The book presents a new logical framework to capture the meaning of sentences in conversation. It is based on a richer notion of meaning than traditional approaches, and allows for an integrated treatment of statements and questions. The first part of the book presents the framework in detail, while the second demonstrates its many benefits.

This paper aims to show a possible path to address the introduction of intimate digital technologies through a phenomenological and postphenomenological perspective in relation to Japanese and Chinese contexts. Digital technologies are becoming intimate, and, in Japan and China, there are already many advanced digital technologies that provide digital companions for love relationships. Phenomenology has extensive research on how love relationships and intimacy shape the subjects. At the same time, postphenomenology provides a sound framework on how technologies shape the values (...) and meanings we have. Thus, this paper introduces two digital technologies in Japan and China (_Love Plus_ and _XiaoIce_ chatbot), and it analyses according to the elements proposed by phenomenology and postphenomenology. In conclusion, this paper shows how digital companions like _Love Plus_ and _XiaoIce_ chatbot change who we are and the values and meanings we have according to the phenomenological and postphenomenological framework. These entities might not be human, but they shape who we are as human beings and the meanings and value we give to love. (shrink)

This paper investigates a generalized version of inquisitive semantics. A complete axiomatization of the associated logic is established, the connection with intuitionistic logic and several intermediate logics is explored, and the generalized version of inquisitive semantics is argued to have certain advantages over the system that was originally proposed by Groenendijk (2009) and Mascarenhas (2009).

Based on a crowdsourced truth value judgment experiment, we provide empirical evidence challenging two classical views in semantics, and we develop a novel account of counterfactuals that combines ideas from inquisitive semantics and causal reasoning. First, we show that two truth-conditionally equivalent clauses can make different semantic contributions when embedded in a counterfactual antecedent. Assuming compositionality, this means that the meaning of these clauses is not fully determined by their truth conditions. This finding has a clear explanation in inquisitive semantics: (...) truth-conditionally equivalent clauses may be associated with different propositional alternatives, each of which counts as a separate counterfactual assumption. Second, we show that our results contradict the common idea that the interpretation of a counterfactual involves minimizing change with respect to the actual state of affairs. We propose to replace the idea of minimal change by a distinction between foreground and background for a given counterfactual assumption: the background is held fixed in the counterfactual situation, while the foreground can be varied without any minimality constraint. (shrink)

Technology always provides a new perception of the world. However, it is not clear when technology produces “mere” new informations and when it provides something more such as a production of new objects in our world which start to “live” around us. The aim of this paper is to study how technology shapes our surrounding world. The questions which we are going to answer are: Is it really adding new objects to our world? If yes, does every technology have this (...) potentiality? We are going to tackle the problem using a phenomenological and post-phenomenological approach focussing our attention on the perceptual level. Using Husserl’s philosophy we will study how technology are deeply involved in our perception and, thanks to post-phenomenology and its concept of “embodiment relations,” we will be able to determine which kind of technologies have the potentiality to change our surrounding world introducing and producing new objects in it. (shrink)

There is a prominent line of work in natural language semantics, rooted in the work of Hamblin, in which the meaning of a sentence is not taken to be a single proposition, but rather a set of propositions—a set of alternatives. This allows for a more fine-grained view on meaning, which has led to improved analyses of a wide range of linguistic phenomena. However, this approach also faces a number of problems. We focus here on two of these, in our (...) view the most fundamental ones. The first has to do with how meanings are composed, i.e., with the type-theoretic operations of function application and abstraction; the second has to do with how meanings are compared, i.e., the notion of entailment. Our aim is to reconcile what we take to be the essence of Hamblin’s proposal with the more orthodox type-theoretic framework rooted in the work of Montague in such a way that both the explanatory utility of the former and the solid formal foundations of the latter are preserved. Our proposal builds on insights from recent work on inquisitive semantics, and it also contributes to the further development of this framework by specifying how the inquisitive meaning of a sentence may be built up compositionally. (shrink)

