For over a century the definitions of mass and derivations of its relation with energy continue to be elaborated, demonstrating that the concept of mass is still not satisfactorily understood. The aim of this study is to show that, starting from the properties of Minkowski spacetime and from the principle of least action, energy expresses the property of inertia of a body. This implies that inertial mass can only be the object of a definition—the so called mass-energy relation—aimed at measuring (...) energy in different units, more suitable to describe the huge amount of it enclosed in what we call the “rest-energy” of a body. Likewise, the concept of gravitational mass becomes unnecessary, being replaceable by energy, thus making the weak equivalence principle intrinsically verified. In dealing with mass, a new unit of measurement is foretold for it, which relies on the de Broglie frequency of atoms, the value of which can today be measured with an accuracy of a few parts in 109. (shrink)

This paper discusses the physical effect of gravity on space, a rather treacherous topic that has not gained much attention in the literature, unlike the effect of gravity on time which has been clearly established from the beginning as a consequence of the Equivalence Principle and also experimentally tested. The difficulties encountered in analysing the effect of gravity on space can be represented by the need to compare vectors associated with different spatial points in a curved manifold, where the parallel-transport (...) of vectors depends on the chosen path. This same problem can also be seen from another perspective: the effect of gravity on space is embodied in the components of the metric tensor, which however are not uniquely determined as a consequence of the degrees of freedom due to the Bianchi identities. We here show that, however, there are circumstances under which these difficulties can be overcome, resulting in a clear representation of the effect of gravity on space. This effect is perfectly dual to the corresponding effect on time: while gravity slows down time, it expands space. This can clarify topics like the effects of gravity at the centre of a spherically symmetric system, where the literature does not provide clear answers. A final confirmation of the gravitational expansion of space is provided by the Equivalence Principle. The conclusions help fill a conceptual gap that has so far prevented gravitational effects on time and space from being viewed on an equal footing. (shrink)

This paper establishes a Kantian duty against screen overexposure. After defining screen exposure, I adopt a Kantian approach to its morality on the ground that Kant’s notion of duties to oneself easily captures wrongdoing in absence of harm or wrong to others. Then, I draw specifically on Kant’s ‘duties to oneself as an animal being’ to introduce a duty of self-government. This duty is based on the negative causal impact of the activities it regulates on a human being’s mental and (...) physical powers, and, ultimately, on the moral employment of these powers. After doing so, I argue that the duty against screen overexposure is an instance of the duty of self-government. Finally, I consider some objections. (shrink)

These comments raise two main points based on Walschots’s response to Kleingeld’s ‘volitional’ interpretation of the contradiction involved in Kant’s Formula of Universal Law. The first concerns Walschots’s claim that, contrary to Kleingeld’s own account, her interpretation must in fact assume at least one essential purpose of the will, namely happiness. While Walschots characterises happiness as a necessary end of all rational beings, I clarify on textual grounds that, for Kant, happiness can be safely assumed as an actual end of (...) all rational finite beings. The second point regards Walschots’s claim that Kleingeld’s interpretation should be clearer on the two ways in which a volitional self-contradiction can arise. Drawing on Walschots’s instructive discussion, and on Timmermann’s conservative defence of a more traditional interpretation of the Formula against Kleingeld’s innovative proposal, I cautiously suggest that Kleingeld might end up having to accommodate three contradictions: the traditional contradictions in conception and in the will, and her volitional self-contradiction. (shrink)

In Religion within the Bounds of Bare Reason Kant speaks of an ethical state of nature and of an ethico-civil condition, with explicit reference to the juridical state of nature and the juridico-civil condition he discusses at length in his legal-political writings. Given that the Religion is the only work where Kant introduces a parallel between these concepts, one might think that this is only a loose analogy, serving a merely illustrative function. The paper provides a first outline of the (...) similarities and the differences between the state of nature and the civil condition in Right and in ethics. The comparison points to a deeper, structural relation between the two pairs of concepts. By doing so, it makes room for developing a unitary conception of the state of nature and of the civil condition, which would underlie both the ethical and the juridical version. (shrink)

In his ‘Pricing Carbon for Climate Justice’, Alexandre Sayegh develops the connections between climate justice and climate economics. More specifically, the paper focuses on how ‘market-based instr...

