What is depiction? This is a venerable question that has received many different answers throughout the whole history of philosophy, especially in contemporary times. A Syncretistic Theory of Depiction elaborates a new account on this matter by providing a theory of depiction that tries to combine the merits of the previous theories while dropping their defects. It is argued that a picture is a representation in a pictorial or figurative mode, and its 'figurativity' is given by a special perception, perceiving-in, (...) whose nature is reconceived. Such a perception inter alia grasps some properties which the picture's vehicle has in common with what is perceived in it; by so doing, that perception provides the picture with a figurative content. In contrast, the picture's representational value, its subject or its pictorial content, is given by a conventionally or causally based selection out of that figurative content. (shrink)

This essay introduces and defends Emilio Uranga's philosophical intervention in his 1952 text, Análisis del ser del mexicano. Here, to begin with, a case is made that the Análisis can be read as an effort at decolonizing philosophy. This is followed by a consideration of recent criticisms of “la filosofía de lo mexicano,” which naturally extend to Uranga's text, since this is the philosophical tradition in which we find it. Finally, a defense is given against these critiques and a suggestion (...) is made that in order to properly understand the Análisis it is crucial that one understand both its liberatory impulse and its method. (shrink)

Since March 14, 2020, Spanish citizens have been confined to their homes due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Participating in musical activities has been associated with reduced anxiety and increased subjective wellbeing. The aim of this study is to analyze how Spanish citizens used music during the lockdown period. We also study perceptions of the impact music has in everyday life, in particular examining the respondents’ insights into the effects of listening to music in situations of isolation. The (...) study was conducted using the MUSIVID19 questionnaire administered to a total of 1868 Spanish citizens. The results indicate that during lockdown, respondents perceived an increase in the time they devoted to musical activities such as listening, singing, dancing or playing an instrument. The participants also reported using music to cope with the lockdown, finding that it helped them to relax, escape, raise their mood or keep them company. The findings suggest an improvement in their perception of the value of music in personal and social wellbeing during the lockdown. However, the study reveals significant differences in the use and perceptions of music according to respondents’ personal situations. Age and feelings of vulnerability may lead to more conservative uses of musical practice and to more moderate perceptions of the positive values of music. (shrink)

1. La trasformazione dei principi di legittimazione degli ordinamenti giuridici contemporanei -- 2. I mutamenti nel sistema giuridico -- 3. Analisi del linguaggio giuridico, legistica e legimatica -- 4. I diritti difficili nel sistema giuridico.

We provide ethical criteria to establish when vaccine mandates for healthcare workers are ethically justifiable. The relevant criteria are the utility of the vaccine for healthcare workers, the utility for patients (both in terms of prevention of transmission of infection and reduction in staff shortage), and the existence of less restrictive alternatives that can achieve comparable benefits. Healthcare workers have professional obligations to promote the interests of patients that entail exposure to greater risks or infringement of autonomy than ordinary members (...) of the public. Thus, we argue that when vaccine mandates are justified on the basis of these criteria, they are not unfairly discriminatory and the level of coercion they involve is ethically acceptable—and indeed comparable to that already accepted in healthcare employment contracts. Such mandates might be justified even when general population mandates are not. Our conclusion is that, given current evidence, those ethical criteria justify mandates for influenza vaccination, but not COVID-19 vaccination, for healthcare workers. We extend our arguments to other vaccines. (shrink)

Within the general framework of the theory of direct reference, there is no agreement as to whether unactualised possible objects (from now on, possibilia) can be referred to by means of directly referential singular terms (from now on, DR terms). While some have maintained that such a direct reference can be established e.g. via some fixing-reference description (Kaplan, Salmon, and perhaps Kripke himself), others have denied any such possibility. In what follows, I will scrutinise such denials by attempting at the (...) same time to provide some counterarguments to them. Indeed, I believe that possibilia can be referred to directly, primarily if the appropriate fixing-reference description is provided. (shrink)

