The introduction provides a biographical sketch of Eva Picardi’s scientific career.

The volume honours Eva Picardi – her philosophical views and interests, as well as her teaching – collecting eighteen essays, some by former students of hers, some by colleagues with whom she discussed and interacted. The themes of the volume encompass topics ranging from foundational and historical issues in the philosophy of language and the philosophy of logic and mathematics, as well as issues related to the recent debates on rationality, naturalism and the contextual aspects of meaning. The volume is (...) split into three sections: one on Gottlob Frege’s work – in philosophy of language and logic –, taking into account also its historical dimension; one on Donald’s Davidson’s work; and one on the contextualism-literalism dispute about meaning and on naturalist research programmes such as Chomsky’s. (shrink)

A proposal for the biological grounding of intrinsic teleology and sense-making through the theory of autopoiesis is critically evaluated. Autopoiesis provides a systemic lan- guage for speaking about intrinsic teleology but its original formulation needs to be elaborated further in order to explain sense-making. This is done by introducing adaptivity, a many-layered property that allows organisms to regulate themselves with respect to their conditions of via- bility. Adaptivity leads to more articulated concepts of behaviour, agency, sense-construction, health, and temporality than (...) those given so far by autopoiesis and enaction. These and other implications for understanding the organismic generation of values are explored. (shrink)

Without extending the historical analysis, this article analyzes the relationship between the legal concept of person with regard to the notion of living independently. The concept is normatively established in Article 19 of the CRPD and is presented as a legal fiction. The legal technique of fictio iuris is the premise for analyzing contemporary problems, for example, the attribution of responsibilities to non-human personalities, such as robots. The article, however, develops the problem of attributing rights to persons with disabilities. The (...) contraposition of robots and disabled people, understood as opposing visions of anthropological and human models, is part of the philosophical dispute between humanism and post- or transhumanism. The conception of man appears different if created in the image and likeness of God, or as the fruit of evolution from primates, or as a transhumanist entity that can be replaced by the robot. The latter vision is rooted in the mechanization of the mind triggered by cybernetics and cognitive sciences and referable to problems of justice theory and political philosophy concerning the inclusion in society of disabled people. In this article I will limit myself to analyzing, against the background of this complex problem, the link between person, legal fiction and the right to disability starting from the criticism addressed by Nussbaum to Rawls based on the convention and following the methodology developed by Marchisio and Curto in order to clarify the legal connection between thirdness, disability, and person.However, I go one step further by including the issue of disability as justice within the evolution of the notion of the legal person, through the inclusion of fictio iuris and rhetorical methodology in positive law, as a criterion for the interpretation of art. 19 CRPD. (shrink)

The article reconstructs the is/ought debate in legal theory through a phenomenological reading of the concept of normality. An analysis of Siniscalchi, Fuller and Manderson looks at the issue from the perspective of law and literature, and then applies Giambattista Vico’s rhetorical methodology within the contemporary debate. The question: “is Hume’s law really visible within Hume’s thought?” also paradoxically poses the figure of phantoms and fictions at the heart of the current theoretical debate on law. A history of the phantom (...) placed at the centre of the history of Western institutions still remains to be written, but a comparison of very diverse and incongrous approaches such as the extended order of Hayek, the dogmatic anthropology of Legendre, the eunomics of Fuller and the new science of Vico shows how the mystery of consciousness and the mystery of institutions are inextricably entwined. It is impossible at the moment to draw a coherent doctrine from these conflicting perspectives, but their convocation is sufficient to demonstrate how the theory of law is always suspended between the unknown and the human attempt to inhabit it, moving us toward an affective turn that has yet to be fully conceived in the theory of law, following the iconic turn. The anthropological primacy of fictio and the aesthetic-legal dimension in the constitution of language is not that of a logic and separation from the body and meaning, but the exact inverse, even in the unavoidable constant tension between the two poles: logic is born through the gesture of the body that precedes it, as myth precedes the foundation of the State; the origin of the concept is affective, as Hume, and perhaps Vico himself, would have passionately affirmed. (shrink)

After giving a brief overview of the renewal of interest in logic and the foundations of mathematics in Göttingen in the period 1914-1921, I give a detailed presentation of the approach to the foundations of mathematics found in Behmann's doctoral dissertation of 1918, Die Antinomie der transfiniten Zahl und ihre Auflösung durch die Theorie von Russell und Whitehead. The dissertation was written under the guidance of David Hilbert and was primarily intended to give a clear exposition of the solution to (...) the antinomies as found in Principia Mathematica. In the process of explaining the theory of Principia, Behmann also presented an original approach to the foundations of mathematics which saw in sense perception of concrete individuals the Archimedean point for a secure foundation of mathematical knowledge. The last part of the paper points out an important numbers of connections between Behmann's work and Hilbert's foundational thought. (shrink)

