We here report the findings of our investigation into the validity of the conjunction fallacy (Tversky & Kahneman, 1983), bearing in mind the role of conversational rules. Our first experiment showed that subjects found a logically correct answer unacceptable when it implied a violation of the conversational rules. We argue that tautological questions, such as those which concern the relationship of inclusion between a class and its sub-class, violate conversational rules because they are not informative. In this sense, it is (...) not understood that the question in a Linda-type problem involves a comparison between an inclusive and included class, but presumed that a different type of comparison is intended. Tautological questions (and, consequently, also their answers) do not become a matter of discussion except under certain specific conditions. Our second experiment showed that, providing the context was adequately marked (such as in the case of a rhetorical question), the conjunction fallacy disappears. In two further experiments, the implications of our view were compared with those of the other critical approaches to the heuristic programme: the classical pragmatic view (which we call logical complementarity) and the frequentist view. (shrink)

Examining the role of implicit, unconscious thinking on reasoning, decision making, problem solving, creativity, and its neurocognitive basis, for a genuinely psychological conception of rationality. This volume contributes to a current debate within the psychology of thought that has wide implications for our ideas about creativity, decision making, and economic behavior. The essays focus on the role of implicit, unconscious thinking in creativity and problem solving, the interaction of intuition and analytic thinking, and the relationship between communicative heuristics and thought. (...) The analyses move beyond the conventional conception of mind informed by extra-psychological theoretical models toward a genuinely psychological conception of rationality—a rationality no longer limited to conscious, explicit thought, but able to exploit the intentional implicit level. The contributors consider a new conception of human rationality that must cope with the uncertainty of the real world; the implications of abandoning the normative model of classic logic and adopting a probabilistic approach instead; the argumentative and linguistic aspects of reasoning; and the role of implicit thought in reasoning, creativity, and its neurological base. Contributors Maria Bagassi, Linden J. Ball, Jean Baratgin, Aron K. Barbey, Tilmann Betsch, Eric Billaut, Jean-François Bonnefon, Pierre Bonnier, Shira Elqayam, Keith Frankish, Gerd Gigerenzer, Ken Gilhooly, Denis Hilton, Anna Lang, Stefanie Lindow, Laura Macchi, Hugo Mercier, Giuseppe Mosconi, Ian R. Newman, Mike Oaksford, David Over, Guy Politzer, Johannes Ritter, Steven A. Sloman, Edward J. N. Stupple, Ron Sun, Nicole H. Therriault, Valerie A. Thompson, Emmanuel Trouche-Raymond, Riccardo Viale. (shrink)

This study investigates the acquisition of integrated object manipulation and categorization abilities through a series of experiments in which human adults and artificial agents were asked to learn to manipulate two-dimensional objects that varied in shape, color, weight, and color intensity. The analysis of the obtained results and the comparison of the behavior displayed by human and artificial agents allowed us to identify the key role played by features affecting the agent/environment interaction, the relation between category and action development, and (...) the role of cognitive biases originating from previous knowledge. (shrink)

The recent in vitro derivation of gamete‐like cells from mouse embryonic stem (mES) cells is a major breakthrough and lays down several challenges, both for the further scientific investigation and for the bioethical and biolegal discourse. We refer here to these cells as gamete‐like (sperm‐like or oocyte‐like, respectively), because at present there is still no evidence that these cells behave fully like bona fide sperm or oocytes, lacking the fundamental proof, i.e. combination with a normally derived gamete of the opposite (...) sex to yield a normal individual. However, the results published so far do show that these cells share some defining features of gametes. We discuss these results in the light of the bioethical and legal questions that are likely to arise would the same process become possible with human embryonic stem (hES) cells. (shrink)

We offer a formal treatment of the semantics of both complete and incomplete mistrustful or distrustful information transmissions. The semantics of such relations is analysed in view of rules that define the behaviour of a receiving agent. We justify this approach in view of human agent communications and secure system design. We further specify some properties of such relations.

Software-intensive science challenges in many ways our current scientific methods. This affects significantly our notion of science and scientific interpretation of the world, driving at the same time the philosophical debate. We consider some issues prompted by SIS in the light of the philosophical categories of ontology and epistemology.

Antonio Signorini’s contribution to the constitutive theory of non-linear elasticity is reconstructed and analyzed. Some uninformed opinions suggesting he had a minor role, lacking of significant results, are discussed and refuted. It is shown that Signorini should be rightly credited for being among the first scholars aware of the central problem of non-linear elasticity: the determination of the general form of the elastic potential.

This article presents an historical and conceptual overview on different approaches to logical abstraction. Two main trends concerning abstraction in the history of logic are highlighted, starting from the logical notions of concept and function. This analysis strictly relates to the philosophical discussion on the nature of abstract objects. I develop this issue further with respect to the procedure of abstraction involved by (typed) λ-systems, focusing on the crucial change about meaning and predicability. In particular, the analysis of the nature (...) of logical types in the context of Constructive Type Theory allows elucidation of the role of the previously introduced notions. Finally, the connection to the analysis of abstraction in computer science is drawn, and the methodological contribution provided by the notion of information is considered, showing its conceptual and technical relevance. Future research shall focus on the notion of information in distributed systems, analysing the paradigm of information hiding in dependent type theories. (shrink)

La morte dell'uomo come metafora dello sradicamento ontologico -- Partecipazione e sradicamento : la morte come rottura della comunione intersoggettiva -- L'amore come apertura alla dimensione partecipativa : in cammino verso la salvezza.

