This paper studies internal (or intra-)mathematical explanations, namely those proofs of mathematical theorems that seem to explain the theorem they prove. The goal of the paper is a rigorous analysis of these explanations. This will be done in two steps. First, we will show how to move from informal proofs of mathematical theorems to a formal presentation that involves proof trees, together with a decomposition of their elements; secondly we will show that those mathematical proofs that are regarded as (...) having explanatory power all display an increase of conceptual complexity from the assumptions to the conclusion. (shrink)

This paper presents an overview of the methods of nested sequents or tree-hypersequents that were originally introduced to provide a comprehensive proof theory for modal logic. The paper retraces the history of how these methods have developed. Its aim is also to present, in an unified and harmonious way, the most recent results that have been obtained in this framework. These results encompass several technical achievements, such as the interpolation theorem and the construction of countermodels. Special emphasis is also given (...) to the application to logics other than the standard modal ones as well as to relations to other proof theoretic formalisms. (shrink)

This essay discusses the ethical challenges and dilemmas in allocating scarce medical resources during the COVID-19 pandemic, using the German legislative process as a starting point. It is guided by the right to non-discrimination of people with disability and generally contrasts utilitarian and rights-based principles of allocation. Three approaches that were suggested in the German discussion, are presented, the lottery principle, the first come first served principle and the probability to survive principle. Arguments in favour and against each principle are (...) discussed. The focus is on the utilitarian probability to survive principle, which was adopted in German legislation in 2022, and its discriminatory potential against people with disability. The essay suggests ways to mitigate the concerns of discrimination related to the probability to survive principle. It concludes that resolving the triage dilemma requires a balanced approach between utilitarian and rights-based concerns, which promotes both maximising the number of patients surviving and the right not to be discriminated against and be treated equally. It calls for a further debate on how many ethical values such as equity, fairness and non-discrimination we are willing to sacrifice for a higher number of survivors and when we are willing to sacrifice survivors to secure ethical values. (shrink)

Expectation-based theories of language comprehension, in particular Surprisal Theory, go a long way in accounting for the behavioral correlates of word-by-word processing difficulty, such as reading times. An open question, however, is in which component of the Event-Related brain Potential signal Surprisal is reflected, and how these electrophysiological correlates relate to behavioral processing indices. Here, we address this question by instantiating an explicit neurocomputational model of incremental, word-by-word language comprehension that produces estimates of the N400 and the P600—the two most (...) salient ERP components for language processing—as well as estimates of “comprehension-centric” Surprisal for each word in a sentence. We derive model predictions for a recent experimental design that directly investigates “world-knowledge”-induced Surprisal. By relating these predictions to both empirical electrophysiological and behavioral results, we establish a close link between Surprisal, as indexed by reading times, and the P600 component of the ERP signal. The resultant model thus offers an integrated neurobehavioral account of processing difficulty in language comprehension. (shrink)

The purpose of this cross-sectional investigation was to examine the item characteristics, factor structure, reliability, convergent validity, and construct validity of the Psychobiosocial States in Physical Education (PBS-SPE) scale. In Study 1, a sample of 1,030 students (582 girls and 448 boys, 10 to 19-year-olds), drawn from middle or high schools, rated the intensity of the 20 items version of the PBS-SPE scale thinking about the feelings they had usually experienced in physical education classes. In Study 2, an additional sample (...) of 1,025 students (578 girls, 447 boys, 10 to 19-year-olds), rated the 16 items of the final version of the scale. Two subsamples also completed an affective-related measure (i.e., the Physical Activity Enjoyment Scale) and two motivation scales often used in the physical education domain (i.e., the Teacher-Initiated Motivational Climate in Physical Education Questionnaire and the Situational Motivation Scale). Exploratory structural equation modeling and confirmatory factor analyses of the data showed that a two-factor, 16-item solution (i.e., 8 pleasant/functional items and 8 unpleasant/dysfunctional items) of the PBS-SPE scale reached satisfactory fit indices. Multi-group comparisons provided support for measurement and structural invariance across samples, gender, and age. Convergent and construct validity was also upheld. Overall, the findings offer support for the use of a new instrument in the assessment of psychobiosocial states in physical education settings. (shrink)

The paper describes a highly specific Italian action research experience, connected with the trade unions, going through different phases from the 1970s to the present day. The journey is not only a journey through time but also through different approaches. It ranges from the initial experience focusing on health and safety problems at the workplace involving the workers as co-designers of new working environments to today’s search conference experience. For each phase there is a full description and comment on the (...) methods utilised by the research group. The main methodological shift described in the paper is the one from discussion groups, based on Bion’s thinking, to the search conferences, based on Emery’s line of thinking. Both are oriented to the subjectivity of the people involved, although in the discussion group experience the research groups considered the subjectivity of the people involved as the subject of the observation. The researchers’ aim of was to acquire a reliable knowledge of what was at stake and to pass it on to the union that organised the research in order to promote actions. Hence, the action-research circuit is based upon different actors and the process is integrated only from the point of view of the union. In the search conference experience the researchers are involved in a co-design process and so the action-research circuit is really integrated from the researchers’ perspective; there are, of course, multiple perspectives in this case and this opens up epistemological problems that are not discussed in the paper. (shrink)

