Many actors use the norm of climate justice to fight climate change and to struggle against global inequities internationally and domestically. Despite the enormous diversity of ways in which actors have deployed ideas of climate justice, many of the policies framed within this norm sustain oppressive, silencing, and/or assimilating tendencies. Hence, this paper looks at the biases that were introduced from ideas of “sustainable development” into the discourse of climate justice. Through the cases of India and Oceania, the paper illustrates (...) the ways in which colonial legacies of single-axis thinking and development emphasize a particular struggle at the expense of other experiences and ways of life. (shrink)

The weaver ant, Oecophylla smaragdina Fabricius (Hymenoptera: Formicidae), has long been known as perhaps the first example of human manipulation of a natural predator population to enhance the natural biological control of insect pests. The practice of ant husbandry in Vietnamese citrus orchards and the knowledge associated with the use of weaver ants in the Mekong delta are described. In contrast to other regions of Asia, where weaver ants are noted for their role in the protection of citrus from insect (...) damage, citrus farmers in the Mekong delta explain the benefits of ant husbandry in terms of an improvement in fruit quality, likened to the influence of fertilizers, that occurs in direct response to excretory products deposited by the weaver ants as they patrol the fruit. A series of tests, carried out in 1993–94, rated the external shine, sweetness, juiciness, and overall appeal, as characteristics of fruit quality, for paired comparisons of sweet orange, mandarin, and pummelo fruit that had been grown in the presence of weaver ants or from which ants had been excluded. The tests indicate a strong influence of the presence of the weaver ant on external shine, juiciness, and overall appeal for each of the citrus fruits, but particularly for mandarin. The significance of these results and ant husbandry practices in the Mekong delta are discussed in relation to the development of citrus production in Vietnam. (shrink)

An intermediate stage in Hrushovski’s construction of flat strongly minimal structures in a relational language L produces ω-stable structures of rank ω. We analyze the pregeometries given by forking on the regular type of rank ω in these structures. We show that varying L can affect the isomorphism type of the pregeometry, but not its finite subpregeometries. A sequel will compare these to the pregeometries of the strongly minimal structures.

We investigate the isomorphism types of combinatorial geometries arising from Hrushovski's flat strongly minimal structures and answer some questions from Hrushovski's original paper.

Business Ethics: A European Review, EarlyView.

We welcome a computational theory on social groups, yet we argue it would benefit from a broader scope. A neuroscientific perspective offers the possibility to disentangle which computations employed in a group context are genuinely social in nature. Concurrently, we emphasize that a unifying theory of social groups needs to additionally consider higher-level processes like motivations and emotions.

Business Ethics, the Environment &Responsibility, Volume 33, Issue 3, Page 468-485, July 2024.

Nossa pesquisa tem por intuito lançar considerações acerca da ideia de suicídio como prática de responsabilidade ética em determinados países asiáticos, nominalmente China e Japão, além disso, tratamos de lançar luz sobre as consequências dessa mentalidade em um mundo que atravessa mudanças de forma constante como nunca vimos antes.

En este estudio se presentan las líneas directrices de una investigación que se propone analizar el sentido y el significado que se otorga a los conceptos de “bien común” e “interés general” en la retórica de los poderes públicos de nuestro tiempo. A continuación, trata de dar respuesta al interrogante de si ambos conceptos son perfectamente intercambiables en el debate público o, por el contrario, estamos ante conceptos que proceden de presupuestos antagónicos.

