Pet-directed speech (PDS) is often produced by humans when addressing dogs. Similar to infant-directed speech, PDS is marked by a relatively higher and more modulated fundamental frequency (f 0) than is adult-directed speech. We tested the prediction that increasing eye size in dogs, one facial feature of neoteny (juvenilisation), would elicit exaggerated prosodic qualities or pet-directed speech. We experimentally manipulated eye size in photographs of twelve dog breeds by −15%, +15% and +30%. We first showed that dogs with larger eyes (...) were indeed perceived as younger. We then recorded men and women speaking towards these photographs, who also rated these images for cuteness. Linear mixed-effects models demonstrated that increasing eye size by 15% significantly increased pitch range (f 0 range) and variability (f 0CV) among women only. Cuteness ratings did not vary with eye size, due to a possible ceiling effect across eye sizes. Our results offer preliminary evidence that large eyes can elicit pet-directed speech and suggest that PDS may be modulated by perceived juvenility rather than cuteness. We discuss these findings in the context of inter-species vocal communication. (shrink)

In the ambit of the debate on “personal autonomy”, we propose to intend “personal autonomy” in a social sense. We undertake this move because we think that autonomy is compatible with socialization and we’ll give reasons for this claim. Moreover, we must consider the role of the wide variety of informational sources we are exposed to, which influence our behavior. Social background represents the ontological ground from which we develop the capacity for autonomy; at the same time, interaction with others (...) (real or virtual) enlarges the possibility for autonomous judgements. Our attempt is, first, to try to sketch a social notion of personal autonomy and, second, to elucidate the connection between autonomy and the exposition to informational and social diversity. -/- . (shrink)

Jacques Rancière’s theorisation of the political has been particularly influential in investigating political struggles and social movements. By distinguishing between the police order – tasked with maintaining the dominant (hierarchical) system – and politics – aiming at breaking that system – Rancière suggests reading the political as a disruptive event. However, he does not specifically engage with the question of how politics affects and changes the police order. This is what this article aims at exploring. Building upon Kuhn’s The Structure (...) of Scientific Revolutions, I suggest approaching the police order in the same way Kuhn approaches ‘normal science’ and reading the political in the same way Kuhn reads revolutionary science. I ultimately suggest that Rancière’s theorisation of the political is limited because he does not (sufficiently) account for the interplay between police/politics nor for the emergence of an after-politics, that is, a new (ordinary) police order that emerges out of (extraordinary) political events. (shrink)

After explaining the interdisciplinary aspect of the series of events organized around the square of opposition since 2007, we discuss papers related to the 4th World Congress on the Square of Opposition which was organized in the Vatican at the Pontifical Lateran University in 2014. We distinguish three categories of work: those dealing with the evolution and development of the theory of opposition, those using the square as a metalogical tool to give a better understanding of various systems of logic (...) and those related with applications of the theory of opposition to conceptual analysis and pedagogy. (shrink)

Institutions represent a solid basis to organize and stabilize human life in diferent social contexts. They are external events in the world, but they also have a strong anchorage in the mind and in last years many scholars tried to explore their cognitive ground. Starting from the original attempt of Douglass C. North, who at the end of his career tried to establish a program called “Cognitive Institutionalism”, we discuss the merits and the limits of this approach. First, we show (...) that his statements are cognitively onerous as they imply the notions of mental models and beliefs. Instead, we argue that shared institutions do not require such a convergence and that coordination takes place in the form of social practices and habits. Second, we clarify some aspects of North’s cognitive theory avoiding the ontological reading, i.e. explaining in what sense institutions might depend on the human mind and how people are joined into a practice made possible via institutions. (shrink)

The aim of my contribution is to investigate the ground of habits and rituals; they are based on the same processes even though they have different functions depending on the context (personal or social). My discussion will mostly centered on the nature and function of rituals, as necessary practices in human social life (but also in animal life). After a brief introduction of different perspectives on the notions of “habit” and “ritual”, I propose an interpretation of rituals as collective activity, (...) which is based on the same mechanisms of habits formation but it is expressed in a “we-form”, from which is created and institutionalized. (shrink)

This book is about nature considered as the totality of physical existence, the universe, and our present day attempts to understand it.

