The purpose of this paper is methodological. I begin by showing the methodological frailties of both the heart and brain approach to the criteria of death used in connection with organ transplantation. I then clarify what a definition is. Finally, I propose to abandon the definition of death, and suggest a pragmatic definition of ‘explantability window’.

Over these last few years once again the relationship between biology and information has been debated with great liveliness. The crucial points concern the meaning of the term ‘information’ and whether the so-called “information talk” is really necessary inside biology.I will proceed by first commenting on some points of the debate (§ 2), then showing that a biophysical account of the process from the nucleotide sequences to the correlated amino acid sequences is possible (§ 3). In this way, I will (...) suggest that a satisfying account of that process can be offered without entering the quicksand of information. (shrink)

The aims of my paper are to set out Aquinas’s arguments in favour of the thesis of God as Subsistent Being itself; set out the arguments against; and propose a fresh reading of that thesis that takes into account both Thomistic doctrine and the criticisms of it. In this way, I shall proceed as in a medieval quaestio, with arguments in favour, sed contra and respondeo.

In this commentary, I focus on Jones' suggestion of a close connection between the domain of space and that of kinship. I expand on that suggestion by introducing the concept of frame of reference and show how it can possibly participate to the generation of kinship systems.

In this paper a post-Kantian theory of scientific concepts is proposed. In particular, by differentiating the representational level, the intentional level and the real level, it is argued that a scientific concept has to be understood both as a representation and as a rule.

Challenging the image of physics as dry and dusty, The Beautiful Invisible shows that this highly abstract science is in fact teeming with beautiful concepts, ...

“ >. Das hiess doch: Wenn du dir gewisse Tatsachen anders denkst,sie anders beschreibst, als sie sind, dann kannst du die Anwendung gewisser Begriffe dir nicht mehr vorstellen, weil die Regeln ihrer Anwendung kein Analogon unter den neuen Umständen haben.”.

This volume collects for the first time in a single volume all of Kant's writings on religion and rational theology. These works were written during a period of conflict between Kant and the Prussian authorities over his religious teachings. His final statement of religion was made after the death of King Frederick William II in 1797. The historical context and progression of this conflict are charted in the general introduction to the volume and in the translators' introductions to particular texts. (...) All the translations are new with the exception of The Conflict of the Faculties, where the translation has been revised and re-edited to conform to the guidelines of the Cambridge Edition. As is standard with all the volumes in this edition, there are copious linguistic and explanatory notes, and a glossary of key terms. (shrink)

In this article I point out that rather than two, as is commonly thought, or indeed one, which is an old idea recently revived by some scholars, Aquinas in fact presents three main senses of being: (A1) being as actus essendi or esse or ‘present actuality’; (A2) being as (real) form or essence; (B) being as the reply to the an sit? (is there…?) question or anitas or ‘there is’ sense. Regarding the relations among these three senses of being I (...) show that: (i) the same logical treatment holds for the form (B) and (A2), since both can and need to be re-written in the form: something is so-and-so (whereas the same process cannot be applied to the A1 sense of being); (ii) the relation between the A1 and A2 senses of being is not a mere relation between distinct elements, but rather a relation among different stages of a single process, namely that between first and second actuality; (iii) the relation between the A (1 and 2) and B senses of being seems to be one of grounding, since the ‘there is’ sense seems to Aquinas to be grounded on the present actuality sense of being as an effect to its cause. (shrink)

Meeting in the petri dish? -- Screen, test, weed out? -- Prettier, better, stronger? -- Is health a duty? -- The crisis of confidence in organ donation -- On the value of age : beyond the fitness imperative -- Living wills : are forms replacing dialogue? -- Being able to let go : for a new culture of dying -- Epilogue: happiness lies in our attitude toward the world.

Riassunto: Questo lavoro sviluppa due elementi, apparentemente lontani, ma per alcuni aspetti non secondari, convergenti. Per un verso l’attenzione è rivolta all’origine delle regole che disciplinano il comportamento sociale umano, oltrepassando le regole di matrice istituzionale e convenzionale, che sono spesso considerate le più nobili e le più umane, nel tentativo di far affiorare le regole più remote del nostro agire, legate al patrimonio genetico degli individui della nostra specie, al parlamento dei nostri istinti, sviluppatisi durante l’evoluzione filogenetica. Lungo questo (...) primo tratto del percorso l’articolo fa riferimento in particolare al pensiero di Konrad Lorenz e della sua scuola. Per altro verso, si seguono le tracce del pensiero etico di Lévinas, soffermandosi su alcuni punti fondamentali: il volto dell’altro, la passività, la responsabilità, al fine di porre in evidenza come tra il filosofo e l’etologo, pur nelle evidenti differenze di linguaggio, di approccio e di orizzonti, siano ravvisabili tratti e conclusioni comuni. Parole chiave: Alterità; Relazione; Istinto; Etica; Responsabilità Autrui: Ethics and anthropology in Lévinas: This paper moves along two seemingly distant paths, that turn out to converge in some significant ways. The first path leads us to the origin of what are often considered the most noble and essentially human principles that regulate our social behaviour, going beyond institutional and conventional norms. This allows us to highlight the deepest and most evolutionarily remote rules of human behaviour, related to our genetic code and instincts, which developed over phylogenetic evolution. As we move along this first path, we pay special attention to the work of Konrad Lorenz and his school. The second path follows the traces of Lévinas’ ethical thought, dwelling on some fundamental issues: the face of the other, passivity, and responsibility, and helps us shed light on some ideas and conclusions that are common to the philosopher and the ethologist, despite their clear differences in language, approach, and horizons. We hope this will show how the insights of each can be used to support of the theories of the other. Keywords: Otherness: relationship; Instinct; Ethics; Responsibility. (shrink)

The concept of living has changed in time along the history of biology and its specificity has been associated or to a particular matter, active such as the chemical one, or was considered as a product of the spatial organization of a passive matter. Today, these two paths can be merged in the chemical perspective that takes account of the general reflections on the complexity and on the systemic, in the “systemic complexity” approach.

This work addresses biological explanations and aims to provide a philosophical account which brings together logical-procedural and historical-processual aspects when considering molecular pathways. It is argued that, having molecular features as explananda, a particular non-classical logical language – Zsyntax – can be used to formally represent, in terms of logical theorems, types of molecular processes, and to grasp how we get from one molecular interaction to another, hence explaining why a given outcome occurs. Expressing types of molecular biology processes in (...) terms of the Zsyntax language allows us to represent causal interactions by taking into account their context-sensitivity, and amounts to partly reviving the spirit of the so-called received view of explanation – which aimed to capture scientific explanatory accounts in terms of their logical structure and their appealing to nomological relations. Such a partial revival is pursued by invoking here non-classical deductions and empirical generalisations, which are called to provide the epistemic norms to explain the behavior of molecular pathways. (shrink)

An overview of current scholarship in ontology places one before two parallel lines that never meet: on the one hand there are essays in so-called “analytic ontology”, on the other hand, there are studies developed within so-called Aristotelian-Thomistic ontology. However, even though it is frequently ignored, there is an interesting philosophical current of thought within so-called “analytical Thomism”, which joins contemporary debates of “analytic ontology” from the perspective of an Aristotelian-Thomistic ontology. The main contributors to this current are P. Geach (...) and B. Miller, who have proposed a new theory about existence, called “two sense theory”. It is a view intermediate between the well known Fregean and Meinongian views, arguing for the possibility of two senses of “exists”: as first- and as second-order predicate. The object of this paper is to present this current of thought, and to evaluate it from the point of view of the history of ontology and of “continental” Thomism. (shrink)