Recent work has demonstrated how data-driven AI methods can leverage consumer protection by supporting the automated analysis of legal documents. However, a shortcoming of data-driven approaches is poor explainability. We posit that in this domain useful explanations of classifier outcomes can be provided by resorting to legal rationales. We thus consider several configurations of memory-augmented neural networks where rationales are given a special role in the modeling of context knowledge. Our results show that rationales not only contribute to improve the (...) classification accuracy, but are also able to offer meaningful, natural language explanations of otherwise opaque classifier outcomes. (shrink)

Although the COVID-19 pandemic is a serious public health and economic emergency, and although effective vaccines are the best weapon we have against it, there are groups and individuals who oppose certain kinds of vaccines because of personal moral or religious reasons. The most widely discussed case has been that of certain religious groups that oppose research on COVID-19 vaccines that use cell lines linked to abortions and that object to receiving those vaccine because of their moral opposition to abortion. (...) However, moral opposition to COVID-19 vaccine research can be based on other considerations, both secular and religious. We argue that religious or personal moral objections to vaccine research are unethical and irresponsible, and in an important sense often irrational. They are unethical because of the risk of causing serious harm to other people for no valid reason; irresponsible because they run counter to individual and collective responsibilities to contribute to important public health goals; and in the case of certain kinds of religious opposition, they might be irrational because they are internally inconsistent. All in all, our argument translates into the rather uncontroversial claim that we should prioritize people’s lives over religious freedom in vaccine research and vaccination roll out. (shrink)

While much ink has been spilt over the political importance of speech, much less has been dedicated to the political importance of silence. This article seeks to fill that gap. We propose the need for a robust, democratic right to silence in public life and argue that there are politically salient epistemic reasons for recognising that right. We begin by defining what silence is and what a robust right to silence entails. We then argue that the right to silence offers (...) two politically salient epistemic benefits. The first is that, if the right to silence is maintained, we can avoid the epistemic harm that may be caused when an individual is compelled to lie in public. The second is that the right to silence can protect marginalised individuals against the epistemic injustices that may arise when others are likely to misconstrue their speech. (shrink)

In the last 2 decades, the literature has documented the upsurge of community-driven processes of consumer-producer cooperation, which are alternative to the dominant food system. These organizational arrangements have been conceptualized differently, witnessing the growing importance of local communities in generating place-based solutions to the demand for organic, local, and sustainable food. Relying on a practice theory approach, this article delves into two key inquiries: first, what motivates individuals to become part of Civic Food Networks (CFNs) and how does this (...) influence the variety of food entering their households? And second, how does participation in a CFN impact people’s daily food practices, with a particular focus on diet diversification? We employ the term “civic food networks (CFN)” to underscore the significance of grassroots initiatives in the broader context of local food policies. This term also highlights the connections to other movements known for their potential for transformation, such as the solidarity economy, transition towns, and de-growth movements. Our analysis draws on a comprehensive qualitative approach, which includes participant observation, in-depth interviews, and a focus group involving members of the CSA _Naturalmente in Trentino_, situated in the North-Eastern part of Italy. The findings reveal that altering dietary habits poses various challenges both at the individual and institutional levels. This process involves the stabilization of ingrained habits, adjustments to daily routines, and the reinforcement of shared norms. Furthermore, it underscores the critical role of food policies in promoting sustainable eating practices. (shrink)

Throughout the twentieth century, women's magazines in the United States have socialized their readers to the “proper” expression of love and anger in marriage. Our analysis of a random sample of marital advice articles from 1900 to 1979 examines this cultural convergence of gender, marriage, and emotion. A qualitative analysis identifies techniques for socializing readers to the emotional culture of marriage and shows a historical change toward equating love with self-fulfillment and advocating the expression of anger. A quantitative analysis then (...) specifies the timing of changes in emotion norms and showed an oscillation between modern and traditional norms that is related to waves of political liberation versus oppression. We discuss the relation between emotion norms and behavior and explore the effect of group conflict on the production of emotional culture. Emotion norms have become less rigid and more tolerant of diversity; but gender differences persist, and women are still responsible for maintaining intimate relationships. Historical trends in love and anger norms are nonlinear, not a continuous shift toward individualism, self-development, and free expression, as suggested by recent cultural theories. (shrink)

Entanglement theory posits that the interrelationship of humans and objects is a delimiting characteristic of human history and culture. This edited volume of original studies by leading archaeological theorists applies this concept to a broad range of topics, including archaeological science, heritage, and theory itself. In the theoretical explications and ten case studies, the editors and contributing authors: build on the intersections between science, humanities and ecology to provide a more fine-grained, multi-scalar treatment emanating from the long-term perspective that characterizes (...) archaeological research; bring to light the subtle and unacknowledged paths that configure historical circumstances and bind human intentionality; examine the constructions of personhood, the rigidity of path dependencies, the unpredictable connections between humans and objects and the intricate paths of past events in varied geographic and historical contexts that channel future actions. This broad focus is inclusive of early complex developments in Asia and Europe, imperial and state strategies in the Andes and Mesoamerica, continuities of postcolonialism in North America, and the unforeseen and complex consequences that derive from archaeological practices. This volume will appeal to archaeologists and their advanced students. (shrink)

