The objective structured clinical examination is a method for assessment clinical competencies and skills. However, there is a need to improve its design in psychology programs. The aim of this study was to analyze the effect of the different scenario's presentation order with different complexity/difficulty on the autonomic stress response of undergraduate students undergoing a Psychology OSCE. A total of 32 students of Psychology Bachelor's Degree were randomly selected and assigned to two OSCE scenarios of different complexity. While undergoing the (...) scenarios, participants heart rate variability was analyzed as an indicator of participant's stress autonomic response. Results indicate that the order of presentation of different complexity/difficulty scenarios affects the autonomic stress response of undergraduate Psychology students undergoing an OSCE. Students who underwent the high-complexity scenario first, reported significantly higher autonomic stress response than students who began the OSCE with the low-complexity scenario. Highly complex or difficult scenarios require good executive functions or cognitive control, very sensitive to autonomic stress responses. Therefore, OSCE design will benefit from placing easy scenarios first. (shrink)

Behavioral interventions have shown promising neuroprotective effects, but the cascade of molecular, brain and behavioral changes involved in these benefits remains poorly understood. Projecte Moviment is a 12-week multi-domain, single-blind, proof-of-concept randomized controlled trial examining the cognitive effect and underlying mechanisms of an aerobic exercise, computerized cognitive training and a combined groups compared to a waitlist control group. Adherence was > 80% for 82/109 participants recruited. In this study we report intervention-related changes in plasma biomarkers and structural-MRI and how they (...) related to changes in physical activity and individual variables and their potential role as mediators in the cognitive changes. Our results show that although there were no significant changes in molecular biomarker concentrations in any intervention group, changes in ICAM-1 and SDF1-α were negatively associated with changes in physical activity outcomes in AE and COMB groups. Brain volume changes were found in the CCT showing a significant increase in precuneus volume. Sex moderated the brain volume change in the AE and COMB groups, suggesting that men may benefit more than women. Changes in molecular biomarkers and brain volumes did not significantly mediate the cognitive-related benefits found previously for any group. This study shows crucial initial molecular and brain volume changes related to lifestyle interventions at early stages and highlights the value of examining activity parameters, individual difference characteristics and using a multi-level analysis approach to address these questions. (shrink)

Este trabajo es el resultado de una investigación que se hizo con estudiantes del grado undécimo bachillerato del colegio rural Pozo Nutrias Dos, del municipio de San Vicente del Chucuri, del departamento de Santander, Colombia. Consistió en indagar por cómo una propuesta pedagógica favorece la lectura crítica de textos filosóficos en la institución educativa. En ese sentido para su desarrollo se planteó como objetivo general el caracterizar una propuesta pedagógica para la lectura crítica de textos filosóficos en la institución, (...) junto con los objetivos específicos de identificar las prácticas lectoras de los estudiantes de undécimo en la asignatura de Filosofía, indagar por el concepto que tienen de lectura crítica estudiantes del grado undécimo y los docentes de Lenguaje de la institución y por último, caracterizar los textos filosóficos que permiten el accionar de una propuesta pedagógica frente a la lectura crítica de textos filosóficos en el aula. En cuanto al aspecto metodológico se recurre al paradigma cualitativo y al diseño de investigación acción en educación dentro del contexto de la maestría en Pedagogía ofertada por la UIS. (shrink)

Wittgenstein defiende que los problemas filosóficos son ilegítimos. Sin embargo, no resulta del todo claro qué se entiende en general por problema filosófico, cuál es, pues, su naturaleza. El presente artículo intenta elucidar la observación de Wittgenstein que sostiene que la forma de un problema filosófico se puede presentar con la expresión “Yo no sé salir del atolladero” (IF § 123). En el artículo se elige, a manera de ejemplo, el escándalo kantiano, que demanda que demostremos con el uso de (...) la razón que la proposición “hay objetos físicos” es verdadera. Sin renunciar al ejemplo, se explora en qué sentido la expresión de Wittgenstein caracteriza en buena medida la naturaleza misma de la dificultad filosófica. En el ejercicio se atienden recomendaciones formales del Tractatus, terapias desplegadas en Sobre la Certeza y el recurso de distinguir entre sentido primario y sentido secundario de una expresión insinuado en las Investigaciones Filosóficas. (shrink)

