We discuss the semantic significance of a puzzle concerning ‘ought’ and conditionals recently discussed by Kolodny and MacFarlane. We argue that the puzzle is problematic for the standard Kratzer-style analysis of modality. In Kratzer’s semantics, modals are evaluated relative to a pair of conversational backgrounds. We show that there is no sensible way of assigning values to these conversational backgrounds so as to derive all of the intuitions in Kolodny and MacFarlane’s case. We show that the appropriate verdicts can be (...) derived by extending Kratzer’s framework to feature a third conversational background and claiming that the relevant reading of ‘ought’ is sensitive to this parameter. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Idiot Patrick BatemanA New Configuration of Caricatural "Ultra-Christianity"Fabrizio Arcuri (bio)INTRODUCTIONThis paper1 aims to analyze the figure of Patrick Bateman, the protagonist of the novel American Psycho,2 through René Girard's mimetic theory. It links the character created by Bret Easton Ellis to the concept of caricatural "ultra-Christianity," meaning the degeneration of Christian-based concern for innocent victims.Methodologically, it adopts the approach of the sociology of the imaginary, which is (...) characterized by the division between invisible levels of signification and visible elements of culture. The latter, as a set of representations, narratives, and products, both material and ideal, are influenced by the former, which represent their condition of possibility.3 When considering caricatural "ultra-Christianity" as a phenomenon traceable to the "Regimes of the Imaginary" of the sacred,4 it can be regarded as the deep substratum from which Patrick [End Page 177] Bateman's particular idiocy emerges as a paranoid and victimistic intensification of mimetic desire.For this reason, this paper is subdivided into three sections. In the first, the focus is on the conception of caricatural "ultra-Christianity" that derives from Girard's work, identifying its origin in the revelation of Christ Paraclete. The second examines "idiotism," one of the types of "ultra-Christianity" present in contemporary society. "Idiotism" is understood as a paranoid reaction due to the traumatic split, psychiatrically based, between one's idios kosmos (own-world) and koinos kosmos (common world). Finally, in the third, I concentrate on the peculiarities of American Psycho via the theoretical framework delineated in the previous parts.FROM PARACLETE TO CARICATURAL "ULTRA-CHRISTIANITY"To provide a definition of the nature and function of caricatural "ultra-Christianity," we must first refer to the main concepts of mimetic theory, specifically, the revelation of Christianity in Girard's work. According to René Girard, desire is never authentically spontaneous or individual. Rather, it is influenced by the mutual fascination of subjects. These, often unconsciously, regard their fellow human beings as entities endowed with the fullness of being that they irretrievably lack.5Desire is a form of ontological contagion perpetuated by the continuous activity of imitation. The individual aspires to resolve metaphysical contradictions by emulating the physical, moral, symbolic, and social features of all those he/she prefers as his/her models.6 Nevertheless, within a mimetic relationship, the mediator will defend his/her own position, denying the imitating disciple the chance to match his/her status. Due to the "viral" characteristics of mimesis, the result is a situation of vindication and rivalry that is likely to spread throughout the community, fomenting a vicious cycle of fratricidal violence.7In Girard's view, that form of generalized conflict can lead society to collapse. A community needs to find an object or, better, an individual, always in a mimetic way, on whom to discharge the growing tension. The identification of the collective nemesis occurs through the scapegoat mechanism.8 Although the epidemic of violence plaguing the community is due to the desires and rivalries of all its members, the construction of the collective nemesis designates a single culprit for the mimetic crisis and results in both the disavowal of blame and the enfranchisement of the majority from responsibility. The enemy must be immolated, as only his sacrifice can save the collective. The violence of lynching [End Page 178] becomes the only means of restraining the previous violence of the mimetic escalation. Once the antagonist is killed, the destructive effects of fratricidal mimesis are appeased, at least temporarily.For Girard, the handling of salvific violence represents the essence of the sacred.9 This is a type of managing that, in its regenerative and foundational aspects, constitutes the value system that regulates the circulation of mimesis and the desires of each member of the community. It ensures, albeit precariously, the compactness of the group structure. It could be argued that the construction of meaning that emerges from the lynching of the scapegoat structures the representation of the social order,10 that is, the collective imaginary, understanding it as an instituting narrative of meanings: "This narrative resides in the shared imagination of the group that constructed it and encompasses... (shrink)

This paper investigates the prospects for a semantic theory that treats disjunction as a modal operator. Potential motivation for such a theory comes from the way in which modals embed within disjunctions. After reviewing some of the relevant data, I go on to distinguish a variety of modal theories of disjunction. I analyze these theories by considering pairs of conflicting desiderata, highlighting some of the tradeoffs they must face.