In this paper we investigate ways to comply with justice in a liberal democracy. In order to do that, we sketch Rawls’s account of moral-consensus stability and discuss the alternative idea of stability reached through a modus vivendi. We defend modus vivendi as a way to achieve stability backed by a variety of reasons and even by ‘non-reasons’. By ‘non-reasons’ we mean alternative sources of motivation for compliance as a precondition of a stable coexistence. We focus on such sources, which (...) differ from reasons and beliefs, that are practices, shared values, and value experiences, in light of both a theoretical-political and a qualitative social-ontological perspective. We argue that individuals who experience the same values become collectives and even stable ones: the sharing of values creates social unity and makes collectives solid and resistant to individualistically centrifugal tendencies. (shrink)

Films, compared with emotional static pictures, represent true-to-life dynamic stimuli that are both ecological and effective in inducing an emotional response given the involvement of multimodal stimulation (i.e., visual and auditory systems). We hypothesized that a direct comparison between the two methods would have shown greater efficacy of movies, compared to standardized slides, in eliciting emotions at both subjective and neurophysiological levels. To this end, we compared these two methods of emotional stimulation in a group of 40 young adults (20 (...) females). Electroencephalographic (EEG) Alpha rhythm (8–12 Hz) was recorded from 64 scalp sites while participants watched (in counterbalanced order across participants) two separate blocks of 45 slides and 45 clips. Each block included three groups of 15 validated stimuli classified as Erotic, Neutral and Fear content. Greater self-perceived arousal was found after the presentation of Fear and Erotic video clips compared with the same slide categories. sLORETA analysis showed a different lateralization pattern: slides induced decreased Alpha power (greater activation) in the left secondary visual area (Brodmann Area, BA, 18) to Erotic and Fear compared with the Neutral stimuli. Instead, video clips elicited reduced Alpha in the homologous right secondary visual area (BA 18) again to both Erotic and Fear contents compared with Neutral ones. Comparison of emotional stimuli showed smaller Alpha power to Erotic than to Fear stimuli in the left precuneus/posterior cingulate cortex (BA 7/31) for the slide condition, and in the left superior parietal lobule (BA 7) for the clip condition. This result matched the parallel analysis of the overlapped Mu rhythm (corresponding to the upper Alpha band) and can be interpreted as Mu/Alpha EEG suppression elicited by greater motor action tendency to Erotic (approach motivation) compared to Fear (withdrawal motivation) stimuli. Correlation analysis found lower Alpha in the left middle temporal gyrus (BA 21) associated with greater pleasantness to Erotic slides (r38= –0.62,p= 0.009), whereas lower Alpha in the right supramarginal/angular gyrus (BA 40/39) was associated with greater pleasantness to Neutral clips (r38= –0.69,p= 0.012). Results point to stronger emotion elicitation of movies vs. slides, but also to a specific involvement of the two hemispheres during emotional processing of slides vs. video clips, with a shift from the left to the right associative visual areas. (shrink)

This article provides new information on the publication history of the first edition of the text that, according to many scholars, laid the ground for the growth of international law: Hugo Grotius’s De iure belli ac pacis. Drawing on the preliminary findings of the Grotius Census Project at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law, funded by the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft), the following pages shed light on the first three states of the typescript, the (...) sources that Grotius had access to in France while drafting the book, and the early circulation of the 1625 edition, published by Nicolas Buon in Paris. The goal of this publication is to disseminate updated information on the printing history of this key text in the history of legal and political thought, and to invite readers to come forward with more information about the location of the remaining copies of the text, in order to advance our understanding of the rise of international law around the world. (shrink)

In this Introduction, we provide an overview of the papers included in the special issue of the e-journal Esercizi Filosofici, entitled “La dimensione pragmatica in filosofia, linguistica e semiotica”. The paper is divided into three parts, which are concerned with the application of pragmatics to philosophy, linguistics and semiotics respectively.

