Research Articles John Tomasi, Social Philosophy and Policy, FirstView Article.

John Tomasi's Free Market Fairness treats both traditions with depth, nuance, and unremitting fair-mindedness, and then points us toward a synthesis. Social democrats and libertarians equally need to read this book.

Jacopo Zabarella’s two treatises On Methods and On Regressus (1578) are among the most important Renaissance discussions of how scientific knowledge should be acquired, arranged, and transmitted. They belong to a lively debate about the order in which sciences should be taught and the method to be followed in scientific demonstration that roiled the Late Renaissance world for decades. In these famous works Zabarella rejected the views of Ramists and modern Galenists in favor of the pure doctrine of Aristotle, (...) freed from misunderstandings foisted upon it by medieval interpreters. The influence of these works on Galileo’s scientific method and Descartes’ famous Discourse on Method (1637) has long been debated. They are here translated into English for the first time, along with a new Latin text based on the corrected 1586 edition. -/- Volume 1 contains On Methods, Books I-II. (shrink)

We propose to develop the problems of selfness, of the tension between the other and the same, and of the singularity, by questioning the philosophies of Kant, Levinas and Stirner, and by reading them trough the theoretical eyes of Jacques Derrida. We will reflect on the irreducibility of the Levinasian other, trying to find out how, to what extent and with what difficulties, the emphasis on singularity can open a dialogical field between, on the one hand, the demand for ethical (...) transcendence required by the encounter with the other, and, on the other hand, the unconditional nature of the moral law in Kantian practical philosophy. After having underlined the limits of the latter, we will compare the non-conceptual and un-graspable character of the other with the radical Stirnerian uniqueness and his need to open the way to what escapes any logocentric chain. The relation between language, singularity and encounter will follow a resumption of Levinasian alterity under a more critical perspective. (shrink)

"This is a daring, inventive, and engagingly written book. Tomasi escapes the current liberal fixation with justice and legitimacy by asking searching questions about how truly good lives can be led under a just liberal regime.

In an entry in his Notebooks 1914-1916 Wittgenstein appears to give some credit to the idea widespread in modern aesthetics that «the end of art is the beautiful »: «[…] there is certainly something» – he writes – in this conception. And he comments on: «[…] the beautiful is what makes happy » (NB 21.10.16). Maybe influenced by Tolstoy, who wrote that «people will come to understand the meaning of art only when they cease to consider that the aim of (...) that activity is beauty, i.e. pleasure», Wittgenstein does not adopt the idea without reservations. However, he admits that there is some validity to it. Therefore what we read in his Lectures on Aesthetics (1938) is rather intriguing: «It is remarkable that in real life, when aesthetic judgments are made, aesthetic adjectives such as ‘beautiful’, ‘fine’, etc., play hardly any role at all» (LE, I, 8). Why is this a remarkable fact? Is it because, in spite of beauty being the aim of art, when aesthetic judgments are made, the predicate ‘is beautiful’ plays a marginal role? And if this is the case, why is the supposed end of art almost neglected in art appreciation? Or is Wittgenstein simply bringing a word back from its metaphysical to its everyday use here (cf. PI, 116)? I will argue that, while in the Notebooks entry Wittgenstein tells us something important on what makes an aesthetic experience a valuable experience and/or an experience of value, in the Lectures the topic is a bit different. Wittgenstein is talking about the appreciation of objects and works of art, about the ways we aesthetically react to them. I will focus on this shift in point of view and on a distinction introduced in the Lectures between approval and appreciation. It is in the light of this distinction, that we can understand the observation about the unimportance of ‘beautiful’ in aesthetic judgment. In the final part of my talk I will argue that, contrary to this opinion, the adjective ‘beautiful’ is of significance in aesthetic judgment. (shrink)

The paper proposes a novel longitudinal approach to the study of the rhetorical effects of media by combining Audience Research (e.g. Schrøder et al., 2003), Social Semiotics (e.g. Kress and van Leeuwen, 1996, 2001; van Leeuwen, 1999; Machin and Mayr, 2012) and Relevance Theory (Sperber and Wilson, 1995). After introducing a more nuanced model of RT’s contextual effect, the paper reports an empirical case study to explicate the methodological approach. Evidence is provided that a specific text can have a long-lasting (...) effect on an audience: a hierarchy of effects and the cognitive circumstances under which this may happen are discussed. (shrink)

