In the book “Freedom of the Will”, Jonathan Edwards put forward a strong ar-gument for theological fatalism. This argument, I suppose, can be considered as the universal basis for discussion between Fatalists and Anti-Fatalists in the 20th century, especially in the context of the most powerful argument for fatalism, introduced by Nelson Pike. The argument of Edwards rests upon the following principles: if something has been the case in the past, it has been the case necessarily ; if God knows (...) something, it is not the case that ~A is possible. Hence, Edwards infers that if God had foreknowledge that A, then A is necessary, and it is not the case that someone could voluntarily choose ~A. The article argues that the Edwards` inference Kgp → □p rests upon the modal fallacy; the inference „God had a knowledge that p will happen, therefore „God had a knowledge that p will happen” is the proposition about the past, and hence, the necessarily true proposition“ is ambiguous; thus, it is not the case that this proposition necessarily entails the impossibility of ~p; it is not the case that p, being known by God, turns out to be necessary. Thus, we can avoid the inference of Edwards that if Kgp is a fact of the past, then we cannot freely choose ~p. It has also been shown that the main provisions of the argument of Edwards remain significant in the context of contemporary debates about free will and foreknowledge. Additionally, I introduce a new challenge for fatalism – argument from Brouwerian axiom. (shrink)

I address the objection that the concept of racism has become overly inflated. Critics of the conceptual inflation of “racism” argue that theories of institutional racism engage in untoward conceptual inflation insofar as they undermine our moral understanding of racial phenomena, hinder our ability to explain the causes of racial inequality, and even undercut struggles for racial justice. I develop an original account of institutional racism and show that it is immune to all three versions of the conceptual inflation challenge.

This study presents and develops in detail (a new version of) the argumental conception of meaning. The two basic principles of the argumental conception of meaning are: i) To know (implicitly) the sense of a word is to know (implicitly) all the argumentation rules concerning that word; ii) To know the sense of a sentence is to know the syntactic structure of that sentence and to know the senses of the words occurring in it. The sense of a sentence is (...) called immediate argumental role of that sentence. According to the argumental conception of meaning a theory of meaning for a particular language yields a systematic specification of the understanding of every sentence of the language which consists in a specification of the immediate argumental role of the sentence. The immediate argumental role is a particular aspect of the use of a sentence in arguments. But it is not the whole use in arguments, nor is the whole use in arguments reducible to the immediate argumental role. That is why, by accepting the argumental conception of meaning, we can have epistemological holism without linguistic holism. The argumental conception distinguishes between the understanding and the correctness of a language. Such a distinction makes it possible to account for our understanding of paradoxical languages. Redundancy theory of truth, realistic conceptions of truth or epistemic conceptions of truth are all compatible with an argumental conception of sense. But here it is argued that an epistemic conception of truth is preferrable. Acceptance of the argumental conception of meaning and of an epistemic conception of truth leads to a rejection of the idea of analytic truth. The argumental conception is pluralistic with respect to the understandability of different logics, and neutral with respect to their correctness. (shrink)

I defend impact-based accounts of institutional racism against the criticism that they are over-inclusive. If having a negative impact on non-whites suffices to make an institution racist, too many institutions (including institutions whose affirmative action policies inadvertently harm its intended beneficiaries) would count as racist. To address this challenge, I consider a further necessary condition for these institutions to count as racist—they must stand in a particular relation to racist ideology. I argue that, on the impact-based model, institutions are racist (...) if they have a negative racial impact AND this impact is legitimized by racist ideology. Racist ideologies limit social criticism of and collective action against institutions that have a negative racial impact, and in so doing, lend stability to systems of racial domination. (shrink)

There are various proposals for a general characterization of holism1. In this paper I propose the following: a variety of holism is the view that every X of an appropriate kind, which is part of a relevant whole W, cannot be legitimately separated or taken in isolation from W. Then, I distinguish two general kinds of holism, depending on two different reasons which can debar us from taking X in isolation from W. One reason can be that separating X from (...) W always amounts to transforming X into something else. Correspondingly, a strong holism is the view that if the whole W is modified anywhere, X ceases to be X and becomes something else. Another reason why it may be illegitimate to consider X in isolation from W can be that if we separate X from W, nothing that we know entitles us to exclude that X might be transformed into something else. Correspondingly, virtual holism is the view that if the whole W is modified anywhere, we can never rule out that X ceases to be X and becomes something else. (shrink)

