Gathers the pre-Sand Country Almanac writings of Aldo Leopold, showing that he was not born an ecologist, but evolved over time through experimentation and thought.

The argument against innatism at the heart of Cognitive Gadgets is provocative but premature, and is vitiated by dichotomous thinking, interpretive double standards, and evidence cherry-picking. I illustrate my criticism by addressing the heritability of imitation and mindreading, the relevance of twin studies, and the meaning of cross-cultural differences in theory of mind development. Reaching an integrative understanding of genetic inheritance, plasticity, and learning is a formidable task that demands a more nuanced evolutionary approach.

La convinzione che la corretta comprensione della filosofia di Giordano Bruno sia imprescindibile dal tempo e dal luogo in cui il testo venne scritto è il principio ispiratore dell’originale metodo di ricerca di Guido del Giudice. Questa antologia, che raccoglie per la prima volta tutte le epistole dedicatorie delle opere latine, giunge a coronamento di un lavoro decennale dell’autore.

El presente artículo interroga de la naturaleza semiótica de la educación inclusiva y sus problemas de regulación ontológicos, visuales y epistémicos. Este problema comienza a evidenciarse cuando, buena parte, de la consciencia heurística de la educación especial se toma literalmente como la lengua natural de un espacio intelectual en blanco pero altamente generador en la transformación del conocimiento pedagógico. Tal transferencia, devino en la cristalización de un modelo semiótico universal que alcanza su efectividad a través de la castración de la (...) identidad semiológica de lo inclusivo, lo que afianza un sistema de edipización de sus signos y, con ello, coloca de manifestando un sistema de desviación sobre sus propiedades ontológicas implícitas. Producto de esta operación, es que, sus diferentes tipos de agenciamientos de enunciación son objeto de confusión y tervigersación, especialmente, sobre sus unidades semiológicas auténticas. Estamos en presencia de una operación estratégicamente intencionada que contribuye a castrar la pregunta por los signos de lo inclusivo y, por consiguiente, a instalar un sistema de edipización sobre su objeto. El método empleado es el de revisión documental crítica. El trabajo concluye que, al imponer el rostro de la educación especial como parte del corazón de la educación inclusiva se omite la intención de colocar en conexión sus dos tipos de representaciones, las que, también pueden ser interpretadas como formaciones particulares del poder, por medio de las cuales, se designa un modo particular de funcionamiento que es afianzado a través de un sistema de descodificación generalizada de sus signos y flujos semióticos. (shrink)

This target article presents an integrated evolutionary model of the development of attachment and human reproductive strategies. It is argued that sex differences in attachment emerge in middle childhood, have adaptive significance in both children and adults, and are part of sex-specific life history strategies. Early psychosocial stress and insecure attachment act as cues of environmental risk, and tend to switch development towards reproductive strategies favoring current reproduction and higher mating effort. However, due to sex differences in life history trade-offs (...) between mating and parenting, insecure males tend to adopt avoidant strategies, whereas insecure females tend to adopt anxious/ambivalent strategies, which maximize investment from kin and mates. Females are expected to shift to avoidant patterns when environmental risk is more severe. Avoidant and ambivalent attachment patterns also have different adaptive values for boys and girls, in the context of same-sex competition in the peer group: in particular, the competitive and aggressive traits related to avoidant attachment can be favored as a status-seeking strategy for males. Finally, adrenarche is proposed as the endocrine mechanism underlying the reorganization of attachment in middle childhood, and the implications for the relationship between attachment and sexual development are explored. Sex differences in the development of attachment can be fruitfully integrated within the broader framework of adaptive plasticity in life history strategies, thus contributing to a coherent evolutionary theory of human development. (shrink)

Leopold first discusses the conservation of natural resources in the southwestern United States in economic tenns, stressing, in particular, erosion and aridity. He then concludes his analysis with a discussion of the moral issues involved, developing his general position within the context of P. D. Ouspenky’s early philosophy of organism.

