Can conscious awareness be ascertained from physiological responses alone? We evaluate a novel learning-based procedure permitting detection of conscious awareness without reliance on language comprehension or behavioural responses. The method exploits a situation whereby only consciously detected violations of an expectation alter skin conductance responses . Thirty participants listened to sequences of piano notes that, without their being told, predicted a pleasant fanfare or an aversive noise according to an abstract rule. Stimuli were presented without distraction , or while distracted (...) by a visual task to remove awareness of the rule . A test phase included occasional violations of the rule. Only participants attending the sounds reported awareness of violations and only they showed significantly greater SCR for noise occurring in violation, vs. accordance, with the rule. Our results establish theoretically significant dissociations between conscious and unconscious processing and furnish new opportunities for clinical assessment of residual consciousness in patient populations. (shrink)

L’articolo mostra come la riscoperta della Poetica di Aristotele nel XVI secolo abbia portato all’emergere della critica d’arte, di contro all’idea tradizionale secondo la quale essa sarebbe nata durante l’Illuminismo. L’articolo si concentra sulla poliedrica figura di Ludovico Dolce il quale, nel suo Dialogo sulla Pittura (1557), utilizza i precetti della poetica aristotelica per stabilire rigidi criteri di giudizio delle opere d’arte. A differenza di molti altri autori suoi contemporanei che scrissero sul medesimo soggetto, le riflessioni di Dolce non (...) offrirono né una storia dell’arte, né un corpus di regole per la pittura o la scultura; piuttosto, si rivolsero alla ricerca dei modi più consoni per interpretare in maniera accurata il lavoro artistico in tutti i suoi aspetti, anche il più soggettivo. Attraverso stringenti paralleli con la Poetica di Aristotele, Dolce delinea quella che può essere considerata una delle prime forme di critica d’arte. (shrink)

