The aim of the paper is to give an account of Peter Winch's conception of persuasion. According to Winch, persuasive arguments are those carried out in order to let an interlocutor with a different world picture, and thus a different epistemology, see the point of our practices and beliefs. This involves convincing him of the fact that his way of thinking is neither unique nor better than other ones. Furthermore, given that there is no guarantee that one can arrive at (...) a complete understanding of alien practices, persuasion may, in some cases, aim at the impossible. (shrink)

Plato -- Aristotle and Greek science -- Francis Bacon -- Spinoza -- Voltaire and the French Enlightenment -- Immanuel Kant and German idealism -- Schopenhauer -- Herbert Spencer -- Friedrich Nietzsche -- Contemporary European philosophers : Henri Bergson ; Bennedetto Croce ; Bertrand Russell -- Contemporary American philosophers : George Santayana ; William James ; John Dewey.

Forums, I extensively analysed Tartaglia’s corpus: science of weights, geometry, arithmetic, mathematics and physics–trajectories of the projectiles, fortifications, included its intelligibility science in the military architecture. The latter is exposed in Book VI of the Quesiti et invention diverse. In Quesiti there is La Gionta del sesto libro—a kind of appendix to the Book VI containing drawings of the geometric shape of the Italian fortifications. It is based on Euclidean geometry and other figures where a scale is displayed. The interest—included (...) intellectual history and cultural foundations of science—is: what is the role–played by La Gionta del sesto libro in the Quesiti? Is it independent booklet/speeches? If yes, when Tartaglia did write it? In this paper, I present an historical–philological–foundational hypothesis on the Tartaglia’s fortifications corpus, as exposed in the Book VI and La Gionta del sesto libro; with respect to dates of editions of Quesiti. This goal is important to make historically clear both the editorial role–played by Curzio Troiano Navò in the Tartaglia’s corpus before—after Tartaglia’s death and the particular interest and development of subject of fortifications by Tartaglia between 1537–1546 and 1554. (shrink)

The well-replicated observation that many people maintain mental health despite exposure to severe psychological or physical adversity has ignited interest in the mechanisms that protect against stress-related mental illness. Focusing on resilience rather than pathophysiology in many ways represents a paradigm shift in clinical-psychological and psychiatric research that has great potential for the development of new prevention and treatment strategies. More recently, research into resilience also arrived in the neurobiological community, posing nontrivial questions about ecological validity and translatability. Drawing on (...) concepts and findings from transdiagnostic psychiatry, emotion research, and behavioral and cognitive neuroscience, we propose a unified theoretical framework for the neuroscientific study of general resilience mechanisms. The framework is applicable to both animal and human research and supports the design and interpretation of translational studies. The theory emphasizes the causal role of stimulus appraisal (evaluation) processes in the generation of emotional responses, including responses to potential stressors. On this basis, it posits that a positive (non-negative) appraisal style is the key mechanism that protects against the detrimental effects of stress and mediates the effects of other known resilience factors. Appraisal style is shaped by three classes of cognitive processes – positive situation classification, reappraisal, and interference inhibition – that can be investigated at the neural level. Prospects for the future development of resilience research are discussed. (shrink)

The emotions of shame and guilt have recently appeared in debates concerning legal punishment, in particular in the context of so called shaming and guilting penalties. The bulk of the discussion, however, has focussed on the justification of such penalties. The focus of this article is broader than that. My aim is to offer an analysis of the concept of legal punishment that sheds light on the possible connections between punishing practices such as shaming and guilting penalties, on the one (...) hand, and emotions such as guilt, shame, and perhaps humiliation, on the other. I␣contend that this analysis enhances our understanding of the various theories of punishment that populate this part of criminal law theory and thereby sharpens the critical tools needed to assess them. My general conclusion is that, in different ways, all of the theories we encounter in this area can benefit from paying renewed attention to the nature of the connection between the state’s act of punishing and its expected or perceived emotional effect on the individual. (shrink)

