The purpose of this book is to highlight Carl Stumpf's contributions to philosophy and to assess some of the aspects of his work. This book brings together several specialists of Stumpf and the school of Franz Brentano, and includes fourteen original studies (in English and German) on the various aspects of Stumpf's philosophy, and some of his unpublished writings. This book is divided into four sections, and also includes a general introduction on the reception and actuality of Stumpf's philosophy. The (...) first section examines the historical sources of his philosophy, the second examines some of the central themes of his work and the third examines his relationship to other philosophers. The fourth section consists of notes taken by Husserl during Stumpf's lectures on metaphysics in Halle, Stumpf's introduction to the edition of his correspondence with Brentano, which he prepared in 1929, and some important letters pertaining to this correspondence. This book also provides a comprehensive bibliography of Stumpf's works. (shrink)

Kant is not typically considered a major figure in the just war tradition's canon, although his work has informed recent discussions about international justice and just war theory. More specifically, philosophers have suggested that Kant's work may provide a coherent, normatively practical just war theory, basing this claim, in the main, on his views on the goal of peace and its purpose of establishing a cosmopolitan civil society.1 Such discussions are mostly concerned with jus ad bellum and jus in bello (...) constraints on nations and how Kant's writings can guide deliberation and, perhaps, the considered policy and practices of governments. Yet, the fact remains that it is embodied men and women and not the metaphysical ?nation? who actually conduct war. Hence, this paper seeks to determine the extent to which Kant's thought might contribute to the moral deliberation of those individuals who a fortiori will be bound to jus in bello constraints. To this end, the idea of moral learning will be explored, emphasizing the Kantian idea of autonomy. The ultimate goal of this paper is to demonstrate how some aspects of Kant's thought would contribute to ethics education in a military academy. (shrink)

Meditation comprises a series of practices mainly developed in eastern cultures aiming at controlling emotions and enhancing attentional processes. Several authors proposed to divide meditation techniques in focused attention and open monitoring techniques. Previous studies have reported differences in brain networks underlying FA and OM. On the other hand common activations across different meditative practices have been reported. Despite differences between forms of meditation and their underlying cognitive processes, we propose that all meditative techniques could share a central process that (...) would be supported by a core network for meditation since their general common goal is to induce relaxation, regulating attention and developing an attitude of detachment from one’s own thoughts. To test this hypothesis, we conducted a quantitative meta-analysis based on activation likelihood estimation of 10 neuroimaging studies on different meditative techniques to evidence the core cortical network subserving meditation. We showed activation of basal ganglia , limbic system and medial prefrontal cortex . We discuss the functional role of these structures in meditation and we tentatively propose a neurocognitive model of meditation that could guide future research. (shrink)

In this paper, we try to build a semiotics of stereotypes through the key idea of enunciation. We investigate stereotypes of Persons with Disabilities in the context of social media networks (e.g., Facebook, Instagram) by adopting a semiotic perspective. The mainstream idea about stereotypes is that they are necessarily something negative, that must be avoided to maximize inclusivity and fairness. However, in our view, stereotypes are the background of our perception of the world, and we cannot escape from them, because (...) when we leave behind a stereotype, it is only for adopting a new one built on a different basis. Therefore, it is crucial to understand stereotypes and the way they are expressed, since they are one of the enunciating instances that circulate in the space of the Encyclopedia. Through a semiotic point of view, we will follow how stereotypes transform, showing the way they change the modes of existence of meanings, shifting between the virtualized, the potentialized, the actualized, and the realized. Analyzing a huge corpus of social network messages built by the partners of the European project MeMe (Me & the Media: Fostering Social Media Literacy competences through Interactive Learning Settings for Adults with Disabilities), we will show how the advent of social media affected the research field of disability studies. Later, we will point out the variations of the classic stereotypes that have been addressed in the new participatory context of social media through the semiotic theory of enunciation. (shrink)

