In this paper I argue that Rawlsians have largely misunderstood the idea of an overlapping consensus of reasonable comprehensive doctrines, thereby failing to delineate in an appropriate way the place of comprehensive doctrines in political liberalism. My argument rests on two core claims. The first claim is that (i) political liberalism is committed to three theses about the overlapping consensus. The first thesis concerns the subject of the overlapping consensus; the second thesis concerns the function of the overlapping consensus; the (...) third thesis explains how the overlapping consensus can serve its function in accordance with political liberalism’s commitment to epistemic neutrality. The second claim on which my argument relies is empirical: (ii) Rawlsians typically deny at least one of the three theses to which political liberalism is committed. Based on (i) and (ii), I conclude that Rawlsians have hitherto provided unconvincing accounts of the place of comprehensive doctrines in political liberalism. (shrink)

In Categories 12 (14b11–22), Aristotle famously claims that [1] true sentences and reality stand in a mutually implicative relationship, and that [2] reality causes the truth of sentences but not vice versa. In this paper, I first argue that Boethius’ reading of the above passage led medieval logicians to assess [1] and [2] within the framework of a theory of consequence. Then, I consider two important questions raised by Boethius and later logicians in relation to [1] and [2], and, namely, (...) whether the implication described in [1] really satisfies the requirement for consequence, and whether the truthmaking relation posited in [2] can be boiled down to the relation of consequence. Boethius himself, I argue, answered affirmatively to both questions and thus (much like some contemporary truthmaker theorists) committed himself to an account of truthmaking as entailment. I then consider criticisms to Boethius’ account found in the writings of William of Champeaux, two anonymous authors connected to the school of Jocelyn of Soissons, Peter Abelard, and the author of the Ars Meliduna. Here, I argue that the emergence of a concern for relevance drives the need for abandoning Boethius’ account as well as his conception of truthmaking as entailment. (shrink)

This paper considers two issues raised by the claim that fictional characters are abstract artifacts. First, given that artifacts normally have functions, what is the function of a fictional character? Second, given that, in experiencing works of fictions, we usually treat fictional characters as concrete individuals, how can such a phenomenology fit with an ontology according to which fictional characters are abstract artifacts? I will indirectly address the second issue by directly addressing the first one. For this purpose, I will (...) rely on the notion of a mental file. I will argue that the function of fictional characters is the generation of mental files of a special kind. I will show that our experience of fictional characters as concrete individuals depends on the kind of mental files that are generated by fictional characters as abstract artifacts. I will conclude that an appreciator of a work of fiction can open two files about a certain fictional character; one about the character as an individual in the fictional world, and the other about the character as an abstract artifact in the actual world. In this sense, our relation to a fictional character is characterized by a duality of files or ‘twofileness’. (shrink)

Regardless of whether one agrees or disagrees with Stacie Friend’s claim that fiction is a genre, her notion of genre can be fruitfully applied to a paradigmatic genre such as science fiction. This article deploys Friend’s notion of genre in order to improve the influential characterization of science fiction proposed by Darko Suvin and to defend it from a criticism recently raised by Simon Evnine. According to Suvin, a work of science fiction must concern “a fictional ‘novum’ validated by cognitive (...) logic.” While Suvin conceives of his characterization as a necessary and sufficient condition for membership in the genre, I propose to cast the notions of “fictional novum” and “cognitive validation” as standard features of the genre, which works of science fiction should have but might lack. I argue that this amended version of Suvin’s characterization can better account for two basic properties of science fiction as a genre, namely its historicity and its relevance to appreciation. Lastly, I show that the amended version can shed some light on the affinity between works of science fiction and philosophical thought experiments. (shrink)

Diachronic perceptual atomism is the view that the contents of experience do not involve temporal relations between non-simultaneous events, such as motion, succession, or duration, but only 'snapshots' of the world. Traditionally, atomism has not been a very popular view. Indeed, many philosophers think that it is obviously false and that the main debate about time consciousness takes place between models which reject atomistic commitments. This antiatomistic sentiment can be traced back to William James's slogan that 'a succession of feelings, (...) in and of itself, is not a feeling of succession'. In this paper I argue, first, that the arguments typically launched against atomism in the spirit of James's slogan fail; and second, that the viability of atomism depends on what the conditions for a mental event's being an experience are. In particular, I argue that if a mental event is an experience only if it fulfils certain downstream conditions, which concern the role of the event in the subject's cognitive life, then atomism fails. Otherwise, it is in fact a viable and in many ways attractive view. It follows from my discussion that, contrary to popular belief, atomism is by no means obviously false. Rather, its viability depends on one's further views about the relationship between experience and cognition. (shrink)