What is depiction? This is a venerable question that has received many different answers throughout the whole history of philosophy, especially in contemporary times. A Syncretistic Theory of Depiction elaborates a new account on this matter by providing a theory of depiction that tries to combine the merits of the previous theories while dropping their defects. It is argued that a picture is a representation in a pictorial or figurative mode, and its 'figurativity' is given by a special perception, perceiving-in, (...) whose nature is reconceived. Such a perception inter alia grasps some properties which the picture's vehicle has in common with what is perceived in it; by so doing, that perception provides the picture with a figurative content. In contrast, the picture's representational value, its subject or its pictorial content, is given by a conventionally or causally based selection out of that figurative content. (shrink)

Some people have stressed that there is a close analogy between meaning experiences, i.e., experiences as of understanding concerning linguistic expressions, and seeing-in experiences, i.e., pictorial experiences of discerning a certain item – what a certain picture presents, viz. the picture’s subject – in another item – the picture’s vehicle, the picture’s physical basis. Both can be seen as fusion experiences, in the minimal sense that they are experiential wholes made up of different aspects. Actually, two important similarities between such (...) experiences may lead one to think that they are experiences of the same type. In this paper, however, I will try to show that notwithstanding such similarities, these experiences are typologically different. For there are two dissimilarities between such experiences that are more relevant on this typological concern than their similarities. Indeed, unlike meaning experiences, seeing-in experiences are first of all recognitional experiences of a sort that makes them perceptual experiences as well. Moreover, again unlike meaning experiences, seeing-in experiences are fusion experiences in the substantial sense that the experiential whole is more than the sum of its experiential parts taken in isolation, for when such parts figure in that whole, they interact with each other. In a nutshell, unlike meaning experiences, seeing-in experiences are proper fusion experiences. (shrink)

In this paper, I want to deal with the problem of how to find an adequate context of interpretation for indexical sentences that enables one to account for the intuitive truth-conditional content which some apparently puzzling indexical sentences like “I am not here now” as well as other such sentences contextually have. In this respect, I will pursue a fictionalist line. This line allows for shifts in interpretation contexts and urges that such shifts are governed by pretense, which has to (...) be understood in terms of socially shared make-believe games. By appealing to pretense so conceived, I will show that the fictionalist perspective is halfway between an intentionalist perspective, according to which the above indexical sentences have to be interpreted in a shifted intended context, (this perspective is primarily defined by Predelli 1998, Analysis 58, 107; Mind and Language 13, 400) and a conventionalist perspective, according to which indexical reference shifts in accordance with a conventional setting. (For this perspective, cf. Corazza et al. 2002, Philosophical Studies 107, See also Corazza 2004, Reflecting the Mind: Indexicality and Quasi-Indexicality, Oxford University Press). Finally, I will claim that the fictionalist analysis of cases of non-ordinary uses of indexicals like “here” and “now” can be retained in face of a new alternative analysis of those cases in terms of an ‘unbound anaphora’ – theory (cf. Corazza 2004, Synthese 138, 145). (shrink)

In this essay, I defend a Wollheimian account of a twofold picture perception. While I agree with Wollheim’s objectors that a picture involves three layers that qualify a picture in its complexity -- its vehicle, what is seen in it, and its subject --, I argue that the third layer does not involve perception, even indirectly: what is seen in a picture constrains its subject to be a subject of a certain kind, yet it does not force the latter to (...) be pictorially perceived, not even indirectly. So, even if a picture is three-layered, pictorial experience remains a twofold experience, as Wollheim claimed. Neither the proponents of threefoldness nor Wollheim himself, however, have convincingly explained how the experience really is a perceptual experience. My Wollheimian account thus aims to reconceive the pictorial experience in properly perceptual terms. (shrink)