Social factors have so far been neglected in embodied theories of perception despite the wealth of phenomenological insights and empirical evidence indicating their importance. I examine evidence from developmental psychology and neuroscience and attempt an initial classification according to whether social factors play a contextual, enabling, or constitutive role in the ability to perceive objects in a detached manner, i.e. beyond their immediate instrumental use. While evidence of cross-cultural variations in perceptual styles and the influence of social cues on visual (...) attention could not be said to play more than a contextual role, other factors such as the intricate developmental links between dyadic and triadic interactions in infancy, as well as episodes of peer-learning in children, play enabling roles. A common element in these factors is the presence and resolution of interpersonal conflict. Detached object perception could not develop without these social factors. I argue, in addition, that social skills such as managing partial social acts which are addressed to and completed by others, linguistic mediation, makebelieve play, and the ability to control perspectival switches are constitutive -- i.e. are of the essence -- of the ability to see objects as present with a detached attitude. I discuss the prospects of incorporating such social elements into dynamical interpretations of the sensorimotor approach through the enactive notion of participatory sense-making. (shrink)

At the same time, the book is a contribution to recent philosophical debates, in particular on the prospects for a successful nominalist reconstruction of .

According to the quantificational Quinean model in meta-ontology, the question of ontology boils down to the question of whether a sortal property is exemplified. I address some complications that arise when we try to build a philosophical reconstruction of the link between individuals and kinds displayed in the exemplification relation from the point of view of conceptualism about kinds and having in mind this stand in ontology. I distinguish two notions of resemblance, object-to- object and object-to- kind, and show the (...) problems with both of them. Finally, I argue for a better awareness of the implicit "bias" involved in the very notion of "resemblance," without indulging in Quine's veto toward this notion. (shrink)

In this paper I show that proofs by contradiction were a serious problem in seventeenth century mathematics and philosophy. Their status was put into question and positive mathematical developments emerged from such reflections. I analyse how mathematics, logic, and epistemology are intertwined in the issue at hand. The mathematical part describes Cavalieri's and Guldin's mathematical programmes of providing a development of parts of geometry free of proofs by contradiction. The logical part shows how the traditional Aristotelean doctrine that perfect demonstrations (...) are causal demonstrations influenced the reflection on proofs by contradiction. The main protagonist of this part is Wallis. Finally, I analyse some epistemological developments arising from the Cartesian tradition. In particular, I look at Arnauld's programme of providing an epistemologically motivated reformulation of Geometry free of proofs by contradiction. The conclusion explains in which sense these epistemological reflections can be compared with those informing contemporary intuitionism. (shrink)

Mascolo successfully defends a relational, developmental approach to emotions. I draw parallels between his perspective and the enactive approach, in particular with the concept of participa...

According to Ernst Cassirer, the transition from the concept of substance to that of mathematical function as a guide of knowledge coincided with the end of ancient and the beginning of modern theoretical thought. In the first part of this article we argue that a similar transition has also taken place in the practical sphere, where mathematical function occurs in one of its specific forms, which is that of the algorithm concept. In the second part we argue that with the (...) rise of modernity the idea of substance and the related concepts of category and classification, which are deeply embedded in western culture, have not been totally supplanted by that of function. The intertwining of the concepts of substance and function has generated contradictory hybrids. These hybrids are used as a key for the understanding of the different repercussions of algorithmic logic on society in terms of social integration. (shrink)

Tarski, Carnap and Quine spent the academic year 1940?1941 together at Harvard. In their autobiographies, both Carnap and Quine highlight the importance of the conversations that took place among them during the year. These conversations centred around semantical issues related to the analytic/synthetic distinction and on the project of a finitist/nominalist construction of mathematics and science. Carnap's Nachlaß in Pittsburgh contains a set of detailed notes, amounting to more than 80 typescripted pages, taken by Carnap while these discussions were taking (...) place. In my article, I present a survey of these notes with special emphasis on Tarski's rejection of the analytic/synthetic distinction, the passage from typed languages to first-order languages, Tarski's finitism/nominalism, and the construction of a finitist language for mathematics and science. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Semiotica Jahrgang: 2016 Heft: 209 Seiten: 357-370.

