This paper investigates the effects of Buddhist ethics on consumers’ materialism, that is, the propensity to attach a fundamental role to possessions. The literature shows that religion and religiosity influence various attitudes and behaviors of consumers, including their ethical beliefs and ethical decisions. However, most studies focus on general religiosity rather than on the specific doctrinal ethical tenets of religions. The current research focuses on Buddhism and argues that it can tame materialism directly, similar to other religions, and through the (...) specific Buddhist ethical doctrines of the Four Immeasurables: compassion, loving kindness, empathetic joy, and equanimity. The empirical results show the following: (1) Buddhism reduces materialism directly and through some of the Four Immeasurables, and (2) despite the doctrine of non-existence of the self, positive emotions toward the self are still present, and the self absorbs the effects of Buddhist ethics on materialism. The latter finding suggests a “resistance of the self” that is coherent with the idea of a consumer who leverages the self to go beyond it. (shrink)

The new dilemmas and responsibilities which arise in bioethics both because of the unprecedented pace of scientific development and of growing moral pluralism are more and more difficult to grapple with. At the ‘global’ level, the call for the universal nature at least of some fundamental moral values and principles is often being contended as a testament of arrogance, if not directly as a new kind of subtler imperialism. The human rights framework itself, which provided the basis for the (...) most relevant international declarations and documents, is not exempt from the charge. However, the refusal of a top-down conception of the universal as a sort of product for exportation should not be confused with a relativistic landscape, where all the cows can be indifferently black or white. This contribution aims at outlining an approach, which reconciles universalism as enshrined in founding human rights declarations with respect for cultural diversity. In order to do so, two conceptual frameworks are discussed: the ‘tool-kit’ model and the morals/ethics difference. The example of the right to quality health care confirms the argument that striking a balance between cherishing pluralism and defending some fundamental rights and obligations does not amount to an assertion of moral imperialism. (shrink)

Despite the proliferation of sharing economy initiatives in agri-food systems, the recent literature has still not unravelled what sharing exactly entails from an organizational standpoint. In light of this knowledge gap, this study aims to understand which resources are shared, and how, in a heterogeneous set of sharing economy initiatives in the context of food and agriculture. Specifically, this study compares the organization of various forms of alternative food networks (AFNs), which are recognized to be frugal forms of sharing economy (...) initiatives (i.e., locally based, small-scale and with limited use of information technology), in terms of leadership, bureaucracy, shared resources and participants’ engagement. Data from a comparative case study across 18 AFNs identify five sharing economy models of AFNs with distinctive shared resources and organizational mechanisms: consumer groups; commercial community gardens; as well as network-based, privately owned and publicly owned self-consumption community gardens. These models also display notable differences in terms of their origins, participants’ goals and constraints which, to some extent, may be associated to the nature of their organization. Findings inform policy-makers, AFNs’ leaders and stakeholders—especially those seeking to support innovative models towards sustainable transitions—on how to tailor institutional norms and develop networks to meet the heterogeneous needs of different typologies of sharing economy initiatives in agri-food systems. (shrink)

Scholars disagree about whether and how Kant manages to avoid dualistic outcomes in the relation between freedom and sensibility within the moral agent. If he does not – if he portrays a moral agent who must judge and act without taking emotions, sentiments, and passions into account – then authors such as Blackburn can rightly argue that Kantian ethics loses sight of the concrete individual, whose sensibility has a fundamental role, taking part in the definition of her specific identity. I (...) argue that this portrait comes from a disputable and incomplete reading of Kant’s works. There is no dualistic outcome in the relation between freedom and sensibility in Kant. My aim is to show that there is a bridge between the rational and the sensible elements within the Kantian agent and that it can be reconstructed by analysing Kant’s works on ethics, aesthetics, and anthropology. Specifically, those elements must be thought of as in accordance, not in opposition, because sensibility is necessary for Kant’s ethics to be effective, both for the agent’s awareness of the moral law and for the agent’s motivation. (shrink)

The aim of the paper is to shed light on some of the most original elements of Fichte’s conception of morality as expressed in his account of specific obligations. After some remarks on Fichte’s original classification of ethical duties, the paper focuses on the prohibition of lying, the duty to communicate our true knowledge, and the duty to set a good example. Fichte’s account of those duties not only goes beyond the mere justification of universally acknowledged demands, but also deploys (...) different arguments than his contemporaries, most notably Kant. Fichte thereby sketches a conception of morality in which the agent is crucially required to contribute to the morality of others. The chapter explores the contrast between Fichte’s view and Kant’s thought of an end in itself and suggests that Fichte’s view of morality amounts to a form of normative perfectionism that is qualified by the underlying claim of the agent-neutral character of moral demands. (shrink)

