A sound in a real space (e.g. a street or a room) is studied by acousticians as the relationship between an anechoic signal and the reverberant sound field. We define ‘anechoic signal’ a signal representing the pressure variation emitted by the sound source, while the ‘reverberant field’ is a field representing the sum of all the sound reflections of the environment in which the sound exists, delayed in time due to the positions of the sound source and the listener. The (...) auditory ability of detecting a sound and assigning it to a source depends both on the anechoic signal and the reverberant sound field. This relationship has been analysed in acoustic literature using the autocorrelation properties of the anechoic signals and objective metrics of the sound field, the last ones being the ‘room criteria’ described in ISO 3382. In this context, the ‘effective duration’ of the autocorrelation function (τe) has been proposed as key factor to ‘preferred’ values of several room criteria in relation to different kind of music signals. Relying on some similarities between the definition of ‘auditory objects’ and the sound detection in a reverberant space, this paper proposes the use of τe as a potential tool to study and catalogue auditory objects. (shrink)

The articles in this issue reflect the results of the 25th Altenberg Workshop in Theoretical Biology on ‘‘The Meaning of ‘Theory’ in Biology’’ held at the Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition Research, Altenberg, Austria, 30 June–3 July, 2011.

Over the years, AI has undergone a transformation from its original aim of producing an ‘intelligent’ machine to that of producing pragmatic solutions of problems of the market place. In doing so, AI has made a significant contribution to the debate on whether the computer is an instrument or an interlocutor. This paper discusses issues of problem solving and creativity underlying this transformation, and attempts to clarify the distinction between theresolutive intelligence andproblematic intelligence. It points out that the advance of (...) ‘intelligent’ technology, with its failure to make a clear distinction betweenresolutive andcreative intelligence, could contribute to the further cultural marginalisation of human activities not connected with production. A further danger is that AI products may suffer a further loss of social reputation and prestige for those activities for which it is not possible to build artificial devices. (shrink)

A proper reflection about the music in the masses era can develop itself only if it’s interwoven with the media totalitarianism which seems to be the fate of our times. Beyond the ideology and the fashion of “contamination” that leeds towards a levelling of values, it’s much better to sharpen instead the real difference between the distinct practices of listening, without academic prejudices but also without misleading homologations. Neither puritanisms nor false transgressions: classical music and pop music must be received (...) iuxta propria principia , each of them along its own specific language. (shrink)

A conflict of interest is a situation in which a person has competing loyalties or interests that make it difficult to fulfil his or her duties impartially. Conflict of interest is not categorically improper in itself but requires proper management. A SCOPUS literature search was performed for publications on the efficacy/safety of Phospho-Di-Esterase Inhibitors for treating erectile dysfunction. A categorization tool was used to review and classify the publications as supportive/not-supportive for the discussed active ingredient and reporting or not reporting (...) a COI for that specific drug or for the remaining PDEIs. Multivariable binary logistic regression was performed. In the 419 selected records the prevalence of supportive opinions was higher when a COI for the index label was declared. The CoOpCaT showed good internal consistency, discriminative validity and intra/inter-rater agreement. The strongest predictor for a supportive opinion was the total number of financial COIs for the index label. A mild protective effect of the total number of financial COIs for any competitor label was noted. Financial COIs have frequently been associated with bias, and the measures currently adopted to restrain it lack effectiveness. Some evidence for monitoring and/or compensating this bias is reported here, but the ultimate solution remains distant. (shrink)

