As members of the fetal surgery advisory board at a large tertiary care center, we read with great interest Hendriks’ et al. target article proposing a new ethical framework for fetal therap...

We examine the degree structure $\operatorname {\mathrm {\mathbf {ER}}}$ of equivalence relations on $\omega $ under computable reducibility. We examine when pairs of degrees have a least upper bound. In particular, we show that sufficiently incomparable pairs of degrees do not have a least upper bound but that some incomparable degrees do, and we characterize the degrees which have a least upper bound with every finite equivalence relation. We show that the natural classes of finite, light, and dark degrees are (...) definable in $\operatorname {\mathrm {\mathbf {ER}}}$. We show that every equivalence relation has continuum many self-full strong minimal covers, and that $\mathbf {d}\oplus \mathbf {\operatorname {\mathrm {\mathbf {Id}}}_1}$ needn’t be a strong minimal cover of a self-full degree $\mathbf {d}$. Finally, we show that the theory of the degree structure $\operatorname {\mathrm {\mathbf {ER}}}$ as well as the theories of the substructures of light degrees and of dark degrees are each computably isomorphic with second-order arithmetic. (shrink)

In 1993, Agostini and Proffitt showed that perceptual belongingness causes simultaneous lightness contrast to be seen in configurations in which the inducing elements are not adjacent to the target. The aim of the present research was to measure the strength of belongingness in determining the contrast phenomenon when the numbers of the inducing and induced elements and their relative positions are manipulated in Agostini-and-Proffitt-type configurations. In the first experiment, by using a forced choice paradigm, naïve observers indicated which gray disks (...) arranged to form the letter T in two rows appeared lighter/darker. In the second experiment, expert observers performed two nulling tasks: 1) the lightness of gray disk was adjusted until it was perceived equal to that of gray target aligned with white/black inducers; 2) the lightness of target organized with white/black inducers was adjusted to match the target organized with black/ white inducers. We found that also when there are few inducers, perceptual belongingness causes the contrast effect to propagate spatially on all the induced elements. Spatial position does not influence the induction effect. Low-level theories cannot account for these phenomena, but higher-level processes must be factored in to explain them. (shrink)

Summary Recent studies explored the contribution of auditory information in ecological contexts to biological motion perception and its influence on movement execution. This work provides an overview of the most influential scientific contributions in this domain and analyzes the most recent findings, both in sport and motor rehabilitation. Overall, the literature indicates that ecological sounds associated with movements are relevant for perceiving some important features of sport movements. Auditory information is also relevant during performance execution, and can be used to (...) create training protocols. Also, similarly auditory information can be used in clinical contexts to provide rhythmic information to enhance the efficacy of motor rehabilitation protocols. In conclusion, we can say that the role of ecological sounds of movements is examined in conveying complexity of information from a gestalt perspective. (shrink)

1.: In this paper I discuss Putnam’s view on time and the special theory of relativity. I first locate Putnam’s philosophical approach within a more general framework, essentially making reference to Sellar’s distinction between the scientific image and the manifest image of the world. I then reconstruct Putnam’s argument in favour of the reality of the future and the determinateness of truth-value for future tense sentences by showing that it is based on three premises that generate a contradiction. In the (...) second part of the paper I discuss Putnam’s argument both by using later results belonging to the foundations of STR and quantum mechanics, and by invoking some conceptual analysis on the pseudo-predicate “is real”. Since I will show that the presentists/eternalists debate is ill-founded if regarded as ontological, I will conclude that it boils down to our different practical attitudes towards past, present and future. (shrink)

Mechanisms are a way of explaining how biological phenomena work rather than why single elements of biological systems are there. However, mechanisms are usually described as physiological entities, and little or no attention is paid to malfunction as an independent theoretical concept. On the other hand, malfunction is the main focus of interest of applied sciences such as medicine. In this paper I argue that malfunctions are parts of pathological mechanisms, which should be considered separate theoretical entities, conceptually having a (...) priority over physiological sequences. While pathological mechanisms can be described in terms of a Cummins-like mechanistic explanation, they show some unnoticed peculiarities when compared to physiological ones. Some features of pathological mechanisms are considered, such as outcome variability, ambivalence and dependence on a range. (shrink)