In this paper, the endeavour to understand how to think of education ‘after progress’, viz. in an age in which progress has become problematic, is undertaken by focusing on the theme of time. Dovetailing Klaus Mollenhauer’s reflections on the rise of the Bildungszeit at the dawn of modernity with Thomas Popkewitz’s analyses of ‘cosmopolitan time’ presiding over pedagogical reform from the 19th century to the present, I shall, first, explore this temporal configuration of modern schooling (which goes hand in hand (...) with a specific understanding of the child). Against this backdrop, I shall, second, advance an interpretive hypothesis, that of substituting what will be called the ‘child-as-migrant’ for the ‘cosmopolitan child’, by appropriating, in an educational key, some insights of Thomas Nail’s ‘migrant cosmopolitanism’. I shall thereby suggest an alternative view of ‘progressivity’, construed not along modern-developmentalist lines but as a form of non-conservativeness, linked with a recognition of the ekstatikon (that is, destabilizing) character of time. This will require a revisiting of some Aristotelian intuitions about time as the rhythm of movement, reinterpreted as the affective experience of that ek-statikon without which there is no potential for the new. Accordingly, ‘progressive’ education (in the different interpretation investigated here) is the concern to allow all of us as ‘migrants’ to live actively in the abode of our ek-static and unpredictable condition and, therefore, to be vulnerable to the new, without merely remaining in a taken-for-granted ethos, cosmopolitan, inclusive, and progress-oriented though it may be. (Editor's note: This paper forms part of the suite entitled ‘Education After Progress’.). (shrink)

The aim of this article is to contribute to the outlining of the philosophical and epistemological status of post-critical pedagogy in the light of the body of scholarship (both positive and negative) that has, in the last few years, already grown in relation to this theoretical project. The article invites readers to follow its authors on a stroll in ‘Post-Criticalland’. Moreover, the article raises the question of whether post-critique is a new paradigm or merely a different attitude within the critical (...) tradition. The authors conclude by arguing for a principle of complementarity and for practices of diplomatic negotiation, on the grounds that post-critique should not be construed as dependent on critique but as complementary to it and as deserving a time and space of its own. (shrink)

After outlining the renascent interest in teaching within contemporary educational theory, the present paper engages with a reflection on teaching beyond the predominant learnification and the related emphasis on efficacy as a primary value. In this endeavour, the theme of teachers’ demoralization is introduced in a philosophical-educational key, by deploying an existential perspective. Within this horizon, a special focus is on failure construed as intimately linked with the ‘essence’ of education qua an encounter of free beings and as a possibility (...) inherent to the dignity of teaching. In conclusion, some implications of this recognition of the ‘significance’ of failure are indicated in regard to teacher education. (shrink)

The goal of this paper is to show that a particular view of emotion sharing and a specific hypothesis on infant social perception strengthen each other. The view of emotion sharing is called “the straightforward view.” The hypothesis on infant social perception is called “the pairing account.” The straightforward view suggests that participants in emotion sharing undergo one and the same overarching emotion. The pairing account posits that infants perceive others’ embodied experiences as belonging to someone other than the self (...) through a process of assimilation to, and accommodation of, their own embodied experience. The connection between the two theories lies in the domain-general process of association by similarity, which functions both in the individuation of a unitary emotion and in the interpretation of the sensory stimulus. By elaborating on this connection, the straightforward view becomes more solid from the cognitive-developmental standpoint and the pairing account expands its explanatory power. Since the straightforward view requires minimal forms of self- and other-awareness, the paper provides a characterization of the developmental origin of the sense of us, i.e., the experience of self and other as co-subjects of a shared emotional state. (shrink)

This study explores the downsizing propensity of family and non-family firms by considering their territorial embeddedness during both periods of economic stability and financial crisis. By drawing on a panel dataset of Spanish manufacturing firms for the period 2002–2015, we show that, all things being equal, family firms have a lower propensity to downsizing than non-family firms. When considering the effect of territorial embeddedness, we found that territorially embedded family firms have an even lower propensity to downsizing than their non-family (...) counterparts. Furthermore, the concern of territorially embedded family firms for their employees’ welfare was particularly pronounced during the years of the global financial crisis. This result is explained by the existence of socially proximate relationships with the firms’ immediate surroundings, based on similarity and a sense of belonging, which push deeply rooted family firms to treat their employees as salient stakeholders during hard times. Overall, our study stresses the importance of local roots in moderating the relationship between family firms and downsizing. (shrink)

