This paper focuses on a central aspect of the “picture theory” in the Tractatus – the “identity requirement” – namely the idea that a proposition represents elements in reality as combined in the same way as its elements are combined. After introducing the Tractatus' views on the nature of the proposition, I engage with a “nominalist” interpretation, according to which the Tractatus holds that relations are not named in propositions. I claim that the nominalist account can only be maintained by (...) rejecting the “identity requirement.” I then consider an opposite – “realist” – interpretation, according to which Tractarian names include names of properties and relations. I argue that, although it can accommodate the “identity requirement,” the realist interpretation falls short of providing a correct interpretation of the Tractatus' conception of a name. I conclude by presenting an alternative account (to both nominalism and realism) of the Tractatus' conception of a name. (shrink)

L’articolo si propone di analizzare il pragmatismo di Giovanni Papini, riferendolo in particolar modo al rapporto con il pensiero di William James; nello specifico, si vuole mettere in luce come il rapporto tra Papini e James sia stato tanto di gradevole collaborazione quanto di reciproche influenza ed ammirazione. Per fare ciò, verranno ripercorse le tappe dello sviluppo della teoria pragmatista di Papini, evidenziandone sia il legame con la speculazione jamesiana sia l’originalità e rilevanza teoretica, in grado di affermarsi anche oltre (...) i confini nazionali. (shrink)

In this paper, I focus on Luigi Pareyson’s interpretation of Schelling, arguing that it must be read in continuity with Pareyson’s early engagement with the philosophies of Heidegger and Jaspers. Firstly, I argue that Pareyson shapes his existentialism on Jaspers’s and Heidegger’s thoughts, and particularly in relation to that which he considers the fundamental question of philosophy, namely ‘why is there Being rather than nothingness?’ Secondly, I demonstrate how Pareyson reads Schelling’s philosophy in light of his interpretations of Jaspers and (...) Heidegger, i.e., in relation to the ‘fundamental question of philosophy’. Finally, I show how Pareyson’s reading of Schelling is centered on the notion of ‘awe of reason’, and how he defines Schelling as a ‘post-Heideggerian thinker’, since Heidegger’s philosophy allows us to innovatively reinterpret Schelling’s philosophy in an existentialist way. (shrink)

Résumé La plupart des œuvres de Sophie Calle – reproduites dans des livres ou présentées aux cimaises des musées – s’offre comme le dépôt d’expériences vécues qui se trouvent précisément réglées par des contraintes arbitraires, ostensiblement formulées. La gratuité même des protocoles élus rapproche la démarche de l’artiste française du jeu. Le recours à la contrainte a pour conséquence effective de réintroduire la surprise et l’imprévu au sein de la vie quotidienne ; il induit une attention accrue au concours des (...) circonstances – comme à son impact sur la suite des événements, dès lors que celle-ci s’inscrit dans une forme de narrativité potentielle. (shrink)

Among the different interpretations of the philosophy of Schelling, there is no doubt that the ones developed by Martin Heidegger and Karl Jaspers played a prominent role within the most recent Schelling scholarship. Both Heidegger and Jaspers focused on Schelling’s discourse on freedom, pointing out the fundamental incompatibility of its key elements, i.e. ‘ground’ and ‘existence’, as well as the fallacious conception of Seynsfuge that emerges from it. Moreover, Heidegger argues that Schelling’s ontology ultimately falls back into traditional metaphysical subjectivism, (...) ignoring the question of Being as such and in fact paving the way to nihilism. Similarly, Jaspers criticizes Schelling’s arbitrary account of the relation between freedom and existential being and his misleading conception of transcendence. However, I argue against Jaspers that Schelling’s discourse on freedom must be read as a philosophy of immanence, which aims at maintaining the concreteness of the concepts and at avoiding any form of transcendence. Consequently, I also argue against Heidegger that not only does Schelling’s discourse successfully show the compatibility of ground and existence, but that Schelling’s understanding of the ‘subject’ does not comply with Heidegger’s notion of ‘metaphysical subjectivism’ and is immune to Heidegger’s criticism. (shrink)