I propose an account of indicative conditionals that combines features of minimal change semantics and information semantics. As in information semantics, conditionals are interpreted relative to an information state in accordance with the Ramsey test idea: “if p then q” is supported at a state s iff q is supported at the hypothetical state s[p] obtained by restricting s to the p-worlds. However, information states are not modeled as simple sets of worlds, but by means of a Lewisian system of (...) spheres. Worlds in the inner sphere are considered possible; worlds outside of it are ruled out, but to different degrees. In this way, even when a state supports “not p”, it is still possible to suppose p consistently. I argue that this account does better than its predecessors with respect to a set of desiderata concerning inferences with conditionals. In particular, it captures three important facts: that a conditional is logically independent from its antecedent; that a sequence of antecedents behaves like a single conjunctive antecedent ; and that conditionals restrict the quantification domain of epistemic modals. I also discuss two ways to construe the role of a premise, and propose a generalized notion of entailment that keeps the two apart. (shrink)

We bring together two ideas that are widely accepted in the literature: (i) conditionals with modal consequents are systematically ambiguous between a reading on which the if-clause restricts the modal, and a reading on which the if-clause introduces an epistemic supposition and the modal is unrestricted; (ii) ‘will’ is a modal. Together, (i) and (ii) imply that ‘will’-conditionals are systematically ambiguous between a reading as restricted historical claims, and one as unrestricted historical claims made under a supposition. We argue that (...) this prediction is correct and that the existence of the relevant ambiguity has far-reaching repercussions for several important debates concerning conditionals. (shrink)

Wellner’s article aims at changing an essential element within phenomenology by introducing the idea of digital imagination. Assuming her thesis, I aim to raise two possible kinds of questions generated by the introduction of a technologically embedded imagination which is externalized.

The aim of this paper is to analyse the effects on the everyday world of actual Augmented Reality games which introduce digital objects in our surroundings from a phenomenological point of view. Augmented Reality is a new technology aiming to merge digital and real objects, and it is becoming pervasively used thanks to the application for mobile devices Pokémon Go by Niantic. We will study this game and other similar applications to shed light on their possible effects on our lives (...) and on our everyday world from a phenomenological perspective. In the first part, we will show how these digital objects are visualised as merged in the surroundings. We will point out that even if they are visualised as part of the everyday world, they are not part of it because they are still related to the fictional world generated by the game. In the second part, we will show how the existence of these objects in their fictional world has effects on the everyday world where everybody lives. The goal of Augmented Reality is not reached yet because these objects are not part of the everyday world, but it already makes our lives embedded with digital elements. We will show if these new objects have effects on our world and on how we live our lives. (shrink)

The aim of this work is to analyze the constitution of a new collective subject thanks to wearable computers. Wearable computers are emerging technologies which are supposed to become pervasively used in the near future. They are devices designed to be on us every single moment of our life and to capture every experience we have. Therefore, we need to be prepared to such intrusive devices and to analyze potential effect they will have on us and our society. Thanks to (...) a phenomenological and postphenomenological analysis, we will show how these technologies are able to generate a new collective subject with its different collective needs and appetites by merging the living body of many subjects into one. The world becomes dwelled by these new collective subjects, and we will feed their own peculiar needs. (shrink)

Hay un idealismo que interpreta la realidad objetiva como una síntesis abierta a la vida concreta, en una dialéctica del pensamiento y no de los hechos. Podemos llamar objetivo a este idealismo, aunque la expresión resulte contradictoria. Este es el rasgo original de Fernando Beltramo. There is an idealism that interprets the objective reality as an open synthesis of concrete life, in dialectics of thought, not of facts. We call this idealism objective, though the expression be contradictory. This is Fernando (...) Beltramo’s original feature. (shrink)

