We present an account of semantics that is not construed as a mapping of language to the world but rather as a mapping between individual meaning spaces. The meanings of linguistic entities are established via a “meeting of minds.” The concepts in the minds of communicating individuals are modeled as convex regions in conceptual spaces. We outline a mathematical framework, based on fixpoints in continuous mappings between conceptual spaces, that can be used to model such a semantics. If concepts are (...) convex, it will in general be possible for interactors to agree on joint meaning even if they start out from different representational spaces. Language is discrete, while mental representations tend to be continuous—posing a seeming paradox. We show that the convexity assumption allows us to address this problem. Using examples, we further show that our approach helps explain the semantic processes involved in the composition of expressions. (shrink)

It has been argued that quantum mechanics forces us to accept the existence of metaphysical, mind-independent indeterminacy. In this paper we provide an interpretation of the indeterminacy involved in the quantum phenomena in terms of a view that we call Plural Metaphysical Supervaluationism. According to it, quantum indeterminacy is captured in terms of an irreducibly plural relation between the actual world and various misrepresentations of it.

The paper examines three essays that Leibniz wrote in 1688, immediately after the composition of the Discourse on Metaphysics, one of his most organic philosophical works. The main topics which emerge from these essays are: the relationship between substance and accidents; the nature of accidents; and, more generally, the nature of abstract entities. Given that accidents' nature is that of changing, Leibniz sees how hard it is to give an account of the relationship between substance and accidents that does not (...) imply any change in the substance, when its accidents undergo a change. To find a way out of this problem, Leibniz assumes that abstract terms (whiteness, wisdom, etc.) do not name real properties or real parts of substances, and that any sentence containing real abstract terms can be rephrased as a sentence containing logical abstract terms, which do no imply any commitment to the existence of real properties. Coherently with this nominalistic attitude, Leibniz ends up, in the Theodicy and in his correspondence with Des Bosses, considering accidents as modes or internal modifications of the substance. (shrink)

The paper examines three essays that Leibniz wrote in 1688, immediately after the composition of the Discourse on Metaphysics, one of his most organic philosophical works. The main topics which emerge from these essays are: the relationship between substance and accidents; the nature of accidents; and, more generally, the nature of abstract entities. Given that accidents’ nature is that of changing, Leibniz sees how hard it is to give an account of the relationship between substance and accidents that does not (...) imply any change in the substance, when its accidents undergo a change. To find a way out of this problem, Leibniz assumes that abstract terms do not name real properties or real parts of substances, and that any sentence containing real abstract terms can be rephrased as a sentence containing logical abstract terms, which do no imply any commitment to the existence of real properties. Coherently with this nominalistic attitude, Leibniz ends up, in the Theodicy and in his correspondence with Des Bosses, considering accidents as modes or internal modifications of the substance. (shrink)

This paper explores quantum indeterminacy, as it is operative in the failure of value‐definiteness for quantum observables. It first addresses questions about its existence, its nature, and its relations to extant quantum interpretations. Then, it provides a critical discussions of the main accounts of quantum indeterminacy.

Explanations of the genuine openness of the future often appeal to objective indeterminacy. According to the received view, such indeterminacy is indeterminacy of certain future-tensed state of affairs that presently obtain. We shall call this view the weak indeterminate present, to distinguish it from the view we will defend in this paper, which we dub the strong indeterminate present. According to our view, unsettledness of the future is grounded on the present indeterminacy of some present-tensed state of affairs. In order (...) for an indeterminate present-tensed state of affairs to explain the unsettledness of a future-tensed state of affairs, there has to be a connection between the two. We argue that this connection can only be provided if we look at the internal structure of the relevant state of affairs. Finally, we will suggest that the best background theory to explain the connection are the so-called spontaneous collapse models of quantum mechanics. (shrink)