: Jerry Fodor and Zenon Pylyshyn have proposed a purely referential-causal semantics, a semantics without meanings. Adopting Pylyshyn’s previous treatment of the fact that we can perceive and track something before we have any idea of what that is, these authors claim that such causal relations to external entities allow us to word-label them and thereby build an entire lexicon with specific referents. I disagree and explain why I do so. The kind of semantics that I prefer is radically opposite: (...) the one proposed by Noam Chomsky and Paul Pietroski. This is an internalist semantics that only has meanings, reference being indirect, often indefinite, sometimes problematic. Chomsky insists that the only posit that is tenable is the internal structure of the speaker-hearer, a complex, abstractly characterizable, computational-derivational apparatus, optimal if left alone, that interfaces with other cognitive apparatuses: the articulatory-perceptual one and the conceptual-intentional one, satisfying the constraints that they impose. I show that the semantics proposed by Fodor and Pylyshyn is especially problematic when inexistent entities, possible entities, fictional characters and objects in the remote past are examined. It is, however, problematic even when dealing with more ordinary concepts. On the contrary, an internalist semantics avoids all these problems. Keywords: Internalist Semantics; Theory of Meaning and Reference; Jerry A. Fodor; Noam Chomsky; Paul Pietroski Menti con significati Riassunto: Jerry Fodor e Zenon Pylyshyn hanno proposto una semantica interamente causale-referenziale, una semantica priva di qualsiasi nozione di significato. Adottando la precedente trattazione di Pylyshyn di come è possibile percepire e inseguire oggetti prima di avere alcuna idea di cosa essi siano, questi autori pretendono che queste interazioni causali con enti esterni bastano a etichettarli con dei termini lessicali, costruendo un intero lessico con referenti specifici, senza la componente del significato. Io dissento e spiego perché. Il tipo di semantica che adotto è diametralmente opposto, una semantica che ha solo significati, per la quale i referenti esterni sono indiretti, spesso non definiti, talvolta problematici. Noam Chomsky e Paul Pietroski hanno perfezionato questa semantica puramente internalista, insistendo che l’unico attributo sostenibile è la struttura mentale interna al locutore, una struttura complessa, caratterizzabile solo a un livello di astrazione adeguato, atta a soddisfare i vincoli imposti dai sistemi cognitivi con i quali interagisce: quello articolatorio-percettivo e quello concettuale-intenzionale. Mostro che la semantica proposta da Fodor e Pylyshyn si scontra con problemi insolubili quando tratta enti inesistenti, enti possibili, invenzioni letterarie e oggetti appartenenti a un passato remoto. In effetti, si scontra con problemi insolubili anche quando tratta oggetti e proprietà ordinari. Una semantica interamente internalista non incontra nessuno di questi problemi. Parole chiave: Semantica internalista; Teoria del significato e del riferimento; Jerry A. Fodor; Noam Chomsky; Paul Pietroski. (shrink)

"The last remnant of physical objectivity of space-time" is disclosed, beyond the Leibniz equivalence, in the case of a continuous family of spatially non-compact models of general relativity. The physical individuation of point-events is furnished by the intrinsic degrees of freedom of the gravitational field, (viz, the "Dirac observables") that represent - as it were - the "ontic" part of the metric field. The physical role of the "epistemic" part (viz. the "gauge" variables) is likewise clarified. At the end, a (...) peculiar four-dimensional "holistic and structuralist" view of space-time emerges which includes elements common to the tradition of both substantivalism and relationism. The observables of our models undergo real "temporal change" and thereby provide a counter-example to the thesis of the "frozen-time" picture of evolution. (shrink)

For the past two decades, Einstein's Hole Argument (which deals with the apparent indeterminateness of general relativity due to the general covariance of the field equations) and its resolution in terms of "Leibniz equivalence" (the statement that pseudo-Riemannian geometries related by active diffeomorphisms represent the same physical solution) have been the starting point for a lively philosophical debate on the objectivity of the point-events of space-time. It seems that Leibniz equivalence makes it impossible to consider the points of the space-time (...) manifold as physically individuated without recourse to dynamical individuating fields. Various authors have posited that the metric field itself can be used in this way , but nobody so far has considered the problem of explicitly distilling the "metrical fingerprint" of point-events from the gauge-dependent elements of the metric field. Working in the Hamiltonian formulation of general relativity, and building on the results of Lusanna and Pauri (2002), we show how Bergmann and Komar's "intrinsic pseudo-coordinates" (based on the value of curvature invariants) can be used to provide a physical individuation of point-events in terms of the true degrees of freedom (the "Dirac observables") of the gravitational field, and we suggest how this conceptual individuation could in principle be implemented with a well-defined empirical procedure. We argue from these results that point-events retain a significant kind of physical objectivity. (shrink)

The article briefly analyzes the concept of a person, arguing that personhood does not coincide with the actual enjoyment of certain intellectual capacities, but is coextensive with the embodiment of a human individual. Since in PVS patients we can observe a human individual functioning as a whole, we must conclude that these patients are still human persons, even if in a condition of extreme impairment. It is then argued that some forms of minimal treatment may not be futile for these (...) patients; they may constitute a form of respect for their human dignity and benefit these patients, even if they are not aware of that. Moreover, it is important to consider the symbolic significance of care: while many believe that PVS is a kind of imprisonment, for others providing food and fluids is the only way to testify our proximity to these persons. The best policy would be to provide, as a general rule, artificial nutrition and hydration to PVS patients: this treatment could be withdrawn, after a period of observation and reflection by the family and proxies, on the basis of the proxies' objection to the continuation or of the patient's advance directives specifically referring to this situation. (shrink)

