Psychedelic-assisted Psychotherapy combines the use of psychedelic compounds, such as psilocybin, with psychotherapy. PAP has shown some promise as a novel treatment for Major Depressive Disorder, and empirical research suggests that its efficacy turns on the altered states induced by psychedelic compounds. In this paper we draw on the literature of phenomenology to explain the therapeutic potential of psychedelic experiences. Svenaeus characterises mental illness as a form of suffering that entails three distinct but related experiences of alienation or “unhomelike being-in-the-world”: (...) illness suffering, which relates to embodiment; existential suffering, which relates to self-narratives, and political suffering, which relates to social relationships. Ratcliffe further characterises the experience of MDD in phenomenological terms as a loss of pre-intentional possibility that manifests as excessive noematic feeling in the experience of embodiment, restrictive narratives in the construction of self, and disconnectedness in experience of the social world. We contend that PAP ameliorates the suffering associated with MDD by inducing and consolidating a state of broadened pre-intentional possibility—one that entails sudden, profound and enduring changes in embodiment, self-narratives, and social experience. We argue further that this phenomenological account is consistent with a bio-psycho-social model of mental health and illness, and we frame it as an argument supporting the plausibility of recent claims about treatment success. This helps to justify ongoing future empirical research in this setting. (shrink)

The recent renaissance in research on psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy is showing great promise for the treatment of many psychiatric conditions. Interestingly, therapeutic outcomes for patients undergoing these treatments are predicted by the occurrence of a mystical experience—an experience characterised in part by a sense of profound meaning. This has led to hypotheses that psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy is therapeutic because it enhances perception of meaning, and consequently leads to a meaning response. The putative mechanism of action of psychedelics as meaning enhancers raises normative (...) ethical questions as to whether it can be justified to pharmacologically increase the perception of meaning in order to heal patients. Using the perspectives of hedonistic moral theories, this paper argues that if psychedelics operate as meaning enhancers, psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy can be ethically justified. An anti-hedonistic objection is presented by applying Robert Nozick’s Experience Machine thought experiment to the case of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy. However, it is argued that this objection falls short for two reasons. First, even if pleasure and pain are not the only consequences which have moral value they are not morally irrelevant, therefore, therapeutic meaning enhancement can still be justified in cases of extreme suffering. Second, it is possible that psychedelic states of consciousness do not represent a false reality, hence their therapeutic meaning enhancement is not problematic according to Nozick’s standards. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Commentary on “Towards a Design-Based Analysis of Emotional Episodes”Cristiano Castelfranchi (bio) and Maria Miceli (bio)Keywordsgrief, suffering, attachment, agent architectureThis paper is significant in many respects: its approach (the design-based analysis); its proposed architecture; its description of grief; and its self-control/perturbance theory. We would offer some remarks on each of these aspects.AI: Back to the FutureAfter some years of crisis, AI seems now to have recovered its original challenging (...) attitude and its identity. In particular all the original ambitions of AI have been renewed under the label of “autonomous agents” (see, for example, Russell and Norvig 1995; Wooldridge and Jennings 1995). This paper and its authors are good representatives of this challenging attitude. Of course, the AI appearing at century’s end is different from, say, the AI of the 1980s. AI systems and models are now conceived for reasoning and acting in open unpredictable worlds, with limited and uncertain knowledge, in real time, with bounded (both cognitive and material) resources, with hybrid architectures, interfering—either co-operatively or competitively—with other systems. The new password for the AI of the 1990s is interaction (Bobrow 1991): interaction with an evolving environment; among several, distributed and heterogeneous artificial systems in a network; with human users; and among humans through computers.This renewed AI, however different though it is in some ways, can be understood as returning to its original aim of modeling “intelligence”: not only static and isolated sub-functions of intelligence but the integrated and pragmatic functioning of autonomous agent architectures as against algorithms. Our renewed AI, based on architectures, can again have important exchanges with other (psychological and social) sciences. This paper is a good example of the fruitful cross-fertilization of ideas which may result from such exchanges. It was indeed just this which originally gave rise to cognitive science.The ArchitectureThe proposed architecture, although quite speculative, and—as the authors themselves emphasize—very much a first sketch, is directly relevant to this new AI. In fact, recent research efforts in the agent-architecture domain are focused exactly on the problem of “goal dynamics” [End Page 129] or “motive processing,” which is the core of this architecture, and on the problem of integrating reactivity and deliberation. Compared with current AI architectures (for example, BDI systems) it is important to note that this “motive-processing” architecture is not yet formalized or implemented to the same extent. On the other hand, it is more interesting from a psychological point of view, and is already able to give us some important insights into human emotions, in particular those emotions (like grief) that involve all or total loss of control of management processes.The Report-Based Analysis of GriefThe report-based description of grief provides a persuasive and rich basis for both modeling and discussing the model. The relevant features of this emotion are well characterized with reference to the self-control problem and motive-processing (though, as we shall see, to use grief as an example of those emotions that involve all or total loss of control of thought processes may provide a partially distorted view of grief itself). In particular, we would stress the relevance of the “intrusive” character of grief-related contents; the rejection of certain beliefs due to the psychic pain they cause; the coping strategies people describe; and the second order motivations related to the control of the emotional state. We believe that psychological models especially of these aspects are usually less specific and explanatory.Let us now try to synthesize some criticisms one could advance of this analysis. We will first address two core notions of the model—perturbance and self-control—and then consider more specifically the treatment of grief.PerturbanceThis notion is potentially very interesting, unless it is reduced to an information processing perspective (e.g., perturbance of attentive processes). An information processing perspective is much more limited than a motive-processing one—at least in the limitative sense of the term, as it is generally used in the psychology of cognitive processes—and is in our view insufficient for understanding human emotions and their role. This limiting interpretation of perturbance fails... (shrink)

