20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy 12-15 September 2012 Alghero

Abstracts 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero

2 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero

INVITED SPEAKERS

Maria Rosa Antognazza King’s College London: Leibniz’s Metaphysical Evil Revisited

Elvio Baccarini University of Rijeka, Public Reason: Science and Religious Beliefs

Paul Boghossian New York University: Relativism about the Normative

Petar Bojanic University of Belgrad: Realism: Institution and Corporation

Roberto Casati Institut Jean NIcod, Paris: Shadow Lessons: Competition between Ontologies for Dependent Entities

Pascal Engel University of Geneva: Beliefs and other doxastic animals

Maurizio Ferraris University of Turin: Who's Afraid of Realism?

Pieranna Garavaso University of Minnesota Morris: The Consistency Objection to Conventionalism in Mathematics and Logic

Diego Marconi University of Turin: Concepts: Too Heavy a Burden

Genoveva Martí University of Barcelona: Reference Without Cognition

Martine Nida-Rümelin University of Fribourg: Self-awareness and First Person Thought

Marco Panza IHPST, University Paris I-Sorbonne: Platonism without Existence (in Mathematics)

Stefano Predelli University of Nottingham: Express Yourself: An Introduction to Non Truth- Conditional Meaning

Carolina Sartorio University of Arizona: Causation and Free Will

Claudine Tiercelin Collège de France: Is there such a thing as metaphysical knowledge?

Achille Varzi 3 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero

Columbia University: Realism in the Desert

4 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero

SPEAKERS

Abreu Pedro, IFL, [email protected]

Available Evidence for Interpretation

What is it that I have available supporting what I know when I know the meaning of some expression? – this paper concerns the possibility of a comparison between semantic or interpretation theories regarding the way each theory answers this question. Another way to put the question would be: What is the available evidence for interpretation?”. I want to give the notion of available evidence enough generality to allow it to subsume whatever in those theories is taken as data determining or supporting some meaning ascription. I’d like to sketch a distinction between theories as to whether they take rational or sub-rational events as evidence. I propose that we take the requirement of a human interpreter in the recognition of what I call rational events as the criterion for such a distinction. I’ll apply the aforementioned comparison and distinction to Quine’s, Davidson’s and Grice’s programs on language and meaning.

Afisi Oseni, University of Canterbury, [email protected]

Karl Popper’s Critique of Utopia: The Hope of a Liberal Reform Implementing Freedom

To identify with confidence some ways in which the politics of Africa could be improved depends not at all upon a vision of a utopia. With Karl Popper, I agree that utopian thinking muddles meaningful political reform rather than assisting it. Liberal reform is non-utopian. Liberalism opposes central economic planning (which indeed has been disastrous for Africa) and quite without reference to any utopia supplies terms in which to be aptly critical of the corruption by which in the present day African states all are riddled. Liberal reforms in Africa would institute market accountability there. That there is in Africa at present no operative “institution of market accountability” (Shearmur 1996: 118) means among other things that information that is crucial for considering ways to improve conditions in Africa does not collect and so remains unavailable to citizens, planners, and political decision- makers. Lack of accountability because of economic corruption is tantamount to a failure of intellectual openness. Liberals typically defend intellectual openness by focusing on the protection of individuals, e.g. in individuals’ right to information, right to self-expression and key interest in self-determination. This aspect of liberalism is potentially harmful to Africa, where the ambient ethic to the extent that one functions is communitarian. I argue that the individualism aspect of liberalism is incidental not essential: I deny that liberalism is counter to a society’s upholding communitarian ideals. I argue that to fully institute market accountability in Africa would mitigate many of the chief harms to Africa and would produce many benefits. It would not require that Africans sacrifice their communitarian spirit.

5 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero

Akinci Semiha, Anadolu University, [email protected]

Essential Characteristics

Those guises which pertain to an actual individual for the whole duration of its existence, and such that the failure, of even one, to so pertain implies total loss and termination of the individual in question. This paper focuses on actual individuals as distinct from non-actual, conceptual, ones. Since non- actual entities are not temporally situated, they do not terminate, so the above definition does not apply to them. I am inclined to, concede that conceptual entities support all their guises essentially, but this is a direct consequence of the above definition of being essential, hence cannot be invoked as independent reason for endorsing it.

Alai Mario, Università di Urbino, [email protected]

Against Antirealist Explanations of Success

Scientific realists maintain that the (partial and/or approximate) truth of theories is the only plausible explanation for their empirical success, in particular for their novel and unexpected predictions (where ‘unexpected’ means both heterogeneous to the old data, and non trivial, i.e. highly informative and a priori improbable). Antirealists have countered by proposing a number of purported alternative explanations short of the truth of theories. Here I review van Fraassen’s empirical adequacy, Fine’s surrealism, Stanford’s empirical equivalence, Lyons’ modest surrealism, Fine’s and Hacking’s deflationist explanation, and van Fraassen “Darwinian” explanation, arguing that they fail: although explaining in a trivial sense why certain predictions are true, they offer no substantial explanation of how scientists managed to find theories that predicted correctly and with astonishing precision phenomena previously unknown and totally unexpected. The realist assumption that scientist produced theories that are (partly and/or approximately) true wouldn’t be plausible unless we explain how scientists managed to do that; but there is a reasonable strategy for working out such an explanation, based on the truth-conduciveness of scientific method. Instead, there is no similar strategy for arguing that scientific method is conducive to empirical adequacy or similar empirical virtues other than by conducing to truth.

Albergo Gaetano, University of Catania, [email protected]

There is no such a thing as a priori knowledge that is certain knowledge of incompatibilities

Dummett gave a great contribution for a logical foundation of metaphysics. We need, at this point, to put it the other way around. By virtue of what ‘not’ mean negation, or ‘and’ mean conjunction? And, by virtue of what do they refer to distinct truth functions? Put it this way, the most plausible account of what determine the meanings of our logical constants has it that our constants mean what they do by virtue of their conceptual role, that is, 6 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero participating in some inferences and not in others. Any such approach faces many difficulties. Quine urged that an implicit definition of logic leads to circularity. Then, there is the difficulty, also encouraged by Quine, of saying which of the many sentences you may be disposed to assert serve as implicit definers of its terms. Today some authors think we can have an alternative reductionism for our problem. For example, I agree with them that negation should be taken as a primitive. But we should refrain from expressing it via the concept of contrariness, usually defined by reference to truth and falsity. A grasp of the sense of negation arises from one’s prior grasp of primitive metaphysical incompatibilities.

Allegri Francesco, Università di Siena, [email protected]

Lo status morale del feto: un modello a due livelli di considerazione

Nel mio intervento intendo fare il punto sulla vexata quaestio dello status del feto e avanzare una proposta che fonda assieme i due approcci che ritengo più proficui, delineando un modello gradualista e non istantaneista. Accantonati vari criteri di natura estrinseca, mi concentrerò sui quattro approcci che mi appaiono più filosoficamente fondati: 1) un approccio attualistico-funzionalistico, per il quale il feto non ha alcuno status morale, in quanto quest’ultimo dipende dall’acquisizione dell’autocoscienza e della razionalità, ossia dal conseguimento dello status di persona); 2) un approccio genetico, che ascrive al feto uno status morale pieno a partire dalla fecondazione, considerato l’evento soglia inaugurante l’esistenza dell’essere umano; 3) un approccio embriologico, che individua la discontinuità fondamentale in un insieme di processi ed eventi che si verificano intorno al 14°-16° giorno di gravidanza; 4) un approccio neurologico, con un ventaglio di varianti, che focalizza l’attenzione sulla formazione e sull’attività del cervello. Argomenterò contro l’approccio attualistico-funzionalistico e contro l’approccio genetico, difendendo le ragioni dei due approcci temporalmente intermedi. Una buona sintesi dei due punti di vista potrebbe consistere nell’asserire che con la gastrulazione inizia a formarsi un individuo umano e che con lo sviluppo delle parti fondamentali del cervello questo processo si completa. Se soltanto con quest’ultima acquisizione siamo in presenza di un essere umano nel senso più pieno del termine, ciò non significa che solo allora abbiamo a che fare con un’entità che ha valore in sé. Anche l’individuo umano in formazione, pur non avendo lo stesso valore dell’essere umano pienamente sviluppato, è un ente degno di rispetto. In questa prospettiva, quindi, non c’è una discontinuità fondamentale, ma ce ne sono due. Il limite di un approccio neurologico puro sta nel ritenere che fino allo sviluppo del cervello, il feto non abbia alcuno status morale, per cui è moralmente ammissibile farne qualsiasi cosa si desideri. Il limite di un approccio embriologico puro consiste nel pensare che il feto dopo la gastrulazione acquisisca subito uno status morale pieno, trascurando così la gradualità dei processi biologici.

Alonzo Elena, Università di Genova, [email protected]

Freedom as non-oppression: toward a new model of freedom

7 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero

In this essay I first consider Philip Pettit’s conception of freedom as non- domination and the problems arising from his argument; then, I try to develop the main lines of an alternative conception of freedom - i.e. freedom as non- oppression – that better works as analytical device for uncovering and analysing the pervasive forms of unfreedom suffered by certain categories of people. In this respect, I will maintain that whereas Pettit undermines the potential of his account by retaining an atomistic social perspective and remaining too close to a negative dimension of freedom, the model of freedom as non-oppression provides the resources for understanding how it is that the entire social context through its impersonal forces is able to curtail individual internal and external freedom. Moreover, I will argue that by focusing on structural relationships, rather than on one-to-one relationships or individual sets of constraints, my account provides measures of unfreedom that are objective and empirically testable, avoiding the charges of paternalism, psychologism and totalitarianism that are traditionally addressed against positive accounts of freedom. Finally, I will suggest that by securing freedom from pervasive forces of oppression, my conception makes individuals’ autonomy conceivable and even realizable.

Amilburu Alba, University of the Basque Country, [email protected]

Methodological and Metaphysical Approaches in the Current Debate on Natural Kinds: Naturalising Kinds or Naturalised Kinds?

In a recent paper, Thomas Reydon (2010) argued for the importance of natural kind theory in philosophy of science and presented a meta-theoretical analysis of the current debate on natural kinds. Reydon identifies two lines of work or traditions that interpret and address the same philosophical problem differently, as each line of work is accompanied by a different set of assumptions and ideas. This paper is divided into two parts. In the first part, I shall present and examine critically Reydon's proposal and I shall point out certain aspects of his analysis that, should be improved. In particular, I consider three main problems on Reydon's analysis that show how this proposal is insufficient to account for the difficulties and disputes arising in the current debate on natural kinds. In the second part, I shall present an alternative proposal of a meta-theoretical analysis, which includes and develops some aspects of Reydon's analysis but introduces new elements in order to overcome its limitations. This new meta-theoretical analysis is based on a distinction between a metaphysical and a methodological approach, and I want to argue that this proposal is best suited a) for understanding the peculiarities and differences among theoretical approaches in the current philosophical discussion on natural kinds, i.e. the actual debate, and b) for explaining in what sense the notion of “natural kind” is ambiguous. References Reydon, T., (2010) Natural Kind Theory as a Tool for Philosophers of Science. Suárez, M. et al (Eds.) EPSA Epistemology and Methodology of Science: Launch of the European Philosophy of Science Association. 245-254.

Andina Tiziana, Università di Torino, [email protected]

Redefining Borders: Where the Philosophy of Art Meets Aesthetics

8 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero

The origins of the philosophy of art overlap with the origin of philosophy itself, and are rooted in Plato’s ontological analysis of the nature of art works as outlined primarily in the Republic. In developing his project of the ideal state, one of Plato’s aims is to capture the very nature of works of art, starting from an overall plan which has, as its main goal, that of shaping reality from an ontological point of view. As it is widely known, in the Platonic perspective the art works are objects that copy other objects; that is, objects of the human domain. In the second half of the eighteenth century, German philosopher Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten published a book entitled Aesthetica in which he outlined the fundamental conditions for a new discipline. In the Baumgartian view, Aesthetics is the science of the analogon rationis; that is, the science of knowledge that derives from the senses and that also concerns, among other things, works of art. Despite the fact that the two traditions have developed very different tasks with regard to works of art, the aim of this talk is to demonstrate how it is possible to redefine their borders, by implementing various aesthetic results within the philosophy of art in order to answer one of the most classic questions in the philosophy of art: “what is an art work?”.

Angelucci Adriano, University of Verona, [email protected]

Philosophical thought experiments as defeasible inferences

The talk intends to delve into a number of issues bearing on the epistemic status of philosophical thought experiments and to advance a proposal concerning the nature of the rational processes they instantiate. Many philosophers working in the analytic tradition have recently felt the pressing need to address anew questions concerning the nature and limits of philosophical inquiry, thereby contributing to the opening of a lively new season of metatheoretical reflection. As a consequence of this general trend, a growing amount of literature has been devoted to the analysis of current philosophical practice, with an eye toward its often unclear epistemological implications. Although thought experimental reasoning is certainly not new to modern philosophy, many contemporary analytic philosophers seem to assign to the careful scrutiny of more or less far-fetched counterfactual scenarios a decidedly unprecedented cognitive weight within their theoretical inquiries. Given the present state of affairs, regimenting thought experiments can represent a valuable attempt at drawing the boundaries of analytic fertility of our imagination. My current research is being driven by the idea that locating philosophical thought experiments against the wider background of literature on the so called defeasible reasoning might help shed new light both onto their inner workings and on their specific epistemic status.

Angius Nicola, University of Sassari, [email protected]

Falsifiability and Probability of Hypotheses about Computational Systems and Scientific Experiments in Software Testing

This paper provides an epistemological analysis of Software Testing, the practice of observing programs’ executions to examine whether they fulfil software requirements. Program specifications are examined in terms of 9 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero falsifiable scientific hypotheses about computational systems that are corroborated by means of tests that are likely to falsify the specification. Software Reliability, a metric used to express the growth of probability that future failures do not occur as new executions are observed, is shown to involve a Bayesian confirmation of software specifications. The analysis of what constitutes prior probabilities in software reliability models suggests that a subjective confirmation is provided by such models. The so-called controllability and observability problems in software testing, concerning inputs selection and outputs acceptance, are analysed in the light of the epistemology of scientific experiment. Coverage criteria are acknowledged as theory-laden principles guiding the test setting-up. Some of the methodologies exploited in software testing to face the problem of outputs evaluation are taken to be instantiations of common epistemological strategies in scientific experiments used to distinguish between valid and non- valid experimental outcomes. The last part of this paper puts forward the claim that software testing supports an experimental understanding of computer science as a discipline.