El objetivo de este artículo es clarificar la noción de «vida auténtica» tal y como es descrita por Joan Roura-Parella en su última obra Tema y variaciones de la personalidad (1950). Por «vida auténtica» se entiende una vida autogobernada, que permite al individuo realizar su propia singularidad y, por tanto, preservar su autonomía y dignidad como persona. Una vida dominada por factores ajenos al propio individuo, sean cuales sean éstos, es una vida alienada, que no permite el desarrollo del individuo (...) en tanto la persona que es. Se señala la relevancia filosófica de la propuesta de Roura-Parella, que es la de ofrecer una justificación no-evidencial para una forma de vida cristiana, agapística. De acuerdo con Roura-Parella, una forma de vida basada en la entrega amorosa para con el prójimo está justificada en tanto que ésta es el resultado último de nuestra propia condición natural, constituyendo así un acto de afirmación personal y siendo, por tanto, condición necesaria para gozar de una vida auténtica — «la vida alcanza su hondo sentido al salirse de sí misma para darse a los demás» (Roura-Parella, Tema y variaciones de la personalidad, 1950, p. 229). Se señalan las diferencias y semejanzas de la propuesta de Roura-Parella con respecto a las de Miguel de Unamuno y Joaquim Xirau, autores que fueron cercanos a Roura-Parella y quienes, aunque partiendo de razonamientos distintos a los de Roura-Parella, también concibieron la entrega amorosa para con el prójimo como un acto de afirmación personal. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to argue against the received view among Unamuno scholars that Miguel de Unamuno was defending a sort of pragmatic argument for religious faith and that his notion of religious faith as “querer creer” (“wanting to believe”) is to be identified with William James’s “the will to believe”. As I will show in this paper, one of the aspects that makes Unamuno’s reasoning philosophically relevant is his ability to formulate a non-pragmatist defense of religious faith (...) without a prior commitment to the truth of any religious or theological statement and grounded in our longing for an endless existence through God’s Salvation. (shrink)

In this paper, I will first of all claim that once one takes proper names as indexicals of a particular sort, indexinames for short, one may account for some tensions that affect our desiderata regarding the use of such names in sentences directly or indirectly involving fiction. According to my proposal, a proper name “N.N.” is an indexical whose character is roughly expressed by the description “the individual called ‘N.N.’ (in context)”, where this description means “the individual one’s interlocutor’s attention (...) is called to by means of ‘N.N.’ (in context)”. This character is a partial function that maps narrow contexts onto referents. Such contexts are enriched narrow contexts, for they also include an ‘acquisition’ parameter, i.e., a parameter filled by a naming practice constituted by a dubbing, which consists in calling via the name one’s interlocutor’s attention to something (if any), and usually also by a certain transmission chain. I will also claim that such a proposal works independently of one’s ontological stance on fictional entities, that is, independently of whether one believes either that there are or that there are no such entities. Moreover, I will claim that such a proposal is better than similar indexicalist proposals such as the one put forward by Tiedke (2011), Finally, I will try to show how this proposal can deal with some objections one may raise against an indexicalist treatment of proper names. (shrink)

In this paper I will first contend that semantically based arguments in favour of or against problematic entities—like those provided, respectively, in a realist Meinongian and in an antirealist Russellian camp—are ultimately inconclusive. Indeed, only genuinely ontological arguments, specifically addressed to prove (or to reject) the existence of entities of a definite kind, suit the purpose. Thus, I will sketch an argument intended to show that there really are entities of an apparently specific kind, i.e. _intentionalia_, broadly conceived as things (...) that may actually exist as well as actually not exist. Finally, I will try to explain why that argument proves the existence of only some sorts of _intentionalia_, by showing how this is related to the fact that, as some have correctly maintained, _intentionalia_ have no intrinsic nature. (shrink)

This book provides both a historical analysis of the philosophical problem of individuation, and a new trajectory in its treatment. Drawing on the work of Gilles Deleuze, as well as C.S. Peirce and the lesser-known Gilbert Simondon, Alberto Toscano takes the problem of individuation, as reconfigured by Kant and Nietzsche, into the realm of modernity, providing a unique and vibrant contribution to contemporary debates in European philosophy.

