Guido Baggio & Marta Caravà: As a leading enactivist philosopher, on several occasions you have emphasized that pragmatism and neo-pragmatism can offer a fruitful contribution to situated approaches to cognitive science/the philosophy of mind. These contributions include – among others – the theoretical support that the pragmatist approach can give to both the enactive and the extended approach to cognition thanks to its integrative and dynamical view of cognition. This conversation will focu...

Emergence is a pivotal concept for interpreting the reality of natural and social human life in all its processual complexity. The recently renewed debate about this concept and the different forms of emergentism is particularly varied, widely referring to biology, metaphysics, philosophy of mind (Kim 1999, 2005, 2006a,b; Cunningham 2001; Pihlström 2002; El-Hani 2002; El-Hani & Pihlström 2002; Chalmers 2006; Bedau & Humphreys 2008; Corradini & O’Connor 2010; Okasha 2012; Humphreys 2016; Sarte...

The article highlights George Herbert Mead’s and Wilfrid Sellars’ reliance on a behaviourally-grounded conception of meaning as strictly related to the possibility of distinguishing mental from non-mental phenomena as both related to the semantic dimension. Mead’s position is in fact akin to Wilfrid Sellars’ argument that the concepts of ‘inner events’ are essentially inter-subjective. Thoughts are displayed as consisting of related linguistic acts linked inferentially through intra-linguistic moves that respond to a particular ‘language practice’ governed by norms. Introspection is an (...) ‘inner conversation’, namely an ‘inner’ speaking analogous to linguistic activity that does not involve actual equivalents of the words in the mind. (shrink)

: The article outlines some similarities between the perspectives adopted by Shaun Gallagher and William James. In particular, assuming that the issue of representation in cognitive systems provides a valuable starting point and testing ground for verifying James’ possible contribution to enactivism, we argue that there is a considerable degree of similarity between Gallagher’s and James’ non-representational models of direct perception. Furthermore, we propose that by combining James’s theory of time and spatial perception with Gallagher’s Husserlian-inspired theory of retentional-protentional structure, (...) we can strengthen the theoretical assumptions of enactivism, integrating elements taken from phenomenology and aspects of Jamesian pragmatics. Understood in this way, James’ enactive theory of action and perceptual causality provides a promising opportunity for an innovative and coherent enactivist research program. Keywords: Enactivism; Pragmatism; 4E Cognition; William James; Shaun Gallagher Rendere l’enattivismo ancora più pragmatico: l’eredità jamesiana nell’approccio enattivista alla cognizione di Shaun Gallagher Riassunto: In questo lavoro si pongono in evidenza alcune somiglianze tra la prospettiva enattivista di Shaun Gallagher e la psicologia di William James. In particolare, assumendo che il tema della rappresentazione nei sistemi cognitivi fornisca un valido punto di partenza e un terreno di prova per verificare il possibile contributo di James all’enattivismo, ritengo che esista una notevole assonanza tra l’anti-rappresentazionalismo di Gallagher e la teoria della percezione diretta di James. Sostengo inoltre che attraverso una combinazione della teoria del tempo e della percezione spaziale di James con la teoria di Gallagher della struttura ritentivo-protensiva di ispirazione husserliana sia possibile rafforzare i presupposti teorici dell’enattivismo, integrando elementi tratti dalla fenomenologia con aspetti pragmatisti. La teoria jamesiana dell’azione e della causalità percettiva sembra fornire una promettente opportunità per un innovativo programma di ricerca in ambito enattivista. Parole chiave: Enattivismo; Pragmatismo; 4E Cognition; William James; Shaun Gallagher. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe paper compares Mead’s and Quine’s behaviouristic theories of meaning and language, focusing in particular on Mead’s notion of sympathy and Quine’s notion of empathy. On the one hand, Quine seems to resort to an explanation similar to Mead’s notion of sympathy, referring to ‘empathy’ in order to justify the human ability to project ourselves into the witness’s position; on the other hand, Quine’s reference to the notion of empathy paves the way to a more insightful comparison between Mead’s behaviourism (...) and an explanation of the emergence of the linguistic from pre-linguistic communication based on empathic identification processes. However, Mead is less ambiguous than Quine in his use of the notion of sympathy finds a fecund parallel in the current neuroscientific and neuro-phenomenological hypothesis on ‘empathy’. The article contends that the ambiguity in Quine’s account of empathy is due to the exigency of trying to elucidate the link between the rules of language in a cultural context and... (shrink)