The literature on the compatibility between the time of our experience--characterized by passage or becoming--and time as is represented within spacetime theories has been affected by a persistent failure to get a clear grasp of the notion of becoming, both in its relation to an ontology of events tt"spreadtt" in a four-dimensional manifold, and in relation to temporally asymmetric physical processes.In the first part of my paper I try to remedy this situation by offering what I consider a clear and (...) faithful explication of becoming, valid independently of the particular spacetime setting in which we operate. Along the way, I will show why the metaphysical debate between the so-called tt"presentiststt" and tt"eternaliststt" is completely irrelevant to the question of becoming, as the debate itself is generated by a failure to distinguish between a tensed and a tenseless sense of tt"existencett". After a much needed distinction between absolute and relational becoming, I then show in what sense classical spacetime physics presupposes both types of becoming, for the simple reason that spacetime physics presupposes an ontology of events. As a consequence, not only does it turn out that using physics to try to provide empirical evidence for the existence of becoming amounts to putting the cart before the horses, but also that the order imposed by tt"the arrow of becomingtt" is more fundamental than any other physical arrow of time, despite the fact that becoming cannot be used to explain why entropy grows, or retarded electromagnetic radiation prevails versus advanced radiation. (shrink)

After a brief but necessary characterization of the notion of determinism, I discuss and critically evaluate four views on the relationship between determinism and free will by taking into account both (i) what matters most to us in terms of a free will worth-wanting and (ii) which capacities can be legitimately attributed to human beings without contradicting what we currently know from natural sciences. The main point of the paper is to argue that the libertarian faces a dilemma: on the (...) one hand, the possibility of ?doing otherwise? ? a necessary condition of a free will according to the libertarian ? requires indeterminism or chance, but any kind of indeterminism has the undesirable consequence of separating our actions from our character and our past. On the other hand, if our character has to be fully expressed by our actions, determinism becomes necessary and we seem to be metaphysically unfree. I conclude by showing that the dispute between compatibilists and libertarians possesses an important but hitherto very neglected pragmatic component as well, dependent on two different ethical attitudes toward a meaningful life. (shrink)

This paper argues that Deonna and Teroni's attitudinal theory of emotions faces two serious problems. The first is that their master argument fails to establish the central tenet of the theory, namely, that the formal objects of emotions do not feature in the content of emotions. The second is that the attitudinal theory itself is vulnerable to a dilemma. By pointing out these problems, our paper provides indirect support to the main competitor of the attitudinal theory, namely, the perceptual theory (...) of emotions. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that the debate between the so-called “presentists” – according to whom only the present is real – and the “eternalists”, according to whom past present and future are equally real, has no ontological significance. In particular, once we carefully distinguish between a tensed and a tenseless sense of existence, it is difficult to find a single ontological claim on which the two parties could disagree. Since the choice of using a tense or a tenseless language (...) is dictated by purely pragmatic reasons, we should abstain from bringing to bear pseudo-debates generated by the “tensed” or the “tenseless theories” of time on the question of understanding the philosophical implications of contemporary spacetime theories, or notions like becoming, change and persistence in time. (shrink)

In this paper I examine the role of dispositional properties in the most frequently discussed interpretations of non-relativistic quantum mechanics. After offering some motivation for this project, I briefly characterize the distinction between non-dispositional and dispositional properties in the context of quantum mechanics by suggesting a necessary condition for dispositionality – namely contextuality – and, consequently, a sufficient condition for non-dispositionality, namely non-contextuality. Having made sure that the distinction is conceptually sound, I then analyze the plausibility of the widespread, monistic (...) ontological thesis about the reducibility of dispositional properties to categorical properties in the context of the philosophy of quantum mechanics. I conclude that with the exception of Bohmian mechanics, the other “minimally realist” views of quantum mechanics require essential dispositions, i.e., dispositions of a non-reducible kind. Interestingly, seen behind the lenses of dispositionalism, Bohr’s and Bohm’s interpretations of quantum mechanics are much closer than it is usually recognized, a fact that could teach us something about the way the quantum world is. (shrink)

Highlights Merleau-Ponty’s interest in film and connects it to his aesthetic theory.