This book offers a philosophically-based, yet clinically-oriented perspective on current medical reasoning aiming at 1) identifying important forms of uncertainty permeating current clinical reasoning and practice 2) promoting the application of an abductive methodology in the health context in order to deal with those clinical uncertainties 3) bridging the gap between biomedical knowledge, clinical practice, and research and values in both clinical and philosophical literature. With a clear philosophical emphasis, the book investigates themes lying at the border between several disciplines, (...) such as medicine, nursing, logic, epistemology, and philosophy of science; but also ethics, epidemiology, and statistics. At the same time, it critically discusses and compares several professional approaches to clinical practice such as the one of medical doctors, nurses and other clinical practitioners, showing the need for developing a unified framework of reasoning, which merges methods and resources from many different clinical but also non-clinical disciplines. In particular, this book shows how to leverage nursing knowledge and practice, which has been considerably neglected so far, to further shape the interdisciplinary nature of clinical reasoning. Furthermore, a thorough philosophical investigation on the values involved in health care is provided, based on both the clinical and philosophical literature. The book concludes by proposing an integrative approach to health and disease going beyond the so-called “classical biomedical model of care”. (shrink)

In this paper, we present a number of problems for intellectualism about knowledge-how, and in particular for the version of the view developed by Stanley & Williamson 2001. Their argument draws on the alleged uniformity of 'know how'-and 'know wh'-ascriptions. We offer a series of considerations to the effect that this assimilation is problematic. Firstly, in contrast to 'know wh'-ascriptions, 'know how'-ascriptions with known negative answers are false. Secondly, knowledge-how obeys closure principles whose counterparts fail for knowledge-wh and knowledge-that. Thirdly, (...) as opposed to knowledge-wh and knowledge-that, knowledge-how is inferentially isolated from further knowledge-that. We close by providing some evidence against the further reduction of knowledge-wh to knowledge-that, which is presupposed by the intellectualist theory under discussion. (shrink)

This paper explores the intertwining of uncertainty and values. We consider an important but underexplored field of fundamental uncertainty and values in decision-making. Some proposed methodologies to deal with fundamental uncertainty have included potential surprise theory, scenario planning and hypothetical retrospection. We focus on the principle of uncertainty transduction in hypothetical retrospection as an illustrative case of how values interact with fundamental uncertainty. We show that while uncertainty transduction appears intuitive in decision contexts it nevertheless fails in important ranges of (...) strategic game-theoretic cases. The methodological reasons behind the failure are then examined. (shrink)

This paper challenges a standard interpretation according to which Frege’s conception of logic (early and late) is at odds with the contemporary one, because on the latter’s view logic is formal, while on Frege’s view it is not, given that logic’s subject matter is reality’s most general features. I argue that Frege – in Begriffsschrift – retained the idea that logic is formal; Frege sees logic as providing the ‘logical cement’ that ties up together the contentful concepts of specific sciences, (...) not the most general truths. Finally, I discuss how Frege conceives of the application of Begriffsschrift, and of its status as a ‘lingua characteristica’. (shrink)

Les Parisiennes du XIIIe siècle ont mauvaise réputation. Non contentes de mal se tenir à table, elles se gavent et s’enivrent, parlent des vins en professionnelles de l’œnologie, suggérant une longue expérience de beuveries, et, surtout, se passent des hommes pour festoyer. Exclus de la convivialité féminine, ceux-ci se vengent en vers : c’est l’objet d’un poème comique, un fabliau, qui leur promet un sort funeste : le coma éthylique des trois dames de Paris les fait enterrer vives au cimetière (...) des Innocents! Encore une leçon de morale, sous couvert d’en rire, aux femmes qui ne veulent pas se contenir…. (shrink)

Bacterial lipopolysaccharide (LPS) and its active component, lipid A, have been used either alone or as adjuvant in therapeutic anticancer vaccines. Lipid A induces various transcription factors via intracellular signaling cascades initiated by their receptor CD14-TLR4. These events lead to the synthesis of cytokines, which either have direct cytotoxic effect or stimulate the immune system. Their antitumoral effect has been demonstrated in animal models as well as clinical trials. Studies in animal models showed that their antitumoral effect relies mostly on (...) the generation of an effective immune response. In humans, the antitumoral effect was correlated with an antibody response and cell-mediated cytotoxicity. So far, some encouraging results have been achieved in phase I and II clinical trials with regards to response and stabilization of the disease, but an expansion of the studies and trials is needed to find the best conditions for their clinical application. BioEssays 24:284–289, 2002. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.; DOI 10.1002/bies.10053. (shrink)