The aim of the article is to outline several valuable elements of Mead’s pragmatist theory of perception in action developed in his The Philosophy of the Act, in order to strengthen the pragmatist legacy of the enactivist approach. In particular, Mead’s theory of perception in action turns out to be a forerunner of sensorimotor enactivist theory. Unlike the latter, however, Mead explicitly refers to imagery as an essential capacity for agency. Nonetheless, the article argues that the ways in which Mead (...) refers to this capacity do not necessarily place it in opposition to enactivist non-representationalism. On the contrary, as a synthetic process of re-presenting of present and past sensorimotor elements, imagery can be seen as the hallmark of a pragmatically inspired sensorimotor enactivist approach that bypasses the opposition between representationalists and non-representationalists. (shrink)

The article argues in favour of a pragmatist enactive interpretation of the emergence of the symbolic and contentful mind from a basic form of social communicative interaction in which basic cognitive capacities are involved. Through a critical overview of Radical Enactivists (RECers)’ view about language, the article focuses on Mead’s pragmatist behavioural theory of meaning that refers to the gestural conversation as the origin of the evolution of linguistic conversation. The article develops as follows. After exposing the main elements of (...) REC’s theory of cognition and language that involve the construction of a theory of natural signs (teleosemiotics) and basic directionality (Ur-intentionality), some critical points of Hutto and Myin’s proposal will be highlighted. To foster a continuist perspective of language, the behavioural theory of meaning and language that Mead develops from the notion of gesture will be analysed. His theory is akin to REC and could augment the bare bones of REC’s sketched perspective, helping to include Ur-intentionality in a broader non-dualistic phylogenetic and ontogenetic theory of symbolic language from gestural communication, thus helping to overcome the distinction between a content-less intentionality and a content-involving intentionality, i.e., a semantic propositional intentionality. Furthermore, a recent revival of Mead’s theory testifies to its up-to-date relevance to explain the innate social dimension of human and non-human animals, and the human communicative capacity through the conditioning of bio-social canons and structures. (shrink)

En partant de la théorie des émotions développée par Mead et Dewey dans les années 1890, les aspects centraux de la théorie gestuelle de Mead, qui sous-tend sa théorie de l’émergence de la signification, du langage et de la cognition humaine, seront mis en évidence. L’article souligne, en outre, comment la théorie de Mead s’inscrit dans une perspective sociobiologique sur la naturalisation du langage qui gagne en intérêt aujourd’hui, notamment dans le domaine des théories évolutionnistes du langage et parmi les (...) neuroscientifiques. (shrink)

L’Italia rappresenta un luogo del tutto peculiare per gli sviluppi del pragmatismo, fin dai suoi albori. A partire dalla fondazione del Leonardo nel 1903, Giovanni Papini, Giuseppe Prezzolini, Giovanni Vailati, Mario Calderoni (e molti altri) contribuirono a riprendere e a diffondere in Europa le principali istanze dei pragmatisti d’oltreoceano. Come è noto, questi filosofi non si limitarono ad essere vivaci interpreti del pensiero di Charles Sanders Peirce e William James, ma elaborarono anc...

The Timeliness of George Herbert Mead is a significant contribution to the recent “Mead renaissance.” It gathers some contributions first presented at the conference celebrating the 150th anniversary of the birth of George Herbert Mead held in April 2013 at the University of Chicago and organized by Hans Joas, Andrew Abbott, Daniel Huebner, and Christopher Takacs. The volume brings scholarship on G. H. Mead up to date highlighting Mead’s relevance for areas of research completely ignored by p...