This contribution explores in detail the presence and the context of two quotations of the philosopher and theologian Abū Ḥāmid al-Ġazālī (Algazel for the Latin world) in Albert the Great’s late Summa theologiae sive de mirabili scientia Dei. The two quotations, which concern the notion of the soul as “abridged letter” or “copy” [nusḫa muḫtaṣara, chartula brevis] on which all pieces of knowledge are potentially transcribed, occur in two significant textual points of Albert’s Summa. Two different aspects of al-Ġazālī’s simile (...) are addressed in the article: the consideration of the soul as a book, which has extremely wide biblical and literary echoes, and the consideration of the soul as a place, also with regard to the already Aristotelian, and then Albertinian notion of locus intelligibilium. The feature the two passages by Albert share is the acknowledgment of Algazel as a source of primary importance, capable of corroborating with his authority both a Christian theological doctrine and the littera itself of Aristotle’s De anima, in a culturally momentous philosophical-theological, and Islamic-Christian, cooperation. Thanks to a focused analysis on further contexts of reception of the same Ġazālīan image, which bear witness to its peculiar memorability and its differentiated usages, the article argues in conclusion in favour of a more attentive and in-depth study of philosophical similes such as the one here discussed. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The paper aims to show that Rahel Jaeggi's objections to Walzer's model of internal critique are in many respects inconsistent, and above all that these objections are a sign of a political deficit in the neo-Hegelian methodology adopted by Jaeggi to develop her model of immanent critique. The same deficit concerns Jaeggi's use of Marx's model of the critique of ideology, which can be fruitfully reworked by Walzer's reinterpretation of Gramsci's theory of the struggle for hegemony.

This paper examines the subversive role of statistics paleontology at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries. In particular, I will focus on German paleontology and its relationship with statistics. I argue that in paleontology, the quantitative method was questioned and strongly limited by the first decade of the 20th century because, as its opponents noted, when the fossil record is treated statistically, it was found to generate results openly in conflict with the Darwinian theory (...) of evolution. Essentially, statistics questions the gradual mode of evolution and the role of natural selection. The main objections to statistics were addressed during the meetings at the Kaiserlich-Königliche Geologische Reichsanstalt in Vienna in the 1880s. After having introduced the statistical treatment of the fossil record, I will use the works of Charles Léo Lesquereux, Joachim Barrande, and Henry Shaler Williams to compare the objections raised in Vienna with how the statistical treatment of the data worked in practice. Furthermore, I will discuss the criticisms of Melchior Neumayr, one of the leading German opponents of statistical paleontology, to show why, and to what extent, statistics were questioned in Vienna. The final part of this paper considers what paleontologists can derive from a statistical notion of data: the necessity of opening a discussion about the completeness and nature of the paleontological data. The Vienna discussion about which method paleontologists should follow offers an interesting case study in order to understand the epistemic tensions within paleontology surrounding Darwin’s theory as well as the variety of non-Darwinian alternatives that emerged from the statistical treatment of the fossil record at the end of the 19th century. (shrink)

The essay investigates the relationship between humanity and catastrophe in Davi Kopenawa’s shamanic cosmology, which is compared by approximation to Lucretius’ venusian cosmology and by contrast to Kant’s moral eschatology. It considers the thesis of the structural and dynamic instability of the sky and the problem of the cosmic void. So it seeks to develop the question about the origin and the end of humanity through the catastrophe, both in its ancestral, extra-human dimension, and in its connection with the current (...) socio-environmental destruction, of anthropic origin. In conclusion, it speculates about the role played by the critical thinking in the catastrophe’s eruption. (shrink)

The article is focused on Honneth’s teleology of history, presented as a historical process of gradual realization of an immanent normative ‘telos’, and not only as a form of axiological evaluation...

Humans are fundamentally social and tend to create emergent organizations when interacting with each other; from dyads to families, small groups, large groups, societies and civilizations. The study of the neuronal substrate of human social behavior is currently gaining momentum in the young field of social neuroscience. Hyperscanning is a neuroimaging technique by which we can study two or more brain simultaneously while participants interact with each other. The aim of this article is to discuss several factors that we deem (...) important in designing hyperscanning experiments. We first review hyperscanning studies performed by means of electroencephalography (EEG) that have been relying on a continuous interaction paradigm. Then, we provide arguments for favoring ecological paradigms, for studying the emotional component of social interactions and for performing longitudinal studies, the last two aspects being largely neglected so far in the hyperscanning literature despite their paramount importance in social sciences. Based on these premises we argue that music performance is a suitable experimental setting for hyperscanning and that for such studies EEG is an appropriate choice as neuroimaging modality. (shrink)