Après l’école, les campagnes et les vacances, les éditions Aubanel publient un nouvel album qui, de la Belle Époque à 1945, expose les traces photographiques des femmes d’hier. Dans cette magnifique galerie de portraits féminins de tous âges et de toutes conditions, on retiendra d’abord les victimes : émouvantes photos de jeunes veuves de la Première guerre ou d’une grande sœur précocement mûrie par les soins donnés à sa tribu de jeunes frères et sœurs ; puis les icônes et les (...) images convenue... (shrink)

The aim of the article is to clarify the basic perspective that Immagini cristiane e cultura antica adopted to read the relationship between early Christian iconographic production – the main subject of the book – and the development of the forms of later figurative art, as well as the path leading to modern aesthetics.For this purpose, the article compares the positions of Auerbach – that had an explicit influence on the book – with those of Benjamin, regarding the different ways (...) in which the two Berliner authors interpreted the meaning and the function of allegory. In Auerbach, allegory is understood as the past of the figura whose logic, according to Immagini cristiane e cultura antica, underlies not only the Christian literary production of the first centuries, but also the figurative one. In Benjamin, conversely, allegory is understood as the future of the figura, followed to the definitive crisis of Christian messianism. (shrink)

If S ⊆{0,1}; * and S ′ = {0,1} * \sb S are both recognized within a certain nondeterministic time bound T then, in not much more time, one can write down tautologies A n → A′ n with unique interpolants I n that define S ∩{0,1} n ; hence, if one can rapidly find unique interpolants, then one can recognize S within deterministic time T p for some fixed p \s>0. In general, complexity measures for the problem of finding (...) unique interpolants in sentential logic yield new relations between circuit depth and nondeterministic Turing time, as well as between proof length and the complexity of decision procedures of logical theories. (shrink)

Reasoning in medicine requires the critical use of a clinical methodology whose validity must be evaluated as well as its limits. In the last decade, an increasing amount of evidence has shown severe limitations and flaws in the conduct of prognostic studies. The main reason behind this fact is that prognostic judgments are at high risk of error. In this paper we investigate the pragmatic and illocutionary aspects of different forms of linguistic acts and judgments involved in clinical practice. More (...) specifically, we analyze the role of uncertainty with regard to ‘particular’ clinical judgments and its relation with ‘general’ evidence. Focusing on how prognostic judgments are formulated and justified, our main purpose is to highlight the explication, the structure and the limits of prognosis from a linguistic and epistemological perspective. (shrink)

(1994). Identity and autonomy of psychology in cognitive sciences: Some remarks from language processing and knowledge representation. World Futures: Vol. 42, No. 1-2, pp. 71-78.

Fondée en 1984, portée par l'affirmation de la nécessité de faire une « histoire du temps présent » démarquée de la science politique et de la sociologie, Vingtième siècle. Revue d'histoire se voulait « une revue du contemporain », généraliste, dont les questions du présent justifieraient les choix rédactionnels. Ses créateurs affirmaient ainsi leur croyance dans l'efficacité du regard historique pour déchiffrer les faits de leur temps. Or, la « question des femmes », celle de leur place et d...

In this article, I respond to the criticisms of my ideas made by Christopher Groves in his piece “Logic of Choice or Logic of Care? Uncertainty, Technological Mediation and Responsible Innovation”, which was published in this journal. In my refutation of his objections, I firstly argue that, thanks to the work of the European Court of Human Rights, human rights are continuously evolving in Europe and therefore constitute a framework that is open to the future. Secondly, I argue that, through (...) codes of conduct, guidelines, etc., human rights give rise to moral practices, for example in the business sphere, and that they are not abstract and universal like natural rights, but contextual and actuated at the world-regional level, in particular. Finally, I show that a human rights framework is more effective than an ethics of care when it comes to dealing with certain aspects of intergenerational relationships, such as genetic enhancement in humans. (shrink)

Paru en 1975, Surveiller et punir de Michel Foucault a profondément marqué l'ensemble des sciences humaines et sociales. Plus de quarante ans après, la société de surveillance annoncée par Foucault se manifeste à travers des préoccupations sécuritaires croissantes et la quête fantasmatique d'un risque zéro. Les réformes successives de notre droit pénal traduisent une volonté forte de prévenir, voire de prédire, la réalisation des infractions. La surveillance se déploie non seulement dans l'enceinte carcérale mais au-delà des murs. Il s'avère ainsi (...) crucial de relire l'ouvrage de Foucault à la lumière d'une actualité juridique et politique dense, marquée par une progressive prise de conscience de la nécessité d'appréhender les questions pénales et pénitentiaires d'une manière globale et concertée, mais aussi par le caractère limité des avancées concrètes en ce domaine. Ainsi, en mobilisant une pluralité d'approches disciplinaires (du droit à la philosophie, de la science politique à la sociologie et à la psychiatrie), cet ouvrage se propose de mettre les analyses foucaldiennes de la société punitive, du pouvoir disciplinaire, de l'archipel carcéral, de la surveillance généralisée et de la production de la délinquance à l'épreuve de notre présent, à la fois pour en mesurer la portée réelle et pour élaborer un diagnostic original de notre actualité sociale, juridique et politique. (shrink)