In this paper we describe the impact that Walton’s conception of argumentation schemes had on AI and Law research. We will discuss developments in argumentation in AI and Law before Walton’s schemes became known in that community, and the issues that were current in that work. We will then show how Walton’s schemes provided a means of addressing all of those issues, and so supplied a unifying perspective from which to view argumentation in AI and Law.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a basis for a systematic development of signaling theory on CSR initiatives. The paper proposes signaling theory as a framework supportive of a strategic CSR approach; maps extant research on signaling through CSR initiatives; offers a comprehensive assessment of the most diffused CSR initiatives and discusses their eligibility as signaling devices; and outlines a research agenda to further develop and test signaling theory in business ethics. Specifically, the study reconsiders some key assumptions, (...) identifies key gaps in empirical validation, and proposes directions to extend multiple signal, signaling pattern, and target cases. (shrink)

The chapter provides a response to Patrick Toner, “Critical Study of Fabrizio Amerini’s Aquinas on the Beginning and End of Human Life,” Oxford Studies in Medieval Philosophy 2, 211–28. The chapter corrects two misrepresentations in Toner’s review. First, it proves that, given Aquinas’ assumptions on substantial form and human soul, Aquinas could not give up his preference for delayed hominization of the embryo even if he were acquainted with contemporary embryology. Aquinas takes as the starting point of his embryology (...) Aristotle’s characterization of the human soul as the act of an organic physical body having life potentially, and this characterization leads him to the conviction that the human soul can enter into the human body only after the principal vital organs are formed. Second, the chapter corrects Toner’s unusual interpretation of the clause “organic” in the Aristotelian characterization of the human soul, by specifying the different senses of potentiality in Aquinas’ embryology. The chapter reaffirms the core idea that establishing when the hominization of the human embryo begins is not decisive for rejecting abortion. The chapter suggests relating the question of abortion to the identity or continuity of the human embryo rather than to the beginning of hominization. (shrink)

The volume analyzes the natural philosophical accounts and debates concerning the vegetative powers, namely nutrition, growth, and reproduction. While principally focusing on the early modern approaches to the lower functions of the soul, readers will discover the roots of these approaches back to the Ancient times, as the volume highlights the role of three strands that help shape the study of life in the Medieval and early modern natural philosophies. From late antiquity to the early modern period, the vegetative soul (...) and its cognate concepts have played a substantial role in specifying life, living functions, and living bodies, sometimes blurring the line between living and non-living nature, and, at other moments, resulting in a strong restriction of life to a mechanical system of operations and powers. Unearthing the history of the vegetative soul as a shrub of interconnected concepts, the 24 contributions of the volume fill a crucial gap in scholarship, ultimately outlining the importance of vegetal processes of incessant proliferation, generation, and organic growth as the roots of life in natural philosophical interpretations. (shrink)

The 14 essays collected in this volume explore the various aspects of Augustine’s philosophy and its medieval reception: by considering his education and the development of his thought as conveyed by a series of philosophical images and styles, the volume reconstructs the recurring motifs of his intellectual journey (the anti-Manichean polemic, his political vision, the role of reason, and the theory of war) and their fortune in authors such as Thomas Aquinas, Nicole Oresme, Gregory of Rimini, and Robert Grosseteste.

There are many benefits of using argumentation-based techniques in multi-agent systems, as clearly shown in the literature. Such benefits come not only from the expressiveness that argumentation-based techniques bring to agent communication but also from the reasoning and decision-making capabilities under conditions of conflicting and uncertain information that argumentation enables for autonomous agents. When developing multi-agent applications in which argumentation will be used to improve agent communication and reasoning, argumentation schemes (reasoning patterns for argumentation) are useful in addressing the requirements (...) of the application domain in regards to argumentation (e.g., defining the scope in which argumentation will be used by agents in that particular application). In this work, we propose an argumentation framework that takes into account the particular structure of argumentation schemes at its core. This paper formally defines such a framework and experimentally evaluates its implementation for both argumentation-based reasoning and dialogues. (shrink)

edited by Tuija Takala and Matti Häyry, welcomes contributions on the conceptual and theoretical dimensions of bioethics.