English summary: How Niccolo Machiavelli is to be understood is still passionately argued today. The many facets of his political thought correspond to the diversity of perspectives among his interpreters. The authors of this interdisciplinary volume analyze Machiavelli's works in connection with transformations of thought on policy, rule and morality from the beginning of the early modern period through to the present. In addition to the interpretation of Machiavelli through the lens of his time, effects of his writings and thought (...) in contemporary discourse are focused upon. Topics not only include Machiavelli's relationship to the modern concept of the state and his experimental morality, but also his demonological style of reading and his presence amongst contemporary republicans and liberals, amongst thinkers such as Max Horkheimer and Michel Foucault, as well as in the empire debate. Additionally, the volume takes into account thus far little-explored aspects, such as Machiavelli's thinking style and methodology, as well as the literary-rhetorical dimension of his writings. German text. German description: Bis heute wird leidenschaftlich darueber gestritten, wie Niccolo Machiavelli verstanden werden muss. Dem Facettenreichtum seines politischen Denkens entspricht die Vielfalt der Perspektiven und Urteile seiner Interpreten. Die Autoren des interdisziplinar angelegten Bandes analysieren Machiavellis Werke im Zusammenhang mit den spiegelbildlichen Wandlungen des Denkens ueber Ordnung, Herrschaft und Moral zu Beginn der Neuzeit und in der Gegenwart. Ausser der Interpretation Machiavellis aus dem Horizont seiner Zeit stehen auch seine Wirkungen in zeitgenossischen Diskursen im Mittelpunkt. Themen sind nicht bloss Machiavellis Verhaltnis zum modernen Staatsbegriff und seine experimentelle Moral, sondern auch seine damonologische Leseweise und seine Prasenz bei zeitgenossischen Republikanern und Liberalisten, bei Denkern wie Max Horkheimer und Michel Foucault sowie in der Empire-Debatte. Zudem beruecksichtigt der Band bislang wenig erforschte Aspekte wie Machiavellis Denkstil und Methode sowie die literarisch-rhetorische Dimension seiner Schriften. (shrink)

The idea of autonomy, presented as Kant’s main achievement in the Groundwork and the second Critique, is hardly present in the ethics of the “Doctrine of Virtue”. Against Pauline Kleingeld’s recent interpretation, I argue that this does not amount to a disappearance of the Principle of Autonomy, but to an important development of the notion of autonomy. I first show that Kant still advocated the Principle of Autonomy in the 1790s along with the thought of lawgiving through one’s maxims. I (...) then argue that the role of autonomy in Kant’s later ethics has a different focus than in the previous works, which requires to connect autonomy with autocracy. Conversely, in the “Doctrine of Virtue”, autocracy, which Kant had employed before as an independent notion, is construed as a new layer of autonomy. What Kant there calls subjective autonomy is thereby considered as reason’s self-government in the maxims of each rational agent. -/- . (shrink)

This paper aims to show the significance of respect in revealing the normative structure of Kant’s ethics to the agent as a finite rational being. I argue that understanding the moral law as a fact of reason is insufficient for fully recognizing its absolute value and the normative consequences it entails. Indeed, the finiteness of the human agent requires the experience of the feeling of respect, which not only has a motivational role but also an epistemic one. I thus start (...) by clarifying the nature of feeling for Kant in a way that highlights its complex structure. Then, I show how respect – as a particular kind of feeling – gives the agent a deeper understanding of her relationship with the moral law, thereby allowing the unveiling of Kant’s normative theory. (shrink)

Taking inspiration from Searle’s ‘The Logic of Fictional Discourse’, this essay presents an argument against different versions of the so-called ‘speech act theory of fiction’. In particular, it argues that a Uniformity Argument may be constructed, which is additional to the Determination Argument commonly attributed to Searle, and which does not rely on his presumably controversial Determination Principle. This Uniformity Argument is equally powerful against the ‘Dedicated Speech Act’ theories that Searle originally targeted, and the more recent, Grice-inspired versions of (...) speech-act approaches to fictional discourse. (shrink)

Drawing from narratology and design studies, this article makes use of the notions of the ‘implied designer’ and ‘ludic unreliability’ to understand deceptive game design as a specific sub-set of transgressive game design. More specifically, in this text we present deceptive game design as the deliberate attempt to misguide players’ inferences about the designers’ intentions. Furthermore, we argue that deceptive design should not merely be taken as a set of design choices aimed at misleading players in their efforts to understand (...) the game, but also as decisions devised to give rise to experiential and emotional effects that are in the interest of players. Finally, we propose to introduce a distinction between two varieties of deceptive design approaches based on whether they operate in an overt or a covert fashion in relation to player experience. Our analysis casts light on expressive possibilities that are not customarily part of the dominant paradigm of user-centered design, and can inform game designers in their pursuit of wider and more nuanced creative aspirations. (shrink)

In this paper we deepen Mundici's analysis on reducibility of the decision problem from infinite-valued ukasiewicz logic to a suitable m-valued ukasiewicz logic m , where m only depends on the length of the formulas to be proved. Using geometrical arguments we find a better upper bound for the least integer m such that a formula is valid in if and only if it is also valid in m. We also reduce the notion of logical consequence in to the same (...) notion in a suitable finite set of finite-valued ukasiewicz logics. Finally, we define an analytic and internal sequent calculus for infinite-valued ukasiewicz logic. (shrink)

For each integer n≥0, we provide an explicit functional characterization of the free n-generated BL-algebra, together with an explicit construction of the corresponding normal forms.