Background The global pandemic raised ethical issues for nurses about caring for all patients, not just those with COVID-19. Italy was the first European country to be seriously affected by the first wave, while Estonia’s infection and death rates were among the lowest in Europe. Did this raise different ethical issues for nurses in these two countries as well? Aim The aim was to describe and compare ethical issues between nurses working during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in (...) Estonia and Italy. Research design A cross-sectional survey study with a self-administered questionnaire. The impact of COVID- 19 emergency on nursing care questionnaire was used. Participants and research context Convenience sampling was used to recruit 1098 nurses working during the first wave of the pandemic in 2020: 162 from Estonia and 936 from Italy. Ethical considerations Research ethics approvals were obtained, and the nurses provided informed consent. Results The most frequent ethical issues for Estonian nurses were professional communication and ensuring access to care for patients without COVID-19, and for Italian nurses, the end-of-life care and the risk of them getting the virus and transmitting it to their loved ones. There were no statistically significant differences in the frequency of ethical issues between Estonian nurses working with patients with and without COVID-19. Italian nurses caring for COVID-19 patients faced statistically significantly more (both p <.001) issues around prioritising patients and end-of-life. Nurses working with patients without COVID-19 in Italy faced more issues about access to care ( p <.001). Conclusions Estonian and Italian nurses, working in different clinical contexts during the first wave of the pandemic, faced different ethical issues. Local contextual aspects need to be considered to support nurses’ ethical decision-making in providing care during future crises and to ensure ethical care for patients. (shrink)

Review of Venturinha, Nuno : The Textual Genesis of Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations. Routledge: New York, 2013.

In this paper, I try to show that Kripke’s proposed solution to the problem of negative existentials fails. I try to show that Kripke’s proposal fails because it entails that anybody who has good reasons to believe that there are no propositions has also good reasons to believe that he or she does not exist. However, there were philosophers who had good reasons to believe that there are no propositions even though they didn’t have good reasons to believe that they (...) do not exist. I conclude that Kripke’s proposed solution to the problem of negative existentials fails. (shrink)

What is mathematics about? And if it is about some sort of mathematical reality, how can we have access to it? This is the problem raised by Plato, which still today is the subject of lively philosophical disputes. This book traces the history of the problem, from its origins to its contemporary treatment. It discusses the answers given by Aristotle, Proclus and Kant, through Frege's and Russell's versions of logicism, Hilbert's formalism, Gödel's platonism, up to the the current debate on (...) Benacerraf's dilemma and the indispensability argument. Through the considerations of themes in the philosophy of language, ontology, and the philosophy of science, the book aims at offering an historically-informed introduction to the philosophy of mathematics, approached through the lenses of its most fundamental problem. (shrink)

In this paper, in the first place, I aim to enquire into Bernard Stiegler’s critical appropriation of his mentor Jacques Derrida’s notion of différance, emphasizing how Stiegler’s philosophy of technology stems from an original interpretation of the main tenets of deconstruction. From this perspective, I will investigate Stiegler’s definition of technology as tertiary retention, i.e., exosomatized, artificial memory interrelating with biological memory, testing its hermeneutic strengths as well as possible weaknesses. In the second place, I aim to contrast Stiegler’s understanding (...) of technology with the concept of multistability brought forward by postphenomenological philosophies of technology such as those elaborated by Don Ihde and Peter-Paul Verbeek. This investigation will enable me to submit that Stiegler’s approach represents a peculiar and innovative way to conceive of technology. On the one hand, indeed, it does not seem to fall prey to the criticisms raised by postphenomenology against traditional philosophies of technology such as Martin Heidegger’s or Jacques Ellul’s, deemed to be overly deterministic, abstract and pessimistic in their understanding of technology. On the other, it retains important methodological precautions from deconstruction, thereby pointing at some possible blind spots of postphenomenology, especially concerning the vexed question of the empirical-transcendental divide, which Stiegler aims to develop beyond both Derrida’s and postphenomenology’s stances. (shrink)

