We provide a framework for understanding agnosticism. The framework accounts for the varieties of agnosticism while vindicating the unity of the phenomenon. This combination of unity and plurality is achieved by taking the varieties of agnosticism to be represented by several agnostic stances, all of which share a common core provided by what we call the minimal agnostic attitude. We illustrate the fruitfulness of the framework by showing how it can be applied to several philosophical debates. In particular, several philosophical (...) positions can be aptly conceived of as instances of agnosticism whilst retaining their differences and distinguishing features. (shrink)

While the sociality of software agents drives toward the definition of institutions for multi agent systems, their autonomy requires that such institutions are ruled by appropriate norm mechanisms. Computational institutions represent useful abstractions. In this paper we show how computational institutions can be built on top of the RoleX infrastructure, a role-based system with interesting features for our aim. We achieve a twofold goal: on the one hand, we give concreteness to the institution abstractions; on the other hand, we demonstrate (...) the flexibility of the RoleX infrastructure. (shrink)

Besides some issues connected to the philosophical style of Documentalità by Maurizio Ferraris (2009), the paper discusses two points of Ferraris’ approach: 1) the relation between ontology and epistemology and 2) the relation between letter and spirit. 1) Is it true, as Ferraris claims in his theory of social world, that ontology is completely independent from epistemology? Since it is a discourse on being, is not ontology inextricably linked with language and hence with some kind of epistemological issue that language (...) always implies? 2) And is it really true that letter is characterized by a sort of primacy on spirit? Does not this thesis presuppose a radical separation between letter and spirit which risks to undermine the basic monism of Ferraris’ philosophical proposal? (shrink)

L’articolo affronta la questione della persistenza degli artefatti e propone una soluzione alternativa a quelle convenzionaliste. Sebbene si riconosca che i criteri di persistenza degli artefatti sono diversi da quelli adoperati per le entità di genere naturale, si sostiene che questi criteri possono essere fissati evitando l’introduzione di elementi convenzionali. Al centro di questa proposta, si trova la nozione di sostituzione prolungante. La cornice di partenza generale è la teoria dei continuanti elaborata da David Wiggins. Tuttavia, svolgono un ruolo centrale (...) le riflessioni di Maurizio Ferraris a proposito della documentalità. Queste riflessioni sono utilizzate per precisare la nozione di type artefattuale che consente di superare il convenzionalismo di Wiggins relativo agli artefatti. Infine, l’efficacia di questa proposta viene mostrata affrontando uno dei luoghi classici della metafisica degli artefatti, il rompicapo della nave di Teseo. (shrink)

This book examines phenomenal conservatism, one of the most influential and promising internalist conceptions of non-inferential justification debated in current epistemology and philosophy of mind. It also explores the significance of the findings of this examination for the general debate on epistemic justification. According to phenomenal conservatism, non-inferential justification rests on seemings or appearances, conceived of as experiences provided with propositional content. Phenomenal conservatism states that if it appears to S that P, in the absence of defeaters, S thereby has (...) some justification for believing that P. This view provides the basis for foundationalism and many ordinary epistemic practices. This book sheds new light on phenomenal conservatism by assessing objections to it and examining epistemological merits and advantages attributed to it. In a nutshell, phenomenal conservatism is actually compatible with Bayesian reasoning, and it is unaffected by bootstrapping problems and challenges that appeal to the cognitive penetrability of perception. Nevertheless, appearance-based justification proves unstable or elusive and its antisceptical bite is more limited than expected. These difficulties could be surmounted if phenomenal conservatism were integrated with a theory of inferential justification. The book appeals to scholars and postgraduates in the field of epistemology and philosophy of mind who are interested in the rational roles of appearances. (shrink)

