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)

Measuring perceived similarity is an important issue in visual perception of faces, since a measure of the perceived similarity between faces may be used to investigate fundamental tasks like face categorization and recognition. Despite its fundamental role, measuring perceived similarity between faces is not trivial from both a theoretical and methodological point of view. In this paper we present theoretical arguments that undermine the method currently most used to measure perceived similarity between faces in visual perception, and we propose an (...) alternative method. We finally compare the two methods and find some empirical evidence that the proposed method can provide a more reliable evaluation of the perceived similarity between faces. (shrink)

Background Italy was the first European country to be involved with the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, many healthcare professionals were deployed and suddenly faced end-of-life care management and its challenges. Aims To understand the experiences of palliative care professionals deployed in supporting emergency and critical care staff during the COVID-19 first and second pandemic waves. Research design A qualitative descriptive design was adopted, and in-depth interviews were used to investigate and analyse participants’ perceptions and points of view. Participants and (...) research context Twenty-four healthcare professionals (physicians, nurses, psychologists, physiotherapists, and spiritual support) from the most affected areas of Italy were recruited via the Italian society of palliative care and researchers’ network. Ethical considerations The University Institutional Board granted ethical approval. Participants gave written informed consent and agreed to be video-recorded. Findings The overarching theme highlighted participants’ experience supporting health professionals to negotiate ethical complexity in end-of-life care. Crucial topics that emerged within themes were: training emergency department professionals on ethical dimensions of palliative and end-of-life care, preserving dying patients’ dignity and developing ethical competence in managing end-of-life care. Conclusions Our study showed palliative care teams’ challenges in supporting health professionals’ ethical awareness in emergencies. However, while they highlighted their concerns in dealing with the emergency staff’s lack of ethical perspectives, they also reported the positive impact of an ethically-informed palliative care approach. Lastly, this study illuminates how palliative care professionals’ clinical and ethical competence might have assisted a cultural change in caring for dying patients during COVID-19 and future emergencies. (shrink)

The enormous increasing of connections between people and the noteworthy enlargement of domains and methods in sciences have augmented extraordinarily the cardinality of the set of meaningful human symbols. We know that complexity is always on the way to become complication, i.e. a non-tractable topic. For this reason scholars engage themselves more and more in attempting to tame plurality and chaos. In this book distinguished scientists, philosophers and historians of science reflect on the topic from a multidisciplinary point of view. (...) Is it possible to dominate complexity through reductionism? Are there other conceptual instruments useful to take account of complexity? What is complexity in biology, mathematics, physics and philosophy of mind? These are some of the questions which are faced in this volume. (shrink)

Marco Enrico Giacomelli, Some Anticipations and Legacies of Foucault in Italy: Operaismo in Perspective. We connect « Sociological » research conducted by Italian operaism in Fifties-Seventies and genealogy of Michel Foucault, analysing some themes concerning contemporary political period. In particular, the concept of city-factory, needs, and disciplinary society, stressing some possible development of research and criticizing some position issued in politology, especially in Italy.

Au début des années 1930, l'épistémologie, l'histoire et l'histoire des sciences ont eu une influence réciproque importante mais indirecte. Tant les philosophes que les historiens mettaient en jeu des concepts épistémologiques issus de la crise des sciences exactes et rejetaient l'empirisme et l'idéalisme au nom d'un rationalisme expérimental qui mettait en relation théorie et expérience. Il en résultait une conception dialectique de la science, essentiellement historique mais à propos de laquelle les historiens étaient encore timides du point de vue théorique. (...) Désormais l'histoire était pourtant au coeur des réflexions philosophiques et épistémologiques. (shrink)

John Rawls and Simone Weil presented two distinct conceptions of political justice, aimed at articulating a common ethos in an inherently heterogeneous society. The terms of the former, chiefly concerned with the distribution of primary goods, underwrite much of today's Western democracies political liberalism. The terms of the latter, chiefly concerned with the way interaction is organised in social activities in view of the body and soul's balancing pairs of needs, are less well known. We explain the sense in which (...) the overlapping consensus in Weil's notion of political justice is “thicker”, and may thus deserve more attention – alongside that of Rawls – for substantiating a democratic ethos within political liberalism. (shrink)

This article is a discussion of Philip A. Rolnick’s Person, Grace, and God with comments by Andrew Grosso, Paul Lewis and Paul Gavrilyuk and a response by Philip Rolnick.

