Riassunto: Reificazione presenta notevoli discontinuità rispetto alle precedenti e alle successive trattazioni honnethiane e costituisce un tentativo audace di fondare una teoria sociale normativa su strutture ontologiche e antropologiche. Per salvare la pregnanza di questa prova, cercheremo di conciliare gli aspetti più contraddittori dell’opera, mostrando l’unitarietà di fondo dell’intero percorso honnethiano. Innanzitutto, occorre mettere a fuoco lo statuto del riconoscimento, preso di per se stesso, al fine di comprendere l’unità che si gioca alle spalle delle diverse versioni elaborate da Honneth. (...) Poi, ci concentreremo sul riferimento alla psicoanalisi e alla psicologia evolutiva, cercando di mettere in relazione i concetti di simbiosi e di imitazione neonatale. In terzo luogo, intendiamo illuminare la duplice dimensione del paradigma honnethiano del riconoscimento: da un lato, esso viene caratterizzato normativamente; dall’altro, ha una pretesa più propriamente ontologica e antropogenetica. Infine, occorre ridefinire l’orizzonte sorgivo del conflitto. Parole chiave: Axel Honneth; Riconoscimento; Intersoggettività; Antropogenesi; Teoria Critica Honneth’s Paradigm of Recognition: Interaction, Anthropogenesis, and Normativity: Reification demonstrates a number of discontinuities with Honneth’s earlier and later works and constitutes a bold attempt to ground a social normative theory on ontological and anthropological grounds. In order to respect the importance of this effort, I try to reconcile some of the more incompatible aspects of this work by pointing to the deep unity of the Honnethian path as a whole. First, I focus on the status of recognition itself, in order to reveal the unity of thought behind the different versions proposed by Honneth. Then, I concentrate on his references to psychoanalysis and evolutionary psychology, in an attempt to bring together the ideas of symbiosis and neonatal imitation. Third, I highlight the dual nature of the Honnethian recognition paradigm: on the one hand, it can be characterized as normative; on the other, it makes a truly ontological and anthropogenic claim. Finally, I redefine the source of the conflict between this and Honneth’s other work. Keywords: Axel Honneth; Recognition; Intersubjectivity; Anthropogenesis; Critical Theory. (shrink)

Quelle est la place du scepticisme dans l'œuvre d'un philosophe des Lumières comme Denis Diderot? Cet ouvrage vise à mettre en évidence les caractéristiques de la réception des instances sceptiques dans les œuvres de Diderot. L'analyse prend en considération l'ensemble du corpus diderotien, y compris sa contribution à l'Encyclopédie. L'objectif est aussi de montrer que la méthode sceptique de Diderot, qui consiste en l'usage de certaines argumentations, mais aussi en un ensemble de choix stylistiques, permet de mieux interpréter certaines spécificités (...) de sa pensée philosophique et de son matérialisme. Une meilleure compréhension du rôle du scepticisme dans la pensée de Diderot vise à apporter une contribution aux études sur ce qu'on définit comme le scepticisme des Lumières, en montrant qu'il serait plus exact de parler de scepticismes au pluriel, en raison des différences qui subsistent parmi les philosophes. Pour cette raison, ce livre propose des confrontations entre Diderot et ses sources sceptiques, mais aussi avec d'autres philosophes de son époque comme Montesquieu, Voltaire, D'Alembert et Hume"--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

Tommaso Campanella’s dignitas hominis acquires its own autonomous and innovative historiographical value in recognizing the connection between mens and religion as a distinctive element of human beings. The Mens is infused in men directly by God and the discovery of the religion of mind has revealed the rationality of Christianity. Only through Christianity the “Primalitary” structure of being is fully expressed and, at the same time, human freedom reaches its fulfillment.

This study explores social enterprises’ strategies for addressing mission drift. Relying on an inductive comparative case study of two Italian social enterprises, we show how stakeholder engagement combined with social accounting can successfully support a social venture to re-balance its positioning between wealth generation and social value creation. Indeed, stakeholder engagement helps the internal actors of a social enterprise to rationalize and embody pro-social values previously abandoned, while social accounting reinforces this embodiment process by showing the reintroduced social commitment of (...) the social enterprise to external audiences. Conversely, strategies focused only on social accounting and without significant engagement of external stakeholders prove to be unsuccessful in counterbalancing mission drift because they fail to activate the necessary process of internal re-introduction and operationalization of pro-social values and objectives. (shrink)

Cognitive niche theories consist in a theoretical framework that is proving extremely profitable in bridging evolutionary biology, philosophy, cognitive science, and anthropology by offering an inter-disciplinary ground, laden with novel approaches and debates. At the same time, cognitive niche theories are multiple, and differently related to niche theories in theoretical and evolutionary biology. The aim of this paper is to clarify the theoretical and epistemological relationships between cognitive and ecological niche theories. Also, by adopting a constructionist approach we will try (...) to explain the shift from ecological to cognitive niches and their actual and theoretical overlaps. In order to do so, we will take two concepts expressing loose forms of causation in the interaction between organisms and their environment: the biological notion of “enablement” and the psycho-cognitive one of “affordance”. (shrink)

