The paper addresses the issue of scientific realism in Mach, and his pragmatist approach to epistemology. Firstly, Eric Banks’s interpretation of Mach as a direct realist about particulars will be explored and discussed. Secondly, Sami Pihlström’s pragmatic realism will be considered, and it will be suggested that this view can be more viably attributed to Mach. Finally, in the light of Mach’s 1910 paper on Sensory Elements and Scientific Concepts, it will be argued that Mach’s agnosticism was probably stronger than (...) any moderate form of realism he could have been committed to, and that he was a radical pragmatist in refusing to be concerned with any kind of metaphysical issue. (shrink)

This critical essay evaluates the potential integration of distinct kinds of expertise in policymaking, especially during situations of critical emergencies, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. This article relies on two case studies: herd immunity and restricted access to ventilators for disabled people. These case studies are discussed as examples of experts’ recommendations that have not been widely accepted, though they were made within the boundaries of expert epistemic authority. While the fundamental contribution of biomedical experts in devising public health policies (...) during the COVID-19 pandemic is fully recognized, this paper intends to discuss potential issues and limitations that may arise when adopting a strict expert-based approach. By drawing attention to the interests of minorities, the paper also claims a broader notion of “relevant expertise.” This critical essay thus calls for the necessity of wider inclusiveness and representativeness in the process underlying public health policymaking. (shrink)

In recent years, the family of algorithms collected under the term ``deep learning'' has revolutionized artificial intelligence, enabling machines to reach human-like performances in many complex cognitive tasks. Although deep learning models are grounded in the connectionist paradigm, their recent advances were basically developed with engineering goals in mind. Despite of their applied focus, deep learning models eventually seem fruitful for cognitive purposes. This can be thought as a kind of biological exaptation, where a physiological structure becomes applicable for a (...) function different from that for which it was selected. In this paper, it will be argued that it is time for cognitive science to seriously come to terms with deep learning, and we try to spell out the reasons why this is the case. First, the path of the evolution of deep learning from the connectionist project is traced, demonstrating the remarkable continuity, and the differences as well. Then, it will be considered how deep learning models can be useful for many cognitive topics, especially those where it has achieved performance comparable to humans, from perception to language. It will be maintained that deep learning poses questions that cognitive sciences should try to answer. One of such questions is the reasons why deep convolutional models that are disembodied, inactive, unaware of context, and static, are by far the closest to the patterns of activation in the brain visual system. (shrink)

How is freedom valuable? And how should we go about defining freedom? In this essay, I discuss a distinction between two general ways of valuing freedom: one appeals to the good (e.g., to freedom's contribution to well-being); the other appeals to how persons have reason to treat one another in virtue of their status as purposive beings (to the right). The analysis of these two values has many relevant implications and it is preliminary to a better understanding of the relationships (...) between freedom and justice. First, it contributes to shed light on the relationship between trust and the value of freedom, and on two attitudes towards freedom – promoting and respecting freedom. Second, it disambiguates between two versions of the claim that freedom has non-specific/content-independent value: one appeals to the good, the other to the right. And third, I show that certain implications concerning the definition of freedom follow from assuming an account of the value of freedom that exclusively appeals to the right, illustrating how the value of freedom can shape what freedom is. (shrink)

The paper investigates the epistemological and communicative competences the experts need to use and communicate evidence in the reasoning process leading to diagnosis. The diagnosis and diagnosis communication are presented as intertwined processes that should be jointly addressed in medical consultations, to empower patients’ compliance in illness management. The paper presents defeasible reasoning as specific to the diagnostic praxis, showing how this type of reasoning threatens effective diagnosis communication and entails that we should understand diagnostic evidence as defeasible as well. (...) It argues that metaphors might be effective communicative devices to let the patients understand the relevant defeasors in the diagnostic reasoning process, helping to improve effective diagnosis communication, and also encouraging a change in patients’ beliefs and attitudes on their own experience of illness and illness’ management. (shrink)

