This is an observational exploratory study assessing self-concept and its association with depression, anxiety, satisfaction with life, and quality of life 6 months after experiencing a traumatic brain injury. Participants were 33 patients who suffered a traumatic brain injury 6 months before the assessment. The measures used in this study were the Repertory Grid Technique, Patient Health Questionnaire-9, Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7, Satisfaction With Life Scale, and the Quality of Life after Brain Injury. We calculated Euclidean distances to assess differences in (...) pre-and post-injury self-perception, as well as the proportion of opposed pole construct rating and polarization to understand how they are associated with the scores of the other offered measures. We found that the distance between the present and ideal self, as well as the distance between the present self and the self before the lesion showed moderate positive correlations with depression, and negative correlations with satisfaction with life and quality of life. Also, for the present and self before the lesion, the proportion of opposed pole ratings was correlated with depression symptoms, quality, and satisfaction with life, while for the present self and the ideal self this proportion was correlated with all the measures. The proportion of polarization of the present self and the total polarization was negatively correlated with symptom measures. The repertory grid might facilitate a greater understanding of self-concept after traumatic brain injury. This information could be used to guide treatments that address the emotions related to distances observed in the perception of the self. (shrink)

Organic crosstalk or intercommunication among different organs is an interesting medical concept based on the biosemiotic perspective which considers the organism as a process maintained by the vital information flow between structural plane and biosemiotic plane, both with their different layers of biological complexity. From this point of view the organ is not merely the structure which produces crosstalk but just as much its product. The crosstalk perspective seeks two main goals: to investigate the characteristic serum biosemiotic patterns of pathogenic (...) organic crosstalk in order to achieve early diseases diagnosis, and to learn how to correct it. These achievements could allow physicians to evolve from a medical practice that focuses on misbiosemiotic effects, diagnosing and treating damaged organs, to a medical practice that focuses on misbiosemiotic processes, in this way diagnosing and treating pathogenic organ crosstalk before it culminates in organ damage. (shrink)

In this paper we give some suggestions from etymology on the contrast between Kaplan’s direct reference theory and a neo-Fregean view on indexicals. After a short summary of the philosophical debate on indexicals (§1), we use some remarks about the hidden presence of a demonstrative root in all indexicals to derive some provisional doubts concerning Kaplan’s criticism of what he calls “sloppy thinker” (§2). To support those doubts, we will summarise some etymological data on the derivation of the so-called “pure (...) indexicals” from an original demonstrative root (§ 3). The aim of the paper is to consider etymological data as providing evidence for alternative theories of language and fostering new directions in linguistic and philosophical research on specific topics. (shrink)

This paper reports on the meeting of the Sounding Board of the EU Reprogenetics Project that was held in Budapest, Hungary, 6–9 November 2005. The Reprogenetics Project runs from 2004 until 2007 and has a brief to study the ethical aspects of human reproductive cloning and germline gene therapy. Discussions during The Budapest Meeting are reported in depth in this paper as well as the initiatives to involve the participating groups and others in ongoing collaborations with the goal of forming (...) an integrated network of European resources in the fields of ethics of science. (shrink)

One 1120 pages volume, with 4000 entries covering - Western philosophy: authors, schools, concepts and terminology; - religions, cultural anthropology, eastern philosophies; - Psychology and psychoanalysis; - linguistics and semiotics; - sociology and political theory.

This paper reports on the meeting of the Sounding Board of the EU Reprogenetics Project that was held in Budapest, Hungary, 6–9 November 2005. The Reprogenetics Project runs from 2004 until 2007 and has a brief to study the ethical aspects of human reproductive cloning and germline gene therapy. Discussions during The Budapest Meeting are reported in depth in this paper as well as the initiatives to involve the participating groups and others in ongoing collaborations with the goal of forming (...) an integrated network of European resources in the fields of ethics of science. (shrink)

