In an effort to produce new and more sustainable technologies, designers have turned to nature in search of inspiration and innovation. Biomimetic design (from the Greek bios, life, mimesis, imitation) is the conscious imitation of biological models to solve today's technical and ecological challenges. Nowadays numerous different approaches exist that take inspiration from nature as a model for design, such as biomimicry, biomimetics, bionics, permaculture, ecological engineering, etc. This variety of practices comes in turn with a wide range of different (...) promises, including sustainability, increased resilience, multi-functionality, and a lower degree of risk. How are we to make sense of this heterogeneous amalgam of existing practices and technologies, and of the numerous promises attached to them? We suggest that a typology of biomimetic approaches would provide a useful hermeneutic framework to understand the different tensions that pull this variegated landscape in different directions. This is achieved through a critical analysis of the literature in different fields of biomimetic design and the philosophy of biomimicry, in order to derive conceptual and normative assumptions concerning the meaning and value of the imitation of nature. These two dimensions are then intersected to derive an analytical grid composed of six different biomimetic types, which enable the classification of existing and possible biomimetic approaches, practices, and technologies according to their specific conceptual assumptions and guiding norms. (shrink)

The logical hexagon (or hexagon of opposition) is a strange, yet beautiful, highly symmetrical mathematical figure, mysteriously intertwining fundamental logical and geometrical features. It was discovered more or less at the same time (i.e. around 1950), independently, by a few scholars. It is the successor of an equally strange (but mathematically less impressive) structure, the “logical square” (or “square of opposition”), of which it is a much more general and powerful “relative”. The discovery of the former did not raise interest, (...) neither among logicians, nor among philosophers of logic, whereas the latter played a very important theoretical role (both for logic and philosophy) for nearly two thousand years, before falling in disgrace in the first half of the twentieth century: it was, so to say, “sentenced to death” by the so-called analytical philosophers and logicians. Contrary to this, since 2004 a new, unexpected promising branch of mathematics (dealing with “oppositions”) has appeared, “oppositional geometry” (also called “n-opposition theory”, “NOT”), inside which the logical hexagon (as well as its predecessor, the logical square) is only one term of an infinite series of “logical bi-simplexes of dimension m”, itself just one term of the more general infinite series (of series) of the “logical poly-simplexes of dimension m”. In this paper we recall the main historical and the main theoretical elements of these neglected recent discoveries. After proposing some new results, among which the notion of “hybrid logical hexagon”, we show which strong reasons, inside oppositional geometry, make understand that the logical hexagon is in fact a very important and profound mathematical structure, destined to many future fruitful developments and probably bearer of a major epistemological paradigm change. (shrink)

We investigate an extension of the formalism of interpreted systems by Halpern and colleagues to model the correct behaviour of agents. The semantical model allows for the representation and reasoning about states of correct and incorrect functioning behaviour of the agents, and of the system as a whole. We axiomatise this semantic class by mapping it into a suitable class of Kripke models. The resulting logic, KD45n i-j, is a stronger version of KD, the system often referred to as Standard (...) Deontic Logic. We extend this formal framework to include the standard epistemic notions defined on interpreted systems, and introduce a new doubly-indexed operator representing the knowledge that an agent would have if it operates under the assumption that a group of agents is functioning correctly. We discuss these issues both theoretically and in terms of applications, and present further directions of work. (shrink)

Review of: "Objectivity and Honesty in Science: The case of Light Interference Phenomena".

We investigate an extension of the formalism of interpreted systems by Halpern and colleagues to model the correct behaviour of agents. The semantical model allows for the representation and reasoning about states of correct and incorrect functioning behaviour of the agents, and of the system as a whole. We axiomatise this semantic class by mapping it into a suitable class of Kripke models. The resulting logic, KD45ni-j, is a stronger version of KD, the system often referred to as Standard Deontic (...) Logic. We extend this formal framework to include the standard epistemic notions defined on interpreted systems, and introduce a new doubly-indexed operator representing the knowledge that an agent would have if it operates under the assumption that a group of agents is functioning correctly. We discuss these issues both theoretically and in terms of applications, and present further directions of work. (shrink)