The work of Theodor Waitz is an important but hitherto unnoticed source of Dilthey’s concept of ‘human sciences’. Waitz was an outstanding philosopher and psychologist who, in the late 1850s, devoted himself wholeheartedly to empirical anthropology. In this field Waitz distinguished himself for his defence of the unity of humankind against mainstream polygenic and racial doctrines. Waitz inspired Dilthey’s articulation of psychology into two branches: the ‘descriptive’ one and the ‘explanative’ one. Even more remarkably, in a work reviewed by Dilthey (...) in warmly favourable terms, Waitz explicitly mentioned and defined the ‘sciences which treat of the spirit ’. Some of Dilthey's most interesting ideas are thus prefigured in Waitz’s long underrated work. (shrink)

This essay addresses the interrelations between philosophy and experimental sciences that lie at the heart of Carl Stumpf’s epistemology. Following a biographical exposé demonstrating how Stumpf succeeded in acquiring a dual competence in both philosophical and scientific fields, we examine the vast array of academic disciplines encompassed by his research. Such a biographical treatment aims, indeed, to better promote the thrust of Stumpf’s assertion that philosophical enquiries should always be carried out in close connection with scientific practices, and underlines how (...) philosophico-scientific interactions established his work as a central pillar in the history of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century German thought. (shrink)

: In this paper I approach the problem of the boundaries and location of consciousness in a strictly physicalist way. I start with the debate on extended cognition, pointing to two unresolved issues: the ontological status of cognition and the fallacy of the center. I then propose using identity to single out the physical basis of consciousness. As a tentative solution, I consider Mind-Object Identity and compare it with other identity theories of mind. Keywords: Extended Mind; Spread Mind; Enactivism; Cognition; (...) Consciousness; Mind-Object Identity; Identity I confini e la localizzazione della coscienza secondo le teorie dell’identità Riassunto: In questo lavoro tratterò il problema dei confini e della localizzazione della coscienza in termini strettamente fisicalisti. Prenderò le mosse dal dibattito sulla cognizione estesa, portando l’attenzione su due questioni irrisolte: lo status ontologico della cognizione e la fallacia del centro. Proporrò quindi di usare l’identità per individuare la base fisica della coscienza. Come possibile soluzione, prenderò in considerazione la Mind-Object Identity, confrontandola con oltre teorie dell’identità della mente. Parole chiave: Mente estesa; Mente diffusa; Enattivimo; Cognizione; Coscienza; Mind-Object Identity; Identità. (shrink)