The problem I address is: how are cogent inferences possible? In § 1 I distinguish three senses in which we say that one is “compelled” by an inference: automatic, seductive-rhetorical and epistemic compulsion. Cogency is epistemic compulsion: a cogent inference compels us to accept its conclusion, if we accept its premises and we aim at truth. In §§ 2–3 I argue that cogency is intelligible if we consider an inference as a compound linguistic act in which several component acts are (...) related to one another by a commitment that the premises support the conclusion. Non-automatic inferences are primarily public acts in an intersubjective context. But cogency arises in special contexts described in § 4, epistemic contexts, where the participants care for truth, i.e. are intellectually virtuous. An inference is cogent in an epistemic context if it stands up to all the objections raised in the context. In § 5 I consider three different kinds of cogent inferences. In § 6 I argue that in all three cases cogency is fallible and propose a fallibilist variety of inferentialism. In § 7 I distinguish context of utterance and contexts of evaluation. Cogency is relative to epistemic contexts of evaluation. However, validity, i.e. stable cogency, is transcontextual. (shrink)

The intuitionistic conception of truth defended by Dummett, Martin Löf and Prawitz, according to which the notion of proof is conceptually prior1 to the notion of truth, is a particular version of the epistemic conception of truth. The paradox of knowability (first published by Frederic Fitch in 1963) has been described by many authors2 as an argument which threatens the epistemic, and the intuitionistic, conception of truth. In order to establish whether this is really so, one has to understand what (...) the epistemic conception of truth really is. So I shall start inpart I with a description of the matter at issue between theepistemic conception of truth and the opposite position, therealistic conception of truth. Inpart II I shall very briefly describe the paradox. Inpart III I shall try to answer the question which appears in the title of this paper: What can we learn from the paradox of knowability?. My conclusion will be that the paradox of knowability is not a refutation of the epistemic conception of truth, but helps us to better formulate (and understand) such a view. (shrink)

In 1939, the influential psychophysicist S. S. Stevens proposed definitional distinctions between the terms ‘number,’ ‘numerosity,’ and ‘numerousness.’ Although the definitions he proposed were adopted by syeveral psychophysicists and experimental psychologists in the 1940s and 1950s, they were almost forgotten in the subsequent decades, making room for what has been described as a “terminological chaos” in the field of numerical cognition. In this paper, I review Stevens’s distinctions to help bring order to this alleged chaos and to shed light on (...) two closely related questions: whether it is adequate to speak of a number sense and how philosophers can make sense of the claim by cognitive scientists that numbers are perceptual entities. Moreover, I offer further support to Stevens’s distinction between numerosity and numerousness by showing that they are relational properties that emerge through different relationships between agents and their environments. The final conclusion is that, by adopting Stevens’s distinctions, numbers do not need to be seen as perceptual entities, since the so-called number sense is better described as a sense of numerousness. (shrink)

The first goal of this paper is to reply to a number of criticisms levied by Gunnar Breivik and Robert L. Simon against an account of sporting skills I published almost 20 years ago in which I distinguished between constitutive and restorative skills and examined their normative significance. To accomplish this goal, I first summarize my characterization and classification of skills and then detail the criticisms. After responding to the latter, and thus reconsidering and hopefully strengthening my account of skill (...) in sport, I turn my attention to Scott Kretchmar and Tim Elcombe’s inquiry into the skills involved in competitive sport. These authors claim that contesting skills demand the same respect usually accorded to testing skills. The second goal of this paper is then to explore Kretchmar and Elcombe’s inquiry under the light of my reconsidered analysis of skill. I specifically advocate a plausible relationship, both in terms of their distinctive character and relative import, between testing and contesting skills and constitutive and restorative skills. In doing so, I seek to present a more comprehensive account of skill in non-competitive and competitive sport. (shrink)

