In the multidisciplinary field of memory studies, remembering and forgetting have mainly been analyzed following two ideal-typical models: memory-as-containment (exemplified by the notions of framework and site of memory) and memory-as-flow (epitomized by the notions of afterlife and mnemohistory). These two models are often presented as mutually exclusive and counterposed. Yet, in linking past with present, and when connecting different spaces and generations, memory is always the result of circulation (flow) as well as of local semiotic conditions of production and (...) use (containment). By investigating memory-making and oblivion-making in processes of interpretation, the semiotic perspective elaborated by Umberto Eco allows us to envision memory-as-containment and memory-as-flow in a combined analysis, where the twofold conception of memory – either as movement or as form – merges. The aim of this article is, then, to provide an interpretative theory of memory, and to identify and describe the methodological tools capable of implementing such an approach. The memory of the former Italian concentration camp of Fossoli will serve as an exemplary and illustrative case study. (shrink)

Berit Brogaard and Joe Salerno (2008) have defended the validity of counterfactual hypothetical syllogism (CHS) within the Stalnaker-Lewis account. Whenever the premisses of an instance of CHS are non-vacuosly true, a shift in context has occurred. Hence the standard counterexamples to CHS suffer from context failure. Charles Cross (2011) rejects this argument as irreconcilable with the Stalnaker-Lewis account. I argue against Cross that the basic Stalnaker-Lewis truth condition may be supplemented in a way that makes (CHS) valid. Yet pace (...) Brogaard and Salerno, there are alternative ways of spelling out the basic truth condition which are standard in most debates; and given these ways, the counterexamples to CHS are successful. (shrink)

El 26 de marzo de 2021 se realizó el panel virtual “Memoria, género y activismo. Resistencia a la dictadura y lucha por el aborto legal”. El evento fue organizado por Emilio Crenzel y Daniele Salerno en el marco del proyecto MEMORIGHTS - Memoria Cultural en el Activismo LGBT, con sede en la Universidad de Utrecht y en la Universidad de Buenos Aires, desarrollado dentro del programa Marie Sklodowska-Curie de la Unión Europea. El panel contó también con la colaboración (...) del proyecto del European Research Council "REACT - Remembering Activism" con sede en la Universidad de Utrecht (coordinadora Ann Rigney). Las participantes del panel fueron Elizabeth Jelin (CONICET - CIS-IDES) y Bárbara Sutton (SUNY – Albany) y estuvo coordinado por Emilio Crenzel (CONICET-UBA). (shrink)

Les avancées rapides dans les technologies numériques ont considérablement changé et amélioré la façon dont les données, informations et outils peuvent être diffusés, gérés, utilisés et réutilisés dans la recherche, et ont créé de nouvelles opportunités pour accélérer le progrès dans la science et l’innovation. Ces développements sont principalement dus au large mouvement formel ou informel de la peer production et à la diffusion globale de l’information mobilisant la coopération de communautés distribuées œuvrant dans des environnements en réseaux. Les initiatives (...) comme celle de Science Commons s’appuient sur un modèle économique de la science évoluant dans un environnement numérique et plus précisément sur un socle de partage et d’échange entre communautés de pairs comme modalité de production. Beaucoup d’autres initiatives de ce type sont en cours . Nous avons choisi Science Commons, dont l’objectif, au-delà de la communication scientifique, vise à accélérer la traduction des données en découverte – en débloquant tous les verrous y compris juridiques qui empêchent que la société bénéficie plus rapidement des résultats scientifiques. La philosophie et les outils pratiques de Science Commons seront décrits comme constitutifs d’une approche résolument ouverte de la connaissance scientifique, dans la lignée de la déclaration de Berlin .Rapid advances in the digital technologies have profoundly changed and improved the way in which data, information and tools can be disseminated, managed, used and re-used in research, and have created new opportunities to speed up progress in science and innovation. These developments are mainly due to an emerging broader movement in support of formal and informal « peer production » and global dissemination of information drawing on the cooperation of distributed science and knowledge communities working in open networked environments. Initiatives like the Science Commons rely on an economic model where science evolves in a digital environment, and more specifically on sharing and exchanges between peer communities as a basis for production. Many other initiatives of this kind are under way . We have chosen the Science Commons, whose objective, over and above scientific communication, is to speed up the translation of data into discovery by removing all barriers, including legal obstacles, that prevent society from enjoying the benefits of scientific results as quickly as possible. The philosophy and practical tools of the Science Commons are described as making up a resolutely open approach to scientific knowledge, as recommended by the Berlin Declaration. (shrink)

