Les essais ici réunis sont les actes du colloque organisé en 2015 par le Collège international de philosophie. L'ouvrage questionne le rôle des humanités dans la construction des idées universitaires en Europe. Alors que les gouvernements européens ont adopté une vision de l'enseignement supérieur centrée sur la rentabilité de la recherche et de l'instruction, il apparaît nécessaire de réévaluer le sens et les possibilités des humanités. Une dizaine de chercheurs s'y emploient.

In this paper I respond to Marcus William Hunt’s argument that vegan parents have pro tanto reasons for not raising their children on a vegan diet because such a diet is potentially harmful to children’s physical and social well-being. In my rebuttal, first I show that in practice all vegan diets, with the exception of wacky diets, are beneficial to children’s well-being ; and that all animal-based diets are potentially unhealthful. Second, I show that vegan children are no more socially (...) outcast than any other group. In other words, veganism does not harm the lives of children. Having considered several studies, I show that the moral reasons that vegan parents may have for raising their children on a vegan diet significantly outweigh the reasons for raising their children on an animal-based diet. Thus, I conclude that parents have a moral obligation to raise their children on a vegan diet. (shrink)

This article discusses the relation between empirical and normative approaches in bioethics. The issue of dwarf tossing, while admittedly unusual, is chosen as a point of departure because it challenges the reader to look with fresh eyes upon several central bioethical themes, including human dignity, autonomy, and the protection of vulnerable people. After an overview of current approaches to the integration of empirical and normative ethics, we consider five ways that the empirical and normative can be brought together to speak (...) to the problem of dwarf tossing: prescriptive applied ethics, theoretical ethics, critical applied ethics, particularist ethics and integrated empirical ethics. We defend a position of critical applied ethics that allows for a two-way relation between empirical and normative theories. Against efforts fully to integrate the normative and the empirical into one synthesis, we propose that the two should stand in tension and relation to one another. The approach we endorse acknowledges that a social practice can and should be judged both by the gathering of empirical data and by normative ethics. Critical applied ethics uses a five stage process that includes: (a) determination of the problem, (b) description of the problem, (c) empirical study of effects and alternatives, (d) normative weighing and (e) evaluation of the effects of a decision. In each stage, we explore the perspective from both the empirical (sociological) and the normative ethical point of view. We conclude by applying our five-stage critical applied ethics to the example of dwarf tossing. (shrink)

Today’s managers face a competitive and globalized marketplace, with a multitude of stakeholders demanding their time and attention. The fast pace of this environment can overwhelm them and may interfere with their desire for meaningful work and an integration of their personal and professional values. This paper addresses this challenge by combining stakeholder theory and Catholic Social Tradition to form Catholic Stakeholder Thinking. Possessing values that are shared by managers of diverse faiths and beliefs, it explains how key Catholic social (...) tenets and the resulting normative obligations inform managerial responsibilities to stakeholders. Catholic Stakeholder Thinking is taught and reinforced through the open-ended case method, an approach which encourages managers to critically examine the complexities of an issue. This determines whether their decisions promote integral human development and the common good in solidarity with the poor. The open-ended case method approach anchored in Catholic Stakeholder thinking sharpens managers’ skills and may contribute to personal development. Because of its shared focus on integral human development and the common good in solidarity with the poor, it can be used by managers of good will who hold different (or no) religious affiliations. (shrink)

Individual relativism, also known as ethical subjectivism, is an attractive theory about morality. It argues that morality is a matter relative to the individual in a way akin to personal taste. For example, subjectivists regard the ethical judgment ‘Stealing is wrong’ as comparable with the judgment of taste ‘I dislike Brussels sprouts’. Yet, subjectivism is not nihilism. While nihilism denies the existence of moral value, duties, principles and truths, subjectivism claims that they exist, but they are subjective like taste. In (...) this paper, I argue that ethical subjectivism ought to be rejected as it is an incoherent, undefendable, and a pernicious position. (shrink)

The project of growing meat artificially represents for some the next best thing to humanity. If successful, it could be the solution to several problems, such as feeding a growing global population while reducing the environmental impact of raising animals for food and, of course, reducing the amount and degree of animal cruelty and suffering that is involved in animal farming. In this paper, I argue that the issue of the morality of such a project has been framed only in (...) terms of the best consequences for the environment, animals, and humans, or in terms of deontic principles. I argue that to appreciate how deep and difficult this issue is, it is necessary to consider it in terms of a virtue-oriented approach. Such an approach will reveal aspects that are not apparent, not contemplated by typical approaches, but are essential to our understanding of the morality of lab-grown meat. As I argue, evaluating the issue from a virtue-oriented perspective suggests that the project of in vitro meat should not be supported because it stems from unvirtuous motivations. (shrink)

