Contrary to a common opinion, some theses of scientific anarchism are historically connected not only to Popper's and "second" Wittgenstein's thoughts, but also to some ideas affirmed by the advocates of "physicalism" (like Neurath) during the neopositivistie debate on protocol sentences. The common basis of "physicalism" and "anarchism" is a repulse of the "atomistic" theory of meaning. That is making more adequate the epistemological description of knowledge. But both Neurath and Feyerabend err in thinking that this repulse entails a conception (...) of "truth" as "coherence" instead of "correspondence". Against such a conviction the "realistic" requirement expressed by SchHck through the concept of "Konstatiemng" is still very valid. (shrink)
At Columbia University in 1906, William James gave a highly confrontational speech to the American Philosophical Association (APA). He ignored the technical philosophical questions the audience had gathered to discuss and instead addressed the topic of human energy. Tramping on the rules of academic decorum, James invoked the work of amateurs, read testimonials on the benefits of yoga and alcohol, and concluded by urging his listeners to take up this psychological and physiological problem. What was the goal of this unusual (...) speech? Rather than an oddity, Francesca Bordogna asserts that the APA address was emblematic—it was just one of many gestures that James employed as he plowed through the barriers between academic, popular, and pseudoscience, as well as the newly emergent borders between the study of philosophy, psychology, and the “science of man.” Bordogna reveals that James’s trespassing of boundaries was an essential element of a broader intellectual and social project. By crisscrossing divides, she argues, James imagined a new social configuration of knowledge, a better society, and a new vision of the human self. As the academy moves toward an increasingly interdisciplinary future, William James at the Boundaries reintroduces readers to a seminal influence on the way knowledge is pursued. (shrink)
This research is concerned with the innate predispositions underlying human intentional communication. Human communication is currently defined as a circular and overt attempt to modify a partner's mental states. This requires each party involved to posse ss the ability to represent and understand the other's mental states, a capability which is commonly referred to as mindreading, or theory of mind (ToM). The relevant experimental literature agrees that no such capability is to be found in the human speci es at least (...) during the first year of life, and possibly later. This paper aims at advancing a solution to this theoretical problem. We propose to consider sharedness as the basis for intentional communication in the infant and to view it as a primitive, i nnate component of her cognitive architecture. Communication can then build upon the mental grounds that the infant takes as shared with her caregivers. We view this capability as a theory of mind in a weak sense.›. (shrink)
Francesca Y. Albertini (1974-2011) compares Maimonides' idea of peace, as developed in MT Sefer shofetim (Book of Judges), with Kant's work on the notion of “eternal peace“ ( Zum ewigen Frieden ). Both authors develop a historical vision pointed against the use of force and war in light of a framework not limited by historical time (messianic age, eternity). Despite all differences in method and historical context, the authors agree on the notion that universal ethics provides the basis of (...) a determination of right grounded in the will. Maimonides' universal messianism as well as Kant's universal history emphasize the pivotal role and decisive responsibility of the human being in realizing, through reason, the reign of peace and prosperity on earth first envisioned by the biblical prophets. These utopias continue to challenge us, especially in this day and age. (shrink)
Marcia Baron has offered an illuminating and fruitful discussion of extra-legal excuses. What is particularly useful, and particularly important, is her focus on our excusatory practices—on the ways and contexts in which we make, offer, accept, bestow and reject excuses: if we are to reach an adequate understanding of excuses, their implications and their grounds, we must attend to the roles that they can play in our human activities and relationships—and to the complexities and particularities of those roles. However, I (...) want to focus my comments less on the details of Baron’s discussions of excuses in extra-legal contexts than on the implications of her discussion for our understanding of excuses in the criminal law. What light (if any, a sceptic might add) can such analyses of our extra-legal concepts and practices throw on legal concepts and doctrines? (shrink)
Paul Henri Thiry, Baron d'Holbach was a philosopher, translator, and prominent social figure of the French Enlightenment. In his philosophical writings Holbach developed a deterministic and materialistic metaphysics which grounded his polemics against organized religion and his utilitarian ethical and political theory. As a translator, Holbach made significant contributions to the European Enlightenment in science and religion. He translated German works on chemistry and geology into French, summarizing many of the German advances in these areas in his entries in Diderot's (...) Encyclopedia. Holbach also translated important English works on religion and political philosophy into French. Holbach remains best known, however, for his role in Parisian society. The close circle of intellectuals that Holbach hosted and, in various ways, sponsored produced the Encyclopedia and a number of revisionary religious, ethical, and political works that contributed to the ideological basis for the French Revolution. Despite the radical views of many members of his coterie, however, Holbach's broader visiting guest list included many of the most prominent intellectual and political figures in Europe. His salon, then, was at once a shelter for radical thought and a hub of mainstream culture. (shrink)