Il progetto comune dei pragmatisti (Calcaterra 2024) raccoglie una selezione di saggi del periodo di produzione di Rosa Calcaterra che va dal 2003 al 2016, rivisti o integrati in vista di questa nuova edizione. Il volume offre uno sguardo d’insieme del percorso teoretico di Calcaterra, focalizzandosi sugli autori pragmatisti che più hanno segnato il suo pensiero, segnatamente C.S. Peirce, W. James, J. Dewey, G.H. Mead, C.I. Lewis, H. Putnam e R. Rorty. Come hanno notato Michela Bella, Giovann...

Hili Razinsky’s book aims to investigate the philosophical notion of ambivalence and to support an anti-irrationalist, non-contradictory, and anti-dichotomic perspective of this notion. The book is hardly ascribable to an explicit philosophical tradition: it includes references to both continental and analytic philosophers (from Heidegger, Husserl, and Sartre, to Davidson and Freud, among many others). Razinsky also offers examples taken from literary works to corroborate her replies to the f...

The article argues in favour of replacing Dewey’s notion of 'experience' in today's cognitive sciences with Mead’s notion of 'act.' Although Dewey's approach to cognition is an essential contribution to the pragmatist turn of cognitive science and his theory of organic relation is particularly useful for future developments in this field, his notion of 'experience' risks proving to be the weak link in the program of empirical implementation of such a turn. In a perspective that shows a clear empirical intent (...) such as that of the 4E programme, the concept of experience, as intentionally vague and smoky, with its strong metaphysical significance, does not seem to offer a useful operational criterion to exclude from evaluation aspects that should not be considered constitutive of the mental. Moreover, in its openness to the overall determination of the relationship between organism and environment, this notion does not contribute to the definition of the phases that characterize the relational dynamics itself. The essay proposes as a solution to these difficulties to turn the attention to Mead's notion of 'act.' Although Mead's act and Dewey's experience are undoubtedly similar concepts, as the result of elaborations often carried out jointly by the two authors, the act seems more suitable to describe in its different characteristics the ideo-sensori-motor process that characterizes the integrated approach in which perception and action are indissolubly linked. Mead's theory of the act is an epistemological tool particularly useful to the empirical program of the 4E, also offering an interesting contribution to the debate between radical representationalists and enactivists. (shrink)

The paper seeks to show the potentialities of a wider perspective concerning human economic behavior and decision-making processes intertwining Mead’s and Sen’s ideas on self-identity and social context. Emerging developments of my findings strengthen, at once, the principled commitment to freedom of choice, revealing from a “Mead-Sen” perspective the instrumental role of social behavioral patterns and socio-cultural environment (social group, community, nationality, race, sex, and now social media) in the orientation of persons’ (economic) behaviors. In particular, a Mead-Sen approach would (...) help clarify how people develop their attitudes and dispositions to think and behave, namely examining the habits at the basis of everyday processes of evaluation and choice as manifestations of practical judgment. (shrink)

In the following pages I shall sketch some thoughts on Veblen’s implicit and explicit references to pragmatism and functional psychology, arguing that, besides Peirce and James, the functionalist theories and psychological experiments of the research group led by Dewey and Mead at the University of Chicago set the scene for Veblen’s intellectual revolution. More precisely, whilst Veblen did not mention it explicitly, it is possible to find in his writings of the years 1896-1900 references to Dewey’s notion of the “organic (...) circuit” and to Dewey’s and Mead’s theory of emotion.* This paper has three parts and three aims. In the first part, I outline Veblen’s criticism of economic science and his proposal for a new evolutionary economics, paying particular attention to Veblen’s implicit reference to Peirce’s logic. In the second part, I single out Veblen’s reference to Dewey’s and Mead’s works on functional psychology. In the third part, I will compare Mead’s hypothesis of the genesis of social interests in emotions with the evolutionary economic theory sketched by Veblen.* Tilman (1996: Ch 3) argued over pragmatic influences upon Veblen’s ideas concerning the human mind. James and Dewey’s functional psychology offered a psychological basis for his social theory. In my opinion, however, Veblen has been influenced by the Chicago School of functionalism more than by James’ functionalism, in particular by Dewey’s and Mead’s ideas. Moreover, even if Tilman (1998) points out Dewey’s intellectual debt to Veblen’s idea, his references consist normally in a period later than that considered here. (shrink)