Using the Chinese Ring Puzzle (Kotovsky & Simon, Citation1990; P. J. Reber & Kotovsky, Citation1997), we studied the effect on rule discovery of having to plan actions or not in order to reach a goal state. This was done by asking participants to predict legal moves as in implicit learning tasks (Experiment 1) and by asking participants to make legal moves as in problem-solving tasks (Experiment 2). Our hypothesis was that having a specific goal state to reach has a dual (...) effect on rule discovery. The first effect is positive and related to feedback from moves done in order to attain the goal: generalising the results of action and associating them to the conditions in which they were obtained allows discovery of the rule and learning it. The second effect is negative. In attempting to reach a specific goal, participants first tend to reduce the distance that separates the current state from the goal state (hill climbing) and so neglect the kind of exploration that facilitates rule and procedure discovery because this would seem to be a detour from the goal. Results show that having to plan actions improved performance in implicit learning tasks (Experiment 1), yet it impaired performance in problem-solving tasks (Experiment 2). Although implicit learning and problem solving are based on rule discovery, and entail noticing regularities in the material, in both cases, rule discovery processes appear to be task-dependent. (shrink)

Quando la biblioteca diventa un confessionale. Nel 1585, Giordano Bruno ritorna a Parigi dopo il soggiorno londinese, e comincia a frequentare l’abbazia di Saint Victor, famosa per la sua ” libraria “, immortalata da Rabelais. Il bibliotecario, Guillaume Cotin, trasforma lo “scriptorium” in un confessionale, dove il filosofo dà libero sfogo ai suoi ricordi e al suo impetuoso carattere. -/- When the library becomes a confessional. In 1585, Giordano Bruno, returns to Paris after his stay in London, and begins to (...) attend the abbey of Saint Victor, famous for his library, immortalized by Rabelais. The librarian, Guillaume Cotin, transforms the scriptorium into a confessional, where the philosopher gives free rein to his memories and his impetuous character. (shrink)

La condanna della ‘dottrina del giudizio’. I due dialoghi morali del Nolano, "Spaccio de la bestia trionfante" e "Cabala del cavallo Pegaseo", richiamano alla mente, in molti luoghi, L’Anticristo nietzschiano. I giudizi sul cristianesimo che vi sono espressi mostrano, infatti, notevoli concordanze con la celebre ‘maledizione’ del filosofo tedesco.

C'è un particolare che può apparire secondario, ma che assume un'importanza fondamentale per la ricostruzione della vicenda personale di Giordano Bruno. Si tratta dell'abito monacale.

Con base en el sentido histórico de Zaratustra, se examina un problema que atraviesa toda la tradición, el problema de los dualismos, es decir, la explicación filosófica que tiende a la escisión o, en otras palabras, el planteamiento de una separación radical del todo en elemen tos (alma-cuerpo, sujeto-objeto, verdad-falsedad y así sucesivamente). No se investigan algunos dualismos, sino que se expone la dualidad como origen de las reflexiones dualistas y plantea cómo es que, más bien, es posible dar razón (...) de los dualismos mediante la unidad. (shrink)

“Medico, filosofo e matematico di gran dottrina et inventione, raro nel’architettura, erudito di lettere greche, che ha già composto molti libri di proprio e non alieno intelletto”, così Federico Cesi, il princeps dell’Accademia dei Lincei, presentò nel 1612 a Galileo il nuovo adepto Nicola Antonio Stigliola, conterraneo e compagno di gioventù Giordano Bruno.

Can stable regularities be explained without appealing to governing laws or any other modal notion? In this paper, I consider what I will call a ‘Humean system’—a generic dynamical system without guiding laws—and assess whether it could display stable regularities. First, I present what can be interpreted as an account of the rise of stable regularities, following from Strevens [2003], which has been applied to explain the patterns of complex systems (such as those from meteorology and statistical mechanics). Second, since (...) this account presupposes that the underlying dynamics displays deterministic chaos, I assess whether it can be adapted to cases where the underlying dynamics is not chaotic but truly random—that is, cases where there is no dynamics guiding the time evolution of the system. If this is so, the resulting stable, apparently non-accidental regularities are the fruit of what can be called statistical necessity rather than of a primitive physical necessity. (shrink)

In occasione del bimillenario della morte del poeta latino Ovidio, l’articolo analizza l’influenza del poema delle Metamorfosi come fonte primaria di Giordano Bruno. L’esposizione della dottrina pitagorica, esposta nel libro XV del poema, si adatta perfettamente all’ontologia del Nolano e alla sua fede nella metempsicosi. In particolare il mito di Diana e Atteone viene adottato dal filosofo, nel De gl’Heroici furori, come ideale rappresentazione della propria esperienza conoscitiva. La tormentosa vicenda del cacciatore Atteone, tramutato in cervo per aver sorpreso la (...) Diana nuda, simboleggia in Bruno il passaggio dall’amore profano a quello divino. -/- On the occasion of the two thousandth anniversary of the death of the Latin poet Ovid, the article analyzes the influence of the poem of the Metamorphoses as a primary source of Giordano Bruno. The exposition of the Pythagorean doctrine, contained in the XV book of the poem, fits perfectly with the ontology of the Nolan and his faith in metempsychosis. In particular, the myth of Diana and Actaeon is adopted by the philosopher, in De gl'Heroici furori, as an ideal representation of his own cognitive experience. The tormenting story of the hunter Atteone, turned into a deer for having surprised the “naked Diana”, symbolizes in Bruno the passage from the profane love to the divine one. (shrink)