Marcus William Hunt argues that when co-parents disagree over whether to raise their child (or children) as a vegan, they should reach a compromise as a gift given by one parent to the other out of respect for his or her authority. Josh Millburn contends that Hunt’s proposal of parental compromise over veganism is unacceptable on the ground that it overlooks respect for animal rights, which bars compromising. However, he contemplates the possibility of parental compromise over ‘unusual eating,’ of animal-based (...) foods obtained without the violation of animal rights. I argue for zero parental compromise, rejecting a rights-oriented approach, and propose a policy that an ethical vegan parent and a non-vegan co-parent should follow to determine how to raise their children. (shrink)

1. Tra Seicento e Settecento -- 2. Tra Ottocento e Novecento.

In a very influential paper Rota stresses the relevance of mathematical beauty to mathematical research, and claims that a piece of mathematics is beautiful when it is enlightening. He stops short, however, of explaining what he means by ‘enlightening’. This paper proposes an alternative approach, according to which a mathematical demonstration or theorem is beautiful when it provides understanding. Mathematical beauty thus considered can have a role in mathematical discovery because it can guide the mathematician in selecting which hypothesis to (...) consider and which to disregard. Thus aesthetic factors can have an epistemic role qua aesthetic factors in mathematical research. (shrink)

Franz Brentano is not usually associated with mathematics. Generally, only Brentano’s discussion of the continuum and his critique of the mathematical accounts of it is treated in the literature. It is this detailed critique which suggests that Brentano had more than a superficial familiarity with mathematics. Indeed, considering the authors and works quoted in his lectures, Brentano appears well-informed and quite interested in the mathematical research of his time. I specifically address his lectures here as there is much less to (...) be found about mathematics in his published works. Besides Brentano’s own work, it is quite remarkable to see that practically all of his better-known students sooner or later produced a work on the philosophy of mathematics. This also encourages the supposition not just of a common interest in the matter, but of a common theoretical core. All this prompts the question: Can we speak of a Brentanist philosophy of mathematics? (shrink)

A correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10701-021-00451-y.

Recent aphasiological findings, not mentioned in the target article, have been accounted for by Levelt et al.'s theory and have, in turn, provided it with empirical support and new leads. This interaction is especially promising in the domain of complex word retrieval. Examples of particular categories of compounds are discussed.

Quantum gravity poses the problem of merging quantum mechanics and general relativity, the two great conceptual revolutions in the physics of the twentieth century. The loop and spinfoam approach, presented in this book, is one of the leading research programs in the field. The first part of the book discusses the reformulation of the basis of classical and quantum Hamiltonian physics required by general relativity. The second part covers the basic technical research directions. Appendices include a detailed history of the (...) subject of quantum gravity, hard-to-find mathematical material, and a discussion of some philosophical issues raised by the subject. This fascinating text is ideal for graduate students entering the field, as well as researchers already working in quantum gravity. It will also appeal to philosophers and other scholars interested in the nature of space and time. (shrink)

Substructural logics and their application to logical and semantic paradoxes have been extensively studied. In the paper, we study theories of naïve consequence and truth based on a non-reflexive logic. We start by investigating the semantics and the proof-theory of a system based on schematic rules for object-linguistic consequence. We then develop a fully compositional theory of truth and consequence in our non-reflexive framework.

Can philosophy still be fruitful, and what kind of philosophy can be such? In particular, what kind of philosophy can be legitimized in the face of sciences? The aim of this paper is to answer these questions, listing the characteristics philosophy should have to be fruitful and legitimized in the face of sciences. Since the characteristics in question demand that philosophy search for new knowledge and new rules of discovery, a philosophy with such characteristics may be called the ‘heuristic view’. (...) According to the heuristic view, philosophy is an inquiry into the world which is continuous with the sciences. It differs from them only because it deals with questions which are beyond the present sciences, and in order to deal with them must try unexplored routes. By so doing, when successful, it may even give birth to new sciences. In listing the characteristics that philosophy should have, the paper systematically compares them with classical analytic philosophy, because the latter has been the dominant philosophical tradition in the last century. (shrink)

