The paper studies the containment companion of a logic \. This consists of the consequence relation \ which satisfies all the inferences of \, where the variables of the conclusion are contained into those of the set of premises, in case this is not inconsistent. In accordance with the work started in [10], we show that a different generalization of the Płonka sum construction, adapted from algebras to logical matrices, allows to provide a matrix-based semantics for containment logics. In particular, (...) we provide an appropriate completeness theorem for a wide family of containment logics, and we show how to produce a complete Hilbert style axiomatization. (shrink)

We establish a duality between the category of involutive bisemilattices and the category of semilattice inverse systems of Stone spaces, using Stone duality from one side and the representation of involutive bisemilattices as Płonka sum of Boolean algebras, from the other. Furthermore, we show that the dual space of an involutive bisemilattice can be viewed as a GR space with involution, a generalization of the spaces introduced by Gierz and Romanowska equipped with an involution as additional operation.

In this work, Fichte's high school years in Schulpforta are reconstructed for the first time, building on sources never considered before and throwing new light on this first phase of his intellectual biography and on his reception of the work of important figures of the Enlightenment such as Lessing, Herder, Gottsched, Gellert, and Rosseau. – The volume also includes the most important contemporary documents on Schulpforta and Fichte's texts from those years. Among these, the most relevant is his Latin speech (...) concerning the use of rules in poetry and rhetoric. In this volume, Fichte's speech is newly translated and annotated for the first time, to provide the rich historical background. (shrink)

In this paper, I address the question of how emotional qualities can be attributed to musical timbre, an acoustic feature that has proven challenging to explain using traditional accounts of musical emotions. I begin presenting the notion of musical expressiveness, as it has been conceived by cognitivists to account for the emotional quality of various musical elements like melody and rhythm. However, I also point out some limitations in these accounts, which hinder their ability to fully elucidate the emotional expressiveness (...) of timbre, especially when considering it as a result of non-cognitively mediated processes. Consequently, I explore the link between timbre and atmosphere by reviewing anecdotal sources that have characterized timbre in terms of atmosphere. The goal here is to determine if these characterizations should be seen as merely allusive and metaphoric expressions or if they genuinely reveal essential properties of timbre. To achieve this goal, I delve deeper into the notion of atmosphere, and I show that it shares several key traits with the notion of musical emotions as conceived in the cognitivist’s account. Both musical emotions and atmospheres are affectively charged externalities that are apprehended by the subject without cognitive mediation. Drawing from this insight, I conclude that the notion of atmosphere can serve as a valuable tool in explaining the emotional expressivity of timbre without invoking the resemblance-based mechanisms often found in cognitive accounts of expressiveness. (shrink)

In this commentary, I discuss the scientific changes brought by the exposome, asking what is new about this approach and line of research. I place the exposome in a historical perspective, by analyzing the conditions under which the exposome has been conceived, developed and established in the context of contemporary epidemiological research. I argue that the exposome has been developed by transferring approaches, methods and conceptualizations from other lines of research in the life and health sciences. I thus discuss the (...) conceptual and methodological innovations of the exposome as a result of the merging and adaptation of these elements for new uses and purposes. On this basis, I argue that the novelty of the exposome should be seen in incremental rather than revolutionary terms and, in this sense, the exposome shares significant elements with other projects and repertoires in postgenomics. I conclude by discussing the consequences of this analysis for the potential limitations and future development of exposome research. (shrink)

The contrast between Kant’s moral philosophy and Feder’s is not less crucial than the controversy caused by the Göttingen review of the first Critique. One of main targets of Kant’s moral philosophy was Feder’s view, which can be regarded as Kant's main competitor in the contemporary debate. I thus argue that the background provided by the conflict with Feder shows significant distinctive traits of Kant's view, with regard to three fundamental issues. First, I examine how the project of a pure (...) moral philosophy opposes Feder’s empirical investigation into the will, which is in fact one of the targets of Kant's criticism against universal practical philosophy. Second, a central element of Kant’s anti-eudaemonism, the contrast between happiness and self-contentment, is a rejection of the strongly moralized view of happiness that underlies Feder’s eudaemonism. Finally, I examine Tittel's objection that Kant had provided "only a new formula" of morality and Kant's response, which display a fundamental contrast between Kant’s understanding of the aims of moral theory with Feder’s common-sense conception. (shrink)

