Philosophers have rightly condemned lookism—that is, discrimination in favor of attractive people or against unattractive people—in education, the justice system, the workplace and elsewhere. Surprisingly, however, the almost universal preference for attractive romantic and sexual partners has rarely received serious ethical scrutiny. On its face, it’s unclear whether this is a form of discrimination we should reject or tolerate. I consider arguments for both views. On the one hand, a strong case can be made that preferring attractive partners is bad. (...) The idea is that choosing partners based on looks seems essentially similar to other objectionable forms of discrimination. (In particular, the preference for attractive partners is arguably both unfair and harmful to a significant degree.) One can try to resist this conclusion in several ways. I consider three possible replies. The first has to do with the possibility of controlling our partner preferences. The second pertains to attractiveness and “good genes”. The last attempts to link certain aspects of attractiveness to a prospective partner’s personality and values. I argue that the first two replies fail conclusively, while the third only amounts to a limited defense of a particular kind of attractiveness preference. So the idea that we should often avoid preferring attractive partners is compelling. (shrink)

We discuss potential biorisks from large language models (LLMs). AI assistants based on LLMs such as ChatGPT have been shown to significantly reduce barriers to entry for actors wishing to synthesize dangerous, potentially novel pathogens and chemical weapons. The harms from deploying such bioagents could be further magnified by AI-assisted misinformation. We endorse several policy responses to these dangers, including prerelease evaluations of biomedical AIs by subject-matter experts, enhanced surveillance and lab screening procedures, restrictions on AI training data, and access (...) controls on biomedical AI. We conclude with a suggestion about future research directions in bioethics. (shrink)

It is often assumed that habits and aesthetic experiences are fundamentally and irreconcilably opposed. Typically, aesthetic experiences are considered to necessitate non-habitual behavior and to provoke unexpected mental states and extraordinary affective sensations. This article challenges this assumption. Moving beyond potential structural analogies between habitual behavior and aesthetic experience, I focus on two key aspects. Firstly, I argue that the experience of beauty and aesthetic experiences in general actually depend on certain habits, specifically those engaged in aesthetic agency and appreciation, (...) which I term «aesthetic habits». Secondly, I propose that habits have an aesthetic origin, as they virtuously evolve and adapt to their environment. This transformative capacity, along with their ability to resonate with specific situational demands, embodies an improvisational quality that should be encouraged, reflecting the inherently unpredictable and uncontrollable nature of aesthetic experience. (shrink)

The problem of truth in fiction concerns how to tell whether a given proposition is true in a given fiction. Thus far, the nearly universal consensus has been that some propositions are ‘implicitly true’ in some fictions: such propositions are not expressed by any explicit statements in the relevant work, but are nevertheless held to be true in those works on the basis of some other set of criteria. I call this family of views ‘implicitism’. I argue that implicitism faces (...) serious problems, whereas the opposite view is much more plausible than has previously been thought. After mounting a limited defence of explicitism, I explore a difficult problem for the view and discuss some possible responses. (shrink)

Much recent work on mathematical explanation has presupposed that the phenomenon involves explanatory proofs in an essential way. I argue that this view, ‘proof chauvinism’, is false. I then look in some detail at the explanation of the solvability of polynomial equations provided by Galois theory, which has often been thought to revolve around an explanatory proof. The article concludes with some general worries about the effects of chauvinism on the theory of mathematical explanation. 1Introduction 2Why I Am Not a (...) Proof Chauvinist 2.1Proof chauvinism and mathematical practice 2.2Proof chauvinism and philosophy 3An Example: Galois Theory and Explanatory Proof 4Conclusion. (shrink)

To be an Aristotelian about universals is to hold that universals depend for their existence on their exemplifiers. An argument against Aristotelianism about universals has recently been put forward by Costa to the effect that a contradiction follows from assuming a certain formulation of Aristotelianism together with some highly plausible principles governing the notions employed in that formulation. In this paper, we provide different ways of articulating the Aristotelian position which, while being related with some of the main contributions in (...) the current Aristotelian tradition, do not fall prey to the argument. (shrink)

