This paper advances a version of the theory whereby logic had deep origins in democracy, by re-reading Gorgias’ Encomium of Helen. Democracy, ‘the government by debate’, called political (and scientific) attention to the inferential abilities of citizens and to politicians’ ability of taking advantage of them. Sophists, in particular, discovered that people’s inferences follow constant repeatable forms, that these forms have impact on choices and decisions concerning public good, and then by dominating them you dominate politics in democracy. With the (...) Encomium Gorgias launched these ideas, so laying the ground for Aristotle’s science of deduction. (shrink)

This article is a preliminary presentation of conjunctive paraconsistency, the claim that there might be non-explosive true contradictions, but contradictory propositions cannot be considered separately true. In case of true ‘p and not p’, the conjuncts must be held untrue, Simplification fails. The conjunctive approach is dual to non-adjunctive conceptions of inconsistency, informed by the idea that there might be cases in which a proposition is true and its negation is true too, but the conjunction is untrue, Adjunction fails. While (...) non-adjunctivism is a well-known option, the other view is not so much studied nowadays, but it was not unknown in the tradition, and there are some positive suggestions, in recent literature, that the position is plausible and deserves to be developed. The article compares conjunctivism, non-adjunctivism and dialetheism, then focuses on some possible justifications, costs and benefits of the conjunctive view. (shrink)

In his Lectures on the History of Philosophy, Hegel develops a subtle analysis of Megarian paradoxes: the Liar, the Veiled Man and the Sorites. In this paper, we focus on Hegel's interpretation of...

1. The label conjunctive paraconsistency has been adopted to mean a consequence relation whereby ‘p and not p’ does not imply ‘p’ and ‘not p’ separately, so that Simplification in case of contradic...

The focus of this article is the notion of alethic rights, the rights related to truth. The concept of truth grounds many norms and customary and official rules, but there is no clear and shared idea about its power to generate specific rights. The juridical and political archetype called ‘the right to truth’ is still subject of controversies, and there are doubts about its being a real ‘right,’ to be protected by positive (new) norms. In the article the problem is (...) explored in truth-theoretical perspective: can philosophy support the idea of truth as a source of rights? Can an updated and well-developed theory of truth be proposed, to help activists and theorists concerned with the need for truth of individuals and communities? I present six alethic rights, corresponding to six different aspects of the human need for truth, then I specifically focus on the truth theory that can justify the hypothesis. (shrink)

Stratified properties such as ‘happy unhappiness’, ‘ungrounded ground’, ‘fortunate misfortune’, and evidently ‘true falsity’ may generate dialetheias (true contradictions). The aim of the article is to show that if this is the case, then we will have a special, conjunctive, kind of dialetheia: a true state description of the form ‘Fa and not Fa’ (for some property F and object a), wherein the two conjuncts, separately taken, are to be held untrue. The particular focus of the article is on happy (...) unhappiness: people suffering from (or enjoying) happy unhappiness (if there is some situation or state of mind of this kind) cannot be truly said ‘happy’ or ‘unhappy’, but we can say they are both. In the first section three cases of conjunctive stratification are presented; in the second section the logic of stratified contradictions is explored. The last section focuses on eudemonistic ascriptions: stated that a is happy to be unhappy (or unhappy to be happy), should we say a is happy? unhappy? both? neither? (shrink)

Suppose a person blushes iff what she says is false and she says: ‘I am blushing’. If she blushes, she doesn’t, and if she doesn’t, she does. This Blushing Liar is a new paradox, similar in some respects to the Pinocchio Paradox : Pinocchio’s nose grows iff he says some falsity, and he says: ‘my nose is growing’. Both paradoxes involve physical properties, and both, supposedly, confirm the existence of metaphysical dialetheias. In the paper, we note first that while PP (...) relies on the rather implausible scenario of a wooden puppet whose nose grows iff he is lying, so it is debunked by the objection of fictionality, BL is more plausible. Many people in our world blush, and it is not difficult to imagine someone whose saying is causally related to blushing in a similar way. A second question is whether blushing can be directly connected to falsity, without deliberate conscience, on the part of the speaker, of saying a false statement. So we explore the consequences of intending ‘I am blushing’ as a ‘lie’, in the strict meaning of the term, and we claim there is no substantial difference, but for the fact that the paradoxical effect is even more plausible. Third, we check whether BL and PP do really release metaphysical dialetheias, and we argue they do not: they lack the fundamental requisite of Liar-like contradictions, i.e. the stratification of properties. (shrink)

Abstract – In this paper I reconstruct the nature, origins and survivals of the divide between ‘analytic’ and ‘continental’ tradition—the famous dualism which affected the development of philosophy in the second half of the XX century. I also present a theory of it, stressing that its intra-philosophical causes are to be found in the mutual resistance between critical (transcendental) and semantic (logical) approaches in philosophy. I conclude by noting that good philosophers (more or less knowingly) are and have always been (...) sensitive to the transcendental and logical aspects of the philosophical work. (shrink)

