The so-called gammadiae are symbols similar to letters whose specific meaning is unknown. It is currently believed that they could have originated among Hellenistic Jews, and been inherited by Christians, who adapted them to own needs. They seem to have indicated the holiness of the characters marked by them. Building on previous analysis and on the recent systematic cataloguing of the Early Christian catacombs of Rome, as well as a range of other artefacts, we examine two lesser known archaeological finds, (...) and finally consider some examples of gammadiae “of transition”, which appear during the Medieval period predominantly in manuscripts or in the mosaics of basilicas. These last symbols show differences from the Early Christian ones, even though they still appear systematically on the pallia of Christ, the martyrs, saints and other holy people. (shrink)

In today’s pluralistic society, clinical ethics consultation cannot count on a pre-given set of rules and principles to be applied to a specific situation, because such an approach would deny the existence of different and divergent backgrounds by imposing a dogmatic and transcultural morality. Clinical ethics support (CES) needs to overcome this lack of foundations and conjugate the respect for the difference at stake with the necessity to find shared and workable solutions for ethical issues encountered in clinical practice. We (...) argue that a pragmatist approach to CES, based on the philosophical theories of William James, John Dewey, and Charles Sanders Peirce, can help to achieve the goal of reaching practical solutions for moral problems in the context of today’s clinical environment, characterized by ethical pluralism. In this article, we outline a pragmatist theoretical framework for CES. Furthermore, we will show that moral case deliberation, making use of the dilemma method, can be regarded an example of a pragmatist approach to CES. (shrink)

This paper develops and defends the view that substantively normative uses of words like “good”, “right” and “ought” are irresolvably indeterminate: any single case of application is like a borderline case for a vague or indeterminate term, in that the meaning-fixing facts, together with the non-linguistic facts, fail to determine a truth-value for the target sentence in context. Normative claims, like vague or indeterminate borderline claims, are not meaningless, though. By making them, the speaker communicates information about the precisifications that (...) s/he accepts. The analogy with vague/indeterminate language, I argue, lays out a new and interesting foundation for a subjectivist approach to normativity. (shrink)

Teaching responsible conduct of research (RCR) to PhD students is crucial for fostering responsible research practice. In this paper, we show how the use of Moral Case Deliberation—a case reflection method used in the Amsterdam UMC RCR PhD course—is particularity valuable to address three goals of RCR education: (1) making students aware of, and internalize, RCR principles and values, (2) supporting reflection on good conduct in personal daily practice, and (3) developing students’ dialogical attitude and skills so that they can (...) deliberate on RCR issues when they arise. What makes this method relevant for RCR education is the focus on values and personal motivations, the structured reflection on real experiences and dilemmas and the cultivation of participants’ dialogical skills. During these structured conversations, students reflect on the personal motives that drive them to adhere to the principles of good science, thereby building connections between those principles and their personal values and motives. Moreover, by exploring personal questions and dilemmas related to RCR, they learn how to address these with colleagues and supervisors. The reflection on personal experiences with RCR issues and questions combined with the study of relevant normative frameworks, support students to act responsibly and to pursue RCR in their day-to-day research practice in spite of difficulties and external constraints. (shrink)

Responses to the COVID-19 pandemic globally disrupted lives and contributed to the exacerbation of pre-existing inequalities. Women in research were also affected. The prominent role that women played in professional and personal care duties had a detrimental effect on their research outputs, potentially hindering their career progression. Moreover, the challenges faced by women academics during the pandemic, including job loss, increased mental health issues, and the intersection of gender with other socio-demographic traits exacerbated existing gender disparities within academia. By systematically (...) scoping the qualitative literature on the experiences of women researchers during the pandemic, this study sought to explore how women experienced and reacted to the challenges generated by the COVID-19 pandemic. A qualitative meta synthesis of the included studies revealed three themes: gendered professional expectations, colliding identities and coping strategies. These themes show how gendered roles such as teaching and professional care work, associated with the hierarchical and gendered division of tasks both at home and in the workplace, made women feel unsupported and alienated as relevant agents in the academic context. The study reveals the importance of pastoral care, teaching and service work as the essential backbone of the academic infrastructure, especially in times of crises. It also exposes how productivity-focused researcher assessment criteria, rewarding mainly individual results and unrewarding of care and service work, can be viewed as perpetuating structural inequalities based on gender, parenting situations, contractual situations and background. In conclusion, this study exposes the need to proactively address the gendered practices and implicit biases which reproduce inequalities within academia and highlights how paying attention to the experiences and needs of women researchers is essential for improving the resilience and crises preparedness of academic the system. (shrink)