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)

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)

Exploring the metaphysics of deep disagreements, Ranalli identifies several essential features shared by all such disputes. These very features constitute a set of adequacy conditions that any satisfactory theory of deep disagreements must meet. The paper explains how Coliva’s Wittgensteinian hinge theory can satisfy Ranalli’s persistence desideratum. According to this condition, any appropriate theory must explain why deep disagreements tend to be persistent and thus unresolved without presupposing that they are rationally irresolvable. First, the work critically discusses how Coliva utilizes (...) her proposed view to account for this desideratum. Second, the paper points out that Coliva’s response is partly problematic because of Ranalli’s definition of deep disagreements for Wittgensteinian hinge theories, which over-generates instances of genuine deep disagreements. Third, the work argues that Coliva’s theory can satisfy Ranalli’s persistence desideratum by resolving a deep disagreement between an anti-vaccination advocate and a proponent of vaccination using an expanded version of Pritchard’s side-on approach. Finally, the paper critically engages with Coliva on the solvability of deep disagreements. (shrink)

Michael Grosso delves into the biography of St. Joseph of Copertino, a Dominican priest known to levitate, to explore the many strange phenomena which surrounded his life and develops potential physical explanations for some of the most astounding manifestations of his religious ecstasy.

This paper presents an approach for legal compliance checking in the Semantic Web which can be effectively applied for applications in the Linked Open Data environment. It is based on modeling deontic norms in terms of ontology classes and ontology property restrictions. It is also shown how this approach can handle norm defeasibility. Such methodology is implemented by decidable fragments of OWL 2, while legal reasoning is carried out by available decidable reasoners. The approach is generalised by presenting patterns for (...) modeling deontic norms and norms compliance checking. (shrink)

This brief essay addresses questions raised by John Apczynski’s review of my book, Personal Being, especially (1) the nature of subsidiary indwelling, (2) the ontological ramifications of Polanyi’s thought, and (3) the transposition of Christian doctrine in a more contemporary, Polanyian key.

Enrico Müller legt hier die erste philosophische Gesamtdarstellung zur Bedeutung der Griechen für Nietzsches Denken vor. Er zeigt, wie sich in Auseinandersetzung mit dem Griechentum Nietzsches eigene Philosophie entwickelte, und problematisiert deren Abgrenzungen von der Logosphilosophie der griechischen Klassik. Müller kommt dabei zu dem Schluss, dass auch Nietzsches Philosophie letztlich auf die Vorgaben der sokratisch-platonischen Dialektik angewiesen bleibt.

Pride is a fundamental element in Hume's description of human nature. An important part of the secondary literature on Hume is devoted to this passion. However, no one, as far as I am aware, takes seriously the fact that pride often appears in pairs with vanity. In Book 2 of the Treatise, pride is defined as the passion one feels when society recognizes his connection to a ‘cause’, composed by a ‘subject’ and a (positive) ‘quality’. Conversely, no definition of vanity (...) is provided. Despite Hume's fluctuating vocabulary, I hold that a conceptual difference between pride and vanity exists. To support this claim, I analyse the common features of these two passions, showing that both pride and vanity (a) are indirect passions, (b) are self-regarding passions, and (c) have the same structure. Supported by textual evidence, I then claim that vanity is a desire of reputation, a desire to feel pride, when pride is not (yet) in place, because its cause is only imaginary and not real. Nonetheless, I underscore that, at times, ‘vanity’ means simply pride and call for greater attention on this ongoing oscillation. In conclusion, I explore the implications of this account of vanity for social interactions in Hume's philosophy, which illustrates its intrinsic ambivalence. (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)

This paper presents a philosophical analysis of the structure of black holes, focusing on the event horizon and its fundamental status. While black holes have been at the centre of countless paradoxes arising from the attempt to merge quantum mechanics and general relativity, recent experimental discoveries have emphasised their importance as objects for the development of Quantum Gravity. In particular, the statistical mechanical underpinning of black hole thermodynamics has been a central research topic. The Quantum Membrane Paradigm, proposed by Wallace (...) (Stud Hist Philos Sci Part B 66:103-117, 2019), posits a real membrane made of black hole microstates at the black hole horizon to provide a statistical mechanical understanding of black hole thermodynamics from an exterior observer’s point of view. However, we argue that the Quantum Membrane Paradigm is limited to low-energy Quantum Gravity and needs to be modified to avoid reference to geometric notions, such as the event horizon, which presumably do not make sense in the non-spatiotemporal context of full Quantum Gravity. Our proposal relies on the central dogma of black hole physics. It considers recent developments, such as replica wormholes and entanglement wedge reconstruction, to provide a new framework for understanding the nature of black hole horizons in full Quantum Gravity. (shrink)