Conceptualism is the thesis that, for any perceptual experience E, (i) E has a Fregean proposition as its content and (ii) a subject of E must possess a concept for each item represented by E. We advance a framework within which conceptualism may be defended against its most serious objections (e.g., Richard Heck's argument from nonveridical experience). The framework is of independent interest for the philosophy of mind and epistemology given its implications for debates regarding transparency, relationalism and representationalism, demonstrative (...) thought, phenomenal character, and the speckled hen objection to modest foundationalism. (shrink)

The mind when posing the question “what is consciousness?” (i.e. “The Hard Problem of Consciousness”, THPOC) will encounter an unsurmountable conflict of interest. The hope that by investigating the “neural correlates to consciousness” (NCCs) one might come to a “scientific (conceptual)” definition of consciousness is then paradoxical. In fact, the investigation of NCCs might unveil only “operational” (functional) properties of the mind. Nevertheless, the pieces of information deriving from these investigations seem to be striking. To this respect, there is a (...) growing evidence of a dual-state activity in mind, corresponding to the activities of a conscious (explicit) mind (C) and an unconscious (implicit) mind (U), respectively; moreover, C and U do not share any conceptual connection with psychoanalytic Conscious and Unconscious. In detail, C is the domain where thoughts (as well as images and music) can be managed; instead, U exhibits a biophysical/biochemical activity. In order to communicate with each other, a transduction of one language into the other must reciprocally occur; it is notable that the investigation of NCCs leads to the conclusion that it is right that transduction process accounts for the unsurmountable question about THPOC. Moreover, it is demonstrated that the dual state activity in mind stands on a probabilistic-deterministic mechanism; this functional property of the mind is incompatible with the existence of free-will (FW) but not with C’s FW illusion. In summary in the current literature, there is a unique cognitive model that is compatible with all these evidences, i.e. “The Bignetti Model” (TBM). (shrink)

The traditional standard quantum mechanics theory is unable to solve the spin–statistics problem, i.e. to justify the utterly important “Pauli Exclusion Principle”. A complete and straightforward solution of the spin–statistics problem is presented on the basis of the “conformal quantum geometrodynamics” theory. This theory provides a Weyl-gauge invariant formulation of the standard quantum mechanics and reproduces successfully all relevant quantum processes including the formulation of Dirac’s or Schrödinger’s equation, of Heisenberg’s uncertainty relations and of the nonlocal EPR correlations. When the (...) conformal quantum geometrodynamics is applied to a system made of many identical particles with spin, an additional constant property of all elementary particles enters naturally into play: the “intrinsic helicity”. This property, not considered in the Standard Quantum Mechanics, determines the correct spin–statistics connection observed in Nature. (shrink)

This paper discusses a conception of truth and propositional meaning that was developed in the second half of the twelfth century by the followers of Gilbert of Poitiers, the Porretani. I begin by outlining some basic metaphysical principles that underlie the propositional semantics of the Porretani. I then go on to consider the Porretanean account of truth and of the truth-predicate, and argue that the Porretani subscribe to a form of deflationism about truth. Then, I turn to the Porretanean view (...) of propositional meanings or ‘assertables’ (enuntiabilia), as they call them. After elucidating the crucial claim that an assertable is a composition or a division, I go on to address the question of the ontological status of assertables. I argue that the Porretani endorse a form of deflationism about propositional meaning. For they maintain that assertables, although indispensable to logical inquiry, are not real entities. I conclude by presenting a discussion on assertables contained in an unedited tract dating probably from the beginning of the thirteenth century. Like the Porretani, the author of the tract identifies assertables with compositions and divisions. However, he interestingly takes the theory in a new direction by introducing the concept of negative relation. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that the theory of mental files can provide a unitary cognitive account of how names and singular terms work in fiction. I will suggest that the crucial notion we need is not the one of regular file, i.e., a file whose function is to accumulate information that we take to be about a single object of the outside world, but the notion of indexed file, i.e., a file that stands, in the subject’s mind, for another (...) subject’s file about an object. When we read a novel containing the name of an individual, we acquire (fictional) information about that individual and we store those pieces of information into an indexed file. If the name also refers to a real individual outside the context of fiction, the indexed file is linked with the pre-existing regular file that we have about such individual. Otherwise, the indexed file is linked to a regular file referring to an abstract object, namely the fictional entity itself. (shrink)

