Algorithms are used to calculate and govern varying aspects of public life for efficient use of the vast data available about citizens. Assuming that algorithms are neutral and efficient in data-based decision making, algorithms are used in areas such as criminal justice and welfare. This has ramifications on the ideal of democratic self-government as algorithmic decisions are made without democratic deliberation, scrutiny or justification. In the book Democracy without Shortcuts, Cristina Lafont argued against “shortcutting” democratic self-government. Lafont’s critique of shortcuts (...) turns to problematise taken-for-granted practices in democracies that bypass citizen inclusion and equality in authoring decisions governing public life. In this article, I extend Lafont’s argument to another shortcut: the algocratic shortcut. The democratic harms attributable to the algocratic shortcut include diminishing the role of voice in politics and reducing opportunities for civic engagement. In this article, I define the algocratic shortcut and discuss the democratic harms of this shortcut, its relation to other shortcuts to democracy and the limitations of using shortcuts to remedy algocratic harms. Finally, I reflect on remedy through “aspirational deliberation”. (shrink)

The so-called “New Atheism” is a relatively well-defined, very recent, still unfold- ing cultural phenomenon with import for public understanding of both science and philosophy. Arguably, the opening salvo of the New Atheists was The End of Faith by Sam Harris, published in 2004, followed in rapid succession by a number of other titles penned by Harris himself, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Victor Stenger, and Christopher Hitchens.

During the Cold War, political thinkers in the West debated the balance between the requirements of liberal democracy and national security. This debate is relevant to East Asia and especially to Korea, where an ideological-military standoff between a democracy and a totalitarian system persists. The thinkers often identified as "Cold War liberals"--Isaiah Berlin, Karl Popper, Raymond Aron, Friedrich Hayek, and Michael Oakeshott--are worth revisiting in this context. Of these, Oakeshott is the least well understood in East Asia and therefore particularly (...) deserving of attention. His ideas about the limits of rationalism in politics, the irrelevance of conventional views of liberalism and conservatism, how constitutional democracy should be defined, and how it can be defended against various forms of anti-liberal politics are especially valuable. In this book, leading Oakeshott scholars from around the world explore these ideas and their implications for East Asia in ten illuminating and readable essays. (shrink)

This chapter sets aside the question of whether a Singularity will occur, to focus on the closely related issue of MU, specifically as presented by one of its most articulate proponents, David Chalmers. The fundamental premise of Chalmers' arguments about MU is some strong version of the Computational Theory of Mind (CTM). The chapter proceeds in the following fashion: first, it recalls Chalmers' main arguments; second, it argues that the ideas of MU and CTM do not take seriously enough the (...) fact that consciousness is a biological phenomenon, as pointed out in different contexts by both John Searle and Jerry Fodor, among others; third, it stipulates for the sake of argument that MU is somehow possible, and show that it would, at best, amount to a sort of mind cloning, but most certainly not to a preservation of anyone's consciousness in a medium different from one's own brain. (shrink)

Lettura prospettica di un caposaldo del pensiero hobbesiano: il sorgere del rapporto tra l'uomo ed il potere, tra la naturale condizione umana e la nozione di civiltà, attraverso due frammenti particolarmente rappresentativi della concezione hobbesiana del passaggio dallo stato di natura alla civiltà: il tredicesimo capitolo del Leviathan, sulla condizione naturale dell'uomo, ed il quinto capitolo, sulle cause ed origini della civitas, del De cive, giacché la mera esistenza dell'uomo ed il suo riconoscimento di una legge naturale, a giudizio di (...) Hobbes, non implica affatto necessariamente una qualsiasi forma consolidata di organizzazione sociale. Sebbene il De cive (pubblicato in latino nel 1642 e, in inglese, nel 1651) preceda cronologicamente il Leviathan (pubblicato, viceversa, dapprima in inglese, nel 1651, poi in latino, nel 1668), nell'ordine logico dell'esposizione qui presentata, il brano del Leviathan può essere considerato propedeutico al quinto capitolo del De cive, delineandone i presupposti, segnatamente la condizione di continuo pericolo per tutti causata dallo stato generale di reciproca guerra, che costituisce forse l'aspetto più noto (e frainteso) del pensiero hobbesiano. Per una migliore comprensione dei testi e delle differenti (spesso opposte) interpretazioni cui hanno dato vita, si è ritenuto di proporre, per quanto concerne i brani di Hobbes, tanto la loro traduzione in lingua italiana quanto le stesure originali in latino e inglese, presentate con i testi a fronte; tale scelta fornisce l'opportunità di osservare l'accurata scelta di alcuni dei vocaboli chiave della filosofia di Hobbes, la cui trasposizione da una lingua all'altra è stata spesso causa di fraintendimenti o volgarizzazioni in tutto o in parte ingiustificate. Allo scopo di offrire una più completa prospettiva del pensiero hobbesiano delineato nei brani selezionati, si è ritenuto di affiancare ad essi dei frammenti di interpreti novecenteschi (con delle sintetiche schede bio-bibliografiche) di alcuni concetti formulati da Hobbes e, segnatamente, di F. Tönnies, M. Horkheimer, L. Strauss, C. Schmitt, T. Parsons, N. Bobbio, H. Warrender. (shrink)

I submit that philosophy makes progress, but it does so in a way that is distinct from the sense in which the word applies to science, and is more akin to what happens in allied fields such as mathematics and logic. I develop a model of philosophy as “evoking” (to use L. Smolin's term) a series of peaks in conceptually defined but empirically constrained, landscapes, or what N. Rescher calls “aporetic clusters.” I also discuss empirical evidence for the existence of (...) such clusters, following a statistical survey of philosophers’ views about their own field, carried out by D. Bourget and D.J. Chalmers. (shrink)

Lezioni tenute da Massimo Fagioli all'Università di Chieti-Pescara nel 2008.