This chapter deals with the relationship between representation and language, which becomes more relevant if we do not intend the process of forming internal representations of reality but rather the representative function of language. Starting from some Fregean ideas, we present the notion of representation theorized by Searle. According to Searle, a belief is a “representation” that has a propositional content and a psychological mode: the propositional content or intentional content determines a set of conditions of satisfaction under certain aspects (...) and the psychological mode determines the direction of fit of the propositional content. We draw attention to some very interesting ideas proposed by Brandom in response to the challenge of Searle to AI, as they propose formal aspects of representation that rely on the use of ordinary language while avoiding the psychological order of explanation. (shrink)

Our contribution aims at individuating a valid philosophical strategy for a fruitful confrontation between human and artificial representation. The ground for this theoretical option resides in the necessity to find a solution that overcomes, on the one side, strong AI (i.e. Haugeland) and, on the other side, the view that rules out AI as explanation of human capacities (i.e. Dreyfus). We try to argue for Analytic Pragmatism (AP) as a valid strategy to present arguments for a form of weak AI (...) and to explain a notion of representation common to human and artificial agents. (shrink)

We’ll sketch the debate on testimony in social epistemology by reference to the contemporary debate on reductionism/anti-reductionism, communitarian epistemology and inferentialism. Testimony is a fundamental source of knowledge we share and it is worthy to be considered in the ambit of a dialogical perspective, which requires a description of a formal structure which entails deontic statuses and deontic attitudes. In particular, we’ll argue for a social reformulation of the “space of reasons”, which establishes a fruitful relationship with the epistemological view (...) of Wilfrid Sellars. (shrink)

We consider the role of habits in human individual and social ordinary life and we move from the fact that habitual behavior is fundamental to organize our activities in individual as well as in social contexts. Instead of considering classical and revised versions of intentionality, we prefer to focus on habits that reduce the complexity of daily life, and also on their corresponding activity in social life where we take part to informal joint practices as well as to institutionalized ones.

info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion.

My contribution is a review of the Proceedings of the V Meeting of Italian-American Philosophy Autonomy of Reason? Autonomie der Vernunft? that toke place in Rome . American and European philosophers established a fruitful dialog aiming to show the complexity of the notion of “Reason” and, in particular, the possibility of its “Autonomy”. As we will see in the following discussion, human reason seems to be characterized by somewhat vague borders.

Abstract: Collective Intentionality is essential to the understanding of how we act as a "team". We will offer an overview on the contemporary debate on the sense of acting together. There are some theories which focus on unconscious processes and on the capabilities we share with animals (Tomasello, Walther, Hudin) and others which concentrate on the voluntary, conscious processes of acting together (Searle, Tuomela, Bratman, Gilbert). Collective intentionality represents also a relevant issue for economic theories. The theories of team reasoning (...) move from the assumption that agents can sometimes behave according to beliefs and preferences attributed to a group or a team. We will point out the role of institutions as created by collective intentionality (Searle) for understanding coordination and cooperation. (shrink)

In my contribution I want to describe a notion of autonomy in social terms namely in discursive practices. I already presented autonomy as grounded on the Sellarsian “metaphor” of the game of giving and asking for reasons reinterpreted by Robert Brandom. The model was centered mostly on practices of justification starting from an inferentialist view of the propositional content. However, I think that together with speech acts in ordinary language we must provide a description of the role of prelinguistic practices (...) for autonomy. This further step is implied by the fact that it is important to clarify the dimension of “readiness” to give or ask for reasons on which Swindler rightly insists in his Introduction to my book Autonomy. A Matter of Content. Autonomy develops in a language game that is connected with cooperation. The language game I want to point out is similar to the functional approach of Wittgenstein but starts from a Fregean perspective and takes into consideration neurobiological processes which bridge the gap between brain and world and represent the “motor” of our activity in the world. (shrink)

