In this article, we will show how Derrida’s deconstruction of modern individualism, exemplified by Robinson Crusoe’s attitude toward nature, addresses the contemporary debate on the Anthropocene. Through Hadot’s genealogy of modern “prometheanism,” we will discuss how a different gaze by human beings on themselves and nature can lead us out of the modern self-conception of the human person, that is resulting in the Anthropocene era, its catastrophic results endangering the very survival of humankind. Through Morton’s conception of hospitality and Haraway’s (...) notion of Chthulucene, we argue that a new individual and collective conversion to nature may result in an era in which human beings can conceive of themselves as ethical parts of nature. Hence, a new view on the reciprocal interdependence between human beings and nature can be affirmed, creating a feeling of hospitality without hostility. We conclude by considering Agamben’s recovery of Franciscanism, as a form-of-life, preceding modernity, in which this ethical, natural civilization was firstly foreseen. (shrink)

The imperative to practice hospitality constitutes a mark of Western civilization. Already in Homer’s Odyssey, the hero Ulysses punishes Polyphemus for not having respected the obligation of hospitality towards him and his companions. In fact, hospitality has been a constitutive element of the West, marked by linguistic, cultural, and religious differences, in a world whose borders are supposed to be well defined. In his discussion of hospitality, Derrida shows how Socrates, in Plato’s dialogue The Apology of Socrates, places himself in (...) the position of a foreigner. In fact, Socrates presents himself as foreigner, that is, someone who is alien to the language and procedures of the court that is judging him. According to Derrida, he shows, in this way, the extent to which the foreigner is forced to ask for hospitality in a language he does not know. The court reduces Socrates to the other, the different. Moreover, the court forces him to deny his difference, his own identity, asking him to adapt himself to a system that he does not control. The paradox arises when Socrates, who regrets being regarded as a foreigner, asks the court to treat him at least as a foreigner. He feels so outraged that he asks to be granted at least the rights of a non-national. In doing so, Socrates shows how recognizing the rights of the foreigner generates hospitality but, at the same time, also limits it. Whenever a human being is recognized as human being, he or she will necessarily be seen as another, as someone different. This person will have to adapt him or herself to a system, culture or world that will define him or her as a foreigner. In short, in the phenomena that we tend to see as hospitality there is always a certain hostility. In a world of ongoing migratory crises, and in the context of a return to nationalisms of exclusion combined with populisms of prejudice and aversion to those who are different, it becomes imperative to rethink the ethics and politics of hospitality. In this context, Derrida’s distinction between conditioned and unconditioned hospitality can be useful. (shrink)

The commemoration of the 700th anniversary of the canonization of Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) as well as the fiftieth anniversary of the death of Jacques Maritain (1882-1973) present an opportunity to re-examine the neo-Thomism of the contemporary French philosopher. Our aim here will be to set out the philosophical argument from which Maritain establishes an inseparable link between human rights (i.e., the dignity of the human person) and natural law. We will thus seek to expose how Maritain supports democracy from the (...) horizon of Christian philosophy. In doing so, the Thomistic democracy that Maritain proposes will appear to be distant from both totalitarian collectivism and anarchistic individualism, two current threats to the establishment of an authentic and mature democracy. (shrink)

In 1948, Bertrand Russell and Frederick Copleston entertained us with a radiophonic debate, on the BBC, concerning the rational proofs of God’s existence. This debate is primarily a product of Authors’ mindset. In this sense, every argument on each side presupposes a universal reason from which human intellect can grasp a certain degree of truth. Therefore, we would expect that the debate 75 years old to be outdated. Or maybe, Russell’s agnostic position could, at first sight, seem to be more (...) aligned with a contemporary post-modern mindset than Copleston’s theism. However, we disagree with the aforementioned thesis. We will not argue that Copleston won the debate by means of reason alone. We will rather show that both positions emerge from different ontologies. And these ones are intertwined with specific narratives and its respective ways of life. For that matter, the Russell-Copleston debate substantiates the thesis of Radical Orthodoxy. Deep down, John Milbank’s “ontology of peace,” as opposed to the Nietzschean nihilism, emerges from this debate. In this sense, while Copleston’s argumentation grounds this narrative on an ontology of peace, Russell tends to follow in a nihilism capable of destroying the communion between different persons. In this sense, the debate is still up to date. (shrink)