In this paper we defend structural representations, more specifically neural structural representation. We are not alone in this, many are currently engaged in this endeavor. The direction we take, however, diverges from the main road, a road paved by the mathematical theory of measure that, in the 1970s, established homomorphism as the way to map empirical domains of things in the world to the codomain of numbers. By adopting the mind as codomain, this mapping became a boon for all those (...) convinced that a representation system should bear similarities with what was being represented, but struggled to find a precise account of what such similarities mean. The euforia was brief, however, and soon homomorphism revealed itself to be affected by serious weaknesses, the primary one being that it included systems embarrassingly alien to representations. We find that the defense attempts that have followed, adopt strategies that share a common format: valid structural representations come as “homomorphism plus X”, with various “X”, provided in descriptive format only. Our alternative direction stems from the observation of the overlooked departure from homomorphism as used in the theory of measure and its later use in mental representations. In the former case, the codomain or the realm of numbers, is the most suited for developing theorems detailing the existence and uniqueness of homomorphism for a wide range of empirical domains. In the latter case, the codomain is the realm of the mind, possibly more vague and more ill-defined than the empirical domain itself. The time is ripe for articulating the mapping between represented domains and the mind in formal terms, by exploiting what is currently known about coding mechanisms in the brain. We provide a sketch of a possible development in this direction, one that adopts the theory of neural population coding as codomain. We will show that our framework is not only not in disagreement with the “plus X” proposals, but can lead to natural derivation of several of the “X”. (shrink)

Based on a gambling formulation of quantum mechanics, we derive a Gleason-type theorem that holds for any dimension n of a quantum system, and in particular for \. The theorem states that the only logically consistent probability assignments are exactly the ones that are definable as the trace of the product of a projector and a density matrix operator. In addition, we detail the reason why dispersion-free probabilities are actually not valid, or rational, probabilities for quantum mechanics, and hence should (...) be excluded from consideration. (shrink)

This book examines the concept of “ Neurosemantics”, a term currently used in two different senses: the informational meaning of the physical processes in the neural circuits, and semantics in its classical sense, as the meaning of language, explained in terms of neural processes. The book explores this second sense of neurosemantics, yet in doing so, it addresses much of the first meaning as well. Divided into two parts, the book starts with a description and analysis of the mathematics of (...) the brain, including computational units, representational mechanisms and algorithmic principles. This first part pays special attention to the neural architecture which has been used in developing models of neurosemantics. The second part of the book presents a collection of models, and describes each model reproducing specific aspects of the semantics of language. Some of these models target one of the core problems of semantics, the reference of nouns, and in particular of nouns with a strong perceptual characterization. Others address the semantics of predicates, with a detailed analysis of colour attributes. While this book represents a radical shift from traditional semantics, it still pursues a line of continuity that is based on the idea that meaning can be captured, and explained, by a sort of computation. (shrink)

According to an influential line of thought, from the assumption that indeterminism makes future contingents neither true nor false, one can conclude that assertions of future contingents are never permissible. This conclusion, however, fails to recognize that we ordinarily assert future contingents even when we take the future to be unsettled. Several attempts have been made to solve this puzzle, either by arguing that, albeit truth-valueless, future contingents can be correctly assertable, or by rejecting the claim that future contingents are (...) truth-valueless. The paper examines three of most representative accounts in line with the first attempt, and concludes that none of them succeed in providing a persuasive answer as to why we felicitously assert future contingents. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Three Poems on MemoryAlessio ZanelliMICROCHIMERISMI feel them,the way I feel the stardust seeping through my skin.I feel them in the light and in the dark,in absolute silence and in deafening noise,in peaceful days and in gloomy days,while awake and while asleep.They whisper to me who I am,where I came from and where I'm headed.They uphold mewhen my body falters or my mind breaks down.I feel them loud and cleareven (...) though turmoil surrounds me,and I wonder whether she can feel them in turn,wherever she is now.And if our swapped cells don't do the job,I'm sure we'll join anewas waves afloat in spacetime,liminal ripples invisibly entwinedthat eternally propagate within the whole,within the cosmic womb astir with zillions more. [End Page 465]TIMEHanging on in quiet desperation—Roger Waters1They were right. We would get to know the hoax.They had ridden the carousel before.The swallows have always been returning,only fewer with every passing year,though they have never really gone away.Now they speak to me in dreams, one by one.The time has come. To regret time. And all.We are drops off the stalactites of time,settling the concretions of memory.And the sun burns on. Up and down around. [End Page 466]WHIFFSLight has no edge, darkness has no center, both have shape.They visit with me briefly, quick life whiffs,between a misty trip into nowhere and the next.They speak a few words, terse phrases,neat like scratches of diamond over limestone,in a forgotten lively voice,from a time long before they left.I gather nothing, mostly, no real sense.I retrieve a very distant memory, every so often,as if arising from yesterday.They hardly show themselves while speaking,and when they do I can but have a fleeting glance.Their face shines upon an invisible body,illuminates the whole ambience,belongs in an older past,not the last I have known with them.It is a face from youth,one I am allowed to recall only when they appear.Why do they come if they cannot stay?How is it they take the long way around?What do they mean?Maybe youth is the message.Maybe they just want me to thinkI have been young, we all have, together.There could be more I miss, I must still realize.I may do one day, or never, but it is already enough.A few words and a face.A darting glow.Whiffs.Edge has light, center has darkness, both have no shape.Cremona, ItalyAlessio ZanelliCremona, ItalyFootnotes1. Pink Floyd, "Time," by Roger Waters, on The Dark Side of the Moon, Abbey Road Studios, originally released 1973.Copyright © 2023 Johns Hopkins University Press... (shrink)