The article presents another of those ingenious mind, rebels to the yoke of religion, typical of the Italian Renaissance. Converted to Calvinism and therefore condemned to death by the Inquisition, Guglielmo Grataroli (1516-1568) became a defender of heterodox doctrine. His translation of a report of the Waldensian massacre in Calabria became part of the history of Protestant martyrs. He was the author of numerous treatises on various subjects, for which he widely used the works of Giovanni Michele Alberto da Carrara, (...) Antoine Mizauld and Gerolamo Cardano. The perfect correspondence of the topics discussed makes it probable that Giordano Bruno knew his writings. In particular, the De mutatione temporum, eiusque signis perpetuis may have inspired the De’ segni de’ tempi, a Bruno’s lost opera. This allows us to conjecture the content of the work with greater reliability. (shrink)

This article examines the possibility of moral considerations and arguments serving as validity conditions of law in legal positivist theory. I argue that, despite recent attempts, this possibility has yet to be established. My argument turns on a defense of Joseph Raz's Sources Thesis, yet I do not adopt his famous “argument from authority.” Rather, I offer a renewed defense of the distinction between creation and application of law and argue that moral considerations and arguments, whether recognized in law or (...) not, remain arguments about the modification of law. (shrink)

This target article presents an integrated evolutionary model of the development of attachment and human reproductive strategies. It is argued that sex differences in attachment emerge in middle childhood, have adaptive significance in both children and adults, and are part of sex-specific life history strategies. Early psychosocial stress and insecure attachment act as cues of environmental risk, and tend to switch development towards reproductive strategies favoring current reproduction and higher mating effort. However, due to sex differences in life history trade-offs (...) between mating and parenting, insecure males tend to adopt avoidant strategies, whereas insecure females tend to adopt anxious/ambivalent strategies, which maximize investment from kin and mates. Females are expected to shift to avoidant patterns when environmental risk is more severe. Avoidant and ambivalent attachment patterns also have different adaptive values for boys and girls, in the context of same-sex competition in the peer group: in particular, the competitive and aggressive traits related to avoidant attachment can be favored as a status-seeking strategy for males. Finally, adrenarche is proposed as the endocrine mechanism underlying the reorganization of attachment in middle childhood, and the implications for the relationship between attachment and sexual development are explored. Sex differences in the development of attachment can be fruitfully integrated within the broader framework of adaptive plasticity in life history strategies, thus contributing to a coherent evolutionary theory of human development. (shrink)

The algorithm has become an increasingly important concept in understanding human behavior in recent years. In the case of sport, human bodies are seen as superficial to the driving force of the algorithm, whether it be genetic, behavioral or surveillance-technological algorithms (Harari Citation2015, 2020; Zuboff Citation2019). However, the French mathematician and philosopher Michel Serres (1930–2019) structurally relate algorithms to sports and bodily experience at multiple places in his oeuvre. According to Serres, sport actually enables us to reprogram and rewrite our (...) behavior, moods and thoughts, and therefore modifies our algorithmic status (Serres Citation1999, Citation2019). Against deterministic conceptions of the body, Serres argues that human bodies possess a ‘metamorphic’ nature that is similar to the procedural character of computer programs. This paper investigates the relationship between the algorithm and bodily existence through a reading of both Harari and Serres on sport. It will be argued that, against deterministic conceptions of the algorithm, the algorithm can actually broaden an understanding of the role of sports and physical activity. (shrink)

The prior issue of Krisis (42:1) published Critical Naturalism: A Manifesto, with the aim to instigate a debate of the issues raised in this manifesto – the necessary re-thinking of the role (and the concept) of nature in critical theory in relation to questions of ecology, health, and inequality. Since Krisis considers itself a place for philosophical debates that take contemporary struggles as starting point, it issued an open call and solicited responses to the manifesto. This is one of the (...) sixteen selected responses, which augment, specify, or question the assumptions and arguments of the manifesto. (shrink)

Valens Acidalius, cantore di Giordano Bruno. La testimonianza della grandezza del Nolano, nell'appassionato epigramma di un suo devoto allievo.