The paper lays the foundations for a duty of sustainable property use based on Kant’s Doctrine of Right. In doing so, it contributes to the project of extending the application of Kant’s philosophy to environmental issues so as to include his legal-political philosophy. After providing some context, focusing in particular on Kant’s property argument, I present and critically evaluate a recent argument for a duty of sustainable property use, put forward by Attila Ataner. Then, I draw on Reinhard Brandt’s and (...) Katrin Flikschuh’s interpretation of Kant’s permissive law in order to develop my own argument. According to my account, the duty of sustainable property use is rooted in Kant’s property argument, it is best construed in terms of interpersonal freedom, and it has a structure resembling that of duties of distributive justice. Unlike Ataner’s, my argument proceeds entirely within the domain of interpersonal freedom; it focuses clearly on the normative sense of usability; it does not overgenerate obligations; and it categorises the duty of sustainable property use within Kant’s taxonomy of duties. It thus constitutes a promising starting point to further investigate the connection between sustainability, Kant’s property argument and its use of a permissive law, and the Universal Principle of Right. (shrink)

The Expanse does not provide an easy answer to the vexing question on making a decision when competing, but considering conflicts of values on the show can help us reason about tough choices in real life. Sometimes, scientific progress conflicts with the prudential value of self‐preservation. This chapter explains three ways of understanding value conflicts: as situations in which every option is forbidden, situations in which every option is permissible, or situations in which some options are obligatory and some options (...) are forbidden. The idea that all these different kinds of value can be traded with a common currency is tempting. But contra Keats, beauty is not truth; and it certainly is not goodness, as Tolstoy says. Epistemic, moral, prudential, and aesthetic values are very different. (shrink)

The Expanse does not provide an easy answer to the vexing question on making a decision when competing, but considering conflicts of values on the show can help us reason about tough choices in real life. Sometimes, scientific progress conflicts with the prudential value of self-preservation. This chapter explains three ways of understanding value conflicts: as situations in which every option is forbidden, situations in which every option is permissible, or situations in which some options are obligatory and some options (...) are forbidden. The idea that all these different kinds of value can be traded with a common currency is tempting. But contra Keats, beauty is not truth; and it certainly is not goodness, as Tolstoy says. Epistemic, moral, prudential, and aesthetic values are very different. (shrink)

While 'space' and 'place' appear as key concepts in the study of culture, their complexity and mutability require ever-new frameworks when approaching them critically. Including chapters by authors from different fields, career stages, and geopolitical backgrounds, the contributors in this edited collection scrutinize the changing dynamics of space and place in relation to current political, social, and environmental urgencies across the globe. With chapters investigating both real and imaginary spaces and places, the diversified discussions included in this collection provide a (...) cohesive study for disclosing latent understandings of multiple phenomena characterizing the world in which we live. From the protests in Egyptian and Turkish squares, to the power-related narratives embedded in institutional buildings, from the development of the commercial arena in Victorian and Edwardian London, to the effects of current environmental concerns on the evaluation of urban and rural locations, the volume ultimately serves as a progressive connection of fields, minds, and outlooks through an innovative, pluralistic vision. This interdisciplinary focus not only emphasizes the centrality of spaces and places when disentangling the complexities comprising our past and present, but also suggests a more pluralistic approach for exploring fundamental concepts in future spaces and places studies. (shrink)