This essay develops a theory of improvisation as practice of aesthetic sense-making. While considering all arts, references are made to many concrete cases. A topic in vogue since the XX. century, as evidenced by the great philosophers who were interested in it (Ryle, Derrida, Eco among others), improvisation, a felicitous mixture of habit and creativity, norm and freedom, is constitutive of human action. Human practices – including very well-regulated activities such as playing chess, piloting airplanes, or medicine – permit and (...) often require it to varying degrees. Improvisation is also the true source of artistic experience. Consequently, the aesthetics of improvisation result in a philosophy of art: Art was born as improvisation. Yet improvisation has its own aesthetic dimension: that of a "grammar of contingency" in which notions such as emergence, presence, curiosity and authenticity explain the pleasures of joyful adventure and empathic involvement elicited by improvisation. (shrink)

In a recent paper Berto introduces a semantic system for a logic of imagination, intended as positive conceivability, and aboutness of imaginative acts. This system crucially adopts elements of both the semantics of conditionals and the semantics of analytical implications in order to account for the central logical traits of the notion of truth in an act of imagination based on an explicit input. The main problem left unsolved is to put forward a complete set of axioms for the proposed (...) system. In the present paper I offer a solution to this problem by providing a complete axiomatization of a generalization of the original semantics. The difficulty in proving completeness lies in the fact that the modalities that capture the notion of truth in an act of imagination are neither standard nor minimal, so that the construction of the canonical model and the proof of the truth lemma are to be substantially modified. (shrink)

The expressive nature of musical improvisation is dissected, navigatingbetween two predominant theses: The Transparency Thesis (1) which proposes thatexpressiveness in improvisation transparently reflects the musician’s subjectiveaffectivity, and the Objective-Generic Expressiveness Thesis (2) asserting that ithinges only on the musicpractice’s objective components. This article challenges boththeses, arguing against (1) by emphasizing that musical expressivity transcends a merenatural outburst, and counteracting (2) by highlighting that it is not merely anenactment of objective expressive topoi. Introducing a novel perspective through theconceptual pair of (social) (...) Habitusand (individual) habit, a third stance is defended:the specific expressiveness in improvised music is significantly impacted by itsimprovisational quality, whereby the expressiveness emerges from the manipulationand transformation of an expressive Habitus within the musical performance’scontingent situation. (shrink)

Gauss’s quadratic reciprocity theorem is among the most important results in the history of number theory. It’s also among the most mysterious: since its discovery in the late 18th century, mathematicians have regarded reciprocity as a deeply surprising fact in need of explanation. Intriguingly, though, there’s little agreement on how the theorem is best explained. Two quite different kinds of proof are most often praised as explanatory: an elementary argument that gives the theorem an intuitive geometric interpretation, due to Gauss (...) and Eisenstein, and a sophisticated proof using algebraic number theory, due to Hilbert. Philosophers have yet to look carefully at such explanatory disagreements in mathematics. I do so here. According to the view I defend, there are two important explanatory virtues—depth and transparency—which different proofs (and other potential explanations) possess to different degrees. Although not mutually exclusive in principle, the packages of features associated with the two stand in some tension with one another, so that very deep explanations are rarely transparent, and vice versa. After developing the theory of depth and transparency and applying it to the case of quadratic reciprocity, I draw some morals about the nature of mathematical explanation. (shrink)

Is it possible to explain and predict the development of living things? What is development? Articulate answers to these seemingly innocuous questions are far from straightforward. To date, no systematic, targeted effort has been made to construct a unifying theory of development. This novel work offers a unique exploration of the foundations of ontogeny by asking how the development of living things should be understood. It explores the key concepts of developmental biology, asks whether general principles of development can be (...) discovered, and examines the role of models and theories.The two editors have assembled a team of leading contributors who are representative of the scientific and philosophical community within which a diversity of thoughts are growing, and out of which a theory of development may eventually emerge. They analyse a wealth of approaches to concepts, models and theories of development, such as gene regulatory networks, accounts based on systems biology and on physics of soft matter, the different articulations of evolution and development, symbiont-induced development, as well as the widely discussed concepts of positional information and morphogenetic field, the idea of a. (shrink)