Abstract:We analyzed data from a survey of employees of a large military base in order to assess possible differences in the whistle-blowing process due to type of wrongdoing observed. Employees who observed perceived wrongdoing involving mismanagement, sexual harassment, or unspecified legal violations were significantly more likely to report it than were employees who observed stealing, waste, safety problems, or discrimination. Further, type of wrongdoing was significantly related to reasons given by employees who observed wrongdoing but did not report it, across (...) all forms of wrongdoing. However, the primary reason that observers did not report it was that they thought nothing could be done to rectify the situation. Finally, type of wrongdoing was significantly related to the cost of the wrongdoing, the quality of the evidence about the wrongdoing, and the comprehensiveness of retaliation against the whistle-blower. These findings suggest that type of wrongdoing makes a difference in the whistle-blowing process, and it should be examined in future research. (shrink)

Throughout much of the modern period, the human mind has been regarded as a property of the brain and therefore something confined to the inside of the head—a view commonly known as ‘internalism’. But recent works in cognitive science, philosophy, and anthropology, as well as certain trends in the development of technology, suggest an emerging view of the mind as a process not confined to the brain but spread through the body and world—an outlook covered by a family of views (...) labelled ‘externalism’. In this paper, we will suggest there is now sufficient momentum in favour of externalism of various kinds to mark a historical shift in the way the mind is understood. We dub this emerging externalist tendency the ‘New Mind’. Key properties of the New Mind will be summarised and some of its implications considered in areas such as art and culture, technology, and the science of consciousness. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:In 2010,Business Ethics Quarterlypublished ten articles that considered the potential contributions to business ethics research arising from recent scholarship in a variety of philosophical and social scientific fields (strategic management, political philosophy, restorative justice, international business, legal studies, ethical theory, ethical leadership studies, organization theory, marketing, and corporate governance and finance). Here we offer short responses to those articles by members ofBusiness Ethics Quarterly’s editorial board and editorial team.

This article argues that hope is of value in clinical ethics and that it can be important for clinicians to be sensitive to both the risks of false hope and the importance of retaining hope. However, this sensitivity requires an understanding of the complexity of hope and how it bears on different aspects of a well-functioning doctor-patient relationship. We discuss hopefulness and distinguish it from three different kinds of hope, or ‘hopes for’, and then relate these distinctions back to differing (...) accounts of autonomy. This analysis matters because it shows how an overly narrow view of the ethical obligations of a clinician to their patient, and autonomy, might lead to scenarios where patients regret the choices they make. (shrink)

"Psychiatry and Philosophy of Science" explores conceptual issues in psychiatry from the perspective of analytic philosophy of science. Through an examination of those features of psychiatry that distinguish it from other sciences - for example, its contested subject matter, its particular modes of explanation, its multiple different theoretical frameworks, and its research links with big business - Rachel Cooper explores some of the many conceptual, metaphysical and epistemological issues that arise in psychiatry. She shows how these pose interesting challenges for (...) the philosopher of science while also showing how ideas from the philosophy of science can help to solve conceptual problems within psychiatry. Cooper's discussion ranges over such topics as the nature of mental illnesses, the treatment decisions and diagnostic categories of psychiatry, the case-history as a form of explanation, how psychiatry might be value-laden, the claim that psychiatry is a multi-paradigm science, the distortion of psychiatric research by pharmaceutical industries, as well as engaging with the fundamental question whether the mind is reducible to something at the physical level. "Psychiatry and Philosophy of Science" demonstrates that cross-disciplinary contact between philosophy of science and psychiatry can be immensely productive for both subjects and it will be required reading for mental health professionals and philosophers alike. (shrink)

The widespread use of brain imaging techniques encourages conceiving of neuroscience as the forthcoming “mindscience.” Perhaps surprisingly for many, this conclusion is still largely unwarranted. The present paper surveys various shortcomings of neuroscience as a putative “mindscience.” The analysis shows that the scope of mind (both cognitive and phenomenal) falls outside that of neuroscience. Of course, such a conclusion does not endorse any metaphysical or antiscientific stance as to the nature of the mind. Rather, it challenges a series of assumptions (...) that the undeniable success of neuroscience has fostered. In fact, physicalism is here taken as the only viable ontological framework – an assumption that does not imply that the central nervous system exhausts the physical domain. (shrink)

Plotinus’ outline of his method on inquiry on eternity and time in 3.7(45).1.4 includes a reference to ‘concentrated apprehensions of thought’ ([…] ταῖς τῆς ἐννοίας ἀθροωτέραις ἐπιβολαῖς […]). Scholars sometimes argue that Plotinus is here referring to the Epicurean notion of ἀθρόα ἐπιβολή (Epic., Ep. Hdt. 35.9; PHerc. 346, col. 4.24–28). I suggest instead that Gal., mm x.38 Kühn provides the closest parallel to Plotinus’ passage. Further parallels between 3.7 and Galens’ lost On Demonstration suggest that Galen, not Epicurus, is (...) Plotinus’ immediate source. (shrink)