The papers collected in this volume are based on the best contributions to the conference of the Italian Society for Logic and Philosophy of Science (SILFS) that took place in Milan on 8-10 October 2007. The aim of the Society, since its foundation in 1952, has always been that of bringing together scholars - working in the broad areas of Logic, Philosophy of Science and History of Science - who share an open-minded approach to their disciplines and regard them as (...) essentially requiring continuous confrontation and bridge-building to avoid the danger of over-specialism. In this perspective, logicians and philosophers of science should not indulge in inventing and cherishing their own "internal problems" - although these may occasionally be an opportunity for conceptual clarification - but should primarily look at the challenging conceptual and methodological questions that arise in any genuine attempt to extend our objective knowledge. As Ludovico Geymonat used to put it: " good] philosophy should be sought in the folds of science itself." Contributions are distributed into six sections, five of which - "Logic and Computing," "Physics and Mathematics," "Life Sciences," "Economics and Social Sciences," "Neuroscience and Philosophy of Mind" - are devoted to the discussion of cutting-edge problems that arise from current-day scientific research, while the remaining section on "General Philosophy of Science" is focused on foundational and methodological questions that are common to all areas. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:…duplici modo Daemon homini carnaliter copulatur:Ludovico Maria Sinistrari's Alternative to Apostasy and Sorcery in Human-Incubus IntercourseBert RoestLodovico Maria Sinistrari d'Ameno (1632-1701), who joined the Riformati branch in 1647 in the Pavian Provincia di S. Diego, is one of the many productive seventeenth-century Franciscan authors whose works are not habitually discussed within the world of Franciscan scholarship. According to the existing bibliographical guides, Sinistrari authored under his own name (...) and under various pseudonyms (such as Panfilo, Clodoveo Farvamondi, Nicolò Turris, Lazaro Socio, and Lazaro Agostino Cotta) about 34 works, more or less half of which reached the printing press during his lifetime. These works cover a wide range of genres and topics, including comedies, religious and secular dramas, astrological, astronomical and scientific works (including polemics against works of other scholars, medical and embryological papers), defenses of the religious orders, sermons and funerary orations, treatises of sacramental theology, some atypical hagiographical texts, and works of religious disciplinary law. This production was linked to his acknowledged expertise in a variety of disciplines, which apparently made him a celebrated lecturer in Pavia within the order and in public schools, teaching the liberal arts, geometry, military architecture and theology. Some of his works are connected with his activities as a preacher, advisor, and later censor for the Holy Office, practicing exorcist, consultant for the Franciscan Minister General, and personal theologian of Alessandro Montecatini (Archbishop of Avignon) and Federico Caccia (Cardinal and Archbishop of Milan).1Within the order itself, his most enduring legacy might have been his three volume Practica criminalis illustrata, a work that is both a commentary on penal law within the Franciscan order, and a more wide-ranging manual for dealing with penitential and religious-criminal issues, written [End Page 191] to supplant older handbooks of such kind. He was initially tasked to compile such materials at the Franciscan general chapter celebrated at Rome in 1688. The first two volumes of the Practica criminalis illustrata appeared in print in 1693. They were again published posthumously in 1702.2 In between he finished another volume of the Practica with a somewhat different focus, also known under the title De delictis et poenis tractatus absolutissimus, and which was proposed as a useful guidebook for judges, lawyers, and prelates in ecclesiastical courts, as well as for confessors, exorcists, and lay practitioners of law. This work was issued for the first time in 1700.3Although a wished-for early eighteenth-century re-issue of this multi-volume Practica criminalis illustrata was put on hold when it was placed on the index of forbidden books in March 1709 donec corrigatur for suspicion of laxist tendencies,4 all three volumes did appear again with some modifications in a 1753-1754 opera omnia edition. It could be found in a significant number of Franciscan and non-Franciscan order libraries, and apparently remained for a long time an important resource for penitential and disciplinary policies.5 [End Page 192]Whereas Sinistrari, like so many early modern friars, is not a commanding presence in the scholarly and literary canon of present-day Franciscan order history, he became a figure of some fascination and even notoriety in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century esoteric circles, and also is known by modern scholars of early modern demonology and early modern sexuality. This is mainly due to the publication, in the later nineteenth century, of two of Sinistrari's works on demoniality and sodomy that as such were not printed in full during our friar's lifetime, but parts of which are included in Titulus 4 of his Latin De delictis et poenis tractatus absolutissimus, namely the crimes against chastity (which in De delictis et poenis, alongside of daemonialitas [which comes last], comprises constortium suspectum, sollecitatio ad turpia, fornicatio, stuprum, incestus, raptus, clausurae violatio, sacrilegium cum moniali, mollities, sodomia, and bestialitas).Hence, in 1875, the French book collector and editor Isidore Liseux issued for the first time De la démonialité et des animaux incubes et succubes où l'on prouve qu'il existe sur terre des créatures raisonnables autres que l'homme, ayant comme lui un corps et une âme, naissant et mourant comme... (shrink)

Si indagano le elaborazioni prodotte da Savonarola e da Valenza sulla filosofia morale, cercando di porre in evidenza elementi comuni e punti di distanza tra i due, soffermandosi in particolare sul modo in cui essi studiarono il rapporto tra etica dei pagani ed etica cristiana, prendendo le distanze dalla posizione assunta precedentemente da Tommaso d'Aquino. Le opere studiate sono il Compendium philosophiae moralis di Savonarola e il Compendium Ethicorum Aristotelis scritto da Valenza. Si giunge così a comprendere che, sebbene l'insegnamento (...) impartito negli studia dell'ordine domenicano non lo prevedesse strettamente, l'Etica e la Politica di Aristotele erano ben conosciute dai domenicani del 1400, compendiate e studiate spesso a partire proprio dai commenti dell'Aquinate. (shrink)