Some computational phenomena rely essentially on pragmatic considerations, and seem to undermine the independence of the specification from the implementation. These include software development, deviant uses, esoteric languages and recent data-driven applications. To account for them, the interaction between pragmatics, epistemology and ontology in computational artefacts seems essential, indicating the need to recover the role of the language metaphor. We propose a User Levels (ULs) structure as a pragmatic complement to the Levels of Abstraction (LoAs)-based structure defining the ontology and (...) epistemology of computational artefacts. ULs identify a flexible hierarchy in which users bear their own semantic and normative requirements, possibly competing with the logical specification. We formulate a notion of computational act intended in its pragmatic sense, alongside pragmatic versions of implementation and correctness. (shrink)

PA is Peano arithmetic. The formula $\operatorname{Interp}_\mathrm{PA}(\alpha, \beta)$ is a formalization of the assertion that the theory PA + α interprets the theory PA + β (the variables α and β are intended to range over codes of sentences of PA). We extend Solovay's modal analysis of the formalized provability predicate of PA, Pr PA (x), to the case of the formalized interpretability relation $\operatorname{Interp}_\mathrm{PA}(x, y)$ . The relevant modal logic, in addition to the usual provability operator `□', has a (...) binary operator ` $\triangleright$ ' to be interpreted as the formalized interpretability relation. We give an axiomatization and a decision procedure for the class of those modal formulas that express valid interpretability principles (for every assignment of the atomic modal formulas to sentences of PA). Our results continue to hold if we replace the base theory PA with Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory, but not with Gödel-Bernays set theory. This sensitivity to the base theory shows that the language is quite expressive. Our proof uses in an essential way earlier work done by A. Visser, D. de Jongh, and F. Veltman on this problem. (shrink)

Even if political theorists rarely read him, Italian political thinker, Marsilius of Padua, presents one of the most radical theories of the multitude prior to Machiavelli and Spinoza. This article reconstructs Marsilius of Padua's political theory of the multitude in his Defender of Peace and pays special attention to two main sources from which Marsilius frames his theory: Aristotle and Ibn Rushd. Compared to Aristotle, Marsilius advances a more epistemic view of the multitude as a lawmaker. Marsilius’ ideas on the (...) multitude also depend on Ibn Rushd's theory of collective knowledge and, to a certain extent, on his position on natural law. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction The Evolving Evolutionary Synthesis Population Genetics vs. Developmental Genetics Evo‐Devo's Central Target: The Study of Evolvability Origins? Conclusion Postscript: Counterpoint Acknowledgments References.

Until recently, an almost perfect parallelism seemed to hold between theories of identity through time and across possible worlds,as every account in the temporal case(endurantism,perdurantism, exdurantism) was mirrored by a twin account in the modal case (trans-world identity, identity-via-parts, identity-via-counterparts). Nevertheless, in the recent literature, this parallelism has been broken because of the implementation in the debate of the relation of location. In particular, endurantism has been subject to a more in-depth analysis, and different versions of it, corresponding to different (...) ways an entity can be located in time, emerged. In this article, we provide a precise map of the conceptions at stake, complete the debate by introducing a version of endurantism not yet considered in the debate — we call transcendentism — and show that it allows us to provide an effective interpretation of the relation of trans-world identity and an intuitive solution in the temporal case. (shrink)

No comprehensive theory of development is available yet. Traditionally, we regard the development of animals as a sequence of changes through which an adult multicellular animal is produced, starting from a single cell which is usually a fertilized egg, through increasingly complex stages. However, many phenomena that would not qualify as developmental according to these criteria would nevertheless qualify as developmental in that they imply nontrivial (e.g., non degenerative) changes of form, and/or substantial changes in gene expression. A broad, comparative (...) approach is badly needed. In the Cnidaria, for example, even the boundary between generations is problematic. Describing their life cycle in terms of metagenesis (alternation between polyp generation and medusa generation) or in terms of metamorphosis (polyp as larva or juvenile) are matters of semantics more than biology. The life cycle of other metazoans, described in textbooks in terms of larva-to-adult metamorphosis, is hardly different from a typical metagenetic life cycle of cnidarians. This applies to holometabolous insects and to marine invertebrates like sea urchins, where most of the larval cells are discarded at metamorphosis. The uncertain temporal and spatial boundaries of individual development are also shown by the widespread lack of a strict correspondence between adult and mature. A comprehensive theory of development should start with a zero principle of “developmental inertia,” corresponding to an indeterminate local self-perpetuation of cell-level dynamics. Indeterminate growth, scale-invariance, segmentation, and regeneration provide examples of developmental dynamics close to that. (shrink)