In the light of some tenets of philosophy of childhood, this paper proposes an ‘updating’ interpretation of the educational notion of repuerescentia , offered by the Renaissance humanist Desiderius Erasmus. In particular, Erasmus’ argumentation about the need for an early liberal education is reconstellated into the domain of a reading of culture as a form of play, that is, as a transitional space and his concept of repuerescentia is read in reference to Deleuzian ‘becoming child.’ It is shown, on the (...) one hand, that there is no complete overlapping between the Deleuzian construct and the notion here investigated; on the other, that a dialogue between these two ideas could result in a more articulated way of looking at the position of the teacher within the educational relationship. It is argued, moreover, that a re-appropriation of the notion of repuerescentia could allow us to reconstruct school as a site in which the classical heritage is made alive and not simply passed on. If the idea of repuerescentia implies that the classical heritage is structured as a pedagogy, thanks to philosophy of childhood we could broaden and elaborate on this view and recognize that the classical heritage is not something closed but always in the making. Indeed, it is due to children’s voices that it revives and can continue to speak to us. In this sense, a repuerescentia-oriented teaching could also act as a strategy to resolve some of the deadlocks associated with the Deweyan controversy between the child and the curriculum. A different inflection of the latter relationship and a fresher way of experiencing ‘tradition’ seem more urgent than ever in contemporary educational scenarios, which are marked by what has been defined the “endgame of the loss of historical continuity.” In addition to that, the idea of the teacher’s re-turn to childhood allows us to overcome some of the setbacks of the constructivist approaches in education, as they have been denounced in more recent literature in educational theory. (shrink)

The book brings into relief the variety of approaches and disciplines that have informed the quest for a theory of cognition. The center of interest are the historical, geographical, and theoretical peripheries of classic AI's mainstream research program. The twelve chapters bring back into focus the variety of strategies and theoretical questions that researchers explored while working toward a scientific theory of cognition and pre-cognition. The volume is organized in four parts, each one including three essays. The first one deals (...) with cybernetics, the approach that may be considered as the most important periphery of classic AI research. The second part focuses on the geographical periphery of AI research. It examines how the theories and techniques developed on AI's home ground were translated into countries with different cultures and traditions: Italy, France, and the Soviet Union. The third part focuses on AI's periphery understood in the cultural and historical meaning of the term. It contains essays that locate some of the central concepts of AI, like representation and computability, within a broader philosophical (Descartes, Aristotle, Leibniz) and technical background (programming theory and practice). The fourth and final part of the volume is focused directly on the limitation of Turing's classic computability theory and its possible alternatives, some of which were studied in the early years of AI's research (e.g. Ashby's re-entrant information model), while others have been intensely studied in recent times (quantum automata). (shrink)

O artigo traduzido trata de discussões acerca do quinto elemento na obra De Philosophia, de Aristóteles. Aborda ainda a tradição do quinto elemento em filósofos posteriores, e apresenta instigantes hipóteses sobre o fato de Cícero ter ou não tido acesso a esta obra aristotélica. HAHM. David. E. The fifth element in Aristotle’s “De Philosophia”: a critical re-examination. The Journal of Hellenic Studies, vol. 102, November 1982, pp.60-74. https://doi.org/10.2307/631126. Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 October 2013 Os direitos autorais foram (...) comprados da Cambridge University Press, e o Prof. David Hahm autorizou a publicação da tradução. (shrink)

Leibniz's treatment of the concept of res should be considered in the context of his semantic-ontological reflections on the relationship of language, thought and reality, profoundly shaped by a no...

Realist ontologies about history stress that entities such as documents, their sources, and events whom they are talking about are objectively given in the ontological reality of social history, beyond our skills to recognize them. Thus, how is it possible to understand the extension of the ontological independence of historical findings and where does our (mis)interpretations of those findings begin? As every realist ontological commitment must provide us with a suitable tool to solve the age-old problem of findings’ reliability, in (...) this paper we analyze how such realist views, like Searle’s Collective Intentionality, cannot be a solution, meanwhile, on the other hand, other realist purposes could represent valid alternatives. In fact, Searle’s theory surely accounts for the constitution of such social objects as false historical acts, but its definition of function of status (FS) as “X count as Y in C” permits, even only in principle, that the same entity X, which has counted as Y, in the far-off times historical context C0, could “re-count” as Y  Y in a more recent context Ct  C0, after an involuntary forgery too. Being by definition iterative, FS could iterate clamorous twists, also ad libitum, making future historians’ shared intentionality lose the contact with the reality of original status’ functions. On the contrary, Ferraris’ Documentality satisfies this historical reliability test, because its definition of a social object as inscription of an act distinguishes between what a fact/event/object X of the past has been, and what characteristics this same X must possess to become a document, discerning, this way, voluntary from unintentional effects of the creation of an object/event/fact, to instantiate a social fact, or to cause an historical event, and their different taxa of historicity. (shrink)

