Euler developed a program which aimed to transform analysis into an autonomous discipline and reorganize the whole of mathematics around it. The implementation of this program presented many difficulties, and the result was not entirely satisfactory. Many of these difficulties concerned the integral calculus. In this paper, we deal with some topics relevant to understand Euler’s conception of analysis and how he developed and implemented his program. In particular, we examine Euler’s contribution to the construction of differential equations and his (...) notion of indefinite integrals and general integrals. We also deal with two remarkable difficulties of Euler’s program. The first concerns singular integrals, which were considered as paradoxical by Euler since they seemed to violate the generality of certain results. The second regards the explicitly use of the geometric representation and meaning of definite integrals, which was gone against his program. We clarify the nature of these difficulties and show that Euler never thought that they undermined his conception of mathematics and that a different foundation was necessary for analysis. (shrink)

This article discusses the relationship between archery and aesthetics, developing two central claims. First, in order to deliver successful results, the archer should attend not only to efficiency, technique and equipment tuning but also to the aesthetic experience; second, archery shooting methods embody and express ‘life-issue’ statements and desires concerning our relationship with the world. Depending on the archer’s shooting style, i.e., depending on the way in which a shot is executed and performed, the archer’s ‘sportive philosophy’ is, so to (...) speak, unfolded and made apparent. Specifically, I will argue that instinctive archery strives for flexibility and versatility toward the environment and with respect to one’s own body, whereas non-instinctive approaches sharpen effectuality and results by flattening the surroundings and limiting one’s own performative freedom. Exploring this idea, I will discuss the aesthetic underpinnings of archery, also showing in which ways different shooting methods lay the ground for irreducible aesthetic experiences of self-expression. (shrink)

Providing a novel multi-disciplinary theorization of memory politics, this insightful Handbook brings varied literatures into a focused dialogue on the ways in which the past is remembered and how these influence transnational, interstate, and global politics in the present. With case studies from Africa, East and Southeast Asia, Europe, South America, and the United States, the Handbook focuses on the political features of historical memory in international relations. Chapters examine key concepts of memory politics, including accountability, commemoration and memorialization, the (...) Europeanization of memory, and the politics of trauma and victimhood, as well as analyzing different sites of memory, from the human body and memorial sites to media, film, and television. It also answers essential questions such as who and what determines the relevance of the past in the present; how does memory become a political question; and what are the political effects and ethical implications of its mobilization? Exploring the links between the politics of memory, international ethics, law, and diplomacy, this stimulating Handbook will be essential reading for students and scholars of politics and international relations, cultural studies, history, and transitional justice. Its discussion of notable agents and practices of memory politics will also be beneficial for practitioners working in human rights, politics, and public policy. (shrink)

In this Chapter, Maria Kronfeldner discusses whether psychological essentialism is a necessary part of dehumanization. This involves different elements of essentialism, and a narrow and a broad way of conceptualizing psychological essentialism, the first akin to natural kind thinking, the second based on entitativity. She first presents authors that have connected essentialism with dehumanization. She then introduces the error theory of psychological essentialism regarding the category of the human, and distinguishes different elements of psychological essentialism. On that basis, Kronfeldner (...) connects historical, socio-psychological, and philosophical insights in order to show that although essentialism can act as a catalyst for dehumanization, it is not necessary for it. Examples relate to dehumanization in the context of colonialism and evolutionary thinking, to the history of dehumanizing women from Aristotle to 19th-century craniology, and to contemporary self-dehumanization and ‘lesser mind’ attribution. (shrink)

Situations of conflict giving rise to social dilemmas are widespread in society and game theory is one major way in which they can be investigated. Starting from the observation that individuals in society interact through networks of acquaintances, we model the co-evolution of the agents’ strategies and of the social network itself using two prototypical games, the Prisoner’s Dilemma and the Stag-Hunt. Allowing agents to dismiss ties and establish new ones, we find that cooperation and coordination can be achieved through (...) the self-organization of the social network, a result that is nontrivial, especially in the Prisoner’s Dilemma case. The evolution and stability of cooperation implies the condensation of agents exploiting particular game strategies into strong and stable clusters which are more densely connected, even in the more difficult case of the Prisoner’s Dilemma. (shrink)