Among the various experiments in ‘new governance’, the model of Responsible Research and Innovation is emerging in the European landscape as quite promising. Up to now, there have been two versions of RRI: a socio-empirical version which tends to underline the role of democratic processes aimed at identifying values on which governance needs to be anchored and a normative version which stresses the role of EU goals as ‘normative anchor points’ of both governance strategies and policy making. Both versions are (...) unsatisfactory. The first since it suggests movable anchorage which could clash with prefixed values, such as individual rights. The second since it does not safeguard fundamental rights in the process of balancing ‘anchor points’. This result is counterintuitive because it exposes governance to the risk of facing adverse court decisions in the defense of individual rights, thus losing its anticipative attitude. In order to avoid this outcome, the paper argues that it is only through better integration between the system of human rights and that of EU fundamental rights that the anticipative feature of RRI can be preserved. (shrink)

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

This paper addresses Frege's discussion of illogical thought in the introduction to Basic Laws of Arithmetic. After a brief introduction, I discuss Frege's claims that logic is normative vis-à-vis thought, and not descriptive, and his opposition to the idea that logical laws express psychological necessities. I argue that these two strands of Frege's polemic against psychologism constitute two motivating factors behind his allowing for the possibility of illogical thought. I then explore a line of thought—originally advanced by Joan Weiner—according to (...) which Frege should have rejected illogical thought as not constituting a genuine possibility. I argue that, once developed, this line of thought constitutes an important correction (moreover, one that is consistent with his two aforementioned anti-psychologistic strands) to Frege's own response to the possibility of illogical thought. -/- . (shrink)

Cosmopolitics, the concept of a world politics based on shared democratic values, is in an increasingly fragile state.

In this paper, I focus on the concept of intuition in Schelling’s philosophy. More specifically, I show how Schelling attributes to intuition an ontological value by essentially relating it to freedom and primal Being. Indeed, for Schelling intuition is both the main instrument of philosophy and the highest product of freedom, by which we attain the so-called “God’s-eye point of view” and concretely grasp things in their immediate existence. That is, through intuition it is possible to grasp the absolute and (...) original unity of the principles, namely of being and thought, subject and object and freedom and necessity. Accordingly, I argue that Schelling’s conception of intuition, rather being a merely theoretical speculation, is aimed at demonstrating the immanent nature of Being, which is one of the key points in Schelling’s philosophy. (shrink)

Not only the vertical direction of images – perceptually subject to the law of gravity and its consequences – plays an important role in their interpretation; the horizontal direction left-right too seems to foster different interpretations from its converse. For this reason there are subjects and genres of painting, such as the Annunciation or the portrait, revealing some constants from this point of view, in their representation conventions. And for this same reason there are languages​​, like comics, where the left-right (...) direction is critical not only for the succession of panels – clearly bound to the direction of verbal writing – but also for the panel’s internal organization. These reflections suggest a cultural explanation of the differences in horizontal organization in pictures, linking it to the habits of writing, while ruling out the explanations making reference to the physiology of brain. (shrink)

In this article I reconstruct the philosophical conditions for the emergence of the notion of counter-conduct within the framework of Michel Foucault’s study of governmentality, and I explore the reasons for its disappearance after 1978. In particular, I argue that the concept of conduct becomes crucial for Foucault in order to redefine governmental power relations as specific ways to conduct the conduct of individuals: it is initially within this context that, in Security, Territory, Population, he rethinks the problem of resistance (...) in terms of counter-conduct. However, a few months later, in What is Critique?, Foucault replaces the notion of counter-conduct with that of critical attitude, defined as the particular form that counter-conduct takes in modern times. This notion allows him to highlight the role played by the will in resistance to governmental strategies. But since the notion of counter-conduct is conceptually wider than that of critical attitude, I suggest in conclusion that it could be worth reactivating it as a “historical category which, in various forms and with diverse objectives, runs through the whole of Western history.”. (shrink)