This paper motivates and develops a novel semantic framework for deontic modals. The framework is designed to shed light on two things: the relationship between deontic modals and substantive theories of practical rationality and the interaction of deontic modals with conditionals, epistemic modals and probability operators. I argue that, in order to model inferential connections between deontic modals and probability operators, we need more structure than is provided by classical intensional theories. In particular, we need probabilistic structure that interacts directly (...) with the compositional semantics of deontic modals. However, I reject theories that provide this probabilistic structure by claiming that the semantics of deontic modals is linked to the Bayesian notion of expectation. I offer a probabilistic premise semantics that explains all the data that create trouble for the rival theories. (shrink)

What is the origin and meaning of our aesthetic sense? Is it genetically encoded or is it culturally inherited? The aim of the essay is to answer to such issues by defining the emergent and meta-functional character of the aesthetic attitude. First, I propose to include the faculty of desire in the free play of the cognitive faculties at the center of Kant’s Critique of Judgment. The following step is given by a brief analysis of Darwin’s controversial remarks on the (...) pre-human birth of aesthetics and its relationship with sexual selection (§§ 1-2). The point of discontinuity between a mere animal aesthetic sense and a proto-human one is then found to become indeterminate of desire in the correlative diversification of aesthetic attractors (§§ 3-4). Successively, I deal with the supervenience character of the aesthetic and its anticipatory value. After a short genealogy of the notion of supervenience, I then develop its affinity with that of epigenesis (§§ 5-6). Afterwhich follows a review of two contemporary evolutionary perspectives on aesthetics: T. Deacon’s essay on the “aesthetic faculty” and J. Tooby and L. Cosmides thesis on the evolutionary meaning of the aesthetic-fictional activities (§§ 7-8). Conclusively, the epigenesis of an aesthetic mind is considered as the unity between the breath of aísthesis and the breath of linguistic sign (§§ 9-10). (shrink)

In the domain of medical science, factual evidence is usually considered as the criterion on which to base decisions and construct hypotheses. Evidence-based medicine is the translation of this approach into the field of patient care, and it means providing only the type of care that is based on evidence that proves its effectiveness and appropriateness. However, while the literature has focused on the types and force of evidence used to establish the recommendation and treatment guidelines, the problem of how (...) evidence is used in doctor–patient interactions to motivate, or refuse, treatment or habit change has been almost completely neglected. In this specific context, characterized by the epistemic unbalance between the interlocutors and a specific conversational goal, the scientific categories of evidence are often irrelevant. The goal of this paper is to address this challenge by analyzing the role evidence plays in doctor–patient interactions in diabetes care. After introducing an analytical distinction between the epistemic and the pragmatic aspect of evidence, we will propose a classification of the types and functions of evidence in chronic care communication, and illustrate its possible uses through its application to our corpus of diabetes-care consultations. From our qualitative analyses, it is possible to observe how in this communicative context a crucial role is played by the conflicts of evidence, in which providers correct patients’ uses of evidence leading them to using less defeasible levels of evidence. (shrink)

In this paper my objective is two-fold. First, I will try to provide further arguments in favour of the view defended in my earlier paper¹. In particular, I will try to show (in § 1) that a plausible understanding of the notion of a complete concept, coupled with (what I take to be) a reasonable interpretation of Leibniz's intriguing talk of severa “possible Adams” (§ 2), leads quite naturally to the view that Leibniz was committed to the doctrine of world-bound (...) individuals. Second, I will try to show (in § 3) that a suggestive way of saving contingency in the framework of Leibniz's theory of complete concepts is bound to fail : and the reasons for this failure will provide further evidence in favour of the view under present discussion. The remaining sections of the paper (§§ 4-6), will be concerned with fixing and making precise some of the loose ends of the previous three sections. Thus §§ 4 and 5 will be devoted to an analysis of Leibniz's use and understanding of the notions of contingency and necessity, and essence and accident, respectively. It will be shown that Leibniz's use and understanding of those notions is perfectly consistent with his commitment to the doctrine of world-bound individuals. In § 6, finally, I will try to indicate exactly how David Lewis' Counterpart Theory can be brought to bear upon Leibniz's theory of complete concepts, and, specifically, how it ought to be interpreted in that context. (shrink)