Since the end of the twentieth century, cognitive science has been witnessing what is called a pragmatic turn, a change of perspective that considers pragmatists to be basically right about the nature of knowledge and experience (Engel et al., 2016; Madzia & Jung, 2016; Madzia, Santarelli, 2017; Schulkin, 2015). Generally speaking, the pragmatic turn paradigm suggests that cognition is fundamentally grounded in action; that is, fundamentally action-bound, “subserving the planning, selection, anticipation, and performance of actions” (Engel et al., 2013, p. (...) 206). The essays collected in this special issue on Pragmatism and Enactivism seek to determine the extent to which the encounter between pragmatism and enactivism can provide an opportunity to reflect upon the genesis and nature, limits, and potentialities of cognition, as well as the issue of how mind and world, nature and culture, experience and language coexist. (shrink)

Interdisciplinarity plays a major role in the multifaceted thought of John Dewey. His theoretical interests cross the traditional academic boundaries in the name of improved research and teaching, and his works could be seen cumulatively as a systematic approach consisting of different interdisciplinary perspectives each intertwined with the next. On this issue, the essays gathered in Il pensiero di John Dewey tra psicologia, filosofia, pedagogia. Prospettive interdisciplinari, edited by Elis...

The article aims to make a contribution to the contemporary debate on emergence by focusing on Conwy Lloyd Morgan’s and George Herbert Mead’s theories of emergence. Both authors, in fact, first elaborated a theory that tried to synthesize the biological, the psycho-physiological and the social dimensions of emergent processes. Since Morgan’s emergentism and Mead’s processual ontology were conditioned by the reflections that the two thinkers had developed over the years and traces back their roots to the early 1890s, the article (...) will be developed as follows. A brief description of Morgan’s conception of organic and mental evolution as elaborated in the 1890s and summarised in his Lowell Lectures will be outlined. Then Mead’s early writings on psychophysics and comparative psychology, pointing out a similarity between Mead and Morgan’s ideas on organic and mental evolution at that time will be introduced. Finally, their theories of emergence from the 1920s, pointing out more interesting similarities and dissimilarities will be examined. (shrink)

The publication of G. H. Mead’s Mind Self & Society. The Definitive Edition has been long awaited by scholars and historians of the thought of the philosopher and pragmatist social psychologist. The editorial project of the University of Chicago Press followed this Definitive Edition with the publication of The Timeliness of George Herbert Mead (2016), a collection of the proceedings of the international conference held in April 2013 at the University of Chicago, also edited by Hans Joas and...

In Cognitive Semiotics. Integrating Signs, Minds, Meaning and Cognition, Claudio Paolucci proposes cognitive semiotics as a fundamental component of a theory of human cognition that considers the “semiotic system” as co-constitutive of cognitive processes in action. His work takes its cue from the classical linguists and semioticians interpreted within the broader theoretical framework of cognition in action that links radical enactivism and classical pragmatism. He aims to bridge the gap bet...

In May 2013, Andreas K. Engel, Alexander Maye, Martin Kurthen, and Peter König published an article entitled “Where’s the Action? The Pragmatic Turn in Cognitive Science” in which they witnessed a “Pragmatic Turn” in cognitive science, i.e. the shift from a representation-centered perspective to a paradigm that focuses on the understanding of cognition as “enactive.” This new paradigm suggested that “cognition seems fundamentally grounded in action” (Engel et al. 2013: 206). The authors’ use...

