The effects of striatal dopamine (DA) on behavior have been widely investigated over the past decades, with “phasic” burst firings considered as the key expression of a reward prediction error responsible for reinforcement learning. Less well studied is “tonic” DA, where putative functions include the idea that it is a regulator of vigor, incentive salience, disposition to exert an effort and a modulator of approach strategies. We present a model combining tonic and phasic DA to show how different outflows triggered (...) by either intrinsically or extrinsically motivating stimuli dynamically affect the basal ganglia by impacting on a selection process this system performs on its cortical input. The model, which has been tested on the simulated humanoid robot iCub interacting with a mechatronic board, shows the putative functions ascribed to DA emerging from the combination of a standard computational mechanism coupled to a differential sensitivity to the presence of DA across the striatum. (shrink)

Understanding Institutions proposes a new unified theory of social institutions that combines the best insights of philosophers and social scientists who have written on this topic. Francesco Guala presents a theory that combines the features of three influential views of institutions: as equilibria of strategic games, as regulative rules, and as constitutive rules. -/- Guala explains key institutions like money, private property, and marriage, and develops a much-needed unification of equilibrium- and rules-based approaches. Although he uses game theory concepts, (...) the theory is presented in a simple, clear style that is accessible to a wide audience of scholars working in different fields. Outlining and discussing various implications of the unified theory, Guala addresses venerable issues such as reflexivity, realism, Verstehen, and fallibilism in the social sciences. He also critically analyses the theory of “looping effects” and “interactive kinds” defended by Ian Hacking, and asks whether it is possible to draw a demarcation between social and natural science using the criteria of causal and ontological dependence. Focusing on current debates about the definition of marriage, Guala shows how these abstract philosophical issues have important practical and political consequences. -/- Moving beyond specific cases to general models and principles, Understanding Institutions offers new perspectives on what institutions are, how they work, and what they can do for us. (shrink)

Forse Tommaso non ha davvero tradito né il realismo di Aristotele, né il verbum cordis di Agostino. Nemmeno Gadamer forse ha veramente tradito Tommaso.

Nietzsche’s life and thinking have been deeply influenced by the experience of illness and the related struggle to health, in a way that goes far beyond the very well-known episode of his mental breakdown. In the first part of this paper the history of the reception of the topic is reconsidered, focusing on the initial, “moral” interpretation of health and illness in Nietzsche, on the later stances of Thomas Mann and Georges Canguilhelm, the former offering a psychological perspective, the latter (...) a physiological one, and ending with an overview of newer studies on the question. The second part deals with Nietzsche’s understanding of human finitude, suffering and death, and contrasts it with post-humanist and trans-humanist assumptions. Health in Nietzsche is not standardized; it’s a result of self-cultivation, that is, of the full development of one’s potenBal. In the end an idea of health as a dynamic balance is developed, that also draws oh Gadamer’s reflections on the art of medicine and on the practical dimension of human experience. (shrink)

"Tratemos, ante todo, de definir estos dos términos. En forma aproximativa, se entiende, como conviene para tener un punto de partida. Estoy seguro de que en la mente de mis oyentes la palabra derecho suscita la idea de ley; incluso la de esos conjuntos de leyes que se llaman códigos. Es una definición empírica, pero provisionalmente podemos aceptarla: un conjunto de leyes que regulan la conducta de los hombres. Ya veremos cómo y por qué. Por lo demás, es la definición (...) predominante, hasta ahora, también en el campo de la ciencia. ¿Y los juristas? Diríase que son obreros del derecho. También esto está bien. El parangón del derecho con una manufactura es cómodo y nada tiene de casual: los juristas son los que fabrican el derecho. Obreros, bien está; pero obreros calificados, y tan es así, que antes de fabricarlo, lo estudian; lo estudian precisamente en la Universidad". (shrink)

1. La ricerca della verità come fondamento del pensiero giuridico-politico di S. Agostino.--2. Le due città di S. Agostino.

The essay confronts the classical forms of the government of social fears, elaborated in the course of modern and contemporary history, (in particular, national state and welfare systems)with the ongoing processes of economic and political globalization. The authors also discusses the question of the transformation of the subjective gaze, either individual and collective, regarding the historical time and in reference to the possible shift to a postmodern epoch.

Discussions about abstraction are so important and so profound that this topic can hardly be neglected. It has inevitably cropped up again in various periods of philosophical enquiry. Despite these ancient roots and after the great debate that characterised the empirical and rationalistic tradition, interest in the problem has unfortunately been absent in large measure from the mainstream of mathematical logic and analytic philosophy. It seems that there is a gap between the epistemological theorization, in which it is difficult to (...) find new insights on the problem of abstraction, and the historical studies concerning the development of philosophical thought. Such studies, however, present a more fertile ground for such insights. Here the reader will find presented for the first time a collection of papers about the topic, considered from an historical point of view together with an awareness of the need for building a bridge between historical research and theoretical speculation. Accordingly the volume consists of both general overviews which sketch the signifcance and the fortunes of abstraction in science, philosophy and logic (the first part) and historical case studies which focus on abstraction in particular thinkers (the second part). This volume is of interest for both general philosophers and historians of philosophy. (shrink)

Arthur C. Danto è stato uno dei più rilevanti pensatori del Novecento. La sua multiforme vicenda intellettuale si è tenuta, al fondo, sempre organica all’orizzonte della filosofia di matrice analitica. Da questa prospettiva metodologica, Danto ha elaborato tesi sulla storicità dell’arte e sull’ontologia dell’opera che sollecitano a vario titolo il dibattito europeo da almeno vent’anni. Riprendere il filo di alcune sue ricerche è ancora oggi un atto importante per ripensare lo statuto dell’art...