L'Histoire de la folie l'âge classique de Michel Foucault a produit, au montent de sa publication, une onde de choc. Cet ouvrage, foisonnant, baroque, labyrinthique, est apparu aussitôt comme insituable. S'agissait-il d'histoire, de philosophie, de littérature, de sociologie? Les partages disciplinaires traditionnels furent emportés par le courant impétueux de ce livre impossible. Mais il n'y eut pas que les cercles universitaires pour se trouver inquiétés par ces thèses tumultueuses (l'exclusion de la folie par l'âge classique, l'hypocrisie atroce de la libération (...) des fous par les médecins modernes, etc). Le récit épique de l'enfermement des fous dans les prisons de l'ordre moral, des nouveaux partages imposés par les révolutionnaires, altérait la bonne conscience d'une psychiatrie qui se pensait, fondamentalement, et par la vertu d'une fondation originaire jamais interrogée, humaniste. histoire de la folie préparait ainsi les révoltes de l'anti-psychiatrie. Cinquante ans après la parution de ce qui, au départ, était une simple thèse de doctorat, l'éclat de la rupture est intact. Ce livre continue à troubler, fasciner, irriter. Notre culture ne l'a toujours pas digéré. On découvre sans cesse de nouvelles apories, de nouveaux problèmes, de nouvelles perspectives pour interroger l'avenir. Ces rencontres, provoquées à l'occasion de cet anniversaire ne sont pas des commémorations. Il ne s'agit pas d'établir scientifiquement ici ce que Foucault a vraiment voulu dire, mais d'entendre jusqu'à quel point, encore aujourd'hui, ce texte réinvente notre rapport à la folie. (shrink)

The paper aims to offer an account of the cognitive capacities involved in judgements about thought experiments, without appealing to the notions of analyticity or intuition. I suggest that we employ a competence in the application of the relevant concepts. In order to address the worry that this suggestion is not explanatory, I look at some theories of concepts discussed in psychology, and I use them to illustrate how such competence might be realized. This requires, crucially, distinguishing between concepts and (...) ways of applying concepts, or conceptions. I end by considering a possible objection and comparing my account with a similar one defended by David Papineau. (shrink)

The beliefs involved in the placebo effect are often assumed to be self-fulfilling, that is, the truth of these beliefs would merely require the patient to hold them. Such a view is commonly shared in epistemology. Many epistemologists focused, in fact, on the self-fulfilling nature of these beliefs, which have been investigated because they raise some important counterexamples to Nozick’s “tracking theory of knowledge.” We challenge the self-fulfilling nature of placebo-based beliefs in multi-agent contexts, analyzing their deep epistemological nature and (...) the role of higher-order beliefs involved in the placebo effect. (shrink)

Anticipation is one of the main goals of new governance models, such as Responsible Research and Innovation. However, there is not a single mode of anticipation in this model. Two approaches can be addressed within the RRI framework: a socio-empirical one, which tends to underline the role of the democratic processes, aimed at identifying values on which governance needs to be anchored ; and a normative one, which stresses the role of EU goals as ‘normative anchor points’ in governance. These (...) two approaches also address two different models of anticipation: one based on the construction of shared pathways for reflexivity on the purposes of innovation, the other based on the progressive implementation of constitutional goals in risk assessment and management tools. However, both can be deemed partially unsatisfactory from the standpoint of human rights since one puts individual rights in the middle of the ‘values lottery’ where any participatory process ultimately leads; the other can be inadequate since fundamental rights are balanced alongside other goals and thus can be sacrificed, exposing the system to possible adverse court decisions. The normative framework of human rights can help to counterbalance both models aimed at maximising inclusion and those aimed at pursuing constitutional normative principles at the basis of technologically advanced societies, strengthening their dimension of anticipation according to a rights-based perspective. (shrink)