Dans l'œuvre immense de Benedetto Croce (1866-1952) l'esthétique occupe une place centrale. Philosophe peu orthodoxe inspiré par les pensées de Kant et de Vico il a profondément marqué la culture italienne. Associé souvent à Gentile avec lequel il a rompu en 1925, en s'opposant au fascisme, il a réfléchi toute sa vie à une philosophie immanentiste de l'Esprit où l'esthétique trouverait sa place à côté d'une logique, d'une philosophie de la pratique et d'une économie ou philosophie de l'utile. L'influence de (...) Croce s'exerça non seulement sur les philosophes mais aussi sur des historiens de l'art comme Lionello Venturi, Carlo Ludovico Ragghianti, Julius Schlosser, Hans Sedlmayr ou encore Herbert Read et Pierre Francastel qui en discutèrent les thèses. Le Bréviaire d'esthétique (1912) rassemble quatre conférences destinées à un public nord-américain à l'invitation du " Rice Institute " qui ouvrait alors ses portes au Texas. Ces conférences jamais prononcées furent néanmoins publiées en anglais dès 1913, et marquent une étape importante dans la réflexion esthétique du philosophe napolitain qui qualifie alors l'art d'" intuition lyrique ". À ces conférences furent ajoutés plus tard deux autres textes ici traduits. Lire Croce aujourd'hui permet de revenir à la source d'un ensemble de questions auxquelles l'esthétique contemporaine est confrontée tout en découvrant une pensée qui, bien que souvent hostile à certaines manifestations de l'art de son temps (D'Annunzio ou les futuristes par exemple), restait paradoxalement ouverte à ses transformations qu'elle recommandait de saisir dans leur singularité et leur mouvement propre. D'où une conception particulière de la critique et de ses rapports avec l'histoire de l'art que l'on trouvera ici exposée. (shrink)

In un verso di Ariosto, la sorte di Giordano Bruno. SPECIALE V CENTENARIO ORLANDO FURIOSO (1516–2016).

La clôture des religieuses et les rapports de genre dans les couvents italiens (fin XVIe – début XVIIe siècle). L’article examine les changements dans les rapports de genre introduits par les normes du Concile de Trente sur les religieux, en particulier celles concernant la clôture des moniales. À Florence et Bologne prises comme terrains d’observation, les correspondances de l’archevêque Alessandro de’Medici avec le monastère florentin des Murate (1579-1606) et de l’archevêque de Bologne Ludovico Ludovisi avec ses vicaires (1624-1627) permettent (...) de discuter la “perméabilité” de la clôture, un concept avancé par la critique récente. Les règles de la clôture n’ont interrompu ni les rapports étroits des monastères avec la cité et la société, ni la présence dans les couvents de filles à éduquer, veuves et femmes en rupture de ban conjugal, mais elles ont fortement réduit l’autonomie des religieuses, en déléguant aux évêques et à la Congrégation romaine sur les Religieux le contrôle de l’entrée dans les monastères. Les effets de la clôture tridentine à l’intérieur des monastères se traduisent par des changements significatifs dans la hiérarchie des offices, l’organisation de la communauté par classes d’âge et l’orientation des affects vers des personnes du même sexe. En ce qui concerne les rapports de genre, enfin, le rôle des confesseurs, référents masculins privilégiés des nonnes (que ce soit sur le plan spirituel ou sur celui des équilibres internes du monastère), se renforce. (shrink)

Rational Sentimentalism develops a novel theory of the sentimental values. These values, which include the funny, the disgusting, and the shameful, are profoundly important because they set standards for emotional responses that are part of our shared human nature. Yet moral philosophers have neglected them relative to their prominence in human mental life. The theory is sentimentalist because it holds that these values are emotion-dependent—contrary to some prominent accounts of the funny and the disgusting. Its rational aspect arises from its (...) insistence that the shameful (e.g.) is not whatever elicits shame but what makes shame fitting. Shameful traits provide reasons to be ashamed that do not depend on whether one is disposed to be ashamed of them. Furthermore, these reasons to be ashamed issue in reasons to act as shame dictates: to conceal. Sentimentalism requires a compatible theory of emotion and emotional fittingness. The book explicates a motivational theory of emotion that explains the peculiarities of emotional motivation, as other theories cannot. It argues that a class of emotions are psychological kinds with the same goal across cultures, despite differences in their elicitors. It then develops an account of fittingness that helps to differentiate reasons of fit, which bear on the sentimental values, from other considerations for or against having an emotion. Some significant and controversial conclusions emerge from rational sentimentalism. The sentimental values conflict with one another, and with morality, but nevertheless provide practical reasons that apply to humans—though not to all rational agents. (shrink)