Could a person ever transcend what it is like to be in the world as a human being? Could we ever know what it is like to be other creatures? Questions about the overcoming of a human perspective are not uncommon in the history of philosophy. In the last century, those very interrogatives were notably raised by American philosopher Thomas Nagel in the context of philosophy of mind. In his 1974 essay What is it Like to Be a Bat?, Nagel (...) offered reflections on human subjectivity and its constraints. Nagel’s insights were elaborated before the social diffusion of computers and could not anticipate the cultural impact of technological artefacts capable of materializing interactive simulated worlds as well as disclosing virtual alternatives to the “self.” In this sense, this article proposes an understanding of computers as epistemological and ontological instruments. The embracing of a phenomenological standpoint entails that philosophical issues are engaged and understood from a fundamentally practical perspective. In terms of philosophical praxis, or “applied philosophy,” I explored the relationship between human phenomenologies and digital mediation through the design and the development of experimental video games. For instance, I have conceptualized the first-person action-adventure video game Haerfest (Technically Finished 2009) as a digital re-formulation of the questions posed in Nagel’s famous essay. Experiencing a bat’s perceptual equipment in Haerfest practically corroborates Nagel’s conclusions: there is no way for humans to map, reproduce, or even experience the consciousness of an actual bat. Although unverifiable in its correspondence to that of bats, Haerfest still grants access to experiences and perceptions that, albeit still inescapably within the boundaries of human kinds of phenomenologies, were inaccessible to humans prior to the advent of computers. Phenomenological alterations and virtual experiences disclosed by interactive digital media cannot take place without a shift in human kinds of ontologies, a shift which this study recognizes as the fundamental ground for the development of a new humanism (I deem it necessary to specify that I am not utilizing the term “humanism” in its common connotation, that is to say the one that emerged from the encounter between the Roman civilization and the late Hellenistic culture. According to this conventional acceptation, humanism indicates the realization of the human essence through “scholarship and training in good conduct” (Heidegger 1998, p. 244). However, Heidegger observed that this understanding of humanism does not truly cater to the original essence of human beings, but rather “is determined with regard to an already established interpretation of nature, history, world, and […] beings as a whole.” (Heidegger 1998, p. 245) The German thinker found this way of embracing humanism reductive: a by-product of Western metaphysics. As Heidegger himself specified in his 1949 essay Letter on Humanism, his opposition to the traditional acceptation of the term humanism does not advocate for the “inhuman” or a return to the “barbaric” but stems instead from the belief that the humanism can only be properly understood and restored in culture as more original way of meditating and caring for humanity and understanding its relationship with Being.). Additionally, this study explicitly proposes and exemplifies the use of interactive digital technology as a medium for testing, developing and disseminating philosophical notions, problems and hypotheses in ways which are alternative to the traditional textual one. Presented as virtual experiences, philosophical concepts can be accessed without the filter of subjective imagination. In a persistent, interactive, simulated environment, I claim that the crafting and the mediation of thought takes a novel, projective (In Martin Heidegger’s 1927 Being and Time, the term “projectivity” indicates the way a Being opens to the world in terms of its possibilities of being (Heidegger 1962, pp. 184–185, BT 145). Inspired by Heidegger’s and Vilem Flusser’s work in the field of philosophy of technology as well as Helmuth Plessner’s anthropological position presented in his 1928 book Die Stufen des Organischen und der Mensch. Einleitung in die philosophische Anthropologie, this study understands the concept of projectivity as the innate openness of human beings to construct themselves and their world by means of technical artefacts. In this sense, this study proposes a fundamental understanding of technology as the materialization of mankind’s tendency to overcome its physical, perceptual and communicative limitations.) dimension which I propose to call “augmented ontology.”. (shrink)