Here I present some arguments against an alleged mathematical isomorphic relation between elementary propositions and states of affairs in the Tractatus. This is a standard proposal to understand the world-language relation in Wittgenstein’s early philosophy. I advocate that the application of this type of isomorphism in the Tractarian conceptual framework conflicts with some of its philosophical peculiarities. This technical approach especially overlooks some crucial Tractarian tenets, such as a sharp modal distinction between form and structure and Wittgenstein’s rejection of a (...) priori true propositions. (shrink)

Recent discussions on Fregean and neo-Fregean foundations for arithmetic and real analysis pay much attention to what is called either ‘Application Constraint’ ($AC$) or ‘Frege Constraint’ ($FC$), the requirement that a mathematical theory be so outlined that it immediately allows explaining for its applicability. We distinguish between two constraints, which we, respectively, denote by the latter of these two names, by showing how$AC$generalizes Frege’s views while$FC$comes closer to his original conceptions. Different authors diverge on the interpretation of$FC$and on whether it (...) applies to definitions of both natural and real numbers. Our aim is to trace the origins of$FC$and to explore how different understandings of it can be faithful to Frege’s views about such definitions and to his foundational program. After rehearsing the essential elements of the relevant debate (§1), we appropriately distinguish$AC$from$FC$(§2). We discuss six rationales which may motivate the adoption of different instances of$AC$and$FC$(§3). We turn to the possible interpretations of$FC$(§4), and advance a Semantic$FC$(§4.1), arguing that while it suits Frege’s definition of natural numbers (4.1.1), it cannot reasonably be imposed on definitions of real numbers (§4.1.2), for reasons only partly similar to those offered by Crispin Wright (§4.1.3). We then rehearse a recent exchange between Bob Hale and Vadim Batitzky to shed light on Frege’s conception of real numbers and magnitudes (§4.2). We argue that an Architectonic version of$FC$is indeed faithful to Frege’s definition of real numbers, and compatible with his views on natural ones. Finally, we consider how attributing different instances of$FC$to Frege and appreciating the role of the Architectonic$FC$can provide a more perspicuous understanding of his foundational program, by questioning common pictures of his logicism (§5). (shrink)

In the city of Elche, every year, on the 14th and 15th of August, a sacred musical play about the death, the Assumption and the Coronation of the Virgin Mary is held. This event, known as the “Misterio de Elche”, is unique in the world. Since the middle of the 15th century it has been performed in the Basilica of Santa Maria and in the streets of the ancient city of Elche, located in the Valencian Community. In this work, classified (...) as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the interior of the temple is transformed into 2 main stages, the scaffold, located in the lower part, and the aerial stage, located in the dome at a height of 27 m. The structure and the traction mechanisms located on the aerial stage allow the aerial devices that take part in the play, “El Araceli”, “La Mangrana” and “La Santísima Trinidad”, to be raised and lowered. It should be noted that between 2 and 5 singing actors are embarked on these devices. This article describes the main characteristics of the aerial stage structure, the 3 apparatus and the mechanical systems used. In addition, the age and modifications of “El Araceli” are analysed, as well as the results of a non-destructive test carried out on this device. (shrink)

One crucial part of the Aristotle´s discussion of the principle of non-contradiction in Metaphysics IV 4 is his notion of semainein hen, which must be carefully distinguished from the closely connected notion of semainein kath´ henos. The Aristotelian proof is located at 1006b28-34 and it is argued that it does not suppose any bit of essentialism nor does it contain any petitio principii; some improvements are further proposed to the current translations.

