Cosmopolitans share the moral assumption that we have obligations and responsibilities to other people, near or distant. Today, those obligations and responsibilities are often connected with communication, but what is considered important for cosmopolitan communication differs between different thinkers. Given the centrality of communication in recent cosmopolitan theory and debate the purpose of this article is to examine assumptions about communication that are often taken for granted, and particularly the commonly held assumption that linguistic communication depends on shared or common (...) languages. It is primarily Donald Davidson's philosophy of language that provides the framework for my examination. I argue that there are several reasons for reconstructing our understanding of the nature of language and communication, and that shared languages play a much more limited role in communication than many communication theorists, cosmopolitans and educators have imagined. (shrink)

The dual purpose of this paper is to examine whether the epistemology of testimony is useful in clarifying reflections on the Holocaust, and on the hand to employ the Holocaust as a test case for the epistemology of testimony in itself. In contrast to any form of epistemological individualism, I examine the epistemological problems and conditions that face both an historian (an indirect witness) and an ocular witness (a direct one). In this discussion, I will not be able to give (...) precise answers to various questions, in particular concerning the relationship between these types of witnesses. I will conclude that although testimony requires truth of the proposition testified, lying seems better that telling the truth in cases where it is instrumental in saving many human life from the brutality of the Nazis. This conclusion is modest: while the epistemology of testimony can perhaps be of help in reflecting upon the Holocaust, it surely brings up more problems than what it can solve. Notwithstanding, I do not believe that the fault is with the epistemology of testimony, but rather that because of its extreme cruelty, inhumanity, and horror, it is too complex to say when a serious testimony about Holocaust is fully justified. (shrink)

This article investigates the structure of racialized conflict experience. Embarking from a conflict event in Ta-Nehisi Coates's autobiographyBetween the World and Meand contrasting the work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Alfred Schutz with insights from Black phenomenology, I argue that Coates's experience discloses conflictual, but intertwined, modes of being-in-the-world. Further, it presents an instantiation of a particular kind of conflict, i.e., corporeal conflict. Corporeal conflict applies whenever the body is politicized, i.e., when it becomes the marker for traits representative of a (...) rival political group. Understood this way, racialized conflict is always political. I conclude the article with some remarks on the shortcomings of two dominant conflict theories in political philosophy and the potential for an alternative, phenomenological approach that enables new ways of engaging the other in conflict. The analysis is preceded by a meditation on the role of the White researcher in critical philosophy of race. (shrink)

This essay discusses the normative significance of the spatial dimension of conflict events. Drawing on qualitative interviews conducted with political actors – politicians, officials, and activists – and on Heidegger’s account of spatiality in Being and Time, I will argue that the experience of conflict space is co-constituted by the respective conflict participants, as well as the location where the conflict unfolds. Location and conflict parties’ (self-)understandings ‘open up’ a space that enables and constrains ways of seeing and acting. Yet, (...) a purely transcendental phenomenology will remain oblivious to the quasi-transcendental, societal structures of power that shape a person’s conflict experience. To illuminate these facets of the phenomenon, phenomenology has to join forces with critical theory. Introducing Garland-Thomson’s feminist distinction of fit/misfit, I will illustrate how power shapes conflict space in manifold ways. The essay thereby fills a gap in the philosophical literature that rarely analyses political conflict as a phenomenon sui generis. (shrink)

We address what it means to “engage in a relationship” and suggest Social Breathing as a model of immersing ourselves in the metaphorical social air around us, which is necessary for shared intention and joint action. We emphasize how emergent properties of social systems arise, such as the shared culture of groups, which cannot be reduced to the individuals involved. We argue that the processes involved in Social Breathing are: automatic, implicit, temporal, in the form of mutual bi-directional interwoven exchanges (...) between social partners and embodied in the coordination of the brains and behaviors of social partners. We summarize cross-disciplinary evidence suggesting that these processes involve a multi-person whole-brain-body network which is critical for the development of both we-ness and relational skills. We propose that Social Breathing depends on each individual’s ability to sustain multimodal interwovenness, thus providing a theoretical link between social neuroscience and relational/multi-person psychology. We discuss how the model could guide research on autism, relationships, and psychotherapy. (shrink)