In this paper we focus on transmission and failure of transmission of warrant. We identify three individually necessary and jointly sufficient conditions for transmission of warrant, and we show that their satisfaction grounds a number of interesting epistemic phenomena that have not been sufficiently appreciated in the literature. We then scrutinise Wright’s analysis of transmission failure and improve on extant readings of it. Nonetheless, we present a Bayesian counterexample that shows that Wright’s analysis is partially incoherent with our analysis of (...) warrant transmission and prima facie defective. We conclude exploring three alternative lines of reply: developing a more satisfactory account of transmission failure, which we outline; dismissing the Bayesian counterexample by rejecting some of its assumptions; reinterpreting Wright’s analysis to make it immune to the counterexample. (shrink)

This open access book investigates the role played by identity of proofs in proof-theoretic semantics. It develops a conception of proof-theoretic semantics as primarily concerned with the relationship between proofs (understood as abstract entities) and derivations (the linguistic representations of proofs). It demonstrates that identity of proof is a key both to clarify some —still not wholly understood— notions at the core of proof-theoretic semantics, such as harmony; and to broaden the range of the phenomena which can be analyzed using (...) the tools of this semantic paradigm, so as to include for instance paradoxes. The volume covers topics such as the philosophical significance of different criteria of identity of proofs, and adequacy conditions for an intensional account of the notion of harmony. The author also examines the Prawitz-Tennant analysis of paradoxes by investigating on the one hand the prospects of turning it into a theory of meaning for paradoxical languages, and on the other hand two distinct kinds of phenomena, first observed by Crabbe and Ekman, showing that the Tennant-Prawitz criterion for paradoxicality overgenerates. This volume is of interest to scholars in formal and philosophical logic. (shrink)

Realitism: the postmodern attack on reality -- Realism: things that have existed since the beginning of the world -- Reconstruction: why criticism starts from reality -- Emancipation: unexamined life has no value.

Introduction to New Realism provides an overview of the movement of contemporary thought named New Realism, by its creator and most celebrated practitioner, Maurizio Ferraris. Sharing significant concerns and features with Speculative Realism and Object Oriented Ontology, New Realism can be said to be one of the most prescient philosophical positions today. Its desire to overcome the postmodern antirealism of Kantian origin, and to reassert the importance of truth and objectivity in the name of a new Enlightenment, has had an (...) enormous resonance both in Europe and in the US. Introduction to New Realism is the first volume dedicated to exposing this continental movement to an anglophone audience.Featuring a foreword by the eminent contemporary philosopher and leading exponent of Speculative Realism, Iain Hamilton Grant, the book begins by tracing the genesis of New Realism, and outlining its central theoretical tenets, before opening onto three distinct sections. The first, 'Negativity', is a critique of the postmodern idea that the world is constructed by our conceptual schemas, all the more so as we have entered the age of digitality and virtuality. The second thesis, 'positivity', proposes the fundamental ontological assertion of New Realism, namely that not only are there parts of reality that are independent of thought, but these parts are also able to act causally over thought and the human world. The third thesis, 'normativity,' applies New Realism to the sphere of the social world. Finally, an afterword written by two young scholars explains in more detail the relationship between New Realism and other forms of contemporary realism. (shrink)

This chapter has two main sections. In the first section I briefly sketch Immanuel Kant’s moral theory as laid out in his Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785). I explain Kant’s claim that morality must be grounded on what he calls a categorical imperative and examine his three formulations of this categorical imperative. In the second section I explain the distinction between “deontological” and “teleological” ethical theories. Kantian ethics is often presented as the paradigm example of a deontological ethical (...) theory, but I question whether Kant’s ethics should be understood as purely deontological. (shrink)