Most countries are facing the societal challenging need for a new quarantine period due to the increasing number of COVID-19 infections, indicating a second or even third wave of disease. The COVID-19 pandemic has brought to the surface existential issues that are typically less present in people's focal attention. The first aim of this study was to identify some of these existential struggles such as increased feelings of loneliness, death obsession, and preoccupation with God. Secondly, we explored the association of (...) these factors with the increased fear of coronavirus during the quarantine. Data was collected from 1,340 Romanian adults using a cross-sectional web-based survey design in the midst of the national lockdown period of COVID-19. Participants completed measures of COVID-19 related loneliness, death obsession, and preoccupation with God twice; first, thinking about the period before the pandemic, and second, for the current situation during the quarantine. Then, they completed a fear of COVID-19 measure. Participants perceived an increase in the feelings of loneliness, death obsession, and preoccupation with God during the confinement. Furthermore, gender, knowing someone diagnosed with COVID-19, loneliness, death obsession, and preoccupation with God predicted fear of COVID-19. Interestingly, days in isolation did not predict fear of COVID-19 nor were associated with feelings of loneliness. In line with existential positive psychology, these results highlight the importance of policies and interventions targeting the experience of loneliness, spiritual beliefs, and particularly those aimed to promote death acceptance, in order to alleviate intense fear of COVID-19. (shrink)

Maria Kronfeldner’s Preface and Introduction to the Routledge Handbook of Dehumanization maps the landscape of dehumanization studies. She starts with a brief portrayal of the history of the field. The systematically minded sections that follow guide the reader through the resulting rugged landscape represented in the Handbook’s contributions. Different realizations, levels, forms, and ontological contrasts of dehumanization are distinguished, followed by remarks on the variety of targets of dehumanization. A discussion on valence and emotional aspects is added. Causes, functions, (...) and consequences of dehumanization, and the prospects for reducing or undoing it, are introduced. The systematic overview closes with a discussion of some important theoretical complexities that arise in studying dehumanization. After these systematic sections, the scholarly work on dehumanization gets situated in the broader intellectual landscape of debates about the ‘human’ in the humanities and social sciences. The Introduction ends with some notes on scope, limitations, and intended readership of the Handbook. (shrink)

"Dr. Montessori was par excellence the great interpreter of the child; and though she herself has passed on from the scene of her labours her work will still go on."-- Westminster Cathedral Chronicle One of the landmark books in the history of education--and one of the least expensive editions now available--this volume describes a new system for educating youngsters. Based on a radical concept of liberty for the pupil and highly formal training of separate sensory, motor, and mental capacities, the (...) system enabled youngsters to master reading, writing, and arithmetic rapidly and substantially. Included are discussions of scientific pedagogy; discipline; the importance of proper diet, gymnastics, and manual labor; and many other topics. Unabridged reprint of the classic 1912 edition. (shrink)

Testimonio que recoge algunas experiencias y reflexiones de la artista visual costarricense María Rapela en Alemania y de cómo se involucró en la gestión cultural, coordinando el Fieber Festival, una plataforma colaborativa y auto-gestionada de mujeres artistas migrantes iberoamericanas en Berlín entre el 2011 y el 2017.

In this engrossing book, Maria Dzielska searches behind the legend to bring us the real story of Hypatia's life and death, and new insight into her colorful ...

This article investigates how different philosophical traditions and schools of thought have understood the practice and the discipline of archery. Whereas the scholarly literature on the history, the techniques and the uses of bows and arrows is diverse and extensive, my aim is to contribute to the less developed research on the relationship between philosophy and archery. Specifically, I will explore in what terms philosophers have employed the bow as a metaphor for both their standpoints and, more generally, significant aspects (...) of everyday life. (shrink)

Silence is reserved for what cannot be verbally expressed. The well-known Wittgensteinian quote summarizes an established understanding of the relationship between language and silence: because language is not enough to account for reality and thinking, it must be transcended by other means of expression, like music or silence. But what if the opposite is the case and silence is not the extension but the precondition of language, the ultimate source of meaning? This paper explores how this is the phenomenological and (...) Derridean philosophical framework of Coetzee’s novels, a literary universe created from the will to signify and build singular meanings. (shrink)