In this paper, I put forward some remarks supporting a reading of Spinoza's metaphysics in terms of process ontology, that is, the notion that processes or activities, rather than things, are the most basic entities. I suggest that this reading, while not the only possible one, offers advantages over the traditional substance-properties interpretation. While this claim may sound implausible vis-à-vis Spinoza's language of ‘substance’ and ‘attributes’, I show that process ontology illuminates important features of Spinoza's thought and can facilitate solutions (...) to some interpretive problems. (shrink)
Like Mises before him, Hayek challenges the validity of socialism as a centrally planned economic regime typically characterized by state ownership of all means of production. What is typical of Hayek's challenge is that he holds that this question is fully theoretical in nature and that it has consequently to be raised and decided as a scientific question. Sketching the historical background of the socialist calculation debate of the 1920s and 1930s, I first show how this debate is linked with (...) the Menger-Wieser Zurechnungsproblem, which indeed constitutes the very topic of Hayek’s 1923 Ph. D. dissertation. I recall that the Pareto-Barone approach based on General Equilibrium Theory (GET) has determined the conceptual framework of this controversy. I then go on to explore Hayek's impracticability argument against market socialism and try to show how it is related to, but different from, Mises’s logical impossibility argument. I argue that the contexts of discussion were completely different in both cases: if Mises was criticizing the possibility of rational economic decisions in a moneyless economy, Hayek was debating against the Lange-Dickinson-Lerner model of market socialism where the prices of first order goods were supposedly fixed following a GET simulation of the competetive market process. The core of Hayek’s line of reasoning is shown to be related to a clever analysis of the notion of ‘data’: the data on which a Central Planification Board is suppose to work out a production and distribution schema for the whole economy are simply unavailable to him because this kind of economic knowledge (which Michael Polanyi calls “tacit knowledge”) cannot be accumulated and stored up anywhere in society, as if the global economy could be directed by a super-brain possessing complete knowledge of every particular situation and able to compute a perfect solution to any economic problem whatsoever.. (shrink)
Philosophical interest in introspection has a long and storied history, but only recently – with the 'scientific turn' in philosophy of mind – have philosophers sought to ground their accounts of introspection in psychological data. In particular, there is growing awareness of how evidence from clinical and developmental psychology might be brought to bear on long-standing debates about the architecture of introspection, especially in the form of apparent dissociations between introspection and third-person mental-state attribution. It is less often noticed that (...) this evidence needs to be interpreted with due sensitivity to distinctions between different types of introspection, for example, introspection of propositional attitudes (beliefs, desires) vs. introspection of phenomenally conscious states (pains, emotional feelings). As contemporary debates about the machinery of introspection – and debates about mindreading in general – move forward, these distinctions are likely to figure more prominently. Author Recommends: Peter Carruthers, 'Simulation and Self-Knowledge: A Defense of Theory-Theory', in Theories of Theories of Mind, eds. P. Carruthers and P. K. Smith (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 22–38. Defends a sophisticated form of the theory-theory of introspection, according to which we come to know at least some of our mental states (e.g., propositional attitudes) by reasoning from an innate folk-psychological theory. Fred Dretske, 'Introspection', in Naturalizing the Mind (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1995), 39–63. Introduces and defends the idea of introspection as 'displaced perception'. Alvin Goldman, 'Self-Attribution', in Simulating Minds: The Philosophy, Psychology, and Neuroscience of Mindreading (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 223–57. Defends a version of the 'inner sense' view of introspection in which mental state types are classified via their neural properties, and mental contents are classified via 'redeployment'. Alison Gopnik, 'How We Read Our Own Minds: The Illusion of First-Person Knowledge of Intentionality', Behavioral and Brain Sciences 16 (1993): 1–14. A noted psychologist defends a version of the theory-theory of introspection, citing evidence of developmental symmetries