Timothy Williamson contends that our primary cognitive heuristic for prospectively assessing conditionals, i.e., the suppositional procedure, is provably inconsistent. Our diagnosis is that stipulations about the nature of suppositional rejection are the likely source of these results. We show that on at least one alternative, and quite natural, understanding of the suppositional attitudes, the inconsistency results are blocked. The upshot is an increase in the reliability of our suppositional heuristics across a wider range of contexts. One interesting consequence of the (...) increased reliability is a proportional decrease in the plausibility of an error-theory that Williamson employs against widespread intuitions about the truth values of counterpossible conditionals. (shrink)

To believe that every single scientist ought to be individually engaged in ethical thinking in order for science to be responsible at a collective level may be too demanding, if not plainly unrealistic. In fact, ethical labor is typically distributed across different kinds of scientists within the scientific community. Based on the empirical data collected within the Horizon 2020 ‘RRI-Practice’ project, we propose a classification of the members of the scientific community depending on their engagement in this collective activity. Our (...) classification offers, on the one hand, a model of how the ethical aspects of science are taken into consideration by scientists and, on the other, some indications on how to institutionalize ethics in science. (shrink)

Lewis/Stalnaker semantics has it that all counterpossibles (i.e., counterfactual conditionals with impossible antecedents) are vacuously true. Non-vacuism, by contrast, says the truth-values of counterpossibles are affected by the truth-values of the consequents. Some counterpossibles are true, some false. Williamson objects to non-vacuism. He asks us to consider someone who answered ‘11’ to ‘What is 5 + 7?’ but who mistakenly believes that he answered ‘13’. For the non-vacuist, (1) is false, (2) true: (1) If 5 + 7 were 13, x (...) would have got that sum right (2) If 5 + 7 were 13, x would have got that sum wrong Williamson is not persuaded by the initial intuitiveness of such examples: ... they tend to fall apart when thought through. For example, if 5 + 7 were 13 then 5 + 6 would be 12, and so (by another eleven steps) 0 would be 1, so if the number of right answers I gave were 0, the number of right answers I gave would be 1. (2006) That’s the whole argument—much of it implicit. Alan Baker’s critique (2007) of Brogaard and Salerno (2007) prompts us to say something less abbreviated about a less abbreviated form of Wiliamson’s argument. Then we further develop our (2007) counterfactual analysis of essense. (shrink)

Thomas Kuhn (1922-1996) is widely considered as one of the most important philosophers of science of the 20th century, while his The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (SSR) is regarded as one of the most influential works in the philosophy ofscience. At the same time, however, his place within philosophy of science remains ambiguous. On the one hand, despite the popularity of SSR, there is no proper ‘Kuhnian school of thought’ in HPS. On the other hand, the interest towards Kuhn does (...) not seem to fade away and the number of publications about his work does not seem to decrease. We suggest that there are at least three different ways to go ‘beyond SSR’: (i) by scrutinising the development of Kuhn’s thought, from his pre- to his post-SSR writings; (ii) by contextualising Kuhn in the philosophical milieu of his time, thus interpreting his view as emerging from the intellectual exchanges he had with contemporary philosophers; (iii) by reinterpreting and developing some of his most known ideas, in ways that perhaps Kuhn himself was not able to contemplate. (shrink)

This article examines a complex passage of Aristotle's Physics in which a Pythagorean doctrine is explained by means of a mathematical example involving gnomons. The traditional interpretation of this passage (proposed by Milhaud and Burnet) has recently been challenged by Ugaglia and Acerbi, who have proposed a new one. The aim of this article is to analyse difficulties in their account and to advance a new interpretation. All attempts at interpreting the passage so far have assumed that ‘gnomons’ should indicate (...) ‘odd numbers’. In this article it is argued that the usage of ‘gnomon’ related to polygonal numbers, which is normally considered late, could be backdated to at least the fifth/fourth centuries b.c.; in particular, it explains the link between the philosophical explanandum and the mathematical explanans in Aristotle's passage. (shrink)