An important international discussion began because of some pioneer studies carried out by Young (1996a) on the internet addiction disorder (IAD). In the fifth and most recent version of the Diagnostic, and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) there is no mention of this disorder and among researchers there are basically two opposite positions. Those who are in favor of a specific diagnosis and those who are claiming the importance of specific criteria characterizing this behavior and the precise role it (...) has in the patient’s life. The aim of the present paper is to answer the question whether it is possible or not to formulate diagnoses of internet-related disorders. We revised literature on the history of diagnostic criteria, on neurocognitive evidence, on the topic debate and on IAD instrumental measures. We found that the disorder was not univocally defined and that the construct was somehow too broad and generic to be explicative for a diagnosis. Indeed, the models are borrowed from other addiction pathologies and they are often formulated before the development of internet as intended in current society. In conclusion, we think we need a more innovative, integrated and comprehensive model for an IAD diagnosis. (shrink)

The goal of this paper is methodological. It offers a comprehensive mapping of the theoretical positions on the ethical criticism of art, correcting omissions and inadequacies in the conceptual framework adopted in the current debate. Three principles are recommended as general guidelines: ethical amenability, basic value pluralism, and relativity to ethical dimension. Hence a taxonomy distinguishing between different versions of autonomism, moralism, and immoralism is established, by reference to criteria that are different from what emerging in the current literature. The (...) mapping is then proved capable of (1) locating the various theories that have been proposed so far and clarifying such theories’ real commitments, (2) having the correct relationship with actual art making and art criticism practices, and (3) showing the real weight of the alleged counter-example to a moralist position of a work that succeeds artistically because of its immorality. (shrink)

Over the last few decades, the notion of improvisation has enriched and dynamized research on traditional philosophies of music, theatre, dance, poetry, and even visual art. This Handbook offers readers an authoritative collection of accessible articles on the philosophy of improvisation, synthesizing and explaining various subjects and issues from the growing wave of journal articles and monographs in the field. Its 48 chapters, written specifically for this volume by an international team of scholars, are accessible for students and researchers alike. (...) The volume is organized into four main sections: I. Art and Improvisation: Theoretical Perspectives II. Art and Improvisation: Aesthetic, Ethical, and Political Perspectives III. Improvisation in Musical Practices IV. Improvisation in the Visual, Narrative, Dramatic, and Interactive Arts Key Features: Treats improvisation not only as a stylistic feature, but also as an aesthetic property of artworks and performances as well as a core element of artistic creativity. Spells out multiple aspects of the concept of improvisation, emphasizing its relevance in understanding the nature of art. Covers improvisation in a wide spectrum of artistic domains, including unexpected ones such as literature, visual arts, games, and cooking. Addresses key questions, like: - How can improvisation be defined and what is its role in different art forms? - Can improvisation be perceived as such, and how can it be aesthetically evaluated? - What is the relationship between improvisation and notions such as action, composition, expressivity, and authenticity? - What is the ethical and political significance of improvisation? (shrink)

In the last few decades the role played by models and modeling activities has become a central topic in the scientific enterprise. In particular, it has been highlighted both that the development of models constitutes a crucial step for understanding the world and that the developed models operate as mediators between theories and the world. Such perspective is exploited here to cope with the issue as to whether error-based and uncertainty-based modeling of measurement are incompatible, and thus alternative with one (...) another, as sometimes claimed nowadays. The crucial problem is whether assuming this standpoint implies definitely renouncing to maintain a role for truth and the related concepts, particularly accuracy, in measurement. It is argued here that the well known objections against true values in measurement, which would lead to refuse the concept of accuracy as non-operational, or to maintain it as only qualitative, derive from a not clear distinction between three distinct processes: the metrological characterization of measuring systems, their calibration, and finally measurement. Under the hypotheses that (1) the concept of true value is related to the model of a measurement process, (2) the concept of uncertainty is related to the connection between such model and the world, and (3) accuracy is a property of measuring systems (and not of measurement results) and uncertainty is a property of measurement results (and not of measuring systems), not only the compatibility but actually the conjoint need of error-based and uncertainty-based modeling emerges. (shrink)