We present a gravitational quantum dynamics theory that combines quantum field theory for particle dynamics in space-time with classical Einstein’s general relativity in a non-Riemannian Finsler space. This approach is based on the geometrization of quantum mechanics proposed in Tavernelli and combines quantum and gravitational effects into a global curvature of the Finsler space induced by the quantum potential associated to the matter quantum fields. In order to make this theory compatible with general relativity, the quantum effects are described in (...) the framework of quantum field theory, where a covariant definition of ‘simultaneity’ for many-body systems is introduced through the definition of a suited foliation of space-time. As in Einstein’s gravitation theory, the particle dynamics is finally described by means of a geodesic equation in a curved space-time manifold. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to analyse teledildonics from a phenomenological perspective in order to show the possible effects they will have on ourselves and on our society. The new way of using digital technologies is to merge digital activities with our everyday praxes, and there are already devices which enable subjects to be digitally connected in every moment of their lives. Even the most intimate ones are becoming mediated by devices such as teledildonics which digitally provide a tactual (...) stimulation allowing users to have sexual intercourse through them. The efforts made in order to provide such an intertwinement of our everyday lives and digital technologies are evident, but the effects produced by them are not clear at all. This paper will analyse these technologies from a phenomenological perspective in order to understand their effects on the constitution of the subjects and on our society at the intimate level. (shrink)

Digital technologies are pervasively used, and they are becoming part of our everyday actions by being designed to be connected to every aspect of our private life like emotions. However, it is not very clear how they are going to change who we are through their tight intertwinement. Especially in relation to emotions, it is not clear at all what happens when they become digitalized and visualized through these digital devices. Usually, the research focusses on the effect on the privacy (...) of the intrusion of digital devices in our lives as if this process of digitalization leaves the meanings human beings give to their emotions untouched. This article does not focus on the privacy related to the personal information captured by the devices, but it aims to open an analysis of the effects of this digitalization on the emotions in order to highlight the fact the introduction of these digital technologies change what emotions are. (shrink)

In this paper I discuss the role that question contents should play in an overall account of language, thought, and communication. Based on these considerations, I argue against the Fregean view that analyzes questions as distinguished only at the level of force. Questions, I argue, are associated with specific semantic objects, which play a distinctive role in thought and in compositional semantics, stand in logical relations to one another, and can act as contents of multiple speech acts. In the second (...) part of the paper, I present a recent approach to the semantics of questions – inquisitive semantics – and discuss how the notion of question content it provides can be fruitfully put to use in the different roles we identified. (shrink)

The aim of this work is to understand what kind of “other” a digital being can be, or the kind of “otherness” that can be attributed to a digital being. Digital technologies are emerging in our surroundings, and they are so close to us that they can be in intimate relationships with us. There are products like Gatebox, which are designed to produce digital entities that are not merely part of the surroundings, but that are also partners with which humans (...) have relationships. In studying the kind of “otherness” these digital entities can have, the paper highlights the effects of different designs on the types of relations that are possible. Following a phenomenological point of view, the elements required to have a form of “otherness” similar to that of human beings is analyzed by focusing mainly on the resistance opposed by the “other.” According to these elements, the possible relations in which robots can engage is determined according to their specific design. (shrink)

The problem of artificial intelligence and human being has always raised questions about possible interactions among them and possible effects yielded by the introduction of such un-human subject. Dreyfus deeply connects intelligence and body based on a phenomenological viewpoint. Thanks to his reading of Merleau-Ponty, he clearly stated that an intelligence must be embodied into a body to function. According to his suggestion, any AI designed to be human-like is doom to failure if there is no tight bound with a (...) human-like body. Today, we are facing the pervasive introduction of robots into our everyday life, and the problem of this co-existence raises again with new vigor since they are not mere speculations, but there are already products sold to the public. We will highlight how vulnerability has to be taken into consideration in the design of robots to create entities which are able to relate to human beings taking into consideration mainly the positions of Sartre, Habermas, Levinas, and Marleau-Ponty. A first part will focus on the vulnerability of the robots. Robots are going to be among us, but a real interaction is possible only the moment they have a “same” body of ours. Therefore, only through the realization of a “fragile” body we can achieve a cohabitation between equals. Thanks to Merleau-Ponty we will show how the vulnerability of a body is one of the most important element to found any social interaction. The second part will focus on how the robots will affect the vulnerability of the human subjects. To produce vulnerable robots is not a mere neutral introduction, but it shapes how the subjects are constituted. Thanks to Levinas, we will study how the vulnerable robots will shape the subjects. Thanks to Sartre, we will show how the creation of a different gaze in the robot changes the vulnerabilities of the human subjects. Introducing vulnerable robots is a way to shape ourselves. (shrink)

