce contexte théorique, le concept de lecture polyangulaire permet de compléter les notions de lectures linéaire, réticulaire ou matricielle. Cette approche du texte est devenue possible grâce aux outils d’édition de corpus toujours plus performants (...) proposés par les logiciels de traitement automatique des textes, tel Hyperbase Web Édition. Les fondements de la lecture polyangulaire reposent à fois sur les techniques de corpus based et de corpus driven. Elle vise à multiplier les partitionnements de corpus afin de faire émerger aussi précisément que possible la trame du tissu textuel. Cette nouvelle méthode est ensuite illustrée par deux exemples issus des bases latines diffusées par le LASLA de l’Université de Liège. (shrink)

The idea of ‘arts of vulnerability’ (AoV) reclaims the fact of being inherently open (never sealed) and becomes a tool to navigate such a lack of closure. It is art because it comes from art practice, and it is of vulnerability because it comes from materials that are vulnerable and defy control. The idea is rooted in bioart practice understood as artistic research and read through feminist and queer studies about embodiment and ecology. This article traces how the artwork series (...) Wombs contributed to the development of the idea. AoV is a way of understanding art practice, yet it becomes an ethical and intellectual tool that pays attention (and tribute) to more-than-human ethics and aesthetics. It may thus contribute to a critical discussion of today’s surging ecological complexity. (shrink)

È questa la prima raccolta completa dei frammenti relativi a questo autore, comprendente anche testimonianze biografiche che precedentemente non erano state prese in considerazione. This is the first comprehensive collection of fragments related to this author, including biographical accounts that had not previously been considered.

This chapter carries out an analysis of the manner in which dialectics is reappropriated and transformed by Hans‐Georg Gadamer and Theodor W. Adorno. If hermeneutics and critical theory can be seen as legitimate successors of Hegel's dialectical tradition, it is precisely thanks to the efforts of Adorno and Gadamer. Both Adorno's and Gadamer's reappraisals of Hegel's philosophy take the form of a drawing out of Hegelian dialectics what is implicit in its own premises. By examining the intellectual experience that the (...) principle of contradiction expresses, Adorno demonstrates that nonidentity is precisely the driving force behind Hegel's idealistic dialectics. The abandonment of the oppositional‐critical character of dialectics that marks Gadamer's fundamental difference from Adorno's negative dialectics, and makes it necessary for Gadamer to rebrand his method as hermeneutic: no longer critique, but rather understanding and interpretation in the shared and open‐ended dialogical process. (shrink)

A popular view maintains that supposition is a kind of cognitive mental state, very similar to belief in essential respects. Call this view “cognitivism about supposition”. There are at least three grades of cognitivism, construing supposition as (i) a belief, (ii) belief-like imagination or (iii) a species of belief-like imagination. I shall argue against all three grades of cognitivism and claim that supposition is a sui generis form of imagination essentially dissimilar to belief. Since for good reasons (i) is not (...) supported in the literature, I shall dwell on (ii) and (iii). Without further explanation supposition has been very often merely postulated as being nothing but belief-like imagination—that is, (ii). I shall show that at least two considerations undermine (ii). First, supposition and belief-like imagination are governed by different norms, more precisely the former is freer than the latter and requires minimal or no mental effort. Second, contrary to belief-like imagination, supposition is “cold”, in that it is typically dissociated from emotional reactions. Proponents of (iii) face the pressure of explaining these differences between supposition and belief-like imagination too. I shall argue that they have not sufficiently motivated the claim that supposition is belief-like. In particular they fail to accommodate precisely the dimensions of supposition pertaining to its normativity and emotionality. I shall close with a sketch of a new account of supposition. (shrink)

