This paper is about the epistemology of practical reason and, in particular, the function of trust as an end to be pursued rationally in praxis. Our purpose is threefold: first, to present an outline of the structure of practical reason; secondly, to compare practical reason and scientific reason in order to determine the main differences between these two basic manifestations of human reason; finally, to argue in favour of a non-utilitarian model of practical reason in the light of some results (...) of contemporary economic theory. (shrink)

On a popular view dating back to Russell, descriptions, both definite and indefinite alike, work syntactically and semantically like quantifiers. I have an argument against Russell's view. The argument supports a different picture: descriptions can behave syntactically and semantically like variables. This basic idea can be implemented in very different systematic analyses, but, whichever way one goes, there will be a significant departure from Russell. The claim that descriptions are variables is not new: what I offer is a new way (...) of defending it. The argument centers on attitude reports. I argue that we should recognize a new reading of descriptions under attitude reports, which I call ‘singular opaque’. The existence of this reading cannot be explained on the traditional Russellian view, and demands a switch to the variable view. Along the way, some interesting new facts about attitude reports come to light. (shrink)

In the last decades, Systems Biology (including cancer research) has been driven by technology, statistical modelling and bioinformatics. In this paper we try to bring biological and philosophical thinking back. We thus aim at making diferent traditions of thought compatible: (a) causality in epidemiology and in philosophical theorizing—notably, the “sufcient-component-cause framework” and the “mark transmission” approach; (b) new acquisitions about disease pathogenesis, e.g. the “branched model” in cancer, and the role of biomarkers in this process; (c) the burgeoning of omics (...) research, with a large number of “signals” and of associations that need to be interpreted. In the paper we summarize frst the current views on carcinogenesis, and then explore the relevance of current philosophical interpretations of “cancer causes”. We try to ofer a unifying framework to incorporate biomarkers and omic data into causal models, referring to a position called “evidential pluralism”. According to this view, causal reasoning is based on both “evidence of diference-making” (e.g. associations) and on “evidence of underlying biological mechanisms”. We conceptualize the way scientists detect and trace signals in terms of information transmission, which is a generalization of the mark transmission theory developed by philosopher Wesley Salmon. Our approach is capable of helping us conceptualize how heterogeneous factors such as micro and macro-biological and psycho-social—are causally linked. This is important not only to understand cancer etiology, but also to design public health policies that target the right causal factors at the macro-level. (shrink)

Two mereological theories are presented based on a primitive apartness relation along with binary relations of mereological excess and weak excess, respectively. It is shown that both theories are acceptable from the standpoint of constructive reasoning while remaining faithful to the spirit of classical mereology. The two theories are then compared and assessed with regard to their extensional import.

According to Ernst Cassirer, the transition from the concept of substance to that of mathematical function as a guide of knowledge coincided with the end of ancient and the beginning of modern theoretical thought. In the first part of this article we argue that a similar transition has also taken place in the practical sphere, where mathematical function occurs in one of its specific forms, which is that of the algorithm concept. In the second part we argue that with the (...) rise of modernity the idea of substance and the related concepts of category and classification, which are deeply embedded in western culture, have not been totally supplanted by that of function. The intertwining of the concepts of substance and function has generated contradictory hybrids. These hybrids are used as a key for the understanding of the different repercussions of algorithmic logic on society in terms of social integration. (shrink)

In previous work by Baaz and Iemhoff, a Gentzen calculus for intuitionistic logic with existence predicate is presented that satisfies partial cut elimination and Craig's interpolation property; it is also conjectured that interpolation fails for the implication-free fragment. In this paper an equivalent calculus is introduced that satisfies full cut elimination and allows a direct proof of interpolation via Maehara's lemma. In this way, it is possible to obtain much simpler interpolants and to better understand and overcome the failure of (...) interpolation for the implication-free fragment. (shrink)