This work focuses on augmented reality glasses and its aim is to analyse the knock-on effects on our everyday world and ourselves yielded by this kind of technology. Augmented reality is going to be the most diffused technology in our everyday life in the near future, especially augmented reality mounted on glasses. This near future is not only possible, but it seems inevitable following the vertiginous development of AR. There are numerous kinds of different prototypes that are going to come (...) out next year. Therefore, a study on how these modifications yield knock-on effects on the constitution of the object and subject is mandatory. This work tackles the topic starting from a phenomenological and post-phenomenological point of view and it analyses the modification yielded by such technology from a perceptual point of view using the analysis of the horizons of the object made by Husserl. We need this analysis because it is not only the hypothetical future that may never come, but it is the likely future very close to us that is putting pressure on us. (shrink)

The problem of probabilities of conditionals is one of the long-standing puzzles in philosophy of language. We defend and update Adams' solution to the puzzle: the probability of an epistemic conditional is not the probability of a proposition, but a probability under a supposition. -/- Close inspection of how a triviality result unfolds in a concrete scenario does not provide counterexamples to the view that probabilities of conditionals are conditional probabilities: instead, it supports the conclusion that probabilities of conditionals violate (...) standard probability theory. -/- This does not call into question probability theory per se; rather, it calls for a more careful understanding of its role: probability theory is a theory of probabilities of propositions; but as conditionals do not express propositions, their probabilities are not subject to the standard laws. -/- We argue that both conditional probabilities and probabilities of conditionals are best understood in terms of the dynamics of supposing, modeled as a restriction operation on a probability space. This version of the suppositionalist view allows us to connect Adams' Thesis to the widely held restrictor view of the semantics of conditionals. -/- We address two common objections to Adams' view: that the relevant probabilities are ‘probabilities only in name’, and that giving up conditional propositions puts us at a disadvantage when it comes to interpreting compounds. -/- Finally, we argue that some putative counterexamples to Adams' Thesis can be diagnosed as fallacies of probabilistic reasoning: they arise from applying to conditionals laws of standard probability theory which are invalid for them. (shrink)

Evidence based medicine has much to offer, but a great deal remains to be done to create a better understanding of what it can and cannot do.The term EBM , as we use it nowadays, was introduced in 1992 by the same group of people who, years before, founded the discipline called “Clinical epidemiology” .1 CE stemmed essentially from the idea of adapting and expanding epidemiological methods to medical and health care decision making; CE was in fact defined as “ (...) the discipline dealing with the study of the occurrence of medical decisions in relation to their determinants”.1CE has been very successful in illustrating new ways of teaching medicine and training health professionals, and has positioned itself around the notion that “critical appraisal skills” are yet another set of essential abilities which—in addition to the interpersonal, diagnostic, and prognostic skills—a good doctor should master. An important by product of CE was documentation which showed that much of the available evidence on diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment of diseases was of poor methodological quality and quite often of dubious transferability to everyday clinical practice.This led to a strong call for improving the scientific basis of clinical practice, which was seen as too often dominated by practices of unproven effectiveness. This was the background for the 1992 Journal of the American Medical Association article that first used the term “evidence based medicine”.2In essence, proponents of EBM said that “all medical action of diagnosis, prognosis, and therapy should rely on solid quantitative evidence based on the best of …. (shrink)