Aphantasia, a recently labelled spectrum condition affecting mental imagery, has brought to the fore the centrality of imagination in our lives. Intuitively it may seem that we cannot have a normal life without the possession of imaginative abilities. Yet, aphantasics do not seem to be much affected by their condition. Can aphantasia tell us anything about the nature and role of our imaginative abilities? I contend that an important distinction that can shed light on this question has been largely overlooked, (...) namely that between two senses of mental imagery: as a type of mental content (viz., mental imagery strictly speaking), and as a kind of psychological attitude (viz., sensory imagination). Drawing on this distinction, I suggest three possible conditions: (i) impairment in mental imagery only, (ii) impairment in sensory imagination only, (iii) impairment in both mental imagery and sensory imagination. I show that core cases of aphantasia are better understood as impairments in sensory imagination only, but I indicate empirical strategies to investigate whether some cases of aphantasia rather involve impairments in mental imagery, which would point toward a plurality of forms of aphantasia. Sensory imagination, however, does not exhaust the imaginative realm, therefore we shouldn’t jump to the hasty conclusion that aphantasics have no imagination. Most aphantasics lack sensory imagination, but arguably can exploit other forms of imagination. This would explain in which sense they still possess imaginative abilities. (shrink)

A widespread claim, which I call ‘the Emotionality Claim’, is that imagination but not supposition is intimately linked to emotion. In more cognitive jargon, imagination is connected to the affect system, whereas supposition is not. EC is open to several interpretations which yield very different views about the nature of supposition. The literature lacks an in-depth analysis of EC which sorts out these different readings and ways to carve supposition and imagination at their joints. The aim of this paper is (...) to fill this gap. I shall argue that existing readings of EC fail to properly account for the emotional asymmetry between imagination and supposition. The tendency is to start from narrow conceptions of both imagination and supposition. I shall argue for a novel interpretation of EC pivoting on different ways a mental state can connect to the affect system. (shrink)

In this paper we discuss the influence of war as a metaphor in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. After an introduction on the traditional analysis of the war metaphor, we address the social consequences of using this metaphor, a topic that has been widely debated with regard to public communication in the context of COVID-19. We pay particular attention to a theory that many intellectuals have raised: the possibility that the use of the metaphor in this context is harmful (...) to a democratic society because it may lead citizens to accept limited civil liberties and authoritarian policies. After presenting the extensive literature on the use of the war metaphor before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, in the final section of the paper, we analyse experimental evidence of the effects of this metaphor. In the conclusion, we hint at open questions and suggest that the current evidence does not support claims of direct liberticidal influence. (shrink)

Robustness analysis (RA) is the prescription to consider a diverse range of evidence and only regard a hypothesis as well-supported if all the evidence agrees on it. In contexts like climate science, the evidence in support of a hypothesis often comes from scientific models. This leads to model-based RA (MBRA), whose core notion is that a hypothesis ought to be regarded as well-supported on grounds that a sufficiently diverse set of models agrees on the hypothesis. This chapter, which is the (...) second part of a two-part review of MBRA, addresses the thorny issue of justifying the inferential steps taking us from the premises to the conclusions. The chapter begins by making explicit what exactly the problem is. It then turns to a discussion of two broad families of justificatory strategies, namely top-down and bottom-up justifications. In the latter group, one can distinguish between the likelihood approach, independence approaches, and the explanatory approach. This discussion leads to the sober conclusion that multimodel situations raise issues that are not yet fully understood and that MBRA has not yet reached a stage of maturity. Important questions remain open, and these will have to be addressed in future research. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn daily life, people make plenty of decisions, either intuitively or based on analysis. So far, research has examined when decision-making leads to correct or biased outcomes. In the prese...

Imagination is widely thought to come in two varieties: perception-like and belief-like imagination. What precisely sets them apart, however, is not settled. More needs to be said about the features that make one variety perception-like and the other belief-like. One common, although typically implicit, view is that they mimic their counterparts along the conceptuality dimension: while the content of belief-like imagination is fully conceptual, the content of perception-like imagination is fully non-conceptual. Such a view, however, is not sufficiently motivated in (...) the literature. I will show that there are good reasons to reject it and I will argue that both varieties of imagination involve fully conceptual contents. I will suggest an alternative way to draw the distinction between perception-like and belief-like imagination along the conceptuality dimension, according to which only perception-like imagination requires observational concepts. (shrink)