Food systems transformations require coherent policies and improved understandings of the drivers and institutional dynamics that shape (un)sustainable food systems outcomes. In this paper, we introduce the Chilean National Organic Agriculture Law as a case of a policy process seeking to institutionalize a recognized pathway towards more sustainable food systems. Drawing from institutional theory we make visible multiple, and at times competing, logics (i.e., values, assumptions and practices) of different actors implicated in organic agriculture in Chile. More specifically, our findings (...) identify five main institutional transformative logics underpinning the interests and actions of organic actors. However, we find that the Law was not motivated by these logics and did not advance them. Rather, the Law was designed to support a market niche targeted to elite consumers and to reinforce agricultural exports. As a result, the Law constrains rather than enables the practice of organic agriculture and access to organic food by consumers, especially at the domestic level. We note that attention to institutional logics in the analysis of food systems, and specifically food system transformation, is relevant to more comprehensive assessments of the transformational potential of food systems policies. We conclude that there is a need to further consider and make visible the way in which different drivers (i.e., laws) are constituted through and by diverse, and often competing, institutional logics. (shrink)

Conceptions of evil have changed dramatically over time, and though humans continue to commit acts of cruelty against one another, today we possess a clearer, more moral way of analyzing them. In _Narrating Evil_, María Pía Lara explores what has changed in our understanding of evil, why the transformation matters, and how we can learn from this specific historical development. Drawing on Immanuel Kant's and Hannah Arendt's ideas about reflective judgment, Lara argues that narrative plays a key role in helping (...) societies acknowledge their pasts. Particular stories haunt our consciousness and lead to a kind of examination and dialogue that shape notions of morality. A powerful description of a crime can act as a filter, helping us to draw conclusions about what constitutes a moral wrong, and public debates over these narratives allow us to construct a more accurate picture of historical truth, leading to a better understanding of why such actions are possible. In building her argument, Lara considers Greek tragedies, Shakespeare's depictions of evil, Joseph Conrad's literary metaphors, and movies that portray human cruelty. Turning to such philosophers and writers as Jürgen Habermas, Walter Benjamin, Primo Levi, Giorgio Agamben, and Ariel Dorfman, Lara defines a reflexive relationship between an event, the narrative of the event, and the public reception of the narrative, and she proves that the stories of perpetrators and sufferers are always intertwined. The process of disclosure, debate, and the public fashioning of collective judgment are vital methods through which we make sense not only of new forms of cruelty but of past crimes as well. _Narrating Evil_ describes the steps of this process and why they are a crucial part of our attempt to build a different, more just world. (shrink)