Formalised knowledge systems, including universities and research institutes, are important for contemporary societies. They are, however, also arguably failing humanity when their impact is measured against the level of progress being made in stimulating the societal changes needed to address challenges like climate change. In this research we used a novel futures-oriented and participatory approach that asked what future envisioned knowledge systems might need to look like and how we might get there. Findings suggest that envisioned future systems will need (...) to be much more collaborative, open, diverse, egalitarian, and able to work with values and systemic issues. They will also need to go beyond producing knowledge about our world to generating wisdom about how to act within it. To get to envisioned systems we will need to rapidly scale methodological innovations, connect innovators, and creatively accelerate learning about working with intractable challenges. We will also need to create new funding schemes, a global knowledge commons, and challenge deeply held assumptions. To genuinely be a creative force in supporting longevity of human and non-human life on our planet, the shift in knowledge systems will probably need to be at the scale of the enlightenment and speed of the scientific and technological revolution accompanying the second World War. This will require bold and strategic action from governments, scientists, civic society and sustained transformational intent. (shrink)

Formalised knowledge systems, including universities and research institutes, are important for contemporary societies. They are, however, also arguably failing humanity when their impact is measured against the level of progress being made in stimulating the societal changes needed to address challenges like climate change. In this research we used a novel futures-oriented and participatory approach that asked what future envisioned knowledge systems might need to look like and how we might get there. Findings suggest that envisioned future systems will need (...) to be much more collaborative, open, diverse, egalitarian, and able to work with values and systemic issues. They will also need to go beyond producing knowledge about our world to generating wisdom about how to act within it. To get to envisioned systems we will need to rapidly scale methodological innovations, connect innovators, and creatively accelerate learning about working with intractable challenges. We will also need to create new funding schemes, a global knowledge commons, and challenge deeply held assumptions. To genuinely be a creative force in supporting longevity of human and non-human life on our planet, the shift in knowledge systems will probably need to be at the scale of the enlightenment and speed of the scientific and technological revolution accompanying the second World War. This will require bold and strategic action from governments, scientists, civic society and sustained transformational intent. (shrink)

COVID-19 has revealed that science needs to learn how to better deal with the irreducible uncertainty that comes with global systemic risks as well as with the social responsibility of science towards the public good. Further developing the epistemological principles of new theories and experimental practices, alternative investigative pathways and communication, and diverse voices can be an important contribution of history and philosophy of science and of science studies to ongoing transformations of the scientific enterprise.

Since 1973 the world economy has been characterized by a relatively slow pace of expansion in output and trade, accompanied by high unemployment and strong inflationary pressures. With this has gone an emerging energy problem, monetary instability, a growing pressure for protectionism, a declining demand for certain products and a change in the pattern of the international movement of labour and capital.In this article, the consequences of these international features for the Flemish economy are analysed. From this analysis, it has (...) become clear that the international economic crisis has revealed more clearly the structural problems of the Flemish economy, especially in the field of economic growth, competitiveness, pattern of investments and industrial structure. This has resulted in a very high unemployment rate, which moreover will probably not disappear with an eventual improvement of theinternational economic situation : whereas the Flemish economy has gained largely from the oil based industrial expansion, it is not participating at present in the socalled third, by sofisticated technology led industrial revolution.Consequently, more and more labour-intensive activities are taken over by less developed countries, whereas some of the capital-intensive industrial sectors have to cope with a growing technological gap.To stem this unfavourable development, there is an urgent need for a powerful and planned structural policy, which must as a matter of priority force back the unemployment rate to an acceptable level. In this context, regionalisation might be a powerful instrument, as it offers to the regions the possibility of creating own solutions for their own problems. (shrink)