In this paper I consider a problem – originally raised by Thomas Aquinas – that is a side effect of integrating Aristotle’s epistemology with Augustine’s. Thus, how can the human soul obtain knowledge of its own stable dispositions? In a serious attempt to meet the constraints that Aristotle had placed on the possibility of human reflexive thought, Aquinas builds his answer on a distinction between actual and habitual self-knowledge. Both Matthew of Acquasparta and Roger Marston will draw on the distinction, (...) as well as on the overall formulation of the problem, and yet – due to a stronger commitment to Augustineʼs epistemology – they will reject with different arguments Aquinas’s solution. (shrink)

The traditional standard theory of quantum mechanics is unable to solve the spin–statistics problem, i.e. to justify the utterly important “Pauli Exclusion Principle” but by the adoption of the complex standard relativistic quantum field theory. In a recent paper :858–873, 2015) we presented a proof of the spin–statistics problem in the nonrelativistic approximation on the basis of the “Conformal Quantum Geometrodynamics”. In the present paper, by the same theory the proof of the spin–statistics theorem is extended to the relativistic domain (...) in the general scenario of curved spacetime. The relativistic approach allows to formulate a manifestly step-by-step Weyl gauge invariant theory and to emphasize some fundamental aspects of group theory in the demonstration. No relativistic quantum field operators are used and the particle exchange properties are drawn from the conservation of the intrinsic helicity of elementary particles. It is therefore this property, not considered in the standard quantum mechanics, which determines the correct spin–statistics connection observed in Nature :858–873, 2015). The present proof of the spin–statistics theorem is simpler than the one presented in Santamato and De Martini :858–873, 2015), because it is based on symmetry group considerations only, without having recourse to frames attached to the particles. Second quantization and anticommuting operators are not necessary. (shrink)

Ensuring the trustworthiness of autonomous systems and artificial intelligence is an important interdisciplinary endeavour. In this position paper, we argue that this endeavour will benefit from technical advancements in capturing various forms of responsibility, and we present a comprehensive research agenda to achieve this. In particular, we argue that ensuring the reliability of autonomous system can take advantage of technical approaches for quantifying degrees of responsibility and for coordinating tasks based on that. Moreover, we deem that, in certifying the legality (...) of an AI system, formal and computationally implementable notions of _responsibility_, _blame_, _accountability_, and _liability_ are applicable for addressing potential responsibility gaps (i.e. situations in which a group is responsible, but individuals’ responsibility may be unclear). This is a call to enable AI systems themselves, as well as those involved in the design, monitoring, and governance of AI systems, to represent and reason about who can be seen as responsible in prospect (e.g. for completing a task in future) and who can be seen as responsible retrospectively (e.g. for a failure that has already occurred). To that end, in this work, we show that across all stages of the design, development, and deployment of trustworthy autonomous systems (TAS), responsibility reasoning should play a key role. This position paper is the first step towards establishing a road map and research agenda on how the notion of responsibility can provide novel solution concepts for ensuring the _reliability_ and _legality_ of TAS and, as a result, enables an effective embedding of AI technologies into society. (shrink)

Numenius is an author who straddles the line between Middle Platonism and Neoplatonism. In this contribution, I focus on the differences between the second and the third God, which emerge from analyses of the relevant fragments. Numenius emphasizes, on several occasions, how the second God (i.e., the demiurge) has a dual nature. In this paper, I investigate the role of the demiurge in Numenius and examine in what sense the second and third God are “one.” On the one hand, Numenius (...) seems to be stressing the unity of the second and third levels of reality, but on the other hand, he also appears to be differentiating them. The present analyses concentrate on fragments 19F, 24F, 29T and 30T (respectively 11, 16, 21, and 22 in des Places’ edition). My purpose is to demonstrate that, according to Numenius, the second and the third God are one because they both can be regarded as demiurgic. Thus, Numenius conceives a kind of “double demiurgy,” which preserves the distinction between the second and the third God, who are distinguished from an ontological point of view, but who, at the same time, share a demiurgic function. The second God is then the paradigm, whereas the third God is immanent in matter as a ruling principle of the cosmos, which is similar to the World Soul, as he operates on matter in order to make it rationally ordered. (shrink)