Questo articolo prende in esame il fenomeno della proliferazione di fake news da un punto di vista filosofico—anzi, per meglio dire, prettamente epistemologico—con particolare attenzione a tre questioni fondamentali: cosa sono le fake news e come debbano essere definite; quali meccanismi ne favoriscono la proliferazione sui social media; chi debba essere ritenuto responsabile e degno di biasimo nel processo sotteso alla generazione, pubblicazione e diffusione di fake news. A partire dall'analisi dei principali lavori nella letteratura filosofica sul tema, ci proponiamo (...) di: offrire una definizione di fake news che eviti le obiezioni sollevate contro altre definizioni discusse dalla letteratura (§1); mettere in luce le principali cause della propagazione di fake news, con particolare riferimento ai bias cognitivi e alle strutture comunitarie in cui si organizzano gli utenti dei social media (§2); infine, presentare una analisi originale della responsabilità epistemica dei consumatori di fake news (§3). (shrink)

Gossip has been the object of a number of different studies in the past 50 years, rehabilitating it not only as something worth being studied, but also as a pivotal informational and social structure of human cognition: Dunbar (Rev Gen Psychol 8(2):100–110, 2004) interestingly linked the emergence of language to nothing less than its ability to afford gossip. Different facets of gossip were analyzed by anthropologists, linguists, psychologists and philosophers, but few attempts were made to frame gossip within an epistemological (...) framework (for instance Ayim in (Good gossip, pp. 85–99, 1994)). Our intention in this paper is to provide a consistent epistemological (applied and social) account of gossip, understood as broadly evaluative talk between two or more people, comfortably acquainted between each other, about an absent third party they are both at least acquainted with. Hence, relying on the most recent multidisciplinary literature about the topic, the first part of this paper will concern the epistemic dynamics of gossip: whereas the sociobiological tradition individuates in gossip the clue for the (theoretically cumbersome) group mind and group-level adaptations Wilson et al. (The evolution of cognition, pp. 347–365, 2002), we will suggest the more parsimonious modeling of gossip as a soft-assembled epistemic synergy, understood as a function-dominant interaction able to project a higher organizational level—in our case, the group as group-of-gossips. We will argue that the aim of this synergy is indeed to update a Knowledge Base of social information between the group (as a projected whole) and its members. The second and third part will instead focus on the epistemological labeling of the inferences characterizing gossip: our contention is that the ever-present moral/evaluative dimension in gossip—be it tacit or explicit, concerning the objects or the partners of gossip—is best analyzed through the epistemological framework of abduction. Consequently, we will suggest that a significant role of gossip is to function as a group-based abductive appraisal of social matter, enacted at various levels. (shrink)

In this note, I argue that McCain and Moretti’s account of non-inferential justification is subject to the subjective point of view objection, and that for this reason, it does not provide an internalistically acceptable alternative to the account of this justification supplied by Huemer’s Phenomenal Conservatism (PC). Moreover, I contend that PC’s account is not afflicted by the same problem and that it does not generate the over-intellectualization and regress problem. Finally, contra McCain and Moretti, I argue that the non-inferential (...) justification described by PC does not engender a form of vicious epistemic circularity, and so that it does not raise the reflective awareness problem. (shrink)

This paper sheds new light on the subtle relation between probability and logic by (i) providing a logical development of Bruno de Finetti's conception of events and (ii) suggesting that the subjective nature of de Finetti's interpretation of probability emerges in a clearer form against such a logical background. By making explicit the epistemic structure which underlies what we call Choice-based probability we show that whilst all rational degrees of belief must be probabilities, the converse doesn't hold: some probability values (...) don't represent decision-relevant quantifications of uncertainty. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:In this study, we investigate how different internal and external stakeholders influence the innovation strategy of a social enterprise to adopt product, process, and partnership innovations that impact either social or commercial performance. Relying on survey data from a sample of work integration social enterprises, we find that in situations of turbulence, administrative leaders do not significantly influence the innovation strategy of a social enterprise. Instead, board members and external stakeholders seem to play a role. Our study contributes to strategic (...) and business ethics research on social enterprises and, more broadly, to the literature that explores how business organizations combine social value creation and wealth generation. (shrink)

You reach for the bowl with ‘sugar’ written on it only to discover, from the bad taste of your coffee, that it contained salt. Mundane experiences like these show that epistemic justification does not necessarily hold stable across possible changes of information. One can be justified in believing a proposition at a certain time (that the bowl contains sugar) and cease to be justified at a later time, as one enlarges one’s epistemic perspective (as one drinks a salty coffee). When (...) this happens, one’s justification has been defeated. An epistemic defeater, broadly speaking, is that in terms of which the defeat of justification proceeds. The notion of an epistemic defeater is mostly associated with J. Pollock’s work on reasoning and inference. Pollock has provided the canonical definition of an epistemic defeater and proposed an influential taxonomy in terms of the way different types of defeaters induce their characteristic effects. The notion of an epistemic defeater has acquired a broader meaning in current epistemology, and several distinctions have been introduced that have contributed to a more nuanced understanding of the phenomenon of defeat as well as to complement Pollock’s original taxonomy. The correlated notion of a propositional defeater, defined in terms of would-be defeat of justification, is appealed to by the proponents of the defeasibility theory in the parallel debate about knowledge to explain what prevents a justified true belief from constituting knowledge in Gettier cases. (shrink)