Antognazza Maria Rosa, King’s College London, [email protected]

Leibniz’s Metaphysical Evil Revisited

The category of metaphysical evil introduced by Leibniz appears to cast a sinister shadow over the goodness of creation. It seems to imply that creatures, simply in virtue of not being gods, are to some degree intrinsically and inescapably evil. After briefly unpacking this difficulty and outlining a recent attempt to deal with it, this paper returns to the texts to propose a novel and multilayered understanding of Leibniz’s category of metaphysical evil by reading it against the backdrop of the traditional typologies of evil with which he was unquestionably familiar. It comes to the conclusion that metaphysical evil plays two key roles for Leibniz. First, it captures what Aquinas and especially Suarez meant by ‘natural evil’. Contrary to the common assumption that it is Leibniz’s category of physical evil that holds the place of natural evil, the paper shows that Leibniz’s physical evil corresponds to Augustine’s category of evil of punishment for sin whereas natural evil – intended as a kind of evil which is not related to moral responsibility -- is subsumed under metaphysical evil. Secondly, the category of metaphysical evil covers also the notion of original creaturely imperfection. In classifying creaturely limitation as a kind of evil Leibniz breaks from the Augustinian- Thomist-Scholastic tradition and its distinction between negatio and privatio. On the other hand, notwithstanding this important break, Leibniz’s notion of metaphysical evil is intended to account for something which is firmly within the broadly Augustinian-Scholastic tradition, namely the ascription to all creatures of a limitation that stems from their being created ex nihilo. Finally, the paper returns a verdict of non-guilty to the charge that Leibniz’s metaphysical evil implies that creatures qua creatures are to some extent necessarily intrinsically evil. More generally, in typical Leibnizian fashion, the notion of metaphysical evil will appear to be a complex mix of indebtedness to tradition and bending of received doctrines into something significantly different. 10 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero

Anwander Norbert , Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, [email protected]

"It's None of Your Business!"—The Grounds of Answerability

On what has come to be known as the relational (or triadic) analysis of responsibility, an agent A is responsible for her action (or attitude etc.) X to some person or body B. One familiar way for A to counter B's attempt to hold her responsible is to deny the latter's standing to do so. This paper takes a closer look at the retort that A's conduct is none of B's business. I begin by examining the relevant notion of standing to hold answerable and make a case for a conception of standing in terms of authority (or normative power) rather than permissibility. But whence does such authority come? Rejecting a number of suggestions that have been made, I propose that the grounds for the triadic relation of responsibility lie in another, more basic relationship: Roughly, B has the standing to hold A answerable for X iff B and A are members of a relationship the norms of which govern X. Finally, I consider the implications of this account for holding people morally responsible: Unless morality is itself relational, whether you do the morally right thing is nobody's business but yours.

Arango Muñoz Santiago, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, [email protected]

Extended Memory and Metacognitive Feelings

According to the extended mind hypothesis, some mental processes extend to the environment. If the hypothesis is right, each time that an agent is confronted with a cognitive problem, the subject has to decide whether to solve it internally or externally. This decision, I claim, is mediated by metacognition and is often guided by metacognitive feelings. Metacognition evaluates memory each time the subject is confronted with a question and elicits either a feeling of knowing if the answer can be retrieved internally or the feeling of forgetting if the information cannot be retrieved internally and therefore should be retrieved externally. Thus, a subject can only adaptively rely on an external source to supplement her memory if she has some awareness of when to consult it. This kind of awareness is provided by metacognition and metacognitive feelings.

Arcangeli Margherita, Institut Jean Nicod (CNRS-EHESS-ENS), Paris [email protected]

Hot imagination, cold supposition? A different view.

Is supposition a type of imagination? While some authors think that supposition is imaginative, and among them some maintain that it can be identified with belief-like imagination, others consider supposition as a kind of mental state not to be confused with imagination. Despite the disagreement about the imaginative nature of supposition, almost all authors agree in 11 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero thinking that supposition is “cold”, i.e. does not involve an engagement at the emotional level, whereas imagination is typically “hot”. In this paper I shall dwell on this widely endorsed claim. More precisely, I will show that, on the one hand, it cannot be straightforwardly used to discard supposition from the imaginative realm and, on the other hand, it is quite problematic also for those who identify supposition with belief-like imagination. My goal is to highlight a new way of accounting for supposition: supposition is a specific type of imagination. More precisely, by calling on the independently drawn distinction between belief and acceptance, I shall argue that supposition is acceptance-like, rather than belief-like.

Azzano Lorenzo, Università Vita-Salute San Raffaele, [email protected]

Is causation discrete?

Some philosophers defend the thesis that very short causal processes cannot be prevented. Even if such a result could be achieved through the discreteness of time, few would like to have such an heavy burden on their back. Some of them claim discreteness of causation (DC) to be a weaker claim: but is it really? In the most straightforward interpretation, DC says that some causal process is not divisible into further complex chains (there are simple causal links). But it’s debatable whether the existence of such links is consistent with continuous time, because eventual metaphysics of causation requires that each temporal part in a causal process include some causally operative state. A supporter of DC could reject causation as a relation between events in favor of some sort of process theory. But given that for an interference to pop up all that it takes is a single spacetime point of interaction, and given that on this metaphysics of causation the working unit (the process) is temporally extended, it’s unclear how on this interpretation DC can exclude interferences. DC can rule out interferences only within an eventual metaphysics of causation, which, in turn, seems to imply discreteness of time.

Baccarini Elvio, University of Rijeka, [email protected]

Public Reason, Science and Religious Beliefs

In the classic formulation of public reason of John Rawls, it is claimed that scientific theories, when they are not controversial, can be used in the process of public justification. On the other hand, John Rawls excludes religious beliefs from public justification, because of the fact that they are perennially controversial. The paper tries to offer two contributions to the debate. Firstly, it is discussed whether the exclusion of religious beliefs from the process of public justification is legitimate from the standpoint of reasonable pluralism. The answer is that they are legitimately excluded, but the reason is not because they are controversial, as Rawls says, but because of their weak epistemological status. Secondly, it is debated whether scientific beliefs can be used in public justification even when they are controversial in the scientific community. The answer is that it is legitimate to vote for them as reasons for approving a law, or a public policy, in virtue of their epistemological merits. Both claims are supported by the epistemological 12 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero proposal offered by Philip Kitcher in his Science in a Democratic Society. I try to show that it is legitimate to amend by it the Rawlsian view of public reason because this proposal is not controversial in the relevant sense.

Bagnoli Carla, Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia, [email protected]

A constructivist account of practical knowledge

Kantian constructivism purports to occupy a distinct position in the space between realist and relativist accounts of ethics. Many think that this ambition of constructivism is misplaced because there is no logical room available for it to occupy. Constructivists themselves are deeply ambivalent about their relation to realism and anti-realism. Some intend constructivism to supersede and set meta-ethics aside. Others declare their allegiance to either anti-realism or realism. In contrast to current constructivist strategies, this paper argues for constructivism as an objectivist account of practical knowledge as knowledge of what one ought to do. Its antagonists are theories that deny the very possibility of practical knowledge, either because they deny that moral judgments have cognitive contents, or because they deny that there is something to be known, or because they deny that knowledge can be practical in any relevant sense. The distinctive and overlooked merit of this conception is the constitutive role of moral sensibility, marked by equal respect and mutual recognition. This conception warrants the objectivity of moral cognitions as forms of practical necessity. So understood, Kantian constructivism identifies a precise logical space in the debate about realism, and it offers a credible distinction between practical and theoretical knowledge.

Baierlé Emmanuel, University of Fribourg, [email protected]

Is Our Phenomenology Libertarian?

Libertarianism requires the falsity of determinism and is thus a metaphysically more demanding position than compatibilism, so strong reasons are needed to motivate libertarianism. Very often libertarians claim that libertarianism is the position that best captures our intuitions, some are even convinced that it takes a lot of effort to make compatibilism understandable to a layperson or that nothing else makes sense to somebody new in philosophy. This assumption has recently been attacked on the one side by experimental philosophers which try to show that laypersons have compatibilist intuitions and on the other side by Horgan and Holton who defend the claim that we are mistaken in thinking that our experiences have libertarian veridicality conditions. I try to show that we do have experiences of free action that require the falsity of determinism. In order to do that I describe a paradigmatic case of a free decision, claim that a core element of such an experience is the experience of open alternatives and that this experience is incompatible with the truth determinism. From this I conclude that we do have a libertarian phenomenology, i.e. our experiences of free will can be veridical only if determinism is false.

13 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero

Barlassina Luca, Università di Milano, [email protected] Brozzo Chiara, Università di Milano, [email protected]

Mirror neurons and intentions: Not so high, not so low

Mirror neurons and systems are a specific kind of neurons and neural systems that get activated both when an individual performs a hand or mouth action— e.g., grasping a piece of food with the hand—and when she observes another individual performing the same type of action. In this paper, we tackle the problem of what is represented by mirror neurons and systems, and we argue that they represent motor intentions, i.e., intentions whose content essentially refers to the agent’s bodily configuration. We develop our account by contrasting it with two alternative proposals. According to the first one, mirror neurons and systems merely represent bodily movements. According to the second one, mirror neurons and systems represent more abstract, non- motoric intentions. By resorting to both philosophical analysis and experimental evidence, we show that only our account individuates what mirror neurons and systems represent at the right level of specification. What mirror neurons and systems represent is not as low as bodily movements, but it is not as high as body-independent intentions.

Belshaw Chris, Open university, [email protected],

Some Asymmetries in Life and Death

Many of us believe that we are forbidden to start bad lives, but not required (though we are permitted) to start good lives. There is an asymmetry in our attitude. How, if at all, is this to be explained? The problems here involve notions of harm and benefit, impersonal and personal values, and issues about well-being levels. I consider both several attempted explanations and also various suggestions that we should abandon the asymmetry. These attempts, I claim, are unsatisfactory, and the suggestions unconvincing. I then offer a solution. This involves a) a consideration of some further and related asymmetries, b) identifying an ambiguity in the notion of goodness and c) a revisionary approach to the view that we are required to save lives, once started. The solution here, though at first glance in parts contentious, is defensible. And it allows for a response to Broome’s suggestion that holding to the asymmetry involves us in paradox. The paper will draw on, and refer to, work by Jeff McMahan, Ben Bradley, John Broome. Derek Parfit, David Benatar, David Heyd, Steven Luper, Gustaf Arrhenius, the present author, and others.

Biagioli Francesca, Università di Torino, [email protected]

Projective Metric and the Concept of Space in Felix Klein’s Line of Research

In his well known model of non-Euclidean geometry (1871), Klein uses projective metric as developed by Arthur Cayley (1859) to classify geometries into hyperbolic, elliptic, and parabolic. As a result of this classification, space might be supposed to be a general form, whose axiomatic structure might be 14 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero specified in different ways. It might be objected that projective metric cannot provide a classification of hypotheses regarding space, because it rests upon a definition of distance that must be arbitrarily stipulated. I will argue that, nevertheless, Klein’s mathematical contributions are strictly connected with the epistemological aspect of his line of research. First of all, it should be noticed that Klein presupposes not only analytic geometry, but also the synthetic treatment of projective geometry as developed by Christian von Staudt. Klein’s combination of synthetic methods with analytic ones enables him to study structural properties of geometric objects independently of their specific nature. The epistemological aspect of Klein’s line of research lies in his view that the study of abstract structures is necessary for the development of both pure and applied mathematics, because it enables us to distinguish between general assumptions, on the one hand, and their (possibly different) specifications, on the other.

Biale Enrico, Università del Piemonte Orientale, [email protected] Porello Daniele, ILLC Uva, [email protected]

Democratic Agency between Arguing and Bargaining

In the last few decades, the majority of scholars in the field of democracy have claimed that if democratic institutions aim at acknowledging citizens as free and equals, laws and policies that affect their life plans have to be grounded in arguments that could be accepted, or not rejected, by any member of the polity. Although according to traditional accounts of deliberative democracy there is a sharp distinction between deliberation and negotiation, recently some scholars suggested that negotiations, suitably constrained, fulfil deliberative ideal. How can negotiations be consistent with democratic agency and its requirements? We shall approach this question by studying a concrete model of bargaining (the well known Nash Bargaining Solution) and by discussing whether and to what extent such a model is compatible with deliberation and democratic agency. In particular, we will approach the following points. Firstly, we will critically analyse the features of democratic agency in a deliberative framework. Secondly we will discuss whether the rationality constraints required by the bargaining model are compatible with the deliberative view of agents' discursive rationality. Thirdly, we shall focus on the disagreement point of Nash bargaining solution and we will discuss it as a possible matter of deliberative agreement among agents. Lastly, we will focus on possible discursive interpretations of the axioms that characterize Nash solution. We shall finally discuss to what extent such model of bargaining is compatible with an account of democratic agency and if this account is complementary or alternative to discursive rationality.

Bianchi Claudia University San Raffaele, Milan, [email protected]

How to do things with (recorded) words

The aim of this paper is to evaluate which context determines the illocutionary force of written or recorded utterances – the ones involved in written texts, films and images, conceived as recordings that can be seen or heard in different occasions. More precisely, my paper deals with the 15 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero

"metaphysical" or constitutive role of the context – as opposed to its epistemic or evidential role: my aim is to determine which context is semantically relevant in order to fix the illocutionary force of a speech act, as distinct from the information the addressee uses to ascertain the semantically relevant context. In particular I will try to assess two different perspectives on this problem, a conventionalist perspective and an intentionalist perspective. Drawing on the literature on indexicals in written texts and recorded messages, I will argue in favor of an intentionalist perspective: the relevant context is the one intended by the speaker. Bringing intentions into the picture, however, requires qualification; in particular, I will distinguish my weak intentionalist proposal from a strong intentionalist one. I will show that the weak intentionalist perspective is flexible enough to deal with cases of delayed communication, but not so unrestricted that it yields counter- intuitive consequences.

Bianchin Matteo, Università di Milano-Bicocca, [email protected]

Husserl on meaning and grammar

In the fourth Logical Investigation Husserl sets out the idea of a Logical Grammar as a theory intended to explain how complex expressions can be constructed out of simple ones so that their meaning turns out to be determined by the meanings of their constituent parts and the way they are put together. Meanings are therefore classified into formal categories that match the syntactic categories of their linguistic expressions, so that the logical properties of expressions turn out to reflect their grammatical properties. As long as linguistic meaning here reduces to the intentional content of mental representations, however, it is not trivial to account for how they relate to syntax. Also, this seems to entail a perfect matching of logical and grammatical form, which is far from obvious in natural languages. Husserl’s take on these issues suggests the following: 1) The syntactic form of representations (both mental and linguistic) carries information about their semantic role; 2) The logical form of representations supervenes on their syntactic form; 3) The phenomenology of thought is broadly linguistic.

Bistagnino Giulia, Università di Milano, [email protected]

Should Political Philosophy be done without Metaethics?

Recently, some theorists have raised their distrust in metaethical research. Some claim that metaethical debates are to be addressed by substantive theorizing only. For example, Ronald Dworkin thinks that all metaethics is actually part of normative ethics. Similarly, Catherine Korsgaard argues that moral and political concepts are solutions to practical problems and practical philosophy is not a matter of finding knowledge to apply in practice. I call this position “metaethical quietism”. Since the later Rawls employs an antimetaphysical approach in defending a freestanding, political conception of justice, it is interesting to consider whether political constructivism should be considered a metaethically quietist strategy for the justification of principles. The interest of this question is not merely interpretative and it involves a more general question of method: should political philosophy be done 16 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero without metaethics? In this paper, I question whether quietism can be successful and argue that metaethical inquiry may be useful to normative theorizing. First, I consider and rebut Dworkin and Korsgaard’s arguments for metaethical quietism. Second, I compare them to Rawls’s political liberalism and argue that, despite some common aims, Rawls’s approach differs significantly from theirs. Finally, I consider whether metaethics can be useful to political philosophy.