The absence of an English translation of Gonzaga's writings, both as a whole and separately, , inspired me to undertake it with the aim of making it more accessible to the public. If I were to talk briefly about the outline, the first original French version of the text appears as an anonymous author's work. In that first version signed by Sir Thomas Witth whom nothing is known about, Gonzaga doesn’t appear. His name hadn’t been appearing in the first booklet (...) for seven years until it appeared as translator in the 1807 version. Researchers concur that this was actually a trick which Gonzaga has been hiding behind because he probably never had the courage to introduce himself as the author. It is claimed that it has been conducted a lot of research in order to recover the text of Sir Thomas Witth or other possible authors with a similar name but any satisfactory solution to the riddle has not yet been given. Regarding historical data carried out during my research, I would like to offer my opinion that there is the Scottish philosophy of Common Sense hidden behind this pseudonym which deserves attention. (shrink)

Il pensiero prospettivistico del Nietzsche maturo sorge come reazione alla «fede in un valore metafisico e in sé della verità» che, a partire da Platone, ha animato la cultura occidentale. Agli occhi di Nietzsche, tale fede si trova all’origine del processo di degenerazione antropologica che ha caratterizzato la morale europea, ed è pertanto su di essa che occorre operare criticamente se si vuole avviare un contromovimento in grado di permettere all’umanità di orientarsi nei meandri labirintici del nichilismo. Attraverso una contestualizzazione (...) delle riflessioni di Nietzsche sul tema del prospettivismo, il presente studio si propone di rilevare la componente pragmatista che si trova alla base di tale critica. In linea con quanto osservato da William James e condividendo molte delle istanze che il suo pragmatismo portò a maturazione, il pensiero prospettivistico di Nietzsche si presenta infatti come strategia per gestire lo svuotamento di senso della nozione di verità a cui conducono i risultati della moderna epistemologia. Esso consiste, in particolare, in una metodologia di orientamento che assume produttivamente su di sé gli spazi lasciati aperti da un sapere non più metafisico e dogmatico e che, pertanto, permette di avviare un nuovo percorso educativo per l’umanità a venire. (shrink)

This paper has a twofold aim. On the one hand, it explores the extent to which Mach was inspired by Kant’s approach to philosophical inquiry and tried to further elaborate it through his historico-critical method for enlightening scientific knowledge claims. On the other hand, it argues that the focus on the situated character of these claims that is implied in Mach’s epistemology makes it possible to compare his view to recent attempts to defend a perspectival realist account of scientific knowledge, (...) thus revealing the relevance of Mach’s own approach as a methodology in the philosophy of science. (shrink)

The article makes two substantive contributions to the existing literature on the ethics of international assistance and global justice. First, it builds what we take to be a widely held set of propositions about international assistance into a consistent view, and articulates a strong case against its desirability. Second, it sketches a more attractive alternative. To do so the article uses Sen’s idea of agent-oriented development as a starting point while at the same time providing a generalization of Sen’s account (...) and a justificatory framework that does not rely on the capability approach. (shrink)

This volume provides a geographically and historically diverse overview of philosophical traditions that establish a deep connection between truth and practice, or even see truth itself as a kind of practice. Under the label "practices of truth" are subsumed disparate approaches that can be fruitfully brought together to explore the intersections between truth and practice in philosophy as well as to address a range of intriguing questions about truth that fall outside the domain of pure theory. The chapters in this (...) volume provide a variety of perspectives on key practices of truth in philosophy and in the history of philosophy, enriching our understanding of the different ways in which truth and practice may be connected, including the role of certain practices in enabling philosophical insight into truth; the ways in which truth may actually be embedded in some practices; and the impact of truth on practice. Practices of Truth in Philosophy will appeal to scholars and advanced students interested in the history of philosophy, comparative philosophy, ethics, epistemology, and the metaphysics of truth. (shrink)

The properties of the ${\forall^{1}}$ quantifier defined by Kontinen and Väänänen in [13] are studied, and its definition is generalized to that of a family of quantifiers ${\forall^{n}}$ . Furthermore, some epistemic operators δ n for Dependence Logic are also introduced, and the relationship between these ${\forall^{n}}$ quantifiers and the δ n operators are investigated.The Game Theoretic Semantics for Dependence Logic and the corresponding Ehrenfeucht- Fraissé game are then adapted to these new connectives.Finally, it is proved that the ${\forall^{1}}$ quantifier (...) is not uniformly definable in Dependence Logic, thus answering a question posed by Kontinen and Väänänen in the above mentioned paper. (shrink)

Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS) is one of the 25 syndromic forms of obesity, in which patients present—in addition to different degrees of obesity—intellectual disability, endocrine disturbs, hyperphagia and/or other signs of hypothalamic dysfunction. In front of a severe/extreme obesity and the failure of non-invasive treatments, bariatric surgery is proposed as a therapeutic option. The complexity of the clinical condition, which could affect the long-term effects of bariatric surgery, and the frequent association with a mild to severe intellectual disability raise some ethical (...) concerns in the treatment of obese PWS adolescents. This article analyses these issues referring to the principles of healthcare ethics: beneficence/non-maleficence (proportionality of treatments; minimisation of risks); respect of autonomy; justice. Based on these principles, three hypothetical scenarios are defined: (1) obese PWS adolescent, capable of making an autonomous decision; (2) obese PWS adolescent with a severe intellectual disability, whose parents agree with bariatric surgery; (3) obese PWS adolescent with a life-threatening condition and a severe intellectual disability, whose parents do not agree with bariatric surgery. The currently available evidence on efficacy and safety of bariatric surgery in PWS adolescents with extreme or severe obesity and the lack of adequate long-term follow-up suggests great caution even in a very life-threatening condition. Clinicians must always obtain a full IQ assessment of patients by psychologists. A multidisciplinary team is needed to analyse the clinical, psychological, social and ethical aspects and organise support for patient and parents, involving also the hospital ethical committee or, if necessary, legal authorities. (shrink)

We present a logic of evidence that reduces agents’ epistemic idealisations by combining classical propositional logic with substructural modal logic for formulas in the scope of epistemic modalities. To this aim, we provide a neighborhood semantics of evidence, which provides a modal extension of Fine’s semantics for relevant propositional logic. Possible worlds semantics for classical propositional logic is then obtained by defining the set of possible worlds as a special subset of information states in Fine’s semantics. Finally, we prove that (...) evidence is a hyperintensional and non-prime notion in our logic, and provide a sound and complete axiomatisation of our evidence logic. (shrink)

The theory stating that oxidative stress is at the root of several diseases is extremely popular. However, so far, no antioxidant is recommended or offered by healthcare systems neither approved as therapy by regulatory agencies that base their decisions on evidence-based medicine. This is simply because, so far, despite many preclinical and clinical studies indicating a beneficial effect of antioxidants in many disease conditions, randomised clinical trials have failed to provide the evidence of efficacy required for drug approval. In this (...) review, we discuss the levels of evidence required to claim causality in preclinical research on OS, the weakness of the oversimplification associated with OS theory of disease and the importance of the narrative in its popularity. Finally, from a more translational perspective, we discuss the reasons why antioxidants acting by scavenging reactive oxygen species might not only prevent their detrimental effects but also interfere with essential signalling roles. We propose that ROS have a complex metabolism and are generated by different enzymes at diverse sites and with different timing. Aggregating this plurality of systems in a single theory of disease may not be the best way to develop new drugs, and future research may need to focus on specific oxygen-toxifying pathways rather than on non-specific ROS scavengers. Finally, similarly to what is nowadays required for clinical trials, we recommend making unpublished data available in repositories, as this will allow big data approaches or meta-analyses without the blinders of the publication bias. (shrink)

The conversation between Giorgio Barberio Corsetti and Pietro Montani, led by Dario Cecchi, focuses on some of the principal aspects of the career and work of Paolo Rosa and Studio Azzurro, by making reference also to the occasion when the director and the philosopher met the artist and his team. Of such an artistic path, they have been particularly emphasized the interest for the dialogue among different artistic languages (theatre, video art); the attention to the way images are able (...) to refresh the meaning of action and word within theatre and performing arts generally speaking; the relationship between art and technics in the perspective of a “poetic” (or better “poietic”) use of technologies and media; the importance given to the public (ethical and political) dimension of images and art installations, able to working through the sense of belonging to a community. (shrink)