Teachers frequently face ethical problems in their everyday practice – ranging from pedagogical choices affecting their pupils to pressing conflicts that need to be solved – and they are expected to respond to such problems in a professional manner. Given the centrality of the ethical dimension to the teaching profession, an important question is how teachers tend to approach such problems. While some studies have been carried out regarding how teachers in particular approach ethical problems, there are interesting studies revealing (...) how people in general tend to respond ethically to situations involving ethical aspects that evoke strong emotional reactions. Aiming to fill parts of this gap, the present paper is based on a survey of Swedish teacher students and religious education (RE) teachers for which we have borrowed two examples from such general studies (carried out by Jonathan Haidt among others). These examples were chosen on the basis that one of them clearly represent a social taboo in a Swedish context while the other one does not. Letting the teacher students and RE teachers respond to both examples give us an indication of whether there is any significant difference in their approach to an example evoking a strong emotional reaction as opposed to a more neutral one. It is clear from our survey that there is such a difference: the respondents generally make rationally motivated judgments when confronted with the neutral example, while most of them seem to rely on gut feeling in the more provoking case. If these results can be taken as an indication of how teacher students and teachers tend to respond to real life situations, a provoking or emotionally laden context is likely to enhance the risk of making ethical choices which are not based on rational reasoning. We argue that these results emphasize the importance for teacher students as well as already practicing teachers to study, and cultivate the ability for, moral reasoning. (shrink)

This paper describes the admissible classes of parametric distribution functions of return portfolios and analyzes their consistency with the maximization of the expected utility. In particular, we present a general theory and a unifying framework with the following aims: (1) studying the implications of the classical market restrictions on the portfolio distributions; (2) establishing general rules of ordering, when the uncertain prospect depends by a finite number of parameters; (3) understanding how a dispersion measure has to be used, in order (...) to obtain the investors' optimal portfolios. (shrink)

I rapporti tra epistemologia, logica e psicologia sono notoriamente problematici. Una riflessione su di essi acquista rilevanza anche in virtu' di alcuni sviluppi contemporanei per cui la psicologia e l'intelligenza artificiale paiono investire settori considerati tradizionalmente dominio dell'epistemologia e della logica. In gioco e' soprattutto lo studio delle necessita' conoscitive e raziocinative dell'essere umano. Che epistemologia e logica abbiano ormai poco da dire al proposito e' ancora da mostrare.

Any attempt to evaluate a naturalistic feminist philosophy of cognition and knowledge must acknowledge that there are two distinct core approaches to naturalism. Classical feminist naturalizations of epistemology have drawn inspiration from the Quinean naturalization, they have inherited its defects – the major one: being compelled to renounce doing real epistemology in favor of a merely scientific enterprise. Notwithstanding, the merits of these feminist naturalizations are more than one: they embrace the idea that epistemology needs contributions and help from the (...) sciences, they raise serious doubts about the best science to involve in feminist epistemologies, they contrast our “local feminist philosophy” not only in its scorn for every science and its technological applications, but also in its conviction that there are essential differences between female/women and male/men about knowledge and cognition. I wish to propose a naturalized feminist epistemology which draws inspiration from the more moderate Goldmanian approach. Much work would be needed in order to combine those feminist approaches which believe in the individualism of the knowing subject with those that are anti–individualist. But, at least, taking inspiration from Goldman and his reliabilism, we may achieve a type of naturalism in feminist epistemologies, in which it would be feasible to understand the reliability of the cognitive faculties of the knowing subject and to understand scientifically whether or not there are differences between female and male faculties – avoiding any essentialist temptations. (shrink)