A striking feature of atrocities, as seen in genocides, civil wars or violence against certain racial and ethnic groups, is the attempt to dehumanize – to deny and strip human beings of their humanity. Yet the very nature of dehumanization remains relatively poorly understood. The Routledge Handbook of Dehumanization is the first comprehensive and multidisciplinary reference source on the subject and an outstanding survey of the key concepts, issues and debates within dehumanization studies. Organized into four parts, the Handbook covers (...) the following key topics: (I) The history of dehumanization from Greek Antiquity to the Twentieth century, contextualizing the oscillating boundaries, dimensions, and hierarchies of humanity in the history of the ‘West’. (II) How dehumanization is contemporarily studied with respect to special contexts: as part of social psychology, as part of legal studies or literary studies, and how it connects to the idea of human rights, disability and eugenics, the question of animals, and the issue of moral standing. (III) How to tackle its complex facets, with respect to the perpetrator’s and the target’s perspective, metadehumanization and selfdehumanization, rehumanization, social death, status and interdependence, as well as the fear we show towards robots that become too human for us. (IV) Conceptual and epistemological questions on how to distinguish different forms of dehumanization and neighboring phenomena, on why dehumanization appears so paradoxical, and on its connection to hatred, essentialism, and perception. -- Essential reading for students and researchers in philosophy, history, psychology, and anthropology this Handbook will also be of interest to those in related disciplines such as politics, international relations, criminology, legal studies, literary studies, gender studies, disability studies, or race and ethnic studies, as well as readers from social work, political activism, and public policy --- Table of Contents: Introduction. 1. Mapping dehumanization studies. – Maria Kronfeldner. Part I. Oscillating boundaries, dimensions, and hierarchies of humanity in historical contexts. 2. Dehumanization Before the Columbian exchange – Siep Stuurman. 3. 'Humanity' and its Limits in Early Modern European Thought – László Kontler. 4. Enlightenment Humanization and Dehumanization and the Orang-utan – Silvia Sebastiani. 5. Dehumanizing the Exotic in Living Human Exhibitions – Guido Abbattista. 6. Dehumanizing Strategies in Nazi Ideology and their Anthropological Context – Johannes Steizinger. 7. Theorizing the Inhumanity of Human Nature, 1955-1985 – Erika Lorraine Milam. Part II: Further special contexts of dehumanization. 8. The Social Psychology of Dehumanization – Nick Haslam. 9. Dehumanization and the Loss of Moral Standing – Edouard Machery. 10. Dehumanization and the Question of Animals – Alice Crary. 11. Dehumanization, Disability, and Eugenics – Robert A. Wilson. 12. Dehumanization and Human Rights – Marie-Luisa Frick. 13. Dehumanization by Law – Luigi Corrias. 14. Dehumanisation in Literature and the Figure of the Perpetrator – Andrea Timár. Part III: The complex facets of dehumanization. 15. Dehumanization and Social Death as Fundamentals of Racism – Wulf D. Hund. 16. How Status and Interdependence Explain Different Forms of Dehumanization – Susan T. Fiske. 17. Exploring Metadehumanization and Self-dehumanization from a Target Perspective – Stéphanie Demoulin, Pierre Maurage, Florence Stinglhamber. 18. The Dehumanization and Rehumanization of Refugees – Victoria M. Esses, Stelian Medianu, Alina Sutter. 19. Motivational and Cognitive Underpinnings of Fear of Social Robots that become ‘Too Human for Us’ – Maria Paola Paladino, Jeroen Vaes, Jolanda Jetten. Part IV: Conceptual and epistemological questions regarding dehumanization. 20. Objectification, Inferiorization and Projection in Phenomenological Research on Dehumanization – Sara Heinämaa and James Jardine. 21. Why Dehumanization is Distinct from Objectification – Mari Mikkola. 22. On Hatred and Dehumanization – Thomas Brudholm and Johannes Lang. 23. Dehumanization, the Problem of Humanity, and the Problem of Monstrosity – David Livingstone Smith. 24. Psychological Essentialism and Dehumanization – Maria Kronfeldner. 25. Could Dehumanization Be Perceptual? – Somogy Varga. (shrink)

This paper explores the concept of "inorganic sexuality" in the work of Italian writer and philosopher Mario Perniola. The main objective is to develop the controversial and original aspects of Perniola's thought within his aesthetic theory of feeling. Perniola elaborates the so-called "thing that feels", namely a feeling in which the neutral and impersonal dimensions of the things flow into organic life and vice versa. This perspective, as will be clarified, by dissolving the vitalist and spiritualist drives of the subject, (...) enlarges the horizon of aesthetic feeling by welcoming what is commonly left outside of it: the inorganic and material world, in its surprising aspects, but also in its uncanny and disturbing ones. Therefore, the main goal of this paper is to show the significance and the value of neutral sexuality, which opens up a space of experiences beyond the traditional metaphysical oppositions such as masculine/feminine, organic/inorganic, alive/dead, real/virtual, gender/sex. (shrink)

The moment we live in is a moment of multiple crisis – environmental, political, economic, and viral – a moment, that is, where the reality of damage, fallibility and faultiness, and the ensuing fear, anxiety, rage, trauma, protest, and mobilisation have reached a critical point. Past and present narratives of crisis and trauma can help navigate this process. In this article we have chosen to focus on Italo Svevo’s Zeno’s Conscience (1923) and Hideo Kojima’s videogame Death Stranding (2019) for several (...) reasons. The most important of all are Svevo’s and Kojima’s choices to deal with the trauma of crisis by emphasising and investigating the process leading to crisis, and of focusing on the zone in-between the ‘normal’ and the unknown. In so doing both narratives underscore the significance of ruins, desolation and the broken as a backdrop for rediscovering everyday life and forging meaningful connections in a fragmented world. (shrink)