The paper discusses some formal difficulties concerning the theory of universals of Trope-Only ontologies, from which the formal theory of predication advanced by Trope-Only theorists seems to be irremediably affected. It is impossible to lay out a successful defense of a Trope-Only theory without Russellian types, but such types are ontologically inconsistent with tropes’ nominalism. Historically, Tropists’ first way to avoid the problem is appealing to the supervenience claim, which however fails on its terms and, thus, fails as a ground (...) for a solution to the higher-order or ‘type’ problem. A later solution involves the invariance of primitive equivalence relations in order to make universals ontologically innocuous. However, I argue that this latter solution fails to meet the requirements imposed on an ontologically unbiased nominalist attitude. So, this paper discusses how Trope-Only theories alter standard formal moves in Nominalism, and also is interested in clarifying further the formal assumptions for these problems. (shrink)

The assumption that coercion is largely responsible for our legal systems’ efficacy is a common one. I argue that this assumption is false. But I do so indirectly, by objecting to a thesis I call “(Compliance)”, which holds that most citizens comply with most legal mandates most of the time at least partly in virtue of being motivated by legal systems’ threats of sanctions and other unwelcome consequences. The relationship between (Compliance) and the efficacy of legal systems is explained in (...) section 1. There I also show that (Compliance) must be rejected for it relies on unsubstantiated empirical assumptions. In section 2, I claim that an alternative, and more refined, formulation of (Compliance) also lacks adequate support. I conclude with a few general remarks about the centrality of coercion in our thought and talk about legal systems. (shrink)

En este libro, que aparece en Italia en 1987, publicado muchas veces y muy comentado también en el extranjero, Vincenzo Ferrari analiza las funciones sociales del derecho en una perspectiva relativista, subjetivista y conflictualista, opuesta a la del funcionalismo sociológico. De tal manera, el derecho se revela como un medio de acción social dirigido a lograr los proyectos de seres humanos empeñados en relaciones variables de cooperación y de lucha. Así, se muestra cómo las normas jurídicas pueden orientar las (...) actitudes y desorientarlas; solucionar los conflictos y agravarlos o fomentarlos; legitimar cualquier forma de poder con argumentos tan válidos como ficticios. Solo al nivel de los ideales se redescubre el valor del derecho, su potencialidad libertadora y su naturaleza igualitaria. (shrink)

In this paper, I present an interpretation of Wittgenstein's remarks on the experience of wonder at the existence of the world. According to this interpretation, Wittgenstein's feeling of wonder stems from perceiving the existence of the world as an absolute miracle, that is, as a fact that is in principle beyond explanation. Based on this analysis, I will suggest that Wittgenstein's experience is akin to what has been described by other authors such as Coleridge, Pessoa, Heidegger, Scheler, Sartre, and Hadot, (...) among many others. Through a comparison between Wittgenstein and Coleridge on the experience of existence, I shall highlight some core features of this experience, chief among them the use of the notion of nothingness in clarifying what is understood in the experience, the role of intuition, and the presence of a specific pathos. As a whole, this paper aims to provide a contribution to the project of a phenomenology of the experience of existence and intends to create a bridge for a dialogue between Wittgenstein and the phenomenological tradition on the enigma of existence. (shrink)

Transmission of justification across inference is a valuable and indeed ubiquitous epistemic phenomenon in everyday life and science. It is thanks to the phenomenon of epistemic transmission that inferential reasoning is a means for substantiating predictions of future events and, more generally, for expanding the sphere of our justified beliefs or reinforcing the justification of beliefs that we already entertain. However, transmission of justification is not without exceptions. As a few epistemologists have come to realise, more or less trivial forms (...) of circularity can prevent justification from transmitting from p to q even if one has justification for p and one is aware of the inferential link from p to q. In interesting cases this happens because one can acquire justification for p only if one has independent justification for q. In this case the justification for q cannot depend on the justification for p and the inferential link from p to q, as genuine transmission would require. The phenomenon of transmission failure seems to shed light on philosophical puzzles, such as Moore's proof of a material world and McKinsey's paradox, and it plays a central role in various philosophical debates. For this reason it is being granted continued and increasing attention. (shrink)