In Jean-Paul Sartre’s 1960 declaration that Marxism was the “unsurpassable philosophy of our time,” he acknowledged the relationship between the Marxist interpretation of history and an existentialist philosophy focused on the individual’s subjective experience. However, in the decades since Sartre’s assertion, the philosophical landscape has undergone significant transformations. The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the subsequent collapse of the Soviet Union seemed to mark the final triumph of liberal capitalism over socialist alternatives. At the same time, the (...) rise of postmodernism in philosophy casted doubts on the grand universal narratives that supported Marxism. Postmodern theorists argued that these overarching meta-narratives were intrinsically totalizing and oppressive, thereby suppressing diversity and plurality. Despite these challenges, Marx’s influence persists, often in complex and mediated ways. Paul Ricœur sees Marx as the first “master of suspicion,” who continues to be relevant (alongside Nietzsche and Freud). These thinkers have taught us to question superficial appearances and unearth the hidden forces and motivations shaping our social and psychic lives. Marx’s analysis of the operations of capitalism, his critique of ideology, and his view of class struggle as the engine of history continue to resonate, even as the details of his theory are disputed. Indeed, as Jacques Derrida argues, Marx remains present even in our attempts to surpass him. The language and concepts of Marxism have infiltrated modern discourse so deeply that we cannot simply dismiss them. Instead, we are haunted by the specters of Marx, which continue to haunt us and demand our attention. Even those who reject Marxism often engage with it, defining their positions in opposition to it. (shrink)

In Michel Henry’s studies, the absence of Pascal in the phenomenology of life has been mentioned. Nevertheless, it is noteworthy that the author of Pensées is mentioned both in Henry’s main work, The Essence of Manifestation, and in the Christic trilogy, which showcases the radical limits of his own phenomenology. In this article, we aim to analyze the few explicit references that Henry makes to Pascal to demonstrate how the author of Pensées serves as one of the allies of the (...) radical phenomenologist in the corroboration of two of his fundamental intuitions. (1) First, that the self-affection of the “heart” precedes any hetero-affection where the objectifying reason is put into action ; (2) second, that the human person is realized in an inner experience where the “heart” lives the link with God, who gives our life in fullness. To believe in God is to have this experience. Consequently, Pascalian apologetics is translated in Henry’s phenomenological description of the immanent link to God understood as absolute life. In doing so, Henry distinguishes Pascal from Heidegger by highlighting that within our acosmic heart, what emerges is not a being-towards-death, but rather an ipseity-from-absolute-Life. (shrink)

Résumé: L’interprétation des concepts clefs de saint Paul à partir des intuitions fondamentales de la phénoménologie de la vie cherche surtout à nous faire saisir l’intersubjectivité possible dans l’immanence de la chair acosmique. Le corps mystique du Christ correspond, ainsi, à cette intersubjectivité acosmique qui peut d’ailleurs fonder, en tant que communauté transcendantale, une inter- subjectivité intramondaine qui se veut pacifique. Il nous semble que, de cette façon, une nouvelle ontologie sociale émerge dans l’appropriation que Henry fait de l’ecclésiologie paulinienne. (...) Il s’agit d’une ontologie qui, pour respecter la singularité de chaque individu n’a pas besoin de l’isoler ou de le concevoir par le biais d’une abstraction totalement séparée d’une quelconque relation aux autres egos. Ce faisant, Henry élabore une ontologie sociale qui n’est réfléchie ni par l’idée de contrat social des philosophes libéraux ni par les vues des communautariens, pour qui l’individu est socialement produit comme être essentiellement déjà-au-monde. Mots-clés: Michel Henry. Corps mystique. Chair. Intersubjectivité. (shrink)

O estudo investigou indicadores da síndrome de couvade em pais primíparos durante a gravidez das esposas. Participaram 30 casais com idades entre 20 e 35 anos que estavam em diferentes trimestres da gestação. Os pais e as gestantes responderam individualmente a uma entrevista semi-estruturada que in..