Michael Dummett’s realism debate is a semantic dispute about the kind of truth conditions had by a given class of sentences. According to his semantic realist, the truth conditions are potentially verification-transcendent in that they may obtain (or not) despite the fact that we may be forever unable to recognize whether they obtain. According to Dummett’s semantic anti-realist, the truth conditions are of a different sort. Essentially, for the anti-realist, that the truth conditions obtain (whenever they do) is a matter (...) that is always recognizable by us in principle. On this view, truth cannot outrun all possible human knowledge. Unsurprisingly, the outcome of the debate is sometimes said to hinge on whether all truths are knowable.1 More carefully the point of contention is the following.. (shrink)

Starting from the 13th century, the question of defining theology as a science gained prominence within a new epistemological reflection on the discipline. It has been hypothesized that the availability of new translations of Aristotelian works significantly contributed to the growing interest among theologians in the theory of science. One of the most prominent intellectuals who recognized the necessity of defining theology as a science and outlining its boundaries and investigative methods in relation to other disciplines, was Albert the Great (...) (d. 1280). Numerous studies have been dedicated to exploring Albert’s treatment of this subject since the 1930s. However, little to no attention has been given to the role played by Arabic sources, particularly the works of Avicenna (Ibn Sīnā, d. 1037), the philosopher and polymath of Persian origin, in shaping Albert’s own definition of theology as a science. This contribution concentrates on the analysis of a section of the Summa Theologiae (Treatise I, quaestio V, chapter 3), with particular emphasis on the ‘translation’ of the logical-argumentative method from its domain of application in scientific and philosophical research to the branch of theology dedicated to safeguarding Christian doctrine against the criticisms and the attacks of heretics. The aim is to analyze how Albert accomplished this translation of the method of inquiry by drawing parallels between the defence of the principles of philosophical inquiry, which is a primary concern of metaphysics, and the defence of the articles of faith in theology. It is by reconciling sources from both the Christian and the Arabo-Islamic traditions that Albert claims the use of a form of dialectic argumentation within theology. (shrink)

In “Reliabilism Leveled” Jonathan Vogel (2000) provides a strong case against epistemic theories that stress the importance of tracking/sensitivity conditions. A tracking/sensitivity condition is to be understood as some version of the following counterfactual: (T) ~p oÆ ~Bp (T) says that s would not believe p, if p were false. Among other things, tracking is supposed to express the external relation that explains why some justified true beliefs are not knowledge. Champions of the condition include Robert Nozick (1981) and, more (...) recently, Keith DeRose (1995). To my knowledge, the earliest formulation of the counterfactual condition is found in Fred Dretske’s conclusive reasons condition (1971), which says, s would not have had the reason that she does for believing p, if p were false. Vogel contends that any such counterfactual condition on knowledge will render the theory of knowledge too strong. He believes that there is at least some possible reflective knowledge that cannot satisfy the counterfactual--viz., the possible knowledge that one does not believe falsely that p. The alleged impossibility of such reflective knowledge is taken by Vogel to be a decisive objection to the tracking theories advocated by Dretske, Nozick, DeRose1 and others. The criticism finds its roots in Vogel’s earlier work (1987), and recurs in papers by Ernest Sosa (2002, 1996). Sosa suggests that the externalist idea behind tracking is on target, but that Nozick’s counterfactual is a misbegotten regimentation of the idea. In its place Sosa offers his own counterfactual “safety” condition, which he feels properly captures the externalist idea. Sosa’s counterfactual is not the topic of this paper. I mention it only to point out that the criticism that constitutes the subject of my investigation is meant to do a lot of work. In Sosa’s 1 case the criticism is meant to motivate his own counterfactual analysis, and in Vogel’s case the criticism promises to be a silver bullet against a theory that has recently found renewed life in the work of Keith DeRose.. (shrink)

The paper examines the logic of the knowability paradox and a structural analogue, a new paradox of happiness. We develop a general understanding of what it is to be a Fitch paradox, and follow a natural thread in the literature that attempts to block or resolve Fitch paradoxes. We conclude that, in the case of the attitude of happiness, the new paradox remains even if one finds the knowability analogue non-threatening.