Apoptotic pathways have always been regarded as a key‐player in preserving tissue and organ homeostasis. Excessive activation or resistance to activation of cell death signaling may indeed be responsible for several mechanisms of disease, including malignancy and chronic degenerative diseases. Therefore, targeting apoptotic factors gained more and more attention in the scientific community and novel strategies emerged aimed at selectively blocking or stimulating cell death signaling. This is also the case for the TMEM219 death receptor, which is activated by a (...) circulating ligand, the Insulin‐like growth factor binding protein 3 (IGFBP3) and induces a caspase‐8‐dependent apoptosis of the target cells. Interestingly, stimulation of the IGFBP3/TMEM219 axis exerts an anti‐proliferative effect, while blockade of the TMEM219 deleterious signal protects TMEM219‐expressing cells of the endocrine pancreas, lung, and intestine from damage and death. Here, we summarize the most updated reports on the role of the IGFBP3/TMEM219 apoptotic axis in disease conditions, including intestinal disorders and diabetes, and we describe the advancements in designing and testing novel TMEM219‐based targeting approaches in emerging potential clinical applications. (shrink)

Is it possible that children experience something we could judge as the sublime? Some pivotal conjectures have been elicited to positively answer these questions; however, this general topic still stands in need of fuller theoretical and empirical insights. Since taking up this challenge may have important implications in the ever-expanding field of aesthetic education, in this article I will give a philosophical account of the experience of the sublime in 8-10 children, identifying both its plau- sible components and its markers, (...) which opens up future empirical inquiries. (shrink)

In Memory, History, Forgetting, Ricœur does not provide us with a clear definition of collective memory. In this article, we will try to show how it could nevertheless be described, based on the same text, as the capacity for recognition, by way of reciprocal attribution, memories that are engraved in temporal spaces and are shared with our neighbors and, through them, with strangers. To verify this hypothesis, we will analyse Ricœur’s reflection on architecture as public memory’s engraving into space, presented (...) for the first time in the text “Architecture et narrativité.” Lastly, we will consider imagination and bodily memory, i.e. habit emanating from the act of inhabiting, as the conditions of possibility for the crystallization of memories in shared places. (shrink)

A cavallo tra i due concili di Costanza e Basilea, che hanno fortemente influito sul giudizio della Chiesa in relazione alle donne visionarie, si staglia la figura di Francesca Bussa dei Ponziani. Le visioni politiche di Francesca rappresentano un fulgido esempio di come i modelli brigidini e cateriniani siano stati ripresi e rimodellati su un nuovo, mutato contesto storico. La sua consolidata autorità le consentì di ammonire a più riprese papa Eugenio IV riguardo alla sua partecipazione al concilio (...) di Basilea, intervenendo attivamente nello scenario religioso e politico romano. (shrink)

In this paper, I interview Francesca De Vecchi (Full Professor of Theoretical Philosophy in Vita-Salute San Raffaele University) about her qualitative ontology and its social and normative implications. If at the foundation of our lifeworld there are significantly qualitative experiences, phenomenology can investigate the most important contemporary issues, such as gender disparity, socio-virtuality depersonalizations and political urgencies.

Modern color science finds its birth in the middle of the nineteenth century. Among the chief architects of the new color theory, the name of the polymath Hermann von Helmholtz stands out. A keen experimenter and profound expert of the latest developments of the fields of physiological optics, psychophysics, and geometry, he exploited his transdisciplinary knowledge to define the first non-Euclidean line element in color space, i.e., a three-dimensional mathematical model used to describe color differences in terms of color distances. (...) Considered as the first step toward a metrically significant model of color space, his work inaugurated researches on higher color metrics, which describes how distance in the color space translates into perceptual difference. This paper focuses on the development of Helmholtz’s mathematical derivation of the line element. Starting from the first experimental evidence which opened the door to his reflections about the geometry of color space, it will be highlighted the pivotal role played by the studies conducted by his assistants in Berlin, which provided precious material for the elaboration of the final model proposed by Helmholtz in three papers published between 1891 and 1892. Although fallen into oblivion for about three decades, Helmholtz’s masterful work was rediscovered by Schrödinger and, since the 1920s, it has provided the basis for all subsequent studies on the geometry of color spaces up to the present time. (shrink)

This paper discusses the positions of Italian philosopher Giulio Preti in relation to the quarrel between Analytic and Continental philosophy. Preti?s thought appears as a systematic thought permitting to overcome, through his logical, epistemological and linguistic reflection, the divide between these two approaches. The different features of his philosophy are analyzed here in detail and compared to the main theoretical assumptions of Analytic and Continental philosophy.

This paper discusses the positions of Italian philosopher Giulio Preti (1911?1972) in relation to the quarrel between Analytic and Continental philosophy. Preti?s thought appears as a systematic thought permitting to overcome, through his logical, epistemological and linguistic reflection, the divide between these two approaches. The different features of his philosophy are analyzed here in detail and compared to the main theoretical assumptions of Analytic and Continental philosophy.