Social research, from economics to demography and epidemiology, makes extensive use of statistical models in order to establish causal relations. The question arises as to what guarantees the causal interpretation of such models. In this paper we focus on econometrics and advance the view that causal models are ‘augmented’ statistical models that incorporate important causal information which contributes to their causal interpretation. The primary objective of this paper is to argue that causal claims are established on the basis of a (...) plurality of evidence. We discuss the consequences of ‘evidential pluralism’ in the context of econometric modelling. (shrink)

In June 1888, Oliver Heaviside received by mail an officially unpublished pamphlet, which was written and printed by the American author Willard J. Gibbs around 1881–1884. This original document is preserved in the Dibner Library of the History of Science and Technology at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington DC. Heaviside studied Gibbs’s work very carefully and wrote some annotations in the margins of the booklet. He was a strong defender of Gibbs’s work on vector analysis against quaternionists, even if he (...) criticised Gibbs’s notation system. The aim of our paper is to analyse Heaviside’s annotations and to investigate the role played by the American physicist in the development of Heaviside’s work. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Guide to Personal Knowledge: The Philosophy of Michael Polanyi: Tacit Knowledge, Emergence and the Fiduciary Program by Dániel Paksi and Mihály HéderAlessio TartaroPAKSI, Dániel and Mihály Héder. Guide to Personal Knowledge: The Philosophy of Michael Polanyi: Tacit Knowledge, Emergence and the Fiduciary Program. Wilmington, Del.: Vernon Press, 2022. xxiii + 209 pp. Cloth, $65.00Famous for the concept of "tacit knowledge," Polanyi is a figure who looms over twentieth-century (...) philosophy without ever establishing himself as one of its major protagonists. Yet, Polanyi tackled central problems in twentieth-century Western philosophy and offered [End Page 358] insightful and original analyses thereof. In Personal Knowledge, Polanyi articulates ideas about metaphysics, mathematics, evolution, philosophy and sociology of science, epistemology, philosophy of language, political theory, theology, and more. The richness of the contents, but also their deep unity, make Polanyi's work a unique piece in the philosophical landscape of his time, full of fruitful insights that are still relevant nowadays.Guide to Personal Knowledge, written by two of the leading experts on Polanyi's philosophy, deserves the merit of providing an accessible introduction to this complex work. The book is divided into thirteen chapters, each corresponding to the respective chapter of Personal Knowledge. In each chapter, Paksi and Héder clearly explain Polanyi's main ideas, presenting them in the same order as they appear in Personal Knowledge. The chapters are introduced by a "Goals of the chapter" section that provides a series of key points, where the authors summarize Polanyi's objectives in the corresponding chapter of Personal Knowledge.The Guide is interspersed with many direct quotations from Personal Knowledge that allow the reader to link the Guide to the original text. The use of figures and tables illuminates even the most complex concepts, such as "tacit integration" and the difference between "random and ordered systems." The Guide is enriched by twenty-five boxes that provide information on ideas, authors, and concepts directly or indirectly referenced by Polanyi in Personal Knowledge. These boxes are a valuable supplement. In some cases, they offer insight into contemporary events, theories, and scholars to which Polanyi alludes but that he does not elaborate on, for example, about the role of the Michelson-Morley experiments in Einstein's development of the theory of relativity. In other cases, boxes develop a comparison between Polanyi's ideas and related philosophical figures, such as Thomas Kuhn and Samuel Alexander. Thanks to the boxes, the reader gains a richer and more complete view of Polanyi's thought.In the preface, Paksi and Héder preliminarily introduce some key concepts for understanding Polanyi's work, including "objectivity," "trust" and "fiduciary program," "tacit knowledge," "intellectual passions," "deceptive substitution," "moral inversion," "operational principles," "logic of achievement," and "emergence." Their analysis always proves faithful to Polanyi's thought, and the authors show how these concepts are interrelated and constitute the pillars of Personal Knowledge's argumentative structure. Other equally crucial concepts in Polanyi's work, for example, "commitment," "indwelling," "tradition," "conviviality," "anthropogenesis," "ultrabiology," are not introduced in the preface, but they are explored in depth in the respective chapters.The thirteen chapters of the book recapitulate in detail the main thematic segments of Personal Knowledge. The critique of objectivism and positivist views of science is explained and analyzed in chapters 1 to 4. This critique is articulated on several levels. Polanyi first criticizes [End Page 359] objectivism because it attempts to remove the personal element from scientific knowledge in order to pursue ever higher degrees of formalism, neutrality, and impersonality. Polanyi asserts, however, that the personal element is irreducible, and then proceeds to demonstrate how it operates: in the evaluation of probability statements (chapter 2), in the appreciation of ordered patterns (chapter 3), and in the practice of skills (chapter 4). The ineliminability of the personal element shows that objectivism is false. Paksi and Héder brilliantly retrace the train of thought that leads Polanyi to this conclusion.The second theme that runs across Personal Knowledge concerns the tacit foundation of human intellectual abilities and, consequently, of science and society. In chapter 6, the authors follow Polanyi's disparate arguments about animal intelligence, human... (shrink)