La ricerca condotta tra le carte private del lessicografo piemontese Giacinto Carena, conservate all’Accademia delle Scienze di Torino, ha permesso di rintracciare una vasta quantità di materiali inediti di interesse storico-linguistico. Oltre all’epistolario (con circa 200 corrispondenti, tra cui Manzoni, che gli inviò la nota lettera Sulla lingua italiana, Cherubini, Cantù, Gherardini), sono conservati i diari di viaggio, che manifestano l’evolversi dei suoi interessi per la nomenclatura scientifica, e gli appunti preparatori al Prontuario di vocaboli che Carena darà alle stampe (...) nel 1846 e 1853 e a cui seguirà una terza parte postuma nel 1860. L’articolo intende dare conto del materiale presente nel fondo Carena, cercando di cogliere nei diari e negli scritti privati le diverse fasi del suo studio lessicologico ed onomasiologico; come si sia formata la sua idea di comporre un vocabolario basato sulla lingua toscana; con quali metodi abbia raccolto le informazioni dalla viva voce dei suoi interlocutori; come abbia sistemato il materiale raccolto durante le numerose esplorazioni sul campo. (shrink)

Bermúdez identifies the “Interface Problem” as the central problem in the philosophy of psychology: how commonsensical psychological explanations can be integrated with lower-level explanations? In particular, since folk psychology is meant to provide causal explanations on a par with, say, neurobiological explanations, the question of how to understand the relation between the two layers arises naturally. Donald Davidson claimed that the interface problem is actually ill-posed and put forward his version of the “Autonomy Picture”, the view known as anomalous monism. (...) This work reviews Davidson’s proposal in the light of digital universes: we model the key claims of the theory using cellular automata and show that Davidson’s original version of the Autonomy Picture is immune to two arguments against autonomy. (shrink)

This paper examines the International Student Competition on Place Brand­ing and Mediterranean Diet held in Fermo, Italy, in the context of the devel­opment of rural areas. This one-week food-related educational programme was organised by the University of Macerata’s Department of Education, Cultural Heritage and Tourism in collaboration with The Piceno Laboratory on the Mediterranean Diet, a local network of public and private stakehold­ers committed to the promotion of Fermo area as a touristic destination based on traditional gastronomy. The aim of (...) this study was to understand how and to what extent such food-related educational events may con­tribute to providing students with the knowledge, expertise and soft skills needed for careers in the food tourism sector. Of interest also was how such events may benefit the development of rural areas. The ISC was founded in 2016 and continued in 2017, 2018 and 2019. In order to assess students’ perceptions about the experience, specifically regarding what they felt they had learned about food tourism, and which soft skills they had acquired or honed, 13 students who participated in the 2017 event were interviewed for a qualitative study. Moreover, the authors drew upon information gleaned from interactions with students and teachers, as well as with several important actors of the local food and tourism sector, in­cluding tourism and hospitality entrepreneurs and representatives of gov­ernment agencies, with whom they collaborated in the context of planning, running and evaluating the events. The findings show that the ISC can provide students with a good general understanding of the territory and practical knowledge about place branding and food tourism. In terms of career preparation, the combination of fieldwork activities with traditional lectures and group activities was particularly fruitful in promoting soft skills such as communication, efficient use of social media, teamwork, problem-solving and decision making. (shrink)

_Keiji Nishitani's critique of technology as a dehumanizing force is objected to by showing that it is possible to establish a relationship with technology characterized by the standpoint of sunyata. In order to support my claim, I offer an interpretation of sunyata as a lived experience in which knowing and being are unified. One method used to experience the identity of knowing and being is the method of negatio negationis. I argue that technology embodies this method, and that thus has (...) a built-in process that allows users of technology to achieve a samadhi experience in the use of tools and machines. Hubert Dreyfus' theory of embodiment is offered in support of this claim. If it is possible to establish an intimate relation with certain technologies, then the nature of technology cannot be reduced to its most obvious dehumanizing and destructive effects_. (shrink)