Feminist scholars have been remaking the landscape in political theory, and in this important book some of the most important feminist political theorists provide reconstructions of those concepts most central to the tradition of political philosophy. The goal is nothing less than the construction of a blueprint for a positive feminist theory.Many of these papers are completely new; others are extensions of important earlier work; two are reprints of classic papers. The result is a progress report on the continuing feminist (...) project to re-envision traditional political theory. As such, it constitutes essential reading not only for feminist thinkers but also for traditional philosophers and political theorists, who will need to come to terms with these contemporary critiques and re-readings. (shrink)

Recent neuro-psychoanalytic literature has emphasized the view that our subjective identity rests on ancient subcortical neuro-psychic processes expressing unthinking forms of experience, which are “affectively intense without being known” (Solms and Panksepp, 2012). Devoid of internal representations, the emotional states of our “core-Self” (Panksepp, 1998b) are entirely “projected” towards the external world and tend to be discharged through instinctual action-patterns. However, due to the close connections between the subcortical and the cortical midline brain, the emotional drives may also find a (...) way to be reflected within an intrinsic self-referential processing, evident when the organism is not actively engaged with the external world. Thanks to such endogenous functioning, the core-Self emotional dispositions are not overtly executed, but they are organized within coherent dynamic mental structures, called “feeling-toned complexes” by C.G. Jung and “unconscious phantasies” by Melanie Klein. The intrinsic self-referential dynamism of the ‘brainmind’ originated from REM sleep arousal and then evolved in the resting-state activity of a complex of cortico-limbic midline brain structures (CMS), also called Default Mode Network (DMN). From our neuro-ethological perspective, it is sustained by an “introverted” SEEKING activity leading to the subjective exploration of internally constructed virtual scenarios. This “mind wandering” function, implicated in dreaming, fantasy processing, remembering and thinking, is the essence of the imaginative function and constitutes the first form of reflection, where intentions and drives gain a primordial form of conscious (but not self-conscious) representation. During postnatal development, this original (“archetypal”) imaginative function is slowly attuned in a relational “transitional” space and may be expressed first in non-verbal and eventually in abstract-verbal social communicative patterns. Our view has noticeable implications for psychotherapy. Instead of trying to directly modify interpersonal, extrinsic relationships (a top-down approach), dysfunctional emotional-relational patterns may be modified by a process in which the patient is helped to let-go of the perceived feeling-objects in favor of an immersion, via the actual feeling, from the superficial level of perception towards a void feeling-state, empty of images. Only starting from this “anoetic” feeling-state, the deep imaginal creative and re-structuring self-referential activity may be reactivated by a process of spontaneous imagination. (shrink)

El artículo presenta los resultados de una investigación empírica que busca caracterizar el campo de las ciencias sociales en Chile, en el período 2000-2006, en cuanto a su proceso cognitivo, comparando entre las disciplinas. Para ello se constituyó un corpus de 479 publicaciones en las cuales se re..

The COVID-19 pandemic is a health issue leading older adults to an increased vulnerability to unfavorable outcomes. Indeed, the presence of physical frailty has recently led to higher mortality due to SARS-CoV-2 infection. However, no longitudinal studies have investigated the role of neuropsychogeriatric factors associated with lockdown fatigue in healthy cognitive aging. Eighty-one healthy older adults were evaluated for their neuropsychological characteristics, including physical frailty, before the pandemic. Subsequently, 50 of them agreed to be interviewed and neuropsychologically re-assessed during the (...) lockdown and immediately after it. Moreover, during another home confinement, they performed a psychological screening to evaluate possible mood changes and fatigue. According to Fried's frailty criteria, at T0, 63% of the sample was robust, 34.5% pre-frail, and only 2.5% frail. Significantly, these subjects presented a decrease in handgrip strength and walking speed. Results from Principal Component Analyses and multiple regression models highlighted the contribution of “cognitive” and “psychological” factors in explaining handgrip strength and gait speed. At T3, lockdown fatigue was explained by higher scores on the Beck Depression Inventory and lower scores on the Trail Making Test part A. Results from a moderated-mediation model showed that the effect of psychomotor speed on lockdown fatigue was mediated by depression, with a moderating effect of gait speed. Our findings highlight the complex interrelationship between cognitive, psychological, and physical factors in the emergence of pandemic fatigue in a carefully selected older population. (shrink)