In 1731, Filippo Argelati printed for the first time the complete works of the Modenese historian Carlo Sigonio. Intended originally as an edition in five volumes, the collection was augmented by a sixth volume after the discovery in Rome of previously unknown manuscripts of Sigonio. Among the new papers were four sets of ecclesiastical censures which had been secretly directed in the 1580s against four of Sigonio’s works, and, with them, Sigonio’s responses to the papal authorities. According to Argelati, (...) the censures and Sigonio’s responses were found in two manuscripts, one from the vatican Library and the other from the city of Bologna. Until now, the veracity of Argelati’s account has never been questioned. Yet, while there is no doubt about the authenticity of the censures, which are attested also by eight other sixteenth-century manuscripts, Sigonio’s replies do raise doubts, as three-quarters of them are known only from Argelati’s edition of his works. The present article investigates the sources used by the author of the replies. This new evidence clearly proves that, in fact, the replies were written centuries after Sigonio’s death, probably in the same period as Argelati’s edition. In turn, this supports the hypothesis that Sigonio’s works were employed as an instrument to oppose the Roman Church’s political claims, in the jurisdictional debate between the papacy and the empire in the early eighteenth century. (shrink)

Enactivism was born as an epistemological theory of cognition grounded in biology, phenomenology and cognitive science. Assuredly, back in 1991 when the theory was first put forth, a possible application of enactivism to aesthetics would have sounded a bit strange to its creators Francisco Varela, Eleanor Rosch and Evan Thompson, and perhaps far from their original intentions. But today, when various forms of naturalism are taking place in contemporary aesthetics, it is clear, for updated rea...

Coletânea de artigos em homenagem a Guido Antonio de Almeida e Raul Ferreira Landim Filho.

This is a contribution to a book on quantum gravity and philosophy. I discuss nature and origin of the problem of quantum gravity. I examine the knowledge that may guide us in addressing this problem, and the reliability of such knowledge. In particular, I discuss the subtle modification of the notions of space and time engendered by general relativity, and how these might merge into quantum theory. I also present some reflections on methodological questions, and on some general issues in (...) philosophy of science which are are raised by, or a relevant for, the research on quantum gravity. (shrink)

We observe entropy decrease towards the past. Does this imply that in the past the world was in a non-generic microstate? I point out an alternative. The subsystem to which we belong interacts with the universe via a relatively small number of quantities, which define a coarse graining. Entropy happens to depends on coarse-graining. Therefore the entropy we ascribe to the universe depends on the peculiar coupling between us and the rest of the universe. Low past entropy may be due (...) to the fact that this coupling is non-generic. I argue that for any generic microstate of a sufficiently rich system there are always special subsystems defining a coarse graining for which the entropy of the rest is low in one time direction. These are the subsystems allowing creatures that “live in time” —such as those in the biosphere— to exist. I reply to some objections raised to an earlier presentation of this idea, in particular by Bob Wald, David Albert and Jim Hartle. (shrink)

This article discusses the relation between empirical and normative approaches in bioethics. The issue of dwarf tossing, while admittedly unusual, is chosen as a point of departure because it challenges the reader to look with fresh eyes upon several central bioethical themes, including human dignity, autonomy, and the protection of vulnerable people. After an overview of current approaches to the integration of empirical and normative ethics, we consider five ways that the empirical and normative can be brought together to speak (...) to the problem of dwarf tossing: prescriptive applied ethics, theoretical ethics, critical applied ethics, particularist ethics and integrated empirical ethics. We defend a position of critical applied ethics that allows for a two-way relation between empirical and normative theories. Against efforts fully to integrate the normative and the empirical into one synthesis, we propose that the two should stand in tension and relation to one another. The approach we endorse acknowledges that a social practice can and should be judged both by the gathering of empirical data and by normative ethics. Critical applied ethics uses a five stage process that includes: (a) determination of the problem, (b) description of the problem, (c) empirical study of effects and alternatives, (d) normative weighing and (e) evaluation of the effects of a decision. In each stage, we explore the perspective from both the empirical (sociological) and the normative ethical point of view. We conclude by applying our five-stage critical applied ethics to the example of dwarf tossing. (shrink)