The Mass Density approach to GRW (GRWm for short) has been widely discussed in the quantum foundations literature. A crucial feature of GRWm is the introduction of a Criterion of Accessibility for mass, which allows to explain the determinacy of experimental outcomes thus also addressing the tails problem of GRW. However, the Criterion of Accessibility leaves the ontological meaning of the non-accessible portion of mass utterly unexplained. In this paper I discuss two viable approaches to non-accessible mass, which I call (...) anti-realist and realist, and will defend the latter. First, I show that the anti-realist approach suffers from various objections. Second, I develop an account of non-accessible mass density states as objectively indeterminate states of affairs. (shrink)

Replying to Queen Elizabeth II who in November 2008 asked why so few economists had warned about the emerging financial crisis, a group of eminent economists of the British Academy, claimed that while this failure had many causes, the most important was principally a failure of the collective imagination of many bright people, to understand the risks to the system as a whole. The paper suggests that this failure is due also to the still heavy influence of the paradigm of (...) rational expectations, that did not provide the intellectual tools to grasp the signs of the impending financial crisis. The paper explores the development of Muth’s rational expectations hypothesis and the parallel development of Simon’s idea of bounded rationality—two opposite views about economic behavior that originated in the same context, during the early 1960s at Carnegie Mellon. It is shown that the latter, while marginalized for decades from the core economic ideas, generated a wide development in cognitive psychology, problem solving and experimental economics that grew up in the last decades and now permit a more profound analysis of human behavior in economic and organizational contexts, that can be the seed of a new thinking in economics. The challenge for economists is to use this new toolbox to incorporate in their models real human behaviors, getting out from the economy of wishful thinking. (shrink)

The COVID-19 outbreak has placed extraordinary demands upon healthcare systems worldwide. Italy's hospitals have been among the most severely overwhelmed, and as a result, Italian healthcare workers' well-being has been at risk. The aim of this study is to explore the relationships between dimensions of burnout and various psychological features among Italian healthcare workers during the COVID-19 emergency. A group of 267 HCWs from a hospital in the Lazio Region completed self-administered questionnaires online through Google Forms, including the Maslach Burnout (...) Inventory, Resilience Scale, and Intolerance of Uncertainty Scale Short Form. Cluster analysis highlighted two opposite burnout risk profiles: low burnout and high-risk burnout. The high-risk group had lower resilience and greater difficulties in tolerating the uncertainty than the low-burnout group. A set of general linear models confirmed that both IU subscales, prospective and inhibition, moderated the relationship between resilience and burnout. In conclusion, the results showed that individual levels of resilience and one's ability to tolerate uncertainty have been significant factors in determining the impact of the COVID-19 emergency on HCWs. The use of emotional strategies that allow individuals to stay in a critical situation without the need to control it appears to protect against burnout in these circumstances. (shrink)

Sewall Wright introduced the metaphor of evolution on “adaptive landscapes” in a pair of papers published in 1931 and 1932. The metaphor has been one of the most influential in modern evolutionary biology, although recent theoretical advancements show that it is deeply flawed and may have actually created research questions that are not, in fact, fecund. In this paper I examine in detail what Wright actually said in the 1932 paper, as well as what he thought of the matter at (...) the very end of his career, in 1988. While the metaphor is flawed, some of the problems which Wright was attempting to address are still with us today, and are in the process of being reformulated as part of a forthcoming Extended Evolutionary Synthesis. (shrink)

Topics in Cognitive Science, Volume 14, Issue 1, Page 143-162, January 2022.

Two different definitions of numerical identity occur in Aristotle's works, namely: (i) "A" and "B" are both names of one thing; (ii) A and B constitute unity. These definitions can be traced back respectively to the following theories of predication: (i)' the sentences whose subjects are accidents are actually ill-formed; (ii)' in some cases the accidents are not eliminable subjects. Since (i)' and (ii)' are irreparably inconsistent, the theory of identity is inconsistent too; in this paper are explored the consequences (...) of such an inconsistence, mainly as far as the fallacies depending both on combination and division and on accident are concerned. (shrink)

The main research programs in quantum gravity tend to suggest in one way or another that most spacetime structures are not fundamental. At the same time, work in quantum foundations highlights fundamental features that are in tension with any straightforward space- time understanding. This paper aims to explore the little investigated but potentially fruitful links between these two fields.