A work of music is repeatable in the following sense: it can be multiply performed or played in different places at the same time, and each such datable, locatable performance or playing is an occurrence of it: an item in which the work itself is somehow present, and which thereby makes the work manifest to an audience. As I see it, the central challenge in the ontology of musical works is to come up with an ontological proposal (i.e. an account (...) of what sort of thing a work of music is) which enables us to explain what such repeatability consists in, whilst doing maximal justice to the way in which we conceive of musical works in our reflective critical and appreciative practice. To this end, many have found it tempting to defend some version or other of the type-token theory : the thesis that a work is a type and its occurrences are its tokens. Much of the early debate prompted by the publication of Jerrold Levinson's seminal 'What a Musical Work Is' in 1980 has taken the type-token theory for granted, choosing to focus on how musical works, qua types, are individuated. (A key question here has been whether we should hold, with the sonicist , that works are identical just in case they sound exactly alike; or whether we should agree with Levinson's contextualist thesis that exact sound-alikes are distinct, if composed in distinct musico-historical contexts.) More recently, however, the type-token theory itself has been put under pressure, and alternatives have been suggested. So, e.g. Gregory Currie and David Davies have held versions of the thesis that musical works (and artworks generally) are acts of composition, whilst Guy Rohrbaugh has recommended that we think more innovatively about our metaphysical categories, and treat musical works (along with all repeatable artworks) as historical individuals . Historical individuals, like particular substances, come into and go out of existence, could have been somewhat different than they are, and can change through time; but such items, unlike particular substances, are nonetheless capable of having occurrences. In the last few years, ontologists of music have also stepped back to consider the very nature of their enterprise. In particular, a debate has ensued concerning the cogency of ontological proposals (such as those of Nelson Goodman, Nicholas Wolterstorff and Julian Dodd) that are substantially revisionary of our folk concept of a work of music. Amie Thomasson, David Davies and Andrew Kania occupy, to a greater or lesser degree, the descriptivist standpoint, according to which such revisionary ontologies are misconceived. The debate between revisionists and descriptivists in the ontology of music – if prosecuted against the backdrop of an awareness of developments in meta-ontology more generally – is a particularly fertile area in the philosophy of music at present. Author Recommends Wollheim, Richard. Art and its Objects . 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980. This seminal study nicely introduces and motivates the type-token theory, and in the course of doing so, helpfully, although perhaps contentiously, distinguishes types from both sets and properties. Wollheim's treatment was to a large part responsible for stimulating the subsequent debate as to the ontological nature of musical works. Levinson, Jerrold. 'What a Musical Work Is.' Journal of Philosophy 77 (1980); reprinted in his Music, Art and Metaphysics , 63–88. This paper has, perhaps, been the most influential account of the nature of musical works, post-Wollheim. Presuming the type-token theory to be correct, Levinson elaborates it by claiming musical works to be, not sound structures (i.e. structured patterns of sound-types), but a species of types he calls indicated structures . According to Levinson, a work of music is not to be identified with its sound structure, S ; it is, in fact, a compound of S and a performance-means structure, PM , as indicated (typically, via a score) by its composer on a certain occasion : something that we can represent as S/PM -as-indicated-by- X -at- t . Such indicated structures, Levinson argues, fit the bill for being what works of music are, because they come into being with their indication (i.e. their composition), are individuated in terms of the musico-historical context in which they were composed, and have their specified performance-means (i.e. their instrumentation) essentially. Wolterstorff, Nicholas. Works and Worlds of Art . Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980. Part I of this book sees Wolterstorff defend a Platonistic version of the type-token theory (although Wolterstorff calls them 'kinds' rather than 'types'). According to Wolterstorff, considerations about the existence conditions of types commit us to the thesis that works of music, qua types, are entities that cannot come into or go out of existence. Kivy, Peter. 'Platonism in Music: A Kind of Defence.' Grazer Philosophische Studien 19 (1983): 109–29. In this article, Kivy ingeniously (and wittily) defends a variety of Platonism about works of music against the animadversions of Levinson. Currie, Gregory. An Ontology of Art . New York: St, Martin's Press, 1989. Here Currie introduces and defends the thesis that works of music (and, indeed, all artworks) are compositional action-types. The book also contains some well-aimed criticisms of Levinson's account. Dodd, Julian. Works of Music: An Essay in Ontology . Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. In this book, Dodd defends the type-token theory, but argues that no version of it can escape the Platonisic consequence that musical works exist at all times (and hence, are discovered, rather than created, by their composers). Dodd also defends another controversial thesis, this time concerning musical works' individuation. According to Dodd, and pace Levinson and others, sonicism is correct: works that sound exactly alike are identical. Rohrbaugh, Guy. 