La democracia hizo que los sentados a la mesa fuésemos más. Que pudiéramos tener mejores productos y más cocineros. Que el sabor no tuviese que pedir permiso para poder viajar. Que los aromas no fuesen detenidos por alcabalas ni en aduanas. Con la libertad se come mejor. La posibilidad de escoger se agranda hasta volverse casi infinita. La presencia de la democracia, y también su ausencia y restricciones, se observan no sólo en la calle y en la prensa sino también (...) y mejor en la mesa cotidiana. La libertad se olfatea, se bebe y se mastica. La democracia en la mesa tiene también su precio. Los malos, el engaño y la especulación forman parte del proceso. Saber escoger implica saber vivir. Table and FreedomDemocracy increased the number of those sitting at the table. It made possible for us to have better products and more cooks; for flavor not to ask for permission to be able to travel around; for aromas not to be detained by checkpoints or customs. With freedom one eats better. The possibility to choose grows larger, ultimately becoming almost infinite. The presence of democracy, and also its absence and restrictions, can be noticed not also in the street and the press, but also, and in a better fashion, at the ordinary table. Freedom can be smelled, drunk and chewed. Democracy at the table also has its price. The delinquents, deceit and speculation are part of the process. The art of choosing entails knowing the art of living. (shrink)

The decisive inquiry into the volatile link between philosophy, revolution, and the 'radical' is arguably Marx's 'A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right: An Introduction', written in 1843. We can still find all these themes introduced by Marx at work 80 years later in an emblematic and instructive confrontation between Georg Lukács and Ernst Bloch. Where Lukács presents the proletariat as the practical and epistemological 'Archimedean point' capable of unhinging the capitalist totality, Bloch reveals in a subjective (...) metahistory of a utopian kernel whose drive and directionality – despite all of the changes in instruments, organisations, and motivating ideologies – remains invariant from the Taborites to the Bolsheviks. To borrow Lukács's formulation, we are thus confronted with two potent, and alternative ways, to politically and conceptually grasp the statement that man 'both is and at the same time is not', or, in Blochian terms, both is and is not-yet. This antinomy signified by the names and texts of Lukács and Bloch is visible in the insistence of contemporary radical thought on the enigmas of philosophical anthropology, the political repercussions of messianism, and the possibility of a rational and partisan subjectivity. (shrink)

In this paper I want to hold that Wittgenstein’s later position on qualitative states, which sees them as triplets made out of three necessary components - stimulus, qualitative element and manifestability - allows for supervenience of such states over physical ones. Insofar as this is the case, such a position is more akin to naturalism that the one that has been recently defended by Kim, who allows for merely partial supervenience of qualia over physical states. Moreover, Wittgenstein’s conception stems out (...) of a critical refinement of ideas he held in the mid-Thirties and that were developed by Schlick. Insofar as Schlick’s development is the recognized ancestor of Kim’s latest stance on qualia, one may take Wittgenstein’s later theses on qualia as a possible refinement in a naturalist direction of Kim’s own conception. (shrink)

Johannes Müller von Königsberg (1436-1476), better known as Regiomontanus, is widely considered as the most influential astronomer and mathematician of 15th-century Europe. He was active as an astrologer and deemed astrology to be the queen of mathematical sciences. Despite this, Regiomontanus's astrological activity has yet to be fully explored. A brief examination of Regiomontanus's manuscripts shows that his astrological interests were accompanied by interests in the arts and in methods of prognostication. This article studies an unconventional astrological-chiromantical text, whose relevance (...) is threefold: a) it sheds new light on Regiomontanus's astrological interests; b) it enriches our knowledge of Regiomontanus's efforts to learn and understand Greek-Regiomontanus transcribed it into his own manuscript during his sojourn in Italy from 1460-1467; and c) it is the sole extant text in the Greek tradition that provides a system for prognostication from the study of a person's hand, the parts of which are considered as being under the domain of planets. The article provides an English translation of Regiomontanus's transcription, alongside a brief commentary, and studies the intellectual and historical context of that production through manuscript analysis. (shrink)