This book explores the diverse understandings of the archaeological record in both historical and contemporary perspective, while also serving as a guide to reassessing current views. Gavin Lucas argues that archaeological theory has become both too fragmented and disconnected from the particular nature of archaeological evidence. The book examines three ways of understanding the archaeological record - as historical sources, through formation theory, and as material culture - then reveals ways to connect these three domains through a reconsideration of archaeological (...) entities and archaeological practice. Ultimately, Lucas calls for a rethinking of the nature of the archaeological record and the kind of history and narratives written from it. (shrink)

Phenomenal conservatism (PC) is the internalist view that non-inferential justification rests on appearances. PC’s advocates have recently argued that seemings are also required to explain inferential justification. The most general and developed view to this effect is Huemer (2016)’s theory of inferential seemings (ToIS). Moretti (2018) has shown that PC is affected by the problem of reflective awareness, which makes PC open to sceptical challenges. In this paper I argue that ToIS is afflicted by a version of the same problem (...) and it is thus hostage to inferential scepticism. I also suggest a possible response on behalf of ToIS’s advocates. (shrink)

David Eso and Kay Burns edition of philosopher Leo Ferraris previously unpublished 1973 manuscript brings to light a long forgotten satirical work, which, in an age of fake news, possesses renewed relevance. The editors contextualize The Earth is Flat! for the reader with a scholarly introduction and a humorous Forewarning. Author, Leo Ferrari, draws on his extensive knowledge of classical thought and its key figures to present a history of ideas that is sometimes accurate, sometimes speculative. Speculative or alternative (...) aspects of this history support his Flat Earth theme, as do a number of scientific experiments outlined, which the reader is encouraged to try. He traces the conflict between Globularist and Planoterrestrial beliefs from antiquity to his contemporary moment of the early 1970s, marked by space exploration. Later chapters chart the activities and philosophies of the Flat Earth Society of Canada, including Ferraris experience on the lecture circuit and in media platforms. The authors method is to blur the line between seriousness and humour and to show that intellectual work can also be good fun. He uses the idea of a spinning, spherical planet to symbolically represent the alienating effects of technological modernity. (shrink)

L’epistemologia (detta anche filosofia della conoscenza o gnoseologia) è la disciplina filosofica che studia come gli esseri umani si rapportano da un punto di vista cognitivo alla realtà che li circonda. Le questioni fondamentali che la interessano sono principalmente di natura normativa. Riguardano il modo in cui dovremmo regolare le nostre credenze alla luce dell’informazione in nostro possesso, e la natura della conoscenza umana ed i suoi limiti. Questo capitolo è organizzato in modo corrispondente. La prima sezione tratta della nozione (...) di giustificazione epistemica, la seconda quella di conoscenza, e la terza introduce il problema filosofico dello scetticismo. (shrink)

According to the form of logical pluralism elaborated by Beall and Restall there is more than one relation of logical consequence. Since they take the relation of logical consequence to reside at the very heart of a logical system, different relations of logical consequence yield different logics. In this paper, we are especially interested in understanding what are the consequences of endorsing Beall and Restall’s version of logical pluralism vis-à-vis the normative guidance that logic is taken to provide to reasoners. (...) In particular, the aim of this paper is threefold. First, in Sections 2 and 3, we offer an exegesis of Beall and Restall’s logical pluralism as a thesis of semantic indeterminacy of our concept of logical consequence – i.e. understood as indeterminacy logical pluralism. Second, in Sections 4 and 5, we elaborate and critically scrutinize three models of semantic indeterminacy that we think are fit to capture Beall and Restall’s indeterminacy logical pluralism. Third, in Section 6, following Beall and Restall’s assumption that the notion of logical consequence has normative significance for deductive reasoning, we raise a series of normative problems for indeterminacy logical pluralism. The overall conclusion that we aim to establish is that Beall and Restall’s indeterminate logical pluralism cannot offer an adequate account of the normative guidance that logic is taken to provide us with in ordinary contexts of reasoning. (shrink)