In this paper I would like to propose the notion of “affective artifact”, building on an analogy with theories of cognitive artifacts and referring to the development of a situated affective science. Affective artifacts are tentatively defined as objects that have the capacity to alter the affective condition of an agent, and that in some cases play an important role in defining that agent’s self. The notion of affective artifacts will be presented by means of examples supported by empirical findings, (...) by discussing a tentative definition and classification, and by considering several related but differing notions. Within the framework of situated affectivity, the notion of affective artifacts will represent a further step in the enterprise of understanding how the environment helps us scaffold our affective processes. I will conclude that affective artifacts play a key role in the philosophy of cognitive science, the philosophy of technology and in the debate about the self. (shrink)

This paper investigates an objection often raised against metaethical error theory. The challenge runs as follows. Metaethical error theory says that all substantive ethical sentences are false. But if a sentence p is false, then given a standard semantics for “not,” ¬p must be true, and vice versa. On the face of it, one can’t hold that p and ¬p are both false. After presenting a more refined version of the challenge (in the form of a set of initially plausible (...) and yet jointly inconsistent principles), the paper examines a common way out of the puzzle, finds it unsatisfactory, and offers some alternative escape routes that, it is submitted, fare better than the standard one. (shrink)

The World Health Organization defined COVID-19 as a pandemic on March 11, due to the spread of the new SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus in all continents. Italy had already witnessed a very fast spread that brought the Government to place the entire country under quarantine on March 11, reaching more than 30,700 fatalities in 2 months. We hypothesized that the pandemic and related compulsory quarantine would lead to an increase of anxiety state and protective behaviors to avoid infections. We aimed to investigate (...) whether protective behaviors might have been enhanced or limited by anxiety and emotional reactions to previous experience of stressful conditions. We collected data from 618 Italian participants, by means of an online survey. Participants were asked to rate their level of worry for the pandemic, and to complete two questionnaires measuring the anxiety level: the state-trait anxiety inventory and the Pre-traumatic stress reaction checklist. Finally, the respondents were also asked to report about their compliance with protective behaviors suggested to avoid the spread of the virus. Results show that respondents with higher levels of worry reported higher levels of anxiety and pre-traumatic reactions, with positive correlations among the three measurements, and that higher frequency of the three protective behaviors were put in place by respondents with higher levels of worry. Moreover, regression analysis showed that worry for COVID-19 was most predicted by age, anxiety levels, and Pre-traumatic stress. These results could be interpreted in an evolutionary framework, in which the level of worry leads persons to become more cautious maximizing long-term survival at the cost of short-term dysregulation. (shrink)

The essay explores the philosophical concept of disaster within the Kantian ethical and religious thought. Kant’s notion of a «perverse end of all things» can in fact be seen as a focal point in the entire ethical and moral philosopher reflection, through the link placed in several of his writings between «morality» and «terror». The philosophical meaning of this relationship emerges in all its importance in the analysis of the feeling of the sublime, here analyzed in some Kant’s works, from (...) the pre-critical Observations on the Feeling of Beautiful and Sublime, to his Critique of Judgment, Critique of Practical Reason and The End of All Things, in order to show how this reflection is undergoing a marked revaluation both in the contemporary philosophical debate and in performing arts. (shrink)