Ever since the early decades of this century, there have emerged a number of competing schools of ecology that have attempted to weave the concepts underlying natural resource management and natural-historical traditions into a formal theoretical framework. It was widely believed that the discovery of the fundamental mechanisms underlying ecological phenomena would allow ecologists to articulate mathematically rigorous statements whose validity was not predicated on contingent factors. The formulation of such statements would elevate ecology to the standing of a rigorous (...) scientific discipline on a par with physics. However, there was no agreement as to the fundamental units of ecology. Systems ecologists sought to identify the fundamental organization that tied the physical and biological components of ecosystems into an irreducible unit: the ecosystem was their fundamental unit. Population ecologists sought, instead, to identify the biological mechanisms regulating the abundance and distribution of plant and animal species: to these ecologists, the individual organism was the fundamental unit of ecology, and the physical environment was nothing more than a stage upon which the play of individuals in perennial competition took place. As Joel Hagen has pointed out, the two schools were thus dividied by fundamentally different and irreconcilable assumptions about the nature of ecosystems.Notwithstanding these divisive efforts to elevate the image of ecology, the discipline remained in the shadows of American academia until the mid-1960s, when systems ecologists succeeded in projecting ecology onto the national scene. They did so by seeking closer involvement with practical problems: they argued before Congress that their approach to the theoretical problems of ecology was uniquely suited to the solution of the impending “environmental crisis.” With the establishment of the International Biological Program, they succeeded in attracting unprecedented levels of funding for systems ecology research. Theoretical population ecologists, on the other hand, found themselves consigned to the outer regions of this new institutional landscape. The systems ecologists' successful capture of the limelight and the purse brought the divisions between them and population ecologists into sharper relief — hence the hardening of the division of ecology observed by Hagen.45I have argued that the population biologist Richard Levins, prompted by these institutional developments, sought to challenge the social position of systems ecology, and to assert the intellectual priority of theoretical population ecology. He attempted to do so by articulating a nontrivial and rather carefully thought out classification of ecological models that led to the disqualification of systems analysis as a legitimate approach to the study of ecological phenomena. I have suggested that — ultimately —Levins's case against systems analysis in ecology rested on the view that an aspiration to realism and prediction was incompatible with an interest in theoretical issues, a concern that he equated with the search for generality. He sought to reinforce this argument by exploiting the fact that systems ecologists had staked their future on the provision of technical solutions to the problems of the “environmental crisis”: he associated systems ecologists' aspiration to realism and precision with a concern for practical issues, trading on the widely accepted view that practical imperatives are incompatible with the aims of scientific inquiry.46 These are plausible, but nonetheless questionable, claims which have now become an integral part of ecological knowledge. And finally, I hope to have shown how even the most abstract levels of scientific argument are shaped by political considerations, and how discussions of the conceptual development of modern ecology might benefit from a greater consideration of its historical and social dimensions.47. (shrink)

Bringing together contributors from philosophy, international relations, security studies, and strategic studies, New Wars and New Soldiers offers a truly interdisciplinary analysis reflective of the nature of modern warfare. This comprehensive approach allows the reader to see the broad scope of modern military ethics, and to understand the numerous questions about modern conflict that require critical scrutiny. Aimed at both military and academic audiences, this paperback will be of significant interest to researchers and students in philosophy, sociology, military and strategic (...) studies, international relations, politics, and security studies, acting as an ideal course text or as supplementary reading. (shrink)

We devise exact conditions under which a join semilattice with a weak contact relation can be semilattice embedded into a Boolean algebra with an overlap contact relation, equivalently, into a distributive lattice with additive contact relation. A similar characterization is proved with respect to Boolean algebras and distributive lattices with weak contact, not necessarily additive, nor overlap.

We present a sequent calculus for extensional mereology. It extends the classical first-order sequent calculus with identity by rules of inference corresponding to well-known mereological axioms. Structural rules, including cut, are admissible.

Nous faisons usage de machines, de chaussures, de cartes, en vue de notre vie, de sa conservation et de son développement. Mais c’est la vie elle-même qui est avant tout « usable », et pour laquelle machines, chaussures, cartes sont utilisées. L’ usage de soi, de son existence, est le présupposé et la poutre maîtresse de tous les autres usages. Or l’usage de soi se fonde sur le détachement de soi. Est utilisée une existence à laquelle on ne peut pas (...) toujours s’identifier, qui ne se possède pas entièrement et qui, sans être vraiment étrangère, n’est pas non plus complètement familière. Autrement dit, l’usage de la vie concerne l’espèce qui, en plus de vivre, doit rendre sa vie possible. Le jeu de scène théâtral récapitule et amplifie les procédés par lesquels l’être humain se sert de son existence. L’activité de l’acteur est un modèle incomparable de l’usage de la vie et du souci de soi. Pour reconstituer avec précision les « technologies du soi », il convient de regarder de près les écrits de Stanislavski, Mejerchol’d, Brecht et Grotowski. (shrink)

The author discusses the evolution of Heidegger’s conception of science and brings out its limits as well as its possible developments. An eminent representative of contemporary thinking in the theory of knowledge, Paolo Parrini stands in a line of critical realism in the Kantian neopositivist tradition. This paper returns to and develops the lectio delivered at the award of the ‘Giulio Preti’ Prize in November 2008.

More than any other philosopher, Duns Scotus and Simondon both gave extensive consideration to the relation between what is primarily common and what is primarily singular. Pointing to certain resonances between their ideas can help us to develop a theoretical model to decipher the mode of being of the contemporary multitude. This article deals with: 1. The critique that Duns Scotus and Simondon address to everyone who believes that the matter form pair can account for the process of individuation; 2. (...) The gap separating the notion of the « universal » from that of the « common », and therefore, the need to precisely define the ontological and logical status of the « common » without any surreptitious use of categories linked to the « universal 1); 3. The paradoxical relation involving both addition and subtraction - between the individuated individual and « common nature »; and 4. The question of angels , a source of enduring fame in school textbooks for Duns Scotus, re-examined here in the light of Simondon ’s concepts of « transindividuality » and of « collective individuation ». (shrink)