The subject of the ethical vocation of Nietzsche’s thinking is arousing increasing interest in the history of the ethics of the analytic tradition. Recent studies have sought above all to dissolve the conflicts that arise from the attempt to reconcile his open immoralism with his project of revaluing all values. According to John Rawls, Nietzsche is a moral elitist: the value that he attributes to the lives of great men such as Socrates or Goethe shows that the search for knowledge (...) and the cultivation of the arts by a few capable individuals is important enough to justify the sacrifice of values such as freedom and justice. This reading cannot account for the special educational role that Nietzsche recognizes in the great artists and great philosophers. In order to ground this hypothesis, I shall examine the significance of the subject of self-elevation in Schopenhauer as Educator. Following James Conant’s reading, I want to support the view that Nietzsche can be placed within that register of the moral life that Stanley Cavell called moral perfectionism. My conjecture is that the perfectionist line runs through the entire arc of Nietzsche’s thinking and is the basis of the various lines of criticism in his critique of morality. (shrink)

From epileptic seizures to depressive symptoms, predictive neurotechnologies are used for a large range of applications. In this article we focus on advisory devices; namely, predictive neurotechnology programmed to detect specific neural events (e.g., epileptic seizure) and advise users to take necessary steps to reduce or avoid the impact of the forecasted neuroevent. Receiving advise from a predictive device is not without ethical concerns. The problem with predictive neural devices, in particular advisory ones, is the risk of seeing one’s autonomous (...) choice supplanted by the predictions instead of being supplemented by it. For users, there is a potential shift from being assisted by the system to being over-dependent on the technology. In other terms, it introduces ethical issues associated with epistemic dependency. In this article, we examine the notion of epistemic authority in relation to predictive neurotechnologies. Section 1 of our article explores and defines the concept of epistemic authority. In section 2, we illustrate how predictive devices are best conceived of as epistemic authorities and we explore the subject-device epistemic relationship. In section 3, we spell out the risk of harms interconnected with epistemic deferral. We conclude by stressing a set of preliminary measures to prepare users for the authoritative nature of predictive devices. (shrink)

In this paper, I aim to explore what role persuasion plays in the early education of children. Advocating Wittgenstein, I claim that persuasion involves imparting to a pupil about a particular world-picture (Weltbild) by showing rather than explaining. This because we cannot introduce a child to the hinges of a world-picture through a discursive argument. I will employ the remarks of Wittgenstein in On Certainty (1969) (OC) to define what persuasion (Überredung) is. I will make use of the notes regarding (...) seeing-an-aspect from the Philosophical Investigations (2009) to clarify such a notion. Afterwards, I will contextualise this in early-childhood education and conclude providing some examples of how persuasion solidifies hinges. (shrink)