Several scholars (Bartoloni 2019, Bukdahl 2017, Vogt 2019) focused on Mario Perniola's perspective on art, post-human sexuality and political theory. Yet little has been written on the philosophical and literary sources - specifically Stoicism, the Baroque and the Avant-Gardes - which influenced his standpoint. The objective of this paper is to develop Perniola's conception of a strategically oriented beauty, which implies a connection between the aesthetic element and the political-effectual one.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 41.1 (2003) 131-132 [Access article in PDF] Christia Mercer. Leibniz's Metaphysics: Its Origins and Development. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Pp. xiii + 528. Cloth, $80.00. Christia Mercer's massive study is aimed at unearthing the hidden roots of Leibniz's metaphysics by placing the German philosopher back in the intellectual context within which his thought first took shape. In so doing she stresses (...) the fundamental importance of Leibniz's early years for the development of his philosophy. In particular she convincingly argues for the key role played by Leibniz's early exposure to the thought of eclectic thinkers (including his teachers) who were trying to build a new philosophical synthesis centered around the key tenets of Christian theology and combining elements of Aristotelianism, Platonism, and (in at least some cases) the new mechanical philosophy of nature.One of Mercer's central theses is that the methodological and metaphysical commitments that Leibniz developed during his youth formed the bedrock of his mature philosophy (23). More precisely, her bold claim is that Leibniz's core metaphysics (including the complete concept account of substance) was constructed in 1668-71, re-examined and slightly developed in 1672-79, and then used for the rest of his long philosophical career (18, 470). The key inspirational forces driving the development of Leibniz's philosophy, in her view, had even earlier origins. In the mid-1660s Leibniz did not yet have a fully formulated metaphysics; but he already possessed very definite philosophical objectives which were to guide the development of his metaphysics and form the unstated assumptions underlying his mature thought (40). Mercer identifies these unstated assumptions as a "Metaphysics of Method," a "Metaphysics of Substance," and a "Metaphysics of Divinity," all of which she finds fully developed in his early thought (468-9).According to Leibniz's "Metaphysics of Method" (examined in part I), there exists a truth beneath the prominent philosophical schools which can and ought to be discovered. This conciliatory methodology was Leibniz's answer to the political, religious, and philosophical chaos around him. He was deeply convinced that his brilliantly original eclectic metaphysics would provide the foundation of philosophical, theological, and even political peace. Leibniz's "Metaphysics of Substance," Mercer argues in part II, melded an Aristotelian approach to substance with a mechanical physics and originated at the very outset of his intellectual carrier in an attempt to solve specific theological problems (e.g., those of the incarnation and resurrection). Platonism in turn offered the material for Leibniz's "Metaphysics of Divinity" (explored in part III), that is, for his conception of the relationship between God and creatures. The fourth and final part of Mercer's book takes her analysis of Leibniz's writings up to 1679 and describes the laying of the foundations of his mature metaphysics. She concludes not only that Leibniz proposed the doctrine of pre-established harmony prior to his departure for Paris in March 1672, but also, more generally, that the other tenets of Leibniz's mature thought, including his theory of truth, grew naturally out of his early metaphysics (see, in particular, 2, 15-8, 47, 52, 169-70, 250-2, 300-1, 472).Throughout the book Mercer describes her interpretation as "startling," "unfamiliar," "dramatic," and "surprising," and fears that "readers may balk" at her conclusions since "so much of Leibniz's thought has escaped us for so long" (see, for instance, 1, 9, 471). Some readers may feel, on the contrary, that she has underestimated the extent to which several of her central theses—such as the importance of the earliest stages of Leibniz's philosophical development in general and of eclecticism, theological problems, and Platonism, as well as Aristotelianism within that development in particular—are already reflected in the [End Page 131] best recent traditions of international Leibniz scholarship. But her book undoubtedly breaks new ground and remains an important contribution to an exciting field which cannot and will not be ignored. While international Leibniz scholarship may not absorb some of this book's more... (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to show in what terms reality can be considered as a stratification of surfaces by developing Mario Perniola's philosophy of transit. The first part will deal with the etymology of the word transit, in order to explain its meanings and uses. As it will be clarified, the development of the notion of transit goes together with the conception of reality as deep in the sense of full, available, rich, as the realm of "difference" and (...) "enigmas". The second part will explain the particular conception of temporality implied in the transit. Together with Perniola's analysis, Nietzschean and Deleuzian reflections about "amor fati" and "eternal return" will be further explored. This concept is crucial to understand not only Perniola's overall philosophy by clarifying his position against postmodern thinkers; it also provides a theoretical framework from which the task and the challenge of the philosopher in the contemporary world emerge. (shrink)