Debates about the ontological implications of the general theory of relativity have long oscillated between spacetime substantivalism and relationism. I evaluate such debates by claiming that we need a third option, which I refer to as “structural spacetime realism.” Such a tertium quid sides with the relationists in defending the relational nature of the spacetime structure, but joins the substantivalists in arguing that spacetime exists, at least in part, independently of particular physical objects and events, the degree of “independence” being (...) given by the extent to which geometrical laws exist “over and above” physical events exemplifying them. By showing that structural spacetime realism is the natural outcome of a semantic, model-theoretic approach to the nature of scientific theories, I conclude by arguing that the notion of partial isomorphic representation is the most plausible candidate to connect spacetime models with reality. (shrink)

In a reply to Nicholas Maxwell, Stein has proved that Minkowski spacetime can leave room for the kind of indeterminateness required both by certain interpretations of quantum mechanics and by objective becoming. By examining the consequences of outcome dependence in Bell-type experiments for the co-determinateness of spacelike-related events, I argue that the only becoming relation that is compatible with both causal and noncausal readings of the quantum correlations is the universal relation. This result might also undermine interpretations of quantum mechanics (...) requiring non-epistemically indeterminate states before measurement and hyperplane-dependent wave collapse. (shrink)

The goal of this paper is to offer a new theory of moods, according to which moods are perceptual experiences that represent undetermined objects as possessing specific evaluative properties. I start by listing a series of features that moods are typically taken to possess and claim that a satisfactory theory of moods must be able either to explain why moods genuinely possess these features or to explain these appearances away in a non-ad hoc way. I show that my account provides (...) a plausible explanation of all the main features of moods. I conclude by addressing some objections against my account. (shrink)

After some suggestions about how to clarify the confused metaphysical distinctions between dispositional and non-dispositional or categorical properties, I review some of the main interpretations of QM in order to show that – with the relevant exception of Bohm’s minimalist interpretation – quantum ontology is irreducibly dispositional. Such an irreducible character of dispositions must be explained differently in different interpretations, but the reducibility of the contextual properties in the case of Bohmian mechanics is guaranteed by the fact that the positions (...) of particles play the role of the categorical basis, a role that in other interpretations cannot be filled by anything else. In Bohr’s and Everett-type interpretations, dispositionalism is instrumentalism in disguise. (shrink)

In his recently published 1975–76 seminar on Life Death (§3), Jacques Derrida offers a severe critique of French epistemologists and philosophers of life. On Derrida’s view, they do not seem to be concerned with the question of the metaphoricity of metaphor but, rather, by taking the epistemological cut between (inadequate) metaphors and (adequate) concepts for granted, they explain the scientific process as a movement of critical rectification of metaphors by concepts. Moreover, they do not engage with Nietzsche seriously. Here I (...) build on this last point to examine the project of accounting for the very condition of the scientific process that Derrida puts forward in ‘White Mythology’ (1971) and Life Death. My reading hypothesis is that this project rests on Derrida’s original interpretation of Nietzsche’s Darwinian-type genesis of thinking, according to which selective reproduction consists in the metaphoricity of metaphor. (shrink)

This paper offers a critical assessment of the current state of the debate about the identity and individuality of material objects. Its main aim, in particular, is to show that, in a sense to be carefully specified, the opposition between the Leibnizian ‘reductionist’ tradition, based on discernibility, and the sort of ‘primitivism’ that denies that facts of identity and individuality must be analysable has become outdated. In particular, it is argued that—contrary to a widespread consensus—‘naturalised’ metaphysics supports both the acceptability (...) of non-qualitatively grounded (both ‘contextual’ and intrinsic) identity and a pluralistic approach to individuality and individuation. A case study is offered that focuses on non-relativistic quantum mechanics, in the context of which primitivism about identity and individuality, rather than being regarded as unscientific, is on the contrary suggested to be preferable to the complicated forms of reductionism that have recently been proposed. More generally, by assuming a plausible form of anti-reductionism about scientific theories and domains, it is claimed that science can be regarded as compatible with, or even as suggesting, the existence of a series of equally plausible grades of individuality. The kind of individuality that prevails in a certain context and at a given level can be ascertained only on the basis of the specific scientific theory at hand. (shrink)

The time of half-sleep : Merleau-Ponty between Husserl and Proust -- Ad limina philosophiae : Merleau-Ponty and the "introduction" to Hegel's Phenomenology of spirit -- Nature : variations on the theme -- The thinking of the sensible.