This study explores the practical implications of the paradox of moral education, focusing on how Swedish social study teachers (civics, geography, history, and religious education) navigate conflicting responsibilities to convey values and facilitate critical thinking when addressing controversial issues in their classrooms. Through qualitative interviews and observations, teachers were found to often lead by example, maintaining neutrality and presenting diverse perspectives. This approach appears to foster students towards embracing liberal values, promoting independent decision-making and personal responsibility, but it may come (...) at the cost of critically evaluating these very ideals, norms, and values. The absence of official guidelines in the Swedish school system underscores the significance of understanding how teachers balance these conflicting responsibilities in their pedagogical practices. The study sheds light on the practical strategies employed by teachers, contributing valuable insights to a discourse traditionally centred on theoretical solutions to the paradox of moral education. (shrink)

This paper discusses George Boole’s two distinct approaches to the explanatory relationship between logical and psychological theory. It is argued that, whereas in his first book he attributes a substantive role to psychology in the foundation of logical theory, in his second work he abandons that position in favour of a linguistically conceived foundation. The early Boole espoused a type of psychologism and later came to adopt a type of anti-psychologism. To appreciate this invites a far-reaching reassessment of his philosophy (...) of logic. (shrink)

The paper outlines why and how political institutions, especially constitutional ones, matter for what decisions are made in the political process and thereby for how the economy functions. The main part contains a survey of empirical studies in this area. Among the things covered: the effects of political and economic freedom, not least property rights, on economic growth; how stricter budgetprocess rules affect tendencies for deficits; the role of electoral systems for shaping policies and affecting fiscal deficits; and the effects (...) of separation of powers – e.g., federalism and referenda – on government size.Ce papier retrace dans les grandes lignes pourquoi et comment les institutions politiques, notamment celles de nature constitutionnelle, importent pour les décisions prises au niveau politique et en conséquence sur la manière dont fonctionne l’économie. La majeure partie du papier consiste en un examen des études empiriques dans ce domaine. Parmi les choses analysées : les effets de la liberté politique et économique, en particulier les droits de propriété, sur la croissance économique ; comment des règles plus strictes lors de l’élaboration du budget influent sur la tendance au déficit ; le rôle des systèmes électoraux dans l’élaboration des politiques et dans la taille des déficits ; et les effets de la séparation des pouvoirs – par exemple fédéralisme et referenda – sur la taille du gouvernement. (shrink)

Researchers within the educational field usually acknowledge the idea that teaching is an essentially moral activity. Yet, they seem to have different opinions on how teachers are supposed to complete that task in their everyday pedagogical practice. Jonathan Haidt has conducted a series of international studies, during recent years, revealing how people in general tend to respond ethically to situations that evoke strong emotional reactions. Based on the results he has presented a theory, the New Syntheses, in which he claims (...) to explain the difference between the dominating moral pedagogical models and develop new approaches to teaching ethics. The present paper is based on a survey of Swedish teacher students and religious education teachers for which we have borrowed two of Jonathan Haidts examples. We discuss the New Synthesis in relation to the results of the surveys and the ethical dimension of the teaching profession. We argue that these results indicate a need for teacher students and teachers to consciously reflect on their values and methods for approaching ethics in education. (shrink)