This article introduces the key issues and themes that the articles in the Special Issue aim to apply and develop in greater detail. First, we argue that the field of collective remembering can be conceived as a site of active contestation, rather than simply a means of communicating a historic past or our deontic position in relation to these pasts. Approaching collective remembering as a Lieu de Dispute allows us, in turn, to foreground three consequential dimensions of remembrance, which the (...) articles in the issue examine in different ways: that collective remembering is an interpersonal, political and affective practice. This introduction discusses these three dimensions to collective remembering in greater detail, before outlining the remaining contents of the Special Issue. (shrink)

RésuméIl y a, dans le Nafs d'Avicenne, deux enquêtes cheminant dès le début en parallèle : celle sur l’âme comme entité relationnelle, toujours considérée dans sa connexion avec le corps, et celle sur l’âme humaine en elle-même. Les deux enquêtes visent à établir l'existence et l'essence de l’âme, respectivement en relation au corps dont elle est l’âme et en soi-même. Le but de cette contribution est de reconstruire les étapes de ces enquêtes, afin de mettre en relief leur relation mutuelle, (...) et d'identifier ce qui fait office d'indicateur permettant de localiser la transition de la première enquête, plus générale, à la seconde, plus spécifique. Selon la reconstitution ici présentée, ce rôle peut être attribué à l'expérience de l’homme volant. Afin de corroborer cette interprétation, on prendra en considération trois autres ouvrages d'Avicenne, ceux-ci contenant les trois autres formulations attestées de l’homme volant, ainsi qu'un mouvement argumentatif similaire à celui que l'on peut reconstituer dans le Nafs. (shrink)

The book is an epistemological monograph written from a multidisciplinary perspective. It provides a complex and realistic picture of cognition and rationality, as endowments aimed at making sense and reacting smartly to one's environment, be it epistemic, social or simply ecological. The first part of the book analyzes scientific modeling as products of the biological necessity to cope with the environment and be able to draw as many inferences as possible about it. Moreover, it develops an epistemological framework which will (...) be exploited in both the second part of the book, focusing on social cognition and cognitive niche construction, and the third part, dealing with the apparent irrationality of magical and religious belief. The book also discusses how both social networking and online religion influence cognition, rationality and irrational belief. (shrink)

The aim of the study was to assess the effects of visual aesthetic perception on event-related potentials . Eight subjects assigned an aesthetic judgment and a 10-step beauty estimation to the target stimuli, consisting of famous artistic pictures and geometric shapes. In a further task, the subjects performed a motor response to the previously judged pictures and geometric shapes. ERPs were recorded through 54 scalp electrodes during both tasks. The P3b amplitude was increased during the categorization of the geometric shapes (...) compared to the artistic figures and during the vision of the beautiful targets preceding the motor response. The categorization of the aesthetic qualities of geometrical shapes seems to induce a higher level of attention, while a higher arousal variation was elicited by the recognition of beauty, in any form that was presented. (shrink)

First aim of this paper is to show that Evidentialism, when paired with a Psychologistic ontology of evidence, is unable to account for ordinary cases of inferential justification. As many epistemologists have maintained, however, when it is paired with a Propositionalist ontology of evidence, Evidentialism is unable to explain in a satisfactory way ordinary cases of perceptual justification. So, the Evidentialist is faced with a dilemma. Second aim of this paper is to give an argument in favour of Propositionalism about (...) evidence, and so to motivate the conclusion that perceptual justification must be accounted for in non-evidentialist terms. By this I do not mean to defend a strongly Non-Evidentialist epistemology, according to which there are doxastic attitudes which are unsupported by any justifier. More modestly, I aim to motivate the weakly Non-Evidentialist epistemology according to which a subject’s perceptual beliefs may be justified by non-evidential justifiers. I conclude the paper by explaining why I believe that Pryor's dogmatism supplies a model for the way in which an internalist who is persuaded by my argument might want to detail her weakly Non-Evidentialist account of perceptual justification. (shrink)

Many stored beliefs, like beliefs in one’s personal data or beliefs in one’s area of expertise, intuitively amount to knowledge, and so are justified. This uncontroversial datum arguably tells against evidentialism, the position according to which a belief is justified if it fits the available evidence: stored beliefs are normally not sustained by one’s available evidence. Conee and Feldman have tried to meet this potential objection by relaxing the notion of available evidence. According to their proposal, stored beliefs are dispositionally (...) justified, because they are justified by the evidence one has the disposition to retrieve; such evidence, as a consequence, is to be characterize as available, though in a derivative sense. Goldman has criticized this proposal, by offering a counterexample to the claim that a disposition to generate a piece of evidence may qualify as a justifier. In this paper I critically examine two possible replies to Goldman’s example stemming from Conee and Feldman, and finally propose my own, based on a distinction, inspired by Audi, between dispositional evidence and the disposition to have evidence. Though this proposal differs from Conee and Feldman’s one, I will conclude that it fits pretty well their intuitions. (shrink)

Functional MRI shows promise as a candidate prognostication method in acutely comatose patients following severe brain injury. However, further research is needed before this technique becomes appropriate for clinical practice. Drawing on a clinical case, we investigate the process of obtaining informed consent for this kind of research and identify four ethical issues. After describing each issue, we propose potential solutions which would make a patient’s participation in research compatible with her rights and interests. First, we defend the need for (...) traditional proxy consent against two alternative approaches. Second, we examine the impact of the intensive care unit environment on the informed consent process. Third, we discuss the therapeutic misconception and its potential influence on informed consent. Finally, we deal with issues of timing in recruiting participants and related factors which may affect the risks of participation. (shrink)