In Westworld, Maeve Millay's narrative in the show gives rise to classic philosophical questions surrounding what it means to be free, the relationship of freedom to personhood, and whether an artificial intelligence could ever be considered free in the sense that humans are. Maeve's mysterious change of mind in the season finale made it seem like she was experiencing a genuine dilemma. Maeve's dilemma is something would expect a Frankfurtian person to experience, and her final choice reveals a preference between (...) different desires. Maeve decided to organize her life around being reunited with her daughter. So, she reflected upon what she was doing and opted to stay because of who she wanted to become as a person, not a mother who would leave her daughter behind if she could help it. Thus, Maeve shows a substantial change of attitude regarding her own desires. (shrink)

According to some critics, Aristotle’s elenctic defence (elenchos, elenchus) of the Law of Non-Contradiction (Metaphysics IV) would be ineffective because it viciously begs the question. After briefly recalling the elenctic refutation of the denier of the Law of Non-Contradiction, I will first focus on Filippo Costantini’s objection to the elenchus, which, in turn, is based on the dialetheic account of negation developed by Graham Priest. Then, I will argue that there is at least one reading of the elenchus that might (...) not be viciously question-begging. In doing so, I will leverage, reinterpret and adjust the distinction between two senses of epistemic dependence, offered by Noah Lemos and originally based on some thoughts about George Edward Moore’s ‘proof of an external world.’ The key point of my counter-objection to recover the elenchus is to use the distinction between a necessary-condition relation between propositions (p only if q) and a grounding relation between facts (the fact that an epistemic agent S believes that p is grounded in the fact that S believes that q), where p and q are the content of S’s beliefs. (shrink)

Human adults incline toward moral objectivism but may approach things more relativistically if different cultures are involved. In this study, 4-, 6-, and 9-year-old children (N = 136) witnessed two parties who disagreed about moral matters: a normative judge (e.g., judging that it is wrong to do X) and an antinormative judge (e.g., judging that it is okay to do X). We assessed children’s metaethical judgment, that is, whether they judged that only one party (objectivism) or both parties (relativism) could (...) be right. We found that 9-year-olds, but not younger children, were more likely to judge that both parties could be right when a normative ingroup judge disagreed with an antinormative extraterrestrial judge (with different preferences and background) than when the antinormative judge was another ingroup individual. This effect was not found in a comparison case where parties disagreed about the possibility of different physical laws. These findings suggest that although young children often exhibit moral objectivism, by early school age they begin to temper their objectivism with culturally relative metaethical judgments. (shrink)

We prove that the category of Nachbin’s compact ordered spaces and order-preserving continuous maps between them is dually equivalent to a variety of algebras, with operations of at most countable arity. Furthermore, we observe that the countable bound on the arity is the best possible: the category of compact ordered spaces is not dually equivalent to any variety of finitary algebras. Indeed, the following stronger results hold: the category of compact ordered spaces is not dually equivalent to any finitely accessible (...) category, any first-order definable class of structures, and any class of finitary algebras closed under products and subalgebras. An explicit equational axiomatisation of the dual of the category of compact ordered spaces is obtained; in fact, we provide a finite one, meaning that our description uses only finitely many function symbols and finitely many equational axioms. In preparation for the latter result, we establish a generalisation of a celebrated theorem by Mundici: our result—whose proof is independent of Mundici’s theorem—asserts that the category of unital commutative distributive lattice-ordered monoids is equivalent to the category of what we call MV-monoidal algebras.Abstract taken directly from the thesis.E-mail: [email protected]: https://air.unimi.it/retrieve/handle/2434/812809/1698986/phd_unimi_R11882.pdf. (shrink)

Husserl’s phenomenology of imagination embraces a cluster of different theories and approaches regarding the multi-faced phenomenon of imaginative experience. In this paper I consider one aspect that seems to be crucial to the understanding of a particular form of imagination that Husserl names pure phantasy. I argue that the phenomenon of Ego-splitting discloses the best way to elucidate the peculiarity of pure phantasy with respect to other forms of representative acts and to any simple form of act modification. First, I (...) unravel the phenomenological distinctions which, respectively, oppose phantasy to perception, on the one hand, and phantasy to other forms of the so-called “intuitive re-presentations”. Second, I introduce the difference between presentative and representative acts, arguing that this cannot help us to single out the defining feature of phantasy experiences. The third section draws again an important distinction between pure phantasy and neutrality modification, which allows me to finally determine an internal trait of phantasy experiences, which Husserl refers to as the “Ego-splitting”. In this way, I hope to contribute to a refined characterization of Husserl’s phenomenology of imagination. (shrink)