Se l'attenzione maggiore degli studiosi si è da sempre concentrata sulle Dionisiache, non di meno negli ultimi vent'anni si assiste a un rinnovato interesse per l'altro poema esametrico attribuito a Nonno, la Parafrasi del Vangelo di Giovanni; ciò soprattutto per merito di Enrico Livrea e della sua scuola fiorentina, di cui anche l'autore di questo volume fa parte. Esso rappresenta una tappa ulteriore – dopo l'edizione del Canto I (De Stefani), del Canto II (Livrea), del Canto XVIII (Livrea) e del (...) Canto XX (Accorinti) – in quello che si annuncia come un progetto di edizione critica commentata di tutti canti del poema sacro nonniano: progetto certamente ambizioso ma indispensabile per fare luce piena su un momento fondamentale dell'epica tardoantica. Diversamente dalla poesia centonaria, Nonno, pur seguendo dappresso la Vorlage evangelica, volle fare opera in qualche misura originale e ci riuscì, pur con uno stile che non si potrebbe immaginare più contrastante rispetto alla austera sobrietà del dettato giovanneo. Il volume di Agosti, sostenuto da una ricchissima e pressocché completa bibliografia, si apre con una Introduzione assai ampia e decisamente pregevole per la capacità dimostrata dallo studioso di inquadrare il poema nonniano nell'ambito vasto dell'epica tardoantica non solo greca ma anche latina: da questo punto di vista illuminanti appaiono i raffronti con Giovenco, Aratore, Claudiano, Prudenzio, Commodiano, oltre che, naturalmente, con Gregorio Nazianzeno, Eudocia e gli Homerocentones. Convinto che il Nonno parafraste sia il medesimo autore delle Dionisiache, Agosti ritiene decisamente superata la tesi contraria, e intelligentemente si limita a rilevare la straordinaria affinità fra i due poemi non solo a livello stilistico, linguistico e metrico, ma anche – aspetto forse ancora più sorprendente – sotto il profilo concettuale: «Vi sono elementi di chiaro influsso cristiano nelle D. e d'altra parte la figura di Cristo tende ad assumere alcuni tratti bacchici nella P.» (p. 46). Una tesi, questa, che viene corroborata con numerosi raffronti puntuali nelle dense note di commento. Essendo gran parte del Canto Quinto, corrispondente al quinto capitolo del vangelo giovanneo, dedicato al miracolo del paralitico guarito nella piscina di Bethesda, viene affrontato il problema dello spazio dedicato ai miracoli di guarigione nel mondo pagano e cristiano del V secolo, in particolare nell'ambiente egizio dove Nonno visse e operò (ma molto cauto si mostra, a mio avviso saggiamente, l'Autore nei confronti di identificazioni troppo incerte, come quella che vorrebbe Nonno vescovo di Edessa). Il lettore deduce dalle sue considerazioni come nulla di sorprendente o di aberrante l'uomo tardoantico potesse scorgere nel racconto di Giovanni, che anzi non discorda da analoghe imprese attribuite ad Asclepio, il dio guaritore ϰατεξοχήν, ma anche a taumaturghi come Apollonio di Tiana: si trattava, se mai, di una sorta di concorrenza fra Cristo e i suoi omologhi e rivali pagani. Allo stesso modo, Agosti pensa che il pubblico della Parafrasi e quello delle Dionisiache fosse in sostanza il medesimo, forse con una percentuale cristiana maggiore nel primo caso e minore nel secondo. Ovviamente si rimane nel campo delle ipotesi, ma certo il sincretismo del tempo poteva forse spingersi tanto avanti da giustificare simile osmosi, anche se appare lecito dubitare che cristiani convinti giungessero a tollerare l'incredibile ampiezza del poema a gloria di Dioniso, e, viceversa, che a un pubblico pagano potesse veramente interessare il vangelo di Giovanni – di cui per altro Agosti segnala qualche risonanza in ambiente neoplatonico. Meritorie appaiono anche le osservazioni sul retroterra esegetico del poema sacro, «più vicino all'esegesi che alla parafrasi stricto sensu» (p. 111), con particolare riferimento al commento giovanneo di Cirillo d'Alessandria: una consonanza del resto già osservata da altri studiosi della Parafrasi. Nelle note l'Autore cita numerosi passi da Cirillo, non nascondendosi comunque la notevole libertà con cui Nonno – il cui intento primario non dovette certo essere teologico – se ne servì. Non meno interessanti le considerazioni su alcuni punti di contatto con la liturgia, tema di cui Agosti segnala la non secondaria importanza per una valutazione corretta e completa dell'epica cristiana. (shrink)