Climate change is difficult to connect with personally, because people only regard the phenomenon as important if it becomes a perceived threat to themselves. Arguments like statistics and policy debates are extrinsic motivators, which do not necessarily align people’s own intrinsic motives with those of climate action. Instead, narratives and visual communication can influence viewers implicitly by the way they show and reinforce actions and thoughts that align with climate action. In this design study, we used comics created for human-level (...) climate change influence to promote ideas like future-based thinking, sharing of responsibility, and caring for each other. We also created data visuals that illustrate future consequences of climate change for the purpose of averting negative alternative realities. To see whether our design can affect audience perception of climate change on the human level of goals and desires, we showed the comics to readers unfamiliar with the themes of the stories, presenting them as manga about characters and situations. The survey showed that data stories can affect the way naive readers interpret narratives to align with pro-climate attitudes such as sharing and future-vision, and that readers are focused on the human-level of the data and story as opposed to the physical resource level. Speculative fiction and data visuals provide a potentially effective way to influence individuals’ climate change attitudes by showing alternative realities and attributes of collective responsibility and planning-for-the-future as data stories. (shrink)

La raccolta di contributi analizza alcuni dei temi più significativi dell’opera dello psicologo e filosofo Paolo Bozzi.

Resumo Este artigo demonstra a recepção do pensamento de Friedrich Nietzsche pela poesia de Augusto dos Anjos, poeta brasileiro que, em vida, publica sua única obra intitulada Eu. A tragicidade com que o poeta opera, ironicamente, as máscaras que veste e despe ao longo de sua obra ; a força apolínea com que desenha as imagens que carregam uma musicalidade tão dilaceratória e incandescente são estratégias essenciais da poesia angelina que, certamente dialogam com a filosofia poética de Nietzsche.: This article (...) demonstrates the reception of Friedrich Nietzsche's thought by the poetry of Augusto dos Anjos, a brazilian poet who publishes his single poetic work Eu in 1912. The tragic principle wherewith the poet ironically operates the masks he wears and undresses throughout his work ; the apolinean energy with which he draws the images that carry such a lacerating musicality are essential strategies of Augusto dos Anjos´s poetry that certainly dialog with Nietzsche's poetic philosophy. (shrink)

Realism has been a central object of attention among analytical philosophers for some decades. Starting from analytical philosophy, the return of realism has spread into other contemporary philosophical traditions and given birth to new trends in current discussions, as for example in the debates about “new realism.” Discussions about realism focused on linguistic meaning, epistemology, metaphysics, theory of action and ethics. The implications for politics of discussion about realism in action theory and in ethics, however, are not much discussed. This (...) collection includes essay which address from different and complementary points of view the issue of the social and political relevance of philosophical debates on realism. (shrink)

Realism has been a central object of attention among analytical philosophers for some decades. Starting from analytical philosophy, the return of realism has spread into other contemporary philosophical traditions and given birth to new trends in current discussions, as for example in the debates about “new realism.” Discussions about realism focused on linguistic meaning, epistemology, metaphysics, theory of action and ethics. The implications for politics of discussion about realism in action theory and in ethics, however, are not much discussed. This (...) collection includes essay which address from different and complementary points of view the issue of the social and political relevance of philosophical debates on realism. (shrink)

Realism has been a central object of attention among analytical philosophers for some decades. Starting from analytical philosophy, the return of realism has spread into other contemporary philosophical traditions and given birth to new trends in current discussions, as for example in the debates about “new realism.” Discussions about realism focused on linguistic meaning, epistemology, metaphysics, theory of action and ethics. The implications for politics of discussion about realism in action theory and in ethics, however, are not much discussed. This (...) collection includes essay which address from different and complementary points of view the issue of the social and political relevance of philosophical debates on realism. (shrink)

This book is an invitation to academic administrators, at every level, to engage in reflection on the ethical dimensions of their working lives.

The present paper argues that neither the autophenomenological nor the heterophenomenological approach works in order to do justice to the reality of experiences, because neither approach escapes phenomenological scepticism. By regarding the potentials of neuroscience and transpersonal psychology in addition to analysing the epistemology of experiencing, it is argued that an interdisciplinary-transpersonal psychological method is preferable that covers first- second- and third-person accounts. Furthermore, it is argued that, in order to make such an approach fruitful for interdisciplinary research, a pragmatic (...) view of reality that takes experiences seriously is needed. (shrink)

(2005). George R. Lucas, Jr. & W. Rick Rubel's (Eds) Ethics and the Military Profession: The Moral Foundations of Leadership and Case Studies in Military Ethics. Journal of Military Ethics: Vol. 4, No. 3, pp. 214-219. doi: 10.1080/15027570500197453.