This book shows how pragmatics and philosophy are interconnected, and explores the consequences and ramifications of this innovative idea, especially in addressing and solving the problem of breaking Grice's circle. The author applies philosophy in order to get to a better understanding of pragmatics, and pragmatics in order to get a better understanding of philosophy. The book starts with a chapter on the non-cancellability of explicatures and the role that this idea plays in the resolution of Grice’s circle, and proceeds (...) with the discussion of other topics in which explicatures or cancellability play an important and decisive role. While the reader proceeds in the reading of this book, they accumulate notions and pieces of knowledge which will be of invaluable use when arriving at the chapter on conversational presuppositions, where the author expresses his most radical views: namely that presuppositions are indeed cancellable, contrary to what many believe. (shrink)

In the present paper we propose a system of propositional logic for reasoning about justification, truthmaking, and the connection between justifiers and truthmakers. The logic of justification and truthmaking is developed according to the fundamental ideas introduced by Artemov. Justifiers and truthmakers are treated in a similar way, exploiting the intuition that justifiers provide epistemic grounds for propositions to be considered true, while truthmakers provide ontological grounds for propositions to be true. This system of logic is then applied both for (...) interpreting the notorious definition of knowledge as justified true belief and for advancing a new solution to Gettier counterexamples to this standard definition. (shrink)

Measurement is widely applied because its results are assumed to be more reliable than opinions and guesses, but this reliability is sometimes justified in a stereotyped way. After a critical analysis of such stereotypes, a structural characterization of measurement is proposed, as partly empirical and partly theoretical process, by showing that it is in fact the structure of the process that guarantees the reliability of its results. On this basis the role and the structure of background knowledge in measurement and (...) the justification of the conditions of object-relatedness ("objectivity") and subject-independence ("intersubjectivity") of measurement are specifically discussed. (shrink)

Mereological atomism is the thesis that everything is ultimately composed of atomic parts, i.e., parts without proper parts. Typically, this thesis is characterized by an axiom stating that everything has atomic parts. The present paper argues that the success of this standard characterization depends on how the notions of sum and composition are defined. In particular, we put forward a novel definition of mereological sum that: (i) is not equivalent to existing definitions in the literature, if no strong decomposition principle (...) is assumed; (ii) can be used to argue that the standard characterization of atomism fails, because having atomic parts is not sufficient to be a sum of atoms; and (iii) provides a purely mereological distinction between structured and unstructured wholes, contributing to the ongoing debate on this crucial topic. (shrink)

Joshua Knobe found that people are more likely to describe an action as intentional if it has had a bad outcome than a good outcome, and to blame a bad outcome than to praise a good one. These asymmetries raised numerous questions about lay moral judgement. Frank Hindriks recently proposed that one acts intentionally if one fails to comply with a normative reason against performing the action, that moral praise requires appropriate motivation, whereas moral blame does not, and that these (...) asymmetries are normal features of a theory of intentional action, not anomalies. I present two empirical studies revealing asymmetries in lay judgements of intentionality and moral blameworthiness; these cannot be explained by Hindriks' theory of intentional action. (shrink)

The Wealth of Ideas, first published in 2005, traces the history of economic thought, from its prehistory to the present day. In this eloquently written, scientifically rigorous and well documented book, chapters on William Petty, Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Karl Marx, William Stanley Jevons, Carl Menger, Léon Walras, Alfred Marshall, John Maynard Keynes, Joseph Schumpeter and Piero Sraffa alternate with chapters on other important figures and on debates of the period. Economic thought is seen as developing between two opposite poles: (...) a subjective one, based on the ideas of scarcity and utility, and an objective one based on the notions of physical costs and surplus. Professor Roncaglia focuses on the different views of the economy and society and on their evolution over time and critically evaluates the foundations of the scarcity-utility approach in comparison with the Classical/Keynesian approach. (shrink)