Against the Artists. Jun'ichirō Tanizaki and the Man of Art. -/- This essay explores the concepts of "art" (gei) and "man of art" (geinin) in Tanizaki's works. These two notions belong to an ancient Japanese aesthetic tradition. The concept of 'gei' means "realization", "skill", but also "technique" and "ability". Traditional stage performances such as 'nō', 'kyōgen', 'bunraku', 'kabuki', are typical examples of 'gei'. On the other hand the concept of 'geinin' implies three pivotal aspects: 1) a strict and harsh aesthetic (...) education; 2) an environment suitable to develop the man of art's sensitivity; 3) a long process of emotional maturation. This perspective, according to this paper, sheds light on the peculiar Japanese aesthetic "difference" in relation to the concepts of art and artist developed - on the contrary - in Western tradition. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is twofold: first we outline a version of non-descriptivism, ‘minimal expressivism’, leaving aside certain long-standing problems associated with conventional expressivist views. Second, we examine the way in which familiar expressivist results can be accommodated within this framework, through a particular interpretation that the expressive realm lends to a theory of meaning. Expressivist theories of meaning address only a portion of the classical problems attributed to this position when they seek to explain why the expressions they (...) deal with have a given meaning. A position can nevertheless be termed ‘expressivist’ – in the minimal sense that we favor – based simply on the following key features of the meaning of these expressions: they can be used as functions of propositions, and they are not used to describe the way the world is. (shrink)

This article develops the concept of “agnotology”, a term coined by the historian of science Robert N. Proctor and the linguist Ian Bolas. Agnotology implies the study of ignorance, especially how ignorance and doubt are strategically induced by specific agents through misinformation, misleading research and inaccurate scientific data. The aim of this article is twofold: on the one hand it summarizes the main objectives of the agnotological area of study, taking into account the state of the art over the subject (...) matter. On the other hand it criticizes agnotology from a philosophical perspective. In fact, agnotology is heir to a metaphysical conception of reality grounded upon polar oppositions such as true/false, appearance/substance, good/evil. My claim is that agnotology’s efforts in studying the spread of ignorance remain entangled in a mindset, typical of conspiracy theories, which debases the complexity of reality into a two sided clash of ideologies. (shrink)

Postmodern political critiques speak of the death of ideology, the end of history, and the postsecular return of religious attitudes, yet radical conservative theorists such as Mark Lilla argue religion and politics are inextricably intertwined. Returning much-needed uncertainty to debates over the political while revitalizing the very terms in which they are defined, María Pía Lara explores the ambiguity of secularization and the theoretical potential of a structural break between politics and religion. For Lara, secularization means three things: the translation (...) of religious semantics into politics; a transformation of religious notions into political ideas; and the reoccupation of a space left void by changing political actors that gives rise to new conceptions of political interaction. Conceptual innovation redefines politics as a horizontal relationship between governments and the governed and better enables societies (and individual political actors) to articulate meaning through action--that is, through the emergence of new concepts. These actions, Lara proves, radically transform our understanding of politics and the role of political agents and are further enhanced by challenging the structural dependence of politics on religious phenomena. (shrink)

The objective of this paper is to explore Mario Perniola’s perspective on art between the years 1966 and 1972. During this six-year period Perniola elaborates – mainly influenced by his closeness to revolutionary and protest movements such as the Situationist International and Ludd – a political and militant theory based on the dialectic overcoming of art. The year 1972, with the last issue of the journal Agar-Agar, marks the beginning of a theoretical rearrangement regarding art theory for the Italian philosopher. (...) Whereas several scholars have recently focused on the later phase of Perniola’s thought on art, this paper wishes to draw the attention on a less investigated area of his researches. Specifically, I will develop his claims on the identity of art and revolution and his idea of an “artistic alienation” which originated in Western society. (shrink)

Il 2021 segna gli ottant’anni dalla nascita di Mario Perniola, uno dei massimi filosofi italiani del secondo dopoguerra. Questo volume raccoglie interventi che esplorano la sua opera mostrandone la fertilità e sottolineando al tempo stesso la prossimità delle sue idee con le principali sfide del nostro tempo. Dall’Italia al Brasile, passando per gli Stati Uniti, l’Irlanda, la Francia, il Belgio, il Messico e la Cina, gli autori si soffermano su temi che comprendono l’estetica, la politica, la teoria della comunicazione, i (...) queer studies, il pensiero rituale e religioso, la sessualità e la letteratura, restituendo la plurivocità e l’originalità di un filosofo di respiro internazionale e più che mai attuale. (shrink)

Philosophy in the 20th century witnessed a schism between so called ‘analytic’ and ‘continental’ schools of philosophy. One of the aims of the IJPS from its inception was to provide a space for articles attempting to overcome, or at least foreshorten, that divide. This paper critically examines the various understandings of the divide and takes a quick glance at some of the attempts to bridge it.