The current debate over extending inheritance and its evolutionary impact has focused on adding new categories of non-genetic factors to the classical transmission of DNA, and on trying to redefine inheritance. Transmitted factors have been mainly characterized by their directions of transmission and the way they store variations. In this paper, we leave aside the issue of defining inheritance. We rather try to build an evolutionary conceptual framework that allows for tracing most, if not all forms of transmission and makes (...) sense of their different tempos and modes. We discuss three key distinctions that should in particular be the targets of theoretical and empirical investigation, and try to assess the interplay among them and evolutionary dynamics. We distinguish two channels of transmission, two measurements of the temporal dynamics of transmission, respectively across and within generations, and two types of transmitted factors according to their evolutionary relevance. By implementing these three distinctions we can then map different forms of transmission over a continuous space describing the combination of their varying dynamical features. While our aim is not to provide yet another model of inheritance, putting together these distinctions and crossing them, we manage to offer an inclusive conceptual framework of transmission, grounded in empirical observation, and coherent with evolutionary theory. This interestingly opens possibilities for qualitative and quantitative analyses, and is a necessary step, we argue, in order to question the interplay between the dynamics of evolution and the dynamics of multiple forms of transmission. (shrink)

Numerous learning tasks can be described as the process of extrapolating patterns from observed data. One of the driving intuitions behind the theory of algorithmic randomness is that randomness amounts to the absence of any effectively detectable patterns: it is thus natural to regard randomness as antithetical to inductive learning. Osherson and Weinstein [11] draw upon the identification of randomness with unlearnability to introduce a learning-theoretic framework (in the spirit of formal learning theory) for modelling algorithmic randomness. They define two (...) success criteria—specifying under what conditions a pattern may be said to have been detected by a computable learning function—and prove that the collections of data sequences on which these criteria cannot be satisfied respectively correspond to the set of weak 1-randoms and the set of weak 2-randoms. This learning-theoretic approach affords an intuitive perspective on algorithmic randomness, and it invites the question of whether restricting attention to learning-theoretic success criteria comes at an expressivity cost. In other words, is the framework expressive enough to capture most core algorithmic randomness notions and, in particular, Martin-Löf randomness—arguably, the most prominent algorithmic randomness notion in the literature? In this paper, we answer the latter question in the affirmative by providing a learning-theoretic characterisation of Martin-Löf randomness. We then show that Schnorr randomness, another central algorithmic randomness notion, also admits a learning-theoretic characterisation in this setting. (shrink)

Early diagnosis of leaf diseases is a fundamental tool in precision agriculture, thanks to its high correlation with food safety and environmental sustainability. It is proven that plant diseases are responsible for serious economic losses every year. The aim of this work is to study an efficient network capable of assisting farmers in recognizing pear leaf symptoms and providing targeted information for rational use of pesticides. The proposed model consists of a multioutput system based on convolutional neural networks. The deep (...) learning approach considers five pretrained CNN architectures, namely, VGG-16, VGG-19, ResNet50, InceptionV3, MobileNetV2, and EfficientNetB0, as feature extractors to classify three diseases and six severity levels. Computational experiments are conducted to evaluate the model on the DiaMOS Plant dataset, a self-collected dataset in the field. The results obtained confirm the robustness of the proposed model in automatically extracting the discriminating features of diseased leaves by adopting the multitasking learning paradigm. (shrink)

Troppo spesso lo specialismo, pur indispensabile, impedisce una proficua collaborazione tra studiosi. È pensando a un territorio al cui centro si colloca il testo o, meglio, i testi, nella fattispecie di filosofi e scienziati, che è stata disegnata la geografia del convegno; per far incontrare editori di testi, storici della filosofia e della scienza, storici del libro, bibliografi e biblioteconomisti, informatici ed esperti di manoscritti.

In this special issue, our aim is to analyse the role of emotions with particular attention to shaping political actions in the face of present challenges to justice. The relationship between the widespread rise of collective emotions and the experience of injustice in our societies is a pressing issue, both in our everyday practice of ethical and political discourse and in philosophical reflection and discussion. Some negative emotions—such as fear, resentment, greed, distrust towards institutions, and disrespect for basic human rights—are (...) often manipulated and amplified. Other, more positive, emotions, such as respect, hope, solidarity, and affinity, often seem to be not enough to give rise to alternative policies. This worldwide problem reflects a deep economic, social, and existential crisis. In this framework, philosophical reflection on emotions can be put fruitfully in dialogue with the contemporary philosophical analysis of collective intentionality and collective agency, which aims at investigating the nature of different types of groups and their main features as well as phenomena such as sense of group membership and group agency. Indeed, it is often argued that collective emotions boost the sense of group belonging in individual members and act to reduce uncertainty in joint actions. In normative terms, feelings such as the rejection of cruelty have been proposed as the foundation of moral equality, and even rationalistic approaches tend to focus on respect first of all as a feeling, as Kant maintained. (shrink)