Written between 1978 and 2006, these essays engagingly address the most hidden tradition in European political thought: the unpolitical.

17 lessons in the discipline of desire -- 18 lessons in the discipline of action -- 17 lessons in the discipline of assent.

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

In this paper a new trajectory-based representation to non-relativistic quantum mechanics is formulated. This is ahieved by generalizing the notion of Lagrangian path which lies at the heart of the deBroglie-Bohm “ pilot-wave” interpretation. In particular, it is shown that each LP can be replaced with a statistical ensemble formed by an infinite family of stochastic curves, referred to as generalized Lagrangian paths. This permits the introduction of a new parametric representation of the Schrödinger equation, denoted as GLP-parametrization, and of (...) the associated quantum hydrodynamic equations. The remarkable aspect of the GLP approach presented here is that it realizes at the same time also a new solution method for the N-body Schrödinger equation. As an application, Gaussian-like particular solutions for the quantum probability density function are considered, which are proved to be dynamically consistent. For them, the Schrödinger equation is reduced to a single Hamilton–Jacobi evolution equation. Particular solutions of this type are explicitly constructed, which include the case of free particles occurring in 1- or N-body quantum systems as well as the dynamics in the presence of suitable potential forces. In all these cases the initial Gaussian PDFs are shown to be free of the spreading behavior usually ascribed to quantum wave-packets, in that they exhibit the characteristic feature of remaining at all times spatially-localized. (shrink)

Globalization can undermine as well as enable public discourse at the national, international, and supranational levels. A challenge for political theory is to imagine how a global public realm might be constituted. Because the public realm has flourished in states whose citizens are related under the rule of law, one might ask whether this model of civil association can be extended to a broader and potentially universal context. Given the contingent obstacles to a global state, realizing civil association globally implies (...) a universal confederation of rule‐of‐law states. If the public realm means free deliberation on the laws of a civil association, the ‘global public realm’ would include deliberation at all three levels. (shrink)

Whenever we worry about what to eat, how to love, or simply how to be happy, we are worrying about how to lead a good life. No goal is more elusive. In How to Be a Stoic, philosopher Massimo Pigliucci offers Stoicism, the ancient philosophy that inspired the great emperor Marcus Aurelius, as the best way to attain it. Stoicism is a pragmatic philosophy that teaches us to act depending on what is within our control and separate things worth (...) getting upset about from those that are not. By understanding Stoicism, we can learn to answer crucial questions: Should we get married or divorced? How should we bank in a world nearly destroyed by a financial crisis? How can we survive great personal tragedy? Whoever you are, Stoicism has something for you—and How to Be a Stoic is your essential guide. (shrink)

Topics in Cognitive Science, Volume 14, Issue 1, Page 143-162, January 2022.

In public philosophy, the question is how best to engage people with the fascinating yet complex mix of science and philosophy that underpins discussions of the good life. Reasoning about the good life implies adopting – consciously or not – a philosophy of life. For instance, the authors briefly compare three paths to the good life: Christianity (a religion), Stoicism (a philosophy), and Buddhism (which has both religious and philosophical strands). They discuss some of the issues that come up when (...) they engage in public philosophy about the good life by way of an in‐depth look at a particular example. Lastly, the authors explore a number of approaches to philosophical public discourse on these themes, based on their experiences as a public philosopher as well as on the published literature. (shrink)

Provides a broad, comprehensive, and yet concise introduction to Islamic philosophy covering a vast subject area in a relatively short book.

Conceived by Wagner as a way to recover the synthesis of arts at the core of the Greek tragedy, the Gesamtkunstwerk played a big role in post-Romantic aesthetics. This book revisits the "total work of art" as a variation of intermediality that captures the digital age's principle of open textuality through complex interplay and synergy of media.

The book is a critical reading of all the major writings on history by Benedetto Croce, which has never been attempted before. The study is not a summary but a critical assessment based on the relevance of Croce's aesthetics for his concept of history. My account differs from previous studies which are characterized by the exclusion or by minimizing the aesthetic, a process I call "defiguring." Within this framework Croce's concept of history is not a total philosophy but only an (...) allegory of history: a narrative of the impossibility of history. In other words, Croce's history is not unlike his definition of Hegel's Phenomenology or his system as fiction. It is also not unlike Vico's New Science, the other major influence on Croce's concept of history, as an imaginative science. My study realigns Croce's concept of history with Hegel's and Vico's to redefine, thanks to Croce, how we understand history. (shrink)

Who can penetrate space or encounter the stream of time? Only those who are not fooled into believing that freedom from sensory conditions is attainable by moving beyond a space and a time considered real because of their measurability. The reality of time and space is immeasurable. It cannot be attained by overcoming the given forms of measurement, but rather by overcoming measurement itself. Before this can occur, we must know how and why measurement arises; we must know what the (...) spirit wants by containing within measurement the substance of its eternal telling of tales, whose truth alone justifies measurement--the transitory vision of what space and time are in their most subtle forms. This masterly book by Massimo Scaligero--author of The Light (La Luce): An Introduction to Creative Imagination--teaches us how to enter and recognize the spiritual reality behind and within what we objectify as space and time. Those who read The Secrets of Space and Time with meditative effort will be well rewarded with profound insights about the true nature of the world around us. The book is a translation from Italian of Segreti dello spazio e del tempo (Libreria Tilopa, Rome, 1963). (shrink)