While rooted in careful study of Mead’s original writings and transcribed lectures and the historical context in which that work was carried out, the papers in this volume have brought Mead’s work to bear on contemporary issues in metaphysics, epistemology, cognitive science, and social and political philosophy.

Ringrazio molto Guido Baggio e Maria Regina Brioschi per aver voluto organizzare e curare questo simposio sulla raccolta di saggi da poco pubblicata dalla casa editrice Carabba, che ha generosamente accolto il progetto del volume. A Michela Bella, Giovanni Maddalena e Marco Stango va la mia sincera gratitudine per l’attenzione puntuale e la cura con cui hanno letto i miei scritti, per i commenti e le questioni sicuramente importanti che hanno presentato e che continueranno ad alimentare le mi...

This book is primarily about checking and only derivatively about knowing. Checking is a very common concept for describing a subject’s epistemic goals and actions. Surprisingly, there has been no philosophical attention paid to the notion of checking. In Part I, I develop a sensitivity account of checking. To be more explicit, I analyze the internalist and externalist components of the epistemic action of checking which include the intentions of the checking subject and the necessary externalist features of the method (...) used. Crucially, successfully checking whether p is true requires using a method that is sensitive with respect to p, i.e. a method that would not indicate that p, if p were false. In Part II, I use the distinction between knowing and checking to explain central puzzles about knowledge, particularly puzzles centering on knowledge closure, puzzles concerning bootstrapping and the skeptical puzzle. Moreover, the book clarifies a dispute about modal epistemology, concerning the application of the sensitivity principle. By arguing that sensitivity is necessary for checking but not knowing, I explain where our persisting intuitions about sensitivity have their place in epistemology. (shrink)

Vogel argues that sensitivity accounts of knowledge are implausible because they entail that we cannot have any higher-level knowledge that our beliefs are true, not false. Becker and Salerno object that Vogel is mistaken because he does not formalize higher-level beliefs adequately. They claim that if formalized correctly, higher-level beliefs are sensitive, and can therefore constitute knowledge. However, these accounts do not consider the belief-forming method as sensitivity accounts require. If we take bootstrapping as the belief-forming method, as the discussed (...) cases suggest, then we face a generality problem. Our higher-level beliefs as formalized by Becker and Salerno turn out to be sensitive according to a wide reading of bootstrapping, but insensitive according to a narrow reading. This particular generality problem does not arise for the alternative accounts of process reliabilism and basis-relative safety. Hence, sensitivity accounts not only deliver opposite results given different formalizations of higher-level beliefs, but also for the same formalization, depending on how we interpret bootstrapping. Therefore, sensitivity accounts do not fail because they make higher-level knowledge impossible, as Vogel argues, and they do not succeed in allowing higher-level knowledge, as Becker and Salerno suggest. Rather, their problem is that they deliver far too heterogeneous results. (shrink)

Donor conceived persons are likely to have a lower quality of life than persons who are genetically related to both parents. Empirical evidence is presented to corroborate this point. The evidence is subdivided into three sections: (1) negative experience of the donor conception itself, (2) negative effects of secrecy and openness and (3) negative effects of donor anonymity and donor identifiability. The principle of procreative beneficence requires parents to select the child with the best possible life. Given the difference in (...) quality of life, intended parents should try to have a genetically related child. This finding is also a strong reason for society to invest public resources in the development of techniques that enable people to create genetically related children. (shrink)

Introduction -- Otherness in contemporary European cinema -- Potential and limits of a new European in Nicolas Echevarría's Cabeza de vaca -- Migrants in Europe: breaking the boundaries? -- Inspiration from abroad? cultural boundaries in Chicano cinema -- Conclusion.