The contribution of Jesuits to the different fields of knowledge, including philosophy, is historically well known. In fact, since the foundation of the Society of Jesus, in the 16th century, Jesuits from different generations and cultures have taken part in the philosophical debates of their time and their different contexts. Since the foundation of the Society of Jesus, in 1540, the Jesuits, individually and as a body, have engaged in a fruitful dialogue between the Christian tradition and different dimensions of (...) human culture. During almost five centuries, numerous Jesuits taught philosophy in academic institutions all over the world. Some of them have their names recorded in the history of philosophy. Of course, the majority of them is not anymore remembered, despite their valuable contribution to the development of the Jesuit intellectual tradition up to our times. In fact, as an heir of the Roman College, the first academic institution founded by the Society of Jesus, in 1551, the Pontifical Gregorian University, in Rome, is a witness to this tradition, which has been kept alive thanks to the discrete work of both Jesuits and lay intellectuals. Known as the University of the Nations, this institution corroborates not only the capacity of the Jesuit tradition to put faith in dialogue with reason, but also the option to take the concrete reality of each human culture and its historical context as its point of departure. The Jesuits’ willingness to engage in dialogue with different intellectual perspectives is underpinned by one of the most defining traits of the Jesuit charism, namely, the conviction that God can be found and served in all things. Accordingly, Jesuits have adopted, from the beginning, an amenable stance towards the world with its different cultures and intellectual trends. As such, Jesuits have, since the beginning, inhabited the frontiers of human thought. According to the contemporary philosopher Paul Gilbert, SJ, within the institutions under the leadership of the Society of Jesus, it was always possible to maintain an equilibrium between two principles: “intellectual unity” and “openness to the world.” Without detriment to the Jesuit identity, the companions of Ignatius have been willing to dwell in the various dimensions of human reality, in their multiplicity and plurality. Either in the renewal of Aristotle’s and Aquinas’ metaphysics, or in the dialogue with modern philosophers such as Descartes, Kant, or Hegel, and even in the inculturation in non-European contexts, the Jesuits have been able to preserve the Christian tradition through an original development of human culture in all its richness and diversity. With respect to the last century, it has to be acknowledged that a significant number of Jesuits made significant contributions, with recognized competence, to philosophy. Certainly, the 20th century was particularly complex in many respects. It would be enough to recall that this period, which brought with it unprecedented social, scientific, and technological developments, was also the stage for the two World Wars. With the emergence or consolidation of philosophical currents such as Marxism, Phenomenology, Existentialism, Structuralism, and Post-Modernism, the past century was, without any doubt, fascinating from the intellectual point of view. Jesuits such as Karl Rahner, Frederick Copleston, Bernard Lonergan, William Norris Clarke, John F. Kavanaugh, Teilhard de Chardin, Gaston Fessard, Jean Daniélou, Henri de Lubac, Michel de Certeau, Xavier Tilliette, Paul Valadier, Paweł Siwek, Ignacio Ellacuría, Francisco Taborda, Henrique de Lima Vaz and, in the Portuguese context, Diamantino Martins or Júlio Fragata, among many others, were able to engage different philosophical currents, problems and controversies of their times. Faithful to their long tradition of being present in the frontiers of thought, those Jesuits have engaged in a fruitful dialogue with these intellectual trends, offering relevant contributions to different ongoing debates. Within this context, the present volume recalls and discusses the philosophical contribution of some of the most prominent Jesuit protagonists of the intellectual interchange that took place in the 20th century. This volume also intends to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Revista Portuguesa de Filosofia, which happens just before the inauguration of the Ignatian Year. Decreed by Father Arturo Sosa, the Superior General of the Society of Jesus, this celebratory Year will start on May 20, 2021, precisely 500 years after Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuit Order, was wounded at the battle of Pamplona. We are happy that this volume could bring together outstanding specialists in the thought of some of the most prominent Jesuits philosophers of the last century, namely Paul Valadier, Paul Gilbert, Józef Bremer, Jacek Poznański, Alexander Maar, Patrick H. Byrne, M. Ross Romero, Carlos Alvarez, Hélio Pereira Lima, José Gama, Domingos Terra, Gabriel Flynn, Marie-Gabrielle Lemaire, José Sols Lucia, Lorena Zuchel Lovera, Pedro Pablo Achondo Moya, Enzo Solari, Massimo Borghesi, Mendo Castro Henriques, João Barbosa, and Dominique Lambert. In addition, in the celebration of the 100th anniversary of Júlio Fragata’s birth, Maria Teresa Fragata presents a memory of his life and thought. We hope that this volume may be useful to all those interested in the Jesuit philosophical tradition. Hopefully, it will stimulate scholars to pursue a fruitful and creative dialogue with contemporary philosophy, in the footsteps of the Jesuit philosophers featured here. We would like to thank all the authors and all those who, in different ways, made this volume possible. (shrink)