Boccuni Francesca, Institute of Philosophy, School of Advanced Study, London, [email protected]

Frege's Grundgesetze and a Reassessment of Goedel's distinction between predicativity and impredicativity

Frege’s Grundgesetze der Arithmetik, which was meant to express Frege’s logicist foundation of mathematics, is inconsistent, likely because the impredicative second-order comprehension axiom (CA) and unrestricted Basic Law V cannot co-exist. Recently, the fragment of Grundgesetze in Heck (1996) has been shown to be consistent. Heck (1996) allows for predicative CA and deploys unrestricted Basic Law. Nevertheless, the predicative fragment of Grundgesetze presented by Heck is disputable from a philosophical point of view, as the predicative restriction it imposes on CA leads to a strong revision of Frege’s philosophical assumptions on the Platonic existence of concepts. Predicativism, in fact, is usually taken to be committed to mathematical constructivism.1 To this extent, the consistent predicative fragment of Grundgesetze from Heck (1996) can hardly be taken to provide some grounds for a possible revision of Frege's programme. Nevertheless, I am going to argue that, in order to justify Frege’s conceptual Platonism from a predicative perspective, a reassessment of Goedel’s dichotomy between impredicativity and predicativity is required. Goedel (1944) provides an analysis of Russell's Vicious Circle Principle (VCP), which can be taken to express a predicativist thesis: “No entity can presuppose the totality it belongs to”. In order to achieve such a reassessment, I will investigate Goedel's argument against VCP, argue against it, and suggest a different formulation of it, grounded on the Thesis of Ideal Reference by Martino (2001, 2004), such that VCP turns out to be compatible with Frege's conceptual Platonism. References Goedel, K. (1944), “Russell’s Mathematical Logic”, in P. Benacerraf and H. Putnam (Eds.), Philosophy of Mathematics: Selected Readings, 2nd ed., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983: 447-469. Heck, R. (1996), “The Consistency of Predicative Fragments of Frege’s Grundgesetze der Arithmetik”, History and Philosophy of Logic, 17: 209-220. Martino, E. (2001), “Arbitrary Reference in Mathematical Reasoning”, Topoi 20: 65-77. Martino, E. (2004), “Lupi, pecore e logica”, in M. Carrara and P. Giaretta (Eds.), Filosofia e logica, Catanzaro, Rubettino: 103-33.

Boghossian Paul, New York University, [email protected]

Relativism about the Normative

17 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero

Bojanic Petar, University of Belgrad, [email protected]

Realism: Institution and Corporation

Bonelli Maddalena, Università di Bergamo, [email protected]

Le cause platoniche In questo paper innanzitutto accetto e sviluppo la tesi secondo cui le cause platoniche vanno intese non nel senso moderno di cause attive, che fanno qualche cosa, ma nel senso di ‘ragioni’ e ‘spiegazioni’ che, in particolare, spiegano perché una cosa ha o assume la proprietà di essere F (vedi G. Vlastos “Reasons and causes in the Phaedo”, Philosophical Review 78, 1969). Nel presentare e discutere gli esempi di spiegazioni materialiste che Socrate critica a vantaggio di una nuova teoria causale (in cui ruolo centrale rivestiranno le Idee), mi propongo qui di far emergere tre condizioni per Socrate essenziali per individuare le vere ‘cause’: (1) la prima, secondo cui due cause opposte non possono produrre lo stesso effetto; (2) la seconda, per cui una stessa causa non può produrre due effetti opposti; (3) la terza, grazie alla quale ciò che funge da causa deve possedere la stessa proprietà che trasmette all’oggetto che ne subisce l’effetto. Questi tre criteri avranno grande fortuna nelle teorie causali della filosofia successiva.

Bonicalzi Sofia, Università di Pavia, [email protected]

Strawsonian and Frankfurtian Approaches. Questions about New Perspectives on Moral Responsibility

The publication of ‘Freedom and resentment’ (P.F. Strawson, 1962), ‘Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility’ (Frankfurt, 1969) and ‘Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person’ (Frankfurt, 1971) has led to the reconfiguration of the debate on moral responsibility, considered as independent from the choice between determinism and indeterminism, albeit within a compatibilist perspective. With our talk, we will show how this shift has allowed the formulation of moral responsibility theories which are more responsive to our pre-philosophical intuitions than those reconcilable with classical compatibilism. Moreover this switch promoted also a possible rapprochement between impartialist moral demand and consideration of individual reasons, in some cases allowing internalist interpretation of moral responsibility, based on the relationships between members of the moral community. However, such an approach, satisfactory from a normative standpoint, does not seem capable of a foundation truly free from a preventive choice between compatibilism and incompatibilism. A strawsonian perspective seems to primarily involve an unresolved tension between the need for truth and the adherence to Reactive Attitudes, which would be legitimate to abandon, if the Causal Thesis was valid. Revisionist compatibilism, which assumes the autonomy of responsibility from the thematization of freedom, can hardly match our pre-theoretical intuitions, relying also on forms of Control and Theory of Choice which could not be considered innocent from a metaphysical point of view.

18 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero

Borghini Andrea College of the Holy Cross, [email protected] Lando Giorgio, Scuola Normale Superiore, [email protected]

Atoms and Perfectly Natural Properties: Why the Principle of Recombination does not Secure Plenitude

The principle of recombination is a pivotal aspect of Lewis’s modal realism. To ensue that all possibilities are represented modal realism needs to attain plenitude: for any way a world can be, there must be a possible world which is in that way. According to (Lewis, 1986), (i) modal realism can attain plenitude through the principle of recombination, and can even make room for a larger amount of possibilities than rival theories; also, (ii) it can do so without incurring into circularity. (Cameron, 2008) has shown that (ii) is questionable and in this paper we argue that (i) fails as well, since the principle of recombination is unable to warrant that there are worlds for at least two sorts of seemingly genuine possibilities: that something is atomic in one world while some of its duplicates are non-atomic; that a property counts as perfectly natural in some worlds but as abundant or non-perfectly natural in other worlds. These failures can be traced back to the underlying conception of intrinsicality, atomicity, and fundamentality. If accurate, our argument seems to undermine not only the viability of the principle of recombination, but also to threaten the overall tenability of modal realism.

Borghini Andrea, College of the Holy Cross, [email protected] Piazza Tommaso, Universidade de Porto, [email protected]

What Is It That We Know of a Wine When We Drink It?

The paper defends the intuition that, upon tasting a wine, an agent improves her epistemic standing towards it. The argument develops as a response to an oenological dilemma. Suppose oenology achieved a firmer understanding of the natural properties of wine and of the way these interact with gustative organs; let Adam be our superoenologist. Adam has all the natural information concerning wine and wine tasting, yet never sampled it. One day he is invited to a tasting and ends up drinking a glass of Château Pétrus 2005. Could such experience improve his epistemic standing towards the wine? Ex hypothesis, no improvement can derive from learning a new natural property of the wine; but it cannot derive from learning for the first time what it is like to savour the wine either, because this is subjective. The proposed solution appeals to the objectivity of certain response-dependent properties. Even though by means of the tasting alone Adam does not learn that the wine possesses an aesthetic property – e.g. being tannic –, he comes to occupy a position from which he could be justified in believing that the wine is tannic. The rest of the paper looks into the conditions that would enable Adam to be justified in believing that the wine is tannic.

19 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero

Boscolo Stefano, Università di Palermo, [email protected]

Oggetti o Strutture? Un argomento a partire da insiemi e categorie

In filosofia della matematica il realismo ontologico viene identificato con il platonismo. Ma quali sono le entità astratte che vengono descritte dalla pratica matematica? Si tratta di oggetti o di strutture? Il dibattito su questo punto è ancora aperto. Per alcuni autori oggetti e strutture non sembrano escludersi a vicenda, mentre per altri sono totalmente incompatibili. Una questione che procede in parallelo, senza però sovrapporsi, a quella ontologica è la determinazione del linguaggio della matematica. C'è chi sostiene che il linguaggio della matematica è la teoria delle categorie e chi la teoria degli insiemi. La questione ontologica ritorna nel momento in cui ci si chiede se categorie e insiemi sono oggetti, strutture, o entrambe le cose. Esiste la possibilità di far luce su entrambe le questioni senza partire da una posizione metafisica. L'intertraducibilità tra ZFC e ETCS+R mostra (1) sia l'assenza di un linguaggio della matematica, (2) sia il fallimento della proposta eliminativista. Quest'ultimo fatto può essere interpretato o come la presenza di due descrizioni equivalenti della stessa realtà (argomento per il realismo) o come l'impossibilità di determinare il riferimento in matematica (argomento per l'anti-realismo). Provo a tracciare alcune conseguenze di tale risultato come argomento a favore della posizione antirealista.

Bottani Andrea Clemente, Università di Bergamo, [email protected]

The Myth of the Distinction between Ontology and Metaphysics

It is a widely shared idea that no accurate account can be given of what was originally called “first philosophy” that does not distinguish the theory of what there is, sometimes called “ontology”, from the theory of what it is, sometimes called “metaphysics”: to say what exists (an sit) is one thing, to specify the nature of what exists (quid sit) is quite another. Is the distinction well grounded? I answer in the negative by arguing that 1) ontology is a systematic taxonomy of what exists; 2) no apparent disagreement about the nature of the entities belonging to some taxonomical category counts as a real disagreement about the ultimate nature of something, provided there is total agreement about the nature of what belongs to the highest categories, those that restrict no other category; 3) every disagreement about the nature of what belongs to the highest categories is eo ipso a disagreement about what there is. As a result, metaphysics and ontology are no more distinct than the morning star and the evening star. The distinction is flawed and should be given up. It is a just a myth.

Brevini Costanza, Università di Milano, [email protected] Kaufmann Angelica, University of Antwerp, [email protected]

How Much Is in a Heap? The Sorite's Paradox in the time of Neuroscience

This paper aims to investigate the relationship between the Sorite's Paradox (Kamp, 1981) and recent findings on counting abilities that have been 20 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero provided by cognitive neuroscience (Trick and Pylyshyn, 1994; Dehaene and Cohen, 1994; Piazza et al. 2011) and developmental psychology (Whalen, Gallistel and Gelman, 1992). The Sorite's Paradox asks the following question: how many items do we need in order to define a heap as such? The Paradox gained the attention of many scholars (Lewis, 1988; Van Inwagen, 1990; Varzi, 2001, 2004, 2008) in the fields of analytic philosophy because of its correlation with the phenomenon of vagueness. We will, firstly, discuss the notions of counting and subitizing, the two types of enumeration that have been investigated by neuroscientists such as Trick and Pylyshyn (1991), Dehaene and Cohen (1994), and Piazza et al. (2011). Secondly, we shall argue that it seems to be the case that we can solve the Sorite’s Paradox by individuating the very moment in which the “mind” stops to exploit counting and starts to exploit subitizing as the precise moment when the 'heap' stops to be seen as such and starts to be seen as a set of countable items. In conclusion it will be suggested that the switch from counting to subitizing, when applied to the Sorite's Paradox, appears to offers a heap/non heap criterion not made up by convention, but resulted of neurophysiological evidence.

Bucelli Irene, King's College London, [email protected]

The Author and the Narrator. The role of the Narrative Self in Reflective Endorsement

Reflective Endorsement approaches to agency have been trying to capture the core feature of human agency with the result of establishing a threshold between (full) actions and mere activities we can engage in. Marking this threshold defines the portion of behaviour that can be conceived in terms of "agential authority", and therefore fixes the explanatory limits of Reflective Endorsement approaches. The present paper will discuss David Velleman’s conception of agency and will particularly focus on his most recent work on practical reasoning. Velleman’s position within the Reflective Endorsement framework is particularly compelling for its attempt to accommodate two intuitions that prima facie could seem problematic for a Reflective Endorsement approach. I will argue that Velleman’s solution comprises of combining a two-fold model of agency with a two-fold model of the Self. Velleman’s project in the philosophy of action tries to find a solution to problems concerning the unity of agency by assigning a crucial role to the Self, and, specifically, by giving a narrative of account of it. I want to show the difficulties that this picture carries along and, in particular, I will argue that Velleman overlooks core features of narrativity that introduce inconsistencies in his model.

Butlin Patrick, King's College, London, [email protected]

Humeanism, strength of will and the science of action selection

Humeanism about intention is the view that intentions are reducible to beliefs and desires. One strength of this position is that beliefs and desires are central to current theories of action selection in cognitive neuroscience, while intentions are not prominent. The first part of this paper describes three ways 21 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero in which conscious intentions could influence actions through the mechanisms described in this body of neuroscience. However, Richard Holton gives an account of strength of will, drawing on empirical evidence concerning willpower and the phenomenon of ego-depletion, which contradicts the Humean view. Holton claims that strength of will involves a conflict between the agent’s intentions and their desires, which the agent wins on behalf of their intentions by the effortful exercise of willpower. Holton’s view treats the agent as separate from their desires and hints at agent causation. The paper develops a response to Holton, using a distinction between standing and occurrent desires to show that the influence of willpower on our behaviour is compatible with the Humean claim that we always act on our strongest desires.

Caffo Leonardo, Università di Torino, [email protected]

Ontologie ed Etiche Animali

Il 1859, con la pubblicazione del testo On the Origin of Species di C. Darwin, sancisce la fine di una diversa concezione degli animali umani rispetto agli animali non umani: la loro comune evoluzione ci spinge a non postulare ontologie qualitativamente diverse. La riflessione sugli animali in filosofia fa tesoro di questo dato scientifico quando, nel 1975, con Peter Singer e il suo Liberazione Animale comincia per la prima volta un reale dibattito sull’atteggiamento morale che dobbiamo assumere nei confronti degli animali non umani: se abbiamo con loro una natura comune, a partire già dall’evoluzione delle specie, e la sofferenza sembra essere – così dicono gli studi di animal cognition – proprietà largamente diffusa tra gli animali, allora cosa ci autorizza a uccidere gli animali non umani per svariati motivi: divertimento, ricerca, abbigliamento e nutrizione? Sempre secondo Singer non esistono buoni argomenti per sostenere il programmatico sterminio degli animali che continua solo grazie ad un pregiudizio – “specismo” – che non ha alcun fondamento filosoficamente sostenibile. L’argomentazione di Singer, tuttavia, per quanto improntata a sfaldare i presupposti teorici dello specismo sembra aprirsi, anch’essa, a critiche di discriminazione animale. Scopo del talk è ricostruire l’argomentazione di Singer mostrandone le “falle” non tanto da un punto di vista “specista”, ma proprio “antispecista”.