El trabajo muestra cómo algunos representantes de la ética filosófica contemporánea no han salvado las dificultades que inauguró el imperativo categórico kantiano, derivando en una unilateralización de los principios de individualización o de universalización. Que esto es así, y que puede ser corregido sin excluir o postergar ninguno de esas exigencias es un aporte relevante de la “ética convergente” desarrollada por el filósofo argentino Ricardo Maliandi. En este escrito reconstruyo aspectos fundamentales de aquellas dificultades y de este programa de investigación (...) desde la perspectiva de la consideración antagónica de lo individual y lo universal. Se verá que esta oposición es, para Maliandi, sólo un aspecto de la conflictividad del ethos, y de qué modo su esclarecimiento se alcanza mostrando, por medio de un recurso novedoso en el análisis ético, que los principios no sólo chocan entre ellos, sino que también se oponen a otros sentidos que le son inherentes en lo que ordenan. El trabajo finaliza con una valoración personal acerca del aporte realizado por la ética convergente. (shrink)

This book presents a systematic exploration of the subjective experience, keeping the investigation for the most part within a subjective first person perspective through the use of “vignettes” as sources of data. It also uses incorporates a ‘"third person” objective approach when that is relevant. The goal of Journeys in the Mind is to capture and convey the operations of the mind: both the shared blueprints common to the elaboration of subjective knowledge as well as the immense fishnet of personalized (...) variables that operate in each mental phase-space and act upon the blueprints to continuously recategorize them into sets of coherent, dynamic outcomes, or mental landscapes. Dr. Sanguineti's meditative perspective holds the promise to enrich the way we understand the workings of the human mind. (shrink)

In his late years, Thomas Kuhn became interested in the process of scientific specialization, which does not seem to possess the destructive element that is characteristic of scientific revolutions. It therefore makes sense to investigate whether and how Kuhn’s insights about specialization are consistent with, and actually fit, his model of scientific progress through revolutions. In this paper, I argue that the transition toward a new specialty corresponds to a revolutionary change for the group of scientists involved in such a (...) transition. I will clarify the role of the scientific community in revolutionary changes and characterize the incommensurability across specialties as possessing both semantic and methodological aspects. The discussion of the discovery of the structure of DNA will serve both as an illustration of my main argument and as reply to one criticism raised against Kuhn—namely, that his model cannot capture cases of revolutionary yet non-disruptive episodes of scientific progress. Revisiting Kuhn’s ideas on specialization will shed new light on some often overlooked features of scientific change. (shrink)

This collection assembles Church's referee reports, Fitch's 1963 paper, and nineteen new papers on the knowability paradox.

In this paper, I present two crucial problems for Wolff’s metaphysics of quantities: 1) The structural identification problem and 2) the Pythagorean problem. The former is the problem of uniquely defining a general algebraic structure for all quantities; the latter is the problem of distinguishing physical quantitative structure from mathematical quantities. While Wolff seems to have a consistent and elegant solution to the first problem, the second problem may put in jeopardy his metaphysical view on quantities as spaces. After drawing (...) a parallelism between Wolff’s treatment of quantitative structures and Frege’s conception of quantitative domain, I propose a solution to the Pythagorean problem based on the idea that mathematical structures are the result of applying an abstraction principle on physical quantitative structures. In particular, I propose the view that abstraction may be seen as the operation of structure determination which transforms concrete physical quantities (i.e. undetermined structures) into abstract mathematical quantities (fully determined structures of thin and shallow objects). Keywords: Metaphysics of Quantities, Abstraction Principles, Locationism. (shrink)