This article argues that political realists have at least two strategies to provide distinctively political normative judgements that have nothing to do with morality. The first ground is instrumental normativity, which states that if we believe that something is a necessary means to a goal we have, we have a reason to do it. In politics, certain means are required by any ends we may intend to pursue. The second ground is epistemic normativity, stating that if something is true, this (...) gives us a reason to believe it. In politics, there are certain empirical regularities that ought to be acknowledged for what they are. Both sources are flawed. Instrumental normativity only requires coherence between attitudes and beliefs, and one can hang on to false beliefs to preserve attitudes incompatible with reality. I may desire to eschew power relations, and accordingly I may imagine politics to be like a camping trip. Epistemic normativity, on the other hand, operates critically, striking down existing normative claims. It shows us that politics is nothing like a camping trip, but it doesn’t tell us what we should do about it. We conclude by showing that if the two are taken together, they remedy each other’s flaws. (shrink)

The so-called “intentional object” occupies a central position in the debates about intentionality in Brentano and the Brentano School. How does it relate to the correlate, the content, or the intended, possibly external, transcendent object? Does it perhaps even coincide with one of these? There was no clear consensus on this neither in Brentano’s time nor today. In order to develop a new perspective on the problem of the intentional object, I would like to introduce a deliberately radical interpretation and (...) related terminological change: what if we were to avoid any talk of “object” in this context altogether? Perhaps this could help avoid the ambiguities and misunderstandings associated with talk of “intentional objects.” In my contribution I would like to sketch such an interpretation and consider whether this attempt could be useful to reframe the debate. (shrink)

There are fields of research on NE which still need attention: the edition of the text the style and rhetorical and logical instruments employed by Aristotle in setting out his position. After indicating the situation of the research on the text of NE, I describe some rhetorical devices used by Aristotle in his work: the presence of a preamble, clues about how the argument will be developed, a tendency to introduce new arguments in an inconspicuous way and the articulation of (...) general definitions through more specific analyses. At a deeper level NE seems to be organised on the model of investigating definitions described in the second Book of the Postenor Analytics, and not according the so-called' dialectical method'. In conclusion I argue that NE is not an early or a confused work, as some scholars maintain, but rather a skilful construction, the fruit of a mature intelligence. (shrink)

What is morally valuable—if anything at all—in entrepreneurship? Existing normative takes can be broadly categorized as belonging to two main views: a backward and a forward-looking approach. The former sees entrepreneurial activity as a permissible emergent product of individuals’ interactions within the boundaries of people’s existing rights; the latter looks at entrepreneurship in the broader context of market processes and emphasizes its role in generating Pareto-improvements in social welfare. In this paper, I suggest that certain instances of entrepreneurship can be (...) intrinsically valuable when they constitute Millian Experiments in Living, that is when entrepreneurial ventures are the expression of an entrepreneur’s conception of the good. Engaging in entrepreneurial activity which reflects one’s conception of the good helps individuals in cultivating their individuality and originality by means of subjecting their normative beliefs to empirical scrutiny, thus allowing one to confirm, revise, or refine them. (shrink)

onl y to discuss some claims concerning the relationship between mathematical logic and the philosophy of mathematics that repeatedly occur in his writings. Although I do not know to what extent they are representative of his present position, they correspond to widespread views of the logical community and so seem worth discussing anyhow. Such claims will be used as reference to make some remarks about the present state of relations between mathematical logic and the philosophy of mathematics.

Science progresses through debate and disagreement, and scientific controversies play a crucial role in the growth of scientific knowledge. However, not all controversies and disagreements are progressive in science. Sometimes, controversies can be pseudoscientific; in fact, bogus controversies, and what seem like genuine scientific disagreements, can be a distortion of science set up by non-scientific actors. Bogus controversies are detrimental to science because they can hinder scientific progress and eventually bias science-based decisions. The first goal of this paper is to (...) elucidate the distinction between bogus and genuine scientific controversies and provide a qualitative methodology, based on the literature on expertise, for distinguishing between the two. We will illustrate six epistemic criteria for distinguishing bogus from genuine scientific debates in science and medicine. This heuristic strategy applies directly to scientific reports, and it relies mostly on the social structure of science. We will then apply the above criteria to a case study: the controversy over statins, which are widely prescribed drugs for reducing the level of cholesterol and preventing cardiovascular disease. (shrink)

Quantum gravity is expected to require modifications of the notions of space and time. I discuss and clarify how this happens in Loop Quantum Gravity.