Calabi Clotilde, Università di Milano, [email protected]

The Eye of the Needle: Seeing Holes

As a start, let me make three claims and put forward a common intuition. The claims are that: (1) holes exist and are hosted by physical objects; (2) we see holes; (3) seeing a hole is a visual experience: it looks like there is some empty space we are visually aware of, which can be filled, plugged, enlarged, searched, thread…The intuition is that our visual awareness of holes is immediate. Differently said, the intuition is that seeing a hole is a visual achievement: splits, clefts, orifices, apertures, tunnels in mountains and eyes of needles are immediately seen. The claims are not negotiable. Instead, the intuition may be wrong: it is an open question whether we see hole immediately or not. Call this question (Q). There are various ontological 22 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero theories on holes and in the following I will focus on two of them, namely David and Stephanie Lewis’s material theory, and Casati and Varzi’s immaterial theory. For both theories holes have material hosts in which they are located, have shape and size, and their shape and size are determined by the boundaries enclosing them. Casati and Varzi contend that holes occupy regions of space, but a hole is not identical to a region of space. David and Stephanie Lewis contend instead that holes are material entities, superficial parts of those objects that we generally take as their hosts. More precisely, for David and Stephanie Lewis holes identical to their physical boundaries. Materialism and immaterialism are on a par: there are no conclusive arguments against one or against the other. Typically, the materialist claims that we see immediately holes and immaterialist denies this claim. We have an open question, two theories and two contrary answers. If the answer provided by one of these theories is inconsistent with some claim that we hold as true on grounds that are independent from ontological assumption, we have one reason to accept one theory and reject the other. In this paper I argue that materialism is better than immaterialism. Before presenting the overall structure of my paper, let me qualify Claim 3. Suppose that you look at a bookshelf against a wall and see two bookends that are one meter apart. In order to see them apart, you must be visually aware of the empty space between them. In claiming that empty space is something you are visually aware of, I simply want to say that you see where a group of books ends and where another group starts. I proceed as follows. In Section 1, I describe Casati and Varzi theory and their answer to (Q): for them seeing a hole is seeing (immediately) a surface and believing that there is a hole there. In Section 2, I introduce the notion of immediate or simple seeing and show in what sense this type of seeing requires visual differentiation. Then I describe an empirical objection that has been raised against Casati and Varzi theory. In Section 3, I give a phenomenological argument in support of the thesis that we see immediately holes, which relies on my third not-negotiable claim. I argue that if we deny that holes can be immediately seen, we must reject that claim. In Section 4, I describe David and Stephanie Lewis theory, its answer to (Q) and the objection that immaterialists raise against materialism. I argue that materialism is better than immaterialism: it is compatible with the empirical data and does not counter the not-negotiable claims. Instead, immaterialism, which rejects the thesis that we immediately see holes, is in contrast with at least one of those claims. My overall argument depends on the assumption that some version of the causal theory of perception is correct.

Caldarola Elisa, Università di Padova, [email protected]

A Wittgensteinian foundation for an understanding of pictorial resemblance

Recently, philosophical debate has seen a revival of the theory according to which pictures are characterized by the fact that they represent by means of resembling what they represent (e.g. Hopkins 1998, Hyman 2006, Abell 2009, Newall 2011). Prior to assessing resemblance theories of depiction we should make clear how we are to understand pictorial resemblance: is it, essentially, a relation that holds between two objects or is it a matter of two or more objects sharing some property? The former view is predominant, but Hyman understands resemblance as the sharing of a few objective visual properties 23 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero between pictorial surface and represented objects. The goal of this paper is to show how the latter proposal can be grounded in a non-referential view of pictorial representation that emerges from Wittgenstein’s writings. (1) First, I shall argue that the picture theory of language defended in the Tractatus does not concern Wittgenstein’s understanding of pictorial representation; (2) second, I shall show how the latter Wittgenstein conceives of pictures and their analogies with verbal language; (3) finally, I shall show how some remarks by Wittgenstein can help us framing the question of resemblance in pictures.

Calosi Claudio, University of Urbino, [email protected]

Quantum Entanglement and Metaphysical Fundamentality

I frame rigorously the question of fundamental mereology, i.e. the question of which objects are truly fundamental, and its answers, Monism and Pluralism. I then review an influential quantum mechanical argument in favor of Monism. The argument depends crucially on the existence of entangled states. I offer a novel criticism of the argument showing that it hides a problematic generalization from the case of bipartite to the case of n-multipartite entangled states. Also I provide a new argument against one of the main premise of the monist argument according to which entangled states are such that the whole is more fundamental than the parts. The argument depends crucially on showing that the quantum domain is a model of a particular mereological theory, namely extensional mereology. Finally I contend that these results show how quantum mechanics could be taken to undermine a widespread metaphysical picture of nature.

Casati Roberto, Institut Jean NIcod, Paris, [email protected]

Shadow Lessons: Competition between Ontologies for Dependent Entities

Castelfranchi Cristiano, Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies, [email protected]

“My Mind”: Reflexive Sociality and its Cognitive Tools

“Mind reading” is for social interaction (coordination, cooperation, exchange,..), and, in particular, for beliefs and goals "adoption" from the others, and for influencing, manipulating, persuading; that is, changing the other mind, beliefs and goals, in order to change their behavior. Given this ability to “read” the others’ mind and to use this representation to induce certain behavior (goals, intentions) in the others, I postulate an "introjection" of this mechanism, a reflexive application of this form of social cognition and action on our selves. Or better, to be “our selves” means to have such a social-like representation (image) of us as a person, to know who we are or to build whom we are, by building and operating through this image. I assume that there is self-mind reading and self-influencing: I learn to read my own behavior in mental terms; I learn to have a reflexive “mind reading”; I meta- represent by beliefs, goals, etc. For what? Not just for "understanding" what 24 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero

I’m doing and why, not just for predicting and expecting what I will do, but also (and perhaps mostly) for helping myself and cooperating with myself, for “influencing” myself: changing my own mind, my goals. In order to socially fighting or cooperating with myself, “imposing” to myself certain preferences, contrasting my needs, desires. There are different perspectives about me (and my "instances" (self-framing)) and reflexive communication acts, requests, duties, emotions, promises, ..... in my internal "theater" and representation of myself.

Chiaradonna Riccardo, Roma Tre University, [email protected]

Plotinus' Account(s) of Sensible Particulars

In some treatises (e.g. Enneads VI 3 [44], 8-10 and VI 4 [44], 15) Plotinus develops a radical anti-essentialist account of sensible particulars (whose status is opposed to that of Plato’s separate Forms). Plotinus rejects the Peripatetic view that some properties have a constituent position within sensible particulars and regards sensible particulars as bereft of any internal essence. Accordingly, no constitutive property exists at the level of sensible reality and sensible particulars should be conceived of as integrally qualitative wholes. Plotinus’ notion of an integrally qualitative bundle leads him to equate (e.g. in particular human beings) the status of an Aristotelian differentia such as ‘biped’ to that of accidental qualities such as ‘tall’. But this is a troublesome conclusion and Plotinus hesitates to give up the idea that sensible particulars have an internal structure, where some qualities have a privileged status. Interestingly, Plotinus himself develops elsewhere a different quasi-essentialist view that opposes constituent and accidental properties within sensible particulars (see Enneads II 6 [17], 2). There is, then, an internal tension within Plotinus’ views on sensible particulars. Such problems possibly depend on the fact that Plotinus makes use of Aristotelian hylomorphic concepts in order to express a different philosophical view drawn from Plato (and especially the Timaeus): that according to which sensible particulars are nothing but degradations of higher, supra-sensible causal principles.

Ciaunica-Garrouty Anna, University Of Burgundy, [email protected]

Being without Grounding: the Infinite Crescent/Descent Hypothesis

A recent dispute concerns whether reality’s building is grounded on a final fundamental level or whether it goes on forever in its layers. Schaffer (2003, 2010) famously rejected the [Fundamentality] thesis and proposed replacing it with what he calls Priority Monism, i.e. the thesis that the cosmos (the whole) is fundamental (i.e. prior to its parts), with metaphysical explanation dangling downward from the One. He starts by defending the thesis of an infinite descent, i.e. the idea of infinitely decomposable matter. He argues that without a fundamental level, there is no reason to believe that any infinitely deep dependence base is ontologically more basic than any other. In this paper I argue in favor of an infinite crescent hypothesis, namely the idea that an infinitely ‘composable’ world is as much conceivable as an infinitely 25 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero decomposable world. In other words I argue against the asymmetry of existence thesis which stipulates that there must be an ultimate whole, but there need not be ultimate parts. In an infinite descent world there are no fundamental simples, while in an infinite crescent world there are no fundamental wholes. In the former case the world would be endless, whereas in the later case the world would be ‘startless’.

Ciuni Roberto, Ruhr-Universitaet Bochum, [email protected]

Logic of Paradox with 'Consistency Operator'

Graham Priest's LP (Logic of Paradox) is a three-valued paraconsistent formalism assuming true, false, and both-true-and-false as truth-values and true and both-true-and-false as designated values. Boolean constructions of atoms follow the truth-tables of Strong Kleene Matrices (SKM) and an interesting feature of the logic is that it makes a formula valid iff the formula is classically valid. However, Modus Ponens (MP) fails in LP. This is perceived as an indesideratum by many, Priest included. In order to handle the problem, Priest himself has proposed two alternative solutions. The first restores MP, but loses monotonicity. This is in turn an indesideratum that many would not accept. The second is to follow a Methodological Maxim (MM) which - in a nutshell - prescribes us to reason classically as long as we have no reason to suppose that inconsistencies are involved. One noticeable problem with the solution, however, is that we have no way to sort the 'consistent' cases out within LP's language, and this our supposition of consistency is something we apply to the logic, not something we can express within it. In this talk, I extend LP with an intensional operator \circ which will serve as a 'consistency operator'. '\circ p' intuitively means "p is true and not glutty". I then show that MP is restore when it comes to the 'intensional fragment' of the new language and discuss how such a fragment behave w.r.t. classical rules of inference in general.

Corradini Antonella, Università Cattolica di Milano, [email protected]

Value Neutrality in Clinical Psychology

It could seem that in ethical codes of psychologists a tension exists between the prescription to adopt an attitude of value neutrality towards patients and the recommendation to pursue the main value of patients’ welfare. To solve this apparent conflict, it is suggested to draw an analogy between value neutrality in clinical psychology and in political philosophy. Similarly to John Rawls’ distinction between a political conception of justice and a comprehensive religious, philosophical or moral doctrine, a difference can be made between a clinical and a comprehensive conception of values. The first is constitutive of clinical practice, thus no value abstinence is prescribed here; the second encompasses almost all values present in a person’s life and it is the real object of the neutrality requirement. However, on this construal the neutrality principle does not deny but presupposes the role of values in clinical psychology. But science declares itself to be value-free. Is therefore clinical psychology a non scientific discipline? The answer is in the negative, 26 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero since clinical psychology is a practical human science. Unlike theoretical human sciences, in clinical psychology value principles are indispensable, since the direction of the transformative process depends on the value assumptions which justify the goal to be reached. In conclusion, the presence of values in clinical psychology is thus not only an ethical but, most importantly, a fundamental epistemological requirement.

Costa Davide, Università di Torino [email protected]

Esternismo, trasparenza e razionalità: i problemi per un esternismo radicale

Presa nota dell’incompatibilità tra il criterio esternista per l’individuazione del contenuto e il Principio della differenza intuitiva di Frege, si discuterà la possibilità di difendere il criterio esternista formulando un concetto di razionalità che non abbia alla basa la trasparenza dei contenuti mentali. Brown (2003;2004) ha sostenuto che l’attacco mosso all’esternismo (Boghossian 1992;1994) per cui l’esternismo, negando la trasparenza dei contenuti mentali, mina la possibilità di concepire i soggetti come razionali dipende a un assunto di razionalità errato. La razionalità per il paradigma fregeano è inscindibile dalla possibilità di riconoscere a priori il contenuto e le proprietà logiche delle proprie credenze, la sfida per un esternismo radicale come quello di Brown consiste nel dimostrare che la nozione di razionalità e quella di contenuto possono viaggiare separate. Alla luce del contributo di Wikforss (2005; 2006) sosterremo che la nozione di razionalità non può essere concepita separata dalla trasparenza dei contenuti mentali. Inoltre, si discuteranno le ragioni di principio per cui non è possibile introdurre una nozione di razionalità come quella richiesta da Brown: tale introduzione richiede di introdurre un punto di vista non esternista dal quale valutare la razionalità di soggetti i cui contenuti mentali sono individuati esternisticamente.

Costa Paolo, Fondazione Bruno Kessler, [email protected]

The Morality of Animal Life: Between Concealment and Exposure

In my paper, I will start from a couple of notions, articulated by two novelists (respectively, J.S. Foer and D.W. Wallace), in order to investigate whether a fully moral relationship with the “animal realm” can be seen as a realistic goal (and by “animal realm” I mean “animal life” in the broadest sense: animal within and animal without, so to speak). Apart from the easier advocacy issue (I personally abhor any form of callousness toward animals), my conclusion will be that we will never get rid of the ambivalence that is deeply rooted in, even coextensive, with our animal lives. So, even in the case of animal rights, we have to learn to live in a sort of state of suspension, not because “nothing matters”, but simply because “too much matters”.

Cotogno Paolo, Liceo Copernico, Brescia [email protected]

Rosser, Yablo, and the Turing Barrier

27 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero

The Turing barrier is the horizon of effective computability as delimited 0’, the degree of the unsolvability of the halting problem for Turing machines. The `barrier' metaphor conveys the idea that Turing-machine computability is impaired by a restriction that would not affect more powerful systems. With respect to the equivalent system of Peano Arithmetic (PA), the restriction is essentially a consequence of Goedel's Incompleteness Theorem for ω- consistent systems. Assuming that incompleteness and undecidability of PA are an effect of the finite nature of its computational means, the barrier could be broken by some form of the ω-rule. Physicists are indeed considering the implementation of this principle through relativistic and quantum hypercomputers, capable of performing infinitely many operations in finite time. The project should be criticized, apart from questions of physical plausibility, as the ω-rule is not sufficient to neutralize all paradoxical constructions that actually entail the undecidability of PA. As long as the system is classically consistent, one can employ alternative undecidability arguments, such as Rosser's and Yablo's, which are not affected by the ω-rule.

Crocchiola Danae, Università di Messina [email protected]

The role of sexual selection in the perception of facial beauty

The attempt to extend the good genes theory to facial attractiveness, by determining the features that make a face beautiful, gives rise to the contemporary debate between proponents of the Averageness theory (Langlois and Roggman, 1990) and the promoters of the Outstanding Attractiveness theory (Perrett et al., 1994). According to the former the most attractive faces are more prototypical, i.e. best examples of the category they belong to, while the latter relate beauty to a cross-cultural consensus of considering more attractive feminized versions of common faces. Relying instead on a strictly evolutionary perspective grounded on the mechanisms of sexual selection (Johnston, 1999), greater weight should be given to the relationship between the judgment and the hormonal levels of the subjects tested. In this perspective, the average faces are attractive because they respond to the needs related to survival in the specific context in which they were selected. However, at a cross-cultural level, the most attractive male and female faces show features not related to the average, because they exhibit hormonal markers as indicators, respectively, of higher levels of testosterone and oestrogen (Johnston and Franklin, 1993). This article aims at understanding the attractiveness of faces as a result of a compromise within the conflict between natural and sexual selection, justifying the biological push of attraction for phenotypic structures that look "exaggerated".

Crupi Vincenzo, Università di Torino, [email protected]

One, but not the same: On probabilistic analyses of confirmation and explanatory power

Quantitative explicata of confirmation and of explanatory power are often defined as functions of probability values involving an event and a hypothesis (on suitable background knowledge and assumptions). These two kinds of formal constructs also tend to display common features and salient analogies. 28 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero

In view of this, investigating the connection between a probabilistic measure of confirmation and of explanatory power appears appropriate, if not pressing, as a source of theoretical clarification for formal epistemology and the philosophy of science. I will present two arguments in this connection. The first one implies that a reductionist thesis turns out to be a naïve view of the connection between confirmation and explanatory power. Probabilistic confirmation and explanatory power cannot be identified, for the two notions are constrained by quite basic principles that are genuinely and demonstrably distinct. In the second part of my discussion, I will show that a convenient and indipendently motivated choice of measures of confirmation and explanatory power still yields insight into their subtle relations, especially including a telling formal result that bridges analyses in this area with so-called no miracle argument.