Idea generation, the process of creating and developing candidate solutions that when implemented can solve ill-defined and complex problems, plays a pivotal role in creativity and innovation. The algorithms that underlie classical evolutionary, cognitive, and process models of idea generation, however, appear too inefficient to effectively help solve the ill-defined and complex problems for which one would engage in idea generation. To address this, these classical models have recently been redesigned as forward models, drawing heavily on the “predictive mind” literature. (...) These pose that more efficiency can be achieved by making predictions based on heuristics, previous experiences, and domain knowledge about what material to use to generate ideas with, and evaluate these subsequently generated ideas based on whether they indeed match the initial prediction. When a discrepancy occurs between prediction and evaluation, new predictions are made, and thus shaping what actions, and how these actions, are undertaken. Although promising, forward models of idea generation remain theoretical and thus no empirical evidence exists about whether such predictions and evaluations indeed form part of the idea generation process. To take a first empirical look at this, a mixed-methods study was conducted by analyzing people’s self-reports for the reasons of the actions that they take during an idea generation task. The results showed that predictions and evaluations are pervasive in the idea generation process. Specifically, switching between concept selection and conceptual combination and idea generation, as well as repeating idea generation based on earlier selected conceptual combination, and possibly (but to a lesser extent) concept selection and the repetition thereof, are likely to be driven by predictions and evaluations. Moreover, the frequencies of the predictions and evaluations that drive these actions influenced the amount of ideas generated, amount of concepts used, and within-concept fluency (the ratio of the amount of ideas generated per concept used). Therefore, the contribution of this paper is the first empirical evidence that indicates that the idea generation process is driven by both predictions and evaluations. (shrink)

In this paper, I give an analysis of neg-raising inferences as scalar implicatures. The main motivation for this account as opposed to a presupposition-based approach like Gajewski (Linguist Philos 30(3):289–328, 2007) comes from the differences between presuppositions and neg-raising inferences. In response to this issue, Gajewski (2007) argues that neg-raising predicates are soft presuppositional triggers and adopts the account of how their presuppositions arise by Abusch (J Semantics 27(1):1–44, 2010). However, I argue that there is a difference between soft triggers (...) and neg-raising predicates in their behavior in embeddings; a difference that is straightforwardly accounted for in the present approach. Furthermore, by adopting Abusch’s (2010) account of soft triggers, Gajewski (2007) inherits the assumptions of a pragmatic principle of disjunctive closure and of a non-standard interaction between semantics and pragmatics—assumptions that are not needed by the present proposal, which is just based on a regular theory of scalar implicatures. I also show that the arguments that Gajewski (2007) presents in favor of the presuppositional account can be explained also by the scalar implicatures-based approach proposed here. Finally, while the main point of the paper is a comparison with the presuppositional account, I sketch a preliminary comparison with more syntactic approaches to neg-raising. (shrink)

Les positions philosophiques d'Anthony Collins étaient audacieuses et novatrices, de son rejet de l'idée d'un Dieu doué d'intelligence et de volonté à celui de l'existence d'une âme immatérielle, en passant par sa conception déterministe de la nature et sa vision de l'homme comme machine proche de l'animal, et mue par des pulsions tout aussi hédonistes.

Even if the “value-free ideal of science” (VFI) were an unattainable goal, one could ask: can it be a useful fiction, one that is beneficial for the research community and society? This question is particularly crucial for scholars and institutions concerned with research integrity (RI), as one cannot offer normative guidance to researchers without making some assumptions about what ideal scientific research looks like. Despite the insofar little interaction between scholars studying RI and those working on values in science, the (...) overlap of topics and interests make collaboration between the two fields promising for understanding research and its ethics. Here, we identify—for the use of RI scholars—the non-epistemic reasons (societal, political, professional) for and against the VFI considered in the literature. All of these are concerned with the beneficial or detrimental consequences that endorsing the VFI would have on society, policy-making, or the scientific community, with some authors appealing to the same principles to argue for opposite positions. Though most of the reviewed articles do not endorse the VFI, it is generally agreed that some constraints have to be put on the use of non-epistemic values. Disagreement on the utility of the VFI lies both on the different epistemic-descriptive positions taken by different authors, and on the scarcity of relevant empirical studies. Engaging critically with the reasons here identified and more in general with the values in science debate will help the RI community decide whether the VFI should be included in future codes of conduct. (shrink)

Jacopo Zabarella’s two treatises On Methods and On Regressus (1578) are among the most important Renaissance discussions of how scientific knowledge should be acquired, arranged, and transmitted. They belong to a lively debate about the order in which sciences should be taught and the method to be followed in scientific demonstration that roiled the Late Renaissance world for decades. In these famous works Zabarella rejected the views of Ramists and modern Galenists in favor of the pure doctrine of Aristotle, (...) freed from misunderstandings foisted upon it by medieval interpreters. The influence of these works on Galileo’s scientific method and Descartes’ famous Discourse on Method (1637) has long been debated. They are here translated into English for the first time, along with a new Latin text based on the corrected 1586 edition. Volume 1 contains On Methods, Books I-II. Volume 2 contains On Methods, Books III-IV, and On Regressus. (shrink)