'Artworks as Historical Individuals.' European Journal of Philosophy 11 (2003): 177–205. In this essay, Rohrbaugh makes some pointed criticisms of the type-token theory of repeatable artworks in the course of arguing that such works should be viewed, not as types, but as historical individuals (see above). Rohrbaugh suggests that treating musical works as historical individuals best captures our intuitions about such works' temporal and modal characteristics, and, in the course of elaborating his position, he makes some meta-ontological claims that see him endorsing a non-revisionary, descriptivist approach to the ontology of art. As Rohrbaugh sees it, ontologies of art are 'beholden to our artistic practices' (179), and 'aesthetics should not be beholden to the metaphysics on offer, but rather should drive new work in metaphysics' (197). Ridley, Aaron. 'Against Musical Ontology,' Journal of Philosophy 100 (2003): 203–220. This paper sees Ridley outlining a sceptical attitude towards the project of formulating ontological proposals. In his view, a 'serious philosophical engagement with music is orthogonal to, and may well in fact be impeded by, the pursuit of ontological issues' (203). Thomasson, Amie. 'The Ontology of Art and Knowledge in Aesthetics.' JAAC 63 (2005:221–9). Thomasson defends descriptivism in the ontology of art by arguing that such a position is a consequence of the only defensible solution to a problem in the theory of reference: the so-called 'qua' problem concerning how the reference of a term can be fixed. Davies, David. Art as Performance . Oxford: Blackwell, 2004. Davies' position is characterised by two theses: one methodological, the other ontological. The methodological claim is that the ontology of art faces a pragmatic constraint : roughly speaking, the ontology of art is answerable to the epistemology of art. The ontological claim is that the rigorous enforcement of the pragmatic constraint commits us to the thesis that all artworks are compositional action-tokens. Online Materials http://www.blackwell-compass.com/subject/philosophy/article_view?article_id=phco_articles_bpL173 Dodd, Julian. 'Musical Works: Ontology and Meta-Ontology.' Philosophy Compass 3/6 (2008): 1113–34. doi: [DOI link] http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/118557784/abstract Thomasson, Amie. 'Debates about the Ontology of Art: What are We Doing Here?' Philosophy Compass 1/3 (2006): 245–55. doi: [DOI link] http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/122517227/abstract Davies, David. 'Works and Performances in the Performing Arts.' forthcoming in Philosophy Compass . doi: [DOI link] http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/music/ Kania, Andrew. 'The Philosophy of Music.' Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy . Sample Mini-Syllabus Week 1: The Type/Token Theory Introduced Wollheim, Richard. Art and its Objects , §§4–8, 21–3, 35–7. Kivy, Peter. Introduction to a Philosophy of Music , chapter 11. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2002. Dodd, Julian. Works of Music: An Essay in Ontology , chapter 1. Wolterstorff, Nicholas. Works and Worlds of Art , chapter 2. Week 2: The Type/Token Theory and Platonism in Music Wolterstorff, Nicholas. Works and Worlds of Art , chapter 2. Levinson, Jerrold. 'What a Musical Work Is'. Dodd, Julian. Works of Music: An Essay in Ontology , chapters 2–5. Kivy, Peter. 'Platonism in Music: A Kind of Defence.' Grazer Philosophische Studien 19 (1983): 109–29. Kivy, Peter. 'Platonism in Music: Another Kind of Defence.' American Philosophical Quarterly 24 (1987): 245–52. Predelli, Stefano. 'Against Musical Platonism.' British Journal of Aesthetics 35 (1995): 338–50. Caplan, Ben and Carl Matheson. 'Can a Musical Work be Created?' British Journal of Aesthetics 44 (2004): 113–34. Week 3: Musical Works as Indicated Structures Levinson, Jerrold. 'What a Musical Work Is'. Levinson, Jerrold. 'What a Musical Work Is, Again', in his Music, Art and Metaphysics . Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP, 1990. 215–63. Dodd, Julian. 'Musical Works as Eternal Types.' British Journal of Aesthetics 40 (2000). Davies, Stephen. Musical Works and Performances: A Philosophical Account , chapter 2. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. Howell, Robert. 'Types, Indicated and Initiated.' British Journal of Aesthetics 42 (2002): 105–27. Caplan, Ben and Carl Matheson. 'Fine Individuation.' British Journal of Aesthetics 47 (2007): 113–37. Week 4: Musical Work as Historical Individuals Rohrbaugh, Guy. 'Artworks as Historical Individuals'. Dodd, Julian. Works of Music: An Essay in Ontology , chapter 6. Caplan, Ben and Carl Matheson. 'Defending Musical Perdurantism.' British Journal of Aesthetics 46 (2006): 59–69. Caplan, Ben and Carl Matheson. 'Defending "Defending Musical Perdurantism".' British Journal of Aesthetics 48 (2008): 331–37. Week 5: Musical Works as Compositional Actions Currie, Gregory. An Ontology of Art . New York: St, Martin's Press, 1989. Davies, David. Art as Performance . Oxford: Blackwell, 2004. Dodd, Julian. Works of Music: An Essay in Ontology , chapter 7. Week 6: Meta-ontology of Music: What are we Doing When we do the Ontology of Music? Ridley, Aaron. 'Against Musical Ontology'. Thomasson, Amie. 'The Ontology of Art and Knowledge in Aesthetics'. Thomasson, Amie. Ordinary Objects , chapter 11. OUP, 2007. Davies, David. 'The Primacy of Practice in the Ontology of Art.' Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 67 (2009): 159–72. Kania, Andrew. 'Piece for the End of Time: In Defence of Musical Ontology,' British Journal of Aesthetics 48 (2008): 65–79. Kania, Andrew. 'The Methodology of Musical Ontology: Descriptivism and its Implications.' British Journal of Aesthetics 48 (2008): 426–44. Cameron, Ross. 'There are No Things That are Musical Works.' British Journal of Aesthetics 48 (2008): 295–314. Dodd, Julian. 'Musical Works: Ontology and Meta-Ontology.' Philosophy Compass 3/6 (2008): 1113–1134. doi: [DOI link] Focus Questions 1. Are musical works literally created by their composers? 2. Critically examine Levinson's thesis that musical works are 'indicated structures'. 3. What, if anything, is wrong with the thesis that musical works are identical just in case they sound exactly alike? 4. Should we immediately be sceptical of ontological proposals for works of music that are substantially revisionary of the way in which we ordinarily think of them? (shrink)