Czarnecki Boleslaw, Jagiellonian University, [email protected] Czarnecki Tadeusz, Jagiellonian University, [email protected]

Instantiated Know-how and the Myth of Intellectual Transformation

We assume that intellectualist interpretations of ‘S knows-how to F’ are strongly committed to what one might call the general thesis about the transformation of (an entity with) distilled intellectual content IC into action F (IT). IT-thesis seems to contain important postulates concerning purity and exclusivity of intellectual content. Intellectualists should endorse both of them in order to make knowledge-how a privileged component of the analysis of non-accidentally successful action. Focusing on instantiated knowledge-how, we present a counter-argument to IT (Anti-IT) which exploits scenarios where an agent S is confronted with a novel problem, i.e., S recognizes the goal of action F and has the required tools to F but does not possess the method of reaching the goal. Confining ourselves to actions involving the manipulation of external tools we show that neither invention of a method nor abstraction of a methodology of F from recognized goal of F is intellectually possible. Since solving such novel problems requires experimentation, we claim that neither mental simulation nor thought experiments are effective because both fail (1) to make S learn on error and success and (2) to implement in S causal links necessary to manipulate external tools.

D'Agostini Franca, University of Turin, [email protected]

On lying and misleading in the perspective of truth

The paper focuses on some aspects of lying in the perspective of alethic realism. A distinction between lying as ‘asserting false sentences’, and misleading, as ‘conveying false beliefs by telling the truth’ is often traced in the literature (see Saul, 2012). But in more general sense, lying is the speech act whose aim is making the audience believe what the speaker believes being false (see Dietz 2003). The way in which the aim is accomplished is not specified; the speaker can say something false, or true, indifferently. The definition of lie as speech act may help to understand why, morally speaking, misleading is not better than lying. The problem with this definition is that, by focusing on the speaker’s intentions and beliefs, the relevance of truth as 29 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero objective property of propositions is somehow underrated. It is argued that, as proper truthbearers are «extended sentences» (Recanati, 2007), and specifically: sentences including all what is relevant for adequate evaluation, the violation of truth occurring in any kind of lie (by uttered or implied falseness) is simply revealed by ‘extending’ the sentences involved. So ultimately: misleading is saying falsity.

Damonte Marco, University of Genoa, [email protected]

La legittimità della credenza teista e la sfida del naturalismo

L’epistemologia della religione negli ultimi anni ha spostato l’accento dalla verità delle credenze religiose alla loro legittimità. Gli studi di psicologia evoluzionista e di sociobiologia costituiscono oggi il maggior sconfiggitore per le credenze teiste, in quanto si ritiene che i processi neurologici e/o la dipendenza genetica dei processi che portano alla formazione di tali credenze costituiscano la prova della loro inattendibilità. Nella prima parte dell’intervento mostrerò come la naturalizzazione delle credenze religiose non infici la loro legittimità argomentando su un livello metodologico e su un livello epistemologico. In un secondo momento indicherò il tentativo di naturalizzare le credenze teiste come un prezioso alleato per la stessa posizione teista. Nella tradizione calvinista il sensus divinitatis è infatti considerato una capacità innata e naturale capace di cogliere la presenza di Dio, date determinate circostanze. In particolare valuterò il recente suggerimento degli epistemologi riformati (Plantinga, Alston e Wolterstorff): ritengo la loro proposta di considerare la credenza teista originaria, immediata e accettabile a meno di prova contraria non solo compatibile con le scoperte delle neuroscienze, ma corroborata da esse. Concluderò infine proponendo questo dibattito come paradigmatico per affrontare il rapporto scienza e fede e per formulare una teologia naturale fruibile nel confronto interculturale.

Dastmalchian Amir, The Islamic College, [email protected]

Religious Diversity and Two Types of Religious Ambiguity

Recent discussions by Robert McKim and John Bishop engage with the concept of ‘religious ambiguity’, a concept key to John Hick’s religious pluralism. Ironically there is a lack of clarity about this concept. One important distinction to be made is whether ambiguity is temporary or permanent. Temporary ambiguity refers to the ambiguity humans find in their experience of the universe which is a result of ignorance and therefore potentially overcomable. On the other hand permanent ambiguity is when the experienceable universe is itself ambiguous and will always be ambiguous however much knowledge humans obtain. The first meaning of ‘ambiguity’ invokes a sense of the unknown and the second meaning invokes a sense of the unknowable. This distinction is of considerable importance for one’s view of religious diversity. If the experienceable universe is temporarily religiously ambiguous a person may have confidence in the truth of one particular set of religious beliefs to the exclusion of all others – perhaps expecting that they 30 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero will eventually be shown to be true. However, if the experienceable universe is permanently religiously ambiguous there will be no grounds for such hope. While entrenched religious convictions would be reasonable in the former situation they would not be in the latter situation. The discussion also relates to the topic of peer disagreement in epistemology. ‘Ambiguity’, I suggest, can be a key to understanding disagreement of physical and social phenomena and not just religious phenomena.

Davies Richard, Università di Bergamo, [email protected]

Why society is not made of documents

The paper proposes three separately damaging and, I believe, jointly fatal objections to the theory of social objects set out in Maurizio Ferraris’ 2009 book Documentalità. The key claim of the theory is that every social object is constituted by an inscribed act. By an ‘inscribed act’ Ferraris means a public execution of a piece of writing in such a form as to be registered and subsequently consulted by more than one person so as to be able to ascertain the configuration of rights and duties arising out of the performance in question. This theory has many virtues. Among these is the fact that, in its paradigm cases, its privileged objects are readily identifiable. The presence or absence of a piece of writing in a given language on a given physical support is, in general, a matter about which only cavillers could invent problems. In this respect, Ferraris’ theory has a distinct advantage over the other going proposal in the theory of social objects, namely Searle’s claim that certain physical objects ‘count as’ social objects in a ‘certain context’, where that context is determined by ‘collective intentionality’. For, each of the terms placed in quotation marks is as a red rag to a bull. The first damaging objection to the documental theory is that Ferraris needs to be able to distinguish between a valid document and an invalid document. Ferraris himself does recognise the need at various points in his exposition. But his theory does not allow him to make such a distinction because, on his account, inscription as such is sufficient to produce a social object. Ferraris appears to rely on a sort of regress argument according to which, in any sequence of arbitrary length, the ultimate explanatory term has to be a document. Once it is made explicit, the unfoundedness of this claim becomes apparent and can be illustrated by reference even to some of the cases that Ferraris treats as paradigmatically documental. In particular, it appears that social objects, such as customs, practices and what Wittgenstein might have called ‘ways of life’, seem to function at least as well in terminating explanatory regresses as documents do. Indeed, it is only in terms of such objects that the validity or otherwise of a document can be assessed. The second damaging objection to documental theory is that Ferraris needs to be able to explain how a document can have determinate content. In taking this to be unproblematic Ferraris is quite rightly opposing the tendency in much philosophy in the hermeneutic tradition to regard interpretation as a free-for-all. But he seems at the same time to forget that the constraints on the meaning attributable to a text in turn depend on social facts that are not themselves textual. Thus, the insertion of a document in a certain institution is necessary for the determination of the social role it is to play. A third point that is worth stressing is that, in many cases in which it is hard to identify a document of 31 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero the paradigmatic sort (writing in a language on a physical support), Ferraris has recourse to the Derridean notion of ‘archiwriting’, which is only by grace a sort of writing, appears to be in some way pre-linguistic and seems to do without any clear sense of there being a surface that is inscribed. The best that can be said for this is that it appears that Derrida himself took the idea no more seriously than most analytic philosophers have. The disadvantage of having ‘archiwriting’ as a fall-back for documentality is that it undermines one of the theory’s main virtues, namely the (re)identifiability of documents.

De Brasi Leandro, King's College London, [email protected]

Contextualism and the Transmissibility of Knowledge

It has recently been argued that Subject-Sensitive Invariantism conflicts with some commonly accepted truisms about the social role of knowledge and in particular our testimonial practice. One might then think, given the differences between Subject-Sensitive Invariantism and Contextualism, the latter wouldn’t be susceptible to related objections. I argue, however, these commonsensical phenomena give us a reason to reject Contextualism too. Contextualism, given a ‘multiple scoreboards’ position, introduces a defeating condition on testimony regarding the possible mismatch of epistemic standards applicable to the testifier and the audience when attributing knowledge to the testifier. This is a possibility that ought to be eliminated in order for knowledge to be transmitted by testimony. But, there is a clear tension between this Contextualist requirement and both our actual practice and our capacity to satisfy it. In response, the Contextualist can adopt a ‘single scoreboard’ position in order to avoid this defeating condition. This Contextualist suggests there is only one standard in place in the testimonial exchange. However, even in this case, our testimonial practice is threatened but due to a slightly different defeating condition. Regardless of the position adopted, Contextualism threatens the point of our pervasive testimonial practice and the knowledge we think we normally acquire.

De Florio Ciro, Università Cattolica, [email protected] Frigerio Aldo, Università Cattolica, [email protected]

A Modal Account of Essence

In Essence and Modality (Fine 1994) Kit Fine challenges the classical account of the concept of essence in terms of modal notions. In particular, if we say that the object a is essentially P if and only if, necessarily, if a exists, then Pa, we are forced to admit as essential some properties which intuitively are not. Fine’s counterexamples are the property of belonging to his own singleton and the property of being different from the Eiffel Tower, which are owned necessarily by Socrates, even if they are not intuitively part of his essence. In our talk, we shall develop an alternative way to treat Fine’s counterexamples, in order to save – at least from a certain point of view – the account of essence in modal terms. The key idea is that properties are not owned by an object as such but qua P, where P is an aspect or a feature of the object. Our thesis is that the properties mentioned by Fine actually belong to the Socrates’ essence, but only insomuch as he is an object, while other 32 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero properties, such as being an animal, belong to Socrates’ essence not insomuch as he is an object, but because he is a man.

De Michael, Utrecht University, [email protected]

Intrinsicality and Modal Properties

Numerous objections have been leveled against Lewis's duplication account of intrinsicality (see e.g. (Francescotti 1999, (Hawthorne 2001), and (Marshall and Parsons 2001). But none of them are knock-down refutations, at least not by Lewis's own lights. I will raise a further objection that I think is a knock- down refutation of the duplication account even by Lewis's own lights---under the assumption that de re modality is to be analyzed in Lewisian counterpart- theoretic terms. Avoiding the objection will therefore require giving up the duplication account or else Lewis's preferred version of counterpart theory.

De Távora Sparano Maria Cristina, Universidade Federal do Piauí, [email protected]

The problem of mental causation: Donald Davidson versus Hanna and Maiese

The aim of this paper is to present contrasting perspectives in the Philosophy of mind in Robert Hanna and Michelle Maiese’s text Embodied Minds in Action (2009). In that text the authors criticize and find a contrary position to one of Donald Davidson’s core thesis related to the specific problem of mental causation and intentional action. Concerning the problem of mental causation, the question presented by Davidson is: What explains the causal relevance and causal efficacy of conscious, intentional minds like ours in the physical Word? For Davidson, "explanations of actions through reasons are causal explanations". Having a reason means to enunciate its cause, mentioning mental states (desires, beliefs, intentions) that lead the agent to act in a certain way. Unlike causal theories of mind, this theory does not appeal to psychological laws. For Davidson, the causal explanation of an action is always unique and rests on normative principles of rationality. The authors, Hanna and Maiese, also seek an appropriate solution for the problem. They start pointing out the categorical difference between intentional actions and events; they seek neuro-phenomenological, conceptual and metaphysical connections between intentional actions, reasons and causes for them. The authors solution for the old ontological problem Mind-Body, is that for subjective conscious minds and material objective bodies one should take into consideration complementary properties both from the metaphysical and mental point of view as well as from the material and objective point of view. The Essential Embodiment Theory or the so-called Mind-Body Animalism defends that animals are beings that are constituted neither as essentially mental nor as essentially physical, but are, instead, both mental and physical.

33 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero

De Toffoli Silvia, Technische Universität Berlin, [email protected] Giardino Valeria, Universidad de Sevilla - Institut Jean Nicod, [email protected]

Roles and Forms of Diagrams in Knot Theory

In our talk, we will explore how knowledge in a particular mathematical domain, topology and in particular knot theory, is gained and established. In particular we will deal with the visual material involved in the practice of mathematics (e.g. figures, illustrations, diagrams, etc.) in order to analyze its ‘forms’ and its epistemic and cognitive roles. We claim that in our case study diagrams, and figures in general, play a relevant epistemic role and we aim at identifying this role and describing it through specific examples. In doing so, we contend the segregation of diagrammatic reasoning to the domain of pure heuristics. Knot theory is a branch of topology which is a surprisingly rich source of examples and will be an experimentation ground to develop an analysis of the role of space and action in diagrammatic reasoning. We will propose a characterization and a classification for the diagrams used in knot theory based on their dynamic nature. Our hypothesis is that knot diagrams, differently from illustrations, are not static but convey a set of (more or less explicit) rules that regulate their moves in the space they live in, thus triggering a form of manipulative imagination which is nurtured by expertise. In our conclusions, we will hint at possible generalizations of our results.

De Vecchi Francesca, Università Vita-Salute San Raffaele, [email protected]

Two essential features for an account of social ontology: ontological dependence on intentionality and normativity

Despite the extreme heterogeneity of social entities we deal with in our everyday life (marriages, bus tickets, euro bills, university professors, governments, football teams, the penal code, theatres, etc.), I claim that there are at least two characteristics which essentially identify social entities: (i) The ontological dependence on intentionality; (ii) The normativity. The first issue I will address is: which kind of intentionality social entities depend on? My claim is that social entities depend on heterotropic intentionality (Author 2011, 2011a): they depend on an intentionality which involves at least two persons and they do not depend on a solitary intentionality. In other terms, to make any type of social entity exist and last, one subject is not enough, while, for instance, myself alone is enough for looking at the sea in front of me. Social entities always presuppose at least two individuals, i.e. a society in miniature (Znamierowski 1921). The second issue I will focus on is that social entities are specifically normative entities, i.e. they imply a deontology: rights, obligations, authorisations, commitments, in one word «deontic powers» (Searle 2010). I will inquiry into the specificity of social normativity: which kinds of normativities characterise social entities? Firstly, I will distinguish social normativity from moral normativity. Secondly, I will distinguish between eidetic and conventional normativity, and between necessary and contingent normativity.