“History is the most dangerous compound yet contrived by the chemistry of intellect”: it was in response to these words by Paul Valéry that Marc Bloch, professor of economic history at the Sorbonne, after the defeat of 1940, began writing a book on “how and why history is studied.” He gave it the provisional title Apologie pour l'Histoire ou Métier d'historien translated into English as The Historian's Craft. In the spring of 1944, he was killed by a German firing squad (...) for his clandestine activity in the Resistance. The manuscript of his book remained incomplete. Having entered the world at the same time as the research organization of Annales in 1949, Bloch's book on history, posthumously published by Lucien Febvre, was read and used as a product of that organization, which did not yet exist, even as a project, at the time the book was written. The Historian's Craft was read mostly by historians, history professors, and history students. Despite its readership, Bloch had written it for a different public: persons of culture and action, that same audience that Annales had tried in vain to conquer in the thirties—Paul Valéry's public. The study of the genesis of the interrupted manuscript reveals the richness of the content of Bloch's book, so far underrated. This example of the two pages missing from the 1949 edition, can today be the start of a deeper meditation on history, historians, and philology (and on the documents that refer to them). (shrink)

Borges pronuncia giudizi molto severi su Agostino, considerato soprattutto come il pensatore della grazia e della predestinazione. Il pensiero agostiniano viene irrigidito in formule che ne fanno il campione di un preteso realismo medievale. Ma Borges è più vicino di quanto non creda ad Agostino che in realtà sa perfettamente che un senso alla vita dell’uomo viene non dalla impossibile conquista della felicità, ma dalla sua incessante ricerca.

Bloom masterfully captures the state-of-the-art in the study of lexical acquisition. He also exposes the extent of our ignorance about the learning of names for non-observables. HCLMW adopts an innatist position without adopting modularity of mind; however, it seems likely that modularity is needed to bridge the gap between object names and the rest of the lexicon.

If evolutionary biologist Massimo Pigliucci didn't exist, it would be necessary to invent him. His Tales of the Rational defines an intellectual space as far removed as hardcore religious fundamentalism from mainstream thinking--but it may be coming closer as scientists and skeptics launch more aggressive attacks on pseudoscience and fuzzy thinking. Pigliucci, a rising star on the evolution-creationism debate circuit, pulls out all the stops in his work, not content merely to defend science against its detractors, but eagerly undermining (...) belief in religion and the existence of any gods at all. Using writing that is strong if rarely eloquent, he defines his terms precisely, makes short work of creationists William Lane Craig and Duane Gish, challenges religious preconceptions, and even ventures to hose down the flames of pseudoscience spouting from chaos theory. Readers with any sympathy for spirituality will run face-first into statements like "I do not see what science has to gain from being reconciled with a system of superstitious beliefs that stands for the exact opposite of free inquiry.". (shrink)

We prove ExpTime-membership of the satisfiability problem for loosely ∀-guarded first-order formulas with a bounded number of variables and an unbounded number of constants. Guarded fragments with constants are interesting by themselves and because of their connection to hybrid logic.

Recoge: 1.Conceps of law. A Proposal -- 2.Evolutionary concepts -- 3.Neo-evolutionary theories -- 4.Evolution as learning -- 5.Law as autopoiesis -- 6.Towards a critique of the "Evolution of law" paradigm.

This paper deals with a number of technical achievements that are instrumental for a dis-solution of the so-called "Hole Argument" in general relativity. Such achievements include: 1) the analysis of the "Hole" phenomenology in strict connection with the Hamiltonian treatment of the initial value problem. The work is carried through in metric gravity for the class of Christoudoulou-Klainermann space-times, in which the temporal evolution is ruled by the "weak" ADM energy; 2) a re-interpretation of "active" diffeomorphisms as "passive and metric-dependent" (...) dynamical symmetries of Einstein's equations, a re-interpretation which enables to disclose their (up to now unknown) connection to gauge transformations on-shell; understanding such connection also enlightens the real content of the Hole Argument or, better, dis-solves it together with its alleged "indeterminism"; 3) the utilization of the Bergmann-Komar "intrinsic pseudo-coordinates", defined as suitable functionals of the Weyl curvature scalars, as tools for a peculiar gauge-fixing to the super-hamiltonian and super-momentum constraints; 4) the consequent construction of a "physical atlas" of 4-coordinate systems for the 4-dimensional "mathematical" manifold, in terms of the highly non-local degrees of freedom of the gravitational field (its four independent "Dirac observables"). Such construction embodies the "physical individuation" of the points of space-time as "point-events", independently of the presence of matter, and associates a "non-commutative structure" to each gauge fixing or four-dimensional coordinate system; 5) a clarification of the multiple definition given by Peter Bergmann of the concept of "(Bergmann) observable" in general relativity. This clarification leads to the proposal of a "main conjecture" asserting the existence of i) special Dirac's observables which are also Bergmann's observables, ii) gauge variables that are coordinate independent (namely they behave like the tetradic scalar fields of the Newman-Penrose formalism). A by-product of this achievements is the falsification of a recently advanced argument asserting the absence of (any kind of) "change" in the observable quantities of general relativity. 6) a clarification of the physical role of Dirac and gauge variables as their being related to "tidal-like" and "inertial-like" effects, respectively. This clarification is mainly due to the fact that, unlike the standard formulations of the equivalence principle, the Hamiltonian formalism allows to define notion of "force" in general relativity in a natural way; 7) a proposal showing how the physical individuation of point-events could in principle be implemented as an experimental setup and protocol leading to a "standard of space-time" more or less like atomic clocks define standards of time. We conclude that, besides being operationally essential for building measuring apparatuses for the gravitational field, the role of matter in the non-vacuum gravitational case is also that of "participating directly" in the individuation process, being involved in the determination of the Dirac observables. This circumstance leads naturally to a peculiar new kind of "structuralist" view of the general-relativistic concept of space-time, a view that embodies some elements of both the traditional "absolutist" and "relational" conceptions. In the end, space-time point-events maintain a "peculiar sort of objectivity". Some hints following from our approach for the quantum gravity programme are also given. (shrink)