[Although research in wildlife management is repeating the history of agriculture, unlike agricultural research, which employs scientific means for economic ends, the ends of wildlife research are judged in terms of aesthetic satisfactions as governed by “good taste.” Wild animals and plants are economically valuable only in the sense that human performers and works of art are: the means are of the brain, but the ends are of the heart. Wildlife management has forged ahead of agriculture in recognizing the invisible (...) interdependencies in the biotic community. Moreover, it has admitted its inability to replace natural equilibria and its unwillingness to do so even if it could. Because many animals do not exhibit their natural behavior under laboratory conditions, researchers are dependent on observation in the wild. The difficulties involved in isolating variables are especially clear in the study of the natural cycle. It is a problem which seems to defy the experimental method.]. (shrink)

Leopold first discusses the conservation of natural resources in the southwestern United States in economic tenns, stressing, in particular, erosion and aridity. He then concludes his analysis with a discussion of the moral issues involved, developing his general position within the context of P. D. Ouspenky’s early philosophy of organism.

If the laws of nature are as the Humean believes, it is an unexplained cosmic coincidence that the actual Humean mosaic is as extremely regular as it is. This is a strong and well-known objection to the Humean account of laws. Yet, as reasonable as this objection may seem, it is nowadays sometimes dismissed. The reason: its unjustified implicit assignment of equiprobability to each possible Humean mosaic; that is, its assumption of the principle of indifference, which has been attacked on (...) many grounds ever since it was first proposed. In place of equiprobability, recent formal models represent the doxastic state of total ignorance as suspension of judgment. In this paper I revisit the cosmic coincidence objection to Humean laws by assessing which doxastic state we should endorse. By focusing on specific features of our scenario I conclude that suspending judgment results in an unnecessarily weak doxastic state. First, I point out that recent literature in epistemology has provided independent justifications of the principle of indifference. Second, given that the argument is framed within a Humean metaphysics, it turns out that we are warranted to appeal to these justifications and assign a uniform and additive credence distribution among Humean mosaics. This leads us to conclude that, contrary to widespread opinion, we should not dismiss the cosmic coincidence objection to the Humean account of laws. (shrink)

In un verso di Ariosto, la sorte di Giordano Bruno. SPECIALE V CENTENARIO ORLANDO FURIOSO (1516–2016).

Animals populate our artistic and philosophical discourses in critical ways. From Jacques Derrida's or Karen Barad's cat, to Donna Haraway's dog, to the fish in Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Véréna Paravel's Leviathan, these animals feature heavily in discussions regarding limits – the limits of the human and thus its relation with non-humans, but also the limits of knowledge itself. Cute or dangerous, real or fantasised, dead or alive: in this article, I juxtapose the various ways that such animals confront us with (...) what Jacques Derrida describes as “the point of view of the absolute other”. Similarly, recent texts stage encounters with animals – thus distributing agency towards a larger variety of beings, carving out space for a previously excluded non-human other. Yet these encounters are mediated in profoundly different ways. In researching how encounters with the animal are differentially inflected and “defracted” respective to the medium in which they are staged, this article invokes questions of form and style within the critical dialogue that attempts to centre non-human animals. Highlighting how formal decisions are not accidental, but rather integral, to the praxis of the philosophy of animality, this article aims to draw attention to how specific forms and styles allow for a moment of contact with a non-human other. To this end, this article examines three oft-cited encounters: Derrida's encounter with his cat, an intense stare with a fish in Leviathan, and Barad's inflection of Schrödinger's cat. This juxtaposition gives insight into the limits of certain styles of producing thought and critically reflects on these works in their discussion of non-human life and agency. (shrink)

Examining the work on dialogue done by Gadamer, Habermas and Derrida, this article shows the theoretical depth and complexity of this concept. Drawing together different views, its highlights the stakes of the competing understandings of this topic. The diversity in their individual conceptualisations of dialogue gives an insight into the wealth of conceptual resources that is hidden in this word. This piece reads selected pieces from these thinkers through the lens of the concept of dialogue — building and refining a (...) definition of what dialogue could mean. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to compare different conceptions of the role of (normative) coherence in the legal field. More precisely, it aims to deepen Neil MacCormick's theory of legal reasoning, in which coherence is essentially considered an interpretative tool, and Ronald Dworkin's legal theory, in which coherence occupies a more crucial place. The main results of this paper can be summarized in two points. A) For Dworkin, coherence is not just an interpretative standard but constitutes the hard core (...) of his theory of law. B) As a consequence of A, Dworkin's reflections on coherence (as an interpretative standard) cannot be separated from his theory of law grounded on the concept of integrity. (shrink)