In recent years, the study of formal semantics and formal pragmatics has grown tremendously showing that core aspects of language meaning can be explained by a few principles. These principles are grounded in the logic that is behind - and tightly intertwined with - the grammar of human language. In this book, some of the most prominent figures in linguistics, including Noam Chomsky and Barbara H. Partee, offer new insights into the nature of linguistic meaning and pave the way for (...) the further development of formal semantics and formal pragmatics. Each chapter investigates various dimensions in which the logical nature of human language manifests itself within a language and/or across languages. Phenomena like bare plurals, free choice items, scalar implicatures, intervention effects, and logical operators are investigated in depth and at times cross-linguistically and/or experimentally. This volume will be of interest to scholars working within the fields of semantics, pragmatics, language acquisition and psycholinguistics. (shrink)

Unfortunately, the Acknowledgements section is missing from the original publication.

La idea que Arturo Ardao nos brinda del hombre se funda en su original visión de la historia de Uruguy y de América Latina. Desde que atiende detalles inadvertidos pero decisivos en los hechos, propende a la aplicación de una nueva lógica, específica de la circunstancia témporo-espacial. Con ello se esboza una filosofía del espacio histórico.

This paper introduces a novel narrative centered around the liquidity and viscosity inherent in interactions with digital technologies through digital intimacy. Traditional approaches to studying digital technologies are often “dry,” “detached,” and “clean,” overlooking the materiality of human-technology interactions, particularly the role of bodily fluids. In postphenomenology, subjects, technologies, and objects are treated as distinct entities with clear boundaries, even if they affect each other. However, this approach ignores the continuous material exchanges that blur these boundaries, such as the bodily (...) fluids involved in digital intimacy. By focusing on the “dirty” materiality of these interactions, this paper aims to use the discourse on digital intimacy to challenge the prevailing narrative in postphenomenology that treats bodies and technologies as separate, clearly defined entities. Instead, it acknowledges these interactions’ sticky, fluid, and porous nature, offering a different understanding of how digital technologies shape our lives. This perspective not only opens up new avenues for research but also invites a rethinking of the way we conceptualize the presence of “solid” digital devices around us, and it introduces sexual connotations in the context of digital technologies in general. For these reasons, it makes digital intimacy an essential element of the relations with digital technologies. (shrink)

Importantes pensadores de todos los tiempos coinciden en admitir como fundamenal recurso de la inteligencia una clase de inferencia lógica no exactamente del tipo de la lógica simbólica tradicional. En el siglo XX, período de florecimiento de esta lógica, lógicos como Bertrand Russell se refieren a una "inferencia no demostrativa" que interviene en la mayoría de las más importantes argumentaciones filosóficas y no filosóficas.

Going back to Hum ber to Ma tu ra na´s ini - tial works about the ba sic con di tions for the ori - gin of Life through the con junc tion of `clo su re´, `au to nomy´ and `struc tu re´ of a pri mary cell as an au to poie tic system, an over view is made about two cen tral areas to wards which t..

El objetivo de este trabajo es estudiar la relación y la co-fundación entre el cuerpo viviente [Leib] y la tecnología desde una perspectiva Husserliana. Quisiera afirmar la necesidad de abandonar el concepto clásico del Leib como un ser desnudo y natural, constituyéndose a sí mismo por sus características biológicas. Estudiando la acción de la tecnología, en primer lugar como una mera extensión y después como una incorporación, la relación cofundacional entre la tecnología y el Leib se hará evidente. Sin embargo, (...) aunque exista una fundación cultural e histórica, permanece la necesidad de un Leib natural que sea la base del nivel práctico del sujeto. Leib resulta ser natural y cultural al mismo tiempo, depende de lo que se esté buscando.The aim of this paper is to study the relation and the co-foundation between the living body [Leib] and technology in a Husserlian approach.I want to assert the necessity of abandoning the classical concept of the Leib as a naked and natural being, constituting itself by its biological features. Studying the action of technology, firstly as mere extension and secondly as incorporation, the co-foundational relation between technology and Leib will be evident. However, even if there is a cultural and historical foundation, there remains the necessity of a natural Leib being the base of the subject's practical level. Leib appears to be natural and cultural at the same time, it depends on what you are looking for. (shrink)