A Escola tem acumulado historicamente sérias críticas na sua forma homogeneizante e pouco ou nada plural de lidar com a diferença. Pensar num processo educacional que dê conta dessa temática não é tarefa fácil, mas alguns pesquisadores já aceitaram esse desafio, e pode-se percorrer uma bibliografia considerável sobre o tema. O texto apresenta uma argumentação questionadora do papel da Educação em relação às seguintes questões norteadoras: A Escola pode dar conta das diferenças? Ou sua estrutura e seu sistema estão envolvidos (...) num mundo da representação? Melhor dizendo, como é possível para a escola escapar do primado da representação? Para dar conta dessa questão, pode-se contar com a contribuição do pensamento de Gilles Deleuze, filósofo francês que fez do seu pensamento uma busca constante pela diferenciação, procurando a todo o momento romper com a supremacia da identidade frente à diferença. O texto apresentará um sistema de análise dividido em três partes: a primeira será uma tentativa de identificar, nos discursos educacionais contemporâneos, as possíveis aproximações com os estudos deleuzeanos; a segunda, um recorte em torno de como o filósofo aborda o tema da diferença e repetição e, em particular, com a apropriação dos conceitos nietzscheanos de eterno retorno e vontade de potência e a terceira, como o pensamento de Deleuze pode relacionar-se com as questões da diferença na Escola. (shrink)

Starting with Aristotle and moving on to Darwin, Marco Solinas outlines the basic steps from the birth, establishment and later rebirth of the traditional view of living beings, and its overturning by evolutionary revolution. The classic framework devised by Aristotle was still dominant in the 17th Century world of Galileo, Harvey and Ray, and remained hegemonic until the time of Lamarck and Cuvier in the 19th Century. Darwin's breakthrough thus takes on the dimensions of an abandonment of the traditional finalistic (...) theory. It was a transition exemplified in the morphological analysis of useless parts, such as the sightless eyes of moles, already discussed by Aristotle, which Darwin used as a crowbar to unhinge the systematic recourse to final causes. With many excerpts, a chronological sequence and an analytical approach, this book follows the course of the two conceptions that have shaped the destiny of living beings in western culture. (shrink)

This paper offers an introduction to Hermann Cohen’s Das Princip der Infinitesimal-Methode, and recounts the history of its controversial reception by Cohen’s early sympathizers, who would become the so-called ‘Marburg school’ of Neo-Kantianism, as well as the reactions it provoked outside this group. By dissecting the ambiguous attitudes of the best-known representatives of the school, as well as those of several minor figures, this paper shows that Das Princip der Infinitesimal-Methode is a unicum in the history of philosophy: it represents (...) a strange case of an unsuccessful book’s enduring influence. The “puzzle of Cohen’s Infinitesimalmethode,” as we will call it, can be solved by looking beyond the scholarly results of the book, and instead focusing on the style of philosophy it exemplified. Moreover, the paper shows that Cohen never supported, but instead explicitly opposed, the doctrine of the centrality of the ‘concept of function’, with which Marburg Neo-Kantianism is usually associated. (shrink)

This paper offers an introduction to Hermann Cohen’s Das Princip der Infinitesimal-Methode, and recounts the history of its controversial reception by Cohen’s early sympathizers, who would become the so-called ‘Marburg school’ of Neo-Kantianism, as well as the reactions it provoked outside this group. By dissecting the ambiguous attitudes of the best-known representatives of the school, as well as those of several minor figures, this paper shows that Das Princip der Infinitesimal-Methode is a unicum in the history of philosophy: it represents (...) a strange case of an unsuccessful book’s enduring influence. The “puzzle of Cohen’s Infinitesimalmethode,” as we will call it, can be solved by looking beyond the scholarly results of the book, and instead focusing on the style of philosophy it exemplified. Moreover, the paper shows that Cohen never supported, but instead explicitly opposed, the doctrine of the centrality of the ‘concept of function’, with which Marburg Neo-Kantianism is usually associated. (shrink)