Medical, psychological, educational and social interventions to modify the behaviour of autistic people are only justified if they confer benefit on those people. However, it is not clear how ‘benefit’ should be understood. Most such interventions are justified by referring to the prospect that they will effect lasting improvements in the well-being and happiness of autistic people, so they can lead good lives. What does a good life for an autistic person consist in? Can we assume that his or her (...) well-being is substantively the same as the well-being of non-autistic individuals? In this paper, we argue that, as it stands, the current approach to the study of well-being is for the most part unable to answer these questions. In particular, much effort is needed in order to improve the epistemology of well-being, especially so if we wish this epistemology to be ‘autism-sensitive’. Towards the end of the paper, we sketch a new, autism-sensitive approach and apply it in order to begin answering our initial questions. (shrink)

We are delighted by the broad, intense, and fruitful discussion in reaction to our target article. A major point we take from the many comments is a prevailing feeling in the research community that we need significantly and urgently to advance resilience research, both by sharpening concepts and theories and by conducting empirical studies at a much larger scale and with a much more extended and sophisticated methodological arsenal than is the case currently. This advancement can be achieved only in (...) a concerted international collaborative effort. In our response, we try to argue that an explicitly atheoretical, purely observational definition of resilience and a transdiagnostic, quantitative study framework can provide a suitable basis for empirically testing different competing resilience theories (sects. R1, R2, R6, R7). We are confident that it should be possible to unite resilience researchers from different schools, including from sociology and social psychology, behind such a pragmatic and theoretically neutral research strategy. In sections R3 to R5, we further specify and explain the positive appraisal style theory of resilience (PASTOR). We defend PASTOR as a comparatively parsimonious and translational theory that makes sufficiently concrete predictions to be evaluated empirically. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is twofold: (1) to show the principal aspects of the way in which Newton conceived his mathematical concepts and methods and applied them to rational mechanics in his Principia; (2) to explain how the editors of the Geneva Edition interpreted, clarified, and made accessible to a broader public Newton’s perfect but often elliptic proofs. Following this line of inquiry, we will explain the successes of Newton’s mechanics, but also the problematic aspects of his perfect geometrical (...) methods, more elegant, but less malleable than analytical procedures, of which Newton himself was one of the inventors. Furthermore, we will also consider the way in which Newtonianism was spread before in England and afterwards on continental Europe. In this respect the Geneva Edition plays a fundamental role because of its complete apparatus of notes, and because it appeared only thirteen years after the publication of the third edition of the Principia (1726). Finally, we will also confront some problems connected to the metaphysics of calculus. Therefore, the case of Newton is one of those in which, starting from mathematics applied to physics, it is possible to connect an impressive series of fundamental arguments such as the role of mathematics in science; the comparison between Newton’s geometrical methods and analytical methods; the way in which Newtonianism was spread as well as the philosophical implications of Newton’s mathematical concepts. (shrink)

I examine the nature of human-robot pet relations that appear to involve genuine affective responses on behalf of humans towards entities, such as robot pets, that, on the face of it, do not seem to be deserving of these responses. Such relations have often been thought to involve a certain degree of sentimentality, the morality of which has in turn been the object of critical attention. In this paper, I dispel the claim that sentimentality is involved in this type of (...) relations. My challenge draws on literature in the philosophy of art and in cognitive science that attempts to solve the so called paradox of fictional emotions, i.e., the seemingly paradoxical way in which we respond emotionally to fictional or imaginary characters and events. If sentimentality were not at issue, neither would its immorality. For the sake of argument, however, I assume in the remaining part of the paper that sentimentality is indeed at play and bring to the fore aspects of its badness or viciousness that have not yet been discussed in connection with robot pets. I conclude that not even these aspects of sentimentality are at issue here. Yet, I argue that there are other reasons to be worried about the wide-spread use of ersatz companionship technology that have to do with the potential loss of valuable, self-defining forms of life. (shrink)