The concept of “necessity of thought” plays a central role in Dag Prawitz’s essay “Logical Consequence from a Constructivist Point of View” (Prawitz 2005). The theme is later developed in various articles devoted to the notion of valid inference (Prawitz, 2009, forthcoming a, forthcoming b). In section 1 I explain how the notion of necessity of thought emerges from Prawitz’s analysis of logical consequence. I try to expound Prawitz’s views concerning the necessity of thought in sections 2, 3 and 4. (...) In sections 5 and 6 I discuss some problems arising with regard to Prawitz’s views. (shrink)

The field of numerical cognition provides a fairly clear picture of the processes through which we learn basic arithmetical facts. This scientific picture, however, is rarely taken as providing a response to a much‐debated philosophical question, namely, the question of how we obtain number knowledge, since numbers are usually thought to be abstract entities located outside of space and time. In this paper, I take the scientific evidence on how we learn arithmetic as providing a response to the philosophical question (...) of how we obtain number knowledge. I reject the view that numbers are abstract entities located outside of space and time and, alternatively, derive from the scientific evidence a novel account of the nature of numbers. In this account, numbers are reifications of the counting procedure and arithmetic statements are seen as describing the functioning of counting and calculation techniques. (shrink)

This paper outlines a non-reductive epistemic conception of truth, compatible with an inferentialist conception of meaning. According to the non-reductive epistemic conception, truth is a regulative idea. I propose a general way of understanding the notion of “regulative idea”: a concept X is a regulative idea for a social practice P if seven principles (formulated in sections 4-10) apply to X and P. The non-reductive epistemic conception of truth consists of five statements: 1. the concept TRUE presupposes the concept JUSTIFIED (...) ASSERTION; 2. the concept JUSTIFIED ASSERTION presupposes the concept TRUE; 3.“an assertion that p is justified” does not imply “it is true that p”; 4. “it is true that p” does not imply “an assertion that p is justifiable”; 5. TRUE is a regulative idea for assertoric practice. Statement 5 is explained by bringing together the seven general principles about regulativity and applying them to the concept TRUE and assertoric practice. (shrink)

In this article, I am starting with a question which many years ago was at the center of the debate on structuralism. Are structures to be found in the object or in the subject ? If we take one of the famous analyses by Jakobson, we ascertain that as long as attention is brought to bear on the graphemic or phonological elements, or on rhymes and accents, then the objectivity of the examination is incontestable. The absolute or relative computation of (...) phonemes or groups of phonemes and the specification of their place in the text are independent of the critic's subjectivity. Subjectivity begins to impose itself when categories like "abstract" and "concrete" or "metaphor" and "symbol" are introduced, and even more so when these categories are grouped into classes the denomination of which does not have its basis in the data offered by the text but in nomenclative schemata developed by the critic . Cesare Segre, director of the Institute of Romance Philology at the University of Pavia and president of the International Association of Semiotic Studies, is coeditor of the journals Strumenti Critici and Medioevo Romanza and the series Critica e Filologia. His principal works of linguistic and semiotic criticism are Lingua, stile e società, Esperienze ariosteche, Semiotics and Literary Criticism , I metodi attuali della critica in Italia , La tradizione della Chanson de Roland, and Le strutture e il tempo . His editions of old Italian and French texts are Fornival's Li bestiaires d'Amours, Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, Giamboni's Libro de' Vizi e delle Virtudi, and the Chanson de Roland. "Narrative Structures and Literary History" originally appeared in Strumenti Critici . His contribution to Critical Inquiry, "Culture and Modeling Systems," appeared in Spring 1978. Rebecca West's previous contribution to Critical Inquiry was the translation of Guilio Carlo Argan's "Ideology and Iconology". (shrink)