In this paper we argue that quantum mechanics provides a genuine kind of structural explanations of quantum phenomena. Since structural explanations only rely on the formal properties of the theory, they have the advantage of being independent of interpretative questions. As such, they can be used to claim that, even in the current absence of one agreed-upon interpretation, quantum mechanics is capable of providing satisfactory explanations of physical phenomena. While our proposal clearly cannot be taken to solve all interpretive issues (...) raised by quantum theory, we will argue that it can be successfully applied to some of its most puzzling phenomena, such Heisenberg's uncertainty relations and quantum non-locality. The discussion of these two case studies will also serve to illustrate the main properties of structural explanations and compare them to the DN and the unificationist models. Finally, we briefly discuss how structural explanations might relate to structural realism. (shrink)

(2007). Relativity Theory between Structural and Dynamical Explanations. International Studies in the Philosophy of Science: Vol. 21, No. 1, pp. 95-102.

ABSTRACTAfter the revolutionary storm, which had exported Jacobin democracy on the tips of its bayonets and after the epic deeds of the Napoleonic era, which, in the midst of remarkable contradictions, had asserted a number of principles and values of the French Revolution, the moderate or conservative liberal thinkers who wished for the introduction of a representative government and of personal freedom in France and in Italy were faced with the return of the old regime and with attempts of the (...) Restoration to eradicate the reforms of the previous period. The only way these thinkers could save or restore parliamentary institutions and civil rights was to link their efforts to the destinies of the ruling dynasties. In both countries, this move was fiercely opposed, especially by reactionary writers. Hence, this essay will deal with the structure and contours of a debate which set two alignments in opposition, from the time of the Congress of Vienna to the Revolutions of 1820-21 and hinged on the principle of monarchic legitimacy and on the foundations of political authority which, for the first time, were being openly questioned in the midst of the American and the French revolutions. (shrink)

The main aim of our paper is to show that interpretative issues belonging to classical General Relativity (GR) might be preliminary to a deeper understanding of conceptual problems stemming from on-going attempts at constructing a quantum theory of gravity. Among such interpretative issues, we focus on the meaning of general covariance and the related question of the identity of points, by basing our investigation on the Hamiltonian formulation of GR. In particular, we argue that the adoption of a peculiar gauge-fixing (...) within the canonical reduction of ADM metric gravity may yield a new solution to the debate between substantivalists and relationists, by suggesting a \emph{tertium quid} between these two age-old positions. Such a third position enables us to evaluate the controversial relationship between entity realism and structural realism in a well-defined case study. After having indicated the possible developments of this approach in Quantum Gravity, we discuss the structuralist and holistic features of the class of spacetime models that are used in the above mentioned canonical reduction. (shrink)

The paper defends two claims; Viewed from the perspective of the substantivalism/relationism debate, structural spacetime realism is a form of relationism; However, if we managed to reinforce Rynasiewicz’s point that the general theory of relativity makes the substantivalism/relationism dispute “outdated”, the re-elaboration of Stein ’s 1967 version of structural spacetime realism to be proposed here proves to be a good, antimetaphysical solution to the problem of the ontological status of spacetime.

In this paper, we review and connect the three essential conditions needed by the collapse model to achieve a complete and exact formulation, namely the theoretical, the experimental, and the ontological ones. These features correspond to the three parts of the paper. In any empirical science, the first two features are obviously connected but, as is well known, among the different formulations and interpretations of non-relativistic quantum mechanics, only collapse models, as the paper well illustrates with a richness of details, (...) have experimental consequences. Finally, we show that a clarification of the ontological intimations of collapse models is needed for at least three reasons: (1) to respond to the indispensable task of answering the question ’what are collapse models (and in general any physical theory) about?’; (2) to achieve a deeper understanding of their different formulations; (3) to enlarge the panorama of possible readings of a theory, which historically has often played a fundamental heuristic role. (shrink)

An analysis of Derrida’s early work engaging Plato, Hegel, and the life sciences. Germs of Death explores the idea of genesis, or dissemination, in the early work of Jacques Derrida. Looking at Derrida’s published and unpublished work from “Force and Signification” in 1963 to Glas in 1974, Mauro Senatore traces the development of Derrida’s understanding of genesis both linguistically and biologically, and argues that this topic is an overlooked thread that draws together Derrida’s readings of Plato and Hegel. Demonstrating (...) how Derrida’s analysis liberates the understanding of genesis from Platonic and Hegelian presupposition, Senatore also highlights Derrida’s engagement with the biological thought of his day. Senatore also shows that the implications of Derrida’s insights extend into contemporary ethical and political questions relating to postgenomic conceptions of life. “Senatore here demonstrates with stunning insight, clarity, and economy that Derrida’s work of the 1960s and ’70s needs to be understood as a radical critique or deconstruction of both the philosophical concept of life (from Plato to Hegel) and the prevailing biological model of heredity as a ‘genetic program.’ It will be impossible henceforth to read Derrida on questions of the trace, dissemination, life, and so on, without coming to terms with ‘the germs of death.’” — Michael Naas, author of The End of the World and Other Teachable Moments: Jacques Derrida’s Final Seminar “The book represents a major contribution to the field of Derrida studies and phenomenology, particularly its attention to the concept of genesis that formed the basis of Derrida’s earliest study of Husserl and the origin of his concept of writing. The unique contribution is the inclusion of the works from the periods of the mid-1970s, which have been neglected in the mainstream scholarship on Derrida.” — Gregg Lambert, author of Philosophy after Friendship: Deleuze’s Conceptual Personae. (shrink)