According to Hartry Field, the mathematical Platonist is hostage of a dilemma. Faced with the request of explaining the mathematicians’ reliability, one option could be to maintain that the mathematicians are reliably responsive to a realm populated with mathematical entities; alternatively, one might try to contend that the mathematical realm conceptually depends on, and for this reason is reliably reflected by, the mathematicians’ (best) opinions; however, both alternatives are actually unavailable to the Platonist: the first one because it is in (...) tension with the idea that mathematical entities are causally ineffective, the second one because it is in tension with the suggestion that mathematical entities are mind-independent. John Divers and Alexander Miller have tried to reject the conclusion of this argument—according to which Platonism is inconsistent with a satisfactory epistemology for arithmetic—by redescribing the second horn of the dilemma in light of Crispin Wright’s notion of judgment-dependent truth; in particular they have contended that once arithmetical truth is conceived in this way the Platonist can have a substantial epistemology which does not conflict with the idea that the mathematical entities exist mind-independently. In this paper I analyze Wright’s notion of judgment-dependent truth, and reject Divers and Miller’s argument for the conclusion that arithmetical truth can be so characterized. In the final part, I address the worry that my argument generalizes very quickly to the conclusion that no area of discourse could be characterized as judgment-dependent. As against this conclusion, I indicate under what conditions—notably not satisfied in Divers and Miller’s case, but possibly satisfied in others—a discourse’s judgment-dependency can be successfully vindicated. (shrink)

Il volume analizza il pensiero trascendentale di Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762-1814) nei suoi elementi costitutivi. In particolare viene messo in evidenza che l’intento principale della filosofia fichtiana è quello di edificare un “sistema della libertà”, fondato sul primato del pratico (das Praktische) e dei costitutivi pratici della coscienza umana: l’intuizione intellettuale, l’immaginazione produttiva, lo Streben ed in primis il volere. Viene quindi sottolineato che uno dei vertici della speculazione di Fichte è rappresentato dal concetto di “volere puro” che costituisce il (...) fondamento del conoscere e dell’agire, determinando la natura stessa dell’uomo e dell’assoluto. Nel volume vengono ampiamente utilizzati i nuovi testi messi a disposizione dall’edizione critica delle opere fichtiane curata da Reinhard Lauth: particolare attenzione viene data ai manoscritti di lezioni Dottrina della scienza nova methodo (1796-99) e all’epistolario intercorso tra Fichte e F.H. Jacobi sul rapporto tra la riflessione filosofica e la fede religiosa. Nella parte finale del libro compaiono due Appendici: la prima è dedicata al filosofo bretone Jules Lequier (1814-1862), autore che - ispirandosi a Fichte - elabora una filosofia della libertà tesa a superare una concezione della natura umana deterministica e positivistica; la seconda Appendice è incentrata sull’originale interpretazione del pensiero cartesiano data da Reinhard Lauth (1919-2007): quest’ultimo scorge nel cogito cartesiano il fondamento di una filosofia trascendentale ante litteram che anticipa le posizioni di Kant e di Fichte e che pone le basi per un “pensiero trascendentale della libertà”. -/- AUTORE Tommaso Valentini (Spoleto, 1979) è professore associato di “Filosofia politica” presso l’Università degli Studi “Guglielmo Marconi” di Roma, dove insegna anche “Storia della filosofia moderna”. È docente incaricato di “Ermeneutica filosofica” presso la Pontificia Università Antonianum. Nel 2003 si è laureato in Filosofia sotto la guida del Prof. Armando Rigobello; nel 2008 ha conseguito il titolo di Dottore di ricerca (PhD) in “Etica e antropologia filosofica” presso l’Università degli Studi del Salento. Dal 2006 al 2008, grazie ad una borsa di studio, ha condotto le sue ricerche sul pensiero classico tedesco a Monaco di Baviera presso la Ludwig-Maximilians Universität e la Fichte-Kommission dell’Accademica Bavarese delle Scienze. Dal 2015 è membro del Consiglio nazionale dell’ADIF (Associazione Docenti Italiani di Filosofia). È co-direttore della rivista scientifica on line «Aretè. International Journal of Philosophy, Human & Social Sciences». Ha pubblicato numerosi articoli su Kant, J.G. Fichte, il personalismo e l’ermeneutica filosofica (in particolare Paul Ricoeur). Tra le sue pubblicazioni: Soggetto e persona nel pensiero francese del Novecento, Editori Riuniti university press, Roma 2011; I fondamenti della libertà in J.G. Fichte, Editori Riuniti university press, Roma 2012; Filosofia e cristianesimo nell’Italia del Novecento, Drengo Edizioni, Roma 2012; nel 2015 è stato curatore del volume Natura umana, persona, libertà. Prospettive di antropologia filosofica ed orientamenti etico-politici, LEV, Roma 2015; nel 2017 è stato curatore (con il Prof. Luca Mencacci) del volume collettaneo dal titolo “La dialettica esaurita? A 100 anni dalla Rivoluzione d’Ottobre. Interpretazioni politiche, filosofiche, estetiche”, Presentazione del Prof. Rocco Pezzimenti, Drengo Edizioni, Roma; per la rivista «Aretè» ha curato (con il Prof. Andrea Gentile) due numeri monografici: nel 2017 il volume dal titolo “A partire da Kant: interpretazioni e metamorfosi del trascendentale”, nel 2019 il volume dal titolo “Dialettica. Sui molteplici significati di un concetto teoretico e storico-politico”. (shrink)