Despite the persistent affirmations of the ill-informed, the great promise of semiotics is the possibility it represents of welding together both language and text analysis and the analysis of pragmatic and ideological context. It is merely a matter of judicious planning if attention has so far been directed primarily to distinctive aspects of techniques and texts rather than to the general character of the frames of reference within which they operate. And yet, as we know, investigations of the total functioning (...) of culture have been carried out with far-reaching results. This has been so particularly when the areas examined have been those, like the mass media, in which the weight of individual contribution is small. For culture in the widest sense of the term., the most highly elaborated hypotheses are those put forward by the Soviet semioticians, Lotman first among them. It is with these that I mean to deal here in an act of criticism which may also prove to be one of integration. Lotman's thought is clearly still in the making, and rather than follow out its likely developments, or, it may be, contradictions, it seems more helpful to get into its seams in an attempt to perceive alternative interlacings. Cesare Segre, director of the Institute of Romance Philology at the University of Pavia and the president of the International Association for Semiotic Studies, is coeditor of the journals Strumenti Critici and Medioevo Romanzo and the series Critica e Filologia. "Culture and Modeling Systems" originally appeared in his Semiotica, storia e cultura ; his previous contribution to Critical Inquiry, "Narrative Structures and Literary History," appeared in Winter 1976. John Meddemmen teaches the history of the English language at the University of Pavia. He has worked on predominantly linguistic aspects of contemporary Italian authors such as Montale and Fenglio. (shrink)

Can an epistemic conception of truth and an endorsement of the excluded middle (together with other principles of classical logic abandoned by the intuitionists) cohabit in a plausible philosophical view? In PART I I describe the general problem concerning the relation between the epistemic conception of truth and the principle of excluded middle. In PART II I give a historical overview of different attitudes regarding the problem. In PART III I sketch a possible holistic solution.

Paul Gaffney has provided an excellent exploration of teamwork in athletic contexts, a topic that in spite of its prominence and relevance in the sporting world has been relatively neglected in the philosophy of sport literature. In this paper, I present and discuss three areas of Gaffney’s exploration of teamwork relevant to organized youth sport that might help stimulate reflection on the most auspicious conditions and responsible methodologies for young athletes to become themselves through organized sport.

“Identità” qui si intende nel senso già precisato da Aristotele di “identità numerica”, che si ha “quando i nomi sono parecchi, ma la cosa è una sola” e, non nel senso di “identità specifica”, che si ha invece “quando gli oggetti, pur essendo parecchi, non rivelano differenze quanto alla specie”.1 In questo articolo intendo fornire al lettore indicazioni introduttive (non certo esaustive) sul posto che la nozione di identità numerica occupa nella logica contemporanea e nell’area di riflessione filosofica del Novecento (...) più strettamente legata alla logica, la filosofia analitica. Nella terza parte proporrò qualche spunto per un’indagine originale. (shrink)

In his book Perché ancora la filosofia Carlo Cellucci argues that truth does not play any role in (modern) science: truth is only a chimera that prevents us «from adequately understanding the character of knowledge» and therefore «must be disposed of». I summarize Cellucci’s evidence for his contention that truth is a chimera. I then raise four objections to Cellucci’s views on truth. My conclusion is that, Cellucci’s arguments notwithstanding, a notion of truth is necessary for the human activity of (...) problem solving and therefore for an adequate understanding of the phenomenon of knowledge. (shrink)

Landaeta Lardones, P., y Arias Krause, J. I. “La interpretación política de la tragedia griega en Hegel.” _Co-herencia_ 10.19 (2013): 113-133.

Are these claims compatible: the future is contingent, and yet prophecies reveal the future? William of Ockham argues that they are in _Tractatus de praedestinatione_ (q.1, d.8) and in the _Fourth Quodlibet_ (q.4). But his two solutions to the puzzle of how prophecy and future contingency can be reconciled face significant objections that seem to undermine Ockham’s theory of future contingents. In this paper, I argue that the relevant objections lose their force once Ockham’s views on prophecy are properly understood. (...) In the first part of the paper, I closely examine the puzzle as well as Ockham’s solutions and the objections raised against him. In the second part, I counter the objections while offering an original interpretation of Ockham’s semantics of what I call “prophecies of choice.”. (shrink)

It is common in contemporary sport to liken the notion of the team to that of the family. That is, the family is used to evoke team life. Portraying the team as a family usually implies a positive evaluation. Despite its prevalence, the team as a family equation has not been analyzed in the sport philosophy literature. Thus, the purpose of this article is twofold. First, it explores whether the team is to be equated with the family. To discuss the (...) nature of the family and the team, I draw together the work of several sport philosophers with that of Laura Wildemann Kane. Second, and considering what characterizes the team, this article investigates whether teammates have special responsibilities to one another by virtue of their relationship and the value attached to it. I propose that the team as a family equation does not align with the constitution of these two social groups and that teammates have special responsibilities to one another, but such responsibilities are different from those observed in the family. (shrink)

What is an inference? Logicians and philosophers have proposed various conceptions of inference. I shall first highlight seven features that contribute to distinguish these conceptions. I shall then compare three conceptions to see which of them best explains the special force that compels us to accept the conclusion of an inference, if we accept its premises.

