Umberto Eco -- Stephen Jay Gould -- Jean-Claude Carrière -- Jean Delumeau.

This is the second of a series of papers that investigate fragments of quasi-Nelson logic (QNL) from an algebraic logic standpoint. QNL, recently introduced as a common generalization of intuitionistic and Nelson’s constructive logic with strong negation, is the axiomatic extension of the substructural logic |$FL_{ew}$| (full Lambek calculus with exchange and weakening) by the Nelson axiom. The algebraic counterpart of QNL (quasi-Nelson algebras) is a class of commutative integral residuated lattices (a.k.a. |$FL_{ew}$|-algebras) that includes both Heyting and Nelson algebras (...) and can be characterized algebraically in several alternative ways. The present paper focuses on the algebraic counterpart (a class we dub quasi-Nelson implication algebras, QNI-algebras) of the implication–negation fragment of QNL, corresponding to the connectives that witness the algebraizability of QNL. We recall the main known results on QNI-algebras and establish a number of new ones. Among these, we show that QNI-algebras form a congruence-distributive variety (Cor. 3.15) that enjoys equationally definable principal congruences and the strong congruence extension property (Prop. 3.16); we also characterize the subdirectly irreducible QNI-algebras in terms of the underlying poset structure (Thm. 4.23). Most of these results are obtained thanks to twist representations for QNI-algebras, which generalize the known ones for Nelson and quasi-Nelson algebras; we further introduce a Hilbert-style calculus that is algebraizable and has the variety of QNI-algebras as its equivalent algebraic semantics. (shrink)

An erudite and witty collection of Umberto Eco's essays on mass culture from the 1960s through the 1980s, including major pieces which have not been translated into English before. The discussion is framed by opposing characterizations of current intellectuals as apocalyptic and opposed to all mass culture, or as integrated intellectuals, so much a part of mass culture as to be unaware of serving it. Organized in four main parts, "Mass Culture: Apocalypse Postponed," "Mass Media and the Limits of (...) Communication," "The Rise and Fall of Counter-Cultures," and "In Search of Italian Genius," Eco looks at a variety of topics and cultural productions, including the world of Charlie Brown, distinctions between highbrow and lowbrow, the future of literacy, Chinese comic strips, whether countercultures exist, Fellini's Ginger and Fred, and the Italian genius industry. (shrink)

In this book, the Italian novelist and philosopher Umberto Eco presents a learned summary of medieval aesthetic ideas.

Cet article vise à exposer le travail que juristes, magistrats et experts ont dû effectuer – parfois au prix de leur vie – pour soutenir l’énoncé selon lequel la mafia existe, et montre les implications de cette assertion pour les « économies morales » de la société italienne. Après un détour historique destiné à décrire le processus conduisant, en septembre 1982, à une définition juridique de la mafia comme « association criminelle » – préalable nécessaire à l’aboutissement de toute action (...) en justice contre cette société secrète – ce texte se penche sur les mises à l’épreuve judiciaire de l’affirmation de la nature organisée et centralisée du phénomène mafieux, et sur les multiples revirements auxquels cette théorisation – appelée « le théorème Buscetta » du nom du repenti ayant permis de la formuler – a été soumise. Les controverses que suscitent de nos jours encore les procès anti-mafia dans le prétoire, les bureaux d’instruction ou les médias, incitent à saisir les enjeux politiques et moraux de telle ou telle définition de la « mafia » et du « mafieux », et à poser la question de la limite entre ce qui est acceptable ou intolérable au sein d’une démocratie. (shrink)

À San Juan de Plan, village des Hautes-Pyrénées espagnoles, le jour de la Sainte-Agathe, trois générations féminines s’affairent autour d’une préparation culinaire : el chocolate, le chocolat. Quelle relation peut-on établir entre la sainte aux seins coupés, les femmes, qui en Espagne lui vouent un culte tout particulier, et la boisson chaude qu’elles élaborent? Éclairé à la lumière de la biographie de sainte Agathe, ce rite alimentaire nous découvre quelques-unes des propriétés symboliques du chocolat et fait apparaître, dans ses multiples (...) facettes, une capacité propre à l’être féminin : celle de transmettre. (shrink)

Essays discuss poetry, communication, television, form, aesthetics, bad taste, and art.

As the only book-length treatment of Aquinas's aesthetics available in English, this volume should interest philosophers, medievalists, historians, critics, and ...

A collection of essays discusses such topics as the nature of perception, the semiotic links between cognition and language, and iconism, with imaginative fables featuring animal heroes to illustrate the main points.

A collection of essays discusses current issues, including spirituality, war, disenchantment, traditions, fascism, and customs, and draws from past experiences that have had a profound impact on the world today.