34 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero

Del Savio Lorenzo, Universita' di Milano - Istituto Europeo di Oncologia, [email protected]

Bad Food Choices, Health and Prevention: a Normative Analysis

Health policies that target lifestyles are paternalistic: they interfere with choices of the intended beneficiaries without their consent. While liberals contend that this is never legitimate, others suggest that these measures will be seldom of net benefit. Individual conceptions of well-being differ, there are no ways to study them for population-wide interventions and we can assume that people make welfare-maximizing choices. Therefore, we should not interfere. There are several critiques of this argument as applied to food choices: people are not fully informed, they are irrationally time-biased, they have meta-preferences on the environments of choice, their preferences developed sub-optimally. These critiques do not beg the question only if they do not rely surreptitiously on some objective account of well-being. In this paper, I argue that they do not: in some cases, we can say that choices are bad without knowing what better choices would be like. The argument rests on a distinction between thick and thin conceptions of well-being: although there are good objections to objective accounts of welfare (thick theories), they do not rule out every truth about well-being (thin theories). I conclude that there are good reasons of beneficence in favor of intervention and that they weigh against the liberal presumption in favor of liberty.

Demircioglu Erhan, Koc University, [email protected]

Physicalism and Phenomenal Concepts

Frank Jackson’s famous Knowledge Argument moves from the premise that complete physical knowledge is not complete knowledge about experiences to the falsity of physicalism. In recent years, a consensus has emerged that the credibility of this and other well-known anti-physicalist arguments can be undermined by allowing that we possess a special category of concepts of experiences, phenomenal concepts, which are conceptually independent from physical/functional concepts. It is held by a large number of philosophers that since the conceptual independence of phenomenal concepts does not imply the metaphysical independence of phenomenal properties, physicalism is safe. This paper distinguishes between two versions of this novel physicalist strategy –Phenomenal Concept Strategy (PCS) – depending on how it cashes out “conceptual independence,” and argues that neither helps the physicalist cause. A dilemma for PCS arises: cashing out “conceptual independence” in a way compatible with physicalism requires abandoning some manifest phenomenological intuitions, and cashing it out in a way compatible with those intuitions requires dropping physicalism. The upshot is that contra Brian Loar and others, one cannot “have it both ways.”

35 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero

Di Bona Elvira, University Vita-Salute San Raffaele, Milan - Institute Jean Nicod, Paris, [email protected]

Hearing Causation

Can we audibly perceive the causal relation, assuming there is one, between the sound we hear and its source? Do we actually perceive sources by virtue of the perception of sounds? I shall try to answer the first question and I shall state that we can audibly perceive the causal relation between sound and its source. In order to do that I shall show, against O’Callaghan (2011), that it is possible to transpose Siegel’s argument (2009) in favour of the visual perception of causality – an argument based on a phenomenological contrast – within the realm of auditory perception. I agree with O’Callaghan that Nudd’s and Martin’s examples of hearing causality are not satisfactory, since they do not respect the two conditions O’Callaghan considers crucial for the application of the phenomenological contrast to audition: 1) sound and sources have to be perceived as discrete and independent events; 2) the perception of causality does not have to be multimodal. I shall propose an alternative case of hearing causality than those proposed by Nudds and Martin. In this case the two conditions are satisfied by introducing the possible perception of silence, considered as the peculiar trait of the source in itself. I base my account on Philliphs’s (forthcoming) theory of hearing silence.

Di Lorenzo Francesca, Università di Palermo, [email protected]

Perception, Normativity and Action in Contemporary Philosophy of Mind and Cognitive Science

Working on the background of a view of mind as “in action”, as pragmatically shaped by its own dynamic interactions with the world, emerging from the achievements of contemporary philosophy of mind (from Searle to enactivism) and cognitive science (from Gibson to Goodale and Milner) I aim to propose a view of perception as a form of human activity of which we are responsible, and in which our “commitment” to truth and rationality can take place. Against some recent phenomenalist and antirepresentationalist views of perception I'll try to show that the action-oriented character of perception does not challenge its rational constraint to a right representation of the state of affairs which it is about. I'll argue for this point using Searle's conceptual tool of the causal selfreferentiality of perception, showing how this causal self-referentiality can account for the normative constraint to truth underlying every perceptual experience. This constraint means that, even at the more receptive level of our interaction with the world, perception is not merely a passive event causally dependent on the environment. In fact, not only “it must be possible to decide whether or not to judge that things are as one’s experience represents them to be” (McDowell, 1994, 11), but also, beyond McDowell, it is up to us to have the right relationship with the state of affairs which experience is about. Finally I will show how such a theory of mind and perception can give a non ad hoc answer to Gettier counterexamples to the model of knowledge as true and justified belief.

36 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero

Domaneschi Filippo, Università di Genova, [email protected]

Presuppositions from an experimental point of view: cognitive context vs. objective context

In this paper I propose an experimental study aimed at evaluating the psychological plausibility of two philosophical approaches to pragmatic presuppositions: Common Ground account (CG) and Propositional Context account (PC). According to the Common Ground account proposed by Stalnaker (2002, 2009), the utterance of a sentence p is appropriate only if at the time t the common ground of presuppositions includes the presupposition q required by p, namely, interlocutors have a certain kind of propositional attitude towards q. Differently, Gauker (2002, 2008) claims that propositions taken for granted by the speakers coincide with what speakers recognize as something that they ought to take for granted for the purpose of the conversation, independently of their particular propositional attitudes. I will present the results of an experimental design which suggest that, according to CG, propositional attitudes towards presuppositions have relevant effects in the cognitive process involved in appropriateness evaluation of utterances. Results indicate, in fact, that if a speaker has the attitude of belief towards the content of a presupposition, she evaluates an utterance as higher appropriate and does so in a shorter time than in the case of an attitude of presumption or, particularly, in the case of an undetermined attitude. I will conclude claiming that, in order to have a better psychological plausibility, the PC should take into account the role of propositional attitudes by the distinction between the condition for appropriateness of utterances containing presupposition triggers and the process of appropriateness evaluation.

Dožudić Dušan, University of Zagreb, [email protected]

Identity Statements and Metalingusitic Content

Departing from standard Fregean/descriptivist and direct reference treatments of identity statements, and related informativeness and substitution failure puzzles, a number of authors argued that (or wrote as if) identity statements have metalinguistic content and truth conditions. To say that Cicero is Tully, according to them, amounts to saying something as: names ‘Cicero’ and ‘Tully’ refer to the same thing; and it is true that Cicero is Tully iff names ‘Cicero’ and ‘Tully’ refer to the same thing. In my talk I consider some arguments against the thesis that identity statements have metalinguistic content if such content is to be taken as their propositional or semantic content. I start with Frege who was probably the first who criticized the metalinguistic view of identity statements. I argue that his arguments against the view are not sufficient to undermine it, and I consider an addition argument against the view. I also outline possible solutions one might adopt in order to save the view.

37 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero

Edwards Douglas, Northern Institute of Philosophy, University of Aberdeen, [email protected]

On Pleonastic Properties

Stephen Schiffer (2003) offers a fairly radical proposal about properties. Whilst he holds that properties exist, he holds that they exist as no more than ‘shadows’ of our linguistic practices. Whilst he is at pains to state that, despite this, they exist in a genuine language-independent, abstract, sense, he does not think that properties play any causal or explanatory role, or that they are important ontological constituents of the world. In this paper I critically appraise this view. My strategy will be to use some simple considerations from Armstrong’s (1978, 1997) views on properties to show that Schiffer is committed to a position not too dissimilar to that initially favoured by Quine (1953). The bad news for Schiffer is that Quine abandoned the position, and I suggest that Schiffer ought to follow suit for similar, but not identical, reasons. Finally, I consider what positive conclusions we can draw from this discussion concerning the project of discerning the correct account of properties.

Engel Pascal, University of Geneva, [email protected]

Beliefs and other doxastic animals

I try here to give a taxonomy of belief and belief-like states, from beliefs, to degrees of beliefs, judgments, acceptances, conjectures, but also tacit beliefs, delusions, aliefs and other strange animals in the doxastic zoo. I start from a normative conception of belief to the effect that beliefs are governed by a norm of truth. The problem, for such an analysis is to account for the kinds of beliefs which are not governed by such a norm, is known as the "teleologist's dilemma" (Shah 2003). I try to give a solution to this problem which preserves the normative account while allowing us to keep the strange animals in the doxastic zoo.

Ervas Francesca, University of Cagliari [email protected] Gola Elisabetta University of Cagliari [email protected] Ledda Antonio University of Cagliari [email protected] Sergioli Giuseppe University of Cagliari [email protected]

How Do Metaphors Influence Quaternio Terminorum Comprehension?

To identify the fallacy of quaternio terminorum, we should disambiguate the middle term, which means something in the first premise and something else in the second one. Disambiguating a homonymous middle term, such as “bank”, would require suppressing one of its two literal meanings, i.e. “financial institution” and “side of a river”, in the first premise and vice versa in the second premise (Gernsbacher 1990). However, because of the structural ambiguity of quaternio terminorum, middle terms might have two different meanings in other ways (Tindale 2006). For instance, middle terms used in a metaphorical sense have figurative meanings that depart from their literal ones. Although lexical ambiguity and metaphor involve different pragmatic processes (Carston 2002), it has been showed that suppression 38 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero would be involved in both disambiguation and metaphor interpretation (Gernsbacher & Faust 1991). However, in the process of disambiguation the irrelevant meaning disappears significantly more quickly, when compared to the process of metaphor interpretation, which requires more demanding attentional resources to suppress the corresponding literal meaning (Rubio Fernandez 2007). This study aims to investigate whether and how these two different pragmatic processes influence the detection and therefore the comprehension of the fallacy of the four terms. We tested a group of (N=60) adults by using a series of verbally presented arguments, having the structure of quaternio terminorum and containing either a lexical ambiguous or a metaphorical middle term. Interestingly, a subset of arguments contained a polysemous word or a lexicalized metaphor, which after frequent use has given rise to a second meaning of a term (i.e. “star” as in planet and famous actor), thus becoming lexical ambiguous. We hypothesized then that the reaction times for quaternio terminorum understanding depend on the degree of partial semantic overlapping created by the different readings of a middle term.

Esposito Fabrizio, Ashurst, [email protected]

Linguaggio Economico e Filosofia Analitica del Diritto

La presente relazione vuole essere un contributo al dialogo tra teoria economica e dogmatica giuridica. Più precisamente, l’argomentazione è volta a (i) criticare la metodologia di quegli Autori che vengono qualificati come esponenti dell’“analisi economica del diritto” nella misura in cui adoperano il concetto di efficienza come elemento cardine delle proprie analisi e (ii) sostenere che, invece, l’elemento cardine possa essere più proficuamente individuato nella ‘traduzione’ di fenomeni sociali in termini di “scambi economici”. Per sostenere la prima tesi, per prima cosa si evidenzia come, nella teoria giuseconomica, il concetto di efficienza sia estremamente ambiguo; poi, si mostra la connessione di tale concetto con la nozione di efficacia dell’azione e come, pertanto, l’analisi dell’efficienza presupponga l’individuazione del fine perseguito. Successivamente, entrambe le tesi vengono testate in concreto commentando un articolo in cui viene applicata la metodologia criticata con la tesi (i); infine, si mostra come la tesi (ii) trovi conferma anche in un famoso articolo del premio Nobel George Akerlof. La conclusione è che un’analisi che parta dalla tesi (ii) può fornire un’ipotesi di azione nella regolazione dello “scambio economico”, sul presupposto che esso sia desiderabile.

Faroldi Federico L.G., University of Pavia, [email protected]

Rescuing Criminal Law: Responsibility Revisited

I argue that (criminal) law systems are justifiable regardless of moral responsibility, that is even if (a) there is no moral responsibility (as skeptics have it) or (b) there are overwhelming difficulties in ascribing it (as neuroscientific techniques seem to indicate). To prove my point, I consider current legal systems in section 2. They fail to appreciate the distinction between moral and legal responsibility, and how responsibility differs from 39 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero liability. Building on conceptual and empirical grounds, I argue that not only (i) legal liability should not depend on moral considerations, but also (ii) the broader idea of responsibility should be excluded from legal systems.These motives lead to the pars construens in section 3, where I propose to consider legal systems as groups of constitutive rules that should be strictly enforced without regard to moral considerations. I draw an analogy between the legal system and games such as chess and fencing, and show how this proposal can be theoretically justified beside its practical advantages. In section 4 I assess the likely consequences of this proposal in particular for justifications of punishment. The main aim of this paper is to show how skepticism towards (moral) responsibility does not undermine the basis of legal systems.

Fasoli Marco, Università Vita e Salute San Raffaele, [email protected]

Unità della coscienza e indistruttibilità: alcuni problemi

Questo paper intende mostrare alcune conseguenze problematiche della tesi proposta da Bayne, secondo cui l'unità della coscienza è determinata da uno stato conscio totale, che risulta indistruttibile. Introducendo una distinzione tra stati consci e stato conscio totale, e rilevando che le teorie empiriche indagano questi due aspetti separatamente senza preoccuparsi della loro relazione, Bayne dà delle indicazioni preziose per un nuovo modo di studiare la coscienza. Questo nuovo approccio alla coscienza dovrebbe cercare di integrare gli studi sugli stati consci con quelli sullo stato conscio totale. Il problema è che questa tesi attribuisce allo stato conscio totale la proprietà dell'indistruttibilità, senza giustificare perché gli altri stati consci non ne godono. Paga inoltre un alto prezzo sul piano dell'intuitività, negando che i casi dei cervelli divisi rappresentino dei casi di disunità della coscienza. Non specificando come potrebbe realizzarsi una reale disunità della coscienza, la teoria di Bayne non sembra nemmeno falsificabile.

Fassio Davide, University of Geneva, [email protected]

Purism defended: a non-pragmatic explanation of the sensitivity of knowledge-attributions to pragmatic factors

According to Pragmatic Encroachment whether an agent is in a position to know (or justifiably believe) something is partially determined by pragmatic factors. In support of this view a number of paradigmatic cases has been given to the effect that knowledge-attributions are sensitive to pragmatic factors. These cases seem to be easily explained if one assumes that knowledge, or some other epistemic state, are sensitive to practical considerations. In my talk I argue that a specific non-pragmatic condition on knowledge together with a specific psycological system of belief-revision are conjunctively sufficient to explain the same type of cases supposed to support Pragmatic Encroachment. Furthermore, I argue that the alternative non-pragmatic explanation is preferable to the pragmatic one to the extent to which it retains a set of advantages over Pragmatic Encroachment, such as a certain intuitive appeal and the capacity to account for some dynamics of change of epistemic conditions.

40 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero

Feis Guglielmo, Università di Milano, [email protected] Sconfienza Umberto, London School of Economics, [email protected]

Challenging the constitutive rules inviolability dogma

According to Searle [1969] a constitutive rule (henceforth CR) creates the very possibility of the entity it rules. Later on, other scholars (such as Benoist [2003], Conte [1983], Guastini [1983:561]) pointed out the inviolability of constitutive rules. We want to challenge this dogma asking the question: is it possible to have violations of constitutive rules? Our answer is affirmative, but it forces us to give a different account of CR. Considering that constitutive rules are a human product we think it is likely that there may be ranges or parameters. We claim that, for the constitutive rule to perform its task (i.e. creating new entities that have a specific, rule-based range of possibilities), one has to comply with the range of possible values dictated by the parameter. We claim that falling out of the range of the parameters of a CR is a violation of the supposed CR inviolability. Then we sketch a brief account of this CR parametrical theory, claiming it is closer to our way of experiencing social practices.