Aim of the paper is contributing to a context-informed understanding of Fichte’s theory of conscience. This crucial element in his moral philosophy (and, in fact, in his whole philosophy) represents the last of the many significant accounts of conscience in the 18th century, before in the following century the role of conscience in moral life was repeatedly put into question. Accordingly, in my paper I argue that: (1) Fichte puts forward an un-Kantian account of conscience, following, instead, a quite different (...) model; (2) Fichte’s views on conscience grew out of a complex conceptual milieu, from which Fichte borrows important (quasi-)sentimentalist elements; (3) Fichte’s idea of the infallibility of conscience must be distinguished from other similar views put forward in the same years. (shrink)

In Fictional Discourse, I proposed an analysis of what I call ‘fictional discourse’, first and foremost as it appears in an author’s fictional creation (what Ta.

Taking inspiration from Searle’s ‘The Logic of Fictional Discourse’, this essay presents an argument against different versions of the so-called ‘speech act theory of fiction’. In particular, it argues that a Uniformity Argument may be constructed, which is additional to the Determination Argument commonly attributed to Searle, and which does not rely on his presumably controversial Determination Principle. This Uniformity Argument is equally powerful against the ‘Dedicated Speech Act’ theories that Searle originally targeted, and the more recent, Grice-inspired versions of (...) speech-act approaches to fictional discourse. (shrink)

Social Epistemology, Volume 0, Issue 0, Page 1-20, Ahead of Print.

In this paper I take my cue from what I suggest calling “the Adamitic modernity.” By this phrase I endeavor to capture a specific ‘removal’ of childhood that occurs in the Cartesian gesture of the enthroning of Reason. By drawing upon a reading of the major philosophical works of Descartes, I will argue that one of the main thrusts of his conceptual device is a deep-seated, and even anguished, mistrust of childhood and its errors. To put it in a nutshell: (...) in the Cartesian modernity philosophy/science and childhood are at odds with each other. In the second step of my argumentation, I will show in what sense Dewey rehabilitates childhood and its form of experience by, thus, healing the rift between childhood and science. This notwithstanding, Dewey was not ready to take the decisive step of thinking of a philosophy for children. Precisely by activating and developing the significance of qualitative thought, Matthew Lipman was able, instead, to progress beyond Dewey. In this perspective, I will show how Lipman and Ann Sharp, while walking in Dewey’s footsteps as far as their non-Cartesian interpretation of childhood is concerned, part company with him in their educational take on philosophy and on how this results in a revamping of the way of construing the Deweyan relationship between the child and the curriculum. (shrink)

This essay presents an argument against the token-reflexive approach to the semantics for indexical languages. After some preliminary remarks in section one, sections two and three explain why some traditional arguments against token-reflexivity are ultimately ineffective. Section four puts forth a more persuasive argument, to the effect that token-reflexive views overgenerate with respect to results of analyticity. However, as section five explains, defenders of the alternative, type-oriented view have all too often wasted the advantage offered by their approach: the unmotivated, (...) independent restriction of semantic evaluation to so-called ‘proper’ indexes is responsible for undesirable conclusions, similar to those to which token- reflexive theorists are committed. (shrink)

In this essay, I will engage with the controversy that has sprung up between the proponents of the sharp separation thesis and those of the entanglement thesis. What I will be defending is a variant of the entanglement thesis. By drawing on contemporary action theory and on epistemic conceptualism, I will argue that, while objective facts and practical norms are indeed distinct categories of thought, that distinction does not amount to a conceptual gap—a dichotomy or unbridgeable divide. Their relation, in (...) other words, is not one of logical dualism but one of mere (analytical) distinction between interdependent categories of thinking. Hence the entanglement view on which distinction does not entail dichotomy. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis introduction outlines the rationale of the symposium 'Vocabularies of Hope in Place of Vocabularies of Critique: Can Rorty Help Us to Redescribe Education?'. In particular, it argues that, despite some early statements of Richard Rorty, he may turn out to be a particularly timely thinker in reference to debates occurring in the field of educational theory and philosophy, especially by suggesting an engagement with the latter through vocabularies of hope. Moreover, after highlighting that a valuable dialogue may be established (...) between Rorty's stance and post-critical pedagogy, the introduction describes in broad strokes along which lines this conversation will unfold in the three papers and one response composing the symposium. (shrink)