We develop an algebraic study of W.S. Cooper’s three-valued propositional logic of ordinary discourse ( $$\mathcal{O}\mathcal{L}$$ O L ). This logic displays a number of unusual features: $$\mathcal{O}\mathcal{L}$$ O L is not weaker but incomparable with classical logic, it is connexive, paraconsistent and contradictory. As a non-structural logic, $$\mathcal{O}\mathcal{L}$$ O L cannot be algebraized by the standard methods. However, we show that $$\mathcal{O}\mathcal{L}$$ O L has an algebraizable structural companion, and determine its equivalent semantics, which turns out to be a (...) finitely-generated discriminator variety. We provide an equational and a twist presentation for this class of algebras, which allow us to compare it with other well-known algebras of non-classical logics. In this way we establish that $$\mathcal{O}\mathcal{L}$$ O L is definitionally equivalent to an expansion of the three-valued logic $${\mathcal {J}}3$$ J 3 of D’Ottaviano and da Costa, itself a schematic extension of paraconsistent Nelson logic. (shrink)

"Eco wittily and enchantingly develops themes often touched on in his previous works, but he delves deeper into their complex nature... this collection can be read with pleasure by those unversed in semiotic theory." —Times Literary Supplement.

L'étude du cycle carnavalesque de trois villages alpins, situés dans une enclave slave en Italie du nord (vallée de Resia), permet de suivre les étapes traversées par l'adolescente à l'intérieur de la fête, moment clef de son identification sexuelle et sociale. Les trois exemples choisis ont mis en lumière des stratégies différentes qui utilisent un couple de masques bäbac/maškira, couple qui correspond à l'opposition structurelle entre le modèle de la fille « sauvage » et celui de la demoiselle policée. Si (...) pour devenir une « jeune fille à marier », on doit passer par ces figures, l'identité ainsi acquise n'est pas fixée une fois pour toutes. En un jeu de miroirs, le sexe opposé et les autres classes d'âge éclairent ces parcours féminins sans cesse mouvants, au croisement des rites collectifs et du vécu singulier. (shrink)

Why are we deeply moved by the misfortune of Anna Karenina if we are fully aware that she is simply a fictional character who does not exist in our world?But what does it mean that fictional characters do not exist? The present article is concerned with the ontology of fictional characters. The author concludes thatsuccessful fictional characters become paramount examples of the ‘real’ human condition because they live in an incomplete world what we have cognitive access to but cannot influence (...) in any way and where no deeds can be undone. Unlike all the other semiotic objects, which are culturally subject to revisions, and perhaps only similar to mathematical entities, the fictual characters will never change and will remain the actors of what they did once and forever. (shrink)

In preference aggregation a set of individuals express preferences over a set of alternatives, and these preferences have to be aggregated into a collective preference. When preferences are represented as orders, aggregation procedures are called social welfare functions. Classical results in social choice theory state that it is impossible to aggregate the preferences of a set of individuals under different natural sets of axiomatic conditions. We define a first-order language for social welfare functions and we give a complete axiomatisation for (...) this class, without having the number of individuals or alternatives specified in the language. We are able to express classical axiomatic requirements in our first-order language, giving formal axioms for three classical theorems of preference aggregation by Arrow, by Sen, and by Kirman and Sondermann. We explore to what extent such theorems can be formally derived from our axiomatisations, obtaining positive results for Sen’s Theorem and the Kirman-Sondermann Theorem. For the case of Arrow’s Theorem, which does not apply in the case of infinite societies, we have to resort to fixing the number of individuals with an additional axiom. In the long run, we hope that our approach to formalisation can serve as the basis for a fully automated proof of classical and new theorems in social choice theory. (shrink)

We look at extensions (i.e., stronger logics in the same language) of the Belnap–Dunn four-valued logic. We prove the existence of a countable chain of logics that extend the Belnap–Dunn and do not coincide with any of the known extensions (Kleene’s logics, Priest’s logic of paradox). We characterise the reduced algebraic models of these new logics and prove a completeness result for the first and last element of the chain stating that both logics are determined by a single finite logical (...) matrix. We show that the last logic of the chain is not finitely axiomatisable. (shrink)

La crisi dello strutturalismo e i confini della semiotica in un volume importante della produzione di Eco. Un libro che trova la sua continuazione ideale in 'Lector in fabula'.

In the course of the long debate on the nature and the classification of signs, from Boethius to Ockham, there are at least three lines of thought: the Stoic heritage, that influences Augustine, Abelard, Francis Bacon; the Aristotelian tradition, stemming from the commentaries on De Interpretatione; the discussion of the grammarians, from Priscian to the Modistae. Modern interpreters are frequently misled by the fact that the various authors regularly used the same terms. Such a homogeneous terminology, however, covers profound theoretical (...) differences. The aim of these essays is to show that the medieval theory of signs does not represent a unique body of semiotic notions: there are diverse and frequently alternative semiotic theories. This book thus represents an attempt to encourage further research on the still unrecognized variety of the semiotic approaches offered by the medieval philosophies of language. (shrink)

The world’s press may have lost interest in the ongoing enquiry into the deep‐rooted corruption in Italian business. But what exactly was going on, and what can be done to improve matters? The writers of this authoritative study are Faculty members of the prestigious Italian Business School, SDA Bocconi, Via F. Bocconi 8, 8‐20136 Milano, where Umberto Lago lectures in Strategy and Roberto Castoldi in Accounting. They both lecture on the Business Policy course at Bocconi University.