Whereas geometrical oppositions (logical squares and hexagons) have been so far investigated in many fields of modal logic (both abstract and applied), the oppositional geometrical side of “deontic logic” (the logic of “obligatory”, “forbidden”, “permitted”, . . .) has rather been neglected. Besides the classical “deontic square” (the deontic counterpart of Aristotle’s “logical square”), some interesting attempts have nevertheless been made to deepen the geometrical investigation of the deontic oppositions: Kalinowski (La logique des normes, PUF, Paris, 1972) has proposed a (...) “deontic hexagon” as being the geometrical representation of standard deontic logic, whereas Joerden (jointly with Hruschka, in Archiv für Rechtsund Sozialphilosophie 73:1, 1987), McNamara (Mind 105:419, 1996) and Wessels (Die gute Samariterin. Zur Struktur der Supererogation, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin, 2002) have proposed some new “deontic polygons” for dealing with conservative extensions of standard deontic logic internalising the concept of “supererogation”. Since 2004 a new formal science of the geometrical oppositions inside logic has appeared, that is “ n -opposition theory”, or “NOT”, which relies on the notion of “logical bi-simplex of dimension m ” ( m = n − 1). This theory has received a complete mathematical foundation in 2008, and since then several extensions. In this paper, by using it, we show that in standard deontic logic there are in fact many more oppositional deontic figures than Kalinowski’s unique “hexagon of norms” (more ones, and more complex ones, geometrically speaking: “deontic squares”, “deontic hexagons”, “deontic cubes”, . . ., “deontic tetraicosahedra”, . . .): the real geometry of the oppositions between deontic modalities is composed by the aforementioned structures (squares, hexagons, cubes, . . ., tetraicosahedra and hyper-tetraicosahedra), whose complete mathematical closure happens in fact to be a “deontic 5-dimensional hyper-tetraicosahedron” (an oppositional very regular solid). (shrink)

Review of: "Zeno and Einstein".

In his tightly argued, thought-provoking volume Interpretation without Truth, Pierluigi Chiassoni offers a groundbreaking, reductionist account of judicial fictions.1 Under Chiassoni’s view, judici...

There are excellent research papers in the field of visual studies that examine the relationship between war and images. This paper has other and additional aims. The first is to examine not so much how war is transferred from the ground to image production, but how war, as intrusion of the real, forces a general reflection on image techniques. The second is to examine whether there is an instance of art that is somehow different from the instance of the mere (...) image, which is always related to something that manifests itself in war, and which, especially on the occasion of a war, invites a broader reflection on existence, judgement and the world. The paths taken for these investigations are rooted in the idea that a (political) theory of art cannot be reduced to an internal classification of image theory, since it investigates aspects that go beyond the definition of the image itself. (shrink)

Review of: "Straightening the ‘Value-Laden Turn’: Minimising the Influence of Values in Science".

Théophile De Donder, a Belgian mathematician born in Brussels, elaborated two important ideas that created a bridge between thermodynamics and chemical kinetics. He invented the concept of the degree of advancement of a reaction, and, in 1922, he provided a precise mathematical form to the already known chemical affinity by translating Clausius’s uncompensated heat into formal language. These concepts merge in an important inequality that was the starting point for the formalization of non-equilibrium thermodynamics. The present article aims to reconstruct (...) how De Donder elaborated his ideas and developed them by exploring his teaching activity and its connection with his scientific production. Furthermore, it emphasizes the role played by the discussions with his disciples who became his collaborators. The paper analyzes De Donder’s efforts in participating in the second Solvay Chemistry Council in 1925 to call the attention of chemists to his mathematical approach. We explain why his work did not receive much attention at the time, and how, despite this, his formalization of chemical affinity became the basis for the birth of the so-called Brussels school of thermodynamics. (shrink)

Review of: "Biology as a postmodern science: Universals, historicity, and context".

