In an era increasingly characterized by pluralism and globalization, intercultural pedagogy represents a starting point for addressing the challenges that today’s society confronts us with daily. Throughout history, cultures have changed through interactions, exchanges, and hybridization, leading to the formation of an increasingly pluralistic and multicultural society. Against this background, it is crucial to develop approaches based on dialogue and mutual recognition. However, acceptance and willingness to encounter require an educational path that is promoted by schools from childhood, especially in (...) view of the monocultural mentality that too often characterizes more and more people and prevents the opening of a path that counteracts ethnocentrism in favor of a broader perspective. From this point of view, intercultural pedagogy proves to be the only approach that can guarantee the formation of individuals ready to create a truly multicultural society. (shrink)

Semantic theories based on a hierarchy of types have prominently been used to defend the possibility of unrestricted quantification. However, they also pose a prima facie problem for it: each quantifier ranges over at most one level of the hierarchy and is therefore not unrestricted. It is difficult to evaluate this problem without a principled account of what it is for a quantifier to be unrestricted. Drawing on an insight of Russell’s about the relationship between quantification and the structure of (...) predication, we offer such an account. We use this account to examine the problem in three different type-theoretic settings, which are increasingly permissive with respect to predication. We conclude that unrestricted quantification is available in all but the most permissive kind of type theory. (shrink)

Plural expressions found in natural languages allow us to talk about many objects simultaneously. Plural logic — a logical system that takes plurals at face value — has seen a surge of interest in recent years. This book explores its broader significance for philosophy, logic, and linguistics. What can plural logic do for us? Are the bold claims made on its behalf correct? After introducing plural logic and its main applications, the book provides a systematic analysis of the relation between (...) this logic and other theoretical frameworks such as set theory, mereology, higher-order logic, and modal logic. The applications of plural logic rely on two assumptions, namely that this logic is ontologically innocent and has great expressive power. These assumptions are shown to be problematic. The result is a more nuanced picture of plural logic's applications than has been given thus far. Questions about the correct logic of plurals play a central role in the final chapters, where traditional plural logic is rejected in favor of a "critical" alternative. The most striking feature of this alternative is that there is no universal plurality. This leads to a novel approach to the relation between the many and the one. In particular, critical plural logic paves the way for an account of sets capable of solving the set-theoretic paradoxes. (shrink)

This book is the first comprehensive and systematic introduction to the linguistics of humor, exploring not only theoretical linguistic analyses, but also topics from applied linguistics. It will be a valuable resource for students from advanced undergraduate level upwards, particularly those coming to linguistics from related disciplines.

La couture et la broderie sont deux activités qui ont marqué, pendant des siècles, la présence féminine à l’intérieur de la famille. Parfois geste technique et nécessaire, parfois moment de formation et/ou d’évasion, la broderie a d’ailleurs constitué l’un des savoir-faire nécessaires pour la jeune fille bourgeoise vouée au mariage, nécessitant, pour l’affirmation de sa présence sociale, un trousseau. Par ailleurs, pendant ces derniers siècles, les femmes se sont emparées de l’écriture pour en faire à la fois un moment de (...) réflexion, de gestion, de mémoire de soi et de la famille : en quoi ces pratiques se ressemblent-elles? En quoi la solitude, le repli sur soi, le silence, la lenteur, la précision du geste, le marquage deviennent, tout le long du xixe siècle, les éléments communs de savoir-faire qui contribuent de façon analogue à forger, dans l’espace et dans le temps, l’identité individuelle féminine et son insertion sociale? En quoi l’écriture de soi a accompagné, puis remplacé, le travail de l’aiguille? (shrink)

La couture et la broderie sont deux activités qui ont marqué, pendant des siècles, la présence féminine à l’intérieur de la famille. Parfois geste technique et nécessaire, parfois moment de formation et/ou d’évasion, la broderie a d’ailleurs constitué l’un des savoir-faire nécessaires pour la jeune fille bourgeoise vouée au mariage, nécessitant, pour l’affirmation de sa présence sociale, un trousseau. Par ailleurs, pendant ces derniers siècles, les femmes se sont emparées de l’écriture pour en faire à la fois un moment de (...) réflexion, de gestion, de mémoire de soi et de la famille : en quoi ces pratiques se ressemblent-elles? En quoi la solitude, le repli sur soi, le silence, la lenteur, la précision du geste, le marquage (du papier, du tissu) deviennent, tout le long du xixe siècle, les éléments communs de savoir-faire qui contribuent de façon analogue à forger, dans l’espace et dans le temps, l’identité individuelle féminine et son insertion sociale? En quoi l’écriture de soi a accompagné, puis remplacé, le travail de l’aiguille? (shrink)

Le but de ce volume, véritable prisme de questionnements et d’études de cas, est d’essayer de tracer, à travers les écritures de soi, les conditions d’émergence d’un moi, d’un ego, de la notion même d’individu. Nécessairement, ceux qui l’ont conçu ont dû ratisser large. Les différentes contributions analysent des cas dispersés sur plusieurs siècles, en tenant compte de plusieurs genres de récits de soi : livres de raison, journaux plus ou moins intimes, chroniques… Les présupposés sous-jacent...