Institutions represent a solid basis to organize and stabilize human life in diferent social contexts. They are external events in the world, but they also have a strong anchorage in the mind and in last years many scholars tried to explore their cognitive ground. Starting from the original attempt of Douglass C. North, who at the end of his career tried to establish a program called “Cognitive Institutionalism”, we discuss the merits and the limits of this approach. First, we show (...) that his statements are cognitively onerous as they imply the notions of mental models and beliefs. Instead, we argue that shared institutions do not require such a convergence and that coordination takes place in the form of social practices and habits. Second, we clarify some aspects of North’s cognitive theory avoiding the ontological reading, i.e. explaining in what sense institutions might depend on the human mind and how people are joined into a practice made possible via institutions. (shrink)

Il contributo mira a presentare metodi e risultati del progetto di restauro virtuale di un settore dell’antica Porto Torres/Turris Libisonis (Terme centrali, via adiacente e botteghe prospicienti - cd. palazzo del Re Barbaro), frutto di un accordo di collaborazione tra la Direzione Regionale Musei Sardegna e l’Università degli Studi di Padova. Il metodo applicato si basa su tecnologie di fruizione in Realtà Virtuale e ha permesso il restauro virtuale, geolocalizzando il modello virtuale 3D on-site: una App comanda la visualizzazione di (...) immagini equirettangolari all’interno di visori VR, permettendo visite guidate “aumentate”. Il lavoro è partito da una raccolta bibliografica ragionata, alla quale è seguita una campagna di rilievo fotogrammetrico da drone (G. Alvito, Teravista); infine, intrecciando i dati raccolti, si è proceduto alla ricostruzione 3D virtuale degli edifici. Le evidenze strutturali oggi conservate sono state integrate nella scena 3D con puntuali confronti coevi (III sec. d.C.), virtualmente ricostruiti e ricollocati in contesti d’uso verosimili, accrescendo così l’affidabilità ricostruttiva. L’intera attività ricostruttiva è stata vincolata a un rigoroso processo di validazione scientifica basato sul metodo dell’Extended matrix e l’esito finale è ora fruibile sia mediante proiezioni tradizionali (off-site, tourismA 2020), sia mediante l’utilizzo di dispositivi mobili VR (on-site, Giornate europee del patrimonio 2020). In queste e altre occasioni si è riscontrata una eccellente risposta del pubblico, agevolato dal virtuale nella percezione e nella comprensione delle evidenze e delle volumetrie antiche. (shrink)

Merleau-Ponty’s later philosophy seems devoted to a fundamental task, knowing how to grasp what he calls a “mutation within the relations of man and Being.” Such a mutation concerns, in the first instance, Merleau-Ponty’s time, knowing the era in which he lives and writes: it is a mutation that is given in history, and thus generated by historical events. At the same time, this mutation has to do with the very essence of time, as the ontological counterpart of being itself. (...) It is, in this later instance, a mutation of the temporality of being: of an intimate being, the being of self, of the unconscious; but also of a communal and shared being—assumed universal—the being of history.An oblique reflection on a temporality thus conceived emerges in his course notes, “Institution in Personal and Public History.” Temporality, here considered as the transcendental of institution, the condition of its possibility, reveals itself as antichronological and anti-metaphysical: it escapes the linearity of successive presents, the retrograde movement of the real, the dialectical movement of history according to Hegel.Indirectly, Merleau-Ponty develops a complex temporal figure—from the structural point of view—where “the past […] takes on the outline of a preparation or premeditation of a present that exceeds it in meaning although it recognizes itself in it.” The past is thus not a former present, but—as mythical past—it is simultaneously in the present itself.This revolution of the temporality of being also affects our time. From the ontological discontinuity emphasized by Merleau-Ponty, the mutation within the relations of man and being happening today seems to be characterized by the loss of all dimensions of time: there is only a present, which, nevertheless, is never present. This is true first of all from a personal point of view: desire no longer pursues its fulfillment—although imaginary and impossible—in the mythical horizon of the past, but rather looks for enjoyment, just as impossible and imaginary, in an elusive present that always exceeds us. This desertification of time also reveals itself in history, where, with and after the postmodern, the present seems to stand out as the only possible temporal dimension, depriving history of its sense and its universality.It seems to us that the philosophy of the later Merleau-Ponty prefigures, or, at least, allows us to think, this subsequent mutation. This is a minor figure, but the subject of significant studies, such as that of “precession,” that can help us not only to understand, but also to re-signify, this mythical present and never present that haunts our time. (shrink)