between first-person and third-person mental-state attribution. Robert Gordon, 'Simulation without Introspection or Inference from Me to You', in Mental Simulation: Evaluations and Applications, eds. T. Stone and M. Davies (Oxford: Blackwell, 1995), 53–67. Develops the idea of ascent routines – the rough analog of 'displaced perception' for the introspection of propositional attitudes. Uta Frith and Francesca Happé, 'Theory of Mind and Self-Consciousness: What Is It Like to Be Autistic?'Mind and Language 14 (1999): 1–14. Appeals to evidence from autism to motivate the idea that first-person and third-person mental-state attribution have a common basis. Shaun Nichols and Stephen Stich, 'Reading One's Own Mind', in Mindreading: An Integrated Account of Pretence, Self-awareness, and Understanding other Minds (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 150–99. Presents a comprehensive critique of leading theories of introspection (especially the theory-theory), then introduces and defends the authors' preferred alternative, the 'monitoring mechanism' account. Jesse Prinz, 'The Fractionation of Introspection', Journal of Consciousness Studies 11 (2004): 40–57. Develops the idea that introspection admits of several varieties. Philip Robbins, 'Knowing Me, Knowing You: Theory of Mind and the Machinery of Introspection', Journal of Consciousness Studies 11 (2004): 129–43. Defends a hybrid view of introspection for propositional attitudes, according to which both theoretic inference and monitoring play a role. Sample Syllabus: Week 1: Theory-theory Alison Gopnik, 'How We Read Our Own Minds: The Illusion of First-Person Knowledge of Intentionality', Behavioral and Brain Sciences 16 (1993): 1–14. Peter Carruthers, 'Simulation and Self-Knowledge: A Defense of Theory-Theory', in Theories of Theories of Mind, eds. P. Carruthers and P. K. Smith (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 22–38. Week 2: Displaced perception and semantic ascent Fred Dretske, 'Introspection', in Naturalizing the Mind (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1995), 39–63. Robert Gordon, 'Simulation without Introspection or Inference from Me to You', in Mental Simulation: Evaluations and Applications, eds. T. Stone and M. Davies (Oxford: Blackwell, 1995), 53–67. Week 3: Monitoring theory Shaun Nichols and Stephen Stich, 'Reading One's Own Mind', in Mindreading: An Integrated Account of Pretence, Self-awareness, and Understanding Other Minds (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 150–99. Week 4: Hybrid approaches Alvin Goldman, 'Self-Attribution', in Simulating Minds: The Philosophy, Psychology, and Neuroscience of Mindreading (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 223–57. Philip Robbins, 'Knowing Me, Knowing You: Theory of Mind and the Machinery of Introspection', Journal of Consciousness Studies 11 (2004): 129–43. Focus Questions:1. What distinguishes 'inside access' from 'outside access' views of introspection?2. To what extent is the theory-theoretic approach to introspection wedded to the idea that first-person and third-person mindreading are mechanistically symmetric capacities?3. What reasons are there for distinguishing between different types of introspection, and why might those taxonomic distinctions matter for theory construction in this area?4. In what sense, if any, are personality traits introspectible?5. Debates about third-person mindreading have revolved around the relative merits of theory-theory and simulation theory, whereas debates about introspection have taken a slightly different focus. For example, no one has defended a simulation-theoretic account of introspection. Why might that be? (shrink)
Montesquieu was one of the great political philosophers of the Enlightenment. Insatiably curious and mordantly funny, he constructed a naturalistic account of the various forms of government, and of the causes that made them what they were and that advanced or constrained their development. He used this account to explain how governments might be preserved from corruption. He saw despotism, in particular, as a standing danger for any government not already despotic, and argued that it could best be prevented by (...) a system in which different bodies exercised legislative, executive, and judicial power, and in which all those bodies were bound by the rule of law. This theory of the separation of powers had an enormous impact on liberal political theory, and on the framers of the constitution of the United States of America. (shrink)
PG ( Plural Grundgesetze ) is a predicative monadic second-order system which exploits the notion of plural quantification and a few Fregean devices, among which a formulation of the infamous Basic Law V. It is shown that second-order Peano arithmetic can be derived in PG. I also investigate the philosophical issue of predicativism connected to PG. In particular, as predicativism about concepts seems rather un-Fregean, I analyse whether there is a way to make predicativism compatible with Frege’s logicism.
Biologists usually agree that all genetic mutations occur by “chance” or at “random” with respect to adaptation. The claim dates back to Darwin’s conception of “spontaneous,” “accidental” or “chance” variation (Darwin 1859, 1868; Darwin and Seward 1903). The Modern Synthesis later redefined Darwin’s idea as rooted in the phenomenon of genetic mutation following a long period of controversy over the “chance” vs “directed” character of variation.