Decision-making under uncertainty is sometimes investigated as a homogeneous problem, independently of the type of decision-maker and the level and nature of the decision itself. However, when the decision-maker is a public authority, there immediately arise problems additional to those that concern any other (private) decision-maker. This is not always clearly recognised in orthodox discussions on decisions under conditions of uncertainty. This article investigates the methodological, strategic and procedural challenges of taking public decisions in such conditions. It focuses mainly on (...) decisions involving urban contexts, such as planning decisions regarding land use and building transformations, by trying to develop some pioneering research studies in this field. (shrink)

We extend de Finetti's No-Dutch-Book Criterion to Gödel infinite-valued propositional logic.

This essay presents an analysis of the conversational role of disambiguation, with special attention to disambiguating parentheticals such as 'bats, the furry animals, are not easy to find'. The essay proposes an enriched representation of conversational states as pairs of an interpretation function and standard common belief, it represents disambiguations within the ensuing framework, and, on the basis of these conceptual tools, it proposes a systematic picture of the updates achieved by disambiguating parentheticas.

This paper engages with Italo Calvino’s lecture on Visibility, included in his last—and testamentary—volume Six Memos, by understanding it in an educational and pedagogical key. While the question of pedagogy is expressly addressed by Calvino himself in his lecture, the interpretation here provided is not merely an application of his tenets but an elaboration on and an autonomous development of them. In particular, in the spotlight there is the intimate bond image-cum-writing which seems to preside over Calvino’s insights and is (...) here suggested as key to tackling the challenges of the contemporary mediascape and the “tautological vision” dominating therein. While a part of the educational discourse invokes “homeostatic” pedagogical solutions, namely the (ultimately confrontational) deployment of writing to compensate for the iconic ruling regime, this paper explores the possibility of a specific kind of visual education (instantiated by comics and Otto Neurath’s Isotype), which combines the role of the image with some features traditionally attributed to the pedagogy of writing (e.g. the cultivation of abilities of abstraction, of reflection etc.). A pedagogy of figuration is, accordingly, proposed as an interruption of the tautological vision of the new media and as conducive to educating readers of the unwritten world and of the world of digital images, Mr. Palomar—the hero of Calvino’s last novel—possibly being the archetype of this kind of (new?) readership. By referring to two influential notions in the contemporary debate in educational philosophy and theory, this pedagogy is finally interpreted in term of (visual) thing-centredness rather than (visual) subjectification. (shrink)