What is the role of education in a world where we no longer have a clear vision of the future and where the idea of a single, universal model of humanity seems like the residue of a bygone age? What role should educators play in a world where young people find themselves faced with deep uncertainty about their future, where the prospects of securing a stable, long-term career seem increasingly remote and where intensified population movements have created more diverse communities (...) in which different cultures find themselves living side by side, no longer bound together by the belief that the other would eventually be assimilated into ‘our' culture? Faced with the bewildering features of our liquid modern world, many young people are inclined to withdraw - in some cases into the online world of games and virtual relationships, in other cases into anorexia, depression, alcohol or even drug abuse, hoping to find shelter from a world perceived as more and more dangerous. Others launch into more violent forms of behaviour, like street gangs and the looting carried out by young people who have been excluded from the temples of consumption but are eager to participate in the ceremony. And all this happens while our politicians look on, uncomprehending and indifferent. In this short book Zygmunt Bauman - the leading social theorist of our liquid modern world, here in conversation with Riccardo Mazzeo - reflects on the predicament of young people today and on the role of education and the educator in a world where the certainties of our predecessors can no longer be taken for granted. (shrink)

INDICE -/- Note biografiche Introduzione, di Riccardo Faucci -/- Parte I - Da Verri a Toniolo 1. Jeremy Bentham: Contemporary Interpretations, di M.D.A. Freeman 2. Su Helvétius, Beccaria e Bentham, di Letizia Gianformaggio 3. L'etica utilitaristica di Pietro Veti, di Vincenzo Polignano 4. ll liberismo interventista di Vincenzo Emanuele Sergio, di Anna Li Donni 5. Il concetto di " felicità pubblica, nella << Genesi del diritto penale » di Romagnosi, e il rapporto Romagnosi-Bentham, di Robertino Ghiringhelli 6. « La (...) più grande felicità per il maggior numero » all'Accademia dei Georgofili ( 18)0-1850), di Gabriella Gioli 7. Una nota su Manzoni critico dell'utilitarismo, di Maurizio Mori 8. Sul concetto di utile in Francesco Ferrara e in Maffeo Pantaleoni, di Daniela Parisi Acquaviva 9. Sul pensiero sociale cristiano di fronte all'edonismo, di Luciano Avagliano 10. Giuseppe Toniolo e il recupero cattolico dell'utile e del valore, di Anna Camaiti -/- Parte II Aspetti di storia del pensiero economico nell’età classica -/- 1. La filosofia economica di Thomas Hobbes, di Marco Bertozzi 2. Ordinamento del sapere, modelli metodologici ed economia politica in Adam Smith, di Sergio Cremaschi 3. Elementi classici nel pensiero di Adam Smith: giurisprudenza romana e morale stoica, di Gloria Vivenza 4. Il “lusso” negli economisti italiani del Settecento, di Cosimo Perrotta 5. Prezzi naturali, prezzi di mercato e legge degli sbocchi nel dibattito fra Malthus e Ricardo, di Lilia Costabile 6. Marx e la moneta, di Roberto Petrini -/- . (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 9.1 (2002) 91-92 [Access article in PDF] Jaspers and Defining Phenomenology John McMillan IT IS POSSIBLE TO DISTINGUISH a number of positions that you might take on the importance of phenomenology for the study of the mind. The strongest position is to think that phenomenology is sufficient for understanding the mind. This is a position that would be very hard to defend and it (...) is unlikely that Gupta and Kay want to endorse such a view. It is clear that Jaspers did not believe this; although he thought that first-person experience was undervalued, his project was an attempt to make sense of different kinds of explanation, all of which contribute to our understanding of the mind.A second position is to deny that phenomenology gives us anything that is of use in understanding the mind and psychopathology. Philosophers have developed a number of such positions, from the eliminativism of Churchland (1981) to the heterophenomenology of Daniel Dennett (1989, 1991).A third position is to hold that phenomenology is one of the methods that are useful for understanding the mind and psychopathology. Along with neuroscience and other more behavioral approaches to behavior, phenomenology is an important component of an adequate understanding of the mind. This position appears to be that endorsed by Jaspers, Gupta, Kay, and the authors they discuss. It is also the position that Grant Gillett and I defend in Consciousness and Intentionality (2001). Gupta and Kay's paper presents an argument about where the boundaries between phenomenology and other approaches to the mind and psychopathology ought to be drawn. Gupta and Kay, following Jaspers, think that the boundaries of the phenomenological ought to be drawn around those approaches that employ empathy and the presuppositionless stance and do not include objective phenomena.Given that the paper is primarily about what phenomenology means and that it endorses the way that Jaspers used the term, it is fairly important that we have a definition from Jaspers. Gupta and Kay give a description of some of Jaspers's methods for getting at subjective phenomena, but do not give an account of what Jaspers thinks the aim of phenomenology is. In other words, one way to classify something as phenomenological is its methods and another is by what the point of the exercise is. In General Psychopathology, Jaspers (1997) says that phenomenology is an empirical method for investigating "individual psychic experience" (p. 55). We can think of this as a claim about the objective of phenomenology and then consider the merits of different phenomenological methodologies in terms of their success in achieving this objective. This opens up the possibility that a theory may be genuinely phenomenological because it has a plausible method for getting at psychic lived experience but does not use all of the methods advocated by Jaspers.Gupta and Kay are correct that Jaspers does stress the importance of the presuppositionless [End Page 91] stance, the importance of empathy and the importance of not simply relying on objective phenomena. However, it is not obvious why an approach to understanding the mind or psycho- pathology must satisfy these conditions to be phenomenological. Imagine the following kind of situation: when I am observed to hit my big toe against a brick and give a yelp, it is possible to infer something about my psychic lived experience. There is not much is room for doubt about my first-person experience and, although you might ask me questions about my pain, they are unlikely to add much to what you can simply read from my behavior. This example may appear a little crude because the first-person experience in this case is not especially complex and is not that interesting as a entrance to the inner workings of an individual's mental life. It is not hard to come up with other examples where we can read the first-person experience from behavior in a fairly accurate and informative way. A father gazing at his young child while she is sleeping in his arms may be having a number of thoughts that we would not know about... (shrink)