This paper reflects my address as IAAIL president at ICAIL 2021. It is aimed to give my vision of the status of the AI and Law discipline, and possible future perspectives. In this respect, I go through different seasons of AI research : from the Winter of AI, namely a period of mistrust in AI, to the Summer of AI, namely the current period of great interest in the discipline with lots of expectations. One of the results of the first (...) decades of AI research is that “intelligence requires knowledge”. Since its inception the Web proved to be an extraordinary vehicle for knowledge creation and sharing, therefore it’s not a surprise if the evolution of AI has followed the evolution of the Web. I argue that a bottom-up approach, in terms of machine/deep learning and NLP to extract knowledge from raw data, combined with a top-down approach, in terms of legal knowledge representation and models for legal reasoning and argumentation, may represent a promotion for the development of the Semantic Web, as well as of AI systems. Finally, I provide my insight in the potential of AI development, which takes into account technological opportunities and theoretical limits. (shrink)

Callimachus,ep. 1 Pfeiffer relates an anecdote about Pittacus: when consulted by a stranger from Atarneus who was wondering whether to marry a woman of his own social class or one of a higher status, he suggests the question is answered by the cries of the children playing with tops, τν κατ ｃαντν ἔλα. The chequered history of the transmission and interpretation of the poem is beset by a number of unfavourable or patronizing judgements which, I hope to show, have their (...) origin in a series of misunderstandings. The poem seems to lack the sharp point characteristic of epigrams, and indeed Gow-Page go so far as to pronounce that it ‘has no claim to be called an epigram at all’. We now have a number of valuable parallels for the unusual length of the piece, but grave doubts continue to be expressed about the Callimachean authorship of the poem. While Diogenes Laertius, who quotes the poem in his life of Pittacus, explicitly attributes it to καλλμαχοఁ ν τοῖఁ ’Epsilon;πιγρμμαఁιν, in P and PI there is no ascription at all: there our epigram has been mistakenly consigned to the ’ɛπιτμβια simply becauseAP7.81, on the Seven Sages, is followed by some fifty epigrams on them and other philosophers, all derived from D.L. In the Palatine ms. there survive traces of the questions raised by this poem, though—surprisingly—both Pfeiffer and Gow-Page fail to report them. (shrink)

Callimachus,ep. 1 Pfeiffer (= LIV Gow-Page =AP7.89) relates an anecdote about Pittacus: when consulted by a stranger from Atarneus who was wondering whether to marry a woman of his own social class or one of a higher status, he suggests the question is answered by the cries of the children playing with tops, τν κατ ｃαντν ἔλα. The chequered history of the transmission and interpretation of the poem is beset by a number of unfavourable or patronizing judgements which, I hope (...) to show, have their origin in a series of misunderstandings. The poem seems to lack the sharp point characteristic of epigrams, and indeed Gow-Page go so far as to pronounce that it ‘has no claim to be called an epigram at all’. We now have a number of valuable parallels for the unusual length of the piece, but grave doubts continue to be expressed about the Callimachean authorship of the poem. While Diogenes Laertius (henceforth referred to as ‘D.L.’), who quotes the poem in his life of Pittacus (1.79ff.), explicitly attributes it to καλλμαχοఁ ν τοῖఁ ’Epsilon;πιγρμμαఁιν, in P and PI there is no ascription at all: there our epigram has been mistakenly consigned to the ’ɛπιτμβια simply becauseAP7.81 (= Antipater XXXIV Gow-Page), on the Seven Sages, is followed by some fifty epigrams on them and other philosophers, all (save three) derived from D.L. In the Palatine ms. there survive traces of the questions raised by this poem, though—surprisingly—both Pfeiffer and Gow-Page fail to report them. (shrink)

I temi discussi all’interno del volume sono il frutto di una intensa attività seminariale svolta all’interno dei corsi di Filosofia politica e di Storia delle dottrine politiche presso il Dipartimento di Scienze politiche dell’Università di Roma Sapienza. Ha tra i suoi obiettivi quello di introdurre allo studio e alla comprensione di alcuni argomenti che sono al centro della politica e sono volti al compimento del grande progetto politico che vede nella libertà i luoghi della felicità e della solidarietà. Dalla riflessione (...) che ne è scaturita è emersa la convinzione che alla base di questo progetto la democrazia continua ad essere, nonostante le sue criticità, un valore attuale e uno strumento fondamentale per la convivenza pacifica tra i popoli, in un epoca in cui la libertà si è riconciliata con l’uguaglianza assumendo il significato di fonte di legittimazione democratica che oggi si ripropone a tutela delle differenze che fanno «di ciascuno di noi un individuo unico». (shrink)