Part one: the act of speaking -- The speaker as performing artist -- The absolute performative -- The repetition of anthropogenesis -- Part two: toward a critic of interiority -- Second-degree sensualism: a physiognomic project -- In praise of reification -- Part three: from the beginning and right now -- Natural history -- The multitude and the principle of individuation -- Appendix: Wittgenstein and the question of atheism.

One of the complications of a clear evaluation of different positions called “realism” in metaphysics and ontology is discrepancy in terminology and variance of basic intuitions inherent this notion. I recommend a taxonomy that distinguishes three kinds of variance: variance in the sets of conditions for a philosophical position to be acknowledged as actual realism, variance in strength and variance in conceptual frameworks. Within this last case, I propose to differentiate realism in epistemology, in ontology, and in metaphysics, intersecting these (...) three variants with the local/global realism dichotomy. The taxonomy here provided aims at being meta-philosophical; expressive enough for a fine-grained articulation of different philosophical positions in the recent debate, including the question of metaphysical grounding; and impartial, with no need to be connected to the defense of one form or another of the philosophical positions called “realism.”. (shrink)

_An examination of the philosophical notion of sacrifice from Kant to Nietzsche._.

"The fact is, man is an etymologizing animal."Etymologizing—the practice of connecting one word with one or more other similar-sounding words that are believed to elucidate its meaning1—is a complex and putatively universal phenomenon.2 Thus, to take two representative examples far apart in time and space, etymologizing practices figure prominently in some episodes of the Hebrew Bible,3 but also provide some modern influential thinkers with an important mode of argument.4 Perhaps etymologizing is so pervasive because it offers a pliable and powerful (...) tool for addressing a key question, namely, why is something called what it is?While this question has universal appeal, only a few cultures seem to have addressed it... (shrink)

The aim of this chapter is to reconstruct a hypothetical genealogy of the U.S. national motto “in God we Trust” by comparing the juridical and theological concept of “depositum”. According to Philo of Alexandria, the deposit was the most sacred institutional act of ancient social life, because it had both a religious and a sociological function. According to the Epistulae to Timothy the term ‘deposit’ defined the legacy of the Christian faith of which the disciple of St. Paul was entrusted. (...) His task was to manage this legacy and to spread it among the others. Hence the deposit defined at the same time a contract based upon good faith and a symbolic space of “security”, namely a container that protected an unchangeable content: the oral knowledge transmitted by Christ to the Apostoles and, indirectly, to St. Paul. The depositum was also the procedure through which the word of Christ would acquire all its potential. On the other hand, the contract defined as “depositum” by Roman law was characterized by a centrality of the so-called bona fides and by the distinction between regular and irregular deposit. This means that the principle of good faith should lead the conducts of the manager whose task is exactly to look after an object called Christian faith. How can we interpret the word ‘trust’ according to the juridico-political remarks? The purpose of this chapter is to explain all these related issues. (shrink)

The article aims at describing an alternative way to the Foucaldian escape of sovereignty. According to Foucault the only chance to reach this goal is to “go beyond” this concept as well as of linked concepts such as “law” and “institution”. On the one hand this vision is affected by the erroneous identification of law with the order of the sovereign, while the original private dimension of law is totally neglected. On the other hand, Foucault cannot assume that it is (...) also possible to delegitimize sovereignty with the very tools of law, namely in a trial. The article deals with the case of the «mutilated sovereignty» of the Italian State which has been acknowledged by a court in 2006. The government has been compensated for the damages suffered by the State because of the illegal activity in a region. The sovereignty has been “estimated”. But estimating something unquantifiable like sovereignty is destroying its symbolic force. (shrink)

Biopolitics, as interaction of power and subjectivity, creates new ways of making law. It is no longer the definition of borders. It gives legitimacy to emerging practices.