For the first time in print, this article reports passages from John Rawls’s graduate papers and annotations on books and manuscripts from his personal library. The analysis of this material shows the historical inaccuracy of the widespread assumption that Rawls’s philosophy owes very little to American pragmatism. Peirce’s notion of truth, as well as the holistic critique of pragmatism thatMortonWhite began in the late 1940s, prove significant at the very beginning of Rawls’s philosophical enterprise. In the light of this material, (...) it might be argued that Rawls’s elaboration of ‘reflective equilibrium’ started at least in part as an attempt to overcome the pending problems of pragmatism. (shrink)

This article tries to highlight the explicit political aim and the importance for our present of the thought of the «late» Michel Foucault. Through the analysis of the role that truth plays in the pagan and Christian techniques of the self, it opposes a truth that we have to discover in ourselves in order to refuse it (Christianity) or to adhere to it (ethics of authenticity) to a truth conceived as a force of transformation of logos into ethos , of (...) the discourse into a way of life. (shrink)

Arguments from knowability have largely been concerned with cases for and against realism, or truth as an epistemic vs. non-epistemic concept. This article proposes bringing Peirce’s pragmaticism, called here ‘action-first’ epistemology, to bear on the issue. It is shown that a notion weaker than knowability, namely conjecturability, is epistemologically a better-suited notion to describe an essential component of scientific inquiry. Moreover, unlike knowability, conjecturability does not suffer from paradoxes. Given fundamental uncertainty that permeates inquiry, knowability and what Peirce took to (...) be ‘perfect knowledge’ lose their appeal in epistemology of science. From the points of view of the logic for pragmatics and the modal translations given in this article, conjecturability and pragmaticism provide an enriched epistemology for scientific practices that can accommodate both epistemic and non-epistemic values. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis paper offers an opportunity to ponder the way the Catholic Church and its methods of information control reshaped, and paradoxically even enabled, the dissemination and practice of science in early modern Italy. Focusing on the activities of Newtonian scholars operating in Rome in the First half of the eighteenth century – especially the Celestine monk Celestino Galiani and prelate Francesco Bianchini – I will argue that major contributions to the spread of Newtonianism in Italy came from individuals operating within (...) the Church, acting more-or-less independently from the Church’s oversight. These scholars realized they were witnessing an inexorable transition and that the medieval scholastic cosmology and physics could not survive. In order to rescue the Church – and to avoid further embarrassment, especially after the Galileo Affair – renewal was needed. Counterintuitively, the dissemination of Italian Newtonianism was largely a Catholic effort. (shrink)

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

The impossibility results in judgement aggregation show a clash between fair aggregation procedures and rational collective outcomes. In this paper, we are interested in analysing the notion of rational outcome by proposing a proof-theoretical understanding of collective rationality. In particular, we use the analysis of proofs and inferences provided by linear logic in order to define a fine-grained notion of group reasoning that allows for studying collective rationality with respect to a number of logics. We analyse the well-known paradoxes in (...) judgement aggregation and we pinpoint the reasoning steps that trigger the inconsistencies. Moreover, we extend the map of possibility and impossibility results in judgement aggregation by discussing the case of substructural logics. In particular, we show that there exist fragments of linear logic for which general possibility results can be obtained. (shrink)

We study a strong enumeration reducibility, called bounded enumeration reducibility and denoted by ≤be, which is a natural extension of s-reducibility ≤s. We show that ≤s, ≤be, and enumeration reducibility do not coincide on the \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\Pi^0_1}$$\end{document} –sets, and the structure \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\boldsymbol{\mathcal{D}_{\rm be}}}$$\end{document} of the be-degrees is not elementarily equivalent to the structure of the s-degrees. We show also that the first order theory (...) of \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${\boldsymbol{\mathcal{D}_{\rm be}}}$$\end{document} is computably isomorphic to true second order arithmetic: this answers an open question raised by Cooper (Z Math Logik Grundlag Math 33:537–560, 1987). (shrink)

This two-part paper reviews a scholarly debate on an alleged tension in Frege's philosophy of logic. In Section 1 of Part I, I discuss Frege's view that logic is concerned with establishing norms for correct thinking and is therefore a normative science. In Section 2, I explore a different understanding of the role of logic that Frege seems to advance: logic is constitutive of the very possibility of thought, because it sets forth necessary conditions for thought. Hence, the tension the (...) view according to which logic is normative for thought seems to be incompatible with the idea that abiding by the laws of logic forms a precondition for thought. In Section 1 of Part II, I survey a number of interpretations of Frege's conception of logic that deal with this question. I show that they are for the most part either normative readings (emphasising the former understanding of the nature of logic) or constitutive readings (emphasising the latter). Finally, in Section 2, I adjudicate the debate and aim at reconciling the normative and the constitutive strands in Frege's conception of logic. (shrink)