The aim of my paper is to focus our attention on the effect of technologies in the constitution of the objects in our world following a Husserlian approach. I will analyze the relation among the subject, technology and world in order to clarify how the technologies are deeply involved in the constitution of the perceived object by the modification of its content in its “richness” and its inner horizon. Indeed, some devices become instruments to better and sharpen the subject’s perceiving (...) skills and they are designed to create a sort of symbiosis with the perceiving subject by introducing themselves into the perceptual pole, classically constituted by the sole “naked” subject. The world becomes technologically embedded and a place where any kind of “nudity” is only an abstraction. (shrink)

La característica principal en el procedimiento de análisis del filósofo uruguayo Carlos Vaz Ferreira se centra en lo que él llama "análisis reflexivo del significado de las frases". Esto lo aproxima muy tempranamente a lo que después se conocerá en Europa como filosofía del lenguaje. Su obra "Lógica viva", de 1910, se adelanta a lo que a partir de la década del treinta del siglo XX se consagra en Europa como "giro linguístico" de la filosofía.

This work aims to understand how a subject can be sentimentally and intimately self-realized by having a relationship with other people through computer technologies. We will analyze the relations binding together the subjects when their “presence” and “interactions” are digitally mediated thanks to a phenomenological analysis. In the first part, we will highlight the differences of using digital devices instead of having face-to-face meetings, especially in virtual worlds. In the second part, we will focus on how other digital devices differently (...) mediate the relation between the subjects, and so we will show how some technologies like teledildo provide elements close to the ones we find in a face-to-face meeting while other technologies like virtual realities do not. (shrink)

Information exchange can be seen as a dynamic process of raising and resolving issues. The goal of this paper is to provide a logical framework to model and reason about this process. We develop an inquisitive dynamic epistemic logic , which enriches the standard framework of dynamic epistemic logic , incorporating insights from recent work on inquisitive semantics. At a static level, IDEL does not only allow us to model the information available to a set of agents, like standard epistemic (...) logic, but also the issues that the agents entertain. At a dynamic level, IDEL does not only allow us to model the effects of communicative actions that provide new information, like standard DEL, but also the effects of actions that raise new issues. Thus, IDEL provides the fundamental tools needed to analyze information exchange as a dynamic process of raising and resolving issues. (shrink)

This paper revives phenomenological elements to have a better framework for addressing the implications of technologies on society. For this reason, we introduce the motto “back to the technologies themselves” to show how some phenomenological elements, which have not been highlighted in the philosophy of technology so far, can be fruitfully integrated within the postphenomenological analysis. In particular, we introduce the notion of technological intentionality in relation to the passive synthesis in Husserl’s phenomenology. Although the notion of technological intentionality has (...) already been coined in postphenomenology, it is “in tension” with the notion of technological mediation since there are still no clear differences between these two concepts and studies on how they relate one to another. The tension between mediation and intentionality arises because it seems intuitively reasonable to suggest that intentionality differs from mediation in a number of ways; however, these elements have not been clearly clarified in postphenomenology so far. To highlight what technological intentionality is and how it differs from mediation, we turn the motto “back to the things themselves” into “back to the technologies themselves,” showing how the technologies have to be taken into consideration by themselves. More specifically, we use the concept of passive synthesis developed by Husserl, and we apply it to technologies to show their inner passive activity. The notion of the passive synthesis enables to demonstrate how technologies are able to connect to a wider (technological) environment without the subjects’ activity. Consequently, we claim that technologies have their pole of action, and they passively act by themselves. (shrink)