Astroparticle physics is an interdisciplinary field embracing astronomy, astrophysics and particle physics. In a recent paper on this topic, Brigitte Falkenburg defended that only scientific realism can make sense of it and that realist beliefs constitute an indispensable methodological principle of research in this discipline. The aim of this work is to show that there exists an anti-realist alternative to this account, along the lines of what Bas van Fraassen showed in his famous book The Scientific Image. Problems and results (...) of astroparticle physics can be understood from an empiricist point of view too, namely that of van Fraassen’s constructive empiricism, which is a more modest and metaphysics-free alternative to scientific realism. Although constructive empiricism can make sense of science no worse than scientific realism does, van Fraassen’s goal is not to demonstrate that his stance is the only viable position, but just that it is not incoherent or proven false by his opponents. In this paper it will be shown that the constructive empiricist stance constitutes a legitimate alternative to scientific realism even when it gets to astroparticle physics and that it does indeed make sense of this new discipline, pace Falkenburg. (shrink)

Sleep and dreaming are important daily phenomena that are receiving growing attention from both the scientific and the philosophical communities. The increasingly popular predictive brain framework within cognitive science aims to give a full account of all aspects of cognition. The aim of this paper is to critically assess the theoretical advantages of Predictive Processing (PP, as proposed by Clark 2013, Clark 2016; and Hohwy 2013) in defining sleep and dreaming. After a brief introduction, we overview the state of the (...) art at the intersection between dream research and PP (with particular reference to Hobson and Friston 2012; Hobson et al. 2014). In the following sections we focus on two theoretically promising aspects of the research program. First, we consider the explanations of phenomenal consciousness during sleep (i.e. dreaming) and how it arises from the neural work of the brain. PP provides a good picture of the peculiarity of dreaming but it can’t fully address the problem of how consciousness comes to be in the first place. We propose that Integrated Information Theory (IIT) (Oizumi et al. 2014; Tononi et al. 2016) is a good candidate for this role and we will show its advantages and points of contact with PP. After introducing IIT, we deal with the evolutionary function of sleeping and dreaming. We illustrate that PP fits with contemporary researches on the important adaptive function of sleep and we discuss why IIT can account for sleep mentation (i.e. dreaming) in evolutionary terms (Albantakis et al. 2014). In the final section, we discuss two future avenues for dream research that can fruitfully adopt the perspective offered by PP: (a) the role of bodily predictions in the constitution of the sleeping brain activity and the dreaming experience, and (b) the precise role of the difference stages of sleep (REM (Rapid eye movement), NREM (Non-rapid eye movement) in the constitution and refinement of the predictive machinery. (shrink)

This paper addresses a fundamental line of research in neuroscience: the identification of a putative neural processing core of the cerebral cortex, often claimed to be “canonical”. This “canonical” core would be shared by the entire cortex, and would explain why it is so powerful and diversified in tasks and functions, yet so uniform in architecture. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the search for canonical explanations over the past 40 years, discussing the theoretical frameworks informing this research. (...) It will highlight a bias that, in my opinion, has limited the success of this research project, that of overlooking the dimension of cortical development. The earliest explanation of the cerebral cortex as canonical was attempted by David Marr, deriving putative cortical circuits from general mathematical laws, loosely following a deductive-nomological account. Although Marr’s theory turned out to be incorrect, one of its merits was to have put the issue of cortical circuit development at the top of his agenda. This aspect has been largely neglected in much of the research on canonical models that has followed. Models proposed in the 1980s were conceived as mechanistic. They identified a small number of components that interacted as a basic circuit, with each component defined as a function. More recent models have been presented as idealized canonical computations, distinct from mechanistic explanations, due to the lack of identifiable cortical components. Currently, the entire enterprise of coming up with a single canonical explanation has been criticized as being misguided, and the premise of the uniformity of the cortex has been strongly challenged. This debate is analyzed here. The legacy of the canonical circuit concept is reflected in both positive and negative ways in recent large-scale brain projects, such as the Human Brain Project. One positive aspect is that these projects might achieve the aim of producing detailed simulations of cortical electrical activity, a negative one regards whether they will be able to find ways of simulating how circuits actually develop. (shrink)

Some Carrollian posthumous manuscripts reveal, in addition to his famous ‘logical diagrams’, two mysterious ‘logical charts’. The first chart, a strange network making out of fourteen logical sentences a large 2D ‘triangle’ containing three smaller ones, has been shown equivalent—modulo the rediscovery of a fourth smaller triangle implicit in Carroll's global picture—to a 3D tetrahedron, the four triangular faces of which are the 3+1 Carrollian complex triangles. As it happens, such an until now very mysterious 3D logical shape—slightly deformed—has been (...) rediscovered, independently from Carroll and much later, by a logician , a mathematician and a linguist studying the geometry of the ‘opposition relations’, that is, the mathematical generalisations of the ‘logical square’. We show that inside what is called equivalently ‘n-opposition theory’, ‘oppositional geometry’ or ‘logical geometry’, Carroll's first chart corresponds exactly, duly reshap.. (shrink)