Chi ha l'abitudine di sfogliare le riviste filosofiche sa che "metafisica" non è più una parola che scotta. I maestri dell'inizio del secolo (gli empiristi logici sono l'esempio più tipico) identificarono la metafisica con il non-senso e usarono la parola come un marchio di infamia. Non mancavano precedenti nella storia della filosofia. Ma oggi gli allievi di quei maestri preferiscono rifarsi ad un uso diverso, meno fazioso, del termine per indicare con esso un'indagine filosofica, che non solo non deve essere (...) trascurata, ma concerne i fondamenti di molte altre ricerche, ed è quindi per molti versi centrale. (shrink)

Ideas on meaning, rules and mathematical proofs abound in Wittgenstein’s writings. The undeniable fact that they are present together, sometimes intertwined in the same passage of Philosophical Investigations or Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics, does not show, however, that the connection between these ideas is necessary or inextricable. The possibility remains, and ought to be checked, that they can be plausibly and consistently separated. I am going to examine two views detectable in Wittgenstein’s works: one about proofs, the other (...) about meaning and rules. The first is the denial of the objectivity of proof. The second is a conception of meaning stemming from the rule-following considerations. I shall argue that, though Wittgenstein seems to conjoin the two views, they can be, and should be, separated1. (shrink)

Professor Von Wright is a prominent analytical philosopher who has written about the very notion of analytical philosophy. Other analytical philosophers are present here and they have their ideas on this notion. As for me, I believe that it is not at all an obvious notion. Sometimes it seemed to me that analytical philosophy does not exist, or at least that there is no single common feature shared by all so-called analytical philosophers and only by them, though there are many (...) family resemblances. Therefore I thought I might take the opportunity of this meeting in honour of Professor Von Wright and propose as one of our themes for discussion, precisely the question: “what is analytical philosophy?”. The natural start is Professor Von Wright’s description of analytical philosophy. (shrink)

The compulsion of proofs is an ancient idea, which plays an important role in Plato’s dialogues. The reader perhaps recalls Socrates’ question to the slave boy in the Meno: “If the side of a square A is 2 feet, and the corresponding area is 4, how long is the side of a square whose area is double, i.e. 8?”. The slave answers: “Obviously, Socrates, it will be twice the length” (cf. Me 82-85). A straightforward analogy: if the area is double, (...) the side is double. Nevertheless, the answer is wrong. Socrates wants to lead the slave to the right conclusion. The boy should reach the truth through steps that are all “his own”, performed with full conviction. To this aim, Socrates addresses a series of short pressing questions to the slave boy. Simple questions provoke equally simple replies, though the boy is sometimes puzzled and surprised by the answers he feels compelled to give. In the first part of the exchange the boy is gradually forced to admit that a square B with double side (i.e. side of length 4) has an area which is not double, but four times as big, i. e. 16. In the second part the boy hazards the guess that the square with double area has a side of length 3, since 3 is between 2 and 4. But Socrates easily drives him to acknowledging that if the side is 3, the area of the resulting square C is 9, not 8. The boy can only exclaim: “By Zeus, Socrates, I do not know!”. In the third part, at Socrates’ prompting, the diagonal of the original square A is drawn within the second fourfold square B. Responding to Socrates’ questions, the boy is led to conclude that the square D whose side is the diagonal of A is precisely the required square: its area is 8. (shrink)

Is a rational dispute over the validity of a fundamental logical law possible? In his lecture ‘Logics and Metalogics’, Timothy Williamson criticizes Dummett’s approach to this problem and maintains that a semantic theory does not provide a way of settling disputes over the validity of fundamental logical laws. I argue that Dummett’s view is different from the view criticized by Williamson. Dummett does not think that a semantic theory alone can settle a dispute over the validity of a fundamental logical (...) law. Such disputes, according to Dummett, should be settled by the theory of meaning. A semantic theory in the sense that is usual among logicians is a theory of logical consequence . A meaning theory is a theory of understanding . (shrink)