The lexical–semantic organization of the mental lexicon is bound to change across the lifespan. Nevertheless, the effects of lexical–semantic factors on word processing are usually based on studies enrolling young adult cohorts. The current study aims to investigate to what extent age‐specific semantic organization predicts performance in referential word production over the lifespan, from school‐age children to older adults. In Study 1, we conducted a free semantic association task with participants from six age‐groups (ranging from 10 to 80 years old) (...) to compute measures that capture age‐specific properties of the mental lexicon across the lifespan. These measures relate to lifespan changes in the Available Richness of the mental lexicon and in the lexical–semantic Network Prototypicality of concrete words. In Study 2, we used the collected data to predict performance in a picture‐naming task on a new group of participants within the same age‐groups as for Study 1. The results show that age‐specific semantic Available Richness and Network Prototypicality affect word production speed while the semantic variables collected only in young adults do not. A richer and more prototypical semantic network across subjects from a given age‐group is associated with faster word production speed. The current results indicate that age‐specific semantic organization is crucial to predict lexical–semantic behaviors across the lifespan. Similarly, these results also provide cues to the understanding of the lexical–semantic properties of the mental lexicon and to lexical selection in referential tasks. (shrink)

Many take the lesson of the paradoxes to be that we ought to impose some form of logical revision. It is argued here that this kind of move should not be taken lightly.

The asymptotic safety program strives for a consistent description of gravity as a non-perturbatively renormalizable quantum field theory. In this framework the gravitational interactions are encoded in a renormalization group flow connecting the quantum gravity regime at trans-Planckian scales to observable low-energy physics. Our proceedings reviews the key elements underlying the predictive power of the construction and summarizes the state-of-the-art in determining its free parameters. The explicit construction of a realistic renormalization group trajectory describing our world shows that the flow (...) possesses two characteristic scales. The Planck scale where Newton’s coupling G becomes constant is generated dynamically. The freeze-out of the cosmological constant \ occurs at a terrestrial scale fixed by the observed value of the dimensionless product \. We also review the perspectives of determining the free parameters of the theory through cosmologicalobservations. (shrink)

Une premisse majeure met en place les arguments les plus normatifs de la Republique : les caracteres des hommes sont la cause des caracteres des cites. Le gouvernement de Kallipolis est le meilleur de tous, explique Socrate, pour une raison tres simple : c’est le gouvernement des meilleurs. Dans une demokratia, en revanche, n’importe qui peut revetir un role de pouvoir par tirage au sort, et n’importe qui peut dire n’importe quoi. Tandis que les meilleurs des Gardiens se soucient du (...) bien politique au superlatif, le peuple n’en a cure. Il foule aux pieds l’idee meme qu’il faudrait choisir et eduquer les magistrats. Le Peuple ne saurait être philosophe. Et pourtant, à Athènes, la parole politique et le langage à l’oeuvre dans l’administration de la cite montrent une quete acharnee du mieux possible. Le temoignage epigraphique nous devoile une citee pavee de bonnes intentions, engagee dans un perfectionnisme democratique que Platon refuse de reconnaitre. (shrink)

This article examines the role played by ‘feeling’ (Gefühl) and ‘love’ within the philosophy of German Romanticism. After an introduction (I) to the actual debate on German Romanticism, paragraph II sketches an analysis of the concept of Gefühl at the end of the eighteenth century and highlights the differences with its actual meaning. The successive three sections are dedicated to three pivotal figures of German Romanticism: F. Schlegel (III), Novalis (IV), and Baader (V). Similarities and differences between these authors will (...) be emphasized. It will be demonstrated that they deny the reason˗feeling opposition, and that ‘feeling’ and ‘love’ are at the heart of their ontology, epistemology, and conception of subjectivity, conditioning the Romantic human-nature relationship and Romantic political philosophy. In the concluding remarks (VI), this paper explains how German Romanticism can still help to better understand the role of feelings in politics. (shrink)