For several hundred thousand years, the genus homo deployed a characteristic technical creativity, communicating and transmitting its outcomes, together with its operative protocols, without the available recourse to articulated language. The thesis proposed here is that the aforementioned functions should be attributed to a complex intertwining of embodied abilities, which can in turn be ascribed to the classic philosophical concept of imagination. It is through imagination that the human becomes involved in material engagement, by virtue of which its extended mind (...) takes part in the processes of producing artifacts and is in turn shaped by them. The main issue of this article consists in investigating how this involvement occurs and the part that articulated language plays in it, following the invention of the latter. The latter’s emergence can indeed be traced back to the transformation and specialization of a recursive element, already present in the pre-linguistic work of imagination, whose ability to implement a denotative semantics is discussed in particular. (shrink)

As consumers represent a key actor for the success of businesses implementing socially responsible strategies, companies need to gain further insights on the determinants of responsible behaviors. In this study, we provide a contribution to the ongoing debate on responsible consumers by means of an integrative literature review, which analyzes a set of competing models mainly from social psychology and marketing. Stemming from this preliminary analysis of the existing evidence, we develop a new conceptual model, that is, a framework based (...) on (i) a flexible setting of the boundaries of analysis, (ii) a broader lens taking into account interrelations across behaviors, and (iii) a dynamic approach. The framework, for which an exemplary use is illustrated, represents the basis for advancing a rich agenda for future research. The latter is aimed at overcoming current criticalities in responsible consumer research, and it develops around the need for an integrative, dynamic, and cross-cultural approach on the one hand, and the elaboration of new perspectives on single antecedents, on the other. (shrink)

This chapter explores some key themes of Huw Price's global expressivist program and his appropriation of inferentialist views. Some remarks concerning certain internal tensions inside that program follow.

Should retirees be allowed to work? Should working imply forfeiting one’s retiree status? Are retirement and work incompatible? Manuel Valente has recently shown that distinguishing between leisure and free time has significant implications for thinking about retirement. Valente argues that, whilst it may be intuitive to think of retirement in terms of leisure (work-freeness), liberals would better think of retirement as free time (control over one’s time). Hence, working retirees is not an oxymoron. In this comment to Valente’s article I (...) question whether perfectionism grounds a reason to protect free time, as Valente understands the concept. I also suggest that Valente’s claim that liberals should care about free time finds further support in a hybrid view of wellbeing that appeals to endorsement. (shrink)

The paper provides a thorough account of the relationship between Ernst Mach’s thought and that of an apparently more intellectually distant near-contemporary, Friedrich Nietzsche. The consistency of their views is in fact substantial, as I try to show within the paper. Despite their interests being different, both Mach and Nietzsche were concerned with the same issues about our intellectual relationship with the external world, dealing with the same questions and pursuing a common aim of eliminating worn-out philosophical conceptions. Moreover, it (...) can be argued that both Mach and Nietzsche converged on what we now know as the problem of realism versus anti-realism in the philosophy of science, and that they both rejected ‘representational’ (realist) conceptions of science in favour of a certain sort of pragmatic anti-realism, whose focus was on the role science plays as a means of orientation. (shrink)

In the space of four years, from 1826 to 1829, the Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal published three anonymous articles seemingly advocating doctrines inspired by Jean-Baptiste Lamarck. Decades of scholarship have initially attributed the most outspoken of the three articles, the 1826 “Observations on the Nature and Importance of Geology,” to Robert Grant, and subsequently to Robert Jameson, thanks to a critical reassessment by James Secord. More recently, scholars have also ascribed to Jameson an article published in 1829, “Of the Continuity (...) of the Animal Kingdom by Means of Generation from the First Ages of the World to the Present Times.” A third short contribution, the 1827 “Of the Changes which Life has Experienced on the Globe” has been credited to the Franco-German Ami Boué. Research undertaken over several years has led to the identification of the three authors hiding behind the veil of anonymity. They were not the ones scholars have agreed upon, nor were they really “Lamarckians.” The discussion of the ways in which the three texts reached Edinburgh broadens our understanding of the daily working practices of contemporary periodicals and of the networks of circulation of texts at the Continental level. Finally, when considered within their proper conceptual and social context, the three articles throw light on the many ways in which, during the 1820s, European amateurs, naturalists, and journalists debated the succession of life forms throughout the history of the Earth. (shrink)

Andy was a Catholicthe ethic ran through his bonesHe lived alone with his mothercollecting gossip and toysEvery Sunday when he went to Churchhe’d kneel in his pew and sayIt’s workall that matters is workLou Reed, «Songs for Drella», Work In un secolo in cui la formula di “ontologia dell’arte” sarebbe stata difficilmente compresa, Schelling avanzava su questo terreno una tesi fortissima, sostenendo che nella mitologia classica, cioè per quella che è la “materia” dell’arte più alta finora prod...