The fierce debates surrounding the 'emergence' of Muslim communities in Europe ensued in the resurgence of nationalism. The current article introduces an original criticism to the ongoing debates surrounding the return of Europe's national pride. This article suggests that Muslim demands for freedom of religion that were founded in Islamic theological perspectives, have catalyzed the restriction of liberal universalistic perspectives to such freedoms. In this study I present how such demands facilitated the advancement of a newly crafted liberal form of (...) nationalism, best identified in Europe's progressing limitation of the right of freedom of religion in various European nations. (shrink)

Everybody knows nowadays that the degree of development is measured according to a certain number of criteria, of which the most important one, and initially the only one. was the Gross National Product (or G.N.P.) of each country, related to the number of inhabitants. The arbitrarily-settled line some twenty years ago between the rich and the poor or, as called at that time, the “underdeveloped”, was based at the level of 1000 U. S. dollars per capita. The expression was badly (...) accepted by those it described, because development confers a dignity which cannot be refused to anybody. That is why the following euphemism appeared: “developing countries”, as promising as it is little compromising. Later on, this exclusively economical criterion was moderated by several additives, linked to social structure, to the rate of elimination of illiteracy, and even to cultural factors. (shrink)

Papers of the international conference "Franz von Baader: Philosophie und Theologie im Spannungsfeld von Technik, Naturwissenschaft und Geschichte" held Oct. 3-6, 2013 in Dresden.

En su temprano trabajo "Vico y la mitología" , Max Horkheimer elogia a Giambattista Vico por su concepción sociológica y política del mito. En su posterior trabajo Dialéctica Dialéctica de la Ilustración , escrito junto con Theodor W. Adorno, Horkheimer estudia la relación entre pensamiento ilustrado y barbarie mítica. El propósito del presente artículo consiste en señalar las diferencias entre la concepción viquiana del mito y las tesis defendidas en Dialéctica de la Ilustración.In his early work "Vico and Mythology" , (...) Max Horkheimer praised Giambattista Vico for his sociological and political view of myth. Horkheimer's later work, the Dialectic of Enlightenment jointly written with Theodor W. Adorno approaches the relationship between enlightened thought and mythological barbarism. This paper aims to pointing out the difference between Vico's view of myth and that purported in the Dialectic of Enlightenment. (shrink)

A Orfeu, durante toda a Antiguidade, não só foi atribuída a autoria de uma considerável quantidade de obras literárias e filosóficas, mas foi considerado como o fundador de numerosos cultos, entre os quais as chamadas τελεται , ritos de iniciação que permitiriam alcancar um destino privilegiado no mundo do Além. O objetivo deste artigo é apresentar os testemunhos mais significativos de autores gregos que afirmavam, explicita ou implicatamente, ser Orfeu um filósofo, ou dele tratavam em contextos filosóficos, bem como procurar (...) entender as razões pelas quais esses autores o fizeram. (shrink)

The paper provides an analysis of Giuseppe Vitali’s contributions to differential geometry over the period 1923–1932. In particular, Vitali’s ambitious project of elaborating a generalized differential calculus regarded as an extension of Ricci-Curbastro tensor calculus is discussed in some detail. Special attention is paid to describing the origin of Vitali’s calculus within the context of Ernesto Pascal’s theory of forms and to providing an analysis of the process leading to a fully general notion of covariant derivative. Finally, the reception of (...) Vitali’s theory is discussed in light of Enea Bortolotti and Enrico Bompiani’s subsequent works. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to present a new perspective under which branching-time semantics can be viewed. The set of histories (maximal linearly ordered sets) in a tree structure can be endowed in a natural way with a topological structure. Properties of trees and of bundled trees can be expressed in topological terms. In particular, we can consider the new notion of topological validity for Ockhamist temporal formulae. It will be proved that this notion of validity is equivalent to (...) validity with respect to bundled trees. (shrink)