What Jerry Fodor and Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini got wrong about Darwin and evolution.

Why Jerry Fodor and Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini are wrong about Darwin and evolution.

Di Massimo di Tiro si conoscono pochi dettagli biografici. Le fonti antiche, concordi nel ritenerlo ‘filosofo’ e ‘filosofo platonico’, affermano che le sue dissertazioni o indagini filosofiche sono da ricondursi al suo primo soggiorno a Roma, al tempo dell’imperatore Commodo. Le quarantuno dissertazioni filosofiche di Massimo di Tiro offrono una visione privilegiata della cultura imperiale del secondo secolo, epoca in cui, dominante l’eleganza stilistica, anche la filosofia non disdegnava di dispiegare i propri contenuti mediante il bello stilo dello (...) strumento retorico. Nello svolgimento dei temi, perlopiù platonici nell’ispirazione e orientati ad argomenti presenti al dibattito coevo, ma comunque non escludenti altre influenze filosofiche, Massimo di Tiro si mostra pensatore dalla non banale semplicità. Muovendosi fra filosofia e letteratura, fra Platone e Omero, egli calibra l’erudizione sul filtro di un’esigenza educativa di ampio respiro. Nel volume si presenta la prima traduzione italiana completa dal greco. Il commento critico, aggiornato al dibattito accademico internazionale, mira a mostrare come l’opera del pensatore meriti una rinnovata attenzione nell’ambito degli studi classici letterari e filosofici, giacché nel delineare il quadro culturale del tempo essa consente di meglio precisare alcuni non marginali aspetti del platonismo del secondo secolo. (shrink)

We present an account of semantics that is not construed as a mapping of language to the world but rather as a mapping between individual meaning spaces. The meanings of linguistic entities are established via a “meeting of minds.” The concepts in the minds of communicating individuals are modeled as convex regions in conceptual spaces. We outline a mathematical framework, based on fixpoints in continuous mappings between conceptual spaces, that can be used to model such a semantics. If concepts are (...) convex, it will in general be possible for interactors to agree on joint meaning even if they start out from different representational spaces. Language is discrete, while mental representations tend to be continuous—posing a seeming paradox. We show that the convexity assumption allows us to address this problem. Using examples, we further show that our approach helps explain the semantic processes involved in the composition of expressions. (shrink)

Dialogus a tudatról, az ösztönről meg az alkalmazkodásról -- A szabadság és az érték -- Az ember magasabbrendű érzelmi viszonyairól -- Az ember "szubsztancionális" és "funkcionális" szükségleteiről -- Teremtés és programozás -- A szép pszichológiája -- Modern szerelem vagy cinizmus? -- Freud és a modern emberfelfogás -- A konfliktusról.

The analysis of Hannah Arendt's Socrate opens up the possibility of a fruitful rethinking of the sense and way of conceiving philosophy with children. A way that in this proposal is defined as "Utopian", since it intends to resume, with the Socratic lesson, just how much remains in it open, undetermined, capable of reviving with enchantment in the living of the orality of a philosophical dialogue- absolutely unprecedented and unpredictable - such as that with children. The space given to the (...) unexpected, to listening, to free divergence, then becomes radical, comes to be a paradoxical foundation of a "methodology" that cannot be captured in structured schemes and paths, since it remains open to the "utopian" space of philosophizing. The comparison with Arendt is therefore interleaved, through references to other readings that are contemporary of the Socratic lesson, with the experience lived of the author, who has been leading for years philosophy workshops with primary school children. Of course, Socrates has never been and never wanted to act as a "master": his conducting the dialogue, although always being asymmetric, is aimed at bringing the interlocutor on his line of reasoning and never the opposite, has never had as end the teaching of some doctrine. How much, rather, to lead the interlocutor from the presumed certainty to radical uncertainty, from opinion to doubt, from affirmation to aporia. Thiswe must authentically experiment, before anything else, when we place ourselves inlistening to children's questions, when we try to dialogue with them, to "do philosophy", to "think together". (shrink)