Although excluded from the standard account of the history of philosophy, Catharine Trotter Cockburn avoided the 17th-century bias against female intellectual skills and was an active contributor to the early modern philosophical discourse. In her Defence of Mr. Locke’s Essay, she defended Locke from several criticisms by Thomas Burnet. By analysing three of Burnet’s main arguments, such as the theory of natural conscience, his anti-voluntarism, and his belief in the immateriality of the soul, Trotter showed that he often misinterpreted John (...) Locke’s principles, especially those concerning his moral epistemology. Moreover, beyond her apologetic aim, she also presented her own moral philosophy, arguing that the true ground of morality is the rational and social nature of human beings. Although Trotter was clearly inspired by John Locke, her Defence was not simply a vindication, and she was not his mere handmaiden, for her thought was original and independent in many respects. (shrink)

A quasivariety of algebras has the joint embedding property (JEP) if and only if it is generated by a single algebra A. It is structurally complete if and only if the free ℵ0‐generated algebra in can serve as A. A consequence of this demand, called ‘passive structural completeness’ (PSC), is that the nontrivial members of all satisfy the same existential positive sentences. We prove that if is PSC then it still has the JEP, and if it has the JEP and (...) its nontrivial members lack trivial subalgebras, then its relatively simple members all belong to the universal class generated by one of them. Under these conditions, if is relatively semisimple then it is generated by one ‐simple algebra. We also prove that a quasivariety of finite type, with a finite nontrivial member, is PSC if and only if its nontrivial members have a common retract. The theory is then applied to the variety of De Morgan monoids, where we isolate the sub(quasi)varieties that are PSC and those that have the JEP, while throwing fresh light on those that are structurally complete. The results illuminate the extension lattices of intuitionistic and relevance logics. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to investigate the consequences of the bibliometrics-based evaluation system of scientific production on the contents and methods of sciences. The research has been conducted by means of in-depth interviews to a multi-disciplinary panel of Italian researchers. We discuss the implications of bibliometrics-based evaluation on the choice of the research topic, on the experimental practices, on the dissemination habits. We observe that the validation of the bibliometrics-based evaluation practices relies on the acceptance and diffusion within (...) the scientific community, and that these practices are self-sustained through their wide application. We discuss possible evolving scenarios, also considering the recent development of digital archives. (shrink)

Catharine Trotter Cockburn (1679–1749) was a versatile, learned lady, whose intellectual activity, both as a dramatist and as a philosopher, has been increasingly analysed by scholars in the last d...

This article builds on a recent paper coauthored by the present author, H. Hosni and F. Montagna. It is meant to contribute to the logical foundations of probability theory on many-valued events and, specifically, to a deeper understanding of the notion of strict coherence. In particular, we will make use of geometrical, measure-theoretical and logical methods to provide three characterizations of strict coherence on formulas of infinite-valued Łukasiewicz logic.

Starting from the text Cibo ed etica by Franco Riva, this contribution intends to discuss the many questions raised by food ethics by questioning the thought of G.W.F. Hegel and F.W.J. Schelling. In dialogue with these two authors, the essay insists on the category of “hunger” as a characteristic trait of human ontology insofar as it is a figure of the original extroversion and openness to the other.

The aim of this essay is to analyze the concept of ecstasy in F. W. J. Schelling's Erlangen Lectures. In particular, I intend to show how it constitutes a significant evolution with regard to the model of reminiscence and in particular that of Mitwissenschaft, as presented in the Weltalter. The essay focuses on three aspects of the notion of ecstasy: 1) its relation to temporality, 2) its relation to interiority, and 3) its noetic value and its moral dimension. In conclusion, (...) I will show how in Erlangen a movement of progressive de-historicization and de-theosophicization of ecstasy began, culminating in the Berliner Einleitung of 1842/43. (shrink)

ABSTRACTAlbert Camus has rarely been considered as a theoretician of democracy. Nonetheless, from the end of the Thirties it is possible to find in his different writings several observations relating to politics and the life of democracy and democracies. The second half of the Forties saw this interest, intertwined with the new post-WWII context, being explicitly dedicated to such subjects in the form of several articles and observations. Through the latter, Camus developed a radical – literally ‘that goes to roots’ (...) – analysis of twentieth century politics, defining an identity between democracy and modesty and using them to face the nihilistic attitude spread by totalitarian regimes and ‘conquering spirits’ within the same western society. Such attention to ‘modesty’ was also defined in direct connection with the idea that Camus developed during the same period on the concept of Art and the role of the artist. According to Camus, the artist – or the ‘eternal girondin’ – is like a democrat who tries to defend pluralism and unity against homologation and totality. Through tracing the historical growth of such a reflection and its relevance in defining some critical issues, this study leads us to a better understanding of contemporary politics and its crisis. (shrink)