At Columbia University in 1906, William James gave a highly confrontational speech to the American Philosophical Association (APA). He ignored the technical philosophical questions the audience had gathered to discuss and instead addressed the topic of human energy. Tramping on the rules of academic decorum, James invoked the work of amateurs, read testimonials on the benefits of yoga and alcohol, and concluded by urging his listeners to take up this psychological and physiological problem. What was the goal of this unusual (...) speech? Rather than an oddity, Francesca Bordogna asserts that the APA address was emblematic—it was just one of many gestures that James employed as he plowed through the barriers between academic, popular, and pseudoscience, as well as the newly emergent borders between the study of philosophy, psychology, and the “science of man.” Bordogna reveals that James’s trespassing of boundaries was an essential element of a broader intellectual and social project. By crisscrossing divides, she argues, James imagined a new social configuration of knowledge, a better society, and a new vision of the human self. As the academy moves toward an increasingly interdisciplinary future, William James at the Boundaries reintroduces readers to a seminal influence on the way knowledge is pursued. (shrink)

A cavallo tra i due concili di Costanza e Basilea, che hanno fortemente influito sul giudizio della Chiesa in relazione alle donne visionarie, si staglia la figura di Francesca Bussa dei Ponziani. Le visioni politiche di Francesca rappresentano un fulgido esempio di come i modelli brigidini e cateriniani siano stati ripresi e rimodellati su un nuovo, mutato contesto storico. La sua consolidata autorità le consentì di ammonire a più riprese papa Eugenio IV riguardo alla sua partecipazione al concilio (...) di Basilea, intervenendo attivamente nello scenario religioso e politico romano. (shrink)

In this paper, we present a simple sequent calculus for the modal propositional logic S5. We prove that this sequent calculus is theoremwise equivalent to the Hilbert-style system S5, that it is contraction-free and cut-free, and finally that it is decidable. All results are proved in a purely syntactic way.

Discrimination is often tremendously harmful. But cases of harmless yet morally wrongful discrimination suggest that there are factors that make discrimination wrong other than its harmfulness. This article analyzes three views that resist this conclusion and poses some challenges for each. The first view appeals to unnoticed forms of harm in cases of harmless discrimination. But it counterintuitively entails that discriminatory acts are morally wrong by definition. The second view holds that harmless discrimination is made wrong by how its perpetrator (...) wrongs the victim by disrespecting her moral status without setting back her wellbeing. But it is unclear how impermissibly wronging a person is different from unjustifiably harming her. The third view holds that, even if discriminatory acts can be made wrong by factors other than harm, they ought to be prohibited by a legal rule whose sole justification is that it prevents harm. But there may be reasons for legally prohibiting discriminatory acts other than harm prevention. (shrink)

A corrective justice account of a private law remedy attempts to the explain the remedy as giving back to the plaintiff something to which the plaintiff had a prior right that was breached by the defendant's receipt of that thing. It has proven challenging to explain how disgorgement for breach of contract is consistent with corrective justice. This remedy gives to the plaintiff any profit that a defendant received from a third party by breaching a contract with the plaintiff. In (...) this paper, I critique two leading attempts to show how disgorgement for breach of contract is consistent with corrective justice. I argue that these attempts fail, and I suggest that a plausible corrective justice account of disgorgement should be based on something other than the nature of the contractual rights borne by a plaintiff. I then develop an alternative account based on an analogy between disgorgement for breach of contract and disgorgement for breach of fiduciary duty. To do so, I draw on recent scholarship on the consistency of disgorgement for breach of fiduciary with corrective justice and analyze the leading judicial decision on disgorgement for breach of contract by the UK House of Lords inAttorney General v. Blake. I argue that the fiduciary-based account can provide a plausible explanation for how disgorgement effectuates corrective justice by giving back to a plaintiff something to which he had an antecedent right that the defendant violated by profiting from a breach of contract. (shrink)

The identity and the existence of genes has been challenged by postgenomic discoveries. Specifically, the consideration of molecular and cellular phenomena in which genes are embedded has proved relevant for their understanding. In response to these challenges, I will argue that the complexity of genetic phenomena supports the weak emergence of genes from the DNA. In Section 2, I will expose what genes are taken to be in the postgenomic world. In Section 3, I will present the relevant account of (...) emergence. I consider weak emergence as in Franklin and Knox, for which a phenomenon is emergent when it displays novelty and robustness. In Section 4, I will argue that genes are weakly emergent since they are novel, improving explanations, and robust in respect to some perturbations. Then, I will conclude in Section 5 that genes’ emergence is a way to allow genes’ flexibility and context dependency, without compromising their existence. (shrink)