This volume contains the first modern commentary to Boethius's last logical monograph entitled 'De topicis differentiis', his most original work written around 522 A.D., just before the incarceration and death of the Roman philosopher. His textbook aims at providing a method for the discovery of arguments, that is an art that teaches how to solve any kind of question through the use of the topics, litteraly 'places' of our mind able to produce arguments subsequently developed into argumentations. Boethius inherited this (...) teaching from two different traditions, the Greek and Latin. In light of the differences found in them, the Roman scholar undertook the writing of the 'De topicis differentiis' precisely in order to show the possible way of reconciling these two philosophical traditions. In this way Boethius was able to disseminate a unified vision of this matter to the Latin world, restoring the centrality that the Topics had in the Aristotelian Logic and restoring their noblest function, that of being instruments at the service of the search for Truth. Finally, he also provided the list of the rhetorical topics by showing the differences with dialectical topics. This study provides a full reconstruction of the structure of the Boethian work, retraces and evaluates the sources, investigates the implications, and explains why the 'De topicis differentiis' remains a foundational work for anyone who wants to understand the development of European Logic through the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. (shrink)

El propósito de este estudio es el de centrar la atención sobre la coexistencia, en el curso de la transmisión de la doctrina de los _loci _en el Alto Medioevo de dos interpretaciones, las cuales, aunque surjan ambas de un comentario a los _Topica _de Cicerón, han originado una diversa, aunque notable flexión interpretativa del texto ciceroniano: el primer comentario realizado por Mario Victorino, el cual concibió los _loci _casi exclusivamente al servicio de la Retórica, el segundo llevado a cabo (...) por Boecio quien, por su parte, intentó restaurar la centralidad que los _Topica _tuvieron en la lógica aristotélica, subordinando los _loci _retóricos a los _loci _dialécticos. Mi conclusión es que la Alta Edad Media puede ser considerada con justa razón desde un punto de vista epistemológico como una larga _boetiana aetas_. Aunque el _corpus _de los escritos de lógica boeciana no estuviera disponible sino hasta la segunda mitad del siglo XI, Boecio de algún modo continuó sosteniendo con su impostación de método el esqueleto de la nueva estructura especulativo-teológica. (shrink)

The way people make career choices is often influenced by their idea of work. Alongside this concept, there is the idea of decent work, which takes the form of the opportunity, for men and women, to have productive, equal, safe, and rights-based work. We have conducted a study on these two concepts with a group of Italian adolescents, using both quantitative and qualitative methods. We found that most of the participants consider work as a means to obtain economic benefits and (...) satisfy certain values, and decent work as characterized by the respect for rights and duties and economic benefits; a part of the participants fails in giving a definition of decent work or gives a negative definition of it. We deepened the study through quantitative analyses that revealed that those who have a more complex view of work and decent work also have higher levels of self-efficacy and career adaptability. These findings are discussed in the light of previous research and from a perspective that intends to give a contribution to career counseling practices. (shrink)

The article presents some critical remarks on the recent book by Sabino Chialà: La perla dai molti riflessi. La lettura della Scrittura nei padri siriaci, Magnano 2014.

The standard approach to treatment decision making for incapacitated patients often fails to provide treatment consistent with the patient’s preferences and values and places significant stress on surrogate decision makers. These shortcomings provide compelling reason to search for methods to improve current practice. Shared decision making between surrogates and clinicians has important advantages, but it does not provide a way to determine patients’ treatment preferences. Hence, shared decision making leaves families with the stressful challenge of identifying the patient’s preferred treatment (...) option. To address this concern, the present paper proposes to incorporate the use of a “Patient Preference Predictor” (PPP) into the shared decision-making process between surrogates and clinicians. A PPP would predict which treatment option a given incapacitated patient would most likely prefer, based on the individual’s characteristics and information on what treatment preferences are correlated with these characteristics. Use of a PPP is likely to increase the chances that incapacitated patients are treated consistent with their preferences and values and might reduce the stress and burden on their surrogates. Including a PPP in the shared decision-making process therefore has the potential to realize important ethical goals for making treatment decisions for incapacitated patients. The present paper justifies this approach on conceptual and normative grounds. (shrink)

Anthony Price's recent book presents a contextualist approach to practical rationality. Price develops his proposal in four chapters. In the first one , he outlines a contextual account of the validity of practical inferences. This chapter deals with logicism. Logicism assumes that ‘there is a form of rationality within practical thinking that connects with the logical validity of a practical entailment’ . Price argues that although the principles of logic are ‘invariant and universal’ , their relevance in evaluating a practical (...) inference is constrained by contextual factors related to the teleology of practical thinking and by the functional role of intentions in guiding our behaviour.In the second chapter , Price argues that the content of A's remark to B – ‘I must put in another 20p’, while both stand together on an underground platform in front of a dispenser – must be interpreted contextually, i.e. as referring to a particular end of A for which she needs to put in …. (shrink)

With the past and future tense propositional operators in its syntax, a formal logical system for sortal quantifiers, sortal identity and (second order) quantification over sortal concepts is formulated. A completeness proof for the system is constructed and its absolute consistency proved. The completeness proof is given relative to a notion of logical validity provided by an intensional semantic system, which assumes an approach to sortals from a modern form of conceptualism.

Work in the setting of the recursively enumerable sets and their Turing degrees. A set X is low if X', its Turning jump, is recursive in $\varnothing'$ and high if X' computes $\varnothing''$ . Attempting to find a property between being low and being recursive, Bickford and Mills produced the following definition. W is deep, if for each recursively enumerable set A, the jump of $A \bigoplus W$ is recursive in the jump of A. We prove that there are no (...) deep degrees other than the recursive one. Given a set W, we enumerate a set A and approximate its jump. The construction of A is governed by strategies, indexed by the Turning functionals Φ. Simplifying the situation, a typical strategy converts a failure to recursively compute W into a constraint on the enumeration of A, so that $(W \bigoplus A)'$ is forced to disagree with Φ(-; A'). The conversion has some ambiguity; in particular, A cannot be found uniformly from W. We also show that there is a "moderately" deep degree: There is a low nonzero degree whose join with any other low degree is not high. (shrink)