Fiery Cushman and Alfred Mele recently proposed a ‘two-and-a-half rules’ theory of folk intentionality. They suggested that laypersons attribute intentionality employing: one rule based on desire, one based on belief, and another principle based on moral judgment, which may either reflect a folk concept (and so count as a third rule) or a bias (and so not count as a rule proper) and which they provisionally count as ‘half a rule’. In this article, I discuss some cases in which an (...) agent is judged as having neither belief nor desire to bring about an action, and yet laypersons find the agent’s action to be intentional. Many lay responses apparently follow a rule, but many other seem biased. The contribution of this study is two-fold: by addressing actions performed without desire or belief, it expands Mele and Cushman’s account; it also helps discriminate between a two-rules and a three-rules theory. As a conclusion, I argue in favor of a three-and-a-half concepts theory. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to introduce a system of dynamic deontic logic in which the main problems related to the de finition of deontic concepts, especially those emerging from a standard analysis of permission in terms of possibility of doing an action without incurring in a violation of the law, are solved. The basic idea is to introduce two crucial distinctions allowing us to differentiate (i) what is ideal with respect to a given code, which fixes the types (...) of action that are abstractly prescribed, and what is ideal with respect to the specific situation in which the agent acts, and (ii) the transitions associated with actions and the results of actions, which can obtain even without the action being performed. (shrink)

This article explores the role of habits in shapingaesthetic normativity. It asserts that standards of value within aesthetic agency are not immutable, objective criteriadetached from personal engagement in appreciationand creation, nor should they be reduced to mere individualsubjective pleasure. The former stance fails to consider theessential expressivity and creativity at the heart of aestheticpractices, while the latter overlooks the normative frameworkthat underpins the significance, validity, and qualityof aesthetic agency. This framework is represented in theestablished rules of taste, the need for (...) aesthetic education,and the dynamics of aesthetic disagreements. Consequently, effective aesthetic normativity requires abalance: practices must be organized structurally aroundvalues that are, to a certain degree, communally shared, yetflexible enough to incorporate the expressive creativity ofindividual appreciation. This article contributes a nuancedexplanation of aesthetic normativity by elucidating the impactof habits on aesthetic practices. (shrink)

In his 1923 work, Roman Catholicism and Political Form, Carl Schmitt claims that representation is a complexio oppositorum and incarnates a hierarchical form of political authority, which is alternative to liberalism. This article shows that Carl Schmitt’s interpretation of the political theology of representation is based on a misreading. Schmitt selectively overlooks some meanings of the theology of repraesentatio to build his decisionistic political agenda. An investigation of the original conceptual meanings of representation in Tertullian, the first Christian author who (...) theorized representation and established many of its subsequent theological meanings, shows a different picture. At its inception, representation already included mechanisms of plurality and participation, which anticipated, and perhaps motivated, the absorption of the representation vocabulary within democratic discourse and practice. Political theology is a valuable field of inquiry to prove the claim that the... (shrink)

I defend the ethical fittingness theory (EFT), the thesis that whenever it is legitimate ethically to evaluate a representational artwork for the perspective it embodies, such evaluation systematically bears on the work's artistic value. EFT is a form of radical moralism, claiming that the systematic relationship between the selected type of ethical evaluation and artistic evaluation always obtains, for works of any kind. The argument for EFT spells out the implications of ethically judging an artwork for its perspective, where such (...) an ethical evaluation is understood as an assessment of how well the work's ethical perspective fits extra-fictional reality—how appropriate, correct, or true the perspective is. The argument shows that the ethical legitimacy of judging a work for its perspective ipso facto proves the judgment's art-critical relevance. Hence, the argument effectively amounts to a reductio ad absurdum of theories that admit the legitimacy of ethically judging artworks this way, but deny or qualify the judgment's relevance to artistic merit. Since EFT is stated conditionally, the argument need not indicate how often artworks are subject to this type of ethical evaluation. Nonetheless, I make a case for the relevance of EFT to actual art criticism and contemporary philosophical debate. (shrink)

This paper explores the ontology of musical improvisation (MI). MI, as process in which creative and performing activities are one and the same generative occurrence, is contrasted with the most widespread conceptual resource used in inquiries about music ontology of the Western tradition: the type/token duality (TtD). TtD, which is used for explaining the relationship between musical works (MWs) and performances, does not fit for MI. Nonetheless MI can be ontologically related to MWs. A MW can ensue from MI and (...) MI can be required for performing a MW faithfully. As performance on a MW, MI can offer versions of a MW, manifest a MW, and, especially, use it as one of its ‘ingredients’. Recordings of MI present special challenges and an unexpected ontological revival. (shrink)