The purpose of the present article is to show that the key to understanding the philosophical meaning of the Two Modes of Scepticism is directly linked to the metaepistemic function performed by the criterion of truth (kriterion tes aletheias) in the Hellenistic theories of knowledge. Since the criterion can also be regarded as an epistemic instrument through which it is possible to immediately identify the foundational elements upon which our knowledge of the world is based, the Two Modes show the (...) problems that arise when we try to incontrovertibly identify a set of special and foundational elements that have no need of further justification. (shrink)

In the most recent debate of phenomenological as well as analytical provenance, Husserl’s reflection, although pioneer regarding ethics, seems to suffer of a general depreciation enrooted in his supposed excess rationalism. The husserlian ethics would remain subjected to the dominance of a logico-objectifying reason, which appears to be the fundamental dimension of intentionality. The wide range of life-experiences would then be crushed by the hegemony of objectifying acts. Are we really sure? Our contribution will rather consist in raising the originality (...) of Husserl’s method which lastly to reconcile two seemingly contradictory requirements: the autonomy of ethical and its dependence towards logical reason. We shall notice thus a progressive dissociatoon from Brentano’s teaching leading to an overall revision of intentionality. If anything such as rationalism exists in Husserl’s thinking, it can only be asserted on the condition of a radical criticism of the concept of “representation” – from where, as we shall see, emerges a newly articulated relationship between “object” and “value”. (shrink)

By its very name, phenomenology seems to invoke a priority claim on phenomena. And yet it has not been necessary to wait for phenomenology in oder to have a proper account of phenomena. One need only to take a look at the history of philosophy, from Plato to Kant, as well as at the history of sciences, from physics to psychology, so as to register a wide range of uses concerning the concept of phenomenon. The understanding of what a phenomenon (...) is, in a phenomenological sense, should therefore at least not be completely compatible with any other, if phenomenology has to exist as a discipline and as a method. That is one of the issues at stake in the debate between phenomenology and neokantianism, between Husserl, to a certain extent Brentano, and Natorp. It is on this debate that we shall draw attention, if we wish to grasp the reasons behind the phenomenological conception of the phenomenon, especially at the time of the Logische Untersuchungen. (shrink)

Within the Seinsfrage, the question of being, the «who» question, or Werfrage, arises at once. Who is this «who»? In other words, who am I? Questioning the being, inevitably means questioning ourselves. Would it thus be possible to conceive of a subject without being? This question, paradoxical as it may appear, nevertheless has a historiographical legitimacy, if we consider that «phenomenological anthropology», as the young Heidegger conceived it, precedes in effect the formulation of the Seinsfrage. From his very first lectures (...) in Fribourg, an access into subjectivity, apprehended as a «wordly ipseity », is thereby opened. While criticizing Natorp who unreservedly denied such a possibility, Heidegger yet ends up conceding the point almost entirely. This, at least, is our hypothesis: the «I» exists only at the cost of a tension between facticity and existence, a tension which, in the eyes of Natorp, leads to a confirmation that the «I», strictly speaking, cannot be – and this allows us therefore a glimpse into the legitimate possibility of a Werfrage without Seinsfrage. (shrink)

Today, the field of Parmenidean studies is still divided over the fundamental question of the correct exegesis of the verb 'to be' in the poem On Nature. The two principal interpretative lines supported by scholars are, on the one hand, the traditional view that understands the verb ‘to be’ in its existential sense and, on the other, the one that arose in the 20th century that focuses on its predicative sense. This paper examines the latest and most ambitious attempt to (...) interpret the thought of Parmenides and the profound influence that he had on pluralist philosophers, starting from a purely predicative approach. It is an epistemological interpretation of the Eleaticism proposed by Patricia Curd, centred on the notion of ‘predicational monism’, which has the unquestionable merit to place Parmenides within the pre-Socratic naturalistic debate but that, after a careful analysis, fails to convince. In fact, this interpretation, which certainly appears to be one of the most articulate and intelligent proposals of recent years, raises a series of exegetical and argumentative problems that do not seem possible to resolve without exiting the predicative horizon. (shrink)