Logic and Knowledge -/- Editor: Carlo Cellucci, Emily Grosholz and Emiliano Ippoliti Date Of Publication: Aug 2011 Isbn13: 978-1-4438-3008-9 Isbn: 1-4438-3008-9 -/- The problematic relation between logic and knowledge has given rise to some of the most important works in the history of philosophy, from Books VI–VII of Plato’s Republic and Aristotle’s Prior and Posterior Analytics, to Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason and Mill’s A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive. It provides the title of an important collection of papers (...) by Bertrand Russell (Logic and Knowledge. Essays, 1901–1950). However, it has remained an underdeveloped theme in the last century, because logic has been treated as separate from knowledge. -/- This book does not hope to make up for a century-long absence of discussion. Rather, its ambition is to call attention to the theme and stimulating renewed reflection upon it. The book collects essays of leading figures in the field and it addresses the theme as a topic of current debate, or as a historical case study, or when appropriate as both. Each essay is followed by the comments of a younger discussant, in an attempt to transform what might otherwise appear as a monologue into an ongoing dialogue; each section begins with an historical essay and ends with an essay by one of the editors. -/- Carlo Cellucci is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Rome ‘La Sapienza,’ Italy. He is currently completing a book entitled, Remaking Logic: What is Logic Really? -/- Emily Grosholz is Professor of Philosophy at the Pennsylvania State University, USA. She is the author of Representation and Productive Ambiguity in Mathematics and the Sciences (Oxford University Press, 2007). -/- Emiliano Ippoliti is a Research Fellow at the University of Rome ‘La Sapienza,’ Italy. His main interests are heuristics, the logic of discovery, and problem-solving. He is currently working on a book, Ampliating Knowledge: Data, Hypotheses and Novelty. -/- TABLE OF CONTENTS -/- Foreword .................................................................................................... ix Acknowledgements ................................................................................. xxv -/- Section I: Logic and Knowledge -/- Chapter One................................................................................................. 3 The Cognitive Importance of Sight and Hearing in Seventeenthand Eighteenth-Century Logic (Mirella Capozzi) Discussion .............................................................................................. 26 (Chiara Fabbrizi) Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 33 Nominalistic Content (Jody Azzouni) Discussion ............................................................................................... 52 (Silvia De Bianchi) Chapter Three ............................................................................................ 57 A Garden of Grounding Trees (Göran Sundholm) Discussion.......................................................................................... .. 75 (Luca Incurvati) Chapter Four .............................................................................................. 81 Logics and Metalogics (Timothy Williamson) Discussion.......................................................................................... 101 (Cesare Cozzo) Chapter Five ............................................................................................ 109 Is Knowledge the Most General Factive Stative Attitude? (Cesare Cozzo) Discussion.......................................................................................... 117 (Timothy Williamson) Chapter Six .............................................................................................. 123 Classifying and Justifying Inference Rules (Carlo Cellucci) Discussion.......................................................................................... 143 (Norma B. Goethe) -/- Section II: Logic and Science -/- Chapter Seven.......................................................................................... 151 The Universal Generalization Problem and the Epistemic Status of Ancient Medicine: Aristotle and Galen (Riccardo Chiaradonna) Discussion.......................................................................................... 168 (Diana Quarantotto) Chapter Eight........................................................................................... 175 The Empiricist View of Logic (Donald Gillies) Discussion.......................................................................................... 191 (Paolo Pecere) Chapter Nine............................................................................................ 197 Artificial Intelligence and Evolutionary Theory: Herbert Simon’s Unifying Framework (Roberto Cordeschi) Discussion.......................................................................................... 216 (Francesca Ervas) Chapter Ten ............................................................................................. 221 Evolutionary Psychology and Morality: The Renaissance of Emotivism? (Mario De Caro) Discussion.......................................................................................... 232 (Annalisa Paese) Chapter Eleven ........................................................................................ 237 Between Data and Hypotheses (Emiliano Ippoliti) Discussion.......................................................................................... 262 (Fabio Sterpetti) -/- Section III: Logic and Mathematics -/- Chapter Twelve ....................................................................................... 273 Dedekind Against Intuition: Rigor, Scope and the Motives of his Logicism (Michael Detlefsen) Discussion.......................................................................................... 