Against the tradition, which has considered measurement able to produce pure data on physical systems, the unavoidable role played by the modeling activity in measurement is increasingly acknowledged, particularly with respect to the evaluation of measurement uncertainty. This paper characterizes measurement as a knowledge-based process and proposes a framework to understand the function of models in measurement and to systematically analyze their influence in the production of measurement results and their interpretation. To this aim, a general model of measurement is (...) sketched, which gives the context to highlight the unavoidable, although sometimes implicit, presence of models in measurement and, finally, to propose some remarks on the relations between models and measurement uncertainty, complementarily classified as due to the idealization implied in the models and their realization in the experimental setup. (shrink)

This article examines recent theories of democratic citizenship as well as the institutional separation of religion and politics in light of shortcomings with the traditional secularization thesis. Due to the fact that juridical norms and forms of consciousness develop at a more rapid pace than religious ones, received accounts of both democratic equality and toleration need to be reconceptualized. Questions concerning the legitimacy and neutrality of religious reasoning in democratic politics, as pursued in the work of Rawls and Habermas, also (...) need to be informed by further reflection on the confessional context and other empirical features of post-secular societies. Comparing the politics of same-sex marriage in Canada and Italy helps to illustrate this point. (shrink)

The proto-code of ethics and conduct for European nurse directors was developed as a strategic and dynamic document for nurse managers in Europe. It invites critical dialogue, reflective thinking about different situations, and the development of specific codes of ethics and conduct by nursing associations in different countries. The term proto-code is used for this document so that specifically country-orientated or organization-based and practical codes can be developed from it to guide professionals in more particular or situation-explicit reflection and values. (...) The proto-code of ethics and conduct for European nurse directors was designed and developed by the European Nurse Directors Association’s (ENDA) advisory team. This article gives short explanations of the code’ s preamble and two main parts: Nurse directors' ethical basis, and Principles of professional practice, which is divided into six specific points: competence, care, safety, staff, life-long learning and multi-sectorial working. (shrink)

Measurement results are stated in terms of sentences ascribing measured values, as obtained via measurement processes, to measurands, as defined by measuring agents. Since both the definition of the measurands and the characterization of the processes depend on models constructed on the basis of relevant theories, the issue arises of the theory dependence of the truth of those sentences. This paper aims at assessing the question by introducing suitable distinctions about the sense and reference of the terms used to refer (...) to individual and general quantities, in a framework where measurement is construed as an agent-dependent, model-based, purpose-driven activity. (shrink)

How and why does artistic improvisation matter aesthetically? In this paper I will offer a hypothesis for answering this question: artistic improvisation matters aesthetically, because its aesthetic experience specifies the dynamics of the aesthetic engagement with art in an exemplarily enactive way. This depends, I will argue, on improvisation being paradigmatic for human experience as such. Indeed, focusing on the anthropological dimension of improvisation, it should be stressed that, far from being the exception to regulated behavior, improvisation is the way (...) human beings organise their interactive relations with(in) the natural and social environment. (shrink)

Contrary to the traditional claim that needs for unambiguous communication about animal and plant species are best served by a single set of names ruled by international Codes, I suggest that a more diversified system is required, especially to cope with problems emerging from aggregation of biodiversity data in large databases. Departures from Linnaean nomenclature are sometimes intentional, but there are also other, less obvious but widespread forms of not Code-compliant grey nomenclature. A first problem is due to the circumstance (...) that the Codes are intended to rule over the way names are applied to species and other taxonomic units, whereas users of taxonomy need names to be applied to specimens. For different reasons, it is often impossible to refer a specimen with certainty to a named species, and in those cases an open nomenclature is employed. Second, molecular taxonomy leads to the discovery of clusters of gene sequence diversity not necessarily equivalent to the species recognized and named by taxonomists. Those clusters are mostly indicated with informal names or formulas that challenge comparison between different publications or databases. In several instances, it is not even clear if a formula refers to an individual voucher specimen, or is a provisional species name. The use of non-Linnaean names and formulas must be revised and strengthened by fixing standard formats for the different kinds of objects or hypotheses and providing permanent association of ‘grey names’ with standardized source information such as author and year. In the context of a broad-scope revisitation of aims and scope of scientific nomenclature, it may be worth rethinking if natural objects like plant galls and lichens, although other than the ‘single-entity’ objects traditionally covered by biological classifications, may nevertheless deserve taxonomic names. (shrink)