Barnes (2014) has argued in this journal for the following conditional: If there is any metaphysical indeterminacy, this must be at the most fundamental level of reality. To argue for this claim, Barnes relies on two principles that I shall call bivalent completeness and determinate link. According to the former, a complete description is a bivalent assignment of truth values to every sentence. The determinate link, instead, establishes that the determination relation between levels of reality preserves determinacy from one level (...) to another. In response to Barnes’ conclusion, Eva (2018) has recently pointed out that bivalent completeness is question begging. In this paper, I will first show why Eva's line of reasoning can be resisted. My aim will then be to present a stronger case against Barnes’ argument by challenging the determinate link. In the presence of metaphysical indeterminacy, the link between fundamental and derivative facts might itself be the locus of indeterminacy. I will conclude by showing that Barnes and Eva make many unwarranted assumptions regarding both indeterminacy and fundamentality. The logical space around the connection between these two notions appears to be much wider than what they seem to be aware of, or so I will argue. (shrink)

A collection of five essays published previously. Partial contents.

Decision-making assisted by algorithms developed by machine learning is increasingly determining our lives. Unfortunately, full opacity about the process is the norm. Would transparency contribute to restoring accountability for such systems as is often maintained? Several objections to full transparency are examined: the loss of privacy when datasets become public, the perverse effects of disclosure of the very algorithms themselves, the potential loss of companies’ competitive edge, and the limited gains in answerability to be expected since sophisticated algorithms usually are (...) inherently opaque. It is concluded that, at least presently, full transparency for oversight bodies alone is the only feasible option; extending it to the public at large is normally not advisable. Moreover, it is argued that algorithmic decisions preferably should become more understandable; to that effect, the models of machine learning to be employed should either be interpreted ex post or be interpretable by design ex ante. (shrink)

No início do movimento psicanalítico, a Hungria foi um dos países pioneiros dentre os que acolheram e propagaram a psicanálise. Sándor Ferenczi, figura principal de desenvolvimento da psicanálise no país, abraçou a causa psicanalítica e se tornou um dos mais importantes teóricos de sua história. Responsável pela criação da Associação Psicanalítica Internacional, fundaria também a Sociedade Húngara de Psicanálise, instituição reconhecida pela originalidade de suas propostas. Além de Ferenczi, Melanie Klein, Michael e Alice Balint, Géza Roheim, dentre outros, foram seus (...) membros. Neste estudo de caráter histórico, o intuito é retomar todo o caminho trilhado pela instituição húngara, desde sua fundação até sua dissolução, em 1949. A identidade e o “espírito” investigativo daquela instituição se perpetuariam ao longo da história psicanalítica, influenciando, direta ou indiretamente, grandes escolas e teóricos da psicanálise, como D. W. Winnicott e alguns pensadores das escolas americanas e francesas. Palavras-chave: psicanálise; história da psicanálise; sociedade húngara de psicanálise; instituições psicanalíticas; Sándor Ferenczi.: Hungary was a place where psychoanalysis founded a great support and development at the beginning of psychoanalytical movement. Sándor Ferenczi, leading figure of psychoanalytical increase in the country, embraced the psychoanalytic cause and became one of its most important theorists and thinkers in history. Responsible for the foundation of the International Psychoanalytical Association, also created the Hungarian Psychoanalytical Society, an institution recognized for the originality of their proposals. Besides Ferenczi, Melanie Klein, Michael and Alice Balint, Géza Roheim, among others, were its members. In this historical study, the purpose is to resume the entire path taken by the Hungarian institution, from the foundation to its dissolution in 1949. The identity and the investigative “spirit” of that institution perpetuate throughout psychoanalytical history, influencing, directly or indirectly, great schools and theorists of psychoanalysis, eg, D. W. Winnicott and some thinkers of American and French schools. Keywords: psychoanalysis; psychoanalytical history; hungarian psychoanalytical society; psychoanalytical institutions; Sándor Ferenczi. (shrink)