By means of a critical reinterpretation of the famous short story by Herman Melville titled “Bartleby, the Scrivener,” I propose a psycho-anthropological explanation of work behaviors, relationships in work environments, and their psychopathological repercussions. The article notably examines behaviors and work relationships connecting them as outcomes of single individuals' efforts to mentalize ideological–cultural models determining them in a given historical moment. A reductively individualistic interpretation is criticized, which is typically present in clinical and work psychology and ascribes to the single (...) person presumed psychical deficits and exclusively looks in his/her personal history for causes of disadaptive behaviors and antecedents of psychopathological formations. (shrink)

This article explains the apparent tension between Hobbes' late work A Dialogue between A Philosopher and A Student of the Common Laws of England and his avowed goal of a deductive philosophy which eschews rhetoric and history, by analysing the difference between Hobbes' civil and natural philosophy. A Dialogue's simultaneous use of deduction, rhetoric, and historical citation is congruent with the method applied by Hobbes in Leviathan in order to construct his "civil philosophy". This highlights Hobbes' awareness increasing with the (...) years of the difference between the teachings of "natural philosophy" which are understood by demonstration, and once this is done are evident per se, and those of politics and jurisprudence which in order to make the people obey the sovereign maintaining peace and security, may require employing the language of persuasion before and after being demonstrated. However, I have argued that the awareness of this difference does not undermine the general unity of his philosophical system and in particular of his notion of science. (shrink)

"El método seguido puede llamarse con una sola palabra comparativo. He tratado, en efecto, de que las ideas y los hechos procedan a la par, ayudándome también a veces del estudio de los vocablos, con los cuales las unas y los otros han sido expresados; he hecho que caminasen de frente los varios pueblos que concurrieron más eficazmente al desenvolvimiento de las instituciones jurídicas y sociales, así como también a los diferentes sistemas escogidos por los autores, y he procurado, por (...) fin, poner de relieve la correlación constante entre la vida económica, jurídica y moral en los distintos períodos de la historia y el concierto admirable que siempre se manifiesta entre las varias partes del organismo social. Presento este ensayo tal como ha llegado a ser después de varios años de trabajo y estudio, debiendo limitarme a hacer observar que, por razón de la lógica que lo rige, las varias partes de que consta se suponen recíprocamente por modo tal, que los primeros capítulos son la preparación indispensable para la inteligencia de los siguientes, y los últimos sirven de ilustración y complemento a los primeros. Por mi parte habré alcanzado el objeto que me proponía si logro infundir en alguno de mis lectores la profunda convicción que tengo de que el estudio del mundo social y humano ofrece tantos goces y no menores maravillas al sociólogo, como al físico y al naturalista el estudio del mundo material y orgánico, y que las investigaciones libros y sin prejuicios acerca de las instituciones primitivas de la sociedad, lejos de conmover las eternas convicciones del género huma-no, logran al fin confirmarlas científicamente". Giuseppe Carle. (shrink)

Comprising some of the key texts, this collection illustrates not only Kant's influence on British thought in the 19th century, but also gives a greater insight into British intellectual attitudes of that time.

Los encuentros de los europeos con los indios de América plantearon, a través de las crónicas de viajes, la revocación de tradicionales hipótesis filosóficas sobre los primitivos y los gigantes y la emergencia de la cuestión sobre la noción de "diferencia" entre culturas, así como la necesidad de unos nuevos principios de la historia. Reflexiones todas ellas precisas sobre el problema de la experiencia y su sentido en la Scienza nuova , donde las dos ciencias de lo antiguo y de (...) lo moderno anudan las cuestiones de la experiencia y de su inteligibilidad. Los principios de la ciencia viquiana toman impulso de la etnografía amerindia, p.e. de Oviedo y de Acosta, y también de la Escolástica Española .When the Europeans met the American Indians, the travel chronicles gave rise firstly to a rejection of the traditional philosophical hypothesis which hitherto have been held on the primitives and the giants and secondly to the question related with the notion of "differences" between cultures and the want to defining new principles for historical inquiries. Those were reflections connected with the problem of experience and its meaning within the New Science in which both sciences, the ancient and the modern, bond together questions related with experience and its own rationality. The principles of the Vichian science may be traced back to the American-indian ethnography, from Oviedo or from Acosta, for example, or even from Spanish Scholastic movement. (shrink)

This paper addresses the problem of upgrading functional information to knowledge. Functional information is defined as syntactically well-formed, meaningful and collectively opaque data. Its use in the formal epistemology of information theories is crucial to solve the debate on the veridical nature of information, and it represents the companion notion to standard strongly semantic information, defined as well-formed, meaningful and true data. The formal framework, on which the definitions are based, uses a contextual version of the verificationist principle of truth (...) in order to connect functional to semantic information, avoiding Gettierization and decoupling from true informational contents. The upgrade operation from functional information uses the machinery of epistemic modalities in order to add data localization and accessibility as its main properties. We show in this way the conceptual worthiness of this notion for issues in contemporary epistemology debates, such as the explanation of knowledge process acquisition from information retrieval systems, and open data repositories. (shrink)