A paper about cross-cultural and cross-racial loving that emphasizes the need to understand and affirm the plurality in and among women as central to feminist ontology and epistemology. Love is seen not as fusion and erasure of difference but as incompatible with them. Love reveals plurality. Unity–not to be confused with solidarity–is understood as conceptually tied to domination.

What is it about relativism that justifies, or at least explains, its continued appeal in the face of relentless attacks through the history of philosophy? This paper explores a new answer to this old question, casting the response in metaphilosophical terms. § i introduces the problem. § ii argues that one part of the answer is that some of the well-known defences of relativism take it to be a philosophical stance—that is, a broad perspective or orientation with normative consequences—rather than (...) a doctrine or a thesis. § iii draws attention to an assumption, not always explicitly stated by its proponents, that the relativist stance leads to the cultivation of some key intellectual virtues. Open-mindedness, tolerance, intellectual humility, and curiosity are examples of the intellectual virtues that relativism can foster. § iv argues that the defence of relativism on the basis of the virtues that are assumed to follow from it, at best, is only partially successful. Moreover, there is a range of epistemic vices, resulting from the stance, that undercuts the virtue-based defence presented in § iii. (shrink)

Abstract This paper discusses some recent work on the notion of possibility in Wittgenstein's Tractatus assessed by means of an interpretation of the notion put forward in Cerezo 2005. It argues that the proper way to understand the notion of possibility in the Tractatus must pay equal attention both to the picture theory and the truth-functions theory. From this perspective, through an examination of Peach's proposal (2007) it shows that the role played by the notion of logical space in the (...) determination of sense needs to be emphasized. In addition, the paper considers some consequences of the Tractarian notion of possibility, namely, the strong contingency of the world that it involves, which is revealed by the thinkability of logical space as empty envisaged by Wittgenstein in T 2.013, and also discusses the recent debate between Reinhardt (2005) and Geach (2006) on this issue. (shrink)

As it emerged from philosophical analyses and cognitive research, most concepts exhibit typicality effects, and resist to the efforts of defining them in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions. This holds also in the case of many medical concepts. This is a problem for the design of computer science ontologies, since knowledge representation formalisms commonly adopted in this field do not allow for the representation of concepts in terms of typical traits. However, the need of representing concepts in terms of (...) typical traits concerns almost every domain of real world knowledge, including medical domains. In particular, in this article we take into account the domain of mental disorders, starting from the DSM-5 descriptions of some specific mental disorders. On this respect, we favor a hybrid approach to the representation of psychiatric concepts, in which ontology oriented formalisms are combined to a geometric representation of knowledge based on conceptual spaces. (shrink)

The general topic of this paper is the ontological commitment to so-called "fictitious objects", that is, things and characters of fictional stories, like Sherlock Holmes and Pegasus. Discourse about fiction seems to entail an ontological commitment to fictitious entities, a commitment that is often deemed inconsistent with empirical facts. For instance, "Pegasus is a flying horse" seems to entail "There are flying horses" as well as "Pegasus exists" (according to some widely accepted logical principles). I discuss two solutions that have (...) been proposed in the literature. The first one amounts to rejecting sentences like "Pegasus is a flying horse" as false, at least if they are taken at face value. This solution is called the "story operator strategy". It consists in paraphrasing sentences like "Pegasus is a flying horse" by means of the expression "according to a story" such that they are interpreted as an elliptic formulation of, e.g., "According to a story, Pegasus is a flying horse". I spell out the difficulties of the story operator strategy and opt for a realist ontology of fiction. A novel interpretation of the story operator "according to a story" is given, which is not only consistent with but even sheds new light on such a realist ontology. In particular, it is shown how the story operator can be used as a tool to introduce the so-called "modes of predication distinction" (which is an essential ingredient of many realist ontologies of fiction) in a commonsensical way. (shrink)