My first and main claim is that physics cannot provide empirical evidence for the objectivity of absolute becoming, for the simple reason that it must presuppose it, at least to the extent that classical spacetime theories presuppose an ontology of events. However, the fact that a theory of absolute becoming must be situated in the a priori realm of metaphysics does not make becoming completely irrelevant for physics, since my second claim will consist in showing that relational becoming, once appropriately (...) defined and understood, properly belongs to the tangled set of issues usually referred to with the label “the arrow of time”. In this respect it is argued that the arrow of becoming is more fundamental both than the causal arrow and of other well-known physical processes that are temporally asymmetric. (shrink)

In The Pursuit of Unhappiness, Daniel Haybron has defended an emotional state theory of happiness, according to which happiness consists in a broadly positive balance of emotions, moods, and mood propensities. In this paper, I argue that Haybron’s theory should be modified in two ways. First, contra Haybron, I argue that sensory pleasures should be regarded as constituents of happiness, alongside emotions and moods. I do this by showing that sensory pleasures are sufficiently similar to emotions for them to be (...) included within the class of happiness-constituting states. Second, I argue that a plausible theory of happiness should not include mood propensities, since their inclusion is either counterintuitive or unnecessary. (shrink)

In this paper, I pursue two main goals. The first is to raise three objections against Tom Roberts and Joel Krueger’s recent account of loneliness (2021). The second is to sketch an alternative, receptive account. Roberts and Krueger focus on loneliness conceived of as an occurrent emotion. According to their account, loneliness involves two components: (1) a pro-attitude (e.g., a desire) towards certain social goods and (2) an awareness that such goods “are missing and out of reach, either temporarily or (...) permanently” (p. 186). My first objection is that having a pair of pro-attitudes and cognitive states of the sort that Roberts and Krueger have in mind is neither sufficient nor necessary for an individual to experience loneliness. The second is that Roberts and Krueger’s account has trouble accounting for the unpleasant phenomenology of loneliness. The third is that their account has trouble demarcating loneliness from other negative emotions that one may experience within romantic, friendship or social relationships. Next, I sketch my own account of loneliness. According to the receptive theory (Tappolet 2022) to which I adhere, emotions are receptive experiences that non-conceptually represent their intentional objects as possessing specific evaluative properties. Accordingly, I argue that loneliness consists in a receptive experience that represents the absence of certain relational goods as bad in a particular way. I draw a distinction between the intentional object and the intentional locus of loneliness, and clarify the role that some of the individual’s pro-attitudes play in loneliness. I also show how a receptive account can explain the phenomenology of loneliness and demarcate it from other emotion types, and offer an account of degrees of loneliness, which distinguishes between the intensity and the centrality of episodes of loneliness. (shrink)

The first comprehensive account of Platonism in Antiquity, from the foundation of Plato's Academy in the fourth century BC to Late Antiquity. Written in a clear language, the book shows that Platonism is philosophically engaging and very influential in the history of philosophy. Useful for both students and scholars.

A proof is given that the set of maximal intermediate propositional logics with the disjunction property and the set of maximal intermediate predicate logics with the disjunction property and the explicit definability property have the power of continuum. To prove our results, we introduce various notions which might be interesting by themselves. In particular, we illustrate a method to generate wide sets of pairwise "constructively incompatible constructive logics". We use a notion of "semiconstructive" logic and define wide sets of "constructive" (...) logics by representing the "constructive" logics as "limits" of decreasing sequences of "semiconstructive" logics. Also, we introduce some generalizations of the usual filtration techniques for propositional logics. For instance, "filtrations over rank formulas" are used to show that any two different logics belonging to a suitable uncountable set of "constructive" logics are "constructively incompatible". (shrink)