Starting from the first centenary of Carlo Cattaneo's birth in 1901, the Author reviews the publication of his works in concomitance with the interpretation and diffusion of his thinking. From the first ample collection of writings, down to Bertani and other friends, to the anthology by Gaetano Salvemini, from Alessandro Levi's monograph to the interpretations of Norberto Bobbio and Luigi Ambrosoli, the article shows the interweaving between the exegesis and the piecing together of Cattaneo's dispersed works, the complete retrieval (...) of which is being undertaken by the Italo-Swiss Committee set up in 1946. It ends with the new national edition of his works, which on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of his death in 2019 saw the publication of the fourth volume of his Lettere, the eighth volume in the entire collection. (shrink)

What the present work aimed to achieve is an assessment of the origin an d unity of Husserl s Logical Investigations. My approach was to take the history of its development as fundamental for the determination of its basic structure. Therefore, I proceeded to analyse Husserl s development between the Philosophy of Arithmetic and Logical Investigations with re spect to the fundamental issues in the justification of knowledge in mathematics and logic. In Husserl s own words, one of the concerns (...) that set him on the road to phenomenology was the clarification and analysis of the relation b etween the subjectivity of knowing and the objectivity of knowledge. Fro m my investigations it has, I hope, become apparent how this problem ori ginated in his earliest works and, through various influences and exchanges, led to his theory of intentionality in the first editio n of the Logical Investigations. The Logical Investigations is located between his Brentanist phase and t he ultimate development of transcendental phenomenology. It is the sedim ent of Husserl s logical investigations during the 1890s, which is the m ain period I analysed in the present work. Husserl himself often remarke s on the early origin of some of the issues he tried to deal with in the Logical Investigations. Still in his sketches for a new preface to the second edition of 1913, he took pains to point out the developmental his tory of the work from the Philosophy of Arithmetic onward. Regarding the Philosophy of Arithmetic, more often than not, Husserl remarks that it was just and elaboration of his Habilitationsschrift. Hence, following h is lead, we tried to embrace the whole period of his psychological and l ogical analyses from 1886/7 to 1900/01. Of course, I was certainly not the first, nor will I be the last, to be intrigued by Husserl s development in these years. Numerous books and articles have been written long before mine on precisely these issue s, often dealing with specific topics, such as the uneasy relation of psychology and psychologism in Husserl s work or fundamental inʂ 58;uences such as Bolzano s, which I therefore chose to leave aside. Not simply to duplicate or summarise such pre-existing scholarship, I tried to concentrate on the issues to which I felt I could contribute an orig inal insight, advancing the field. I would like to indicate ᤙ 7;ve points here, where I think I attained this goal: 1. The enduring relevance of Husserl s mathematical ba ckground. 2. Support for an early development of a theory of hig her order objects 3. A better evaluation of Frege s influence 4. A contextualisation of Schuhmann s thesis regarding the relevance of Twardowski for Husserl s notion of intentionality 5. The dependence of the unity of the Logical Investig ations on its historical development. Without understanding its developmental history we would misunderstand i ts internal coherence. In the first part we saw Husserl s early struggle to integrate the mathematical and psychological points of view on the philosophy of math ematics, a struggle that lasted from the Habilitationsschrift at least u p to and including his Doppelvortrag. The basic problem is the justi@ 257;cation of knowledge, in the case of mathematics, the justifica tion of knowledge in formal sciences, obtained with symbolic methods. Su ch problems regarding the subjectivity of knowing and the objectivity of knowledge guided the development of his position from Philosophy of Ari thmetic to Logical Investigations. In articulating his solution Husserl analysed the various relations betw een founding and founded layers of knowledge and whether and how one cou ld pass from on to the other. Already at the time of the Philosophy of A rithmetic he tried to account for higher order acts, relations and objec ts, the mature account of which would have to wait until the Logical Inv estigations and later. Among various influences on his progression towards phenomenology, Frege has been often considered to have provided the conversion to an