Abstract Despite various criticisms, Ian Barbour's fourfold classification of the possible relationships between religion and science remains influential. I compare Barbour's taxonomy with the theories of four authors who, in the last four decades, have addressed the relationship between science and religion from a Muslim perspective. The aim of my analysis is twofold. First, I offer a comparative perspective to the debate on science and Islam. Second, following Barbour's suggestion, I test the general applicability of his categories by comparing them (...) with a discourse on science and religion that is not focused on Christianity. In the first section, I reconstruct Barbour's typologies, recalling some major objections to them, and arguing why despite the latter, Barbour's model is employed for the present analysis. I also reconstruct Barbour's parallel model for the relationships between different religions. In the second section, I reconstruct the discourse on science and religion developed by the Palestinian-American scholar Ismail Raji al-Faruqi. The third section is devoted to the ideas of the Persian-American scholar Seyyed Hossein Nasr. In the fourth section, I examine the views of the Iranian author Mehdi Golshani. The fifth section reconstructs the theories of the Algerian author Nidhal Guessoum. In the final section, I argue that a generalized use of the “integration” concept to refer to the entire debate on Islam and science is unhelpful. While these positions do not appear to instantiate Barbourian integration of science and religion, they do move toward what Barbour (skeptically) describes as integration between religions. (shrink)

In this article, the theory of argumentation set out by the Dutch scholars Frans van Eemeren and Rob Grootendorst is brought to bear in subjecting the general form of the argument from coherence to a critical analysis. First, a distinction is brought out between two basic kinds of argument from coherence: in one use this argumentative structure occurs as a sequence of two arguments establishing that a standpoint constitutes a particular instantiation or a inherent quality of the system it will (...) become part of (symptomatic argument); in the other use we have a main symptomatic argument supported by a subordinate argument appealing to instrumental considerations (pragmatic argument). It is then claimed that arguments from coherence are complex types of argumentation, structured at various argumentative levels, where the premises must be taken together to yield an adequate defence of the conclusion (coordinative argumentation). Finally, an evaluative assessment is made as to whether arguments from coherence can serve acceptably as tools for settling disputes: it will be maintained that we can generally welcome these argumentative structures as sound and fully acceptable provided we are aware of the interpretive discretion their use entails. (shrink)

Typically, in cases where an agent's actions produce foreseen harmful consequences, we morally discriminate in favor of scenarios in which those consequences are unintended. This intuitive distinction plays a particularly important role in our moral assessment of military strategies, especially when innocent bystanders may be involved. However, the analysis of the general principles governing such pre-theoretical inclinations must inevitably confront difficult and obstinate philosophical problems. As has often been pointed out, the criteria proposed by the traditional view on this issue, (...) the so-called Doctrine of Double Effect, are dependent upon the description of the agent's intentional profile in an intuitively inadmissible way. As a solution to the Doctrine's shortcomings, contemporary philosophers have proposed analyses in which the notion of harmful involvement plays a central role. The main thesis of this paper is that appeals to harmful involvement do not provide the desired solution. Given the pervasive role played by the assessment of an agent's intentions in our moral evaluation of the use of military force in particular situations, the philosophical puzzles raised in this paper bring to the foreground a set of correlated problems of unequivocal relevance for the discipline of military ethics. (shrink)

We extend de Finetti's No-Dutch-Book Criterion to Gödel infinite-valued propositional logic.

The Question of Truth in Kant’s Transcendental Logic [English] In the third section of the “Introduction” to transcendental logic, Kant dedicates a couple of paragraphs to the subject of truth (KrV B82-83). Based on this passage, Kant’s com¬mentators have justified various and sometimes contradictory interpretations of the Kantian notion of truth. However, few have analyzed the passage in its own context, that is, as part of the strategy to introduce the idea of transcendental logic. In this work, I intend to (...) take a position in this regard. I will try to show that this passage does not subscribe to the distinction between general and transcendental logic, but between analytic and dialectic logic. [Español] En la tercera sección de la “Introducción” a la lógica trascendental, Kant dedica un par de párrafos al tema de la verdad (KrV B82-83). Basándose en este pasaje, los comentaristas de Kant han justificado diversas y a veces contradictorias interpretaciones de la noción kantiana de verdad. Sin embargo, pocos han analizado el pasaje en su propio contexto, es decir, como parte de la estrategia para introducir la idea de una lógica trascendental. En este trabajo se pretende tomar postura a este respecto. Se intentará mostrar que este pasaje no abona a la distinción entre lógica general y lógica trascendental, sino entre analítica y dialéctica. (shrink)