Why do we remember the past and not the future? What does it mean for time to "flow"? Do we exist in time or does time exist in us? In lyric, accessible prose, Carlo Rovelli invites us to consider questions about the nature of time that continue to puzzle physicists and philosophers alike. For most readers this is unfamiliar terrain. We all experience time, but the more scientists learn about it, the more mysterious it remains. We think of it (...) as uniform and universal, moving steadily from past to future, measured by clocks. Rovelli tears down these assumptions one by one, revealing a strange universe where at the most fundamental level time disappears. He explains how the theory of quantum gravity attempts to understand and give meaning to the resulting extreme landscape of this timeless world. Weaving together ideas from philosophy, science and literature, he suggests that our perception of the flow of time depends on our perspective, better understood starting from the structure of our brain and emotions than from the physical universe. (shrink)

Facts happen at every interaction, but they are not absolute: they are relative to the systems involved in the interaction. Stable facts are those whose relativity can effectively be ignored. In this work, we describe how stable facts emerge in a world of relative facts and discuss their respective roles in connecting quantum theory and the world. The distinction between relative and stable facts resolves the difficulties pointed out by the no-go theorem of Frauchiger and Renner, and is consistent with (...) the experimental violation of the Local Friendliness inequalities of Bong et al.. Basing the ontology of the theory on relative facts clarifies the role of decoherence in bringing about the classical world and solves the apparent incompatibility between the ‘linear evolution’ and ‘projection’ postulates. (shrink)

Although in the past three decades interest in mathematical explanation revived, recent literature on the subject seems to neglect the strict connection between explanation and discovery. In this paper I sketch an alternative approach that takes such connection into account. My approach is a revised version of one originally considered by Descartes. The main difference is that my approach is in terms of the analytic method, which is a method of discovery prior to axiomatized mathematics, whereas Descartes’s approach is in (...) terms of the analytic–synthetic method, which is a heuristic pattern in already axiomatized mathematics. (shrink)

This monograph addresses the question of the increasing irrelevance of philosophy, which has seen scientists as well as philosophers concluding that philosophy is dead and has dissolved into the sciences. It seeks to answer the question of whether or not philosophy can still be fruitful and what kind of philosophy can be such. The author argues that from its very beginning philosophy has focused on knowledge and methods for acquiring knowledge. This view, however, has generally been abandoned in the last (...) century with the belief that, unlike the sciences, philosophy makes no observations or experiments and requires only thought. Thus, in order for philosophy to once again be relevant, it needs to return to its roots and focus on knowledge as well as methods for acquiring knowledge. Accordingly, this book deals with several questions about knowledge that are essential to this view of philosophy, including mathematical knowledge. Coverage examines such issues as the nature of knowledge; plausibility and common sense; knowledge as problem solving; modeling scientific knowledge; mathematical objects, definitions, diagrams; mathematics and reality; and more. This monograph presents a new approach to philosophy, epistemology, and the philosophy of mathematics. It will appeal to graduate students and researchers with interests in the role of knowledge, the analytic method, models of science, and mathematics and reality. (shrink)

The concept of dignity is notoriously vague. In this paper it is argued that the reason for this is that there are three versions of dignity that are often confused. First we will take a short look at the history of the concept of dignity in order to demonstrate how already from Roman Antiquity two versions of dignity can be distinguished. Subsequently, the third version will be introduced and it will be argued that although the three versions of dignity hang (...) together, they should also be clearly distinguished in order to avoid confusion. The reason for distinguishing the three versions is because all three of them are only partially effective. This will be demonstrated by taking the discussion about voluntary ‘dying with dignity’ as an example. Inspired by both Paul Ricoeur’s concept of ethics and the ethics of care a proposition will be done as to how the three versions of dignity may sustain each other and help achieve what neither one of the versions can do on its own. (shrink)