ti-psychologism with his review of the Philosophy of Arithmetic. I think I have demonstrated that the review is almost entirely irrelevant in th is sense and that we should rather look at a much earlier influenc e on the Philosophy of Arithmetic. By showing that Brentano s conception of intentionality was already more sophisticated than until recently assumed, thanks to some recent public ations of unpublished material from Brentano s and Husserl s Nachlass, I think Schuhmann s thesis is right, but should be reinterpreted as being less radical than it would appear. Both Husserl and Twardowski were in& #64258;uenced by Brentano as his students. Following his and Meinong s l ead, they both elaborated a theory on intentionality, in connection with the other theories of intentionality in his school and the Brentano-Bol zano paradox. Furthermore, by providing a more continuous reading of Hus serl s development through the transcendental turn, I hope to have made clear that his later theory of the noema is not a return to a neo-Twardo wskian triadic position, but a reaffirmation, now in transcendental key, of his 1894 take on the matter. The Logical Investigations are uniquely determined by their historical c ontext in the middle of Husserl s development, falling almost exactly be tween the Habilitationsschrift and the Ideas. Due to their troubled hist ory, including changes in Husserl s earliest position around 1890, the f ailure of the second volume of the Philosophy of Arithmetic, various in& #64258;uences around 1894, and the subsequent reorientation and broadeni ng of his theories to a non-psychologistic logic and mathesis universali s, the Logical Investigations might at first seem to fall apart in two fundamentally disconnected books, the second one of which containin g six heterogeneous studies. It is my contention that it is exactly its troubled history that ties the Logical Investigations together, as Husse rl developed his logical investigations in the 1890s on the basis of a h andful thorny problems, including intentionality as centerpiece. From th e Habilitationsschrift to the Ideas it is the relation between subject a nd object, in all respects, ontological as well as epistemological, that guides his research. The Logical Investigations is a intermediate sedim ent of his struggles, containing an elaboration and improvement of his p osition in his early works and also pointing ahead towards the later pos ition of transcendental phenomenology as an implication and continuation of the solutions he proposes. Furthermore, I tried to address the problem that, while Husserl regarded his Logical Investigations as the breakthrough to phenomenology, many f undamental notions of the later transcendental phenomenology seem to be missing in the first edition of the Logical Investigations. The me thod of the reduction, the notion of a pure ego and a full account of th e noema are at most sketched or implied. Hence, I also looked ahead to t he further development of phenomenology after the Logical Investigations. As Husserl s influence has extended beyond the movement he found ed, I felt I could not bypass his significance for the currently d ominant analytical philosophy. Especially with respect to some of the co re topics of the Logical Investigations, but also earlier themes such as Husserl s semiotics, there is an interest in phenomenology from the ana lytic side. Nevertheless, precisely with regard to the unifying theme of intentionality, analytical philosophy often seems to miss the mark, and spectacularly so. I discussed Searle s influential, but in my opi nion, misguided and flawed approach, and I hope it is clear that I have chosen my method and approach in complete antithesis to his. The central contributions I was able to give, were only possible thanks to solid historical groundwork as necessary prerequisite for systematic analyses. Wherever possible, a reference to the original primary sources was provided, allowing the texts to speak for themselves and providing the reader with the critical instruments to evaluate my interpretations. As Husserl stood in a fruitful exchange with many other scholars, as st udent, colleague, friend and teacher, the intellectual context of his th oughts is essential to a correct understanding of his theories and aims. I hope to have found the right balance in the historical and the system atical aspects of my work to suit the interests of the reader and the re quirements of scholarship. (shrink)

Meaning and Context-Sensitivity Truth-conditional semantics explains meaning in terms of truth-conditions. The meaning of a sentence is given by the conditions that must obtain in order for the sentence to be true. The meaning of a word is given by its contribution to the truth-conditions of the sentences in which it occurs. What a speaker … Continue reading Meaning and Context-Sensitivity →.

