This paper investigates the reception and discussion of Jakob von Uexküll’s biological theory by two German thinkers of his time, Helmuth Plessner and Kurt Goldstein. It demonstrates how their bio-philosophical perspectives are on the one hand indebted to Uexküll’s theory and, on the other, critical of its tendency to excessively harmonize the relationship between living beings and their environment. This original critical reading of the _Umweltlehre_ is rooted in ambiguities within Uexküll’s own thought - between a dynamic conception of the (...) organism-environment relationship and the idea of "conformity to a plan" -,, which is here examined in the second section. In the third and fourth sections we will then focus on Plessner and Goldstein respectively, demonstrating how for these two authors the harmony between organism and environment is not an original state, but only reveals itself against the background of a tension; as such, it can only be partial, unstable and always changing. The two thinkers avoid the rigid alternative between Darwin’s concept of adaptation (_Anpassung_) and Uexküll’s “fitting into” (_Einpassung_) by theorizing the ideal state of the relationship between organism and environment in terms of “adequacy” (_Adäquatheit_) and “adaptability” (_Adaptiertheit_). Between organism and environment there is neither absolute separation nor perfect harmony, but rather a gap which can never be definitively fixed. (shrink)

Il saggio ricostruisce lo scontro sull’emancipazione negli Stati Uniti dei decenni precedenti la Guerra Civile, concentrandosi sul discorso dell’economia politica del Nord e in particolare sugli scritti di Henry Charles Carey (1793-1879). Obiettivo del saggio è mostrare come, tra anni Trenta e Cinquanta, gli economisti del Nord, contro l’abolizionismo radicale, elaborino una visione graduale e limitata dell’emancipazione, nel tentativo di garantire, anche dopo la fine della schiavitù, la continuità del comando sul lavoro nero nel Sud e la persistenza delle gerarchie (...) razziali e di classe del capitalismo americano. Il saggio evidenzia inoltre come questa visione dell’emancipazione, pur influenzando il Partito Repubblicano e l’amministrazione Lincoln, venga sconfitta dal general strike degli schiavi durante la Guerra Civile. (shrink)

In margine a una raccolta di scritti di Lukács contro lo stalinismo, che prende nome da una importante intervista del 1971, inedita in italiano. Dal 1930 in poi è presente nella produzione del filosofo ungherese la lotta per la «democratizzazione». Il tema della «trasformazione del lavoro in lavoro socialista». La radicale alterità di Lukács allo stalinismo.

Writing in his pamphlet, De viris illustribus, St. Jerome informs us that Fortunatianus, bishop of Aquileia, wrote a Commentary on the Gospels. However, until a few years ago, we knew only a few fragments of this work. Now, thanks to the scholar Lukas Dorfbauer and to the manuscript Köln – D, we have the complete work. This paper presents this work, pending a critical edition, in which the Author dwells on the text of the Gospel of Matthew, capturing Fortunatianus’s interpretation (...) and his references to the Church. To this are added some thoughts about the Church found in the commentaries of other Church Fathers of the fourth century. (shrink)

La querelle sugli universali si presenta come un dibattito prevalentemente ontologico che rimette in gioco l'idea stessa di sostanza ed è un realismo ontologico che non mette per forza in discussione ogni cosa, ma contempla tutta la realtà delle specie e dei generi naturali della sostanza. Gli uomini sono legati tra di loro per convenientia e questo come una semplice similitudine essenziale tra di loro e le loro essenze individuali, secondo la linea espressa da Giovanni di Pietro Olivi , Riccardo (...) di Mediavilla , Vitale di Four , o come parte di una realtà comune, come espresso dall'altra linea rappresentata da Matteo d'Acquasparta . Anche se la loro posizione può essere definita concettualista, la loro teoria della conoscenza è ontologicamente neutra, dal momento che la ragione non consente di stabilire precisamente la natura dell'universale. (shrink)