In this article, I wish to explore a plausible alternative to both sentientist ethics and holistic environmental ethics. In particular, I put forward the claim that creatures other than sentient ones have interests and, in virtue of that, moral standing. This thesis is in disagreement with sentientism insofar as it claims that sentience is not a prerequisite for moral consideration. Radical as it may sound, this view does not take us as far as the holism favoured by some environmentalists. In (...) particular, on this view, the interests of collectives such as ecosystems and species are a positive function of the interests of the entities that make them up rather than something of an entirely different kind. Collectives are not the direct object of moral consideration. (shrink)

This book presents a historical and scientific analysis as historical epistemology of the science of weights and mechanics in the sixteenth century, particularly as developed by Tartaglia in his Quesiti et inventioni diverse, Book VII and Book VIII (1546; 1554). In the early 16th century mechanics was concerned mainly with what is now called statics and was referred to as the Scientia de ponderibus, generally pursued by two very different approaches. The first was usually referred to as Aristotelian, where the (...) equilibrium of bodies was set as a balance of opposite tendencies to motion. The second, usually referred to as Archimedean, identified statics with centrobarica, the theory of centres of gravity based on symmetry considerations. In between the two traditions the Italian scholar Niccolò Fontana, better known as Tartaglia (1500?-1557), wrote the treatise Quesiti et inventioni diverse (1546). This volume consists of three main parts. In the first, a historical excursus regarding Tartaglia's lifetime, his scientific production and the Scientia de ponderibus in the Arabic-Islamic culture, and from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance, is presented. Secondly, all the propositions of Books VII and VIII, by relating them with the Problemata mechanica by the Aristotelian school and Iordani opvsculvm de ponderositate by Jordanus de Nemore are examined within the history and historical epistemology of science. The last part is relative to the original texts and critical transcriptions into Italian and Latin and an English translation. This work gathers and re-evaluates the current thinking on this subject. It brings together contributions from two distinguished experts in the history and historical epistemology of science, within the fields of physics, mathematics and engineering. It also gives much-needed insight into the subject from historical and scientific points of view. The volume composition makes for absorbing reading for historians, epistemologists, philosophers and scientists. (shrink)

In The Aesthetics of Grace: Philosophy, Art, and Nature, Raffaele Milani traces the fascinating history of the idea of 'grace' from ancient times to the 1700s. Although this term has been displaced by other concepts with the advent of modernism and postmodernism, the complex ideas related to the notion of 'grace' remain an important aesthetic category, and Milani presents an impressive panorama of reflections on and interpretations of the subject. The subtitle of the work indicates the broad scope of (...) a study that recounts the origins of the term in Latin gratias (favor, regard, or gift), corresponding to the Greek Kharites (givers of beauty and charm). The volume then goes on to examine the Middle Ages, when the concept acquires a more specifically religious meaning (divine mercy, thanks), the Renaissance, when the terms 'gracefulness' and 'elegance' come to dominate in the treatises of the time, and the Ages of Romanticism and Neoclassicism, with their particular treatment of the topic. In the process, Milani meditates on the visual representations of these multiple meanings in the form of second-century frescoes, fifteenth-century paintings by Botticelli, Raphael, Titian, Da Vinci, Mantegna, Correggio, and Carracci, seventeenth-century canvases by Poussin and sculptures by Bernini, and eighteenth-century sculptures by Antonio Canova and paintings by Fragonard. This engaging work weaves with skill and subtlety philosophical, theological, and artistic ideas into a stimulating tapestry. (shrink)

The global age is distinguished by disobedience, from the protests in Tiananmen Square to the fall of the Berlin Wall, to the anti-G8 and anti-WTO demonstrations. In this book, Raffaele Laudani offers a systematic review of how disobedience has been conceptualized, supported, and criticized throughout history. Laudani documents the appearance of "disobedience" in the political lexicon from ancient times to the present, and explains the word's manifestations, showing how its semantic wealth transcended its liberal interpretations in the 1960s and (...) 1970s. Disobedience, Laudani finds, is not merely an alternative to revolution and rebellion, but a different way of conceiving radical politics, one based on withdrawal of consent and defection in relation to the established order. (shrink)