This article is a discussion of the critical remarks raised by Kristian Bankov in a notion called Bankov’s razor, about some foundational elements of the biosemiotic paradigm. The elaborated form of the “razor” includes three main questions on biosemiotic ideas, namely: 1) the philosophical grounds of the biosemiotic discourse, 2) the scientific output of biosemiotics, and 3) the ethical consequences of some biosemiotic presumptions (this latter, given its scopes and extension, is left for a future occasion). Such questions are commented (...) and challenged by Dario Martinelli, from a point of view that is primarily that of the zoosemiotician, therefore an insider of biosemiotics. In order to set the readers’ expectations in the right direction, it shall perhaps be fair to inform them that the style of the article is rather sui generis, and can hardly be classified within the genre of academic essays. Tones and terminology are more reminiscent of a philosophical pamphlet written in dialogical form. Hopefully, this choice will not compromise the scientific content of the article. (shrink)

This essay illustrates the main aspects of the discussion between Brentano and Stumpf about «tonal fusion». In his Tonpsychologie, Stumpf essentially moved from a Brentanian standpoint. Yet, he did not adopt Brentano’s subsequently developed new theory of «sensible qualities», so that a polemic eventually arouse between them. Far from representing a marginal issue, the episode is relevant to our understanding of their relationship. The discussion as to the mechanism of tonal fusion reveals a general divergence between Brentano and Stumpf concerning (...) the idea of human sensibility as a whole and of the method of psychology. (shrink)

To fight against the spread of the coronavirus disease, more than 3 billion people in the world have been confined indoors. Although lockdown is an efficient solution, it has had various psychological consequences that have not yet been fully measured. During the lockdown period in France, we conducted two surveys on two large panels of participants to examine how the lockdown disrupted their relationship with time and what this change in their experiences of time means. Numerous questions were asked about (...) the experience of time but also the nature of life during the lockdown: the emotions felt, boredom, the activities performed, sleep quality, and the daily rhythm. The participants also completed a series of self-reported scales used to assess depression, anxiety, and impulsivity. The results showed that time seemed to pass more slowly during the lockdown compared to before. This feeling of a slowing down of time has little to do with living conditions during the lockdown and individual psychological characteristics. The main predictor of this time experience was boredom and partly mediated by the lack of activity. The feeling of being less happy and the presence of sleep disturbance also explained this specific experience of time albeit to a lesser extent. (shrink)

Cramer et al.'s article is an example of the fruitful application of complex dynamic systems theory. We extend their approach with examples from our own work on development and developmental psychopathology and address three issues: (1) the level of aggregation of the network, (2) the required research methodology, and (3) the clinical and educational application of dynamic network thinking.

The work of Theodor Waitz is an important but hitherto unnoticed source of Dilthey’s concept of ‘human sciences’. Waitz was an outstanding philosopher and psychologist who, in the late 1850s, devoted himself wholeheartedly to empirical anthropology. In this field Waitz distinguished himself for his defence of the unity of humankind against mainstream polygenic and racial doctrines. Waitz inspired Dilthey’s articulation of psychology into two branches: the ‘descriptive’ one and the ‘explanative’ one. Even more remarkably, in a work reviewed by Dilthey (...) in warmly favourable terms, Waitz explicitly mentioned and defined the ‘sciences which treat of the spirit ’. Some of Dilthey's most interesting ideas are thus prefigured in Waitz’s long underrated work. (shrink)

Dario Martinelli’s compact and enjoyable treatise on zoömusicology, _Of Birds, Whales and Other Musicians_ introduces musicologists, biologists, social scientists, and philosophers to a new theoretical model for studying how animal behavioral patterns relate to sound communication. Organized by musical trait rather than animal species, and drawing upon the work of such esteemed philosophers as Umberto Eco, Charles Sanders Peirce, and Thomas Sebeok, Martinelli’s analyses redefine the boundaries surrounding music and help readers—scholars and amateurs alike—to appreciate the relationship between (...) animals and musicological exchanges. (shrink)