Nella teologia trinitaria di Enrico di Gand, e in particolare nell'uso della nozione di verbum mentis, confluiscono ad avviso dell'A. tre diverse tradizioni che vengono rielaborate in un sistema coerente dal maestro agostiniano. La prima, quella cui aderiscono Tommaso e Bonaventura, insiste sul fatto che le persone sono distinte tra loro proprie per mezzo di relazioni opposte. La seconda, rappresentata da Riccardo di san Vittore, che attribuisce la differenza tra le persone al loro diverso modo di emanazione e di origine. (...) La terza che riprende il modello psicologico della trinità di Agostino ed in particolare l'immagine del Figlio come Verbum. Enrico incorpora i diversi elementi di queste tradizioni in modo originale e sostiene che il Figlio è distinto dalle altre due persone in base al diverso modo di emanazione , ma che è diverso dal Padre e dallo Spirito Santo anche perché è Verbum. L'A. sottolinea la notevole influenza esercitata da Bonaventura sul pensiero trinitario di Enrico, anche dal punto di vista della terminologia utilizzata e ipotizza che ciò sia dovuto al ruolo di «propaganda» delle dottrine bonaventuriane svolto da Ruggero Marston e Matteo d'Aquasparta. (shrink)

The theory of biological autonomy provides a naturalized characterization of agency, understood as a general biological phenomenon that extends beyond the domain of intentionality and causation by mental states. Agency refers to the capacity of autonomous living beings (roughly speaking: organisms) to purposively and functionally control the interactions with the environment, and to adaptively modulate their own self-determining organization and behavior so as to maintain their own existence, construed as their intrinsic telos. We mention some crucial strengths of the autonomist (...) conception of agency, and some interesting challenges that it faces. Among the latter, we focus on the intertwined relationships between agency and evolution, as well as on the transition between agency and cognition. (shrink)

We present recent results on the model companions of set theory, placing them in the context of a current debate in the philosophy of mathematics. We start by describing the dependence of the notion of model companionship on the signature, and then we analyze this dependence in the specific case of set theory. We argue that the most natural model companions of set theory describe (as the signature in which we axiomatize set theory varies) theories of $H_{\kappa ^+}$, as $\kappa (...) $ ranges among the infinite cardinals. We also single out $2^{\aleph _0}=\aleph _2$ as the unique solution of the continuum problem which can (and does) belong to some model companion of set theory (enriched with large cardinal axioms). While doing so we bring to light that set theory enriched by large cardinal axioms in the range of supercompactness has as its model companion (with respect to its first order axiomatization in certain natural signatures) the theory of $H_{\aleph _2}$ as given by a strong form of Woodin’s axiom $(*)$ (which holds assuming $\mathsf {MM}^{++}$ ). Finally this model-theoretic approach to set-theoretic validities is explained and justified in terms of a form of maximality inspired by Hilbert’s axiom of completeness. (shrink)

The Genotype-Phenotype (G-P) distinction was proposed in the context of Mendelian genetics, in the wake of late 19th century studies about heredity. In this paper, we provide a conceptual analysis that highlights that the G-P distinction was grounded on three pillars: observability, transmissibility, and causality. Originally, the genotype is the non-observable and transmissible cause of the phenotype, which is its observable and non-transmissible effect. We argue that the current developments of biology have called the validity of such pillars into question. (...) First, molecular biology has unveiled the putative material substrate of the genotype (qua DNA), making it an observable object. Second, numerous findings on nongenetic heredity suggest that some phenotypic traits can be directly transmitted. Third, recent organicist approaches to biological phenomena have emphasized the reciprocal causality between parts of a biological system, which notably applies to the relations between genotypes and phenotypes. As a consequence, we submit that the G-P distinction has lost its general validity, although it can still apply to specific situations. This calls for forging new frameworks and concepts to better describe heredity and development. (shrink)

In this paper, we will survey the different uses of the term algorithm in contemporary legal practice. We will argue that the concept of algorithm currently exhibits a substantial degree of open texture, co-determined by the open texture of the concept of algorithm itself and by the open texture inherent to legal discourse. We will substantiate our argument by virtue of a case study, in which we analyze a recent jurisprudential case where the first and second-degree judges have carved-out contrasting (...) notions of algorithm. We will see that, thanks to our analysis of the open texture of the notion of algorithm in legal language, we can make sense of the different decisions taken by the judges as different contextually-determined sharpenings of the concept of algorithm. Finally, we will draw some general conclusions concerning the use of technical terms in legal instruments that address new technologies, such as the EU AI Act. (shrink)