_Riassunto_: Il dibattito contemporaneo sull’impatto causale degli stati mentali e delle decisioni consce sui fenomeni naturali e sociali fa largo uso di dati ricavati da test neurofisiologici e comportamentali, che esplorano il ruolo di processi cognitivi inconsci e interpretazioni post-hoc caratterizzate da intenzionalità dichiarativa. I dati neuroscientifici sono spesso utilizzati per sostenere una prospettiva fisicalista che privilegia il determinismo neurocognitivo rispetto alle discussioni sul libero arbitrio. Tuttavia, questa impostazione tende a ignorare, almeno parzialmente, il dibattito sui limiti epistemologici e tecnici (...) nella generazione dei dati e i pregiudizi filosofici insiti nelle interpretazioni. Questo lavoro evidenzia tali limiti, proponendo un’analisi filosofica della relazione complessa tra razionalità, esercizio del libero arbitrio e costruzione dell’identità personale. Distinguendo il concetto di scelta autentica da quello di impulso o spinta ad agire, si sostiene una concezione enattiva e fenomenologica dell’azione umana libera, offrendo così un’interpretazione del libero arbitrio che respinge l’eliminativismo come inadeguato. Rifiutando un dualismo semplicistico, il libero arbitrio viene definito come la capacità di una soggettività incarnata, situata ed enattiva di interagire con un ambiente naturale e sociale attraverso compiti che implicano processi stratificati di valutazione e decisione. In conclusione, si argomenta che, sebbene le scienze fisiche e psicologiche possano indagare le basi dell’esecuzione dell’azione, non sono in grado di risolvere né di spiegare l’aspetto più complesso del processo decisionale stratificato ed esteso. Questo riguarda la relazione intenzionale tra la persona, considerata nella sua interezza, e un mondo ricco di valori, che conferisce senso e orientamento alle scelte individuali. Parole chiave: Libertà; Persona; Cervello; Inconscio; Determinismo/Eliminativismo; Thomas Fuchs _Embodied freedom. The role of person in decision-making_ _Abstract_: The contemporary debate on the causal impact of mental states and conscious decisions on natural and social phenomena extensively relies on data derived from neurophysiological and behavioral tests. These tests investigate the role of unconscious cognitive processes and post-hoc interpretations characterized by declarative intentionality. Neuroscientific data are often employed to support a physicalist perspective that prioritizes neurocognitive determinism over discussions of free will. However, this approach tends to partially overlook the epistemological and technical limitations inherent in data generation and the philosophical biases embedded in interpretations. This paper highlights these limitations by proposing a philosophical analysis of the complex relationship between rationality, the exercise of free will, and the construction of personal identity. By distinguishing the concept of genuine choice from that of impulse or urge to act, it advocates for an enactive and phenomenological conception of human free action, offering an interpretation of free will that rejects eliminativism as inadequate. Rejecting a simplistic dualism, free will is defined as the capacity of an embodied, situated, and enactive subjectivity to engage with a natural and social environment through tasks involving layered processes of evaluation and decision-making. In conclusion, it is argued that while physical and psychological sciences may explore the foundations of action execution, they cannot resolve nor explain the more complex aspect of the stratified and extended decision-making process. This aspect concerns the intentional relationship between the person, considered as a whole, and a world rich in values, which gives meaning and direction to individual choices. _Keywords_: Freedom; Person; Brain; Unconscious; Determinism/Eliminativism; Thomas Fuchs. (shrink)

La forme alternative d’une Europe à venir est aussi dessinée par les infrastructures médiales qui en tisseront la trame relationnelle déterminée par la circulation des attentions, des récits et des idées. C’est à l’échelle européenne que pourraient être envisagées des initiatives pour déjouer l’emprise médiatique que les nouveaux empires numériques (comme les GAFAM) entretiennent aujourd’hui en croisant les mass-media traditionnels. Il s’agit ainsi de transformer la médiasphère de notre continent dans un laboratoire de fabrication de conditions « post-média » (Guattari) (...) d’existence collective. (shrink)