In the first part of this paper I contend that Michael Dummett’s works contain a distinction between analytic and synthetic (logical) deductions. Dummett does not use Kant’s terminology. Nevertheless, based on general considerations about theories of meaning, Dummett shows how one can distinguish between deductions whose validity is recognised by merely grasping the concepts and deductions whose validity can be recognised only by “going beyond the concepts”, as Kant wrote. The latter are synthetic deductions, through which we can increase our (...) knowledge. A special merit of Dummett’s distinction is its theoretical flexibility and generality. He does not propose a single clear-cut distinction between analytic and synthetic deductions; rather in his works we find an indication of how to draw a distinction once a theory of meaning is adopted. In the second part of the paper I consider possible developments within an inferentialist theory of meaning and draw some conclusions concerning the fallibility of deductions. (shrink)

For Suárez, the general notion of efficient causality and the reality of it are known not through an abstraction from supposed “primitive” experiences of connection between causes and effects but indirectly, through a reasoning that begins with what is directly observed and ends with the evidence that it is really in the things themselves. In this paper, I intend to show the plausibility of this interpretation in the following way: first, I will quickly present a passage in which Suárez claims (...) that efficient causality is evident; second, I will show in which sense the principle “nothing can transfer itself from nonbeing to being” has an empirical basis; and, third, I will show how the reality of efficient causation among things of the empirical world can be demonstrated from the experience of a rational order in them. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to study the temporal de-synchronization that occurs, within the European Union (EU), between technological innovations in Artificial Intelligence and its legal regulations. To do that, I base on a thesis formulated by Hartmut Rosa, a German sociologist close to the Critical Theory of society, according to which the temporal structures of politics are no longer compatible with the pace of change in some others social spheres. This produces a new form of social pathology, which (...) Rosa calls "risks of de-synchronisation", and whose most worrying effect must be sought in the displacement of decision-making processes from the political sphere to faster areas of society, fundamentally the market. To analyze this problem, I first reconstruct the thesis of desynchronization as a social pathology derived from acceleration. Then, I map the AI legislation process at EU level. Finally, I defend the thesis that this legislative process, which is certainly very admirable, has consistently come too late. El objetivo de este trabajo es estudiar el desajuste temporal que se produce, dentro de la Unión Europea (UE), entre las innovaciones tecnológicas en materia de Inteligencia Artificial y sus regulaciones jurídicas. Para ello se parte de una tesis formulada por Hartmut Rosa, sociólogo alemán cercano a la Teoría Crítica de la sociedad, de acuerdo con la cual las estructuras temporales de la política no resultan hoy ya compatibles con el ritmo de cambio de algunas esferas sociales. Esto produce una nueva forma de patología social, que Rosa denomina “riesgos de la desincronización”, y cuyo efecto más preocupante hay que buscar en el desplazamiento de los procesos de toma de decisiones desde el ámbito de la política hacia otros ámbitos de la sociedad más rápidos, fundamentalmente el mercado. Para analizar esta problemática se reconstruye, en primer lugar, la tesis de la desincronización como patología social derivada de la aceleración. Tras ello, se hace un mapeo del proceso de legislación en materia de IA a nivel de la UE. Por último, se defiende la tesis de que este proceso legislativo, ciertamente muy admirable, ha llegado sistemáticamente tarde. (shrink)

In this paper, I intend to show the right concern of phenomenology (specially of husserlian type) in the exploration of the textures of consciousness that explain themselves in the noetic-noematic structure of the phenomenological-transcendentally reduced world (within inverted commas). Therefore, the undoubtfulness of “immanent perception” takes, for instance, great importance in the virtual realm, as long as, in that realm, consciousness opens itself more radically to the intentional “otherness” than to what natural attitude calls “reality”. Nevertheless, although phenomenology is able (...) to justify the emergence of virtual reality (or of “real virtuality”), phenomenology has strategies ruling out the possibility that virtualization becomes simulation (deception). In this paper, this situation is presented as the ideal of the technical-virtual manipulation of what is given to consciousness. For this very reason, virtual attitude must keep an indispensable distance (strangeness effect), so that the sense of “reality” can continue to be a valid one. (shrink)