This article analyzes Teilhard’s references to Marxism, highlighting his dialogue with the influential Marxist thought of the 20th century. Despite not deeply engaging with Marx’s works, Teilhard acknowledges the significance of Marxist ideas within the cultural context of the last century. Positioned within the framework of grand narratives, Teilhard’s Christian perspective offers an alternative to Marxism, emphasizing a comprehensive understanding of reality that integrates spiritual and material dimensions. By exploring Teilhard’s interactions with Marxism, this study sheds light on the complex (...) intellectual landscape of the era, where competing ideologies shaped debates about the meaning of human existence and history. (shrink)

This work attempts to deconstruct Jair Bolsonaro’s hostile policy vis-à-vis the Brazilian media during his presidency by applying Zygmunt Bauman’s description of “liquid modernity” and its aversion to “strangeness” as the sociological-philosophical apparatus combined with the presidential-press relationship and the enemy construction dynamics of the communication research. The explorative qualitative empirical analysis of three-dimensional anti-media categories traditionally associated with right-wing populists—the discrediting and blaming of the press and detaching it from the people—throughout the “honeymoon” period of Bolsonaro’s presidency confirmed the (...) decoupling of the traditional presidential-press and media-public relationships. Besides validating the primacy of the logic of consumption over morality, it further corroborated the fiercely adversarial populist policy designed for strangeness rhetoric construction of the media as distrusted “outsider” and “enemy.”. (shrink)

Dentre todas as possibilidades de ação feminista, há a militância em espaço público e a prática em apoio às mulheres, bem como a levada de consciência sobre pautas feministas para as mulheres, tanto no âmbito privado como no público. Esta era a abordagem de Andrea Dworkin, que proferia discursos em marchas e levava suas próprias experiências para o âmbito da escrita, sua prática profissional. A mesma abordagem era utilizada por Suzanne Lacy, artista contemporânea que, através de instalações urbanas, realizava suas (...) ações de militância combinada à arte. Este trabalho visa traçar parâmetros comuns entre estas duas mulheres, focando em suas pautas e na reverberação de seus trabalhos um em relação ao outro, bem como na sociedade.Palavras-chave: Público. Arte Contemporânea. Feminismo. AbstractAmongst all possibilities of feminist action there’s the militant strategy: to take the word of action into the public space, to act in women’s aid, to talk to your target audience and bring your discourse to the people. That was Andrea Dworkin’s strategy, who would bring her speeches into women’s marches and take her experience into her writing, which was her profession. The same strategy was taken by Suzanne Lacy, contemporary artist who focuses on urban installations to mix political and artistic action. This paper correlates these two authors, focusing on their preferred subjects and how their works reverberated together and in society.Keywords: Public. Contemporary Art. Feminism. (shrink)