According to Merleau-Ponty, institution has to do with the deposit of a sense. This operation invokes a gesture of completion that is left to a future of recovery, modifications and alterations that expose that deposited sense to dialectical tensions between orthodox conservation and inevitable deviations. The decisive issue at stake is then announced precisely around this ambivalent status of the institution, which becomes the guardian of the deposited sense, not to fix it in a systematized repetition but to welcome, measure (...) and ensure its evolution. Thus “instituting” indicates the ouverture d'un champ, the possibility of setting the sense in a container with an extensible shell. It deals with the capacity of preserving the duration of the sense originally deposited but also of increasing the quality of its substance in the course of history. On these dynamic potentialities of the “deposited” and administered sense Merleau-Ponty’s notes manage to glimpse an essential technical quality that, for example, Christianity has been able to exploit to the maximum. (shrink)

The institution is always a heteronomous construction which supposes the intervention of a “fiat” establishing a break in the continuum of the natural succession of events. This beginning is a sequence of acts leading to a practical judgment on a reality that exists only because of this qualification. This is the sense of the legal verb instituere. The paper tests this vision of the institution on the case of a widespread practice in the managerial world: the 360-degree feedback. A Jesuit (...) genealogy of this practice illustrates new cultures within the firm and the consequences on the subjectivity level. (shrink)

The paper aims to describe the stakes of a Nietzschean influence on Deleuze's reflections on the transcendental and conversely to highlight the Deleuzian operation of politicising Nietzsche by ‘minorising’ him. In order to further understand such a complex relationship of becoming between Deleuze and Nietzsche, the first objective of the paper is to focus on active and reactive forces, which seem to be the core of this very relation. Thus, the paper suggests that micropolitics has its conditions of possibility in (...) the Nietzschean corpus and, in particular, in the symptomatology of decadence, resentment and nihilism. In this sense, now the title of the paper reveals its meaning: the whole Deleuzian operation could be summarised as the passage from the criticism and questioning of an image of Nietzsche ‘forbidden to minors’, typical of the interpretations of the first half of the twentieth century, to a becoming-minor of these very same Nietzschean concepts. It is precisely through such a becoming-minor that Nietzsche's diagnosis and concepts are translated in a political and emancipatory key, in order to give power to minorities. (shrink)

In this 2017 conversation, Gianni Vattimo discusses with Paolo Diego Bubbio the core themes of his own philosophical journey. Vattimo first comments on the legacy of his mentor Luigi Pareyson and on the differences between Pareyson’s conception of the relation between truth and interpretation and his own. Vattimo and Bubbio then elaborate on the return to Hegel and the possibility of a “hermeneuticized” Hegelianism. The participants also discuss Vattimo’s view of religion and the role that the Christian notion of (...) caritas plays in his “weak hermeneutics.” Finally, Vattimo comments on his recent political writings and on his view of a “hermeneutic communism,” arguing that revolution is possible only as a collective inner transformation. Vattimo concludes by mentioning his recent essays, collected under the title Being and Its Surroundings, in which he presents the radical thesis of Heidegger’s philosophy as a new form of theology. (shrink)

Unilateral neglect stems from a relatively selective impairment of exogenous, or stimulus-related, orienting of attention. This neuropsychological evidence parallels “change blindness” experiments, in which normal individuals lack awareness of salient details in the visual scene as a consequence of their attention being exogenously attracted by a competing event, suggesting that visual consciousness requires the integrity of exogenous orienting of attention.

Kant’s admission of a “gap” in the philosophical system of criticism, which his unpublished project of the “Transition from the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science to Physics” would have been meant to fill, has been the object of controversy among scholars. This article reconsiders the problem by connecting the manuscripts with the operation of “exhibition” of concepts, which already had a systematic role in the 1780s, concluding that the new project was intended to provide not a reform, but a necessary (...) complement of previous works. In the final section Kant’s new awareness of this problem in the 1790s is connected to the contemporary reception of criticism. This context provides more evidence supporting the main argument of the article about the inner development of Kant’s thought. (shrink)

La grammaire de la multitude en définit les traits saillants : le premier est la fin de la séparation du public et du privé. En découle un nouveau rapport entre l’individuel et le collectif : on ne converge pas dans l’Un, on agit différemment à partir d’un fond commun. La multitude est ambivalente, servile et révoltée à la fois. Elle aime avoir peur, mais en étant à l’abri, elle demande de la sécurité. Elle est animée par le sentiment de ne (...) pas se sentir chez soi, et adopte par rapport à cela des stratégies différentes, voire opposées. Les « lieux communs » caractérisent ses discours qui prennent des formes très générales. Ce recours aux « lieux communs » vient directement du sentiment de ne pas se sentir chez soi, et de devoir penser de quelle manière on y est. Mais l’aspect public de l’intellect éprouvé en commun, loin de laisser libre, crée une dépendance personnelle par rapport à des hiérarchies diverses. Chacun se comporte en public en virtuose, en artiste interprète, dans la coopération productive en quoi consiste tout travail contemporain. (shrink)