Boffa non-well-founded set theory allows for several distinct sets equal to their respective singletons, the so-called ‘Quine atoms’. Rieger contends that this theory cannot be a faithful description of set-theoretic reality. He argues that, even after granting that there are non-well-founded sets, ‘the extensional nature of sets’ precludes numerically distinct Quine atoms. In this paper we uncover important similarities between Rieger’s argument and how non-rigid structures are conceived within mathematical structuralism. This opens the way for an objection against Rieger, whilst (...) affording the theoretical resources for a defence of Boffa set theory as a faithful description of set-theoretic reality. (shrink)

IntroductionThis paper’s argument can be stated simply: first, the primary unacknowledged cause of modern warfare (that is, since the Great War of 1914–18) is neither “nationalism” nor “imperialism” (to name two popular bogeymen) but modern rationality itself, specifically the epistemological revolution embodied in the philosophy of the Prussian philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724–1804); second, the current Ukraine War is a case in point, one that interacts with contemporary transformations in Western culture (especially the abolishment of a sense of the objective reality (...) and meaning of male and female sexual differentiation) in ways that reveal the current Russia–Ukraine War as reprising—if it does not merely continue—the ideational conflict at the heart of the Great War, a conflict that emerges for the reasons set forth as the Ur-Krieg, or “source war,” of the historical era we inhabit. In making this argument, this paper will take its inspiration from the writings of the little-known Russian philosopher Vladimir Ern (1882–1917), and for this reason, we begin in a public lecture hall in Moscow in 1914. (shrink)

In this paper we suggest that discussions about the identity of recipes should be based on a distinction between four categories of recipes. The central feature that we use to single out a category is the type of relationship that a recipe bears to its author. The first category comprises “open recipes” like wine, pizza, or salad, which come in taxonomic layers and are structurally open for new authors to reshape them. The second category comprises “institutional recipes,” namely those whose (...) authors typically form consortium-like institutions, such as Champagne wines or Quebec maple syrup. The third category comprises “brand recipes” like Coca-Cola, Nutella, or Big Mac, whose names are elusive semantic devices and connote rather than denote recipes. Finally, the fourth category comprises “flagship recipes,” which include all the personal renditions of a recipe whose identity is strongly bound to individual authors; we suggest that their semantics follows a causal-reference model of proper names. Besides its theoretical value, the classification we put forward is offered as a ground for settling legal disputes about recipes, evaluating charges of cultural appropriation that concern recipes, and guiding consumers, producers, and policy makers when they think about foods and diets. (shrink)

This paper explores whether people recognise inconsistency in their own and others’ judgments when they are explicitly prompted to review them. It reports two pre-registered experimental online studies with samples broadly representative of the UK population (N = 814 and N = 1,623). In Study 1, people are more likely to recognise inconsistency in others’ moral (and non-moral) judgments than in their own (positive OTHER-OWN difference). Study 2 replicates this finding and test three explanations of the observed effect offered by (...) previous literature: motivated reasoning, selective cognitive effort, and limited insight into others’ reasoning. It finds that the effect is not moderated by social accountability, which implies that if there is motivated reasoning at play, it must operate outside of a person’s awareness. While a small part of the effect is mediated by the time spent on the consistency assessment task (a proxy for cognitive effort), the study finds no support for the limited insight hypothesis. The core finding that people are better at recognizing inconsistency in others’ moral judgments aligns with interactionist accounts of reasoning; more research is needed to fully uncover the cognitive mechanisms behind this effect. (shrink)

Decidability of monadic first-order classical logic was established by Löwenheim in 1915. The proof made use of a semantic argument and a purely syntactic proof has never been provided. In the present paper we introduce a syntactic proof of decidability of monadic first-order logic in innex normal form which exploits G3-style sequent calculi. In particular, we introduce a cut- and contraction-free calculus having a (complexity-optimal) terminating proof-search procedure. We also show that this logic can be faithfully embedded in the modal (...) logic T. (shrink)

Philosophers of science today by and large reject the cataclysmic and irrational interpretation of the scientific enterprise claimed by Kuhn. Many computational models have been implemented to rationally study the conceptual change in science. In this recent tradition a key role is played by the concept of abduction as a mechanism by which new explanatory hypotheses are introduced. Nevertheless some problems in describing the most interesting abductive issues rise from the classical computational approach. It describes a cognitive process (and so (...) abduction) by the manipulation of internal symbolic representations of external world. This view assumes a discrete set of representations fixed in discrete time jumps, and cannot adequately account for the issue of anticipation and causation of a new hypothesis. An integration of the traditional computational view with some ideas developed inside the so-called dynamical approach can suggest some important insights. The concept of attractor is very significant. It permits a description of the abductive generation of new hypotheses in terms of a catastrophic rearrangement of the parameters responsible for the behavior of the system. (shrink)