Felka Katharina, University of Hamburg, [email protected]

Number Words in Specificational Sentences

My talk concerns the question of what the correct linguistic analysis of the sentence ‘The number of moons of Jupiter is four’ is. Realists in the Fregean tradition regard this sentence as an identity statement in which the copula is flanked by two number-referring singular terms. They use this semantic analysis in an argument for the existence of numbers: if the sentence contains number-referring terms, they argue, it implies that there is at least one number. Recently, some results from linguistic theory were used to argue against the Fregean approach by rejecting the assumption that the sentence is an identity statement. I will argue that the sentence is indeed not an identity statement but rather a so-called specificational sentence. But, as I will further show, the correct linguistic analysis of specificational sentences cannot be used against the Fregean approach.

Fenici Marco, Università di Siena, [email protected]

Mindreading in Infancy? Yes, No, or Sort of

Recent studies employing spontaneous-answer false belief tasks (SA-FBTs) have found that infants are sensitive to others’ beliefs already in their second year of life. According to the supporters of the mentalist interpretation of SA- FBTs, these results demonstrate that infants already possess a modular capacity to attribute meta-representational states. This is apparently a very plausible hypothesis; nevertheless, it requires argumentation because tracking abilities specify only very loosely the nature of what is tracked. I will assess three arguments that have been advanced in support of the mentalist view. I will argue that none of them is persuasive when carefully considered. If we want to progress in our understanding of infants’ capacities manifested in 41 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero

SA-FBTs, we should avoid mistaking the apparent plausibility of the mentalist interpretation with the definitive truth, and keep investigating also alternative explanation.

Fernández Moreno Luis, Complutense University of Madrid, [email protected]

Rigidity, Truth and Necessity

In the third lecture of Naming and Necessity Kripke pays particular attention to natural kind terms, in which one of his main aims is to allege the existence of certain similarities between them and proper names. In this contribution I will deal exclusively with a prototypical sort of the former, the so-called substance terms, such as “water” and “gold”. According to Kripke, one of the similarities between natural kind terms and proper names is that both sorts of expressions appear in identity statements that, if true, are necessary – although they are true a posteriori. Kripke calls the sort of identity statements containing natural kind terms “theoretical identities” and he exemplifies them by the statements “Water is H2O” and “Gold is the element with the atomic number 79”. Nevertheless, Kripke claims that this similarity follows from another, namely that natural kind terms are, like proper names, rigid designators. In this contribution I have a twofold aim. Firstly, I will advocate that it can be held that natural kind terms are rigid designators. Secondly, I will argue that the conception of natural kinds that makes it possible for natural kind terms to be rigid designators hinders the establishment of the truth of theoretical identities and hence of their necessity.

Ferrari Filippo, University of Aberdeen, The Northern Institute of Philosophy, [email protected]

Disagreement and Value: Between Ethics and Aesthetics

Wittgenstein once said that ethics and aesthetics are one [Tractatus, 6.421]. There is a sense in which this is plainly true; they both primarily concern values and evaluations. However, disposing of the ladder before using it – i.e., sub specie hominis –, there is at least one interesting sense in which it is disputable whether they are one; and that, I argue, has to do with the nature of value and evaluation in these two domains. In the paper I approach the issue by means of a comparative analysis of the disagreement involved within ethics and aesthetics. I’m going to assume that moral and aesthetic judgements are the expression of genuine beliefs and their purpose is to say something about a certain object or state of affairs and not something about us, or how we relate to such object or state of affairs. This I take to be sufficient for granting the possibility of genuine disagreement. What I hope to show then is that an investigation of the aetiology and consequences of disagreement in ethics and aesthetics reveals what I consider an important asymmetry between the two domains, which may constitute a first step toward the project of clarifying the nature of value in these domains. The main contrast I want to focus on concerns the different role that experience plays in the formation of moral and aesthetic judgements. I maintain that while in the moral case experience generally plays an enabling, but not a 42 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero justificatory, role, in the aesthetic case experience plays a fundamental justificatory role.

Ferraris Maurizio, University of Turin, [email protected]

Who's Afraid of Realism?

Filotico Carlo, Milan State University, [email protected]

Weak Indexical Relativism

The question I am dealing with asks for the correct account of disputes concerning prima facie subjective domains of enquiry, such as aesthetics, moral disputes, matters of taste etc.. The answer I am trying to support is a quite lightweight version of indexical relativism, i.e. of the thesis that the context of a given dispute may allow a reading of speakers’ assertions as descriptions of the speakers’ judgements themselves (instead of reading such assertions as attempts to describe independent facts about the topic of the dispute). My work is articulated in three parts: in the first part I recall standard formulations of indexical relativism and provide a survey of the objections that they received in the literature; in the second part I try to formulate my own version of indexical relativism and I try to show that it can avoid the standard objections mentioned above; in the third part I consider some possible straightforward objections to my own version of indexical relativism and I try to reply to them.

Fjellstad Andreas, Northern Institute of Philosophy, [email protected]

How to be a (counter-example) friendly inferentialist

A central thesis in contemporary inferentialism is the connection between possessing a concept and being disposed to reason in accordance with some inference rules. Williamson and Casalegno have presented counter-examples against this thesis where a speaker has reason to be in theoretical disagreement about the inference or lacks the ability to infer while employing the expression related to the concept in reporting visual experience. In response to the counter-examples, the present paper gives additional support to the claim that contemporary inferentialism is incompatible with theoretical disagreement and suggests a way of being inferentialist which explains away the counter-examples. The suggestion implies making two changes to inferentialism. Firstly, by presenting concept-possession as having the skill of using subsentential expressions, we can deny that they represent (just) one concept each. Instead, each use of an expression is one concept because it is one skill. Secondly, logical vocabulary comes with language-entry rules in addition to language-language-rules. In this way, theoretical disagreement concerns the suitability of doing an action while logical vocabulary has a usage related to visual experience. To defend the first modification, the paper also introduces an algebraic framework within which semantic concepts of the new understanding of inferentialism are defined to show that meaning is compositional and that it supports an interesting notion of propositional

43 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero content. The second modification is justified through considerations on non- inferential use of logical vocabulary. content. The second modification is justified through considerations on non- inferential use of logical vocabulary.

Forlè Francesca, Università Vita-Salute San Raffaele, [email protected]

Il corpo e la strutturazione dell'esperienza percettiva. Spunti fenomenologici, psicologici e neuroscientifici

Nonostante la pluralità e la diversità delle posizioni teoriche, l’idea che il corpo ricopra un ruolo fondamentale nella strutturazione della nostra esperienza percettiva e forse anche cognitiva del mondo è oggi una tesi piuttosto diffusa nell’ambito di discipline quali la psicologia cognitiva, le neuroscienze, la fenomenologia. Obiettivo di questo lavoro è quello di proporre alcuni spunti fenomenologici sull’argomento e di affiancarli ad alcuni lavori empirici e sperimentali, con l’idea che questi ultimi possano trovare nei primi un buon orizzonte teorico di riferimento. In una prima parte, quindi, analizzeremo la tesi husserliana sul rapporto tra dimensione cinestetica dell’esperienza e percezione degli oggetti tridimensionali, mostrando peraltro, sperimentalmente, come l’esperienza vissuta del movimento venga sfruttata già da soggetti con poche settimane di vita per il riconoscimento e la discriminazione di oggetti tridimensionali. In una seconda e ultima parte, invece, sosterremo la tesi secondo cui l’esperienza vissuta del corpo e delle sue capacità di movimento e d’azione ci permette di ridefinire l’ambiente in cui viviamo come un mondo pragmaticamente connotato. Lo faremo non solo attraverso le tesi di Merleau-Ponty e di Gibson, ma anche attraverso gli spunti empirici della psicologia dello sviluppo e i recenti dati neuroscientifici sul rapporto tra percezione e azione.

Fugali Edoardo, Università di Messina, [email protected]

Volti che si cercano, mani che si toccano. L’autoconsapevolezza corporea tra fenomenologia e scienze cognitive

Coscienza e autocoscienza non sono emanazioni di una mente disincarnata, ma sono prefigurate nella loro genesi già al livello dell’autoconsapevolezza corporea, ossia della certezza irrefutabile di essere il latore delle proprie sensazioni corporee e l’iniziatore dei propri movimenti volontari. Come gli stati di coscienza di ordine superiore, così anche gli stati della consapevolezza del proprio sé corporeo esprimono la proprietà dell’autoriferimento esibita da ogni vissuto d’esperienza, e presuppongono unitamente a questi la dimensione del corpo vissuto, unico portatore sostanziale di ogni stato mentale e istanza costitutiva del soggetto personale. Se non è riconducibile alla sola dimensione del mentale, il corpo vissuto è tuttavia uno strato esperienziale ontologicamente genuino ed epistemologicamente autonomo, irriducibile alla componente del corpo oggetto che pure è ad esso inestricabilmente legata e si impone al nostro sguardo, una volta adottato l’atteggiamento naturalistico delle scienze della cognizione, pienamente legittimo a condizione che non travalichi i limiti del proprio ambito di considerazione. Si tratta in altre parole di dare vita a un approccio integrato, 44 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero che tenga in debito conto sia delle analisi fenomenologiche sullo strato del corpo vissuto sia delle evidenze sperimentali relative ai meccanismi cognitivi e neurofisiologici che implementano e realizzano il senso del sé corporeo.

Gagliardi Francesco, University of Rome "La Sapienza", [email protected]

Una critica all’Intentional Stance di Dennett

Dennett ha proposto tre strategie predittive ed esplicative impiegate dagli umani per comprendere il behaviour di un sistema: l’intentional stance, la design stance e la physical stance. La migliore strategia, secondo Dennett, da adottare per spiegare il behaviour degli umani è l’intentional stance. Questa assunzione è basata su una visione adattamentista della selezione naturale, che porta ad assumere l’ottimalità del design delle funzioni cognitive umane. Usando dei risultati della teoria della complessità computazionale, come la distinzione tra algoritmi approssimati ed euristici e la famiglia dei teoremi NFL (No-Free-Lunch) sosterremo che l’intentional stance è insufficiente per spiegare il behaviour umano e che inoltre la stessa distinzione tra intentional stance e design stance è malposta per i sistemi che affrontano problemi computazionalmente intrattabili. Introdurremo quindi l’heuristic stance come generalizzazione dell’intentional stance e della design stance e la proporremo come la migliore strategia per comprendere il behaviour degli umani e, in generale, dei sistemi che si possono considerare come degli agenti euristici.

Galeotti Anna Elisabetta, University of Eastern Piedmont, [email protected]

Liars or Self-Deceived? Reflection on political deception

This paper contributes to the issue of political deception by exploring the role of self-deception in democratic politics; the analysis moves from the following hypothesis: within politics, deception of the people is actually very often produced by the self-deception of political leaders, officials and politicians which is then supplemented by mechanisms of self-deception of the public itself. That self-deception rather than simply straightforward deception is a significant obstacle to truth and transparency in democratic politics is often mentioned and hinted by political scientists and historians, but never properly pursued and analyzed in depth. And yet it should, for which one is the case has important normative implications. The paper will be divided into the following parts: in the first section, I shall briefly present the notion of self- deception (SD), as developed in philosophical analysis and cognitive psychology. In the second section I shall offer some reasons to take the presence of SD in politics seriously, and counter possible objections by specifying the nature of political SD, as compared with general SD. Finally, in the third section, different kinds of political SD will be presented and illustrated by historical examples so as to provide a clear typology and make the case for SD in politics stronger.

45 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero

Garavaso Pieranna, University of Minnesota Morris, [email protected]

The Consistency Objection to Conventionalism in Mathematics and Logic

Putnam originally directed the consistency objection against Ludwig Wittgenstein's account of mathematics. Since the discussion of this objection provides a useful opportunity to deepen our understanding of Wittgenstein’s philosophy of mathematics, it is a pity that so far there has not been much discussion of it in the literature. In later writings, Putnam claimed that this objection refutes all conventionalist accounts of mathematics. As this wide applicability is not apparent, I raise the objection against an imaginary axiomatic theory T similar to Peano arithmetic in all relevant aspects, yet not hindered by unnecessary detail. I argue that a conventionalist can explain the structural features of T such as its consistency by appealing to the connection between rules of inference and their outcome, and suggest that an analogous explanation can be provided for the consistency of Peano arithmetic. If I am correct, one corollary of the argument of this paper is that a wholly conventionalist account of mathematics requires a conventionalist account of logic. I believe that Wittgenstein's conventionalism extends so far, but a full defense of this claim or of any such extended conventionalist account requires another paper.

Gerace Giuliana, University of Pavia, [email protected]

Justifying normative objects: an answer to J.Searle’s model

“Realism presupposes that there is a way things are that is independent of how we represent how things are” (Searle J. R.(1995). The Construction of Social Reality, London: Penguin Books, p.156).J.Searle’s account for the genesis and maintenance of mind-dependent objects existing in the shared practical sphere and able to condition individuals' conduct, can be considered unsatisfactory and incomplete. Particularly inadequate are his arguments in support to the thesis of the objectivity of social reality. How to justify the intrinsically valid normativity expressed by certain state of affairs “created” by other subjects? A possible satisfactory answer to the problem derives from a wider point of view in the field of practical reality, able to include the possibility of non-conceptual perspectives of validities. In this frame the existence of “normative objects” can be justified in the light of different levels of “reality”, by means of a critical perspective, out of any reductionism.

Giananti Andrea, University of Fribourg, [email protected]

Perception and Representation: a Response to Travis

A traditional view about perception is representationalism, which holds that perceptual experiences are a matter of representing the world as being a certain way. The representationalist thinks that the way things look constitutes the way our experience represents the world, where the representation is accurate if things are the way they look and inaccurate 46 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero otherwise. Travis (2004) argues that perceptual experiences are not representational because there are many incompatible ways things look, and there’s no principled criterion for saying which of those ways does determine the content of the representational state. In my paper I discuss his view and I claim the representationalist has a response: one that involves the rejection of the principle of epistemic closure. While discussing this principle, I will show how we can make sense of a subject having reflective access to the representational content of her experience, despite being unable to discriminate between several incompatible ways that things look like.

Goodman Jeremy, Oxford University, [email protected]

Intuitions and Perceiving Reasons

I propose a new theory of the metaphysics of intuitions, according to which intuitions are perceptual experiences of epistemic reasons. I first argue that this view does better than its rivals at explaining various desidrata about intuitions. I then consider what ramifications the view has regarding the role of intuitions in philosophy. Finally, I consider some objections.

Haemmerli Marion, University of Lausanne, [email protected]

The Need for Uniformity Principles in Mereo-Topology

In the last two decades, many philosophers started using mereo-topological formalisms to support complex formal theories studying a variety of metaphysical kinds such as spatial regions and spatial tenants, material objects and events, abstracta and concreta, etc. Only in some rare cases the addition of new subtheories onto a mereo-topological background formalism has led to a reconsideration of the axiomatic structure of mereo-topology. In my talk, I shall maintain that some kind of sort-specificity has to be added into the mereo-topological axiomatic structure to avoid cognitively implausible and undesirable formal consequences that arise from the addition of different metaphysical kinds to a mereo-topological background theory. I will show how sort-specificity can be introduced into the axiomatic structure of mereo- topology whilst maintaining its formal ontological nature. Finally, I shall present the resulting mereo-topology and compare it to other non-standard mereo-topologies that have been discussed in the literature.