In the multidisciplinary field of memory studies, remembering and forgetting have mainly been analyzed following two ideal-typical models: memory-as-containment (exemplified by the notions of framework and site of memory) and memory-as-flow (epitomized by the notions of afterlife and mnemohistory). These two models are often presented as mutually exclusive and counterposed. Yet, in linking past with present, and when connecting different spaces and generations, memory is always the result of circulation (flow) as well as of local semiotic conditions of production and (...) use (containment). By investigating memory-making and oblivion-making in processes of interpretation, the semiotic perspective elaborated by Umberto Eco allows us to envision memory-as-containment and memory-as-flow in a combined analysis, where the twofold conception of memory – either as movement or as form – merges. The aim of this article is, then, to provide an interpretative theory of memory, and to identify and describe the methodological tools capable of implementing such an approach. The memory of the former Italian concentration camp of Fossoli will serve as an exemplary and illustrative case study. (shrink)

The conjunction fallacy has been a key topic in debates on the rationality of human reasoning and its limitations. Despite extensive inquiry, however, the attempt of providing a satisfactory account of the phenomenon has proven challenging. Here, we elaborate the suggestion (first discussed by Sides et al., 2001) that in standard conjunction problems the fallacious probability judgments experimentally observed are typically guided by sound assessments of confirmation relations, meant in terms of contemporary Bayesian confirmation theory. Our main formal result is (...) a confirmation-theoretic account of the conjuntion fallacy which is proven robust (i.e., not depending on various alternative ways of measuring degrees of confirmation). The proposed analysis is shown distinct from contentions that the conjunction effect is in fact not a fallacy and is compared with major competing explanations of the phenomenon, including earlier references to a confirmation-theoretic account. (shrink)

This essay analyzes the work of Paolo Prodi (1932–2016), which is characterised by a constant reflection on secularisation. As a democratic Catholic, he explored the relationship between the Roman Church and the modern world starting from the Council of Trent and from the dual figure of the pope as a temporal ruler and spiritual guide. His original contribution concerned the conflict between law and conscience: a problem that led him to design a triptych of books on the foundations of the (...) western world. He was influenced not only by Verfassungsgeschichte (German constitutional history), but also by Harold Berman. If for Weber the modern world was born from the Reformation, for Berman it was the ‘Gregorian revolution’ that changed the fate of Latin Europe. For Prodi, too, the medieval conflict between canon and civil law introduced a peculiar structure in Europe that would last until the triumph of the nation states and the so-called ‘political religions’. In his three books (the first dedicated to the oath, the second to justice, the last to economics), Prodi placed at the centre of his analysis the notion of forum; the history of moral theology and casuistry and the relationship between penitence and justice. (shrink)

We offer a proof of the duality theorem for finitely presented MV-algebras and rational polyhedra, a folklore and yet fundamental result. Our approach develops first a general dual adjunction between MV-algebras and subspaces of Tychonoff cubes, endowed with the transformations that are definable in the language of MV-algebras. We then show that this dual adjunction restricts to a duality between semisimple MV-algebras and closed subspaces of Tychonoff cubes. The duality theorem for finitely presented objects is obtained by a further specialisation. (...) Our treatment is aimed at showing exactly which parts of the basic theory of MV-algebras are needed in order to establish these results, with an eye towards future generalisations. (shrink)

There is a growing concern for the proper role of science within democratic societies, which has led to the development of new science policies for the implementation of social responsibility in research. Although the very expression ‘social responsibility of science’ may be interpreted in different ways, many of these emerging policy frameworks define it, at least in part, as a form of anticipative reflection about the potential impacts of research in society. What remains a rather under-discussed issue is the definition (...) of the bearer of the social responsibility of science. In other words, it is not clear who is supposed to engage in such an anticipative reflection, whether individual researchers or research groups. In the past few years, philosophers of science have begun to use qualitative research methods to fill the gaps between normative models of the organisation of ideal scientific communities and the reality of actual scientific practices. In this article, I follow this approach to discuss the issue of the collective dimension of the social responsibility of science. I rely on a qualitative study conducted on an interdisciplinary research group and I describe how group dynamics position individuals and distribute duties and roles, including social responsibility. Qualitative descriptions of the distribution of duties within actual research groups should inform the formulation of general prescriptive theories on the collective responsibility of science. (shrink)

Both in the bibliography and in the citation in the text, Michelle Gibbons’ article below has been mistakenly attributed to “Gibson.” The proper reference to the article should be: Gibbons, M.. Reassessing discovery: Rosalind Franklin, scientific visualization, and the structure of DNA. _Philosophy of Science, 79_, 63–80.