How is time framed in corporate social responsibility (CSR) talk? The literature mostly fails to analyze how multiple CSR activities are framed from a temporal perspective. Moreover, those researchers who undertake temporal framing tend to overlook the role of home-country cultural characteristics. Using a mixed-method analysis of 2,720 CSR reports from developing country companies, we show that CSR talk is mostly framed in the future tense when firms communicate complex human rights issues such as slavery or child labor, while the (...) past and present tenses are more frequent when they report on philanthropy and other cause-related activities. We find that these effects are stronger when firms are from countries characterized by greater uncertainty avoidance. We contribute to the CSR communication literature by showing that temporal references in CSR talk tend to differ, depending on the company-level control of CSR activities, and by highlighting uncertainty avoidance’s role as a boundary condition for aspirational talk’s performativity. (shrink)

Fichte’s Doctrine of Science of 1811 offers a sound model for explaining the conditions of semantics in its connection with the idea of freedom. Following Wolfram Hogrebe’s suggestion that the principle of contradiction works as an archaeological semantic postulate, i.e., is the implicit condition for any sentence to be meaningful, we argue that in Fichte’s definition of the phenomenon we find such a semantic postulate at a higher genetic level than the principle of contradiction indicated by Hogrebe. Moreover, the Doctrine (...) of Science of 1811 offers an analysis of the steps through which this phenomenon displays itself – i.e. Vermögen, als, Soll – which can be understood as the conditions for establishing a meaningful sentence.Fichtes Wissenschaftslehre 1811 kann uns einen soliden Modell zur Erklärung der Entstheung von Semantik anbieten. Mein Beitrag fangt mit der Darstellung Wolfram Hogrebes Hypothese an, dass der Satz vom Widerspruch als archäologisches Bedeutungspostulat fungiert, d.h. als implizite Bedingung der Möglichkeit jeglicher bedeutenden Äußerung. Ausgehend dieser Idee Hogrebes, hier schlage ich vor, dass man im Fichtes Begriffe der Erscheinung ein genetisch höheres archäologisches Bedeutungspostulat als der Satz vom Widerspruch finden kann. Daraufhin bietet die Wissenschaftslehre 1811 einen Einsicht in alle Schritte, wodurch die Erscheinung sich entfaltet – Vermögen, Durch, Als, Soll – die wir als die entsprechende Bedingungen für die Herstellung eines bedeutungsvollen Satzes verstehen können. (shrink)

Die Absicht des vorliegenden Buches ist es, das Geflecht der unterschiedlichen Fragestellungen, die mit dem Stichwort „Fichte und seine Zeit“ verbunden sind, in Betracht zu ziehen und ihre internen Zusammenhänge und ihre Geschlossenheit deutlich zu machen. The intention of this book is to take the network of different issues that are associated with the main theme " Fichte and his time" into consideration and make their internal relationships and their closeness significantly.

『서양윤리학에서 본 유학(儒學)』은 저자가 도덕원리, 도덕문제, 도덕판단 등 도덕에 대한 철학적 성찰과 도덕의 보편적 원리를 탐구해 저술한 『윤리학, 그 주제와 논점』을 근거로 서양윤리와 유가윤리를 비교윤리의 관점에서 다룬 책이다. 오늘날 한국사회는 급속한 경제 성장과 물질문명의 고도화에 따른 ‘윤리의식의 부재’가 사회적으로 큰 문제가 되고 있다. 그런데 우선 생각해볼 것은 과연 한국사회에 ‘윤리의식’에 대한 보편적이고 공통된 이해가 공존하는가이다. 저자는 이 점에 주목하여 ‘한국의 보편윤리’를 모색하는 과정으로서 이 책을 저술하였다. 전통적 윤리는 오늘의 한국사회에서 더 이상 보편적 도덕이념으로 수용되지 않는다. 그렇다고 해서 현재 서양사회의 지배적인 (...) 윤리관인 공리주의윤리를 그대로 적용하기도 어렵다. 정서적으로 한국사회는 여전히 전통적인 유가윤리를 선호하기 때문이다. 이런 문제의식에서 출발한 이 책은 유가윤리와 서양윤리의 비교를 통해서 그 해답을 얻고자 하였다. 이 책을 통해 한국사상, 한국문화를 설명할 수 있고 한국사회에 작동될 수 있는 ‘한국윤리’의 이론적 틀이 마련되기를 기대한다. (shrink)