This book analyzes the uses of emotive language and redefinitions from pragmatic, dialectical, epistemic and rhetorical perspectives, investigating the relationship between emotions, persuasion and meaning, and focusing on the implicit dimension of the use of a word and its dialectical effects. It offers a method for evaluating the persuasive and manipulative uses of emotive language in ordinary and political discourse. Through the analysis of political speeches and legal arguments, the book offers a systematic study of emotive language in argumentation, rhetoric, (...) communication, political science and public speaking. (shrink)

In this paper we use a series of examples to show how oppositions and dichotomies are fundamental in legal argumentation, and vitally important to be aware of, because of their twofold nature. On the one hand, they are argument structures underlying various kinds of rational argumentation commonly used in law as a means of getting to the truth in a conflict of opinion under critical discussion by two opposing sides before a tryer of fact. On the other hand, they are (...) argument structures underling moves made in strategic advocacy by both sides that function as platforms for different kinds of questionable argumentation tactics and moves that are in some instances tricky and deceptive. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that the French philosopher René Descartes was far more involved in the study of plants than has been generally recognized. We know that he did not include a botanical section in his natural philosophy, and sometimes he differentiated between plants and living bodies. His position was, moreover, characterized by a methodological rejection of the catalogues of plants. However, this paper reveals a significant trend in Descartes's naturalistic pursuits, starting from the end of 1637, whereby he (...) became increasingly interested in plants. I explore this shift by examining both Descartes's correspondence and several notes contained in theExcerpta anatomica. Grounded in direct observations, Descartes's work on vegetation provides a modest, though not unimportant, contribution to a natural-philosophical approach to the vegetal realm. This had a direct bearing on his lifelong ambition to explain the nature of living bodies and also fuelled the emergence of botany as a modern science. (shrink)

Statements about the future are central in everyday conversation and reasoning. How should we understand their meaning? The received view among philosophers treats will as a tense: in ‘Cynthia will pass her exam’, will shifts the reference time forward. Linguists, however, have produced substantial evidence for the view that will is a modal, on a par with must and would. The different accounts are designed to satisfy different theoretical constraints, apparently pulling in opposite directions. We show that these constraints are (...) jointly satisfied by a novel modal account of will. On this account, will is a modal but doesn't work as a quantifier over worlds. Rather, the meaning of will involves a selection function similar to the one used by Stalnaker in his semantics for conditionals. The resulting theory yields a plausible semantics and logic for will and vindicates our intuitive views about the attitudes that rational agents should have towards future-directed contents. (shrink)

In contemporary discussions of abortion, both sides argue well-worn positions, particularly concerning the question, When does human life begin? Though often invoked by the Catholic Church for support, Thomas Aquinas in fact held that human life begins after conception, not at the moment of union. But his overall thinking on questions of how humans come into being, and cease to be, is more subtle than either side in this polarized debate imagines. Fabrizio Amerini--an internationally renowned scholar of medieval philosophy--does (...) justice to Aquinas's views on these controversial issues. Some pro-life proponents hold that Aquinas's position is simply due to faulty biological knowledge, and if he knew what we know today about embryology, he would agree that human life begins at conception. Others argue that nothing Aquinas could learn from modern biology would have changed his mind. Amerini follows the twists and turns of Aquinas's thinking to reach a nuanced and detailed solution in the final chapters that will unsettle familiar assumptions and arguments. Systematically examining all the pertinent texts and placing each in historical context, Amerini provides an accurate reconstruction of Aquinas's account of the beginning and end of human life and assesses its bioethical implications for today. This major contribution is available to an English-speaking audience through translation by Mark Henninger, himself a noted scholar of medieval philosophy. (shrink)