The dichotomy and mutual exclusiveness of the somatic feeling theory and cognitive theories of emotion has been the most deeply entrenched presupposition of emotion theory throughout the 20th century. In the first part of this paper I give a succinct review of both theoretical strands and of the most influential arguments which have been raised against them. This leads me to diagnose an argumentative stalemate: Both approaches have serious shortcomings which can only be overcome within the framework of the other. (...) In the second part I argue that if one adopts a Representational theory of sensory states and understands occurrent emotional states as complex intentional states of a particular sort, this impasse can be overcome, and both theoretical strands can be reconciled. (shrink)

This paper considers two different kinds of philosophical interpretations of the movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. On the one hand, Eternal Sunshine as a thought experiment that can function as an argument against utilitarianism. On the other hand, Eternal Sunshine as an instance of the genre of the remarriage comedy. I will argue that these two kinds of interpretations are in conflict. More specifically, Eternal Sunshine, understood as a comedy of remarriage, cannot function as an argument against utilitarianism, (...) at least in the sense specified by Grau and Wartenberg. Finally, I will suggest a different way in which Eternal Sunshine, understood as a comedy of remarriage, might function as an argument against utilitarianism. (shrink)

Nella Tempesta shakespeariana, le avversità della vita obbligano il povero Trinculo a condividere il giaciglio con qualcuno assai differente da lui. Si tratta di un’immagine che rappresenta il momento in cui due individui radicalmente diversi sono obbligati a percorrere il medesimo cammino per realizzare uno scopo comune. In questo lavoro, sostengo che alcune delle interpretazioni del misticismo medievale possono identificarsi in una forma di esperienza digitale basata sul World Wide Web, il quale, grazie al rapido sviluppo delle metodologie dell’Intelligenza Artificiale, (...) si appresta a diventare una nuova forma di misticismo. In Shakespeare’s Tempest, the misfortunes of life force poor Trinculo to share a bed with a stranger in order to survive. This image represents the moment where two persons, utterly different in their perspectives, share a path in order to achieve a common goal. In this article, I put forward the claim that some interpretations of Middle Ages philosophy can be identified as a form of digital experience based on the World Wide Web, which, thanks to the rapid development of Artificial Intelligence methodologies, opens up a new kind of mysticism for the future era. (shrink)

In the first decades of the twentieth century, many philosophers and philosophical movements attempted to make philosophy scientific by analogy with science. Such attempts vary with respect to the strategies adopted for implementing the analogy. In this article, I single out the specificity of logical empiricism’s strategy, by comparing it to some of its most relevant contemporary scientific philosophies, such as Russell’s method of analysis, Husserl’s phenomenology, neo-Kantianism, and American pragmatism. Logical empiricism sees philosophy as continuous with science, by reducing (...) the problems of philosophy to problems in mathematical logic. The other scientific philosophies postulate a specificity of philosophy, by maintaining a special domain for it and also a specific methodology, while requiring this methodology to be scientific in a manner analogous to the general method of the special sciences. I argue that this distinction helps to revise and possibly to settle some of the debates concerning our understanding of both the genealogy and the development of the movement, such as the conjectural derivation of its scientific philosophy from Russell’s analytic philosophy or from a special brand of Austrian philosophy and the complex relationship with its German and American contemporaries. (shrink)

What is the theoretical and applied responsibility of practical legal policies against environmental degradation? Which political-philosophical attitude is implicit in the International and European environmental legislation for reducing and preventing the environmental degradation? The concepts and means, developed to compare us with the environmental issue, are adequate to capture the reality of these emergencies? The basic thesis, I intend to discuss and defend, argues that there is a “question incompatibility” between political liberalism and environmental protection.

Numenio appartiene all’ambito degli interpreti medioplatonici dei dialoghi di Platone; nel Medioplatonismo, infatti, si diffuse la tendenza a interpretare la filosofia di Platone come in chiave sistematica. Il dialogo più rilevante per questa operazione esegetica nel Medioplatonismo fu certamente il Timeo. In questo contributo intendo concentrarmi sull’interpretazione delle pagine 28a-29a del Timeo da parte di Numenio di Apamea ed esaminarne l’esegesi alla luce della sua prospettiva onto-teologica. Nel Timeo, l’utilizzo del verbo βλέπω ha la funzione di descrivere il fatto che (...) il demiurgo è contemplativo nei confronti del paradigma intelligibile. In Numenio, invece, l’associazione del verbo βλέπω al demiurgo è volta a mostrare il ruolo di mediatore che il secondo dio svolge tra il primo principio e la materia. In questo modo si mostrerà come i passi del Timeo vengano interpretati da Numenio alla luce della sua metafisica dualista. (shrink)