This paper analyses the déjà-vu experience in order to deepen the understanding of the complex nature of time-consciousness from a phenomenological point of view. The paper is divided into two sections: the first section focuses on Bergson’s research on déjà vu in order to assess the validity of his position; the second section describes a specific form of déjà-vu experience from a phenomenological perspective. This investigation will question the widespread assumption according to which déjà vu should be conceived as a (...) disturbance of the memory of the past. On the contrary, the author shows that the disturbance primarily pertains to the dimension of the future. In order to understand this phenomenon, it is necessary to focus on the coherent deformation of the immediate expectation of the imminent future. (shrink)

Can everyone be wise? Is wisdom open to all or an exception reserved for a few, or perhaps for none? In this context, what is the role of the ‘example’ and the ‘imitation’? Aim of my paper is to reflect on these questions in reference to Ancient Cynicism. Specifically, my goal is to analyze whether the Cynic wisdom and, consequently, life (bios) – characterized by a complete opposition to that of the common man – was intended for everyone or only (...) for exceptional individuals, for specific types of people. In examining this aspect, I will focus particularly on the example represented by the life of the first Cynic, Diogenes of Sinope. I will show how it has been differently interpreted and understood throughout the long history of Cynicism. My attention will be primarily on Onesicritus of Astypalaea, who, contrary to certain modern simplifications and negations, represents a very interesting case in the history of Cynicism. He was a Cynic who did not live cynically. Therefore, more generally, I will demonstrate how differently Cynic philosophy could not only be followed but also reinterpreted: another sign of the theoretical fertility of this philosophical movement. (shrink)

In this essay, I propose an analysis of Quine’s example ’Giorgione was so-called because of his size’, grounded on the idea of an obstinate demonstrative. In the first sections, I discuss the advantages and drawbacks of the demonstrative and logophoric treatments of ‘so called’, I highlight certain parallelisms with Davidson’s paratactic view of quotation, and I introduce independent considerations in favor of the idea of an obstinate demonstrative. In the second half of my essay, I apply this notion to Quine’s (...) example, and I discuss its consequences with respect to the principle of substitutivity of coreferential singular terms. (shrink)

We introduce a propositional many-valued modal logic which is an extension of the Continuous Propositional Logic to a modal system. Otherwise said, we extend the minimal modal logic to a Continuous Logic system. After introducing semantics, axioms and deduction rules, we establish some preliminary results. Then we prove the equivalence between consistency and satisfiability. As straightforward consequences, we get compactness, an approximated completeness theorem, in the vein of Continuous Logic, and a Pavelka-style completeness theorem.

Abstract. The aim of this paper is first to defend the intuition that truth is grounded in how things are and, second, to argue that this fact is consistent with Minimalism. After having cashed out that intuition in terms of explanatory claims of the form ‘if it is true that p, it is true that p because p’, I set out an argument against Minimalism which is based on the same intuition, and I argue that a strategy the minimalist could (...) adopt to resist the argument, i.e. to deny the correctness of the intuition, is flawed. Then I explain why the intuition is correct and I make some claims concerning the kind of explanations which are involved in it. Now the stage is set up to present the right way for the minimalist to resist the argument. I finally answer some objections. (shrink)

We axiomatize the notion of state over finitely generated free NM-algebras, the Lindenbaum algebras of pure Nilpotent Minimum logic. We show that states over the free n -generated NM-algebra exactly correspond to integrals of elements of with respect to Borel probability measures.