We discuss potential biorisks from large language models (LLMs). AI assistants based on LLMs such as ChatGPT have been shown to significantly reduce barriers to entry for actors wishing to synthesize dangerous, potentially novel pathogens and chemical weapons. The harms from deploying such bioagents could be further magnified by AI-assisted misinformation. We endorse several policy responses to these dangers, including prerelease evaluations of biomedical AIs by subject-matter experts, enhanced surveillance and lab screening procedures, restrictions on AI training data, and access (...) controls on biomedical AI. We conclude with a suggestion about future research directions in bioethics. (shrink)

This paper is an original attempt to understand the foundations of economic reasoning. It endeavors to rigorously define the relationship between subjective interpretations and objective valuations of such interpretations in the context of theoretical economics. This analysis is substantially expanded through a dynamic approach, where the truth of a valuation results in an updated interpretation or changes in the agent's subjective belief regarding the effectiveness of the selected action as well as the objective reality of the effectiveness of all other (...) possible actions (i.e. consequence realization). Complications arise when the economic agent is presented with a set of actions that render ambiguous preference, or when the effectiveness of an action cannot be perceived upon its selection, thereby necessitating a different theory of choice and consequence realization. (shrink)

Global challenges such as climate change, food security, or public health have become dominant concerns in research and innovation policy. This article examines how responses to these challenges are addressed by governance actors. We argue that appeals to global challenges can give rise to a ‘solution strategy' that presents responses of dominant actors as solutions and a ‘negotiation strategy' that highlights the availability of heterogeneous and often conflicting responses. On the basis of interviews and document analyses, the study identifies both (...) strategies across local, national, and European levels. While our results demonstrate the co-existence of both strategies, we find that global challenges are most commonly highlighted together with the solutions offered by dominant actors. Global challenges are ‘wicked problems' that often become misframed as ‘tame problems’ in governance practice and thereby legitimise dominant responses. (shrink)

Descartes has been accused of reasoning in a circle since the publication of the Meditations. The Circle is easy to point out: it seems that Descartes employs clear and distinct perceptions to demonstrate God’s existence and benevolence, and the latter, in turn, validates the use of clear and distinct perceptions. But is Descartes really guilty of fallacious argument, or can we break the arc somehow?

Recent years have been blessed with an abundance of logical systems, arising from a multitude of applications. A logic can be characterised in many different ways. Traditionally, a logic is presented via the following three components: 1. an intuitive non-formal motivation, perhaps tie it in to some application area 2. a semantical interpretation 3. a proof theoretical formulation. There are several types of proof theoretical methodologies, Hilbert style, Gentzen style, goal directed style, labelled deductive system style, and so on. The (...) tableau methodology, invented in the 1950s by Beth and Hintikka and later per fected by Smullyan and Fitting, is today one of the most popular, since it appears to bring together the proof-theoretical and the semantical approaches to the pre of a logical system and is also very intuitive. In many universities it is sentation the style first taught to students. Recently interest in tableaux has become more widespread and a community crystallised around the subject. An annual tableaux conference is being held and proceedings are published. The present volume is a Handbook a/Tableaux pre senting to the community a wide coverage of tableaux systems for a variety of logics. It is written by active members of the community and brings the reader up to frontline research. It will be of interest to any formal logician from any area. (shrink)