This paper is divided into two parts, this being the first one. The second is entitled ‘Historical and Epistemological Reflections on the Culture of Machines around Renaissance: Machines, Machineries and Perpetual Motion’ and will be published in Acta Baltica Historiae et Philosophiae Scientiarum in 2015. Based on our recent studies, we provide here a historical and epistemological feature on the role played by machines and machineries. Ours is an epistemological thesis based on a series of historical examples to show that (...) the relations between theoretical science and the construction of machines cannot be taken for granted, a priori. Our analysis is mainly based on the culture of machines around 15th and 17th centuries, namely the epoch of Late Renaissance and Early Modern Age. For this is the period of scientific revolution and this age offers abundant interesting material for researches into the relations of theoretical science/construction of machines as well. However, to prove our epistemological thesis, we will also exploit examples of machines built in other historical periods. Particularly, a discussion concerning the relationship between science theory and the development of science art crafts produced by non-recognized scientists in a certain historical time is presented. The main questions are: when and why did the tension between science give rise to a new scientific approach to applied discipline such as studies on machines and machineries? What kind of science was used for projecting machines and machineries? Was science at the time a necessary precondition to build a machine? In the first part we will focus on the difference between Aristotelian-Euclidean and Archimedean approaches and we will outline the heritage of these two different approaches in late medieval and Renaissance science. In the second part, we will apply our reconstructions to some historical and epistemological problems concerning the relations of science/technology/constructions of machines. The problem of perpetual motion will play an important role in this context. (shrink)

In recent decades, the development of sciences and technologies had a significant impact in society. This impact has been object of analysis from several standpoints, i.e., scientific, communication, historical and anthropological. Consequently, serious changes were required by the society. One of these has been the emerging relationship science in society and its foundations of applied sciences. A related foundational challenging is the educational process, which was and still is an unlimited challenge for teachers and professors: i.e., levels of understanding, curricula, (...) activing critical engagement, transfer knowledge—and—skills, management, classroom and subsequently pre-service teachers need special teacher education. Taking into account Joule’s bicentenary commemoration in physics and Nature of Science teaching this paper introduces to a level of inquiring within historical and NoS approaches in the pre-service teachers, typically science, technology, engineering and mathematics. In particular, history and historiography of Joule’s physics are dealt with. (shrink)

In this research, we present the most important characteristics of the so called and so much explored Jesuit Edition of Newton’s Philosophi? Naturalis Principia Mathematica edited by Thomas Le Seur and Fran?ois Jacquier in the 1739-1742. The edition, densely annotated by the commentators (the notes and the comments are longer than Newton’s text itself) is a very treasure concerning Newton’s ideas and his heritage, e.g., Newton’s geometry and mathematical physics. Conspicuous pieces of information as to history of physics, history of (...) mathematics and epistemology can be drawn from it. This paper opens a series of study concerning Jesuit Edition, whose final scope is to put in evidence all the conceptual aspects of such edition and its role inside the spread of scientific ideas and inside the complex relation science, popularization & society. (shrink)

Based on our research regarding the relationship between physics and mathematics in HPS, and recently on Geneva Edition of Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1739–42) by Thomas Le Seur (1703–70) and François Jacquier (1711–88), in this paper we present some aspects of such Edition: a combination of editorial features and scientific aims. The proof of Proposition XLIII is presented and commented as a case study.