PART I The first chapter contains some arguments in favour of four general requirements on a theory of meaning which Michael Dummett has formulated: connection between meaning and understanding, distinction between sense and force, compositionality, and manifestability. The second chapter contains a condensed account of the theory of meaning centered on bivalent truth-conditions, and a detailed analysis of Dummett's argument against such a theory and against classical logic. The third chapter is a description of Dummett's theory of meaning centered on (...) the notion of direct verification, and of Prawitz's semantics which can be embedded in the latter theory of meaning so as to justify intuitionistic logic. The weakest points of Dummett's idea are two: 1) it is difficult to make verificationism compatible with the holistic character of justification; 2) logical revisionism may involve a too drastic disagreement between verificationism and linguistic practice. -/- PART II. The second part contains a presentation of a theory of meaning centered on the notion which I have called immediate argumental role. The fundamental idea of the theory is that the sense of a word is given by all the argumentation rules concerning the word. Chapters IV-VII make precise the basic idea by explaining the notion of "argumentation rule" and by defining the notion of "concerning", and other notions among which "immediate argumental role of a sentence" and "global argumental role". Chapters VIII-X deal with the main philosophical features of the theory: 1) the theory satisfies the four requirements considered in the first chapter; 2) despite its compositionality, the theory is compatible with epistemological holism; 3) the theory admits the possibility of meaningful paradoxical languages; 4) the theory distinguishes between the understandability of a language and its correctness in a given epistemic situation (understandability does not imply correctness); 5) the theory is pluralist with respect to the understandability of different logics and neutral with respect to their validity. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to make a comparison and build up a dialogue between two different philosophical approaches to values in evolutionary biology. First, I present the approach proposed by Alexander Rosenberg and Daniel McShea in their contribution to the contemporary debate on organic progress. i.e. the idea that there has been some kind of improvement concerning organisms over the history of life. Discussing organic progress raises the question of what “better” exactly means. This requires an explicit clarification (...) on what legitimately means to speak about “good” in evolutionary biology, thus to speak about values. Second, I move on to present an approach to values that has been proposed by Georges Canguilhem in the context of a different philosophical tradition. Canguilhem’s original theses are conceived in a Darwinian framework and clearly relate to the question of values in evolutionary biology. I shall then propose a comparison between these two heterogeneous perspectives on values by critically evaluating their common points and main differences. I will argue that both perspectives agree that the question of values in evolutionary biology takes on its full meaning with respect to the relationship between the organism and the environment. However, the framework for conceptualizing values in evolutionary biology provided by Rosenberg and McShea neglects a significant point highlighted by Canguilhem, i.e. the active role that the organism can play in evaluating the environment. In line with recent developments of biology, this point can be easily integrated into Rosenberg and McShea’s framework. Finally, I will point out some main differences between the two perspectives relative to the specificity of Canguilhem’s biological philosophy. (shrink)

The connection between language and the body has become a significant topic of research over the last decades. On the one hand, those who hold that language has an embodied nature endorse a close link between linguistic and sensorimotor processing. As a result, language processing is understood as an online activity, i.e., as something that stands in relationship to the local environment and engages in here-and-now tasks. On the other hand, for those who contend that language is fundamentally disembodied, linguistic (...) processing is a matter of mental manipulation of amodal symbols according to a set of rules. On this view, language is an offline activity and is considered to be something that grants us interesting cognitive advantages due to its independence from sensorimotor contingencies. This paper [i] offers a comprehensive presentation of these two views; [ii] highlights a crucial challenge for each of them: the scaling phenomenon and the grounding problem, respectively; and [iii] argues that all attempts to overcome these two challenges have major shortcomings. (shrink)