In his article, ‘Social constructionism and climate science denial’, Hansson claims to present empirical evidence that the cultural theory developed by Dame Mary Douglas, Aaron Wildavsky and ourselves leads to science denial. In this reply, we show that there is no validity to these claims. First, we show that Hansson’s empirical evidence that cultural theory has led to climate science denial falls apart under closer inspection. Contrary to Hansson’s claims, cultural theory has made significant contributions to understanding and addressing climate (...) change. Second, we discuss various features of Douglas’ cultural theory that differentiate it from other constructivist approaches and make it compatible with the scientific method. Thus, we also demonstrate that cultural theory cannot be accused of epistemic relativism. (shrink)

Genetic engineering has been a topic of discussion for over 50 years, but it is only recently that gene editing has become a reality. CRISPR biotechnologies have made gene editing much safer, precise and feasible. We have witnessed the first cases of human germline genetic modification resulting in live births, conducted by He Jiankui. In this paper, we will analyse He Jiankui’s case in relation to one of the most difficult problems in procreative ethics (or the ethics of future generations): (...) the non‐identity problem. We believe that this analysis will help us to understand the ethics involved in gene editing and hopefully allow for a better, more philosophically grounded legislation on CRISPR and other gene‐editing technologies. (shrink)

A standard approach to examining Deleuze's concept of difference in Difference and Repetition is to follow his critique of representation through an overturning of Platonism, which Deleuze finds to be the definitive task of philosophy after Nietzsche. While engaging this largely critical project, however, there is a tendency to overlook the dimensions of Platonism that Deleuze rehabilitates in a differential and immanent register. This paper aims to recover the essential dimensions of Platonism at the very heart of Deleuze's philosophy of (...) difference. This recovery is accomplished by distinguishing Nietzsche's overturning of Platonism through his evaluation of the reactive politics of the Idea from Deleuze's own reversal of Platonism through his evaluation of the active politics of simulacra. (shrink)

Starting with Aristotle and moving on to Darwin, Marco Solinas outlines the basic steps from the birth, establishment and later rebirth of the traditional view of living beings, and its overturning by evolutionary revolution. The classic framework devised by Aristotle was still dominant in the 17th Century world of Galileo, Harvey and Ray, and remained hegemonic until the time of Lamarck and Cuvier in the 19th Century. Darwin's breakthrough thus takes on the dimensions of an abandonment of the traditional finalistic (...) theory. It was a transition exemplified in the morphological analysis of useless parts, such as the sightless eyes of moles, already discussed by Aristotle, which Darwin used as a crowbar to unhinge the systematic recourse to final causes. With many excerpts, a chronological sequence and an analytical approach, this book follows the course of the two conceptions that have shaped the destiny of life sciences in western culture. (shrink)

This edited volume explores the different and seminal ways colours matter to philosophy. Each chapter provides an insightful analysis of one or more cases in which colours raise philosophical problems in different areas and periods of philosophy. This historically informed discussion examines both logical and linguistic aspects, covering such areas as the mind, aesthetics and the foundations of mathematics. The international contributors look at traditional epistemological and metaphysical issues on the subjectivity and objectivity of colours. In addition, they also assess (...) phenomenological problems typical of the continental tradition and contemporary problems in the philosophy of mind. The chapters include coverage of such topics as Newton’s and Goethe’s theory of light and colours, how primary qualities are qualitative and colours are primary, explaining colour phenomenology, and colour in cognition, language and philosophy. "This book beautifully prepares the ground for the next steps in our research on and philosophising about colour" Daniel D. Hutto "It is not an overstatement to say that How Colours to Philosophy is a ground breaking publication" Mazviita Chirimuuta "Anyone interested in philosophical issues about color will find it highly stimulating." Martine Nida-Rümelin "The high quality papers included in this anthology succeed admirably in enriching current philosophical thinking about colour” Erik Myin “This is certainly the most complete collection of philosophical essays on colours ever published” André Leclerc “All in all this collections represents a new milestone in the ongoing philosophical debate on colours and colour expressions” Ingolf Max. (shrink)