In this paper I want to claim, first, that despite close similarities, noneism and Crane’s psychological reductionism are different ontological doctrines. For unlike the latter, the former is ontologically committed to objects that are nonentities. Once one splits ontological from existential commitment, this claim, I guess, is rather uncontroversial. Second, however, I want to claim something more controversial; namely, that this ontological interpretation of noneism naturally makes noneism be nonstandardly read as a form of allism, to be however appropriately distinguished (...) from Quinean allism in terms of the different scope of the overall ontological domain on which the only particular/existential quantifier that there is ranges. This may orient a noneist towards a syncretistic view of existence, according to which, appearances notwithstanding, existence as a whole is captured both by means of second-order and by means of first-order related notions. (shrink)

El objetivo de este artículo es explorar la manera en que Joaquim Xirau y Miguel de Unamuno concibieron el amor. A pesar de que no hay motivos suficientes para concluir una influencia directa y filosóficamente relevante de Unamuno en la obra de Xirau, sí podemos concluir que la forma en que ambos autores concibieron el amor guarda ciertas similitudes. Así, ambos coinciden en concebir la entrega amorosa como un ejercicio de afirmación individual que trae consigo un incremento de la propia (...) singularidad. También, tanto Unamuno como Xirau conciben la entrega amorosa como un acto que, aun surgiendo del propio individuo y no de como es de hecho el mundo, personifica aquello amado, dejando de ser así visto como un mero objeto y mostrándose bajo una forma personal. Y ambos, aunque de un modo distinto, hacen del relato bíblico acerca de la vida y Resurrección de Cristo un aspecto central de sus maneras de entender el amor. (shrink)

In his recent book on the philosophy of mind, Tim Crane has maintained that intentional objects are to be conceived as schematic entities, having no particular intrinsic nature. I take this metaphysical thesis as fundamentally correct. Yet in this paper I want to cast some doubts on whether this thesis prevents intentionalia, especially nonexistent ones, from belonging to the general inventory of what there is, as Crane seems to think. If my doubts are grounded, Crane’s treatment of intentionalia may further (...) be freed from a certain tension that seems to affect it, namely the fact that he appeals to nonexistent intentionalia in order to individuate intentional states and at the same time he attempts at dispensing with them. (shrink)

This book provides a coherent and systematic analysis of Miguel de Unamuno’s notion of religious faith and the reasoning he offers in defense of it. Unamuno developed a non-cognitivist Christian conception of religious faith, defending it as being something which we are all naturally lead to, given our (alleged) most basic and natural inclination to seek an endless existence. Illuminating the philosophical relevance this conception still has to contemporary philosophy of religion, Oya draws connections with current non-cognitivist notions of religious (...) faith in general, and with contemporary religious fictionalist positions more particularly. -/- The book includes a biographical introduction to Miguel de Unamuno, as well as lucid and clear analyses of his notions of the ‘tragic feeling of life’, his epistemological paradigm, and his naturally founded religious fictionalism. Revealing links to current debates, Oya shows how the works of Unamuno are still relevant and enriching today. (shrink)

In the philosophy of fiction, a majority view is continuism, i.e., the thesis that ordinary names, or genuine singular terms in general, directly refer to ordinary real individuals in fiction-involving sentences – e.g. “Napoleon” in the sentences that constitute the text of Tolstoy’s War and Peace. But there is also a minority view, exceptionalism, which is the thesis that such terms change their semantic value in such sentences, either by directly referring to fictional surrogates of those individuals – what we (...) may call exceptional hyperrealism about fictional characters – or by acquiring a semantic value that turns them into nonreferential terms, involving no ontological commitment to such characters – exceptional irrealism about fictional characters. In this paper, first of all, I want to support hybrid exceptionalism, according to which both parties are partly right and partly wrong. In the fictional use of fiction-involving sentences, those terms directly refer to ordinary real individuals, as continuists claim, while both in the internal and the external metafictional use of fiction-involving sentences, such terms change their semantic value, as exceptionalists claim. (By contrast, for pure exceptionalists such terms either always refer to fictional surrogates or are nonreferring on all such uses.) Moreover, I will argue that hybrid exceptional hyperrealism must be preferred to hybrid exceptional irrealism: in the latter uses, I claim, such terms directly refer to fictional surrogates. (shrink)

The aim of this chapter is to analyse the concept of love —understood in the broad and Christian-inspired sense of love as agape-charis love— in relation to the animes Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z. I first comment on the character of Piccolo —and how his friendship with Son Gohan— leads to him losing all his original villainous traits. I argue that the evolution of the character of Piccolo through his friendship with Son Gohan illustrates the philosophical claim that a (...) loving and giving of oneself to the other —far from being a sign of weakness— is a courageous and self-affirming exercise. The result may move the individual to an inner transformative experience that leads to the enjoyment of a renewed and authentic life that is worth living. I then argue that Son Goku’s respectful attitude towards his opponents is ultimately a loving attitude. Last, I argue that it is the inspiring and loving example of Son Goku that ultimately explains why characters such as Vegeta —who are at first presented as villains— end up losing their villainous traits after fighting against Son Goku. (shrink)