Modern rationalism transformed the modern homeland to a discursive space and time by means of institutes governing the modern society in all its walks. Based on the Newtonian and Kantian conception of space and time the discursive field is just a scene wherein any human individual adopts stewardship to create progress by reducing landscape and non-human life to auxiliary items for human’s benefit. In contrast, Aldo Leopold considered humans, non human life and the landscape as mutually influencing participants and enlarged (...) ethical care to all living participants and the landscape, called ´the land´. Integrity and autonomy of the homeland are the central topics of Leopold’s land ethics. Baird Callicott suggested to complete it with new metaphysical conceptions of space and time. -/- We formulated a metaphysical background for Leopold’s land ethics by phenomenology of space and time based on the Leibnizian conception of space-time. The latter is constructed by particular places and events called ´ecotopois´ embracing all human participants, locals and foreigners in a varying symbolic temporal and spatial field of dynamic process of identification and self consciousness. Adopting Warwick Fox´ transpersonal identification idea non-human life and landscape enriches these processes. Finally, it is not a matter of conquering the land, it is matter of making a community. -/- Though landscape and participants are particular, integrity and autonomy of the homeland claim the universal status of the land. Adopting Gadamer hermeneutical way of understanding, we reject mutual and equally understanding. Only acceptance of mutual prejudice makes room for asymmetric praxis between locals and foreigners as well as between humans and non-humans. What is more, Gadamer´s hermeneutics makes an ontological status of the foreigner possible and recognizes the interest of homeland’s particularity. This universal status is guaranteed as a priori space-time that links subject’s tradition and that of the land to actual contact with the foreigner. Transpersonal identification is a consequence of converging hermeneutical understanding of foreigner’s particularity and that of the landscape. Ethics of the land evolves from the ethical status of any foreigner in the own homeland. -/- . (shrink)

Time as the key to a theory of everything became recently a renewed topic in scientific literature. Social constructivism applied to physics abandons the inevitable essentials of nature. It adopts uncertainty in the scope of the existential activity of scientific research. We have enlightened the deep role of social constructivism of the predetermined Newtonian time and space notions in natural sciences. Despite its incompatibility with determinism governing the Newtonian mechanics, randomness and entropy are inevitable when negative localized energy is transformed (...) into spatially dissipative heat. In sharp contrast to the Newtonian notion, social constructivism makes room for the temporal twin of cyclic conservation and pseudo-linearly structural evolution both reconciling mechanical order and thermodynamic chaos in Leibnizian space-time. In the broad scope of natural sciences this triad nature of time produces a multiple reality and gives appropriate answers on virtual physical paradoxes. (shrink)

Niettegenstaande de tendens van het failliet van het multiculturalisme is multiculturele dialoog niet weg te denken in een zich globaliserende wereld. Taylor, Gadamer, Honneth en Kymlicka hebben een bijdrage geleverd op het vlak van de erkenning van identiteit, respect en waardering van verschil. Wij voeren het argument aan dat bovenstaande auteurs niet ontsnappen aan het postmodernistisch dilemma van zelfautonomie en slachtofferschap. Dit komt doordat zij in hun rationale vertrekken van het afzonderlijke subject en deze situeren in een ruimte-tijd waarin de (...) tijd slechts een historische rol heeft en de ruimte geen actieve rol speelt. Tegenover deze uitvloeisels van het postmodern denken stellen wij het eco-communau-tarisme. Vanuit de vaststelling dat het individu denkt, spreek en handelt in de context van zijn taal en cultuur en dus vanuit zijn gemeenschap, situeren wij dit subject en de gemeenschap tevens in een particulier territorium of het ecotoop. Door middel van Hacking’s sociaal constructivisme, het Leibniziaanse meerwereldenbeeld en het biologische paradigma als nieuw denkkader, structureren wij de gemeenschap volgens een cyclisch en een lineair tijdverloop. Het cyclische waarborgt de traditie van een gemeenschap, het lineaire doet de gemeenschap evolueren naar een moreel betere toekomst en heeft een transcendent statuut. Het eco-communautarisme biedt het kader voor een kwalitatieve evolutie van individuen en gemeenschappen. Het normerend aspect hiervan is de pluriforme en multiculturele dialoog. (shrink)