The volume's topic is a comparative analysis of the main authors and social groups who were engaged with the reception of hellenistic philosophy at Rome. It studies in which way their specific approach to philosophy can be explained by their Roman cultural and intellectual background. Thus the volume designs philosophical and cultural criteria to be common to the philosophical activities of Romans and make them discernible as specifically Roman.

The aim of this essay is to focus the function of women in Aristophanes’ theatre and in Plato’s book V of the Republic, in an attempt to compare the different strategies adopted by these two authors in staging the female subject on the scene of their respective writings. This enquiry involves raising some fundamental questions such as : is the world of women, evoked by Aristophanes in his dramas and by Plato in his dialogues, a simple metaphor and a mere (...) instrument, if not an utopian mirage, of political theorizing? If this is not the case, what is the real and practical importance of women within the models of society and collective life outlined by Aristophanes and Plato? Do Aristophanes and Plato share a same perspective about the role of women in their hypothetical ideal cities? If not, what are the differences between Aristophanes’ and Plato’s views on this matter? (shrink)

In this paper a new trajectory-based representation to non-relativistic quantum mechanics is formulated. This is ahieved by generalizing the notion of Lagrangian path which lies at the heart of the deBroglie-Bohm “ pilot-wave” interpretation. In particular, it is shown that each LP can be replaced with a statistical ensemble formed by an infinite family of stochastic curves, referred to as generalized Lagrangian paths. This permits the introduction of a new parametric representation of the Schrödinger equation, denoted as GLP-parametrization, and of (...) the associated quantum hydrodynamic equations. The remarkable aspect of the GLP approach presented here is that it realizes at the same time also a new solution method for the N-body Schrödinger equation. As an application, Gaussian-like particular solutions for the quantum probability density function are considered, which are proved to be dynamically consistent. For them, the Schrödinger equation is reduced to a single Hamilton–Jacobi evolution equation. Particular solutions of this type are explicitly constructed, which include the case of free particles occurring in 1- or N-body quantum systems as well as the dynamics in the presence of suitable potential forces. In all these cases the initial Gaussian PDFs are shown to be free of the spreading behavior usually ascribed to quantum wave-packets, in that they exhibit the characteristic feature of remaining at all times spatially-localized. (shrink)

The Legacy of Aristotelian Enthymeme provides a historical-logical analysis of Aristotle's rhetorical syllogism, the enthymeme, through its Medieval and Renaissance interpretations. Bringing together notions of credibility and proof, an international team of scholars highlight the fierce debates around this form of argumentation during two key periods for Aristotle's beliefs.Reflecting on medieval and humanist thinkers, philosophers, poets and theologians, this volume joins up dialectical and rhetorical argumentation as key to the enthymeme's interpretation and shows how the enthymeme was the source of (...) a major interpretive conflict. As a method for achieving the standards for proof and credibility that persist across diverse fields of study today including the law, politics, medicine and morality, this book takes in Latin and Persian interpretations of the enthymeme and casts contemporary argumentation in a new historical light. (shrink)

The Bible is the Word of God as expressed in human language. The goal of the present article is to develop a hermeneutical approach based in the communicative function of language. It first takes up the constitutive elements of the communicative event and the different patterns of representation. It then focuses in the exact operative function of language so as to clarify the relation between the semantic content and its pragmatic usage. Finally, it analyzes the specific characteristic of a biblical (...) text to apply the above communicative process to the analytical interpretation of a literary text. (shrink)