A long tradition, whose echo is still perceptible in some contemporary reflections, combines philosophy and melancholy, often indentifying melancholy as the beginning of philosophy. But rereading the Freud’s _Mourning and Melancholia_, the «circular insanity» shows two sides, depressive and maniac. Once the double nature of the «circular insanity» has been taken into consideration, it can be reiterated that melancholy is connected to philosophy not only with regard of its beginning but also to its (temporary) end, approached through Wittgenstein's reflection on (...) the miracle and the mystical as the extinction of the philosophical question. In this perspective, the whole cycle of philosophy, from its depressive beginning to its maniacal outcome, undergoes an aesthetic consideration, in which what is more important is the _how_ of experience rather than its _what_. Finally, the aesthetic point of view on the connection between melancholy and philosophy makes it possible to reconsider the very status of that research that presents itself as 'love of knowledge'. (shrink)

A relatively common approach in game studies understands gameworlds as constituting an existential situation for the player. Taking that stance, which is rooted in the European philosophical tradition of Existentialism, in this chapter we investigate the relationships and similarities between our existence within and without gameworlds. To do so, we first provide a review of existing literature in ‘existential ludology’ - work in game studies which considers our engagement with gameworlds from an existential perspective. In the second part of the (...) chapter, we then engage with some of the most notable ideas of the Norwegian philosopher Peter Wessel Zapffe. Zapffe understood human life as inherently meaningless and identified four ways in which human beings typically protect themselves from the existential panic that accompanies the awareness of that meaninglessness: isolation, anchoring, distraction, and sublimation. These four categories are used as the foundation for an examination of gameworlds as technologies for repressing existential panic. (shrink)

The proposed paper situates the question about the ‘success’ of the P4C program within the ‘what works’ debate which has taken place in the Anglo-American educational community over the last 15 years. Against this backdrop, the cultural significance of P4C is highlighted and a special focus is devoted to how P4C has changed (or should have changed) the practice of teaching. Finally, the P4C-oriented teaching of disciplines is indicated as a possible promising way out of the current educational predicament marked (...) by the detraditionalization and individualization of knowledge. (shrink)

L’obiettivo di questo articolo è di proporre una considerazione del fenomeno musicale non come oggetto ma come evento. La musica si allontana dall’ambito degli oggetti a partire dall’immissione del suono nel contesto musicale, in cui l’origine fisica delle vibrazioni perde rilevanza (Roger Scruton). La musica si presenta infatti come una concatenazione di eventi sonori retti da una logica autonoma; i nessi causali in base a cui i suoni trovano il proprio ordine costituiscono un mondo ideale, distinto dal mondo fisico, in (...) cui trovano spazio processi dinamici privi di qualunque polo oggettuale (Francis Wolff). A partire da un’idea di suono autonomo rispetto all’oggetto d’origine e dalla concezione dell’ambito musicale come un mondo di puri eventi sonori, si prende in esame la concezione del processo musicale come insieme di qualità sonore prive di sostrato, vale a dire di qualia senza sostanza (Antonia Soulez). In questa prospettiva è possibile proporre una desostanzializzazione dell’oggetto musicale che non implichi una posizione di scetticismo nei confronti della realtà del processo sonoro. L’evento musicale nasce piuttosto dalla complessa interazione tra materiale sonoro e forze provenienti dal mondo esterno (Pascale Criton). Considerato come evento e non come oggetto, il fenomeno musicale si sottrae all’indagine intorno al suo significato, pur mantenendo un profilo enigmatico dovuto alla duplice provenienza, umana e “mondana”, del suono. (shrink)

In this paper the question of note-taking is addressed in reference to a specific educational approach, that of the community of philosophical inquiry (CPI) in the tradition of Matthew Lipman and Ann Sharp’s Philosophy for Children (P4C). After emphasizing the pivotal role that this activity plays within a typical session of P4C, its specific status (in comparison with what happens in a classic lecture) is explored, insofar as it could be interpreted as a gesture distributed among and between the teacher (...) and the students. The argumentation is animated and sustained by three intimately interwoven questions: first, how can we construe note-taking in reference to the two philosophical-educational matrices (the Socratic-Platonic and the pragmatist) presiding over CPI? Secondly, who actually takes notes in a P4C session? Could we venture to say that it is CPI as an “intersubject”? And, thirdly, what is the status of the notes taken and written on the flip-chart as a text? Through the analyses developed, note-taking is interpreted as the ‘inscription’ of the co-philosophizing and a kind of self-writing and its significance for the emergence of CPI as such is shown. (shrink)

O artigo traduzido trata de discussões acerca do quinto elemento na obra De Philosophia, de Aristóteles. Aborda ainda a tradição do quinto elemento em filósofos posteriores, e apresenta instigantes hipóteses sobre o fato de Cícero ter ou não tido acesso a esta obra aristotélica. HAHM. David. E. The fifth element in Aristotle’s “De Philosophia”: a critical re-examination. The Journal of Hellenic Studies, vol. 102, November 1982, pp.60-74. https://doi.org/10.2307/631126. Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 October 2013 Os direitos autorais foram (...) comprados da Cambridge University Press, e o Prof. David Hahm autorizou a publicação da tradução. (shrink)