This paper addresses the problem of pluralism in democratic societies, by exploiting some insights from the debate about the epistemology of disagreement. First, by focusing on the permissibility of experiments on nonhuman animals for research purposes, we provide an epistemic analysis of deep normative disagreements. We understand that to mean disagreements in which epistemic peers disagree about both the substantive content of an ethical issue and the correct justificatory reasons for their contrary claims. Second, we argue for a compromise solution (...) in which the reasons for reaching it are not prudential but grounded on the recognition of epistemic peerhood. (shrink)

This article aims to connect issues in the epistemology of modality with issues in the philosophy of music, exploring how modalizing takes place in the context of musical performance. On the basis of studies of jazz improvisation and of classical music, it is shown that considerations about what is sonically, musically, and agentively possible play an important role for performers in the Western tonal tradition. We give a more systematic sketch of how a modal epistemology for musical performance could be (...) constructed. We argue that it is necessary to adopt a pluralist approach toward the modal epistemology of music. (shrink)

In this paper the author focuses on the reflections of Friedrich Schlegel on the concept of history. The works considered here range from 1798 to 1805 and include Schlegel’s essays, lessons, personal notes and fragments. In those years the reflections on the plurality of stories and genealogies against the singularity of History are central. “History” will emerge as a regulatory ideal of the narrative, but also of praxis. This paper will also show the limits of Koselleck’s analysis of Schlegel’s thought.

The present study investigated the mediating role of conceptions of learning in the relationship between metacognition and academic outcomes among middle school students. The self-report ‘Learning Conceptions Questionnaire’ (LCQ) and ‘Metacognitive questionnaire on the method of study’ (QMS) were administered to 136 middle school students and their academic outcomes were collected. Correlation analyses revealed that within metacognition only self-assessment was positively correlated with academic outcomes. Mediation analysis indicated that a conception of learning as internal attribution of success and failure was (...) significantly involved as mediator in the relationship between metacognition and academic achievements. The present study permitted to advance our knowledge about the relationship between metacognition and academic achievements and it opened the way to practical implications. (shrink)

In connecting embodied, embedded, extended, and enactive (4E) cognition with affectivity and emotions, the framework of “situated affectivity” has recently emerged. This framework emphasizes the interactions between the emoter and the environment in the unfolding of our affective lives (Colombetti and Krueger 2015; Griffiths and Scarantino 2009; Piredda 2022; Stephan and Walter 2020). In the last decades, there has also been a growing interest in the philosophical analysis of technology and artifacts (Houkes and Vermaas 2010; Margolis and Laurence 2007; Preston (...) 2022). The aim of this special issue is to foster the interaction between philosophical reflections on affectivity and those on technology, further developing this fruitful borderland (Clowes et al. 2021; Colombetti 2020; Fasoli 2018; Krueger and Osler 2019; Heersmink 2018; Piredda and Candiotto 2019; Piredda 2020; Viola 2021). -/- . (shrink)

According to Smell Objectivism, the smells we perceive in olfactory experience are objective and independent of perceivers, their experiences, and their perceptual systems. Variations in how things smell to different perceivers or in different contexts raise a challenge to this view. In this paper, I offer an objectivist account of non-illusory contextual variation: cases where the same thing smells different in different contexts of perception and there is no good reason to appeal to misperception. My central example is that of (...) dihydromyrcenol, a substance that can smell both woody and citrusy depending on what other odourants one has recently been exposed to. I first argue that the subjects’ apparently conflicting reports about the way dihydromyrcenol smells are best understood as comparative characterisations of a smell. Given this understanding, different reports can be correctly made in response to perceiving the very same smell. I then argue that the phenomenal difference between the experiences subjects have across contexts can be explained compatibly with Smell Objectivism. On the account proposed, subjects perceive the very same smell but different qualities, notes, or aspects of it are salient to them, depending on the context of perception. I then consider how the proposed defence of Smell Objectivism can be adapted to other cases where the same thing is reported as smelling different in different contexts. (shrink)