290 (Marianna Antonutti) Chapter Thirteen...................................................................................... 297 Mathematical Intuition: Poincaré, Polya, Dewey (Reuben Hersh) Discussion.......................................................................................... 324 (Claudio Bernardi) Chapter Fourteen ..................................................................................... 329 On the Finite: Kant and the Paradoxes of Knowledge (Carl Posy) Discussion.......................................................................................... 358 (Silvia Di Paolo) Chapter Fifteen ........................................................................................ 363 Assimilation: Not Only Indiscernibles are Identified (Robert Thomas) Discussion.......................................................................................... 380 (Diego De Simone) Chapter Sixteen ....................................................................................... 385 Proofs and Perfect Syllogisms (Dag Prawitz) Discussion.......................................................................................... 403 (Julien Murzi) Chapter Seventeen ................................................................................... 411 Logic, Mathematics, Heterogeneity (Emily Grosholz) Discussion.......................................................................................... 427 (Valeria Giardino) -/- Contributors........................................................................................ ..... 433 Index............................................................................................... ......... 437 -/- Price Uk Gbp: 49.99 Price Us Usd: 74.99 -/- Website: http://www.c-s-p.org/Flyers/Logic-and-Knowledge1-4438-3008-9.htm. (shrink)
In recent years, Europe has become a home to a thriving philosophy of biology research community. As part of the ongoing endeavor to raise the profile of the field on the Old Continent, five research institutions from across Europe § EGenIS, IHPST, KLI, MPIWG, and SEMM - gathered together in the small italian village of Gorino Sullam (Po Delta) in september 2008 to hold the first European Graduate Meeting in the Philosophy of the Life Sciences (EGMPLS-1).
Developmental System Theory is a theoretical reinterpretation of biological phenomena challenging the conventional gene-centered account of development and evolution. In this paper, I focus on Griffiths and Gray’s version of Developmental Systems Theory and I particularly analyze their reconceptualization of inheritance. First, I present their concept of expanded and diffused inheritance; then, I examine and criticize their refusal of the multiple inheritance system model; finally, I present and contrast Griffiths and Gray’s extension of what they call the “causal parity thesis” (...) from development to evolution. I argue that their proposal is an interesting and programmatic philosophical perspective on biological phenomena but, because of their commitment to holism, fails to provide both more heuristic tools for empirical investigation in biology and a more realistic representation of the biological world. (shrink)
What is typical of Hayek's challenge concerning socialism is that he always maintained that this question was for economic theory to decide. Sketching the historical background of what has come to be known as the "socialist calculation debate" (section 1), I try to link this debate with the Menger-Wieser Zurechnungsproblem and show that the Pareto-Barone approach has determined the theoretical form of this economic controversy. I then go on to explore Hayek's 'inapplicability' argument (section 2) and try to show (...) how it is related to Mises' 'logical impossibility’ argument. This is followed by an examination of Hayek's second argument (section 3), which I refer to as 'the evolutionary argument'. I display what is the specific gist of this argument and connect it tightly to the first one. I then discuss certain methodological issues (section 4) pertaining to the allegedly radical difference between Mises' arguments and Hayek's tentative refutation of socialism. Here I challenge the received view that Mises' based his case on the 'impossibility in principle' of socialism, whereas Hayek's own position was to challenge the 'possibility in practice' of a centrally planned economy. This reading (especially by Willem Keizer) of Hayek's contribution to the debate seems to me misguided and unwarranted. I attempt to propose, on the contrary, that both lines of reasoning involve the same kind as arguments since both of them should be interpreted as impossibility theorems. Finally (section 5) I try to give an appropriate and adequate answer to the question raised in the title of this paper. (shrink)
During interaction with computer-based 3-D simulations like virtual reality, users may experience a sense of involvement called presence. Presence is commonly defined as the subjective feeling of "being there". We discuss the state of the art in this inno vative research area and introduce a situated cognition perspective on presence. We argue that presence depends on the proper integration of aspects relevant to an agent's movement and perception, to her actions, and to her conception of the overall situ a tion (...) in which she finds herself, as well as on how these aspects mesh with the possibilities for action afforded in the interaction with the artifact. We also aim at showing that studies of presence offer a test-bed for different theories of situated co gnition.›. (shrink)
In this analysis of Marcia Baronâs account of excuses, I seek to do twothings. I try to draw out the nature of the distinction between forgivingand excusing. I also defend the distinction between excuses (like duress),and denials of responsibility (like insanity).