Introduction to the monographic section on contemporary analytic metaphysics.

The existence of a close connection between results on axiomatic truth and the analysis of truth-theoretic deflationism is nowadays widely recognized. The first attempt to make such link precise can be traced back to the so-called conservativeness argument due to Leon Horsten, Stewart Shapiro and Jeffrey Ketland: by employing standard Gödelian phenomena, they concluded that deflationism is untenable as any adequate theory of truth leads to consequences that were not achievable by the base theory alone. In the paper I highlight, (...) as Shapiro and Ketland, the irreducible nature of truth axioms with respect to their base theories. But, I argue, this does not immediately delineate a notion of truth playing a substantial role in philosophical or scientific explanations. I first offer a refinement of Hartry Field’s reaction to the conservativeness argument by distinguishing between metatheoretic and object-theoretic consequences of the theory of truth and address some possible rejoinders. In the resulting picture, truth is an irreducible tool for metatheoretic ascent. How robust is this characterizaton? I test it by considering: a recent example, due to Leon Horsten, of the alleged explanatory role played by the truth predicate in the derivation of Fitch’s paradox; an essential weakening of theories of truth analyzed in the first part of the paper. (shrink)

In the past century the received view of definition in mathematics has been the stipulative conception, according to which a definition merely stipulates the meaning of a term in other terms which are supposed to be already well known. The stipulative conception has been so absolutely dominant and accepted as unproblematic that the nature of definition has not been much discussed, yet it is inadequate. This paper examines its shortcomings and proposes an alternative, the heuristic conception.

Goldberg notes that the relationship is a component of Conflicts of Interests. Networks of relationships and the simultaneous presence of several interests are not negative per se but become so when they generate a conflict that undermines impartiality. The solution to the problem of COIs, therefore, cannot be to abolish relationships and the interests that they necessarily express but rather to verify whether those relationships are such as to unduly affect an individual’s judgement. The evolution of an Italian legislation about (...) COIs is eloquent in this regard. (shrink)

The universal generalization problem is the question: What entitles one to conclude that a property established for an individual object holds for any individual object in the domain? This amounts to the question: Why is the rule of universal generalization justified? In the modern and contemporary age Descartes, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Kant, Mill, Gentzen gave alternative solutions of the universal generalization problem. In this paper I consider Locke’s, Berkeley’s and Gentzen’s solutions and argue that they are problematic. Then I consider (...) an alternative formulation of universal generalization which depends on the view that mathematical objects are individual objects and are hypotheses introduced to solve mathematical problems, and that mathematical proofs are argument schemata. I argue that this alternative formulation allows one to overcome the problems of Locke’s, Berkeley’s and Gentzen’s solutions, and is related to the approach to generality in Greek mathematics. I also argue that there is a connection between the present formulation of universal generalization and a special form of the analogy rule which is implicit in Proclus’ approach to the universal generalization problem. (shrink)

La obra de Piana se caracteriza por el amplio interés en la música. La experiencia perceptiva del material sonoro representa para el filósofo italiano un misterio que debe indagarse en to-dos sus diferentes aspectos. Los sonidos, los materiales de la música, vehiculan expresividad gracias a su propia materialidad fenomenológica y difícilmente podríamos apenas abrir el tema de la expresividad musical, si la materia prima pudiera entenderse como algo expresivamente neutro. Esta declaración apunta a una serie de problemas que deben resolverse (...) en relación con las distinciones elementales que se aplican en este plano, y en el plano de la terminología que les corresponde. El objetivo de este artículo es introducir a los análisis de Piana sobre el soni-do y la experiencia de la escucha. (shrink)