This essay addresses the interrelations between philosophy and experimental sciences that lie at the heart of Carl Stumpf’s epistemology. Following a biographical exposé demonstrating how Stumpf succeeded in acquiring a dual competence in both philosophical and scientific fields, we examine the vast array of academic disciplines encompassed by his research. Such a biographical treatment aims, indeed, to better promote the thrust of Stumpf’s assertion that philosophical enquiries should always be carried out in close connection with scientific practices, and underlines how (...) philosophico-scientific interactions established his work as a central pillar in the history of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century German thought. (shrink)

The ancient Greeks already used to give ethnic names to their different scales, and observations on differences in music of the various nations always raised the interest of musicians and philosophers. Yet, it was only in the late nineteenth century that “comparative musicology” became an institutional science. An important role in this process was played by Carl Stumpf, a former pupil of Brentano’s who pioneered these researches in Berlin. Stumpf founded the Phonogrammarchiv to collect recordings of folk and extra-European music (...) and a dedicated journal, the Sammelbände für vergleichende Musikwissenschaft. Gifted in the field of science no less than in that of musicology, Stumpf developed an empirically-oriented approach to phenomenology, deeply divergent from Husserl’s and highly influential over the Berlin school of Gestalt psychology. A self-declared “outsider” among armchair philosophers, Stumpf experimentally investigated the perception of sounds and the origins of musical consonance. Developing the physiological studies of Ernst Weber on the sense of touch, Stumpf discovered that two sensations of tone, given at the same time, tend to mix in a certain degree. Musical consonance – he claimed – lays in this level of “tonal fusion”, not in the allegedly “natural” series of the harmonic partials of a vibrating chord, as suggested by the naturalists of all times from Pythagoras to Stumpf’s great contemporary Hermann Helmholtz. Accordingly, no musical system can claim for preponderance over the others: Stumpf’s researches in comparative musicology served to corroborate his theses on “tonal fusion” and the psychological foundations of consonance. Although Stumpf later revised and finally abandoned this theory, its permanent value lays in its opposition to dominant naturalistic approaches. The commitment for comparative musicology at the Berlin School is then no concession to a positivistic fashion for exoticism. The fundamentally Eurocentric stance of naturalistic theories of music is also fiercely contrasted by Stumpf’s pupil Erich Hornbostel, who suggests that music ought to be considered as culture, rather than as nature, and focuses attention on the eventually melting human cultures. The Berlin school flourished until the Nazis forced most of its exponents to emigration and, for tragically obvious reasons, heavily discouraged researches on these topics. (shrink)

This essay focuses on realism in ontology and on the problem of defining reality. According to the definition given by many realists, reality is independent of our thoughts, conceptual schemes, linguistic practices, etc. Yet, this merely negative definition of reality has some disadvantages: it implies a dualistic view, and it is incompatible with scientific realism. As an alternative, I introduce and discuss the traditional definition of reality as effectiveness, or capability of acting. I then attempt to determine to what extent (...) this definition can be helpful in the debate concerning ontological realism. (shrink)

In his Spinozastudien Stumpf dismisses the commonplace interpretation of Spinoza’s parallelism in psychophysical terms. Rather, he suggests to read Ethics, II, Prop. 7, as the heritage of the scholastic doctrine of intentionality. Accordingly, things are the intentional objects of God’s ideas. On this basis, Stumpf also tries to make sense of the puzzling spinozian doctrine of the infinity of God’s attributes. In support of this exegesis, Stumpf offers an interesting reconstruction of the history of intentionality from Plato and Aristotle to (...) the late Scholastics. Besides its intrinsic value, Stumpf’s confrontation with Spinoza is illuminating in explaining his own position concerning a crucial phenomenological question such as intentionality. Actually, Stumpf avoids defining the mental in terms of intentionality and maintains, rather, a moderate but professed dualistic position, thus deeply diverging from both Brentano and Husserl. (shrink)