In 1930, the Spanish philosopher Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936) wrote one of his most well-known novels, San Manuel Bueno, mártir [Saint Manuel Bueno, Martyr]. The novel is about the fictional character Manuel Bueno, a catholic priest from a small Spanish village who, despite being unable to believe the Christian claim that there is an after earthly death life, devotes himself to the spiritual care of his people, being thereby sanctified after his death. The aim of this paper is to show (...) that the guideline of San Manuel Bueno, mártir is the expression, in fictional, non-philosophical language, of the conception of religious faith Unamuno had already defended in his major philosophical work, Del sentimiento trágico de la vida en los hombres y los pueblos [The Tragic Sense of Life in Men and Nations]. (shrink)

The association of resilience-related factors with frailty is a recent research topic. Dispositional optimism and context sensitivity are two psychological factors that differently contribute to individual resilience. This study aimed at investigating whether dispositional optimism and context sensitivity might contribute to a multifactorial model of frailty, together with established relevant factors such as cognitive and physical factors. This cross-sectional study involved 141 elderly outpatients aged ≥65 years, who were referred to the Geriatrics and Multidimensional Evaluation Clinic of the University Hospital (...) of Messina. We used the following measures: the Mini-Mental State Examination to screen for global cognitive functioning; 4-m gait speed and handgrip strength to measure physical performance; a 35-item Frailty Index to evaluate patients’ frailty status; the revised Life Orientation Test to gauge dispositional optimism; and the Context Sensitivity Index to measure context sensitivity. We found that LOT-R, CSI, and MMSE were all significantly associated with FI. Gait speed was only marginally associated with FI. The present study showed a novel association of dispositional optimism and context sensitivity with frailty among elderly outpatients. These preliminary findings support a multidimensional approach to frailty in which even peculiar psychological features might provide a significant contribution. (shrink)

As far as I can see, there are two basic ways of cashing out the claim that intentionality is ultimately phenomenal: an indirect one, according to which the intentional content of an experiential intentional mental state is determined by the phenomenal character that state already possesses, so that intentionality is so determined only indirectly; a direct one, which centers on the very property of intentionality itself and can further be construed in two manners: either that very property is determined by (...) the above phenomenal character, or it is a sui generis phenomenal property, thereby giving its own contribution to the overall phenomenal character of that state. Yet neither way sounds ultimately satisfying. For the indirect way may work only under the assumption that intentionality is monadic. Since the direct way explicitly endorses this assumption, the indirect way must give pride of place to it. Yet the direct way seems to be unsuccessful, in any of its forms. Thus, the phenomenal intentionality research program ought to give way to another research program concerning intentionality. (shrink)

En este artículo defiendo que la novela Un pobre hombre rico o el sentido cómico de la vida expresa, bajo una forma irónica, la noción de fe religiosa de Miguel de Unamuno.

Unamuno saw in his defense of religious faith a response to Nietzsche’s criticisms of the Christian, agapeic way of life. To Nietzsche’s claim that engaging in this way of life is something antinatural and life‐denying, insofar as it goes against the (alleged) natural tendency to increase one’s own power, Unamuno responded that an agapeic way of life is precisely a direct expression of this natural tendency. Far from being something that goes against our natural inclinations, Unamuno says, an agapeic way (...) of life is a life‐affirming exercise, something we are led to given our own natural condition. Hence, the aim of this essay is to comment on Unamuno’s criticism of Nietzsche and to point out the philosophical relevance of Unamuno’s attempt to provide a natural foundation for religious faith when assessing Nietzsche’s criticisms of the possibility of carrying out a Christian, agapeic way of life. (shrink)

The paper attempts at yielding a language‐independent argument in favour of fictional entities, that is, an argument providing genuinely ontological reasons in favour of such entities. According to this argument, ficta are indispensable insofar as they are involved in the identity conditions of semantically‐based entities we ordinarily accept, i.e. fictional works. It will also be evaluated to what extent this argument is close to other arguments recently provided to the same purpose.