This paper investigates the emotive meaning of words commonly referred to as “loaded” or “emotive,” which include slurs, derogative or pejorative words, and ethical terms. We claim that emotive meaning can be analyzed from a argumentative perspective at distinct levels, which can forexplain some essential aspects of ethical terms, including the possibility of modifying and cancelling their “expressive force.” Emotive meaning is explained as a defeasible and automatic or automatized evaluative and intended inference commonly associated with the use of specific (...) terms, which can be represented and assessed considering its logical structure and its defeasibility conditions. This automatic inference is conceived as part of the connotation of an ethical term, and is not necessarily stable. By means of quasi-definitions, it is possible to modify the emotive meaning while maintaining the descriptive one, automaticizing the inferences drawn from an ethical word. Through examples drawn from the recent US presidential campaign, we show how re-contextualization and emotive contexts can affect emotive meaning. (shrink)

Even though, over the last two decades, the boundaryless career concept has stimulated a wide theoretical debate, scholars have recently claimed that research on the competencies that are necessary for managing a cross-boundary career is still incomplete. Similarly, the literature on emotional and social competencies has demonstrated how they predict work performance across industries and jobs but has neglected their influence in explaining the individual's mobility across boundaries and their impact on career success. This study aims to fill these gaps (...) by examining the effects of emotional and social competencies on boundaryless career and on objective career success. By analyzing a sample of 142 managers over a period of 8 years, we found evidence that emotional competencies positively influence the propensity of an individual to undertake physical career mobility and that career advancements are related to the possession of social competencies and depend on the adoption of boundaryless career paths. This study also provides a contribution in terms of the evaluation of the emotional and social competencies demonstrated by an individual and of the operationalization of the measurement of boundaryless career paths, considering three facets of the physical mobility construct (organizational, industrial, and geographical boundaries). (shrink)

So far, legal translation studies have generally been concerned with multilingual legislation, which they have dissected using comparative law methods. The time seems to have come for a differentiated research that recognises various types of legal translation, including the category of translation by professionals for public authorities and business concerns. This latter category’s context is rapidly changing. Globalization is aggravating the crisis of national legislation. First and foremost, networks of authorities have sprung up alongside international organisations. The texts translated are (...) regulatory rather than prescriptive. Then, in the field of international commerce, a standardization of contracts is occurring. Globalized administrative and commercial varieties of English are no longer the English of the common law but, rather, a neutral or hybrid English that needs to be further sub-classified by reference to specific legal sectors. Furthermore, by reducing costs and deadlines, globalization and digitalization have forced translation to be economically efficient. Several legislative provisions now allow the translation of legal texts by way of extracts or summaries. In multilingual monitoring translators are being asked to assess and select the documents for translation themselves. The quality required is often that which is “sufficient” to achieve the sought-after goal. All these changes must be incorporated into the university education of translators. (shrink)

Argumentation schemes bring artificial intelligence into day to day conversation. Interpreting the force of an utterance, be it an assertion, command, or question, remains a task for achieving this goal. But it is not an easy task. An interpretation of force depends on a speaker’s use of words for a hearer at the moment of utterance. Ascribing force relies on grammatical mood, though not in a straightforward or regular way. We face a dilemma: on one hand, deciding force requires an (...) understanding of the speaker’s words; on the other hand, word meaning may shift given the force in which the words are spoken. A precise theory of how mood and force relate helps us handle this dilemma, which, if met, expands the use of argumentation schemes in language processing. Yet, as our analysis shows, force is an inconstant variable, one that contributes to a scheme’s defeasibility. We propose using critical questions to help us decide the force of utterances. (shrink)

The aim of the presentation is to focus on the differences between two scientific contexts: the genetic engineering context of the 1970s, with specific attention paid to the use of the recombinant DNA technique to generate genetically modified molecules, and the current genome editing context, with specific attention paid to the use of CRISPR-Cas9 technology to modify human germ line cells genetically. In both events, scientists have been involved in discussions that have gone beyond mere professional deontology touching on specific (...) policy issues such as freedom of research, responsibility for the consequences of research, the right of the public to participate in the evaluation of the goals of research methods, the relationship between cost and benefit and possible social consequences. The comparison between these two scientific contexts suggests the need of handling such issues by defining procedures that meet the criteria of democracy and responsibility towards society. The underlying objective should be to effectively launch actions and interventions based not on a hierarchical approach but rather a reticular conception of knowledge. (shrink)