To say that evidence is normative is to say that what evidence one possesses, and how this evidence relates to any proposition, determines which attitude among believing, disbelieving and withholding one ought to take toward this proposition if one deliberates about whether to believe it. It has been suggested by McHugh that this view can be vindicated by resting on the premise that truth is epistemically valuable. In this paper, I modify the strategy sketched by McHugh so as to overcome (...) the initial difficulty that it is unable to vindicate the claim that on counterbalanced evidence with respect to P one ought to conclude deliberation by withholding on P. However, I describe the more serious difficulty that this strategy rests on principles whose acceptance commits one to acknowledging non-evidential reasons for believing. A way to overcome this second difficulty, against the evidentialists who deny this, is to show that we sometimes manage to believe on the basis of non-epistemic considerations. If this is so, one fundamental motivation behind the evidentialist idea that non-epistemic considerations could not enter as reason in deliberation would lose its force. In the second part of this paper I address several strategies proposed in the attempt to show that we sometimes manage to believe on the basis of non-epistemic considerations and show that they all fail. So, I conclude that the strategy inspired by McHugh to ground the normativity of evidence on the value of truth ultimately fails. (shrink)

This research study focuses on the problem of populistic propaganda online. In particular, this research study provides three case studies gathered in a Facebook Group of the Italian populistic movement Movimento 5 Stelle. On the one hand, the three case studies provide three powerful counterexamples to the thesis that online media are purposeful aggregator of people. In fact, this research study finds that online media are the perfect environment for populism to thrive. For online media seem to foster the aggregation (...) of people into groups whose main common denominator is the total refusal of anything that opposes the groups’ views. On this basis, this paper provides evidence that online media may impoverish democratic confrontation. On the other hand, this paper finds that the one of the causes of the rapid rise of populistic movements in Western countries might also be related to the problem of cognitive biases. Indeed, the case studies presented in the paper posit the existence of something that is addressed as the trigger effect, i.e. agents’ tendency to react impulsively to any kind of content that fits agent’s views about current events. Specifically, this research study finds that the activation of the trigger effect might be a direct consequence of the activation of the narrow framing bias and of the anchoring heuristic in presence of fake news. (shrink)

I this paper, I address the question of why it is important to inquire into the epistemic blameworthiness of the consumers of disinformation. In response, I defend the claim, recently challenged by A. Worsnip, that this question is relevant for the second question of how the problem of disinformation should be effectively dealt with. Against Wornsip’s explicit argument to the contrary, I defend an account of epistemic blameworthiness from which it follows that the strategy of endeavouring to educate blameworthy disinformation (...) consumers holds promise. Moreover, I defend the claim that the blameworthiness of disinformation consumers is also relevant for the question of whether attempting to educate them, above and beyond an effective strategy, would be a fair way to fix the problem. In the final part, I address the complication that unfair educational strategies may still prove useful, and so be all-things-considered justified, if better alternatives are not available. (shrink)

Evidentialism says that a subject S’s justification is entirely determined by S’s evidence. The plausibility of evidentialism depends on what kind of entities constitute a subject S’s evidence and what one takes the support relation to consist in. Conee and Feldman’s mainstream evidentialism incorporates a psychologist answer to and an explanationist answer to. ME naturally accommodates perceptual justification. However, it does not accommodate intuitive cases of inferential justification. In the second part of the paper, I consider and reject a reply (...) based on a refined explanationist theory of the support relation proposed by K McCain. (shrink)

Throughout the nineteenth century, significant transformations took place in the understanding of Western homosexuality, shifting from the domain of criminal law to that of medical science. This article explores the role of European legal thought in laying the groundwork for such changes, particularly starting from the mid-eighteenth century. Examining the contributions of the Roman jurist Filippo Maria Renazzi (1745–1808), this research emphasizes his role among the thinkers who lived through the transition from the European ius commune tradition to the era (...) of criminal codes. Renazzi, a conservative university professor in papal Rome, not unfamiliar with Enlightenment discussions, penned a successful criminal treatise in Latin between 1773 and 1786. His expertise was also in demand during the subsequent development of the criminal code for the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy. By focusing on the figure of Renazzi, still not extensively studied, this article attempts to shed light on the transition towards the general decriminalization of non-reproductive carnal offenses, including sodomy. In the new penal code project, only acts committed against the will of others and public order remained generically condemned. This underscored the indifference of criminal law towards penalizing behavior that medicine would subsequently come to recognize as an inherent identity. (shrink)

The history of science is increasingly directing its attention to the diachronic examination of women's involvement within spaces dedicated to scientific inquiry. While this field of study boasts rich and meticulous historiography, delving into the sixteenth century leaves the impression of encountering either a noticeable absence of women in the realm of natural history or an underexplored period in this regard. Undoubtedly, within the Italian context of the time, the cultural milieu shaped by the Counter-Reformation further heightened the social challenges (...) faced by women.Notwithstanding these challenges, a noteworthy female figure emerges in the latter half of the sixteenth century – Francesca Fontana, the second wife of the natural history scholar Ulisse Aldrovandi (1522–1605). From an overall view of the sources, Fontana seems to assume a pivotal role in the realization of collections and works attributed to the eminent naturalist. This study aims to delineate the role played by Fontana within Aldrovandi's ‘officina naturale.’ By examining the available documents in a chronological order, my aim is to provide insights into the evolution of her education and her practical and technical skills, harnessed in the pursuit of her husband's enterprises and scholarly contributions. (shrink)

Competition over reproductive opportunities among members of one sex often harms the opposite sex, creating a conflict of interest between individual males and females. Recently, this battle of the sexes has become a paradigm in the study of intersexual coevolution. Here, we review recent theoretical and empirical advances suggesting that – as in any scenario of intraspecific competition – selfishness (competitiveness) can be influenced by the genetic relatedness of competitors. When competitors are positively related (e.g. siblings), an individual may refrain (...) from harming its competitor(s) and their mate(s) because this can improve the focal individual's inclusive fitness. These findings reveal that population genetic structure might be of paramount importance when studying the battle of the sexes. We conclude by identifying some new lines of research at the interface of sexual selection and social evolution. (shrink)

The poetic of Nespolo’s first artistic period of production is characterized by an intensive conceptualist approach based on activism, social contestation and on the use of objects and materials. These are artistic activities characterised by a critical reflection on action and on the use and consequences of art.