In a paper published recently in this journal, Buben attempted to show the philosophical relevance of Unamuno’s philosophical works when addressing the current debate on whether an endless existence would be something desirable—a debate which is nowadays commonly known as “The Makropulos Debate” since it was Bernard Williams’s “The Makropulos Case: Reflections on the Tedium of Immortality” that aroused interest in this question among contemporary analytic philosophers. Unfortunately, Buben’s paper fails to capture or even outline the reasoning behind Unamuno’s claim (...) that we all naturally long for an endless existence —and consequently it also fails to clarify how Unamuno’s position may contribute to the current philosophical debate on the question as to whether an endless existence would be something desirable. In this paper I will point out that Unamuno’s affirmation that we all, without exception, long for an endless existence is grounded in his metaphysical claim that the most basic and natural inclination of all singular things is to increase their own singularity. In doing so, I will also be showing that Unamuno’s proposal is not philosophically relevant when addressing the current debate on the question as to whether living an endless existence would be something desirable. (shrink)

Although both belong to the domain of the nonexistent, there is an ontological distinction between ficta and possibilia. Ficta are a particular kind of abstract objects, namely constructed abstract objects which generically depend on authors for their subsistence. Moreover, they are essentially incomplete entities, in that they are correlates of finite sets of properties. - On the other hand, possibilia are concrete objects. Being a possible object is indeed being an entity that might have existed, that is, that might have (...) been involved in the causal order. Besides, as an object existent in this sense may legitimately be qualified as complete, the incompleteness which pertains to possible objects is contingent, in that it regards them only with respect to the possible worlds in which they do not exist. This ontological distinction has a semantic correlate: whereas names for possibilia are full-fledged directly referential terms, names for ficta are synonymous with de facto rigid descriptions of a complex sort. (shrink)

Unamuno saw in his defense of religious faith a response to Nietzsche’s criticisms of the Christian, agapeic way of life. To Nietzsche’s claim that engaging in this way of life is something antinatural and life-denying, insofar as it goes against the (alleged) natural tendency to increase one’s own power, Unamuno responded that an agapeic way of life is precisely a direct expression of this natural tendency. Far from being something that goes against our natural inclinations, Unamuno says, an agapeic way (...) of life is a life-affirming exercise, something we are led to given our own natural condition. Hence, the aim of this essay is to comment on Unamuno’s criticism of Nietzsche and to point out the philosophical relevance of Unamuno’s attempt to provide a natural foundation for religious faith when assessing Nietzsche’s criticisms of the possibility of carrying out a Christian, agapeic way of life. (shrink)

In this paper I want to hold that contextualism – the position according to which wide context, i.e., the concrete situation of discourse, may well have the semantic role of assigning truth-conditions to sentences – may well accommodate (along with some nowadays established theses about the semantics of proper names) three data about fiction, namely, the facts that as far as discourse involving fiction is concerned, i) sentences about nothing are meaningful ii) they may be true in fiction iii) yet (...) they may also be true in reality. Moreover, I also want to hold that such a contextualist accommodation does not depend on endorsing a realist stance about fictional entities, although such a stance gives the best truth-conditional explanation for such data, in particular iii). (shrink)

The central concern of this book is to demonstrate how Puritanism was a theme which ran through all Green's biography and political philosophy. It thereby reveals how Green’s connections with Evangelicalism and his known affinities with religious dissent came from his way of conceiving Puritanism. In Green’s eyes, its anti-formalist viewpoint made Puritanism the most suitable tool for avoiding the drawbacks of democracy. The key objective of the book is to illustrate how the philosophy elaborated by Green aimed to encapsulate (...) the best of Puritanism whilst eschewing the dangerous abstractions of both Puritan philosophy and German idealism. It follows that Green’s conception of positive and negative freedom, and his vision of political obligation, stemmed from his effort to revive the Puritan heritage rather than from an ambiguous flirtation with idealism. The book purports to show how the influence of Puritanism in Green’s political thought is an element which can help to integrate the literature in the area, contributing to a better comprehension of a philosopher who, despite being unanimously considered as the founder of the so-called Oxford idealist school, had a very difficult and sometimes obscure connection with idealism. It has been widely argued that Green’s relationship with idealism seemed to be infected by a religious germ which, because it was unrelated to German idealism, gave it a bad taste. This study aims to encourage further investigation into the nature and propagation of that germ in the British idealist School. (shrink)