In virtue of Fitch-Church proof, also known as the knowability paradox, we are able to prove that if everything is knowable, then everything is known. I present two ‘onto-theological’ versions of the proof, one concerning collective omniscience and another concerning omnificence. I claim these arguments suggest new ways of exploring the intersection between logical and ontological givens that is a grounding theme of religious thought. What is more, they are good examples of what I call semi-paradoxes: apparently sound arguments whose (...) conclusion is not properly unacceptable, but simply arguable. (shrink)

Contents Introduction Detailed Content xx 1 Chapter 1. What is nihilism? Chapter 2. The epistemological Liar 21 Chapter 3. Unnatural certainties 43 Chapter ...

My discussion addresses the differences between analytic and continental philosophy concerning the use of logic and exact reasoning in philosophical practice. These differences are mainly examined in the light of the controversial dominance of Hegel's concept of logic in twentieth-century continental philosophy. The inquiry is developed in two parts. In the first, I indicate some aspects of the analytic -continental divide, pointing to the role that the topic 'logic and philosophy' plays in it. In the second part, I give a (...) short account of the views of logic which are typical of the three main trends of continental philosophy. I also suggest how, with the aid of some typical analytical devices, some continental 'anti-logical' attitudes may be corrected, on their own terms. (shrink)

The article tries to outline a general theory of context, by answering four questions: 1.why the concept of context is important? 2. what is usually meant by this term? 3. which metaphysical reasons have led to the relevance of context, in any tendency of contemporary philosophy? 4. which are the reasons, limits and mistakes of negative contextualisms ? The basic idea is that the concept of context is a good opportunity, more than a thread or limit, for philosophical theory.

Contrariamente a quanto si dice, non esistono oggi “molte filosofie”, ma un unico benché multiforme orientamento scettico, che definisce - con gradi di maggiore o minore radicalità - la “razionalità minimale” all'opera in qualsiasi discorso filosofico. Al centro (o al cuore) di questa grande koiné scettica agisce profondamente, ma con effetti avvertibili, l'idea che sia difficile o impossibile afferrare, o riconoscere, o definire la verità. Ma è davvero così? In quale senso può essere vero che la verità non esiste, o (...) è indefinibile, ineffabile, inafferrabile? Il libro ricostruisce la storia di un solo enunciato, “la verità non esiste”, e delle sue traduzioni e parafrasi: dai sofisti e dagli antichi scettici fino a Nietzsche e alle teorie contemporanee sulla scomparsa della verità. È una storia controversa, fin da principio segnata dalla consapevolezza che a normali condizioni logiche non si può negare la verità: perché se è vero che la verità non esiste, allora almeno una verità esiste. La ricostruzione storica aiuta a capire che la verità è “innegabile” come altri concetti fondamentali della tradizione filosofica: come l'essere, il pensiero, il linguaggio. Cosí come non può essere vero che la verità non esiste, non si può pensare l'assenza di pensiero, e dire l'assenza di linguaggio. Ma esistono, essere, pensiero, verità, linguaggio? La tesi del libro è che non ci si può disfare della verità (esattamente come non ci si può disfare di altri concetti-fondamenti) se e in quanto si intende rimanere all'interno della filosofia, ossia di un discorso preliminare e generale (e in una certa misura libero e neutrale) su teorie, visioni della realtà, modi di dare conto della realtà. (shrink)

Esistono metodi filosofici? L’articolo si propone di rispondere alla domanda dapprima mettendo in discussione l’idea che la filosofia sia un’attività ‘extrametodica’, poi esaminando i principali metodi e tecniche messi a punto dalla filosofia contemporanea. Si perviene così a una definizione di filosofia come tentativo di risolvere problemi ‘fondamentali’, che, perciò, procede servendosi di diversi metodi, ciascuno dei quali basato su diverse ‘supervalutazioni’ di tesi relative a concetti tipici, quali ‘realtà’, ‘verità’, ‘conoscenza’.Are there philosophical methods? The article tries to answer this (...) question, at first by discussing the idea of philosophy as an ‘extra-methodical’ activity, then by examining the principal techniques and methods worked out in contemporary philosophy. A definition of philosophy as an attempt to solve ‘fundamental’ problems is also assumed. Such an attempt, is argued, is usually developed by using different methods, each of them depending on different ‘supervaluations’ of theses concerning reality, truth, knowledge, and other typically philosophical concepts. (shrink)

Is it possible truthfully to assert the non-existence of truth? It is a classical problem whose solution is still controversial. I present here an analysis of the sentence “there is no truth” (and its translations and paraphrases, such as “no proposition is true”, “every proposition is false”), with some remarks about its epistemological and ontological implications, and its consequences tor a general theory of reason.