This is an excerpt from the contentThe reasons that drive individuals to develop new technologies and to disseminate them in new products and processes, and the capacity to develop original solutions to technological problems, can be analysed with the concepts typical of individual and social cognitive psychology. Various aspects of cognitive activity address innovation. In particular, the capacity to grasp the latent questions and needs of the market that lies behind the possibility to identify opportunities for new products or services; (...) the means of generating solutions that can respond effectively to the realisation of these new opportunities; problem solving processes in the identification of new procedures that underpin process inventions and new manufacturing techniques; the risk of innovative behaviour and the contexts that can favour a greater or lesser propensity to develop innovative solutions. The best historical example of the two stages of the identification of the problem/opportunity and the generation of. (shrink)

A report by the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, contrary to the Declaration of Helsinki, permits most important research initiatives in developing countries.The Ethics of Research Related to Health Care in Developing Countries by the Nuffield Council on Bioethics makes a number of innovative recommendations that depart from codes such as the Declaration of Helsinki. It recommends that standards of care might be relativised to the standard of that nation. It recommends that very good reasons need to be given for not (...) giving post-trial access to medications but recognises that there may be justifiable instances of this. It is the view of the authors that these and other recommendations of the report are sensible pieces of advice given the complexities of the developing world. (shrink)

What is the role of education in a world where we no longer have a clear vision of the future and where the idea of a single, universal model of humanity seems like the residue of a bygone age? What role should educators play in a world where young people find themselves faced with deep uncertainty about their future, where the prospects of securing a stable, long-term career seem increasingly remote and where intensified population movements have created more diverse communities (...) in which different cultures find themselves living side by side, no longer bound together by the belief that the other would eventually be assimilated into ‘our' culture? Faced with the bewildering features of our liquid modern world, many young people are inclined to withdraw - in some cases into the online world of games and virtual relationships, in other cases into anorexia, depression, alcohol or even drug abuse, hoping to find shelter from a world perceived as more and more dangerous. Others launch into more violent forms of behaviour, like street gangs and the looting carried out by young people who have been excluded from the temples of consumption but are eager to participate in the ceremony. And all this happens while our politicians look on, uncomprehending and indifferent. In this short book Zygmunt Bauman - the leading social theorist of our liquid modern world, here in conversation with Riccardo Mazzeo - reflects on the predicament of young people today and on the role of education and the educator in a world where the certainties of our predecessors can no longer be taken for granted. (shrink)