Taking into consideration two famous philosophical perspectives (Danto’s and Walton’s, respectively) on artistic categories (“style”, principally), this paper focuses on a peculiarity of Paladinos works: the robust interplay between their transparency (when taken as a medium) and the opaqueness of their contents (when taken as images).

Rawls’ The Law of Peoples does not offer a clear principled account of the way in which liberal and decent peoples should deal with benevolent absolutisms. Within the Rawlsian framework, benevolent absolutisms are a type of society that respects basic human rights and is not externally aggressive. Rawls rules out the use of coercion to engage with benevolent absolutisms but does not provide an alternative strategy. The article develops one, namely, it argues that liberal and decent peoples should use positive (...) incentives to induce benevolent absolutisms to make their transition to the status of well-ordered peoples. In so doing, it offers a principled way to expand Rawls’ international nonideal theory and, in the process, provides a more nuanced approach to the promotion of political participation in international society. The article draws on the literature on economic statecraft and political theory and constructs an incentive model with seven distinct parameters attached to its definition of incentives. Finally, the article provides a real-world example, of how to concretely implement the incentive mechanism. (shrink)

The recent Italian translation of the writings on language of J.G. Fichte draws attention to a chapter in German classical philosophy which so far has not aroused great interest. The volume brings together four texts: 1) Von der Sprachfähigkeit und dem Ursprung der Sprache, 2) Über den Ursprung der Sprache, 3) Von der Sprachfähigkeit, 4) Über den Ursprung der Sprache überhaupt. The first of these four texts is the most important: it is the only work by Fichte thematically devoted to (...) the problem of language. It is a 1795 essay published in the Philosophisches Journal einer Gesellschaft Teutscher Gelehrten edited by F.I. Niethammer partly in the third and partly in the fourth fascicle of that year. The other writings are linked to Fichte’s work in that period as a lecturer at the University of Jena. They are notes by the author and transcriptions of his university courses. Fichte’s lectures were based on the Philosophische Aphorismen by Ernst Platner and it was precisely in commenting on the chapter on language in Platner’s text that Fichte worked out his own reflections on language. In Fichte’s corpus there is not much else on language: some pages in Reden an die deutsche Nation and a few other observations in the other works. (shrink)

According to the common sense view, self-consciousness is the climax of human cognition. This provides the ordinary feeling of being special thanks to the faculty of self-consciousness. But, we can doubt how much nature takes care of our satisfactory feeling of being self-conscious. What if self-consciousness has any top role in human cognition? In particular, is self-consciousness really prior to mindreading?, or the contrary? Call the first thesis “self-consciousness priority account” and the other “mindreading priority account”. While MRPA is also (...) the view that mindreading evolved prior to self-consciousness, SCPA is the claim that self-consciousness evolved prior to mindreading. (shrink)

In the 20th century the occurrence of revolutions, violent collective behaviours and dictatorships have shown the power of masses, raising many theoretical issues in sociology, philosophy and psychology. In this paper we will focus on four accounts in order to clarify the relation between a mass of human individuals and the role of a leader. These explanations are developed respectively by Weber, Le Bon, Freud and Girard. Even if our work is theoretical, we will briefly mention the French Revolution as (...) solid example for a better understanding of mass-leader relation. (shrink)