Projects concerning the participation of citizens to the scientific research have become very popular in recent years. However, the literature seems not offer much foundational investigations into the epistemological conditions that make citizens’ contribution to science a fruitful and rigorous activity. Research institutions and citizens, understood as entities bearing generally distinct requests, practices and goals, knowledge and skills, are totally misaligned. In order to participate to collaborative research, citizens need an epistemic and methodological literacy to overcome common sense ideas, towards (...) an ever adequate vision of phenomena under investigation. Besides understanding the social advantages introduced by the participatory dimension, it is therefore necessary to analyze the related epistemological problems, to understand to what extent and in what respect to the participation of citizens to research processes might be regarded as truly advantageous from an epistemological perspective. (shrink)

In 1824 Sadi Carnot published Réflexions sur la Puissance Motrice du Feu in which he founded almost the entire thermodynamics theory. Two years after his death, his friend Clapeyron introduced the famous diagram PV for analytically representing the famous Carnot’s cycle: one of the main and crucial ideas presented by Carnot in his booklet. Twenty-five years later, in order to achieve the modern version of the theory, Kelvin and Clausius had to reject the caloric hypothesis, which had influenced a few (...) of Carnot’s arguments. Relying on the possibility of studying the history of science by means of logical investigation, in this paper I shall propose an historical/epistemological research on Sadi Carnot’s original thermodynamics theory in which the French scientist presents more than two principles, all of which are expressed by double negated sentences (generally speaking) within non-classical logic. (shrink)

To commemorate the 50th anniversary of his passing, this special book features studies on Alexandre Koyré, one of the most influential historians of science of the 20th century, who re-evaluated prevalent thinking on the history and philosophy of science. In particular, it explores Koyré’s intellectual matrix and heritage within interdisciplinary fields of historical, epistemological and philosophical scientific thought. Koyré is rightly noted as both a versatile historian on the birth and development of modern science and for his interest in philosophical (...) questions on the nature of scientific knowledge. In the 1940s and 1950s his activities in the United States established a crucial bridge between the European historical tradition of science studies and the American academic environments, and an entire generation of historians of science grew up under his direct influence. The book brings together contributions from leading experts in the field, and offers much-needed insights into the subject from historical, nature of science, and philosophical perspectives. It provides an absorbing and revealing read for historians, philosophers and scientists alike. (shrink)

This paper is the second part of our recent paper ‘Historical and Epistemological Reflections on the Culture of Machines around the Renaissance: How Science and Technique Work’. In the first paper—which discussed some aspects of the relations between science and technology from Antiquity to the Renaissance—we highlighted the differences between the Aristotelian/Euclidean tradition and the Archimedean tradition. We also pointed out the way in which the two traditions were perceived around the Renaissance. The Archimedean tradition is connected with machines: its (...) relationship with science and construction of machines should be made clear. It is enough to think that Archimedes mainly dealt with three machines: lever, pulley and screw. As underlined in the first part, our thesis is that many machines were constructed by people who ignored theory, even though, in other cases, the knowledge of the Archimedean tradition was a precious help in order to build machines. Hence, an a priori idea as to the relations between the Archimedean tradition and construction of machines cannot exist. In this second part we offer some examples of functioning machines constructed by people who ignored any physical theory, whereas, in other cases, the ignorance of some principles—such as the impossibility of a perpetuum mobile—induced the attempt to construct impossible machines. What is very interesting is that these machines did not function, of course, as a perpetuum mobile, but anyway had their functioning and were useful for certain aims, although they were constructed on an idea which is completely wrong from a theoretical point of view. We mainly focus on the Renaissance and early modern period, but we also provide examples of machines built before and after this period. We have followed a chronological order in both parts, starting from the analysis of the situation in ancient Greece. Therefore, in the first part, we have examined the relations between the Aristotelian/Euclidean and Archimedean traditions from ancient Greece to the early modern age. In this second part, we analyse the relations of Archimedean tradition/ construction of machines from ancient Greece to the 19th century, focusing on the mentioned period. We remind the reader that our aim is to prove an epistemological thesis, not to provide a complete historical endeavour. As a correlated article, the reader will find three previous paragraphs in the first above-mentioned article. (shrink)