Anger is probably one of the mostly debated basic emotions, owing to difficulties in detecting its appearance during development, its functional and affective meaning (is it a positive or a negative emotion?), especially in human beings. Behaviors accompanied by anger and rage serve many different purposes and the nuances of aggressive behaviors are often defined by the symbolic and cultural framework and social contexts. Nonetheless, recent advances in neuroscientific and developmental research, as well as clinical psychodynamic investigation, afford a new (...) view on the role of anger in informing and guiding many aspects of human conducts. Developmental studies have confirmed the psychophysiological, cognitive and social acquisition that hesitate in the pre-determined sequence appearance of anger and rage in the first two years of life. The so-called affective neurosciences have shown the phylogenetic origin of the two circuits underlying the emergence of anger along with its evolutionary role for promoting survival. This view has been integrated by the psychodynamic theory of motivational systems that attribute a double role to anger: on the one hand, this affect works as an inwardly directed signal concerning a pressure to overcome an obstacle or an aversive situation; on the other hand, anger is also an outwardly directed communicative signal establishing differentiation and conflict within interpersonal relationships and affective bonds. Of course, human peculiar mental functioning requires the appraisal of such signals by higher cortical functions and, there is little doubt that the meaning that orientates individual behaviors is, eventually, construed on a social and cultural level. At the same time, everyday life experiences as well as clinical insights into psychopathic, narcissistic and borderline personality pathology clearly illustrate the necessity to correctly interpret and give answers to the basic questions raised around the topic of anger as a basic emotion. (shrink)

This article examines the nature of the child´s right to be loved. In particular, it argues that besides reasons for ensuring that children are affectively cared for by their parents, we have strong reasons for why children should be loved unconditionally -that is, loved independently of their morally irrelevant features. The article defends this claim by engaging closely with an argument recently formulated by Samantha Brennan and Colin Macleod, according to which the child´s right to be loved would be violated (...) by strongly homophobic parents. I argue that Brennan’s and Macleod’s argument needs to be revised because, while it generates a convincing conclusion in the case of homophobic parents, it fails to do so in other cases. This problem calls for a reconsideration of the nature of the right to be loved. Drawing on Philip Pettit’s analysis of robust goods, I argue that this right is a right to be loved unconditionally and an appeal to unconditional love allows us to accommodate the conviction that strongly racist as well as homophobic parents wrong their children by failing to love them (unconditionally). (shrink)

The object of G. F. Meier's Vernunftlehre and its abridgement for courses, the Auszug aus der Vernunftlehre, does not consist exclusively in the elaboration of the formal aspects of logic, but rather in the individuation of the elements of thought and language, which make human understanding possible. Instead of limiting himself to formal truth, Meier investigates the realms of epistemic, aesthetic, and historic truths, of horizons, and prejudices. Kant used both Meier's Vernunftlehre and its Auszug for about forty years in (...) his logic-lectures. Kant's Logik, and also his Kritik der reinen Vernunft, were thus strongly influenced by Meier. (shrink)

A widely debated issue in contemporary metaphysics is whether the modal profile of ordinary objects has to be explained in non-modal terms (that is, Thesis 1). However, how to solve such an issue with respect to occurrences – namely, processes and events – is a question that has been largely neglected in the current metaphysical debate. The general goal of this article is to start filling this gap. As a first result of the article, we make it plausible that, if (...) Thesis 1 holds for objects, then it also holds for processes and events. Then, we develop a metaphysical account of processes derived from Fine’s (1999, 2022) suggestions, according to which a process is a variable embodiment that is manifested by different events at the different times it goes on – namely, Thesis 2. We raised the challenge from the completion of a process that asks the Finean account of processes to explain relevant modal features of processes in non-modal terms. As a second result, we argue that four initially plausible strategies for solving such a challenge fall short of solving it. As a third result, we show that the theory of variable embodiments Fine formulates for objects must differ from the theory of variable embodiments that aims to model processes. We conclude by investigating some revisions to a theory of variable embodiments that aims to model processes. (shrink)