Human beings are getting fatter and sicker. As we question what we eat and why we eat it, this book argues that living well involves consuming a raw vegan diet. With eating healthfully and eating ethically being simpler said than done, this book argues that the best solution to health, environmental, and ethical problems concerning animals is raw veganism―the human diet. The human diet is what humans are naturally designed to eat, and that is, a raw vegan diet of fruit, (...) tender leafy greens, and occasionally nuts and seeds. While veganism raises challenging questions over the ethics of consuming animal products, while also considering the environmental impact of the agriculture industry, raw veganism goes a step further and argues that consuming cooked food is also detrimental to our health and the environment. Cooking foods allows us to eat food that is not otherwise fit for human consumption and in an age that promotes eating foods in ‘moderation’ and having ‘balanced’ diets, this raises the question of why we are eating foods that should only be consumed in moderation at all, as moderation clearly implies they aren’t good for us. In addition, from an environmental perspective, the use of stoves, ovens and microwaves for cooking contributes significantly to energy consumption and cooking in general generates excessive waste of food and resources. Thus, this book maintains that living well and living a noble life, that is, good physical and moral health, requires consuming a raw vegan diet. Exploring the scientific and philosophical aspects of raw veganism, this novel book is essential reading for all interested in promoting ethical, healthful, and sustainable diets. (shrink)

Biological diversity would apparently seem the most intuitive and easily studied of all the ecological concepts. However, in practice biodiversity has suffered from great number of definitions that vary with the specific needs of the different researchers, thus making it extremely confusing as an ecological concept. In this paper, I shortly review the concept of biodiversity showing that there exists a substantial ambiguity among ecologists as far as biodiversity conceptualization and evaluation is concerned. I conclude that, due to this major (...) disagreement on its very nature, biodiversity may be defined simply as a set of multivariate summary statistics for quantifying different characteristics of community structure. (shrink)

In this paper we argue that Sen's defence of liberal democracy suffers from a moralistic and pro-liberal bias that renders it unable to take pluralism as seriously as it professes to do. That is because Sen’s commitment to respecting pluralism is not matched by his account of how to individuate the sorts of preferences that ought to be included in democratic deliberation. Our argument generalises as a critique of the two most common responses to the fact of pluralism in contemporary (...) (i.e. post-Rawls) liberalism: a broadly procedural understanding of autonomy and the idea of deliberative democracy. That is to say, the difficulties with pluralism we identify can be traced back to the particular version of Kantian deontology prevalent in contemporary liberalism, and to the equally prevalent aspiration to ground political legitimacy in a moralised consensus. (shrink)

What is morally valuable—if anything at all—in entrepreneurship? Existing normative takes can be broadly categorized as belonging to two main views: a backward and a forward-looking approach. The former sees entrepreneurial activity as a permissible emergent product of individuals’ interactions within the boundaries of people’s existing rights; the latter looks at entrepreneurship in the broader context of market processes and emphasizes its role in generating Pareto-improvements in social welfare. In this paper, I suggest that certain instances of entrepreneurship can be (...) intrinsically valuable when they constitute Millian Experiments in Living, that is when entrepreneurial ventures are the expression of an entrepreneur’s conception of the good. Engaging in entrepreneurial activity which reflects one’s conception of the good helps individuals in cultivating their individuality and originality by means of subjecting their normative beliefs to empirical scrutiny, thus allowing one to confirm, revise, or refine them. (shrink)

The author deals with the lost works of Empedocles, an often neglected subject, in the frame of the discussion concerning the number of the poems and their main features. He reviews the traces of the Passage of Xerxes, of the Medical Discourse, and of the Proem to Apollo among the fragments and witnesses, taking his cue from textual aspects and dealing with the contents, the significance of each of these writings in Empedocles’ culture and thought and their multifarious relationships with (...) his times. As to the Passage, he tries to reconcile the contrasting interpretations so far proposed (historical or religious poem). Concerning B111, the only relic from the Medical Discourse, he explains why its contents are incompatible with the Physical Poem and the Purifications. He analyzes the Proem to Apollo in several perspectives (text, witnesses, contents also from the epistemological point of view, literary genre). He assigns fragments 131–134 and 142 to the Proem, drawing one of his arguments from the comparison with the third Homeric Hymn to Apollo, and also suggesting a relationship with an intellectual cult of the sun. Formal features help to ascribe each fragment to the relevant poem. Close similarities between fragments do not necessarily mean that they come from the same writing: Empedocles is wont to allude to one poem of his while composing another. The author concludes that the striving for a reductio ad unum of the Acragantine’s output, also evident in the attempt by a number of scholars to make only one poem out of the Περὶ φύσεως and the Καθαρμοί, has often led researchers to take for granted that none of the fragments preserved might belong to the lost works. (shrink)