The purpose of the present paper is to provide a way of understanding systems of logic of essence by introducing a new semantic framework for them. Three central results are achieved: first, the now standard Fitting semantics for the propositional logic of evidence is adapted in order to provide a new, simplified semantics for the propositional logic of essence; secondly, we show how it is possible to construe the concept of necessary truth explicitly by using the concept of essential truth; (...) finally, Fitting semantics is adapted in order to present a simplified semantics for the quantified logic of essence. (shrink)

Evolutionary developmental biology is a rapidly growing discipline whose ambition is to address questions that are of relevance to both evolutionary biology and developmental biology. This field has been increasingly progressing as a new and independent comparative science. However, we argue that evo-devo’s comparative approach is challenged by several metaphysical, methodological and socio-disciplinary issues related to the foundation of heuristic functions of model organisms and the possible criteria to be adopted for their selection. In addition, new tools have to be (...) developed to deal with newly chosen model organisms. Therefore, we present a modelling framework suitable to integrate data on individual variation into evo-devo studies on new model organisms and thus to compensate for current idealization practices deliberately suppressing variation. (shrink)

In this article by way of reply, the author responds to the challenging comments on The Democratic Horizon provided by Michelman, Benhabib, White, Scheuerman and Laden. In response to Michelman, some reflections are propounded (1) on the function of judicial review, in order to alleviate the tension between two understandings of the mandate of the highest interpreter of the constitution as aimed at remedying either an occlusion of democratic authorship or a shortfall of agreement, and (2) on the need to (...) rethink how the authority of the supreme interpreter relates to the will of the people in a deeply changed historical context. In response to Benhabib, the author discusses the new limits of the accommodation of diversity in Fairburg, a fictional polity that expands the Rawlsian standard of ‘ reasonable disagreement’, and defends the normative relevance and democratic credentials of his notion of ‘ multivariate polity’. In response to White, after recalling the importance of putting the ‘democratic ethos’ at the center of a reflection on the democratic quality of complex societies where formal procedures often mask elitist substance, the author defends the ‘political, not metaphysical’ credentials of ‘openness’ (as well as of ‘exemplarity’ as the ‘upstream source’ of openness) and accepts a complementarity of ‘openness’ and ‘presumptive generosity’. In response to Scheuerman, the author restates his focus on the democratic ethos as a supplement to, not a replacement of, the reflection on democratic procedures and defends the conceptual diversity of governance from government. In response to Laden, the author highlights the diversity of contexts to which his own and Laden’s versions of ‘democratic justification’ are responding and defends a more moderate version of ‘openness’, which still keeps constitutional essentials and political values shielded from ongoing questioning. Finally, the author interprets the debate aroused by The Democratic Horizon as indicative of the persistent vitality of the Rawlsian legacy in the 21st century. (shrink)

In this paper I aim at discussing the following questions: is improvisation an intentional action? If it is an intentional action, in what sense is improvisation intentional? Can improvisation contribute to the understanding of intentional action? I will argue that improvisation is not a bizarre case of action or a weakened action, but an intentional action in the proper sense. Moreover, improvisation exemplifies key features of intentional action as such.

A book review of Susanne Ravn, Simon Høffding, and James McGuirk, eds., _Philosophy of Improvisation: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Theory and Practice_. London: Routledge, 2021, vii + 218 pp. ISBN 9780367540210.

We develop an intersection theory for definable Cp-manifolds in an o-minimal expansion of a real closed field and we prove the invariance of the intersection numbers under definable Cp-homotopies . In particular we define the intersection number of two definable submanifolds of complementary dimensions, the Brouwer degree and the winding numbers. We illustrate the theory by deriving in the o-minimal context the Brouwer fixed point theorem, the Jordan-Brouwer separation theorem and the invariance of the Lefschetz numbers under definable Cp-homotopies. A. (...) Pillay has shown that any definable group admits an abstract manifold structure. We apply the intersection theory to definable groups after proving an embedding theorem for abstract definably compact Cp-manifolds. In particular using the Lefschetz fixed point theorem we show that the Lefschetz number of the identity map on a definably compact group, which in the classical case coincides with the Euler characteristic, is zero. (shrink)