The original and thoughtful book of Maurizio Ferraris Documentalità. Perché è necessario lasciar tracce introduces a form of “weak textualism” to explain the constitution of social objects. I’ll briefly present some basic points of Ferraris’ account to establish a comparison with John Searle’s classical notion of “collective intentionality”. Ferraris addresses interesting criticisms to the so called “naive realism” characterizing Searle’s philosophical enterprise. Nevertheless, I think that “weak textualism” represents a partial analysis of the constitution of social reality that requires rather (...) the consideration of the relationship between intentionality and communication. (shrink)

The original and thoughtful book of Maurizio Ferraris Documentalità. Perché è necessario lasciar tracce introduces a form of “weak textualism” to explain the constitution of social objects. I’ll briefly present some basic points of Ferraris’ account to establish a comparison with John Searle’s classical notion of “collective intentionality”. Ferraris addresses interesting criticisms to the so called “naive realism” characterizing Searle’s philosophical enterprise. Nevertheless, I think that “weak textualism” represents a partial analysis of the constitution of social reality that requires rather (...) the consideration of the relationship between intentionality and communication. (shrink)

The present contribution aims to establish a connection between the notion of “autonomous discursive practice” recently introduced by Robert Brandom and the notion of personal autonomy. The Locke Lectures underscore some central points to be considered in this context. There are basic capacities which ground human rationality and are sufficient to develop an autonomous discursive practice. These capacities are not logical in a formal sense but reveal a notion of material incompatibility that allow the agents to recognize and rectify doxastic (...) commitments as well as practical commitments. The practice of recognition and rectification of commitments implies a social dimension because only through the undertaking of specific deontic attitudes in intersubjective contexts of justification we can isolate the complete structure of expressive rationality. We need both the objective pole and the subjective pole . My conclusion is that the Brandomian analysis of autonomous linguistic practice puts to much emphasis on the recognition of contents according to modal vocabulary. Moreover, personal autonomy requires the consideration of the role of the deontic attitudes in the practices of justification of our validity claims. (shrink)

The contemporary philosophical debate on autonomy shows several interesting perspectives that emphasize the role of social contexts for developing this human capacity. There is a shift from the classical notion of “moral” autonomy to the wider notion of “personal autonomy”, and we underscore the “substantive view” that helps to provide arguments that support a plausible notion strictly connected with socialization and language use. In this article, we consider the source of autonomy that is represented by a communicative life-world in its (...) ordinary and extra-ordinary dimensions to discuss the role of personal autonomy in a post-secular society. Moreover, we propose to adopt a pragmatic account to describe the social role of the autonomous agent in discursive contexts. (shrink)

The present contribution describes the nature of social practices based on habitual behavior. The first part concerns the notion of “habit” from a perspective that crosses philosophy and science. Habits structure our daily life and possess a social nature, as shown by informally shared habits and institutionalized rituals. After a brief reference to the philosophical debate, we point out the fundamental dimensions of habitual behavior, i.e., routine and goal-directed behavior. They also characterize shared social habits like rituals because we need (...) to: (a) simply follow social institutional practices and (b) actively cooperate to reach a certain goal. Our descriptive strategy aims at promoting the aspect of “control” in habitual behavior, namely, the possibility of accepting or refusing to do something. This control does not work in many pathological cases and cases of auto-illusion. The second part of the article will illustrate the interesting but disregarded case of the epistemic and moral embubblement, explaining it as an individual cognitive process and as a specific social practice that once followed or institutionalized becomes a shared practice routinely performed. The main features of an epistemic bubble concern the widespread situation in which the cognitive agents always resolve the tension between their thinking that they know _P_ and their knowing _P_ in favor of knowing that _P_”. The related case of the moral bubble indicates the situation in which agents are potentially or actually violent and unaware of it. This cognitive process expresses how difficulties in recognizing one’s own violence leads to disregarding the possible or actual inflicted harm: in this case, a process of what can be called “autoimmunity” is at play. We will contend that the concept of moral bubble can provide an integrated and unified perspective able to interpret in a novel way many social practices in which morality and violence are intertwined. (shrink)

This book reports on cutting edge research concerning social practices. Merging perspectives from various disciplines, it discusses theoretical aspects of social behavior along with models to investigate them, and also presents key case studies. Further, it describes concepts related to habits, routines and rituals and examines important features of human action such as intentionality and choice, exploring the influence of specific social practices in different situations.