As the label suggests, according to _propositionalism_, each intentional mental state, attitude or event is or involves a relation to a proposition. In this paper, I will discuss a case that seems prima facie not to be accountable for by propositionalism. After having presented the case, I will show why it is different from others that have been discussed in the literature as able to show that propositionalism cannot be correct. I will then consider what the propositionalist can say to (...) fix the problem and I will show that no strategy that is genuinely propositionalist seems promising. I will not conclude that propositionalism is doomed. But I will show that if propositionalism can account for our case at all, it can only do so by losing its main appeal, i.e. its elegance and simplicity. But then propositionalism seems to have lost its advantage with respect to its obvious alternative, i.e. a pluralist account according to which mental states, attitudes and events are not all homogeneously relations to propositions, but rather our mental life should be accounted for in terms of a plurality of kinds of relata. (shrink)

In this review essay of Michelle Montague’s The Given we focus on the central thesis in the book: the awareness of awareness thesis. On that thesis, a state of awareness constitutively involves an awareness of itself. In Section 2, we discuss what the awareness of awareness thesis amounts to, how it contrasts with the transparency of experience, and how it might be motivated. In Section 3, we discuss one of Montague’s two theoretical arguments for the awareness of awareness thesis. A (...) view that accepts the awareness of awareness thesis, Montague argues, is to be preferred over competing views because it outperforms them in accounting for the property attributions one makes in perceptual experience. We suggest that it is not clear that this argument for the awareness of awareness thesis is successful. Finally, in Section 4 we consider the relation between Montague’s view of color experience and what she calls Strawson’s datum, arguing that Montague may not be able to explain this datum as straightforwardly as she supposes. This, we suggest, threatens Montague’s second theoretical argument for the awareness of awareness thesis. (shrink)

The benefits of full ectogenesis, that is, the gestation of human fetuses outside the maternal womb, for women ground many contemporary authors’ arguments on the ethical desirability of this practice. In this paper, I present and assess two sets of arguments advanced in favour of ectogenesis: arguments stressing ectogenesis’ equality-promoting potential and arguments stressing its freedom-promoting potential. I argue that although successfully grounding a positive case for ectogenesis, these arguments have limitations in terms of their reach and scope. Concerning their (...) limited reach, I contend that ectogenesis will likely benefit a small subset of women and, arguably, not the group who most need to achieve equality and freedom. Concerning their limited scope, I contend that these defences do not pay sufficient attention to the context in which ectogenesis would be developed and that, as a result, they risk leaving the status quo unchanged. After providing examples of these limitations, I move to my proposal concerning the role of ectogenesis in promoting women’s equality and freedom. This proposal builds on Silvia Federici’s, Mariarosa Dalla Costa’s and Selma James’ readings of the international feminist campaign ‘Wages for Housework’. It maintains that the political perspective and provocation that ectogenesis can advance should be considered and defended. (shrink)

This paper is a contribution to the philosophical debate on visual blur from a relationalist perspective. At the same time, it offers a methodological reflection on the adequacy of explanations of phenomenal similarities and differences among perceptual experiences. The debate on seeing blurrily has been shaped by two implicit assumptions concerning our explanations of differences and similarities between experiences of seeing blurrily and other experiences. I call those assumptions into question, and argue that we do not need to provide a (...) unified explanation of the character of blurry experiences for our account to be adequate. The diversity of blurry experiences supports a different, pluralist approach to explanations of how things appear to subjects. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that in the Eudemian Ethics, Aristotle proposes a strong version of the unity of the virtues. Evidence in favor of this strong version of the unity of the virtues results from reading the common books within the EE rather than as part of the Nicomachean Ethics. The unity of the virtues as defended in the EE includes not only practical wisdom and the character virtues, but also all the virtues of practical and theoretical thinking. Closely (...) related, in the EE, Aristotle proposes a different best agent from the one of the NE. The best agent of the EE is the kalos kagathos. The person who is kalos kagathos has “all” the virtues. Kalokagathia is a whole and the virtues are its parts. I investigate how we should understand this whole and the relation between the individual virtues within this whole. (shrink)