The paper deals with three sources of holistic arguments: confirmation of scientific theories, translation between languages, and the relationships of meaning with belief. Certain difficulties of each of the involved versions of holism are pointed out: such difficulties concern the lack of evidence in support of holistic theses, as well as the presence of slippery slope arguments, and finally inconsistencies, in holism. We argue that the dualism of atomism and holism is just a polarization of a much richer spectrum of (...) cohesiveness levels, and that their consideration is needed in order to provide explanatory power to naturalistic epistemology. In the end, the features of a "local" alternative to holism are sketched, taking into account the role of gestaltic schemata in making stable reference possible. (shrink)

This paper defends the viability of de-idealization strategies in economic modeling against recent criticism. De-idealization occurs when an idealized assumption of a theoretical model is replaced with a more realistic one. Recently, some scholars have raised objections against the possibility or fruitfulness of de-idealizing economic models, suggesting that economists do not employ this kind of strategy. We present a detailed case study from the theory of industrial organization, discussing three different models, two of which can be construed as de-idealized versions (...) of the first (the so-called Bertrand model of oligopoly). We conclude that recent pessimism about de-idealization in economics is largely unfounded, and that de-idealization strategies are not only possible but also widely employed in economics. (shrink)

Born in 1945, John Lane Bell is not only one of the greatest logicians of our time, but he is also one the most gifted in the art of writing, as witnessed by the success of his introductory texts, many of which were originally written as lecture notes: their essential clarity is an exemplar of the Attic style. More generally, Bell’s works are a rare example of how rigour and sophisticated elegance can coexist.

We examine the relationship between scientific knowledge and the legal system with a focus on the exclusion of expert testimony from trial as ruled by the Daubert standard in the US.We introduce a simple framework to understand and assess the role of judges as “gatekeepers”, monitoring the admission of science in the courtroom. We show how judges face a crucial choice, namely, whether to limit Daubert assessment to the abstract reliability of the methods used by the expert witness or also (...) to check whether the application of those methods was correct. Undesirable outcomes result from both choices, thereby giving rise to the “gatekeeper’s dilemma.” We illustrate the dilemma by analyzing in some detail two well-known cases of Daubert challenges to economic experts. Finally, we present reasons for the absence of straightforward solutions to the dilemma and for its likely endurance. (shrink)

In recent years, bioethical discourse around the topic of ‘genetic enhancement’ has become increasingly politicized. We fear there is too much focus on the semantic question of whether we should call particular practices and emerging bio-technologies such as CRISPR ‘eugenics’, rather than the more important question of how we should view them from the perspective of ethics and policy. Here, we address the question of whether ‘eugenics’ can be defended and how proponents and critics of enhancement should engage with each (...) other. (shrink)

We establish a duality between the category of involutive bisemilattices and the category of semilattice inverse systems of Stone spaces, using Stone duality from one side and the representation of involutive bisemilattices as Płonka sum of Boolean algebras, from the other. Furthermore, we show that the dual space of an involutive bisemilattice can be viewed as a GR space with involution, a generalization of the spaces introduced by Gierz and Romanowska equipped with an involution as additional operation.

In this paper we consider the prehistory of quantum gravity (1916–1930) from two perspectives. First, we investigate how this research field constituted itself and we propose for the first time a red thread to trace its evolution in this earliest period. Second, we focus on a case study: the earliest work of Léon Rosenfeld. In 1927 he tried to merge wave mechanics with general relativity in the context of a five‐dimensional universe. We describe how Oskar Klein, Louis de Broglie, and (...) Théophile De Donder influenced Rosenfeld's work and analyze how and why Rosenfeld attempted to reconcile Einstein's theory with quantum phenomena. We argue that Rosenfeld investigated for the first time the corrections to a classical space‐time metric generated by a quantum source. As far as we know, Rosenfeld's approach has been largely ignored until today: he himself considered it “an accident.” After having reconsidered its connection with de Broglie's ideas and Rosenfeld's interpretation of the wave function in 1927, we argue that Rosenfeld's work can be interpreted as a first attempt to introduce the pilot‐wave theory in the context of quantum gravity and we infer that this was one of the reasons that ruled it out. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to investigate Nishida Kitarō’s way of philosophizing in the light of the concept of “transition” in order to deepen our understanding of both Nishida’s philosophy and our thinking about and in transitions, using the concept of “boundary” or “border” (Grenze) as a catalyst. For that purpose, we focus on Nishida’s essay “Place” (「場所」), passing through different parts of the text as if through successive gates on a path of transition between one place and the (...) next, until we reach the final place of “absolute nothingness.” Dwelling on this place, we turn our attention to its internal structure and try to depict it along the outlines of a boundary, following the movements taking place in Nishida’s essay. The second part proposes an interpretation of the place of nothingness as an interminable practice of boundary-crossing that doesn’t come to a halt in a final, all-encompassing place, but dynamically situates itself on countless intersecting planes. After a more or less abstract analysis of the concept of “boundary,” we will apply and concretize this approach by using the example of the skin. To this end, we expose five main features of the skin as boundary: permeability, enclosure, excessiveness, interstitiality and reciprocal self-formation. (shrink)