Zusammenfassung Zu der Frage, von welcher Instanz oder welchem Sozialisationsagenten im Sport welche Wirkung ausgeht, finden sich kaum differenzierte Studien. In einer Fragebogenstudie wurden in Anlehnung an Goncalves Trainer und von ihnen trainierte Jugendliche zur Bedeutung verschiedener Sozialisationsagenten für das Sporttreiben der Jugendlichen, zu ihrer Haltung zum Thema Fairness sowie zu diversen sozialen Normen befragt. Beide Gruppen sprechen übereinstimmend dem Trainer hohe Bedeutung zu. Weitere Analysen zeigen, dass sich aus den beim Trainer wahrgenommenen sozialen Normen regressionsanalytisch ein relativ hoher Anteil (...) der entsprechenden Einstellungen der Jugendlichen hervorsagen lässt. Dies bestätigt die große Bedeutung der Trainer als Sozialisationsagenten. (shrink)

Face à la nouvelle sensibilité de l'homme contemporain envers les questions écologiques, à l’importance qu’il accorde au soin de la planète, et dans le sillage de la publication de Laudato Si’, la vision de Teilhard de Chardin apparaît à nouveau actuelle. Bien que les questions et l’état des sciences aient changé considérablement depuis sa mort en 1955, la portée cosmologique de la christologie teilhardienne fait de la perspective du jésuite paléontologue une source inespérée pour une pratique chrétienne adaptée aux exigences (...) du monde moderne. À partir de sa notion d’Église en tant que Corps cosmique du Christ, où toutes les créatures de notre vaste univers sont englobées au sein de la sphère ecclésiale elle-même, la communion entre les êtres s’étend au-delà des êtres humains, fondant un profond respect pour toutes les créatures. Le présent ouvrage cherche à préciser et à justifier, d’un côté, l’insertion de Teilhard au sein de la tradition chrétienne et à envisager, d’un autre, les conséquences pratiques de cette ecclésiologie écologique, notamment dans la spiritualité, l’éthique et la liturgie. Andreas Gonçalves Lind est un prêtre jésuite luso-allemand qui, pour le moment, fait une thèse doctorale sur la phénoménologie henryenne de la Vie à l’Université de Namur comme boursier de la FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (Portugal). (shrink)

John Christman has argued that constitutively relational accounts of autonomy, as defended by some feminist theorists, are problematically perfectionist about the human good. I argue that autonomy is constitutively relational, but not in a way that implies perfectionism: autonomy depends on a dialogical disposition to hold oneself answerable to external, critical perspectives on one's action-guiding commitments. This type of relationality carries no substantive value commitments, yet it does answer to core feminist concerns about autonomy.

The demand for social justice, especially in the context of the welfare state, is often framed as a demand of solidarity. But it is not clear why: in what sense, if any, is social justice best understood as a demand of solidarity? This article explores that question. There are two reasons to do so. First, very little has been written on the concept of solidarity, and almost nothing on why and how solidarity can both give rise to and be the (...) target of a moral obligation. The first aim of the article is to fill this gap. The second aim of the article is to explore the normative implications of this account of solidarity for the commitment to social justice at the heart of the welfare state, and in so doing, to put into question the idea that shared experience or shared identity are either necessary or sufficient bases for social justice qua solidarity. (shrink)

Human cerebral organoids (HCOs) are three-dimensional in vitro cell cultures that mimic the developmental process and organization of the developing human brain. In just a few years this technique has produced brain models that are already being used to study diseases of the nervous system and to test treatments and drugs. Currently, HCOs consist of tens of millions of cells and have a size of a few millimeters. The greatest limitation to further development is due to their lack of vascularization. (...) However, recent research has shown that human cerebral organoids can manifest the same electrical activity and connections between brain neurons and EEG patterns as those recorded in preterm babies. All this suggests that, in the future, HCOs may manifest an ability to experience basic sensations such as pain, therefore manifesting sentience, or even rudimentary forms of consciousness. This calls for consideration of whether cerebral organoids should be given a moral status and what limitations should be introduced to regulate research. In this article I focus particularly on the study of the emergence and mechanisms of human consciousness, i.e. one of the most complex scientific problems there are, by means of experiments on HCOs. This type of experiment raises relevant ethical issues and, as I will argue, should probably not be considered morally acceptable. (shrink)