A new idea of ‘contradictory Christology’ has been recently advanced by JC Beall (The contradictory Christ. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2021a). This paper does not enter the debate whether Christ double nature instantiates a contradiction or does not. It aims to point out a possible view about the Christological problem similar to Beall’s view but more focused on the metaphysical consequences of admitting a treatment of the Christological paradox in dialetheic terms, as a case of ‘true contradiction’. In Beall’s account, (...) the glut-theoretic approach can improve the conception of logic presupposed in theological discussions, giving new suggestions for the development of an updated ‘logic of Christology’. I move in the other direction, exploring whether the philosophical reflection on Christology could give new insights for paraconsistency and the study of inconsistencies in general. More specifically, I claim that the idea of the unity of contradictories in Christ’s being both divine and human may give some support to the idea of conjunctive paraconsistency, whereby true conjunctions of contradictories do not admit of Simplification. After an introduction which presents the main argument, I summarize the theory of conjunctivism in paraconsistency, then I focus on the (pseudo) Athanasian Creed, wherein the two natures – one person principle is defended against monophysism. (shrink)

Over the course of his career, Gianni Vattimo has assumed a number of public and private identities and has pursued multiple intellectual paths. He seems to embody several contradictions, at once defending and questioning religion and critiquing and serving the state. Yet the diversity of his life and thought form the very essence of, as he sees it, the vocation and responsibility of the philosopher. In a world that desires quantifiable results and ideological expediency, the philosopher becomes the vital interpreter (...) of the endlessly complex. As he outlines his ideas about the philosopher's role, Vattimo builds an important companion to his life's work. He confronts questions of science, religion, logic, literature, and truth, and passionately defends the power of hermeneutics to engage with life's conundrums. Vattimo conjures a clear vision of philosophy as something separate from the sciences and the humanities but also intimately connected to their processes, and he explicates a conception of truth that emphasizes fidelity and participation through dialogue. (shrink)

Over the course of his career, Gianni Vattimo has assumed a number of public and private identities and has pursued multiple intellectual paths. He seems to embody several contradictions, at once defending and questioning religion and critiquing and serving the state. Yet the diversity of his life and thought form the very essence of, as he sees it, the vocation and responsibility of the philosopher. In a world that desires quantifiable results and ideological expediency, the philosopher becomes the vital interpreter (...) of the endlessly complex. As he outlines his ideas about the philosopher's role, Vattimo builds an important companion to his life's work. He confronts questions of science, religion, logic, literature, and truth, and passionately defends the power of hermeneutics to engage with life's conundrums. Vattimo conjures a clear vision of philosophy as something separate from the sciences and the humanities but also intimately connected to their processes, and he explicates a conception of truth that emphasizes fidelity and participation through dialogue. (shrink)

Marking the 50th anniversary of one among this philosopher's most distinguished pieces, Blumenberg's Rhetoric proffers a decidedly dialogic and diversified interaction with the essay polyvalently entitled 'Anthropological Approach to the Actuality and Topicality (or Currency, Relevance) of Rhetoric' (Anthropologische Annäherung an die Aktualität der Rhetorik), first published in 1971. Following Blumenberg's lead, the contributors consider and tackle their topics rhetorically, 'in utramque partem vel in plures'--treating (inter alia) the variegated discourses of Phenomenology, the History of Philosophy, Anthropology, and the téchne (...) itself from a plurality of viewpoints. Quasi in actu--as a mise en abyme of this rhetorical method par excellence--said accent on approaching any matter polyperspectivally is reflected in the proceedings of the live(ly) discussions having taken place in preparation for the present volume. Along with the diachronically extensive, disciplinarily diverse essays, this publication of the actual academic interplay--notably in the current lingua franca--will facilitate, and is to conduce to, further scholarship with respect to Blumenberg and the art of rhetoric. (shrink)

The call has been made for global bioethics. In an age of pandemics, international drug trials, and genetic technology, health has gone global, and bioethics must follow suit. George Annas is one among a number of thinkers to recommend that bioethics expand beyond its traditional domain of patient–physician interactions to encompass a broader range of health-related matters. Medicine, Annas argues, must “develop a global language and a global strategy that can help to improve the health of all of the world's (...) citizens.” Individual countries cannot address global health issues, and culturally specific principles are inadequate for addressing global bioethics concerns. We will need a language and moral framework grounded in a foundation of universally shared, transcultural judgments about humankind that will also recognize moral pluralism. The claim has been made that such a foundation already exists in human rights, and that human rights should, therefore, be the new lingua franca of bioethics. (shrink)