The negation constitutes one of the main troubles for attempts to naturalise the semantics of the logical vocabulary, as shown by the problems related to the interpretation of disjunction in the treatment of error (Fodor) or to the definition of contraries in the analysis of reidentification abilities (Millikan). There seems to be no way out between “no (naturalized) negation, no grip of logic on the world” and “no (truth-functional) negation, no logic”. Unexpected help may come from the cognitive phenomenology of (...) negation. For three reasons: • Firstly, because it allows a distinction to be made between semantic analysis, identification of the possession conditions and psychology of the acquisition of the notion of negation, a distinction whose absence produces many misunderstandings between those who support a naturalization of semantics and those who oppose it. • Then because it places negation at the level of the contrast between beliefs, a terrain that is hostile to some naturalizers. • Finally, because it makes it possible to define a peculiar type of liberalised naturalization of semantics and, consequently, to present a hypothesis for the naturalization of cognitive phenomenology. (shrink)

Temporality represents the most important and difficult question of phenomenology: decisive for its idea of phenomenon and consciousness. What means that time is the appearing itself, so not a time of consciousness but the consciousness itself: this is the phenomenological question about the origin of time. Composed in three decades approximately—from 1904 to 1934—Husserlian contributions phenomenology of temporality constitutes the most extensive corpus about this matter in the canon of occidental philosophy. They lead in three main directions and correspond to (...) the same number of periods of their development: the mathesis of intentional manifolds, the metaphysics of individuality, the theory of temporal self-constitution. After the description of the phases, the sources and the internal articulations, the paper makes room for a brief and essential glossary of phenomenology of temporality, made up of some of the most considerable and aporetic notions: the retention, and its bond with protention, individuality and its elusive essence, the flow and the stream. Lastly, the paper inspects and examines some of the most remarkable critics to phenomenology of temporality, from Heidegger to Derrida, from Bergmann to Lévinas, in order to demonstrate how leading was its role in the whole philosophy of the twentieth century. (shrink)

The essay aims to examine some contributions of A. Schutz to general epistemological questions, starting from his view of the scientific theories and concepts formation, of type and model, of relevance, of proof and degree of belief. Great attention is paid to the resumption of Carneades’ mechanism, in which each operation of confirmation is linked to a level of credibility. The focus on these issues allows not only to understand Schutz’s context, but also to establish a comparison with Chisholm’s reading (...) of Carneades. (shrink)

This book focuses on various concepts of space and their historical evolution. In particular, it examines the variations that have modified the notions of place, orientation, distance, vacuum, limit, bound and boundary, form and figure, continuity and contingence, in order to show how spatial characteristics are decisive in a range of contexts: in the determination and comprehension of exteriority; in individuation and identification; in defining the meaning of nature and of the natural sciences; in aesthetical formations and representations; in determining (...) the relationship between experience, behavior and environment; and in the construction of mental and social subjectivity. Accordingly, the book offers a comprehensive review of concepts of space as formulated by Kant, Husserl, Heidegger, Einstein, Heisenberg, Penrose and Thorne, subsequently comparing them to notions developed more recently, in the current age, which Foucault dubbed the age of space. The book is divided into four distinct yet deeply interconnected parts, which explore the space of life, the space of experience, the space of science and the space of the arts. (shrink)

The paper aims at drawing the main lines of a reflection about architectonic space, starting from the comparison between two hypothesis, as much as ever different: Theodor Lipps’ spatial aesthetics and Hans van der Laan’s elemental theory. The emphasis given by both authors to the intersection between directions and way, but also to the mutual subordination between thing and space, allows to rewrite the obituary of architecture as a spatial art, according to which the Modern Style has turned the spatiality (...) into its specular visibility, into the spaciousness, into the indefinite continuity of the Bigness. (shrink)