I advance an objection to Graham Priest’s account of fictional entities as nonexistent objects. According to Priest, fictional characters do not have, in our world, the properties they are represented as having; for example, the property of being a bank clerk is possessed by Joseph K. not in our world but in other worlds. Priest claims that, in this way, his theory can include an unrestricted principle of characterization for objects. Now, some representational properties attributed to fictional characters, a kind (...) of fictional entities, involve a crucial reference to the world in which they are supposed to be instantiated. I argue that these representational properties are problematic for Priest’s theory and that he cannot accept an unrestricted version of the principle of characterization. Thus, while not refuting Priest’s theory, I show that it is no better off than other Meinongian theories. (shrink)

This English translation of the author's original work has been thoroughly revised, expanded and updated. The book covers logical systems known as type-free or self-referential . These traditionally arise from any discussion on logical and semantical paradoxes. This particular volume, however, is not concerned with paradoxes but with the investigation of type-free sytems to show that: (i) there are rich theories of self-application, involving both operations and truth which can serve as foundations for property theory and formal semantics; (ii) these (...) theories provide a new outlook on classical topics, such as inductive definitions and predicative mathematics; (iii) they are particularly promising with regard to applications. Research arising from paradoxes has moved progressively closer to the mainstream of mathematical logic and has become much more prominent in the last twenty years. A number of significant developments, techniques and results have been discovered. Academics, students and researchers will find that the book contains a thorough overview of all relevant research in this field. (shrink)

Modeling law search and retrieval as prediction problems has recently emerged as a predominant approach in law intelligence. Focusing on the law article retrieval task, we present a deep learning framework named LamBERTa, which is designed for civil-law codes, and specifically trained on the Italian civil code. To our knowledge, this is the first study proposing an advanced approach to law article prediction for the Italian legal system based on a BERT (Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers) learning framework, which has (...) recently attracted increased attention among deep learning approaches, showing outstanding effectiveness in several natural language processing and learning tasks. We define LamBERTa models by fine-tuning an Italian pre-trained BERT on the Italian civil code or its portions, for law article retrieval as a classification task. One key aspect of our LamBERTa framework is that we conceived it to address an extreme classification scenario, which is characterized by a high number of classes, the few-shot learning problem, and the lack of test query benchmarks for Italian legal prediction tasks. To solve such issues, we define different methods for the unsupervised labeling of the law articles, which can in principle be applied to any law article code system. We provide insights into the explainability and interpretability of our LamBERTa models, and we present an extensive experimental analysis over query sets of different type, for single-label as well as multi-label evaluation tasks. Empirical evidence has shown the effectiveness of LamBERTa, and also its superiority against widely used deep-learning text classifiers and a few-shot learner conceived for an attribute-aware prediction task. (shrink)

Various attempts have been made recently to bring Husserl into the contemporary analytic discussion on sensory illusion and hallucination. On the one hand, this has resulted in a renewed interest in what one might call a ‘phenomenology of sense-deception.’ On the other hand, it has generated contrasting—if not utterly incompatible—readings of Husserl’s own account of sense perception. The present study critically evaluates the contemporary discourse on illusion and hallucination, reassesses its proximity to Husserl’s reflection on sensory perception, and highlights the (...) philosophical limits and structural deficiencies of the current debate in light of some of Husserl’s insights. The analysis first provides a synopsis of the argumentative structures, aims, and assumptions informing the conjunctivism-disjunctivism debate. This assessment is then critically elaborated through the lens of Husserlian phenomenology in its historical and theoretical distance from the recent debate. Contrary to certain readings of Husserl, the reconstruction of some cardinal phenomenological themes provides all the elements necessary to dislocate his own account from the conjunctivism-disjunctivism dispute, by means of both a ‘global’ and a ‘local’ analysis, and both exegetically and theoretically. Most importantly, a ‘return’ to Husserl shows the philosophical untenability of the whole controversy as not only leaving untouched the core problem of perception but also altering some of its essential traits. This critique of the image of experience portrayed in the contemporary discussion is conducted through a phenomenological clarification of perception as a distinct ‘structure of rules’ of consciousness and, more specifically, by means of a descriptive analysis centered on the core notion of horizonal-intentionality. (shrink)