Restoration involves individuals’ physical, psychological and social resources, diminished by meeting demands of everyday life. Psychological restoration can be provided by specific environments, in particular by natural environments. Research reports a restorative effect of nature on human beings, specifically in terms of the psychological recovery from attention fatigue and restored mental resources previously spent in activities that require attention. Two field studies in two Italian primary schools tested the hypothesized positive effect of recess-time spent in a natural (vs. built) environment (...) on pupils’ cognitive performance and their perceived restorativeness, using standardized tests. In Study 1, children’s psychological restoration was assessed measuring sustained and selective attention, working memory, and impulse’ control, before and after morning recess-time. Team standardized play-time was conducted in a natural (vs. built) environment, measuring perceived restorativeness after each recess-time. Results showed a greater increase in sustained and selective attention, concentration, and perceived restorativeness from pre-test to post-test after the Natural Environment condition. In Study 2 the positive effect of free-play recess-time in a natural (vs. built) environment was assessed during the afternoon school-time on sustained and selective attention and perceived restorativeness. Results showed an increase of sustained and selective attention after the Natural Environment condition (vs. Built) and a decrease after the built environment break. Higher scores in perceived restorativeness were registered after the Natural (vs. Built) Environment condition. Team standardized and individual free-play recess in a natural environment (vs. built) support pupils’ attention restoration during both morning and afternoon school-time, as well as their perceived restorativeness of recess environment. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed in terms of nature’s role both for school ground design or re-design, and for school’s activities organization. (shrink)

The social dimension of purchase seems particularly important when it comes to food, since it can contribute to foster “consumers’ embeddedness” in the local food system. The discussion on this topic is growing after the emergence of alternative food networks , which are thought to have potentials to re-connect the different actors of local food systems, and/or to strengthen the existing social ties among them. This study focuses on the evaluation of the degree of sociality in different food shopping environments. (...) The research is focused on the structure and the features of the interactions, with the aim to provide an assessment of the degree of sociality of AFNs compared to other food chain networks. More specifically, a farmers’ market, a greengrocer and a supermarket have been compared. The three shopping environments show remarkable differences: in the supermarket perfunctory interactions are most often observed, unless shoppers already know each other, whereas the farmers’ market environment is likely to foster quite intense relations among strangers; the greengrocer, on the contrary, shows a completely different pattern of relations, typically involving customers who already know each other. Results support the common argument that farmers’ markets may enhance sociality among people, although some interesting relations patterns are observed in the other food stores as well. Issues for further research in the field emerge, which might be useful to improve the understanding of the social dimension of food shopping as well as to more deeply analyse the elements of attractiveness of AFNs. (shrink)

ABSTRACTHow can we deal with the apparent contradiction between the normative ideals of critical theory and the practice of the current university system? To answer this question, I consult three classical criticisms of the university system: At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the French educator Joseph Jacotot formulated a pedagogical critique of the disciplinary effects of the educational system; at the beginning of the twentieth century, German historian Franz Rosenzweig articulated an ethical critique of the hegemonic educational system’s distance (...) from life; and at the beginning of the twentyfirst century, British feminist Sara Ahmed proposed a political critique of the oppressing functions of academic institutions. Taken together, these critiques can serve as an orientation for critical intellectual practice even within the academic system. Finally, I try to describe the relation between critical theory and the university thus evolving by utilising Stefano Harney’s and Fred Moten’s concept o... (shrink)

I present a novel explanation of the apparent truth of certain remarks about fiction, such as an utterance of ''Salieri commissioned the Requiem'' during a discussion of the movie Amadeus. I criticize the traditional view, which alleges that the uttered sentence abbreviates the longer sentence ''it is true in the movie Amadeus that Salieri commissioned the Requiem''. I propose a solution which appeals to some independently motivated results concerning the contexts relevant for the semantic evaluation of indexical expressions.