In 1985, Alan Musgrave raised a serious objection against the possibility that a constructive empiricist could coherently draw the distinction between observables and unobservables. In his brief response in the same year, Bas van Fraassen claimed that Musgrave’s argument only works within the so-called ‘syntactic view’ of theories, while it loses its force in the context of the ‘semantic view’. But this response was not adequate, or so claimed F. A. Muller, who published two articles in order to extend the (...) epistemology of constructive empiricism. In order to do so, Muller provided a rigorous characterization of observability that requires the use of modal logic. The outcome was a new epistemology for constructive empiricism, which van Fraassen apparently endorsed. As will be shown in this article, however, Muller’s extended epistemology is superfluous. Moreover, and more importantly, Musgrave’s argument seems to be a pseudo-problem. (shrink)

John Dewey conceived democracy as a cooperative problem-solving practice in which actors try out provisional solutions by means of social communication. His notion of experimental democracy as a specific form of life and an ethical enterprise rather than simply a form of government implies the constitution of a polity as a practical and complex process of exchanging and sharing experiences. The aim of this paper is to test the feasibility of using a Deweyan theoretical basis for democracy to assess the (...) potential for a European process of political integration. The historical-conceptual presuppositions of the European Union’s institutional project preclude both a narrow local perspective and an illusory globalist scheme. To redirect Europe’s democratic vocation, a process of political and institutional communication must be developed that transcends the existing national paradigm. (shrink)

Insight is a construct carried out into different theoretical orientations with increasing application out of the boundaries of clinical psychology. Recent studies have investigated insight also as a promising variable for organizational outcomes. Given the relevance of Insight in promoting change, this paper aimed at describing the psychometric analysis of one of the shortest, most agile, and most versatile tool for measuring some of the characteristics of insight, the Insight Orientation Scale, using Item Response Theory. To achieve this goal, we (...) applied a Mixed Rash Model to the IOS. Data from 1,445 individuals were analyzed by the means of WIN-MIRA and Multilog. Based on the likelihood statistics we assumed a three-class solution for the IOS. Results also indicated that the greater part of items had good discrimination and threshold parameters. These findings confirmed psychometric stability of the IOS highlighting its measurement precision, supporting its utility in both research and practice. (shrink)

L’obiettivo di questo saggio è modesto. Presenterò brevemente la dottrina della proporzionalità, così come concepita da Robert Alexy. Evidenzierò quindi alcuni aspetti rilevanti della stessa, per poi formulare una critica puntuale all’argomento della contraddizione performativa. In particolare cercherò di provare che, contrariamente a quanto pensa Alexy, la pratica della prescrizione non solleva alcuna pretesa di correttezza morale.

The critique of pure sense data is a characteristic feature of contemporary philosophy, from Wittgenstein and Heidegger to Martha Nussbaum and Ernst Tugendhat. These authors variously call into question that the data of sensation should be taken as primordial. Other contemporary authors have responded to this general critique starting from considerations about the role of sensory states, often referred to as “qualia,” in our experiential awareness. In this paper, I suggest that the philosophy of science of Ernst Mach is especially (...) paradigmatic in that it displays in one same intellectual effort the presence of these two polarizing views in the philosophical discussion of the twentieth century. In Mach a radical biological and epistemic pragmatism coexists with the most extreme sensual elementism. I show that Mach is at the same time the proponent of a phenomenological lineage that Edmund Husserl, the father of phenomenology, is aware to take up and continue. What I propose is that Husserl’s phenomenology emerges as true juncture between the extremes of sensualism and pragmatism by way of a recasting of the modern intentionalist conceptions of experience beyond any mentalist and realist paradigm. (shrink)

Recently there has been a spate of interest in Max Scheler’s social phenomenology (Schloßberger, 2016; Szanto & Moran, 2016; Cusinato, 2018). In this paper I aim to show that his philosophical contribution on Europe and Europeanism has its focal point on the concepts of rebuilding (Wiederaufbau) and rebirth (Wiedergeburt). My idea is that, for Scheler, the essential condition of any attitude towards socio-cultural change (Umkehr) have its center in the idea of the formation and the development of the personal singularity (...) (Personbildung) (Scheler, 2009a; Scheler, 2010a; Scheler, 2013). And this means the growth and the expression, in a solidaristic perspective, of one’s own ethical singularity (An-sich-Gutes für mich) and of one’s own vocations. The idea of solidarity declined in terms of Bildung is therefore strictly interdependent on the testimony coming from Otherness-exemplar (Vorbild) (Scheler, 2009f). (shrink)