This paper explores the ethics of introducing genome-editing technologies as a new reproductive option. In particular, it focuses on whether genome editing can be considered a morally valuable alternative to preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD). Two arguments against the use of genome editing in reproduction are analysed, namely safety concerns and germline modification. These arguments are then contrasted with arguments in favour of genome editing, in particular with the argument of the child’s welfare and the argument of parental reproductive autonomy. In (...) addition to these two arguments, genome editing could be considered as a worthy alternative to PGD as it may not be subjected to some of the moral critiques moved against this technology. Even if these arguments offer sound reasons in favour of introducing genome editing as a new reproductive option, I conclude that these benefits should be balanced against other considerations. More specifically, I maintain that concerns regarding the equality of access to assisted reproduction and the allocation of scarce resources should be addressed prior to the adoption of genome editing as a new reproductive option. (shrink)

In much of the current academic and public discussion, conspiracy theories are portrayed as a negative phenomenon, linked to misinformation, mistrust in experts and institutions, and political propaganda. Rather surprisingly, however, philosophers working on this topic have been reluctant to incorporate a negatively evaluative aspect when either analyzing or engineering the concept conspiracy theory. In this paper, we present empirical data on the nature of the concept conspiracy theory from five studies designed to test the existence, prevalence and exact form (...) of an evaluative dimension to the ordinary concept conspiracy theory. These results reveal that, while there is a descriptive concept of conspiracy theory, the predominant use of conspiracy theory is deeply evaluative, encoding information about epistemic deficiency and often also derogatory and disparaging information. On the basis of these results, we present a new strategy for engineering conspiracy theory to promote theoretical investigations and institutional discussions of this phenomenon. We argue for engineering conspiracy theory to encode an epistemic evaluation, and to introduce a descriptive expression—such as ‘conspiratorial explanation’—to refer to the purely descriptive concept conspiracy theory. (shrink)

Croce & Salvatore have previously enriched the state of the art on Carl Schmitt’s legal thought, appealing to an ‘institutional turn’ in his thinking between 1928 and 1934,1 through which Schmitt d...

In this paper, we argue that lesbian couples who wish to have children who are genetically related to both of them should be allowed access to mitochondrial replacement techniques. First, we provide a brief explanation of mitochondrial diseases and MRTs. We then present the reasons why MRTs are not, by nature, therapeutic. The upshot of the view that MRTs are non-therapeutic techniques is that their therapeutic potential cannot be invoked for restricting their use only to those cases where a mitochondrial (...) DNA disease could be ‘cured’. We then argue that a positive case for MRTs is justified by an appeal to reproductive freedom, and that the criteria to access these techniques should hence be extended to include lesbian couples who wish to share genetic parenthood. Finally, we consider a potential objection to our argument: that the desire to have genetically related kin is not a morally sufficient reason to allow lesbian couples to access MRTs. (shrink)

Three main motivations can explain compliance with social norms: fear of peer punishment, the desire for others' esteem and the desire to meet others' expectations. Though all play a role, only the desire to meet others' expectations can sustain compliance when neither public nor private monitoring is possible. Theoretical models have shown that such desire can indeed sustain social norms, but empirical evidence is lacking. Moreover it is unclear whether this desire ranges over others' “empirical” or “normative” expectations. We propose (...) a new experimental design to isolate this motivation and to investigate what kind of expectations people are inclined to meet. Results indicate that, when nobody can assign either material or immaterial sanctions, the perceived legitimacy of others' normative expectations can motivate a significant number of people to comply with costly social norms. (shrink)