In this paper we introduce and compare four different syntactic methods for generating sequent calculi for the main systems of modal logic: the multiple sequents method, the higher-arity sequents method, the tree-hypersequents method and the display method. More precisely we show how the first three methods can all be translated in the fourth one. This result sheds new light on these generalisations of the sequent calculus and raises issues that will be examined in the last section.
The essays collected in Italian Studies on Philo of Alexandria give an overview of the main trends of current Italian research on Philo of Alexandria, making ...
This volume focuses on Hegel's philosophy of action in connection to current concerns. Including key papers by Charles Taylor, Alasdair MacIntyre, and John McDowell, as well as eleven especially commissioned contributions by leading scholars in the field, it aims to readdress the dialogue between Hegel and contemporary philosophy of action. Topics include: the nature of action, reasons and causes; explanation and justification of action; social and narrative aspects of agency; the inner and the outer; the relation between intention, planning, and (...) purposeful behaviour; freedom and responsibility; and self-actualisation. This book will appeal alike to Hegel scholars and philosophers of action. List of Contributors: Katerina Deligiorgi, Stephen Houlgate, Dudley Knowles, Arto Laitinen, Alasdair Macintyre, John Mcdowell, Francesca Menegoni, Dean Moyar, Terry Pinkard, Robert B. Pippin, Michael Quante, Constantine Sandis, Hans-Christoph Schmidt Am Busch, Allen Speight, Charles Taylor, Allen W. Wood. (shrink)
This book contains sixteen essays, presented at the seventh Pittsburgh-Konstanz Colloquium in 2005. It includes historical topics, ranging from ancient Greek thought to late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century philosophy, and contemporary topics, including causal pluralism, epiphenomenalism, and causality in disciplines as different as physics and economics.The concept of causation has been elaborated in many ways, with many different philosophical functions, including its problematic relations to the concept of explanation. The essays cover a variety subjects, and the results are quite disparate. (...) McCord Adams's discussion of medieval philosophers on sacramental causation and Norton's challenge to "causal .. (shrink)
The Renaissance architect, moral philosopher, cryptographer, mathematician, Papal adviser, painter, city planner and land surveyor Leon Battista Alberti provided the theoretical foundations of modern perspective geometry. Alberti’s work on perspective exerted a powerful influence on painters of the stature of Albrecht Dürer, Leonardo da Vinci and Piero della Francesca. But his Della pittura of 1435–36 contains also a hitherto unrecognized ontology of pictorial projection. We sketch this ontology, and show how it can be generalized to apply to representative devices (...) in general, including maps and spatial and non-spatial databases. (shrink)
The purpose of this study was to examine the norm conformity and value perceptions of Malaysian secondary school students. To measure adherence to value?based social norms, a values/behaviour questionnaire was administered to approximately 400 Malaysian adolescents. The results showed a self?reported high degree of conformity to social norms. In order to increase understanding of the moral dimensions of schooling, semi?structured interviews were conducted with teachers and students which gave ?voice? to teachers and students as moral agents. The results indicate that (...) some students view school rules as too rigid and undermining the moral development schooling is trying to promote. The research also shows that the implicit values of respect, justice and fairness are central in Malaysian students' relationships with their teachers. This research shows teachers and students as active constructors of moral meaning and recommends that policymakers, when thinking about moral education reform, consider these views. (shrink)
In this paper we present a sequent calculus for propositional dynamic logic built using an enriched version of the tree-hypersequent method and including an infinitary rule for the iteration operator. We prove that this sequent calculus is theoremwise equivalent to the corresponding Hilbert-style system, and that it is contraction-free and cut-free. All results are proved in a purely syntactic way.