This book reports on cutting-edge research concerning social practices. Merging perspectives from various disciplines, including philosophy, biology, psychology and cognitive science, and economy, it discusses theoretical aspects of social behavior along with models to investigate them, and presenting key case studies as well. Further, it describes concepts related to habits, routines, and rituals and examines important features of human action, such as intentionality and choice, exploring the influence of specific social practices in different situations. Based on a workshop held on (...) April 2022 at the World Congress on Universal Logic (UNILOG 22), in Crete, and including additional invited chapters, the book offers fresh insights into the fields of social practice and the cognitive, computational, and philosophical tools to understand them. (shrink)

This text presents the research field of natural/unconventional computing as it appears in the book COMPUTING NATURE. The articles discussed consist a selection of works from the Symposium on Natural Computing at AISB-IACAP (British Society for the Study of Artificial Intelligence and the Simulation of Behaviour and The International Association for Computing and Philosophy) World Congress 2012, held at the University of Birmingham, celebrating Turing centenary. The COMPUTING NATURE is about nature considered as the totality of physical existence, the universe. (...) By physical we mean all phenomena, objects and processes, that are possible to detect either directly by our senses or via instruments. Historically, there have been many ways of describing the universe (cosmic egg, cosmic tree, theistic universe, mechanistic universe) while a particularly prominent contemporary approach is computational universe, as discussed in this article. See more: http://arxiv.org/abs/1210.7784. (shrink)

Im Mittelpunkt dieses Bandes stehen aktuelle Themen politischer Ethik, die sich den drei Bereichen Migration, Europa und Populismus zuordnen lassen. Die ethischen Herausforderungen, die die internationale Migration mit sich bringt, erfordern das Zusammenspiel nationaler und europäischer Ebenen. Entsprechend ist der große Rahmen der hier versammelten Beiträge eine transnational zu denkende Sozialethik in den Strukturen Europas. Zu den Reaktionen auf die Migration gehört unter anderem der erstarkende Rechtspopulismus, der sich in der Regel dezidiert europaskeptisch positioniert. Insofern ergeben sich aus dem Nachdenken (...) über Europa, Migration und Populismus Spannungsfelder und Argumentationsmuster, die mit grundlegenderen Fragen politischer Ethik verbunden sind. (shrink)

A discussion of updating teaching strategies to reflect changes in an increasingly technology-centered world includes an exploration of the process of learning to learn and advocates for expanding the connection between school and the adult world.

ZusammenfassungUm Fachkompetenz zu stärken und Verantwortung an Entscheidungskompetenz zu koppeln, haben einige Sportverbände mittlerweile bezahlte Führungskräfte als Vorstand nach § 26 BGB installiert, während ein ehrenamtliches Präsidium im Sinne eines Aufsichtsrats fungiert. Der vorliegende Beitrag zielt darauf ab, das Verständnis für den mit einer solchen Änderung hinsichtlich Vorstand und Vertretung verbundenen organisationalen Wandel zu schärfen und daraus folgende Effekte auf die Verbandsarbeit zu beleuchten. Am Beispiel der DHB-Strukturreform „Perspektive 2020+“ eröffnet die Analyse – basierend auf Dokumentenanalysen und problemzentrierten Interviews – (...) differenzierte Einblicke in organisationalen Wandel von Sportverbänden und Schlussfolgerungen für die praktische Verbandsarbeit. (shrink)