: The object of G. F. Meier's Vernunftlehre and its abridgement for courses, the Auszug aus der Vernunftlehre, does not consist exclusively in the elaboration of the formal aspects of logic, but rather in the individuation of the elements of thought and language, which make human understanding possible. Instead of limiting himself to formal truth, Meier investigates the realms of epistemic, aesthetic, and historic truths, of horizons, and prejudices. Kant used both Meier's Vernunftlehre and its Auszug for about forty years (...) in his logic-lectures. Kant's Logik, and also his Kritik der reinen Vernunft, were thus strongly influenced by Meier. (shrink)

Avicenna is the most influential figure in the intellectual history of the Islamic world. This book is the first comprehensive study of his theory of science, which profoundly shaped his philosophical method and indirectly influenced philosophers and theologians not only in the Islamic world but also throughout Christian Europe and the medieval Jewish tradition. A sophisticated interpreter of Aristotle’s _Posterior Analytics_, Avicenna took on the ambitious task of reorganizing Aristotelian philosophy of science into an applicable model of scientific reasoning, striving (...) to identify conditions of certainty for scientific assertions and conditions of adequacy for real definitions. Riccardo Strobino combines philosophical and textual analysis to explore the scope and nature of Avicenna’s contributions to the logic of scientific reasoning in his effort to recalibrate Aristotle’s model and overcome some of its internal limitations. Focusing on a broad array of philosophical innovations at the intersection of logic, metaphysics, and epistemology, this book casts light on an essential aspect of the thought of the preeminent philosopher and physician of the Islamic world. (shrink)

The theory of variable embodiments has been primarily formulated to model ordinary objects as things that change their parts over time. A variable embodiment /f/ is a sui generis whole constructed from a principle f, the principle of a variable embodiment, and it is manifested at different times by different things picked out by such a principle f. This principle is usually clarified as a function that picks out, at any given time the variable embodiment exists, its corresponding manifestation at (...) that time, and it fails to pick out anything at any other time. The first purpose of this article is to examine and refute three natural understandings of such a principle. Specifically, first, we argue against the view that it should be understood extensionally as either a partial function or total function. Next, we provide some motivations to reject the understanding of the principle as a function in intensional terms, where the notion of intension is analyzed in terms of a specific version of a possible world semantics. The second goal of the article is to make it plausible that the principle has an intensional character and, on the basis of the results achieved, to formulate some constraints that an account of such a principle should meet. (shrink)

While the UK Home Office’s proposals to preventively detain people with what it has called dangerous severe personality disorder have been subjected to debate and criticism the deeply troubling jurisprudential issues in these proposals have not yet entered into public debate in a way that their seriousness deserves.1 It is good that a commentator as well known as Professor Szasz is speaking out on this issue.Professor Szasz focuses upon a crucial question by calling into question the medicalisation of terms like (...) dangerousness and mental illness.2 There is a great temptation for legislators and the public to treat these terms as if they are purely scientific terms and to think of risk assessment as a precise science. I don’t share Professor’s Szasz’s worry about how psychiatry is using these terms but I think there are some important questions about how these concepts function in the public sphere.This issue is important enough to justify the use of some rhetorical claims because such claims can serve to bring out what are neglected and important issues. In raising the following objections I am not attempting to refute the message that is in Szasz’s article or to say that he is not making an important point but rather to attempt to sharpen the issues and to suggest ways that we can respond to Professor Szasz’s challenge.Psychiatry has progressed in a number of ways since Professor Szasz wrote The Myth of Mental Illness.3 The science is much better, we have much better medications, and psychiatrists are acutely aware of the tension between treating their patient and their obligations to the public interest.So when Professor Szasz says: “Psychiatrists offer to relieve the disturbed person of the burden of coping …. (shrink)