The field of business ethics has been active for several decades, but it has yet to develop a generally agreed upon applied ethical perspective for the discipline. Academics in business disciplines have developed useful science-based models explaining why business people behave ethically but without a generally accepted definition of ethical behavior. Academics in moral philosophy have attempted to formulate what they believe ethical behavior is, but many seem to ignore or reject the basic mission of business. The purpose of this (...) article is to offer one view of ethics in business that accommodates the mission of business. This purpose is achieved by reviewing the mission of ethics in applied disciplines like business and melding it into the mission of business in capitalistic societies. (shrink)

Among mainstream political philosophers, Charles Mills is probably best known, not as the author of The Racial Contract, but for his long-running critique of ideal theory and Rawls for his association with it. Yet the critique of ideal theory that followed the publication of The Racial Contract is prefigured in that very work, where we find in inchoate form what would be further developed later on. In the book, this early formulation of the critique occupies a small part of a (...) larger, more general argument condemning mainstream political philosophy for the way that it has ignored race. In this paper, I explore the relation of the critique to this more general argument. It might be thought that the general argument leads inevitably to the critique of ideal theory. I will argue that this is not so. I will show how Mills’ more general argument can be made without taking the further step of critiquing ideal theorizing. The blame for why mainstream political philosophy has ignored race, and continues to ignore race, I will argue, should be placed elsewhere. (shrink)

Abstract – In this paper I reconstruct the nature, origins and survivals of the divide between ‘analytic’ and ‘continental’ tradition—the famous dualism which affected the development of philosophy in the second half of the XX century. I also present a theory of it, stressing that its intra-philosophical causes are to be found in the mutual resistance between critical (transcendental) and semantic (logical) approaches in philosophy. I conclude by noting that good philosophers (more or less knowingly) are and have always been (...) sensitive to the transcendental and logical aspects of the philosophical work. (shrink)

Shortages of new therapeutics to treat coronavirus disease (COVID-19) have forced clinicians, public health officials, and health systems to grapple with difficult questions about how to fairly allocate potentially life-saving treatments when there are not enough for all patients in need (1). Shortages have occurred with remdesivir, tocilizumab, monoclonal antibodies, and the oral antiviral Paxlovid (2) -/- Ensuring equitable allocation is especially important in light of the disproportionate burden experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic by disadvantaged groups, including Black, Hispanic/Latino and (...) Indigenous communities, individuals with certain disabilities, and low-income persons. However, many health systems have resorted to first-come, first-served approaches to allocation, which tend to disadvantage individuals with barriers in access to care (3). There is mounting evidence of racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic disparities in access to medications for COVID-19 (4, 5). -/- One potential method to promote equitable allocation is to use a weighted lottery, which is an allocation strategy that gives all eligible patients a chance to receive the scarce treatment while also allowing the assignment of higher or lower chances according to other ethical considerations (6). We sought to assess the feasibility of implementing a weighted lottery to allocate scarce COVID-19 medications in a large U.S. health system and to determine whether the weighted lottery promotes equitable allocation. (shrink)

The article discusses a key issue for Russian and international Max Weber Studies: the epistemological possibilities and place of Weberian sociology in modern social theory. Discussion articles by well-known Russian scientists — who sharply criticized the actualizing direction of Weberian studies in general, and the religious, cultural, and sociological orientation in particular — are contrasted with the re-actualization and rethinking of key Weberian themes in the “New Critical Theory” of the influential German sociologist Hartmut Rosa. Such a projection will make (...) it possible, on the one hand, to thematize the axiomatic assertion about the heuristic rather than concrete-content relevance of the classics; on the other hand, it will provide an opportunity to read Weber as a macrosociologist. In the original, criticized, and often rejected sociology of Rosa, Weber appears not only as a predecessor whose mention enhances the relevance of the new theoretical framework, but, above all, as an analyst and diagnostician of early modernity. Weber’s main ideas and theoretical constructions are organically built into Rosa’s methodological framework: analysis-diagnosis-praxis. The analysis of rationalization as a universal historical process of modernity in Weber’s sociology is rethought by Rosa as expansion and acceleration; disenchantment becomes a diagnosis of modernity and is recoded into alienation, while the concept of charisma is transformed into the key concept of resonance. (shrink)