Socializamos aquí una experiencia llevada a cabo por un grupo de docentes, de nivel medio, que ha conformado un Equipo ESI. Nos referimos al Proyecto de Promotoras Estudiantiles de Género, que vibra en una escuela que se encuentra atravesada por un complejo entramado de relaciones sociales. El mismo, busca aportar a la construcción de un proyecto educativo que habite los intersticios de la escuela formal desde una pedagogía otra. El contexto en el que se encuentra inscripta la escuela, configura las (...) identidades estudiantiles, sobre las que recaen múltiples opresiones de género, clase, nacionalidad. Las juventudes subalternizadas que habitan esta escuela invitan a romper con la categoría monolítica de juventud, y ello implica un desafío para que nuestras prácticas docentes no reproduzcan, en términos de Guha un colonialismo discursivo. (shrink)

AI-enabled State surveillance capabilities are likely to exert chilling effects whereby individuals modify their behavior due to a fear of the potential consequences if that behavior is observed. The risk is that chilling effects drive individuals towards the mainstream, slowly reducing the space for personal and political development. This could prove devastating for individuals’ ability to freely develop their identity and, ultimately, for the evolution and vibrancy of democratic society. As it stands, human rights law cannot effectively conceptualize this cumulative, (...) longer-term, harm, and so cannot accurately evaluate the cost/benefit of AI tools, risking irreparable harm. As chilling effects impact individuals’ ability to live a good, self-determined life, the concept of human flourishing is relevant. This article engages with Aristotelian naturalism, the life-satisfaction approach, and the capabilities approach to determine which best resonates with the concept of identity as relevant to chilling effects and human rights law. It concludes that the capabilities approach may overcome some of the problems associated with the human rights law approach and may provide a framework capable of capturing both the intricate processes of free identity development and of conceptualizing the harm linked to AI surveillance. The challenge, however, is to ‘operationalize’ this approach. (shrink)

L’aspirazione a conoscere è radicata nella natura umana. Capire che cos’è la conoscenza significa acquisire consapevolezza della propria identità.

This volume focuses on cosmological and cosmogonical concepts in hermetic writings and studies their syncretistic origins, subject matter and impact from an interdisciplinary perspective. In doing so, it incorporates articles from various fields of research and academic disciplines.

Contextualism in philosophy of language and in epistemology are two distinct but closely entangled projects. The epistemological thesis is grounded in a semantic claim concerning the context-sensitivity of the predicate “know”: we gain insight into epistemological problems by investigating our linguistic intuitions concerning knowledge attribution sentences. Our aim here is to evaluate the plausibility of a project that takes the opposite starting point: the general idea is to establish the semantic contextualist thesis on the epistemological one. According to semantic contextualism, (...) virtually no sentences of a natural language express complete propositions – meaning underdetermines truth conditions. In our paper, instead of assuming the traditional view of meaning in terms of truth conditions, we suggest that a theory of meaning as justification may shed new light on the contextualist approach. We thus show how the notion of justification can be contextualized, arguing that our attempt provides an interesting and quite straightforward way of contextualizing meaning. (shrink)

La discussione generale sulla filosofia della scienza contemporanea è complicata dal numero e dall’eterogeneità delle scienze, mentre lo studio di temi specifici porta inevitabilmente a dissertazioni specialistiche che mancano nel dare ragione della trama di senso sottostante. Questo Piccolo trattato di epistemologia intende occupare uno spazio vuoto, proponendo alcuni temi chiave per la comprensione dei meccanismi alla base della conoscenza scientifica: i rapporti tra filosofia e scienze, siano esse naturali o umane; la complessa relazione tra fatti e valori; la distinzione (...) tra scoperta e giustificazione; la necessità di un discorso etico sulla ricerca, che chiami in causa categorie come fiducia, empatia, altruismo ed egoismo. Con un approccio chiaro e rigoroso, il volume intende rivolgersi a quell’ampia fascia di pubblico interessata alle tematiche centrali dell’epistemologia, della filosofia e delle scienze. (shrink)