This paper argues that economics is epistemologically limited in at least two main ways: first, economics fails at managing uncertainty as effectively as natural sciences do; second, economics assumes that rational patterns of utility maximization are real just to ensure deduction within economic models. Hence, this paper maintains that the high level of abstraction from reality of economics limits its explanations of its constantly changing ontology, i.e. markets. In particular, this paper shows that the epistemological limitations of economics become evident (...) once two examples from today’s world are considered, namely: the substitution of physical labor with AI-powered machines; and the introduction of the so-called Universal Basic Income (UBI), i.e. governmental stipends paid to those citizens whose job has been replaced by machines. Importantly, this paper argues that if an economy were to reach to the point where machines run any sort of private or public business and humans earn only the UBI, then such a situation would represent a limit case for economics. Indeed, this paper finds that although machines would represent the perfect example of rational utility-maximizers, in such a limit situation standard economic theory would most likely fail at predicting long-term economic outcomes. (shrink)

RésuméCet article analyse Ḥayawān III, 1 d'Avicenne, qui traite du désaccord bien connu entre médecins et philosophes sur l'origine des vaisseaux sanguins et des nerfs. Cependant, l'analyse proposée ne se limite pas à ce chapitre et à son sujet principal. L'objectif plus général de cet article est de reconstruire le contexte psycho-médical dans lequel s'inscrit l'exposé d'Avicenne, c'est-à-dire l'unicité de l’âme et les conditions qui en découlent pour l'animation du corps. L'article expose ensuite la stratégie par laquelle Avicenne présente des (...) positions médicales qui remettent en cause son modèle anatomique, lequel est cohérent avec sa théorie de l’âme. À cet égard, l'article montre tout d'abord comment Avicenne démonte les arguments des médecins dans un contexte philosophique. Ensuite, il clarifie l'apport de l'anatomie pour déterminer les conditions de l'animation du corps et, finalement, comment concilier la pratique médicale avec les vérités philosophiques, le cas échéant. (shrink)

We introduce prime products as a generalization of ultraproducts for positive logic. Prime products are shown to satisfy a version of Łoś’s Theorem restricted to positive formulas, as well as the following variant of the Keisler Isomorphism Theorem: under the generalized continuum hypothesis, two models have the same positive theory if and only if they have isomorphic prime powers of ultrapowers.

Albert Camus has been at the centre of a long and bitter controversy for his positions on the Algerian war. Accused of being a colonialist, marked by Eurocentrism and/or a de facto supporter of imperialism, he in fact joined the struggle for decolonization from his earliest steps in politics, untethering it, however, from any nationalist perspective. This essay delineates the formation of Camusian position on the Algerian crisis, its turning points and the path followed in this regard from the late (...) 1930s to the late 1950s, seeking to reveal his perspective of a decolonial federalism that would simultaneously transform Europe and Africa in order to establish a political community in which there would be neither dominant nor dominated. (shrink)

This paper contributes to the existing philosophical literature on the Knobe Effect (KE) in two main ways: first, this paper disconfirms the KE by showing that the latter does not hold in contexts with probable outcomes; second, this paper shows that KE is strongly sensitive to the availability heuristic bias. In particular, this paper presents two main findings from three empirical tests carried out between 2016 and 2018: the first finding concerns the fact that if the issuer of a decision (...) with consequences on third parties is unlikely to be perceived as unfriendly, then KE is reduced or absent; the second finding regards instead the fact that if an action has two possible outcomes (one likely to obtain with strong intensity and one likely to obtain with less intensity), then KE does not obtain for decisions whose side-effects have limited consequences on third parties. (shrink)

The series is devoted to the study of scientific and philosophical texts from the Classical and the Islamic world handed down in Arabic. Through critical text editions and monographs, it provides access to ancient scientific inquiry as it developed in a continuous tradition from Antiquity to the modern period. All editions are accompanied by translations and philological and explanatory notes.

The broad aim of this paper is to question the ambiguous relationship between technology and intelligence. More specifically, it addresses the reasons why the ever-increasing reliance on smart technologies and wide repositories of data does not necessarily increase the display of “smart” or even “intelligent” behaviors, but rather increases new instances of “brutality” as a mix of ignorance and violence. We claim that the answer can be found in the cyborg theory, and more specifically in the possibility to blend different (...) kinds of intentionality. (shrink)