En dépit de ce que le titre semble en première lecture suggérer, le livre d’Aurélien Robert (= A. R.), Épicure aux Enfers, est moins la reconstruction d’une damnation, que l’histoire d’un dédoublement : le constat initial procède de la scission entre la dimension historique d’Épicure, sa pensée -essentiellement eudémonique- et l’image injustifiée d’athée et hédoniste qui a connu un large succès au Moyen Âge et a, pendant longtemps, effacé son profil historique pour se substituer à lui. Le liv...

Quest'opera fa parte di un più vasto lavoro di ricerca sul neo-idealismo italiano in rapporto alla politica. Il titolo - filosofia e politica - è di per sé significativo: sta a indicare chiaramente la direzione e il tipo dell'indagine, che non è empirica ma trascendentale, non riguarda cioè la dottrina politica e le scelte pratiche di Croce, staccate dall'organismo del pensiero in cui s'incorporano e analizzate alla luce di alcune categorie, magari psicologiche e sociologiche; ma riguarda i presupposti teoretici che (...) stanno a fondamento di quella dottrina e di quelle scelte. Scartato, perché fuorviante, il metodo di quelle due «false scienze» che sono la psicologia e la sociologia, l'Autore ha tentato un discorso schiettamente filosofico, che è poi discorso di fondazione e di deduzione. Per questo è stato necessario procedere a una lettura integrale di Croce, avendo in una mano l'esperienza dei «testi» e nell'altra quella categoria della «totalità», che è più facile da invocare che da impiegare. Ma è stato necessario anche dare al lavoro un «taglio» particolare, in modo da evitare le semplificazioni eccessive e le sintesi sommarie, per andare direttamente al cuore dei problemi. L'impostazione metodologica ha richiesto da una parte l'adesione all'universo spirituale dell'autore studiato, e dall'altra l'obiettivo distaccato scientifico: due condizioni fondamentali, queste, che solo in apparenza si escludono, perché in realtà si conciliano riassumendosi nel concetto di «critica interna». DAL TESTO - "A ragione Croce afferma che il liberalismo è grandemente debitore all'estetica e alla filosofia dell'economia che hanno asserito la spiritualità del corpo, l'interiorità dell'oggetto nel soggetto, sì che il suo destino è legato a quelle due scienze che unificando Dio e mondo, idea e fatto, garantiscono, contro ogni disposizione autoritaria, la spontaneità e i contrasti delle forze spirituali; e a ragione afferma che l'autoritarismo politico e morale si congiunge a tutte quelle concezioni che hanno un riferimento trascendente e oltremondano. (da Archiviostorico.info). Ristampa del libro edito da Bulzoni, nel 1976. (shrink)

Important ideas that helped shape 20th-century thought--ideas which continue to hold great significance for anyone interested in the social world--are made ...

Interaction mining is about discovering and extracting insightful information from digital conversations, namely those human?human information exchanges mediated by digital network technology. We present in this article a computational model of natural arguments and its implementation for the automatic argumentative analysis of digital conversations, which allows us to produce relevant information to build interaction business analytics applications overcoming the limitations of standard text mining and information retrieval technology. Applications include advanced visualisations and abstractive summaries.