Using the World Values Survey (WVS) as a background the paper discusses a tension between the general evaluative outlook of Swedish teacher students and the educational values established by The Swedish National Agency for Education (SNAE). According to the results from WVS, which maps evaluative differences between approximately 80 countries in the world, Sweden stands out as a country that rejects traditional values and embraces so called secular self-expression values. However, the values established by SNAE include both traditional values, such (...) as “sharing a common cultural heritage”, and secular self-expression values, such as “individual freedom and integrity”. Against this background we conducted a survey of 179 Swedish teacher students in order to investigate the relation between their evaluative outlook and the values they are supposed to convey to their pupils as established by SNAE. The result of the survey indicates that these students do not differ in any significant respect from the Swedish population in general as regards secular vs traditional evaluations. The fact that the traditional values emphasized by SNAE seem to be scarcely represented among the teacher students, makes questionable whether they will be present in their future teaching. On the assumptions that there are important educational values among the traditional as well as the secular self-expression ones, and that values are reproduced within an educational system, we argue that there is reason to take the imbalance in the evaluative outlook of the students seriously. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to show that science, understood as pure research, ought not to be affected by non-epistemic values and thus to defend the traditional ideal of value-free science. First, we will trace the distinction between science and technology, arguing that science should be identified with pure research and that any non-epistemic concern should be di­rected toward technology and technological research. Second, we will examine different kinds of values and the roles they can play in scientific research (...) to argue that science understood as pure research is mostly and in any case ought to be value-free. Third, we will consider and dismiss some widespread arguments that aim to defend, especially at a normative level, the inevitable value-ladenness of science. Finally, we will briefly return to the connections among science, technology, and values. (shrink)

This book analyses an inconsistency within epistemic contextualism known as the factivity problem. It also provides key insights into epistemic contextualism, an important innovation in contemporary epistemology, enabling readers to gain a better understanding of the various solutions to the factivity problem. As the authors demonstrate, each explanation is based on a different interpretation of the problem. Divided into seven chapters, the book offers comprehensive coverage of this topic, which will be of major interest to philosophers engaged in epistemology and (...) the philosophy of language. After an introductory chapter, Chapter 2 presents the most common understanding of epistemic contextualism and its semantic basis. It also clarifies the epistemological implications of the theory’s semantic assumptions. This chapter also explains the main argument of the factivity problem. The next four chapters discuss the respective solutions proposed by Wolfgang Freitag, Alexander Dinges, Anthony Brueckner and Christopher Buford, Michael Ashfield, Martin Montminy and Wes Skolits, and Peter Baumann. Stefano Leardi and Nicla Vassallo highlight the similarities and commonalities, identifying three main approaches to the factivity problem. Chapter 7 provides a brief overview of the solutions proposed to solve the factivity problem and presents an outline of the conclusions reached in the book. (shrink)

Some thoughts about the concept of gender In this brief contribution I insist on the necessity to avoid the term “feminist epistemology”. On the contrary, “feminist epistemologies” should be preferred. Another term we should scrutinize is gender. Finally, I review some of the criticalities which arise from female predicament.

This article explores how our understanding of ambivalence would shift if we saw it as an inherent and essential part of the ordinary work of education. Following Bauman's sociology of the stranger and Derrida's deconstructions of hospitality, the article unfolds in three parts. In the first part we discuss the preconditions of modern education which since the Enlightenment has been guided by the postulate that there is and ought to be a rational order in the social world. In the second (...) part we consider the intolerance of strangers the modern will-to-order has caused. Since the stranger appears as a liminal category that falls between the boundaries of already established social categories, she can only be viewed as an antithesis of a well-ordered society. In the third part we ask how educational spaces hospitable to strangers can be opened up, and argue that we would do better not to construe living with ambivalence as a problem, but as a quest for humanity and justice. (shrink)