This study examines how evidence is used differently in argumentative discourse compared to individual arguments. Applying a 1×2 crossover study design, 37 secondary school students were asked either to discuss a social issue with their partner before individually writing an essay outlining their opinion or, vice versa, first to discuss and then to write. As background information, they were provided with pieces of evidence with different levels of quality. Dialogs and essays were analyzed regarding (a) the type of evidence and (...) (b) the way evidence was used. Results showed that in their essays students referred more often to the pieces of evidence provided to them (shared evidence). In contrast, they used evidence more often to address the opposing viewpoint in dialogs by incorporating it in a more elaborated (clearer) line of reasoning. Findings suggest that dialogues are a more effective tool than individual writing production, and the study provides first hints regarding how to design curricula that will encourage students to use evidence in a more sophisticated way in their argumentation. (shrink)

We argue that common knowledge, of the kind used in reasoning in law and computing is best analyzed using a dialogue model of argumentation (Walton & Krabbe 1995). In this model, implicit premises resting on common knowledge are analyzed as endoxa or widely accepted opinions and generalizations (Tardini 2005). We argue that, in this sense, common knowledge is not really knowledge of the kind represent by belief and/or knowledge of the epistemic kind studied in current epistemology. This paper takes a (...) different approach, defining it in relation to a common commitment store of two participants in a rule-governed dialogue in which two parties engage in rational argumentation (Jackson & Jacobs 1980; van Eemeren & Grootendorst 2004). A theme of the paper is how arguments containing common knowledge premises can be studied with the help of argumentation schemes for arguments from generally accepted opinion and expert opinion. It is argued that common knowledge is a species of provi- sional acceptance of a premise that is not in dispute at a given point in a dia- logue, but may later be defeated as the discussion proceeds . (shrink)

New findings point to a role for mesolimbic DA circuits in the generation of dreaming. We disagree with Solms about these structures having an exclusive role in generating dreams. We review data suggesting that dreaming can be interrupted at different levels of processing and that anterior-subcortical lesions associated with dream cessation are unlikely to produce selective hypodopaminergic dynamic impairments. [Hobson et al.; Nielsen; Solms].

Contrastivists view ought-sentences as expressing comparisons among alternatives. Deontic actualists believe that the value of each alternative in such a comparison is determined by what would actually happen if that alternative were to be the case. One of the arguments that motivates actualism is a challenge to the principle of agglomeration over conjunction—the principle according to which if you ought to run and you ought to jump, then you ought to run and jump. I argue that there is no way (...) of developing the actualist insight into a logic that invalidates the agglomeration principle without also invalidating other desirable patterns of inference. After doing this, I extend the analysis to other contrastive views that challenge agglomeration in the way that the actualist does. This motivates skepticism about the actualist’s way of challenging agglomeration. (shrink)

This paper explores two non-standard supermajority rules in the context of judgment aggregation over multiple logically connected issues. These rules set the supermajority threshold in a local, context sensitive way—partly as a function of the input profile of opinions. To motivate the interest of these rules, I prove two results. First, I characterize each rule in terms of a condition I call ‘Block Preservation’. Block preservation says that if a majority of group members accept a judgment set, then so should (...) the group. Second, I show that one of these rules is, in a precise sense, a judgment aggregation analogue of a rule for connecting qualitative and quantitative belief that has been recently defended by Hannes Leitgeb. The structural analogy is due to the fact that Leitgeb sets thresholds for qualitative beliefs in a local, context sensitive way—partly as a function of the given credence function. (shrink)

Semantic perceptualism is the thesis that meaning experiences are forms of perceptual experiences. According to its defenders, this view is motivated not only by philosophical considerations, but also by empirical evidence. In the present article, I shall provide the first comprehensive and critical review of the empirical evidence in support of semantic perceptualism, including a detailed analysis of the relevant neuroanatomical data. The conclusions of my analysis are largely pessimistic. I believe that the relevant behavioral, cognitive, and patient data are (...) suggestive but hardly conclusive. Moreover, neuroanatomical data speak strongly against semantic perceptualism. (shrink)

" This Volume tries to cover some important parts of the whole spectrum of European Studies. The essay of Fabrizio Sciacca begins with the issue of human rights. Sciacca relates the development of human rights regimes within the European Union to the general question of human rights education, without which human rights must keep abstract legality" (Hauke Brunkhorst, Preface).