Wilfrid Sellars’ denunciation of the Myth of the Given was meant to clarify, against empiricism, that perceptual episodes alone are insufficient to ground and justify perceptual knowledge. Sellars showed that in order to accomplish such epistemic tasks, more resources and capacities, such as those involved in using concepts, are needed. Perceptual knowledge belongs to the space of reasons and not to an independent realm of experience. Dan Hutto and Eric Myin have recently presented the Hard Problem of Content as an (...) ensemble of reasons against naturalistic accounts of content. In a nutshell, it states that covariance relations—even though they are naturalistically acceptable explanatory resources—do not constitute content. The authors exploit this move in order to promote their preferred radical enactivist and anti-representationalist option, according to which, basic minds—the lower stratum of cognition—do not involve content. Although it is controversial to argue that the Hard Problem of Content effectively dismisses naturalistic theories of representation, a central aspect of it—the idea that information as covariance does not suffice to explain content—finds support among the defenders of classical cognitive representationalism, such as Marcin Miłkowski. This support—together with the acknowledgment this remark about covariance is a point already made by Sellars in his criticism of the Myth of the Given—has a number of interesting implications. Not only is it of interest for the debates about representationalism in cognitive science, where it can be understood as an anticipatory move, but it also offers some clues and insights for reconsidering some issues along Sellarsian lines—a conflation between two concepts of representation that is often assumed in cognitive science, a distinction between two types of relevant normativities, and a reconsideration of the naturalism involved in such explanations. (shrink)

Drawing from field theory, Gestalt therapy conceives psychological suffering and psychotherapy as two intentional field phenomena, where unprocessed and chaotic experiences seek the opportunity to emerge and be assimilated through the contact between the patient and the therapist (i.e., the intentionality of contacting). This therapeutic approach is based on the therapist’s aesthetic experience of his/her embodied presence in the flow of the healing process because (1) the perception of beauty can provide the therapist with feedback on the assimilation of unprocessed (...) experiences; (2) the therapist’s attentional focus on intrinsic aesthetic diagnostic criteria can facilitate the modification of rigid psychopathological fields by supporting the openness to novel experiences. The aim of the present manuscript is to review recent evidence from psychophysiology, neuroaesthetic research, and neurocomputational models of cognition, such as the free energy principle (FEP), which support the notion of the therapeutic potential of aesthetic sensibility in Gestalt psychotherapy. Drawing from neuroimaging data, psychophysiology and recent neurocognitive accounts of aesthetic perception, we propose a novel interpretation of the sense of beauty as a self-generated reward motivating us to assimilate an ever-greater spectrum of sensory and affective states in our predictive representation of ourselves and the world and supporting the intentionality of contact. Expecting beauty, in the psychotherapeutic encounter, can help therapists tolerate uncertainty avoiding impulsive behaviours and to stay tuned to the process of change. (shrink)

How should we choose on behalf of people with different attitudes to risk? Simon Blessenohl has recently argued that this question poses a dilemma: it seems that sometimes we must choose either acts that everyone disprefers or else acts that are sure to turn out worse than some other act. In this article, I offer a complaints-centered account of how to take people’s attitudes to risk into consideration in our decision-making, and then I show that it provides a way out (...) of Blessenohl’s dilemma. (shrink)

The tradition of Kant’s critical philosophy developed the concept of imagination rigorously and productively. In this article, I shall defend the suitability of placing this concept in a paleoanthropological frame and linking it to the cognitive practices – predominantly sensorimotor, interactive and those directed at the emergence of technologies – which preceded and prepared for the advent of articulated speech. Special attention will be paid to the internalization processes of these practices and their effects on human conduct. On the basis (...) of this discussion, I shall defend the theory by which the advent of denotative articulated speech entailed a profound reorganization of the technical performances attributable to the imagination and the relative internalization processes. Moreover, the origin of articulated speech inaugurated a singular story, that of the relationship between word and image. In my conclusions, I shall describe a major outcome of this within the framework of the new electronic technologies. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to show that humanlanguage is context-dependent in a veryspecific way. In order to support this thesis,a detailed comparison is made between the waysin which verbal expressions depend on thecontext of occurrence and evaluation and animalcommunication systems. The comparisonhighlights a series of analogies anddifferences between human language and thecommunication systems of other animals. Myproposal is to use the term `indexicality' toindicate the characteristic way of using thecontext in human language and to use the moregeneral phrase (...) `context-dependence' for thecorresponding phenomenon in animalcommunication systems. (shrink)