Our planet contains 194 independent states and much more nations. They share membership of the United Nations and in consequence they subscribed the Universal Declaration of Rights. These are rooted in the modern universal conception of states and human rights formulated by philosophers of the Enlighten Age like Locke, Kant., Montesquieu, Voltaire and Rousseau. Concepts like democracy are mirrored to the organization of the political life as it was developed in North America and Europe at the end of the 18th (...) and the 19th century. Universality was deeply rooted in the Western intellectual, moral and religious tradition of that part of the world. Even globalization of the economic and social life is governed by the same Western standards and worldwide consumed basic goods like prime matter,. food and energy is expressed in terms of Western currency like dollar, pound sterling or euro. Despite this economic globalization there were two contradictory political evolution to discern: At the one hand more than 70 new states where created and on the other hand 28 European states started to integrate to a political European Union. The latter trend was based on a deep economic integration and since the creation of the euro also a financial integration. Basic idea was the creation of a free economic market as bases for a political unified Europe. Euro criticism is not only identified with conservatism, nationalism, narrow mind and even racism, euro criticism is deprived from any intellectual significance. However other trends put some shadow on the European project. First the Soviet experience around Marxism, Leninism and Stalinism unified more different nations than the European Union but ended in a complete political and economic chaos. Secondly the financial euro crisis involves only the tacit undermining of the national political independence of the member states, but does not make room for a deep analysis what the fundamentals are of this crisis such as lack of confidence of the citizen in the created unified political and financial market and its main instruments like banks that we consider as the fundamental boundary conditions of the worldwide globalization of goods, power and all aspects of human life. Furthermore we claim that this market in al its aspects is the worst answer to the inconvenient yet unavoidable truth that Western way of life of consumption includes a ecological footprint that exceeds since many years the sustainability of our planet. -/- . (shrink)

This article examines the philosophical implications underlying Bacon's views on historical knowledge, paying special attention to that variety of historical knowledge described by Bacon as “natural.” More specifically, this article explores the interplay of history and fable. In the sphere of thought, fabula is the equivalent to materia in nature. Both are described by Bacon as being “versatile” and “pliant.” In Bacon's system of knowledge, philosophy, as the domain of reason, starts from historiae and fabulae, once memory and the imagination (...) have fulfilled their cognitive tasks. This means that, for Bacon, there is no such thing as a pure use of reason. He advocates a kind of reason that, precisely because it is involved with matter's inner motions, is constitutively 'impure'. The article shows how the terms historia and fabula cover key semantic areas in defining Bacon's philosophy: historia may mean “history” as well as “story,” fabula “myth” as well “story.” In both cases, we can see significant oscillations from a stronger meaning to a weaker one, as if the power of nature decreases moving from histories and myths to stories. On the other hand, there are cases in which Bacon seems to stick to a diachronic view of the meaning of fables and histories, such that the transition from myths to history, especially natural history, is described as a collective effort towards reality and enlightenment. (shrink)

In 1818 Laplace proposed that the Academie des Sciences in Paris set up a prize to be awarded to whoever succeeded in constructing lunar tables based solely on the law of universal gravity. In 1820 the prize was awarded to Carlini and Plana and Damoiseau by a committee of which Laplace was a member. But Laplace strongly criticized the Carlini-Plana approach to the lunar theory. A dispute ensued that is reconstructed on the basis of hitherto unknown letters exchanged between Carlini-Plana (...) and Laplace, and on the basis of papers published in Connaissance des temps and in Zach's Correspondance. After the exchanges, public and private, between Carlini-Plana and Laplace, the latter concluded that the results of the Italian astronomers and those arrived at by Damoiseau following the method of his Mecanique Celeste were fairly close, and that the purpose of the Academie in establishing the prize had been reasonably fulfilled. (shrink)