En el presente trabajo caracterizo operativamente el pensar temprano de Heidegger como una “filosofía de la intersubjetividad”. Esto me permite habilitar un contraste de su aporte frente a lo que define como “metafísica de la subjetividad”: se trata de un horizonte filosófico que Heidegger critica, y que en este trabajo reconstruyo prestando especial atención a la fenomenología de Husserl. Este cotejo puede llevarse a cabo circunscribiendo el programa ontológico-hermenéutico de _Ser y tiempo_ a los términos del estudio preparatorio que antecede (...) a la pregunta por el ser, y de comprenderlo como una analítica de la coexistencia. (shrink)

Epistemic modals in consequent place of indicative conditionals give rise to apparent counterexamples to Modus Ponens and Modus Tollens. Familiar assumptions of fa- miliar truth conditional theories of modality facilitate a prima facie explanation—viz., that the target cases harbor epistemic modal equivocations. However, these explana- tions go too far. For they foster other predictions of equivocation in places where in fact there are no equivocations. It is argued here that the key to the solution is to drop the assumption that (...) modal claims are inherently relational (i.e., that they ex- press a logical relation between a prejacent and a premise-set) in favor of a view that treats them as inherently quantificational. In particular it is suggested that modals are mass noun descriptions of information. We demonstrate how this approach unlocks the equivocation problem. (shrink)

Since the publication of David Lewis’ Counterfactuals, the standard line on subjunctive conditionals with impossible antecedents (or counterpossibles) has been that they are vacuously true. That is, a conditional of the form ‘If p were the case, q would be the case’ is trivially true whenever the antecedent, p, is impossible. The primary justification is that Lewis’ semantics best approximates the English subjunctive conditional, and that a vacuous treatment of counterpossibles is a consequence of that very elegant theory. Another justification (...) derives from the classical lore than if an impossibility were true, then anything goes. In this paper we defend non-vacuism, the view that counterpossibles are sometimes non-vacuously true and sometimes non-vacuously false. We do so while retaining a Lewisian semantics, which is to say, the approach we favor does not require us to abandon classical logic or a similarity semantics. It does however require us to countenance impossible worlds. An impossible worlds treatment of counterpossibles is suggested (but not defended) by Lewis (Counterfactuals. Blackwell, Oxford, 1973), and developed by Nolan (Notre Dame J Formal Logic 38:325–527, 1997), Kment (Mind 115:261–310, 2006a: Philos Perspect 20:237–302, 2006b), and Vander Laan (In: Jackson F, Priest G (eds) Lewisian themes. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2004). We follow this tradition, and develop an account of comparative similarity for impossible worlds. (shrink)

A primary challenge from the relativist to the contextualist about epistemic modals is to explain eavesdropping data—i.e., why the eavesdropper is inclined to judge the speaker as having uttered an epistemic modal falsehood (when she is so inclined), even though the speaker’s utterance is true according to reasonable contextualist truth conditions. The issue turns in large part on the strength and shape of the data, both of which are in dispute. One complaint is that an eavesdropper’s truth value judgments fluctuate (...) with variations of non- epistemic fact (even after the relevant epistemic/information states are determined). The project here is to strengthen and reframe this complaint in a debate-neutral way, and to show how a sober contextualism can uniformly accommodate it and the standard eavesdropping data. Along the way we reject John Hawthorne’s danger-theoretic explanation of these subtleties. (shrink)

Some debates about the role of non-epistemic values in science discuss the so-called Value-Free Ideal together with the autonomy thesis, to the point that they may be assumed to be intertwined. As I will argue in this article, the two are independent from one another, are supported by different arguments, and ought to be disentangled. I will also show that the arguments against value-freedom and supporting a value-laden conception of science, are different from the arguments against autonomy and supporting democratized (...) science. Moreover, while some of the arguments against autonomy and for democratized science may actually be consistent with value-freedom, they conflict with some philosophical views about the internal diversity of well-designed epistemic communities. This article distinguishes the Value-Free Ideal and the autonomy thesis, as well as their antitheses, and investigates their relations to some of the socio-epistemological models of the social organization of scientific research. Its aim is to make explicit some incompatibilities between different normative frameworks developed in philosophy of science. (shrink)