Monists and pluralists disagree concerning how many ordinary objects there are in a single situation. For instance, pluralists argue that a statue and the clay it is made of have different properties, and thereby are different. The standard monist’s response is to hold that there is just a single object, and that, under the description “being a statue”, this object is, e.g., aesthetically valuable, and that, under the description “being a piece of clay”, it is not aesthetically valuable. However, Fine (...) provided an ontological reading of the expression “an object under a description”: the theory of rigid embodiments. The debate between monists and pluralists reduplicates in the domain of ordinary occurrences, like walks and conferences. Specifically, they disagree whether an occurrence in progress (also called “process”) like John’s walk that is happening at tn is identical to some completed occurrence (also called “event”) like John’s walk that happened between, e.g., t1 and tn. Under the adoption of the pluralist’s position, the article aims to provide a novel theory of ordinary occurrences that develops the ontological reading of “under a description” to account for occurrences in progress and completed occurrences. As a first result, we formulate a theory according to which both occurrences in progress and completed occurrences are rigid embodiments. As a second result, we argue that the suggested theory is explanatorily powerful to the extent it solves two puzzles that we call “the Puzzle from the Completion of a Process” and “the Metaphysical-cum-Semantical Puzzle”. (shrink)

In Prior Analytics 1.15, Aristotle attempts to give a proof through the impossible of Barbara, Celarent, Darii, and Ferio with an assertoric first premiss, a contingent second premiss, and a possible conclusion. These proofs have been controversial since antiquity. I shall show that they are valid, and that Aristotle is able to explain them by relying on two meta-syllogistic lemmas on the nature of possibility interpreted as syntactic consistency. It will turn out that Aristotle's proofs are not of the intended (...) schemata. I shall investigate some of the results that the impact of this reconstruction on the modal syllogistic has: the relationship between Aristotle's syllogistic and the logics of relevance; the value of Aristotle's requirement that universal affirmative propositions be taken ‘absolutely’; the destruction of many Aristotelian proofs; the recovery of certain principles of modal opposition from a charge of inconsistency. (shrink)

The paper provides some introductory comments and a preliminary translation of Avicenna’s Burhān, IV, 2. I shall first set the stage by outlining the structure of the book (sec. 1). I will then briefly introduce (sec. 2) a number of notions that are dealt with in the first treatise of the Burhān (e.g. definition, description). Burhān, IV, 2 is split into two parts: the first focuses mainly on Aristotle’s An. Post., B, 4, whereas the second covers some of the topics (...) of B, 5 and B, 6. Accordingly, sec. 3 will be devoted to a cursory presentation of Aristotle’s arguments in An. Post., B, 4 along with a more detailed discussion of its Avicennan counterpart, focusing on the indemonstrability of definition; sec. 4, finally, will be a presentation of the second part of the chapter, concerning the relationship between definition and division. An English translation of the entire chapter is appended to the paper and is accompanied by some notes. (shrink)

This study investigates interpersonal processes underlying dialog by comparing two approaches, interactive alignment and interpersonal synergy, and assesses how they predict collective performance in a joint task. While the interactive alignment approach highlights imitative patterns between interlocutors, the synergy approach points to structural organization at the level of the interaction—such as complementary patterns straddling speech turns and interlocutors. We develop a general, quantitative method to assess lexical, prosodic, and speech/pause patterns related to the two approaches and their impact on collective (...) performance in a corpus of task-oriented conversations. The results show statistical presence of patterns relevant for both approaches. However, synergetic aspects of dialog provide the best statistical predictors of collective performance and adding aspects of the alignment approach does not improve the model. This suggests that structural organization at the level of the interaction plays a crucial role in task-oriented conversations, possibly constraining and integrating processes related to alignment. (shrink)

NICE, the draft fertility guideline and dodging the big question: should fertility treatment be provided by the NHS?In August of this year the National Institute for Clinical Excellence made its draft guideline on fertility treatment available for consultation.1 As has been widely reported in the media the draft guideline recommends that the National Health Service should provide publicly funded fertility treatment in a consistent way across England and Wales. The guideline recommends that three cycles of IVF should be available when (...) “The woman is within the optimal range for in vitro fertilisation and there is an appropriately diagnosed cause of infertility of any duration, or unexplained infertility of at least three years’ duration .Those who need fertility treatment will celebrate the guideline, as will many fertility clinics. The guideline does not, however, address key questions that will be obvious to many. Is fertility treatment the kind of thing that ought to be available on the NHS? Will the inevitable increase in demand mean that resources are directed away from other services? Is fertility treatment really the same kind of intervention as heart or hip replacement surgery?My view is that there are good reasons for doing what we can to help people access fertility services. Most of us will start a family and for those of us who do it is probably the most important of all of our life projects. Given that social status and wealth can be significant obstacles to many of the things that people would like to do with their lives, the fact that most of us are able to pursue this important life project is good from an egalitarian …. (shrink)