Despite considerable differences, Stanley Cavell and Jean-Luc Nancy share the demand for a renewal of thinking produced through and with the concept of the world. Their articulation of the legacy bequeathed by Heidegger and Wittgenstein begins with an understanding of the world in excess of knowledge and insists on this impossible mastery as the most productive incentive for thinking. Inasmuch as philosophy has understood itself as producer of worldviews, systems and principle, philosophy has constantly suppressed the thinking of the world, (...) for any worldview absorbs and dissolves the world in its vision. For both Cavell and Nancy an insistence on this suppression leads to an emphasis on film. Two gestures can be said to intertwine in their thinking of film: to recapture our relation to the world as one that is not based on knowing as certainty, but on the reception of the singular; to recapture thinking as that which is attracted and called for by the insurgence of the singular, by the seam in experience. Nancy and Cavell reverse the idea of cinema as completing the regime of representation stressing how cinema produces a step away from thinking as representation in view of what the article names thinking as patience. The article concludes by asking: what does it mean for philosophy to understand itself as patience? (shrink)

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

In this paper, I take issue with the idea that Michel Foucault might be considered a theorist of epistemic injustice, and argue that his philosophical premises are incompatible with Miranda Fricker’s. Their main disagreement rests upon their divergent ways of conceiving the relationship between reason and power, giving rise to the contrasting forms of normativity that characterize their critical projects. This disagreement can be helpfully clarified by addressing the different use they make of the genealogical method. While Fricker’s genealogy of (...) Testimonial Justice aims to ground her claim that reason and power can be neatly pulled apart, thus avoiding the reductionist and relativist conclusions entailed by Foucault’s genealogies, I argue that Foucault’s mature, overlooked definition of genealogy is based on a sophisticated distinction between games and regimes of truth, and is thus not vulnerable to these criticisms. Consequently, Foucault’s genealogical inquiries prove helpful for understanding issues that normally fall under the umbrella of epistemic injustice in a new light, while also allowing us to avoid some of the main objections that threaten Fricker’s project. (shrink)

Clinical equipoise has been proposed as an ethical principle relating uncertainty and moral leeway in clinical research. Although CE has traditionally been indicated as a necessary condition for a morally justified introduction of a new RCT, questions related to the interpretation of this principle remain woefully open. Recent proposals to rehabilitate CE have divided the bioethical community on its ethical merits. This paper presents a new argument that brings out the epistemological difficulties we encounter in justifying CE as a principle (...) to connect uncertainty and moral leeway in clinical ethics. The argument proposes, first, that the methodology of hypothetical retrospection is applicable to the RCT design and that it can accommodate uncertainty. As currently understood, however, HR should give up its reliance on the assumption of uncertainty transduction, because the latter assumes the principle of indifference, which does not accommodate uncertainty in the right way. The same principle is then seen to distort also the received interpretations of CE. (shrink)

In view of the concern with the insertion of critical environmental education in school, we seek theoretical-methodological contributions in critical historical pedagogy. In this sense, this article will address theoretical reflections that are born within the “Grupo de Pesquisa em Educação Ambiental” - Unesp-Bauru and that were issued during the 1st Symposium on Dialectical Historical Materialism and Research on Science Education and Environmental Education. Thus, we approach the question of the content of critical environmental education from the curriculum design of (...) critical historical pedagogy. Despite the question of the content and form of Environmental Education being present since its origins, we understand that the indepth debate on what should be its content in the school context is still absent. In this sense, assuming the school insertion of critical Environmental Education as the core of the curriculum is a way to overcome its limitations in theory and practice for the human formation necessary for social transformation. (shrink)

The philosophical problem that stems from the successful application of mathematics in the empirical sciences has recently attracted growing interest within philosophers of mathematics and philosophers of science. Nevertheless, little attention has been devoted to the converse applicability issue of how physical considerations find successful application in mathematics. In this article, focusing on some case studies, I address the latter issue and argue that some successful applications of physics to mathematics essentially depend on the use of conservation principles. I conclude (...) with a short discussion of how the successful interplay between conservation principles and mathematics can be accounted for. (shrink)