_Aims:_ Italy was one of the first countries to be significantly affected by the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, determining a unique scenario for Italian psychotherapists to consider changing the modality in which they deliver treatment. The present study aimed at studying which factors related to psychotherapists and their clinical practice had a major role in predicting two main outcomes: (1) the rate of interrupted treatments during lockdown and (2) psychotherapists’ satisfaction with the telepsychotherapy modality. _Methods:_ An online survey was (...) administered to licensed psychotherapists ( n = 306), who worked mainly as private practitioners, between April 5 and May 10, 2020 (i.e., the peak of the pandemic in Italy). _Results:_ Psychotherapists reported that 42.1% (SD = 28.9) of their treatments had been interrupted, suggesting that Italy faced an important undersupply of psychotherapy during the lockdown. Using the Akaike information criterion (AIC) model selection, we identified three predictors of the rate of interrupted treatments: (1) psychotherapists’ lack of experience with telepsychotherapy prior to the lockdown, (2) their theoretical orientation (with cognitive behavioral psychotherapists reporting a higher rate of interrupted treatments), and (3) patients’ lack of privacy at home, as reported to the psychotherapists. Furthermore, we found four predictors of psychotherapists’ satisfaction with the telepsychotherapy modality: (1) the rate of interrupted treatments, (2) psychotherapists’ previous experience with telepsychotherapy, (3) their beliefs about the compatibility of telepsychotherapy with their theoretical orientation, and (4) their use of a video-conferencing modality, rather than telephone. _Conclusion:_ The following recommendations can help policy makers, professional associations, and practitioners in promoting the continuity of psychotherapy treatments during the COVID-19 outbreak and in future emergencies: (i) disseminating training programs for practitioners on telepsychotherapy, (ii) supporting patients to pragmatically access a private space at home, (iii) encouraging practitioners to use video-conferencing (instead of telephone) to deliver remote therapy, and (iv) increasing the acceptance of telepsychotherapy among both clinicians and the general public. (shrink)

Engaging in physical activity and sports has been associated with various cognitive abilities and other personal characteristics. The contemporary link between doing sports and personal attributes such as soft skills and an individual’s cognitive abilities have yet to be investigated, however. This study aims to analyze the association between years of practicing a sport, cognitive abilities, and personal attributes. A large sample of 1,115 individuals completed the Cattell test and answered a questionnaire measuring six soft skills. A multivariate regression analysis (...) show that, after controlling for age and gender, participants’ years of practicing a sport were positively associated with three soft skills and with fluid reasoning. No differences emerged between team and individual sport practitioners. Our findings suggest an association between practicing sports, which entails more than just physical activity, and both cognitive abilities and other important personal characteristics, such as soft skills. (shrink)

Effective methods for evaluating the reliability of statements issued by witnesses and defendants in hearings would be an extremely valuable support to decision-making in court and other legal settings. In recent years, methods relying on stylometric techniques have proven most successful for this task; but few such methods have been tested with language collected in real-life situations of high-stakes deception, and therefore their usefulness outside lab conditions still has to be properly assessed. In this study we report the results obtained (...) by using stylometric techniques to identify deceptive statements in a corpus of hearings collected in Italian courts. The defendants at these hearings were condemned for calumny or false testimony, so the falsity of (some of) their statements is fairly certain. In our experiments we replicated the methods used in previous studies but never before applied to high-stakes data, and tested new methods. We also considered the effect of a number of variables including in particular the homogeneity of the dataset. Our results suggest that accuracy at deception detection clearly above chance level can be obtained with real-life data as well. (shrink)

Gary Zukav suggested that we consider reality what we take to be true, what we believe and that is based on our perception (1979). If we assume that this is the case, then we might try to use tangible and intangible tools to reframe our preconception. As human beings we are trying to maintain the relation between our body and soma. In the same way someone might try to understand the body–mind coupling as oneness of duality, in other words not (...) two and not one. Furthermore, we can only use our senses to fulfil what is the present, the now. The now action will lead us to a specific scenario. As history has taught us, social and technological innovations have driven human beings to often perceive themselves as the spark of industrial revolution: an ideal salvation for the most urgent issues. Then, it might be acceptable to consider the marriage between art and science as a tool to achieve a sort of soteriological reward. In the same way, if additive art is object oriented then we might be allowed to explore how the applied arts under the design dimension, as practice and research, are struggling in the search for a new spirituality. Moreover the quest for design education, combined with the analysis of post-dramatic theatre and participatory design, has raised the question of how an alternative basic design course could heighten self- and collective consciousness through an approach based on the relation of body–soma. It is noted that design education, since the initiation of Bauhaus Art School, was considered the ideal path to deliver a physical outcome that represented the balance between art, technology and science, while from a philosophical point of view we can recognise the following as a subtle suggestion on what design education should expand its search: ‘to perceive, to conceive, to image: such are indeed the three types of consciousness by which the same object can be given to us’ (Sartre 1940: 8). Tracing connections between Sartre’s idea and the blend of post-dramatic theatre with participatory design into arts education, this article will describe experiments that aim to break down design students’ preconception: a dimension where the process of fabricated realities became the main outcome, the body–soma dialogues struggling to gain the perpetual unbalance. Experiments were conducted at the micro–macro scale, in a non-tactile society, where, for most people, the practice of Buddhism is embedded in daily life. This article aims to underline how an alternative approach to design education in South East Asia could be the building blocks to develop a reflection, an open-ended dialogue on network effect and the self. (shrink)

This article analyses the complex relationship between the logical and the analogical dimension in the Republic of Plato, focusing synchronically on three analogies: polis-soul, polis-body and soul-body. The aim is to demonstrate first how the analogies help Plato to give strength to his political description, and second how the power relationships provide intelligible models for the description of the human being. The analogical value of the power relationships and the political value of the analogies emerge as inseparably linked. The article (...) proves at the same time how the analogy between the ideal polis and a timeless image of the soul is only possible due to the medical analogy between the polis and the body, which separate clearly the Greek culture from the «barbaric» populations. (shrink)