Nel presente paper, propongo un argomento kantiano per giustificare la necessità della coltivazione dell’empatia e il ruolo moralmente rilevante che essa può svolgere per l’agente una volta coltivata. Infatti, riferendosi al testo kantiano, è possibile mostrare che l’empatia è un sentimento insito nella natura umana e che orienta l’agente nel processo di deliberazione morale. Nonostante ciò, essa non può determinare direttamente la volontà dell’agente, ma deve essere vagliata criticamente dalla ragion pratica. Quest’ultima però non si limita a vagliare il sentimento; (...) essa può, e deve, coltivare l’empatia. L’empatia coltivata dalla ragion pratica svolge due ruoli moralmente rilevanti per la moralità dell’azione e la costituzione di un carattere morale: un ruolo motivazionale e uno epistemico. Infine, mostro come la concezione del processo di critica e coltivazione del sentimento proposta da Kant possa arricchire il dibattito non solo sulla necessità della regolazione delle emozioni, ma anche sulle tecniche di regolazione impiegabili. (shrink)

We axiomatize the notion of state over finitely generated free NM-algebras, the Lindenbaum algebras of pure Nilpotent Minimum logic. We show that states over the free n -generated NM-algebra exactly correspond to integrals of elements of with respect to Borel probability measures.

Gödel algebras form the locally finite variety of Heyting algebras satisfying the prelinearity axiom =. In 1969, Horn proved that a Heyting algebra is a Gödel algebra if and only if its set of prime filters partially ordered by reverse inclusion–i.e. its prime spectrum–is a forest. Our main result characterizes Gödel algebras that are free over some finite distributive lattice by an intrisic property of their spectral forest.

The distinction between a merely ‘rigidifying’ dthat and a directly-referential take on dthat-terms is well known, and is explicitly highlighted by Kaplan in Afterthoughts, his 1989 commentary on Demonstratives. What is not equally widely recognized is that Afterthoughts also oscillates between three different directly referential proposals. This essay discusses the semantic and philosophical implications of these different directly-referential interpretations of ‘dthat’, paying particular attention to the relationships between syntactic and propositional structure, the structure and makeup of contexts in the semantics (...) of indexical languages, the significance of context shifting devices and of so-called operators on character, and the aims and scope of propositional semantics. (shrink)

Orazio Ricasoli Rucellai is one of the leading eruditi of the second half of 17th-century Florence; he tried to keep alive Galileo’s contribution to science. Most of his Dialoghi filosofici have been published at the end of 19th century; among the unpublished dialogues dedicated to Timaeus we find a partial defence of Descartes’ metaphysics, which is edited in the Appendix. In particular, the topics at stake are the demonstration of God’s existence and of the immateriality of the soul in Descartes’s (...) Meditationes. The opponent of Descartes’s doctrine relies on Gassendi’s Obiectiones. Descartes’s doctrine of ideas completely detached from sense perception is dismissed as useless on a cognitive basis, and only a generic innatism is maintained, only as far as it can provide a proof of God’s imprint on human soul. (shrink)

Herbert Simon’s work presents a curious anomaly to the historian and philosopher trying to understand the development of classic Artificial Intelligence (AI). Simon was one of most influential figures in AI since its birth, and yet it is always with some difficulties that his work can be made to fit within the received canon of AI’s development and goals. In fact, he differed from every other figure in early AI on most counts: in terms of the recognized intellectual heritage of (...) AI, of his own background and training, of the goals he set for his own AI work and the assessment criteria he accepted. I will argue that these differences provide important clues toward a reevaluation of the relationship between Artificial Intelligence and Herbert Simon’s work that may change our current understanding of both. On the one hand, classic Artificial Intelligence (or Complex Information Processing, as Simon preferred to call it for a number of years), provided the tool he needed to pursue a much broader research agenda that strove to encompass human beings in their cognitive, emotional, social, and political dimensions. On the other hand, AI’s curious status as the discipline that straggles the boundaries between engineering, science, and philosophy can be recast as the tool that allowed researchers to pursue philosophy’s old goals with an alternative methodology. From this perspective, Simon’s version of Artificial Intelligence becomes a full-fledged form of ”anti-philosophy” as ambitious and broad-ranging as old-fashioned metaphysics and as revolutionary as the latter in the radical refashioning of its methodology. It follows that a philosophical assessment of AI, at in least in its Simonian incarnation, must be more farreaching than it is usually thought. At the methodological level, it must discuss whether AI’s invention of computer simulation as the tool that overcomes the a-priori/a-posteriori distinction by actually producing the behavior it wants to explain is really adequate to the job at hand.. (shrink)