In der zeitgenössischen Erkenntnistheorie ist die Idee verbreitet, dass der Erwerb von Wissen davon abhängig ist, dass das Subjekt des Wissens an einer bestimmten Lebensform teilhat, die grundlegender als sein Wissen ist. Das ist eine Lesart der Position Wittgensteins, deren exemplarischer Vertreter etwa Stanley Cavell ist. Meine These dagegen lautet, dass die Lebensformtheorie einem erkenntnistheoretischen Dogma aufruht, dessen Überwindung Wittgensteins eigentliches Anliegen war: Es ist das Dogma, dass die grundlegende Bedeutung des Wissensbegriffs in der Beschreibung eines einzelnen Aktes besteht, und (...) nicht in der Beschreibung von etwas, das auf einer logisch anderen Ebene steht: nämlich einer Fähigkeit. Damit soll nicht bestritten werden, dass die Idee einer bestimmten Lebensform wesentlich ist für die Beschreibung erkenntnisfähiger Subjekte. Doch diese ist nicht grundlegender als die Idee des Wissens selbst. (shrink)

While the concept event has been an important tool in our thinking about causation and action, the concept process has not been appealed to so readily. However, recently, several philosophers have...

The problem of intentional inexistence arises because the following (alleged) intuitions are mutually conflicting: it seems that sometimes we think about things that do not exist; it seems that intentionality is a relation between a thinker and what such a thinker thinks about; it seems that relations entail the existence of what they relate. In this paper, I argue for what I call a radical relationist solution. First, I contend that the extant arguments for the view that relations entail the (...) existence of their relata are wanting. In this regard, I defend a kind of pluralism about relations according to which more than one kind of relation involves non-existents. Second, I contend that there are reasons to maintain that all thoughts are relations between thinkers and the things they are about. More accurately, I contend that the radical relationist solution is to be preferred to both the intentional content solution (as developed by Crane) and the adverbial property solution (as developed by Kriegel). Finally, I argue that once the distinction between thinking “X” and thinking about X has been drawn, the radical relationist solution can handle issues like ontological commitment, substitutivity failure, scrutability, and non-specificity. (shrink)

One of the major issues for user assistance systems consists of “providing help at an appropriate level”. In this paper we analyze the problem of modeling task experience — a prerequisite for provisioning adequate help. In contrast to level-based approaches we propose an ontology-based model, which allows fine-grained modeling of task experience using the concepts of the task domain as granules. The model is semantic in the sense that it allows to take advantage of the relations between concepts to provide (...) novel semantic services and interactions. We present the SACHS (Semantic Annotations for a Controlling Help System, a semantic help system for a spreadsheet-based financial controlling system) software as an exemplary application of the proposed task experience model. (shrink)

We present original remarks on some possible applications of classical results of Calculus. Suggestions to the higher schools teachers are also given.

Until is a notoriously difficult temporal operator as it is both existential and universal at the same time: A∪B holds at the current time instant w iff either B holds at w or there exists a time instant w' in the future at which B holds and such that A holds in all the time instants between the current one and ẃ. This “ambivalent” nature poses a significant challenge when attempting to give deduction rules for until. In this paper, in (...) contrast, we make explicit this duality of until by introducing a new temporal operator ∇ that allows us to formalize the “history” of until, i.e., the “internal” universal quantification over the time instants between the current one and ẃ. This approach provides the basis for formalizing deduction systems for temporal logics endowed with the until operator. For concreteness, we give here a labeled natural deduction system N(LTL∇) for a linear-time logic LTL∇ endowed with the new history operator. We show that LTL∇ is equivalent to the linear temporal logic LTL with until, which follows by formalizing back and forth translations between the two logics. We also define an indirect translation from LTL∇ into LTL via temporal logics with past operators; such a result provides an upper bound to the problem of satisfiability for LTL∇ formulas. (shrink)