Plural logic is widely assumed to have two important virtues: ontological innocence and determinacy. It is claimed to be innocent in the sense that it incurs no ontological commitments beyond those already incurred by the first-order quantifiers. It is claimed to be determinate in the sense that it is immune to the threat of non-standard interpretations that confronts higher-order logics on their more traditional, set-based semantics. We challenge both claims. Our challenge is based on a Henkin-style semantics for plural logic (...) that does not resort to sets or set-like objects to interpret plural variables, but adopts the view that a plural variable has many objects as its values. Using this semantics, we also articulate a generalized notion of ontological commitment which enables us to develop some ideas of earlier critics of the alleged ontological innocence of plural logic. (shrink)

This case study extends the findings of Pickering et al. 2009 to the domain of conversational humor. We find that, as was the case in humorous narratives, conversational humor is not marked by higher pitch or volume, increased speech rate, or significant pauses. Unlike narrative humor, conversational humor is not produced at a lower pitch and slower rate than non-humorous parts of the text. We find that smiling and laughter tend to occur with humor.

World-systems analysis is a well-established but poorly-defined critical research tradition in the social sciences. Its undisputed progenitor, Immanuel Wallerstein, steadfastly maintains that world-systems analysis is not a theory, yet it is widely referred to as such by commentators, critics, and practitioners alike. The resolution to this conundrum is to identify the defining elements of world-systems analysis as a perspective for understanding human society, then to evaluate propositions based on these defining elements as theories that have been conceptualized from a world-systems (...) perspective. In this paper five defining elements of world-systems analysis are identified that together support a central theorem that the core-periphery hierarchy of the modern world-system can best be understood in terms of state strength and cultural integration. A further conjecture is made that the successor world-system to the current capitalist world-economy is more likely to be an American world-empire than the socialist world-government craved by many world-systems analysts. (shrink)

The information contained in DNA is not definitive, but modifiable. Indeed, the environment has the power to modify the genetic material expression without altering the DNA genes sequence. The principal environmental factors that work in this way, whether in a positive or in a negative way, are diet and stress with their ruling hormones, insulin and cortisol; these hormones are normally antagonists but, when they reach their respective resistances, they become the ubiquitary etiopathogenetic factors in bidirectional convergent relationship, each other (...) causing the disinhibition and development of low grade systemic inflammation that opens the door to a myriad of interconnected sets of problems. Among these problems the greater one is cancer, which represents the extreme junction between hyperinsulinemia and hypercortisolemia, just because cancer cells never become insulin resistant and/or cortisol resistant. (shrink)

What is absolutely unrestricted quantification? We distinguish two theoretical roles and identify two conceptions of absolute generality: maximally strong generality and maximally inclusive generality. We also distinguish two corresponding kinds of absolute domain. A maximally strong domain contains every potential counterexample to a generalisation. A maximally inclusive domain is such that no domain extends it. We argue that both conceptions of absolute generality are legitimate and investigate the relations between them. Although these conceptions coincide in standard settings, we show how (...) they diverge under more complex assumptions about the structure of meaningful predication, such as cumulative type theory. We conclude by arguing that maximally strong generality is the more theoretically valuable conception. (shrink)

Wittgenstein: Epistemology Although Ludwig Wittgenstein is generally more known for his works on logic and on the nature of language, but throughout his philosophical journey he reflected extensively also on epistemic notions such as knowledge, belief, doubt, and certainty. This interest is more evident in his final notebook, published posthumously as On Certainty (1969, henceforth … Continue reading Wittgenstein: Epistemology →.

We construct an explicit covariant Majorana formulation of Maxwell electromagnetism which does not make use of vector 4-potential. This allows us to write a “Dirac” equation for the photon containing all the known properties of it. In particular, the spin and (intrinsic) boost matrices are derived and the helicity properties of the photon are studied.

Quine maintained that philosophical and scientific theorizing should be conducted in an untyped language, which has just one style of variables and quantifiers. By contrast, typed languages, such as those advocated by Frege and Russell, include multiple styles of variables and matching kinds of quantification. Which form should our theories take? In this article, I argue that expressivity does not favour typed languages over untyped ones.