The purpose is to study the strength of Ramsey’s Theorem for pairs restricted to recursive assignments ofk-many colors, with respect to Intuitionistic Heyting Arithmetic. We prove that for every natural number$k \ge 2$, Ramsey’s Theorem for pairs and recursive assignments ofkcolors is equivalent to the Limited Lesser Principle of Omniscience for${\rm{\Sigma }}_3^0$formulas over Heyting Arithmetic. Alternatively, the same theorem over intuitionistic arithmetic is equivalent to: for every recursively enumerable infinitek-ary tree there is some$i < k$and some branch with infinitely many (...) children of indexi. (shrink)

This essay studies the semantic properties of what I call Russell-names. Russell-names bear intimate semantic relations with descriptive conditions, in consonance with the main tenets of descriptivism. Yet, they are endowed with the semantic properties attributed to ordinary proper names by Millianism: they are rigid and non-indexical devices of direct reference. This is not an essay in natural language semantics, and remains deliberately neutral with respect to the question whether any among the expressions we ordinarily classify as proper names behave (...) as Russell-names. Its aim is rather that of casting a new light on the traditional debate about descriptivism on the one hand, and, on the other, what is commonly understood as a radically anti-descriptivist approach. From the viewpoint of descriptivism, the conceivability of Russell-names provides welcome relief from the pressure exerted by considerations at odds with a flaccid and/or indexical treatment of proper names. Conversely, from a Millian standpoint, the conceivability of Russell-names indicates that the Millian stance, far from providing a meagre picture of names as ‘mere tags’, is at least in principle consistent with the recognition of their semantic bonds with richer descriptive material. The Appendix provides a formal treatment of Russell-names within a model theoretic semantics for indexical intensional languages, developed within an original ‘double-context’ framework. (shrink)

Gödel algebras form the locally finite variety of Heyting algebras satisfying the prelinearity axiom =. In 1969, Horn proved that a Heyting algebra is a Gödel algebra if and only if its set of prime filters partially ordered by reverse inclusion–i.e. its prime spectrum–is a forest. Our main result characterizes Gödel algebras that are free over some finite distributive lattice by an intrisic property of their spectral forest.

This paper engages with Italo Calvino’s lecture on Visibility, included in his last—and testamentary—volume Six Memos, by understanding it in an educational and pedagogical key. While the question of pedagogy is expressly addressed by Calvino himself in his lecture, the interpretation here provided is not merely an application of his tenets but an elaboration on and an autonomous development of them. In particular, in the spotlight there is the intimate bond image-cum-writing which seems to preside over Calvino’s insights and is (...) here suggested as key to tackling the challenges of the contemporary mediascape and the “tautological vision” dominating therein. While a part of the educational discourse invokes “homeostatic” pedagogical solutions, namely the (ultimately confrontational) deployment of writing to compensate for the iconic ruling regime, this paper explores the possibility of a specific kind of visual education (instantiated by comics and Otto Neurath’s Isotype), which combines the role of the image with some features traditionally attributed to the pedagogy of writing (e.g. the cultivation of abilities of abstraction, of reflection etc.). A pedagogy of figuration is, accordingly, proposed as an interruption of the tautological vision of the new media and as conducive to educating readers of the unwritten world and of the world of digital images, Mr. Palomar—the hero of Calvino’s last novel—possibly being the archetype of this kind of (new?) readership. By referring to two influential notions in the contemporary debate in educational philosophy and theory, this pedagogy is finally interpreted in term of (visual) thing-centredness rather than (visual) subjectification. (shrink)

The paper concerns the following two questions: (i) is the general exclusive norm a proper legal norm? (ii) if the general exclusive norm is a proper legal norm, is it universally valid? It will be held that the general exclusive norm is a proper legal norm and not a logical principle. Therefore, as a legal norm, it can be said to be valid or invalid. The answer to the second question will be negative: the general exclusive norm, as a proper (...) legal norm, is valid only in those legal systems in which it is positively established. (shrink)

We study a real valued propositional logic with unbounded positive and negative truth values that we call ‐valued logic. Such a logic is semantically equivalent to continuous propositional logic, with a different choice of connectives. After presenting the deduction machinery and the semantics of ‐valued logic, we prove a completeness theorem for finite theories. Then we define unital and Archimedean theories, in accordance with the theory of Riesz spaces. In the unital setting, we prove the equivalence of consistency and satisfiability (...) and an approximated completeness theorem similar to the one that holds for continuous propositional logic. Eventually, among unital theories, we characterize Archimedean theories as those for which strong completeness holds. We also point out that ‐valued logic provides alternative calculi for Łukasiewicz logic and for propositional continuous logic. (shrink)