Con la morte di Leone X nel dicembre del 1521, il dominio mediceo sulla Toscana entro in una fase d'incertezza, sia all'interno che all'esterno. In questo quadro, Niccolo Machiavelli fu invitato dalle autorita fiorentine a stendere una nuova costituzione, il cui testo e oggi noto come Minuta di provvisione per la riforma dello Stato di Firenze l'anno 1522. Inizialmente supportato dal cardinale Giulio de' Medici, il progetto fu bloccato dai membri dell'oligarchico Consiglio dei Settanta, ma si tratta comunque di un (...) documento eccezionale anche perche presenta l'ultima traduzione pratica di alcuni concetti centrali dell'autore del Principe, sia sulla fondazione degli Stati sia sulle istituzioni repubblicane. Questo volume presenta una reinterpretazione di questa fase storica, che mette in luce la complessita del gioco tra i principali attori politici del tempo (il re di Francia, l'imperatore, il pontefice, l'oligarchia fiorentina, i repubblicani filopopolari, i Medici), e offre una nuova edizione critica del progetto di costituzione, che obbliga a rileggere il pensiero politico dell'ultimo Machiavelli in chiavi completamente diverse rispetto al passato. (shrink)

This paper argues in favor of a treatment of discourse about fiction in terms of operators on character, that is, Kaplanesque ‘monsters’. The first three sections criticize the traditional analysis of ‘according to the fiction’ as an intensional operator, and the approach to fictional discourse grounded on the notion of contextual shifts. The final sections explain how an analysis in terms of monsters yields the correct readings for a variety of examples involving modal and temporal indexicals.

In this contribution, I defend a robust model of political idealism, making the case for such an approach to both the theory and practice of politics. On this view, not only in framing a political philosophy but also in putting forward policy proposals and institutional designs, we need not think about feasibility as an overriding, make-or-break criterion for evaluating the soundness of that theory or proposal, neither of which loses its point simply because it is deemed to be unlikely to (...) be implemented. Feasibility, in other terms, cannot be taken as the only standard, or even as the main standard, on which basis to assess the practical worth of a political strategy. (shrink)

This essay is devoted to an analysis of the semantic significance of a fashionable view of proper names, the Predicate Theory of names, typically developed in the direction of the Metalinguistic Theory of names. According to MT, ‘syntactic evidence supports the conclusion that a name such as ‘Kennedy’ is analyzable in terms of the predicate ‘individual named ‘Kennedy’’. This analysis is in turn alleged to support a descriptivist treatment of proper names in designative position, presumably in contrast with theories of (...) names as ‘directly referring rigid designators’. The main aim of this essay is that of questioning the significance of PT and MT as theories of designation: even granting for the argument’s sake that names are analyzable as predicates, their designative occurrences may be interpreted in consonance with the dictates of Direct Reference—indeed, in consonance with the radically anti-descriptivist version of Direct Reference I call Millianism. (shrink)

This essay argues that relativist semantics provide fruitful frameworks for the study of the relationships between meaning and truth-conditions, and consequently for the analysis of the logical properties of expressions. After a discussion of the role of intensionality and indexicality within classic double-indexed semantics, I explain that the non-relativistic identification of the parameters needed for the definition of truth and for the interpretation of indexicals is grounded on considerations that are irrelevant for the assessment of the relationships between meaning and (...) truth. (shrink)

We introduce a two‐dimensional metric (interval) temporal logic whose internal and external time flows are dense linear orderings. We provide a suitable semantics and a sequent calculus with axioms for equality and extralogical axioms. Then we prove completeness and a semantic partial cut elimination theorem down to formulas of a certain type.