This paper intends to explore an aspect of Blumenberg’s metaphorology as memory of mankind and the ethical commitment derived from it. It is seen as the culmination of the fight that the human being maintains against the senselessness of reality. It manifests itself and it is perceived by a human being as theimmensurability of world time and life time (i.e. that the human being is born and dies), that impedes the human being from having all of the world i.e. the (...) satisfaction of its infinite desires. In the fight against finity technology and money play a vital role. They have in common the power to enable an expansion of human capacities over the boundaries of factual existence: through technology and money the human being can do more or, do the same in less time. That is: tobring closer life time and world time. But in this process the instrumental character of technology and money causes homogenisation in the societies where they thrive. That’s one of the characteristics of globalization. This homogenisation is to be understood as the forgetting of other essential possibilities of the human creation of meaning. Thus, what technological and monetary processes construct on one side, come to be destroyed on the other side. Blumenberg’s metaphorology is the adequate response: it is understood both as the self-consciousness of the process of reason in its making sense of the universe, and as an “ideal store” of everything the human being has come to make in this process. (shrink)

Suarez precursor de Descartes? A doutrina suazeriana sobre a causa final revista Resumo: Stephan Schmid busca mostrar que Francisco Suárez é um precursor da crítica que Descartes fez à causalidade final na explicação da natureza. Suárez teria reduzido a noção de causa à causa eficiente, teria eliminado a presença da causa final nas ações dos agentes naturais, isto é, daqueles entes que não possuem intelecto, e teria eliminado a presença da causa final nas ações divinas. Deste modo, ele seria um (...) precursor do pensamento mecanicista de Descartes e, sob certo aspecto, também de Espinosa. Contra esta interpretação, procuro mostrar que Suárez não reduz a noção de causa à causa eficiente, não elimina a presença da causa final nem nos agentes naturais, nem na ação divina e que, portanto, ele não pode ser considerado, neste assunto, um precursor de Descartes nem de Espinosa. Palavras-Chave: Metafísica. Causa eficiente. Causa final.: Stephan Schmid try to show that Francisco Suárez is a forerunner of the criticism made by Descartes of end causes in the explanation of nature. The hypothesis is that Suárez had reduced the notion of cause to efficient cause, had eliminated the presence of end causes in the actions of the natural agents, i. e., of the beings that have not an intellect, and had eliminated the presence of end causes in the actions of God. In this way he would be a forerunner of the mechanistic thought of Descartes and, from a certain aspect, of Spinoza. Against this interpretation I try to show that Suárez do not reduce the notion of cause to efficient cause and that he eliminates the presence of end cause neither in the natural agents nor in the actions of God. Therefore, he should be considered in this issue a forerunner neither of Descartes nor of Spinoza. Keywords: Metaphysics. Efficient cause. End cause. Résumé: Stephan Schmid essaie de montrer que Francisco Suárez est um précurseur de la critique faite par Descartes à la cause finale dans l’explication de la nature. Suárez aurait réduit la notion de cause à la cause efficiente, elimine la présence de la cause finale dans les actions des agentes naturels, c'est-à-dire, de ceux qui ne possèdent pas d'intellect, et aurait elimine la présence de la cause finale dans les actions divines. Il serait ainsi um précurseur de la pensée mécaniste de Descartes et, dans une certaine mesure, de Spinoza. Contre cette interprétation, j'essaie de montrer que Suárez ne réduit pas la notion de cause à la cause efficiente, n'élimine pas la présence de la cause finale ni dans les agentes naturels ni dans l'action divine et qu'il ne peut donc être considéré comme um précurseur de Descartes ni d'Espinosa. Mots clés: Metaphysique. Cause finale. Cause eficiente. Data de registro: 13/05/2019 Data de aceite: /10/2019. (shrink)

In recent years, the concept of reifcation has sparked new interest among scholars, particularly in the domain of contemporary critical theory. Authors discussing reifcation usually mention Heidegger, but this is often limited to his major work, Being and Time. In this paper, though, I focus on machination, a fundamental concept that appears in Heidegger’s posthumous texts of the 1930s. Using this concept, Heidegger tries to elucidate how modernity has emptied the meaning of Being of its efective reality. I frst show (...) how the notion of Machenschaft ofers a new perspective on reifcation and how it opens up a historical-metaphysical approach to Heidegger’s other key concepts. To complete this analysis, the second section uses Adorno’s critique in Negative Dialectics to interpret the concept of Machenschaft-reifcation, clarifying its limits and the fruitful possibilities it ofers. (shrink)