During his stay in Padua ca. 1592–1610, Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) was a lecturer of mathematics at the University of Padua and a tutor to private students of military architecture and fortifications. He carried out these activities at the Academia degli Artisti. At the same time, and in relation to his teaching activities, he began to study the equilibrium of bodies and strength of materials, later better structured and completed in his Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences of 1638. This paper examines (...) important details of four works dating to the Paduan period: Breve instruzione dell’architettura militare; Trattato di Fortificazione; Le Mecaniche; Le operazioni del compasso geometrico et militare. The two works on military architecture and fortifications were compiled from notes taken by students, and are not by Galileo’s hand, but are still illustrative of his work and thinking at the time. (shrink)

The recent discovery of a fragmentary manuscript of Utpaladeva’s long commentary (Vivṛti or Ṭīkā) on his own Īśvarapratyabhijñā-kārikā (ĪPK) and Vṛtti enables us to assess the role of this work as the real centre of gravity of the Pratyabhijñā philosophy as a whole, though the later Śaiva tradition chose instead Abhinavagupta’s Vimarśinī as the standard text. This brilliant, and more compact and accessible, text was copied and copied again during the centuries and became popular in south India too, where a (...) number of manuscripts in the principal southern scripts are still available. The success of a particular commentary is very often the indirect cause of the decline of the others, which are less and less read and, consequently, copied, until their complete or almost complete loss. Of the lengthy and difficult Vivṛti by Utpaladeva—corresponding to the extent of 8,000 ślokas (hence the traditional denomination of Aṣṭasāhasrī)—the fragmentary śāradā manuscript that has come to light covers only the section ĪPK I.3.6 through I.5.3. Although the portion of the recovered text is comparatively short (33 folios), it proves to be particularly important in the economy of Pratyabhijñā philosophy due to the crucial points being dealt with there at great length, always in a hard-fought debate with the logical-epistemological school of Buddhism. (shrink)

Market inefficiency is a latent concept, and it is difficult to be measured by means of a single indicator. In this paper, following both the adaptive market hypothesis and the fractal market hypothesis, we develop a new time-varying measure of stock market inefficiency. The proposed measure, called composite efficiency index, is estimated as the synthesis of the most common efficiency measures such as the returns’ autocorrelation, liquidity, volatility, and a new measure based on the Hurst exponent, called the Hurst efficiency (...) index. To empirically validate the indicator, we compare different European stock markets in terms of efficiency over time. (shrink)

The article begins with an analysis of the learning process, described as a transition from a condition of “not knowing ” to a condition of “knowing something more”. Referring to John Dewey’s theory, it underlines the need, on the part of the teacher, to understand the specific condition of the learner, which is closely related to the uncomfortable posture of learning, in order to make possible a truly meaningful pathway. To foster this experience, the author proposes, in conclusion, two thoughts: (...) the first is focused on the competence to proactively and interactively regulate the lessons, the second on a “principle of excess” which constantly places the teacher in the position of “giving”. (shrink)

The antithesis between paganism and Christianity is usually resolved, in current opinion, into the theological antithesis between polytheism and monotheism. But a religious life means more than mere theology, and one has the right to ask oneself what is, in reality, the religious character of paganism.Between polytheism and monotheism, the enotheism of Max Muller (and of F. W. J. Schelling) is not a mean term, and still less a moment of transition from one to the other, for the simple reason (...) that it is situated on a different plane. In the fervour of prayer, under the impulse of devotion, the believer is so absorbed in the thought of the God he is adoring at that very moment-this is described as enotheism-that for him, at that moment, it is as if no other god existed. This will not prevent him, at another moment, from consecrating himself with equal fervour to the adoration of another god. The famous Egyptian hymn inspired by the religious ideas of Amenophis IV, and which invokes Aten, the Sun, as “sole God,” is just as far from true monotheism with its absolute negation of every divine being except the One, as are the Vedic hymns in which Indra is celebrated as the god “besides whom there are no others” (Rig-Veda, VI 21.10; cfr. I 81.5; 165.9; IV 30.1; VII 32.23). (shrink)