It is futile to say that scholars have worn themselves out in an attempt to give a name to the pagan philosopher with whom Macarius Magnes argues in the Apocriticus. The first to take up the question, Crusius, a follower of Wagenmann, Hauschildt, Harnack and Goulet, identified him as Porphyry. This identification was refuted by Möller, Salmon, Zahn and Frassinetti, who thought of Julian the Apostate; and by Duchesne and Crafer, followed, in part by Pezzella, who proposed Hierocles. Following the (...) studies by Corsaro, who, advised by Borzì, argued with good reason the impossibility of giving a precise name to the pagan philosopher, the vexata quaestio seemed to come to an end. In a recent intervention, Digeser reproposed the identification of Hierocles, going back, in large part, and not without some original notions, to the arguments of Duchesne and Crafer. It is the intent of this contribution to demonstrate the insufficient credibility of this identification. (shrink)

This paper presents a case study of the “electric hypothesis” of the causes of earthquakes, which emerged in the second half of the eighteenth century as part of the first studies of seismology. This hypothesis was related to Franklin’s views on atmospheric electricity and developed in a period when electric phenomena were widely studied, and was essentially based on solid empirical evidence and confirmed by model experiments. Even though it resulted from scientific reasoning, the theory remained strongly empirical, and was (...) supported by Italian scholars who were familiar with seismic events. Among these, Giuseppe Saverio Poli, a follower of Franklin, was able to provide a careful and comprehensive explanation of the disastrous earthquake of 1783, which occurred in Calabria, a region of southern Italy, and the St. Anne earthquake of 1805, by drawing not just upon the electric evidence, but all the relevant phenomenology available. We outline here the emergence, the development, and the later evolution (up to the beginning of the nineteenth century) of the “electric earthquake” paradigm by focusing on different works by Poli, including a previously unknown manuscript containing a thorough account of the Calabria earthquake prepared by the Neapolitan scholar for the Royal Society. The present case study therefore offers the opportunity to illustrate how electrical science shaped earthquake science to a degree not usually appreciated in the literature, and is also supported to some extent by the transition from Enlightenment scientific ideals to the Romantic conception of unity in the natural world, in search of common causes among phenomena belonging to different fields. (shrink)

This study provides a scoping review of the recent conceptual developments about the deviant work behavior and counterproductive work behavior constructs. It also examines the specific types of deviant work behavior that have been more consistently investigated in the last decade, and whether they cover the interpersonal or organizational type of deviant behavior. In addition, individual, group, and organizational predictors of deviant work behaviors are examined. A scoping review of reviews was conducted on Scopus and Web of Science databases and (...) 54 studies published from 2010 to June 2021 were taken into account. Results show that more recent conceptualizations are based on well established models in the literature and consider the hierarchical structure of these two constructs. Recent reviews examine the relationships of deviant work behavior with job performance and ethical behavior constructs, the multilevel nature of deviant work behavior, and the consequences for the actor of the deviance. The specific types of deviant work behavior more frequently reviewed in the last decade are workplace abuse, incivility, ostracism, bullying and sexual harassment, and abusive and destructive leadership; this evidence suggests a much greater attention to interpersonal, rather than organizational, forms of deviant work behavior. Regarding antecedents, results show the continuing prevalence of personality factors antecedents. Limitations of the study and theoretical and practical implications for the field are also provided. (shrink)

In linguistics, the dominant approach to the semantics of plurals appeals to mereology. However, this approach has received strong criticisms from philosophical logicians who subscribe to an alternative framework based on plural logic. In the first part of the article, we offer a precise characterization of the mereological approach and the semantic background in which the debate can be meaningfully reconstructed. In the second part, we deal with the criticisms and assess their logical, linguistic, and philosophical significance. We identify four (...) main objections and show how each can be addressed. Finally, we compare the strengths and shortcomings of the mereological approach and plural logic. Our conclusion is that the former remains a viable and well-motivated framework for the analysis of plurals. (shrink)

Semantic interpretations of both natural and formal languages are usually taken to involve the specification of a domain of entities with respect to which the sentences of the language are to be evaluated. A question that has received much attention of late is whether there is unrestricted quantification, quantification over a domain comprising absolutely everything there is. Is there a discourse or inquiry that has absolute generality? After framing the debate, this article provides an overview of the main arguments for (...) and against the possibility of unrestricted quantification, highlighting some of the broader implications of the debate. (shrink)

Acceptable analyticities, i.e. contradictions or tautologies, constitute problematic evidence for the idea that language includes a deductive system. In recent discussion, two accounts have been presented in the literature to explain the available evidence. According to one of the accounts, grammatical analyticities are accessible to the system but a pragmatic strengthening repair mechanism can apply and prevent the structures from being actually interpreted as contradictions or tautologies. The proposed data, however, leaves it open whether other versions of the meaning modulation (...) operation are required. Novel evidence we present argues that a loosening version of the repair mechanism must be available. Our observation concerns acceptable lexical contradictions that cannot be rescued if only a strengthening version of the pragmatic strategy is available. (shrink)