Scientific literacy is an essential aspect of an undergraduate education. Recipes for Science responds to this need by providing an accessible introduction to the nature of science and scientific methods appropriate for any beginning college student. The book is adaptable to a wide variety of different courses, such as introductions to scientific reasoning, methods courses in scientific disciplines, science education, and philosophy of science. -/- Recipes for Science ​​was first published in 2018, and a thoroughly revised second edition was published (...) in 2024. Special features include contemporary and historical case studies from many fields of physical, life, and social sciences; visual aids to clarify and illustrate ideas; text boxes to explore related topics; plenty of exercises to support student recall and application of concepts; suggestions for further readings at the end of each chapter; a glossary with helpful definitions of key terms; and a companion website with course syllabi, PowerPoint presentations, additional exercises, and original short videos on key topics. (shrink)

Dieser Band ist in vier Teile gegliedert, die dem theoretischen, praktischen und politischen Gedanken des Philosophen gewidmet sind. Diesen folgen im vierten Teil Beiträge, die Fichtes philosophische Ansätze in den Dialog mit gegenwärtigen Autoren und Fragen der Philosophie bringen.

Die 38 im Jahre 1811 vorgetragen Vorlesungen über die Wissenschaftslehre sind eine vollkommene und besonders gut artikulierte Darstellung Fichtes Systems in der Zeit seiner Tätigkeit an der neu gegründeten Universität zu Berlin. Der Öffentlichkeit sind sie erst 1999 bekannt geworden, als sie in der_J. G. Fichte Gesamtausgabe_ der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften aufgenommen wurden, denn bis dahin wurden sie von den jeweiligen Editoren des Fichte-Nachlasses nie erwähnt. Fichte nimmt in dieser Darstellung seines Systems gegen beide Formen des Nihilismus Stellung - (...) den theoretischen sowie den mit diesem zusammenhängenden praktischen. Um seine systematische Position formulieren und vertreten zu können, setzt er sich vor allem mit Spinoza und Kant nochmals auseinander. Spinoza stellt nämlich nach Fichte die Grundfrage der Philosophie, wie neben dem Sein auch ein Dasein denkbar sein kann, während Kant ihm im Begriff der Erscheinung den Weg zu ihrer Lösung aufzeigt. Aber zwei weitere Probleme ergeben sich für Fichte aus der kritischen Philosophie Kants: wie kann man das Bewußtsein beschreiben, wenn man sich nicht aus seinem Zirkel bewegen kann, und wie kann man die in dieser Beschreibung faktisch entdeckte Ursprünglichkeit der Synthesis rechtfertigen? Für Fichte hatte der Begründer der Transzendentalphilosophie die grundlegende synthetische Tätigkeit des Bewußtseins nur noch als ein Faktum des Bewußtseins angenommen. Der Beweis ihrer Möglichkeit ist nach Fichte letztlich nur zu führen, indem man sie auf eine Erscheinungsform der Freiheit als Inbegriff Gottes zurückführt. Diesen Beweisgang versteht nun Fichte als Vervollständigung des transzendentalphilosophischen Programms und zugleich als Mittel, um aus dem Wissen in die Weisheit überzugehen. (shrink)

ABSTRACT We review Danielle Macbeth's book Realizing Reason, published by Oxford University Press in 2014. This extensive book is composed by nine chapters in which Macbeth critically presents the development of mathematical practices in the Western world - from its founding in Ancient Greece's diagrammatic practices to the apogee of mathematical logic in the nineteenth and twentieth-centuries - while offering a revaluation of its present stage by means of a reconsideration of Gottlob Frege's philosophical contributions. In this review, we present (...) a summary of each chapter's contents and make general considerations about them. (shrink)

The present paper discusses different approaches to metaphysics and defends a specific, non-deflationary approach that nevertheless qualifies as scientifically-grounded and, consequently, as acceptable from the naturalistic viewpoint. By critically assessing some recent work on science and metaphysics, we argue that such a sophisticated form of naturalism, which preserves the autonomy of metaphysics as an a priori enterprise yet pays due attention to the indications coming from our best science, is not only workable but recommended.