According to an influential line of thought, from the assumption that indeterminism makes future contingents neither true nor false, one can conclude that assertions of future contingents are never permissible. This conclusion, however, fails to recognize that we ordinarily assert future contingents even when we take the future to be unsettled. Several attempts have been made to solve this puzzle, either by arguing that, albeit truth-valueless, future contingents can be correctly assertable, or by rejecting the claim that future contingents are (...) truth-valueless. The paper examines three of most representative accounts in line with the first attempt, and concludes that none of them succeed in providing a persuasive answer as to why we felicitously assert future contingents. (shrink)

In this paper, I aim to explore what role persuasion plays in the early education of children. Advocating Wittgenstein, I claim that persuasion involves imparting to a pupil about a particular world-picture (Weltbild) by showing rather than explaining. This because we cannot introduce a child to the hinges of a world-picture through a discursive argument. I will employ the remarks of Wittgenstein in On Certainty (1969) (OC) to define what persuasion (Überredung) is. I will make use of the notes regarding (...) seeing-an-aspect from the Philosophical Investigations (2009) to clarify such a notion. Afterwards, I will contextualise this in early-childhood education and conclude providing some examples of how persuasion solidifies hinges. (shrink)

This paper analyzes the rapid and unexpected rise of deep learning within Artificial Intelligence and its applications. It tackles the possible reasons for this remarkable success, providing candidate paths towards a satisfactory explanation of why it works so well, at least in some domains. A historical account is given for the ups and downs, which have characterized neural networks research and its evolution from “shallow” to “deep” learning architectures. A precise account of “success” is given, in order to sieve out (...) aspects pertaining to marketing or sociology of research, and the remaining aspects seem to certify a genuine value of deep learning, calling for explanation. The alleged two main propelling factors for deep learning, namely computing hardware performance and neuroscience findings, are scrutinized, and evaluated as relevant but insufficient for a comprehensive explanation. We review various attempts that have been made to provide mathematical foundations able to justify the efficiency of deep learning, and we deem this is the most promising road to follow, even if the current achievements are too scattered and relevant for very limited classes of deep neural models. The authors’ take is that most of what can explain the very nature of why deep learning works at all and even very well across so many domains of application is still to be understood and further research, which addresses the theoretical foundation of artificial learning, is still very much needed. (shrink)

In this paper, my aim is to outline a tripartite systematization of the plurivocal senses of movement in phenomenology. In particular, I follow Eugen Fink’s speculative integration of the phenomenological method as providing a broad map to orient the interpretation of phenomenologically informed studies of movement. My interpretation focuses on the role of Neoplatonic concepts and terms in Fink’s own systematic recasting of phenomenology. As a result of the development of self-critical discussions of method in phenomenology in connection with Neoplatonic (...) metaphysics, three types of movement emerge: the katabantic movement of origination, the ekbantic movement of philosophical refection, and the anabantic movement of concrete living human experience. (shrink)

non, si Cambysae redeant et flumina Croesi,dicat ‘De nostro surge, poeta, toro’. In these two lines Propertius is proud to say that his puella would not dismiss him for the fabulous treasures of some dives amator. The problem is caused by the interpretation of Cambysae as given in all the manuscripts; it is difficult to understand both as a genitive singular and as a nominative plural. This form of the genitive is not, in fact, recorded before Apul. Fl. 15.12, and (...) the concurrent form Cambysis is even less common. Moreover, the Persian king Cambyses was not an example of opulence in Antiquity like the Lydian king Croesus, but of cruelty. The only passages where he is linked with the idea of richness are Apul. Mun. 26.13–15: Cambyses et Xerxes et Darius potentissimi reges fuerunt. Horum praepotentiam, quam ex opibus collegerant, lenocinium vitae effecerat celsiorem, and Juv. 14.328–31: Si nondum implevi gremium, si panditur ultra, | nec Croesi fortuna umquam nec Persica regna | sufficient animo nec divitiae Narcissi, | indulsit Caesar cui Claudius omnia, cuius | paruit imperiis uxorem occidere iussus, where we find apparently the same connection between Persian royalty and Croesus' richness that we read in Propertius' line. (shrink)