Enrico Berti has had a profound influence on the birth and development of Italian studies in ancient philosophy. His sizable work has shaped a great part of Italian studies on Aristotle and other ancient philosophers. To celebrate him and express their gratitude for his work, some of his disciples, under the impulse of the late Franco Volpi, have brought together a volume in his honour, requesting the participation of some foreign scholars particularly close to him. The volume comprises essays (...) by Pierre Aubenque, Jonathan Barnes, Terence H. Irwin, Tomás Calvo-Martínez, Jaap Mansfeld, Pierre Pellegrin, Gerhard Seel and Alejandro G. Vigo. The main themes are Aristotle's metaphysics and practical philosophy. A Selected Bibliography by E. Berti himself completes the volume."--Publisher's website. (shrink)

This book examines the role of acts of choice in classical and intuitionistic mathematics. Featuring fifteen papers - both new and previously published - it offers a fresh analysis of concepts developed by the mathematician and philosopher L.E.J. Brouwer, the founder of intuitionism. The author explores Brouwer's idealization of the creative subject as the basis for intuitionistic truth, and in the process he also discusses an important, related question: to what extent does the intuitionistic perspective succeed in avoiding the classical (...) realistic notion of truth? The papers detail realistic aspects in the idealization of the creative subject and investigate the hidden role of choice even in classical logic and mathematics, covering such topics as bar theorem, type theory, inductive evidence, Beth models, fallible models, and more. In addition, the author offers a critical analysis of the response of key mathematicians and philosophers to Brouwer's work. These figures include Michael Dummett, Saul Kripke, Per Martin-Löf, and Arend Heyting. This book appeals to researchers and graduate students with an interest in philosophy of mathematics, linguistics, and mathematics. (shrink)

This article addresses the definition of cinema by focusing on the related ontological question of which basic category circumscribes cinematic works. According to Noël Carroll, the definition of cinema consists both of ontological conditions that treat the moving image as a type and of other conditions that treat it as a display. But following Carroll’s ontological conditions, the digital encoding of a moving image enigmatically ends up being both a type and a token. Solving such a puzzle by clarifying the (...) relation between the cinematic type and the digital type leads us to define the moving image in general as a type that specifies a spatiotemporal distribution of pixels. (shrink)

This article reconstructs Abelard’s account of eternal truths as it is presented in the Dialectica, in the so-called Sententiae Parisienses, and in the Theologia “Scholarium.” It first shows how in the Dialectica Abelard had to transform the traditional account of topical inferences in order to make sense of the idea that true conditional propositions express eternal truths. It clarifies Abelard’s claim that eternal truths are grounded on the “nature of things” and explains why Abelard thought that these truths hold even (...) when there are no things. The article then considers Abelard’s reply to an objection according to which eternal truths have in fact been false in the past. It examines Abelard’s mature views on eternal truths as we find them in the Sententiae Parisienses and Theologia “Scholarium.” Here, Abelard grants the status of eternal truth also to what is expressed by contingently true categorical propositions. These truths are grounded on the “events of things” that exist eternally as the proposition-like objects of God’s will and foreknowledge. (shrink)

Ein dauerndes Unbehagen und eine unbeirrbare Treue zur Philosophie durchziehen Karl Löwiths Leben und Werk. Unter Rückgriff auf zum Teil unveröffentlichte Tagebücher, Dokumente und Briefwechsel mit bedeutenden Vertretern kulturkritischen Denkens rekonstruiert diese 2004 in Italien erschienene Monographie seine Denkbiographie und zugleich die Kritik an der Moderne, die der elegante skeptische Philosoph in seinen Schriften herausarbeitete. Löwiths Ansatz wirkt für ein auf den Menschen gegründetes, mit der Kritik der eigenen Zeit behaftetes Denken ebenso unzeitgemäß wie provokativ: die Theorie vor jeglichem Rückfall (...) ins Politische bewahren, indem ihr ein Sicherheitsabstand von Aktualitätsfragen eingeräumt wird; die Philosophie auf das hin ausrichten, was nicht Geschichte ist – die ewige Ordnung der Natur –, um unsere Beziehung zur Welt in den richtigen Proportionen zu erfassen. (shrink)