In "The Measure of the Mental" (Davidson 1990), replying to a series of criticisms, that grow out of inadvertence or misunderstanding, Davidson has revisited his thesis concerning the physical and the mental, which he called "anomalous monism" (henceforth, AM). The thesis is subtle and elusive, as it is most often the case with Davidson: there is only one kind of event and state, which has a physical description (i.e., a description in physical terms) and may have a mental description too (...) (i.e., a description in mental terms) -- that shows the monism. But there is no strict law to go from a mental to a physical description of events and states or vice versa -- that shows the anomalousness.This sophisticated third way captures the intuition, generally shared today, that we are physical machines, whereas it acknowledges the mind a peculiarity: the mental is identical with a part of the physical, but no part of the mind is specifically identifiable with any part of the physical; or, more weakly, each mental event or state is identical with a physical one, though there is no systematic way to connect the mental and the physical. (shrink)

The specific complexity of the question of genres depends on the plurality of the problems to which genre is pertinent and relevant. When Croce proclaimed, at the beginning of the century, the non-existence of the genre, he reduced the entire range of problems to the sole question relative to a work's belonging to a genre. In more recent times, there has been an attempt to reduce genre to the property of the linguistic act, in a methodological framework that understands poetics (...) exclusively as the science of literature. Against such reductionism, it is important to keep in mind a wider, more articulated idea of poetics as a pragmatic meditation, to investigate genres according to the multiple lines of systematization that are pertinent to them. (shrink)

Towards the end of The Coming Community (1993) [La comunità che viene, 1990], Giorgio Agamben writes something that may be interpreted as a paraphrase of Franz Kafka's famous statement that while t...

This essay explores selected examples of puns and etymologizing in the Pali canon. It argues that they do not solely serve a satirical intent, but are sophisticated rhetorical devices, skilfully employed by the Buddha to induce a reflective awareness in the listeners and persuade them into accepting his view. Their rhetorical function and efficacy is investigated, while foregrounding a new interpretation of the Aggaññasutta.

The present paper suggests to consider Kierkegaard’s use of Abraham’s story in Fear and Trembling in regulative terms, that is, to consider it as a model – not for our moral behaviour but rather for our religious behaviour. To do so, I first rely on recent literature to argue that Kierkegaard should be regarded as a distinctively post-Kantian philosopher: namely, a philosopher who goes beyond Kant in a way that is nevertheless true to the spirit of Kant’s original critical philosophy. (...) Then, I present a post-Kantian reading of Fear and Trembling, focusing on the problematic implications that result from comparing this text with Hegel’s theory of recognition. Finally, I submit that sacrifice in Fear and Trembling is a regulative notion in a Kantian sense. This interpretation addresses some of the most problematic aspects of the text. I conclude that the regulativity of sacrifice may be regarded as an important and perhaps an essential component of Kierkegaard’s overall philosophical strategy. (shrink)

Il s'agit dans cet article de montrer certains liens existant entre la conception militante de l’utopie que Ricœur a proposée dans les textes rassemblés dans Plaidoyer pour l'utopie ecclésiale des années 60 et la notion philosophique d'utopie développée dans les conférences et les recherches des années 70. Les enjeux purement éthiques de l'utopie, dans la mesure où ils visent à la fois l'accomplissement de l'humanité dans son universalité et dans sa singularité, sont surtout envisagés dans le cadre du discours militant (...) de Ricœur, don’t Plaidoyer pour l'utopie ecclésiale est une bonne illustration. Cette utopie de l'humanité accomplie était déjà présente et active pendant le militantisme de jeunesse de Ricœur dans le cadre du socialisme révolutionnaire anti-soviétique. Elle fournit un arrière-plan extra-philosophique à la conception philosophique de l'utopie comme l'un des deux pôles de l'imagination sociale, ainsi qu'aux analyses consacrées à Marx, au personnalisme de Mounier et à l'imagination transcendantale de Husserl. (shrink)

An Authoritarian Scenario. The long-term war against « terrorism » embarked upon by the Bush administration in the aftermath of September 11th 2001 goes far beyond its strictly military dimension. It also involves a fundamental onslaught on democratic and social rights, both in the USA and in European countries. The result of this combination between the military and a political dimension is the establishment of an architecture of control operating in the service of the most brutal sectors of the imperialist (...) bourgeoisie and of the accumulation of capital. (shrink)

The paper aims to examine the role of Benet Perera’s and Roberto Bellarmino’s exegetic models in the development of the relationship between the nascent Galilean science and post-Tridentine catholic theology. It intends to show that, during the early decades of seventeenth century, the Catholic Church dealt with the Scientific Revolution with the same hermeneutical tools that it had employed to confront the Protestant Reformation half a century before. However, new science involved a philosophical and scientific culture change so vast and (...) intricate that those models turned out to be inadequate to understand the birth and characteristics of the new era. (shrink)

A default theory can be seen as a way for representing a set of formulae, i.e., its extensions. In this paper, we characterize the sets of formulae that can be expressed by a default theory according to various semantics: justified, constrained, rational, cumulative, QDL, CADL, and two semantics with priorities. These characterizations imply some non-translatability results between semantics.