This volume addresses three major themes regarding recipes: their nature and identity; their relationship to territory, producers, consumers and places of production. The first part looks at taxonomies of recipes, the relationship between recipes and their source, and how recipes have changed over time, including case studies that look at unsourced recipes through to recipes for foods that are very highly processed. The second part identifies the constitutive relationships that characterize recipes, between territory, producers, consumers, places and spaces of production. (...) The third part studies the values and norms guiding the naming, production and consumption of recipes, scrutinising the cultural appropriation of recipes, how to stake authority in claiming a recipe, and the interplay between aesthetics and ethics in recipe making. With contributors ranging across disciplines including philosophy, law and history, and including established academics such as Carolyn Korsmeyer and food writers such as Rachel Laudan this volume will be of vital importance for those looking to understand how archival material forms our understanding of eating habits and culture throughout history. (shrink)

This conclusion of the debate on anthropology’s role in cognitive science provides some clarifications and an overview of emergent themes. It also lists, as cases of good practice, some examples of productive cross-disciplinary collaboration that evince a forward momentum in the relationship between anthropology and the other cognitive sciences.

Gao presents a new mentalistic reformulation of the well-known measurement problem affecting the standard formulation of quantum mechanics. According to this author, it is essentially a determinate-experience problem, namely a problem about the compatibility between the linearity of the Schrödinger’s equation, the fundamental law of quantum theory, and definite experiences perceived by conscious observers. In this essay I aim to clarify that the well-known measurement problem is a mathematical consequence of quantum theory’s formalism, and that its mentalistic variant does not (...) grasp the relevant causes which are responsible for this puzzling issue. The first part of this paper will be concluded claiming that the “physical” formulation of the measurement problem cannot be reduced to its mentalistic version. In the second part of this work it will be shown that, contrary to the case of quantum mechanics, Bohmian mechanics and GRW theories provide clear explanations of the physical processes responsible for the definite localization of macroscopic objects and, consequently, for well-defined perceptions of measurement outcomes by conscious observers. More precisely, the macro-objectification of states of experimental devices is obtained exclusively in virtue of their clear ontologies and dynamical laws without any intervention of human observers. Hence, it will be argued that in these theoretical frameworks the measurement problem and the determinate-experience problem are logically distinct issues. (shrink)

The increasing centrality of business firms in contemporary societies calls for a renewed attention to the democratization of these actors. This paper sheds new light on the possibility of democratizing business firms by bridging recent scholarship in two fields—deliberative democracy and business ethics. To date, deliberative democracy has largely neglected the role of business firms in democratic societies. While business ethics scholarship has given more attention to these issues, it has overlooked the possibility of deliberation within firms. As argued in (...) the paper, a combination of reforms based on the ideas of workplace deliberation and business deliberation is necessary in order to promote the prospect of deliberation in different business contexts. The paper also discusses the importance of more democratic firms for deliberative democracy at large and, in particular, for the recent debate on deliberative systems. Finally, the paper suggests new areas of investigation to better understand the prospect of democratic deliberation in business firms. (shrink)

In this paper, I take a fresh look at Husserl's key distinction between objectifying and non‐objectifying acts, which roughly amounts to a distinction between presentational and evaluative experiences. My goal is to provide a clear and unified reconstruction of Husserl's argument for the thesis that non‐objectifying acts are necessarily founded in objectifying acts, a thesis that is highly controversial in and beyond Husserlian scholarship. In the first section, I reconstruct Husserl's view in the Logical Investigations, according to which only objectifying (...) acts establish an independent intentional relation to their objects, and argue that it is justified by the positing function of objectifying acts. In the second section, I address two problematic interpretations of this view and, after criticizing them, I present what I take to be Husserl's core argument for his position. In the third section, I turn to the revision of the view of the Logical Investigations that Husserl proposes in the wake of his transcendental turn, especially in Ideas I and II. On Husserl's revised view, all acts are objectifying, including emotional acts [Gemütsakte]. This revision has led scholars to consider Husserl's view aporetic. I propose an alternative interpretation that dispels the purported aporia. I conclude with some remarks on the costs and benefits of my reading, as well as the strengths and weaknesses of Husserl's view in general. (shrink)