In the context of climate change, the adoption of pro-environment behaviour is favoured by the understanding of causal passages within climate science. The understanding of the causes of climate change is necessary in order to be able to take mitigation actions (the subject needs to be aware of its role as a causalagent). Conversely, the understanding of the consequences of climate change is essential for rationally managing the risks, especially in cases where adaptation is needed rather than simple mitigation. The (...) case of ozone depletion confirms this view: the understanding of its causal dynamics played a major role in people’sbehavioural response.Para afrontar el cambio climático, la adopción de un comportamiento en favor del medio ambiente se verá favorecida por la comprensión de los argumentos causales de la climatología. La comprensión de las causas del cambio climático es necesario para que seamos capaces de mitigarlo (cada individuo debe ser consciente de su papel como agente causal). La comprensión de las consecuencias del cambio climático es esencial para gestionar racionalmente los riesgos, especialmente en casos en los que más que mitigarlo, debemos intentar adaptarnos. El caso del agujero de la capa de ozono confirma este punto de vista: la comprensión de la dinámica causal desempeñó un papel principal en el cambio de conductas de la gente. (shrink)
We propose a mentalistic and nativist view of human early mental and social life and of the ontogeny of mindreading. We define the mental state of sharedness as the primitive, one-sided capability to take one's own mental states as mutually known to an i nteractant. We argue that this capability is an innate feature of the human mind, which the child uses to make a subjective sense of the world and of her actions. We argue that the child takes all (...) of her mental states as shared with her caregivers. This a llows her to interact with her caregivers in a mentalistic way from the very beginning and provides the grounds on which the later maturation of mindreading will build. As the latter process occurs, the child begins to understand the mental world in terms of differences between the mental states of different agents; subjectively, this also corresponds to the birth of privateness. ? (shrink)
A large body of literature agrees that persons with schizophrenia suffer from a Theory of Mind (ToM) deficit. However, most empirical studies have focused on third-person, egocentric ToM, underestimating other facets of this complex cognitive skill. Aim of this research is to examine the ToM of schizophrenic persons considering its various aspects (first vs. second order, first vs. third person, egocentric vs. allocentric, beliefs vs. desires (...) vs. positive emotions vs. negative emotions and how each of these mental state types may be dealt with), to determine whether some components are more impaired than others. We developed a Theory of Mind Assessment Scale (Th.o.m.a.s.) and administered it to 22 persons with a DSM-IV diagnosis of schizophrenia and a matching control group. Th.o.m.a.s. is a semi-structured interview which allows a multi-component measurement of ToM. Both groups were also administered a few existing ToM tasks and the schizophrenic subjects were administered the Positive and Negative Symptoms Scale and the WAIS-R. The schizophrenic persons performed worse than control at all the ToM measurements; however, these deficits appeared to be differently distributed among different components of ToM. Our conclusion is that ToM deficits are not unitary in schizophrenia, which also testifies to the importance of a complete and articulated investigation of ToM. (shrink)
... writing to the Princess Dashkofï in, thus analysee! the spirit of his century: Chaque siècle a son esprit qui le caractérise. L'esprit du nôtre semble ...
This book promises to tell “the untold story of the principal historical path from Isaac Newton to Albert Einstein” (xii). It is an ambitious promise. In explaining the influence of Reid’s philosophy on how Scottish scientists addressed phenomena such as light, heat, electricity, etc., Wilson addresses the exquisitely “Scottish” flavor of the contributions of Joseph Black, John Anderson, John Robinson, Dugald Stewart, Joseph Boscovitch, and several others. While the alleged goal is projected toward late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century discoveries, the (...) discussion never loses sight of its historical context, by stressing the importance of theological consideration in scientific arguments (e.g. Robinson’s .. (shrink)
This article considers the common social act of apologising in the context of professional discipline of lawyers in Australia. It is argued that other social contexts in which an apology occurs, and the meanings generated, inform its use within this legal context. It is from the social meaning that apologies can be used as a legitimate way to gain insights into a person's ethical state of mind in disciplinary hearings. However, there are a range of difficulties, both practical and theoretical, (...) posed in importing a social symbol into a legal context. The article considers issues concerning the process of discipline, the dangers of the act becoming purely instrumental and interpretive difficulties. Finally, the nature of the entry controls applying to lawyers - the 'character test' - is itself contestable. The article argues that, despite this constraint, apologies provide a useful evidential tool to gauge a lawyer's ethical awareness without relying on assumptions about fixed personality traits. Finally, the article argues for a greater emphasis on alternative sanctioning options, such as those which require the lawyer to demonstrate his or her remorse or fulfil a promise over time. It then turns to the question of whether an (ordered) apology should be one of the available sanctions. (shrink)