The five-volume set Kant and Philosophy in a Cosmopolitan Sense contains the proceedings of the Eleventh International Kant Congress, which took place in Pisa in 2010. The proceedings consist of 25 plenary talks and 341 papers selected by a team of international referees from over 700 submissions. The contributions span 14 sections: Kant’s Concept of Philosophy; Theory of Cognition and Logic; Ontology and Metaphysics; Ethics; Law and Justice; Religion and Theology; Aesthetics; Anthropology and Psychology; Politics and History; Science, Mathematics, and (...) the Philosophy of Nature; Kant and the Leibnizian Tradition; Kant and the Philosophical Tradition; Kant and Schopenhauer; and Kant’s Heritage. Thanks to cooperation from the Schopenhauer Gesellschaft, the 2010 conference was the first in the history of the International Kant Congress to include a session on Kant and Schopenhauer. -/- . (shrink)

For arbitrary finite group $G$ and countable Dedekind domain $R$ such that the residue field $R/P$ is finite for every maximal $R$ -ideal $P$ , we show that the localizations at every maximal ideal of two $RG$ -lattices are isomorphic if and only if the two lattices satisfy the same first order sentences. Then we investigate generalizations of the above results to arbitrary $R$ -torsion-free $RG$ -modules and we apply the previous results to show the decidability of the theory of (...) ${\vec Z}C(2)^2$ -lattices. Eventually, we show that ${\vec Z} [i] C(2)^2$ -lattices have undecidable theory. (shrink)

This thesis argues that the concept of contingency plays a central role in Althusser's recasting of Marxist philosophy and in his attempt to free the Marxist conception of history from concepts such as teleology, necessity and origin. It is critically placed both against those readings that see the emergence of the problematic of contingency only in the late Althusserm and to the most recent attempts to establish a straightforward continuity in Althusser's work. Drawing on published and unplublished material and covering (...) the entirety of Althusser's philosophical itinerary, the thesis seeks both to unearth the latent presence of this problematic, and its various implications, at each stage in the development of his work. It seeks to clarify, in a systematic way, the conceptual consequences of Althusser's commitment to contingency to the received understanding of his conceptions of structural change, ideology and political action. In particular, it argues that the standpoint of contingency allows us to locate in Althusser's 'Structural Marxism' the emergence of a 'logic of irruption' and structurally under-determined development of becoming. By emphasising this logic of contingency, it then seeks to produce a more nuanced assessment of his theory of ideology through the introduction of the concept of 'overinterpellation'. It finally attempts to distinguish two moments in the emergence of a materialism of contingency, first political and then philosophical; the problematic coexistence of these two aspects helps to account for the unstable charactoer of Althusser's late philosophical project. (shrink)

Aim of this work is to investigate from a proof-theoretic viewpoint a propositional and a predicate sequent calculus with an ω–type schema of inference that naturally interpret the propositional and the predicate until–free fragments of Linear Time Logic LTL respectively. The two calculi are based on a natural extension of ordinary sequents and of standard modal rules. We examine the pure propositional case (no extralogical axioms), the propositional and the first order predicate cases (both with a possibly infinite set of (...) extralogical axioms). For each system we provide a syntactic proof of cut elimination and a proof of completeness. (shrink)

This paper defends a position that parts ways with the positivist view of legal certainty and reasonableness. I start out with a reconstruction of this view and move on to argue that an adequate analysis of certainty and reasonableness calls for an alternative approach, one based on the acknowledgement that argumentation is key to determining the contents, structure, and boundaries of a legal system. Here I claim that by endorsing a dialectical notion of rationality this alternative account espouses an ambitious (...) approach to reasoning in law and conceives of the theory of legal argumentation as the vantage point from which to analyze legal systems and tackle the main problems connected with their existence. Next, I look at what this alternative approach does for the way we should go about treating certainty and reasonableness, considered singularly as well as in their reciprocal relationship. I conclude on this basis that when argumentation receives its due emphasis in law we have to redefine certainty and reasonableness and recast their connection as non-conflictive. (shrink)