In the camp of the believers in fictional entities, two main paradigms nowadays face each other: the neo-Meinongian and the artifactualist.1 Both parties agree on the idea that ficta are abstract entities, i.e. things that exist (at least in the actual world) even though in a non-spatiotemporal way. Yet according to the former paradigm, ficta are entities of a Platonic sort: either sets of properties (or at least ‘one-one’ correlates of such sets) or generic objects. According to the latter paradigm (...) instead, fictional beings are abstract artifacts, in the sense that they are cultural constructions like games, laws and institutions. Traditionally, these paradigms conceive themselves as mutually exclusive. In what follows, however, I will try to show that this conception is ungrounded. For a fictional entity is a compound entity made both of a property set and of the cultural practice-type that makes its own existence possible. This makes a fictum at least a ‘many-one’ correlate of a set, insofar as different practice-types may turn the same set of properties into different fictional individuals. In this sense, the present proposal is ontologically syncretistic, for it attempts at combining the neo-Meinongian and the artifactualist paradigm. Yet it is even more conciliatory than that. Recent disbelievers in ficta have maintained that as far as fiction is concerned, there is nothing more than fictional discourse itself, which consists in nothing but make-believe linguistic acts in which we pretend that there are things like fictional beings. Yet I take this make-believe practice precisely as the cultural practice such that a fictum not only depends on it but also is partially constituted by it. (shrink)

Maurizio Ferraris’ theory on social entities presents many interesting analogies with artefactualist theories on fictional entities. Like artefactualism, however, it probably needs some integration. As Ferraris himself acknowledges, mere dependence on subjects does not by itself qualify an entity as social. Moreover, the very same definition of a social entity as an inscribed (social) act seems to yield merely necessary, but not sufficient, identity conditions for such an entity. To my mind, what is needed is a normative element. For a (...) social entity is an intrinsically normative entity, which is (inter alia) composed by something like Searle’s constitutive rules. (shrink)

In questo lavoro intendo mostrare che il cosiddetto programma intenzionalista, secondo il quale gli aspetti qualitativi del mentale vanno ricondotti alle sue caratteristiche intenzionali, non funziona. Infatti, contrariamente a quanto pensava Brentano, la proprietà che costituisce la parte principale di tali caratteristiche intenzionali, l’intenzionalità, non è il marchio del mentale, né in senso propriamente brentaniano, per cui l’intenzionalità è la condizione necessaria e sufficiente del mentale, né in un senso annacquato recentemente difeso da Tim Crane, per cui l’intenzionalità è solo (...) la condizione necessaria del mentale. Questo però non fa sì che essere mentale sia una mera categoria eterogenea. Può esserci infatti qualcos’altro che funge da marchio del mentale, cioè la coscienza, nel senso fenomenologico della proprietà di essere esperito. (shrink)

One is often told that sentences expressing or reporting mental states endowed with intentionality—the feature of being “directed upon” an object that some mental states possess—contain contexts that both prevent those sentences to be existentially generalized and are filled by referentially opaque occurrences of singular terms. Failure of existential generalization and referential opacity have been traditionally said to be the basic characterizations of intentionality from a linguistic point of view. I will call those contexts directional contexts. In what follows, I (...) will argue that this traditional conception is incorrect. First, the above characterizations do not provide both necessary and jointly sufficient conditions for directional contexts. Appearances notwithstanding, these characterizations are not the adequate linguistic counterparts of two elements folk-psychologically featuring intentionality, namely existence-independence and the possible apparent aspectual character of the intentional object, the target of a mental state endowed with intentionality. Indeed, they do not retain the prima facie ontological commitment to intentional objects the above elements contain. I will replace failure of existential generalization and referential opacity with other linguistic factors, namely success of mere existentially unloaded particular quantification and pseudo-opacity. I will contend that they provide both necessary and jointly sufficient conditions for directional contexts, and claim that these factors are the adequate counterparts of the above folk-psychological elements, precisely because they retain the prima facie ontological commitment to intentionalia those elements possess. (shrink)