From a cognitive perspective, intentional communication may be viewed as an agent's activity overtly aimed at modifying a partner's mental states. According to standard Gricean definitions, this requires each party to be able to ascribe mental states to the other, i.e., to entertain a so-called theory of mind. According to the relevant experimental literature, however, such capability does not appear before the third or fourth birthday; it would follow that children under that age should not be viewed as communicating agents. (...) In order to solve the resulting dilemma, we propose that certain specific components of an agent's cognitive architecture (namely, a peculiar version of sharedness and communicative intention), are necessary and sufficient to explain infant communication in a mentalist framework. We also argue that these components are innate in the human species. (shrink)
Presence is commonly defined as the subjective feeling of "being there". It has been mainly conceived of as deriving from immersion, interaction, and social and narrative involvement with suitable technology. We argue that presence depends on a suitable integration of aspects relevant to an agent's movement and perception, to her actions, and to her conception of the overall situation in which she finds herself, as well as on how these aspects mesh with the possibilities for action afforded in the interaction (...) with the virtual environment. (shrink)
In the recent literature on proof theory, there seems to be a new raising topic which consists in identifying those properties that characterise a good sequent calculus. The property that has received by far the most attention is the analyticity property. In this paper we propose a new argument in support of the analyticity property. We will do it by means of the example of the logic of proofs, a logic recently introduced by Artemov [1]. Indeed a detailed proof analysis (...) of this logic sheds new light on the logic itself and perfectly exemplifies our argument in favour of the analiticity. (shrink)
In three experiments we explored developmental changes in probabilistic reasoning, taking into account the effects of cognitive capacity, thinking styles, and instructions. Normative responding increased with grade levels and cognitive capacity in all experiments, and it showed a negative relationship with superstitious thinking. The effect of instructions (in Experiments 2 and 3) was moderated by level of education and cognitive capacity. Specifically, only higher-grade students with higher cognitive capacity benefited from instructions to reason on the basis of logic. The implications (...) of these findings for research on the development of probabilistic reasoning are also discussed. (shrink)
We outline a theory of human agency and communication and discuss the role that the capability to share (that is, intersubjectivity) plays in it. All the notions discussed are cast in a mentalistic and radically constructivist framework. We also introduce and discuss the relevant literature.
Background: The rapid pace of progress in medical research, the consequent need for the timely transfer of new knowledge into practice, and the increasing need for ethics support, is making the work of Ethics Committees (ECs) ever more complex and demanding. As a response, ECs in many countries exhibit large variation in number, mandate, organization and member competences. This cross-sectional study aims to give an overview of the different types of activities of Italian ECs and favour discussion at a European (...) level.Methods: A questionnaire was emailed to all Italian Ethics Committees contained in the national Registry of the Ministry of Health, enquiring whether the EC was conducting, or planning to conduct, 4 specific activities. A telephone interview was conducted to determine reasons for failure to respond.Results: Response rate was 53% (101 respondents out of 191). 20% of ECs restrict their responsibilities to research protocol review, 25% also offer ethical consultation to institutions, support on individual health care decisions and promotes educational initiatives, while the remaining 50% conduct a few of the examined activities to varying degrees. Large variation was observed across different types of hosting institutions and geographical locations.Conclusions: A common European model should be developed, defining EC functions, member selection modalities, necessary member competences, decision-making criteria and measures for work verification. In the absence of sound empirical evidence, it would be interesting to study the effectiveness and efficiency of the different existing models. (shrink)
In the decision-making and rationality research field, rational decision theory (RDT) has always been the main framework, thanks to the elegance and complexity of its mathematical tools. Unfortunately, the formal refinement of the theory is not accompanied by a satisfying predictive accuracy, thus there is a big gap between what is predicted by the theory and the behaviour of real subjects. Here we propose a new foundation of the RDT, which has to be based on a cognitive architecture for reason-based (...) agents, acting on the basis of their beliefs in order to achieve their goals. The decision process is a cognitive evaluation of conflicting goals, based on different beliefs and values, but also on emotions and desires. We refer to a cognitive analysis of emotions and we integrate them in this more general RDT. (shrink)
In this paper we explore the thesis that the role of argumentation in practical reasoning in general and legal reasoning in particular is to justify the use of defeasible rules to derive a conclusion in preference to the use of other defeasible rules to derive a conflicting conclusion. The defeasibility of rules is expressed by means of non-provability claims as additional conditions of the rules.We outline an abstract approach to defeasible reasoning and argumentation which includes many existing formalisms, including default (...) logic, extended logic programming, non-monotonic modal logic and auto-epistemic logic, as special cases. We show, in particular, that the admissibility semantics for all these formalisms has a natural argumentation-theoretic interpretation and proof procedure, which seem to correspond well with informal argumentation. (shrink)
However, as in other disciplines, academic recognition can in turn entrench static and powerful meta-theories and narratives about professional ethos and ...