Heras-Escribano Manuel, Universidad de Granada, [email protected] De Pinedo-García Manuel, Universidad de Granada, [email protected]

Affordances and physical intentionality

Within the debates on the naturalization of meaning, rationality or mental content it has been almost universally assumed that intentionality is an exclusive mark of the mental and the linguistic. The task of naturalizing anything normative would involve, according to this assumption, a naturalization of intentionality. To conceive of intentionality as a much more pervasive feature in nature would, at the very least, simplify the job for the 47 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero naturalist. An instance of this would be to argue that Gibson’s notion of “affordance” is already an intentional notion: biological intentionality need not be defined in terms of the possibility of error and, hence, in terms of normativity. A further extension would claim that intentionality is also present in the non-living world, if dispositions display “physical intentionality”. In this paper we will remain neutral concerning both the feasibility of naturalizing the realm of norms and whether language is necessary for normativity. Instead, we will explore some consequences of defending (with Georg Molnar and C. B. Martin) a realist conception of dispositions accompanied by the thesis that they display ‘physical intentionality’. In the process we will argue for several thesis: (1) the concept of ‘affordance’ is a good template for dispositional realism; (2) mental intentionality is unique because it is rule- bound, not because of its “aboutness” or “directness”: normativity, rather than intentionality, is the mark of the mental; (3) mental, normative intentionality implies consciousness: only creatures aware of the possibility of error can follow rules.

Hoefer Carl, ICREA & Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, [email protected]

Philosophy of Nature in General Relativity: Methods and Morals

Is the substantivalism vs relationism debate concerning space (or spacetime) settled, in light of General Relativity, in favor of substantivalism? There are important arguments for this view of the issue, and it has been strongly advocated by philosophers, from Friedman (1983) to Pooley (2012). But there is a well-known, uncontroversial fact lurking in the background that is highly relevant to the debate: the fact that General Relativity theory (GR) cannot be held to be true simpliciter; it is rather a very phenomenologically successful theory, much like classical thermodynamics, which we expect to be eventually replaced by some quantum gravity theory. Paying proper attention to this fact casts a different light on the status of the debate and its key arguments. In the first place, many of the models cited in support of a substantivalist verdict in GR can be set aside as not representing genuine physically possible worlds. In the second place, GR predicts certain effects that are consonant with a relationalist (anti-substantivalist) interpretation of spacetime inertial structure: so-called Machian effects, first speculated on by Mach in his famous attack on Newtonian absolute space. As these effects are quite generic, they can be expected to be preserved in any quantum gravity theory; and interestingly, they are very strongly present in the FRW models of GR that best approximate our observable universe. In this paper I will review the successes of Mach’s Principle, focusing especially on recent work by Schmid and Lynden-Bell et al. demonstrating exact frame-dragging: in FRW cosmologies, when a spherical shell of cosmic matter is “set in rotation”, if the shell gets big enough local inertial frames are dragged into complete lock-step with the (allegedly) rotating cosmic matter. I will argue that in light of these results, an anti-substantivalist reading of the lessons of GR is not as implausible as the philosophical consensus supposes.

48 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero

Iaquinto Samuele, University of Genova, [email protected]

Contraddizioni, disaccordo ed errore normativo

Scopo dell'intervento è discutere tre controesempi al principio: (a) Necessariamente, per ogni proposizione p, per ogni agente S e per ogni agente S*, se S crede che p e S* crede che ¬p, allora S commette un errore normativo o S* commette un errore normativo. Assunto S = S*, (a) disciplina quelle che definirò contraddizioni psicologiche; assunto S ≠ S*, (a) disciplina un caso di disaccordo. Berto (2006: 21-5) distingue quattro formulazioni di contraddizione: sintattica, semantica, metafisica, psicologica. Le proposizioni credute da S in caso di contraddizione psicologica implicano almeno una delle tre rimanenti contraddizioni. Intendo mostrare che, di qualunque tipo sia la contraddizione implicata, non è necessario che S commetta un errore normativo; altrettanto vale nei casi di disaccordo. Tratto un caso di contraddizione e di disaccordo sintattici che interessino l'applicazione di un predicato vago; mostro quindi come smentire (a) adottando la semantica trivalente di Kleene (1952: 334). Considero poi una contraddizione e un disaccordo semantici, per generare un controesempio ad (a) alla luce del relativismo semantico discusso da Cappelen e Hawthorne (2009). Per l'ultimo controesempio, mostro come estendere l'approccio relativista a un caso di contraddizione e di disaccordo metafisici.

Ibrahim Bashar, University of Belgrade, [email protected]

The Exotericism of Leo Strauss' Esotericism

Leo Strauss (1899-1973), the maverick, whom was understood by very few of the twentieth-century contemporaries, and always described as more than merely disturbing or thought provoking, is one of those who pressed reason to the ultimate limits to warn against the jeopardy of the late-modernity age. He predicted the abuse of liberal democracy by the tyranny of the public majority and the new type of philosophic transmogrify. Mr. Strauss followed the problem back to the seventeenth century philosophy and even further to the authentic Platonic-Aristotelian thinking and writing, and by the interpretation of which he was enabled to see/uncover the most important trans-historical significance of Socratic political philosophy. He rediscovered their esoteric type of writing that they used to avoid persecution. Highly appreciating the essence of classic democracy, he could not abandon it, though he foresaw that it was suspect to, and hated by the majority of men. So, he had to modify the concept of modern democracy by combining the virtue of the classical democratic principles with the liberal democratic representative system, which can be developed through liberal education. This is what can be attributed to Strauss as the rediscovery of the ancient type of writing.

49 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero

Imocrante Marina, Università Vita-Salute San Raffaele, [email protected]

Defending Maddy's mathematical naturalism from Roland's criticisms: the role of mathematical depth

Penelope Maddy (2011) suggests a new naturalistic account of the objectivity of mathematics. In the light of the notion of "mathematical depth", introduced through an analysis of the concept of set, I will try to defend Maddy’s epistemological project from Jeffrey Roland’s criticisms concerning i) the reliability of mathematical beliefs in Maddy’s account and ii) Maddy’s ontological neutrality between thin realism and arealism. Despite Maddy’s presentation of mathematical depth lacks precision, I suggest it could ground an account of the truth-conductiveness of mathematical beliefs, in reply to the former objection. Concerning the latter, I will argue that Roland’s criticism is misplaced. In this connection, I will also show how the notion of mathematical depth can be used to sustain a realist answer to ontological issues in mathematics.

Israel-Jost Vincent, Archives Poincaré, MSH, Université de Lorraine, [email protected]

Epistemic Authority Without Epistemic Autonomy: Iterative Empiricism and Observation

In this paper, I develop an account of observation that respects the empiricist demand that observation sentences have a particularly high epistemic authority, while acknowledging that their formulation relies on previously held beliefs (or more generally a 'view': beliefs, concepts, theories, etc.) This dependence does not permit to see the epistemic authority of observation sentences as arising from their epistemic autonomy, as has been traditionally done in empiricism. My defense then, is based on a full recognition of the interdependence between observation sentences and a view. This in turn leads to an evolutive model of empirical enquiry, in which the subject's view is under constant change while experiential judgments can vary depending on the views held by different subjects or by the same subject at two different times. Despite this apparently shaky epistemic situation, I show that investigators have the means to stabilize their material, conceptual and doxastic frameworks as they undertake various experiments. I provide several arguments in favor of the possibility to stabilize an investigation inspired by works in history of science, philosophy of experiment and epistemology. I also link observation to stabilization and I show that stabilization is enough to defend the epistemic authority of observation sentences.

Kemp Gary, University of Glasgow, [email protected]

The Case for Wittgenstein as a Quinean Naturalist: Linguistic Dispositions, Use, and Normativity

Both Quine and Wittgenstein held that the concept of meaning should be replaced by, in some sense, that of use. Many philosophers - for example 50 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero

Peter Hacker, Hanjo Glock, and John Canfield - have held that that is only a superficial and indeed misleading similarity. I argue that despite profound differences of purpose and also of rhetoric, that on the contrary this represents a deep commonality. Among other things, the normative dimension, what Wittgenstein called grammar, can be accommodated in Quine's philosophy.

Kobau Pietro, Università di Torino, [email protected]

Pluralità nella valutazione estetica

Al fondo delle teorie dell’arte e dell’ontologia dell’arte agisce il presupposto che le singole opere esistano in quanto capaci di originare e sostenere giudizi “estetici”, secondo il paradigma “un’opera / un insieme di giudizi”. Tale presupposto sarà messo in questione secondo due linee argomentative. Secondo la prima, si sosterrà che quel paradigma non coglie le situazioni normali in cui emettiamo giudizi estetici, in cui si dà, invece, una contemporaneità di valutazioni estetiche differenti – nel senso che vi vengono emessi giudizi di tipo profondamente diverso: privati, i primi, e riferiti a oggetti estetici; riferiti a opere d’arte in senso stretto e negoziati tra agenti entro una sfera istituzionale, i secondi. La seconda mira a mostrare, mediante opportuni controesempi, come molti argomenti adoperati nelle teorie ontologiche dell’arte, pur restringendo prudenzialmente l’ambito del discorso a un determinato genere artistico, rimangano legati al paradigma “un’opera / un insieme di giudizi” al di là della sua effettiva plausibilità. Di fatto, cioè, in molti casi lo spettatore chiamato a rispondere a quel paradigma si trova, invece, a rispondere e a emettere contemporaneamente giudizi estetici dinanzi a più opere (e artisti).

Kumar Manohar, Luiss Guido Carli, [email protected] Santoro Daniele, Luiss Guido Carli, [email protected]

Transparency, Secrecy, and Epistemic Dissent

A widespread view holds that institutions such as secret services and security agencies are necessary to the functioning of democracy especially with regards to state security (cf. the European Convention on Human Rights, Art. 8). We challenge this view on normative and epistemic grounds. In section one, we challenge the claim that gathering of personal data for national security is justified by the paramount good of protecting citizens and that such practices do not override - but are rather functional - to the protection of political and civil rights of citizens, including the right to privacy. We argue that this view is incorrect, since privacy and security primarily concern conflictual and yet equally standing entitlements to the control of the same bundle of information. Section two analyzes the so-called equilibrium model interpretation, according to which the government has “no general obligation to disclose information but the press may publish whatever materials it is able to acquire” (Sunstein 1986: 890). This model, we claim, leads to relinquishing the constitutional system of checks and balances: legislations granting access to sensitive information would expose citizens to arbitrariness, thus providing unlimited power to the executive. The only form of regulation would be faith 51 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero in self-regulation. In Section three we conclude that, if we accept the equilibrium model, the conflict between right to transparency and governmental prerogatives should be represented as a competition over informational resources. When the right to transparency is not fulfilled, free competition justifies leaking of information not merely as a moral stance, but as a legitimate practice of epistemic dissent. Activities like Wikileaks would then be not deemed illegitimate anymore.

Lalumera Elisabetta, Università di Milano-Bicocca, [email protected]

Doxastic justification, propositional justification and the Competence condition

I focus on the distinction between propositional and doxastic justification, or having justification to believe versus being justified in believing. In a recent paper John Turri (2010) argues that the traditional characterization of doxastic justification as propositional justification plus the additional ingredient of a basing relation is not adequate, because it fails to do justice to cases (I will call them ‘Turri cases’) where the basing relation holds, and yet we would intuitively describe the belief so formed as not justified. I argue that Turri cases are not just counterexamples to the traditional account of doxastic justification; rather, they help us make a positive case for a competence condition on doxastic justification, which Turri’s diagnosis fails to acknowledge. I also introduce and discuss Turri-symmetrical cases, in which subjects stand on epistemically bad grounds, but they make the right move from where they stand, and not by chance. Their beliefs come out as not doxastically justified, but this is neither due to a failure of competence, nor to a basing failure. It is rather a failure of grounds. I conclude with a characterization of propositional justification as abstraction from doxastic failures (of competence, basing, and grounds).

Landau Iddo, Haifa University, [email protected]

Fulfilling One’s Potential, Doing One’s Best, and the Meaning of Life

It is often said that life is meaningful if one does one's best, or if one fulfils one's potential. This paper considers these views critically. It argues that, under both perfectionist and non-perfectionist theories of the meaning of life, doing one's best and fulfilling one's potential are not necessary conditions for meaningfulness. Non-perfectionist theories of the meaning of life take lives of ordinary people to be meaningful; however, such people frequently neither do their best nor fulfil their potential. Perfectionist theories of the meaning of life take only very high achievers, of the statures of Einstein, Mozart or Shakespeare, to have meaningful lives, and all others to have only meaningless ones. However, we would have considered Einstein or Mozart to have led meaningful lives even if we learnt that they neither did their best nor fulfilled their potential. But doing one's best and fulfilling one's potential are also not sufficient conditions for meaningfulness; a somewhat depressed person may have an unhappy, meaningless life even if he does his (limited) best and fulfils his (limited) potential. I conclude that doing one's best and

52 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero fulfilling one's potential are merely two out of many contributing factors for meaningfulness.

Langkau Julia, University of St Andrews, [email protected]

Two Standards of Evidence

Timothy Williamson (2004, 2007) argues that appealing to the fact that we have an intuition that p as evidence from thought experiments is a practice we should not pursue. Rather, we should directly appeal to the fact that p. I argue that there are methodological constraints on evidence in philosophy, which entail that we ought to appeal to the fact that we have an intuition that p as evidence from thought experiments. I then show that this view is not inconsistent with Williamsonian externalism. In distinguishing two standards of evidence, one for knowledge and one for philosophical research, the Williamsonian external- ist can distinguish between a subject’s epistemic situation and methodological requirements.

Lara Juan José, IES, Tirant lo Blanc, [email protected]

Tarskian-style Semantics and Ontology

Tarski’s theory of truth has eventually become the standard semantics nowadays. That is, since some authors (especially D. Davidson) perceived the potentiality of such a theory to be applied as a theory of meaning, the success of this enterprise was such as to become widely accepted among philosophers as a semantic theory. One issue, however, was raised since its inception as regards the Tarskian approach to truth, namely, whether it constitutes a version of a correspondence theory of truth; furthermore, the debate has been carried along into Tarskian semantics enveloped in the question about whether this semantic approach represents a realist semantic view – understanding this as a theory requiring the ascription of an object as the referent to every noun and, consequently, deeming quantification as unavoidably ranging over a set of objects. It is this point that will be elaborated on here.

Lavazza Andrea, Centro universitario internazionale (Arezzo), [email protected]

Good by nature. Philosophical consequences of a neuroscientific claim

Some evolutionary neuroscientists and psychologists argue that prosocial tendencies are strongly prevalent in humans, due to the adaptive value of cooperation, a behavioural trait they maintain has been positively selected over the course of evolution. This has implications for the assessment of criminal behaviour, as well as behaviour that is generally considered morally unacceptable and unlawful. A specific theory I will examine is S. Baron- Cohen’s degrees of empathy: no individual with a normal cerebral development can commit certain crimes; those who do must necessarily be “ill”. This description of the motives of criminal behaviour has profound 53 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero philosophical implications. First of all, it invalidates the application of the concept of responsibility, and as a consequence, the possibility of posing blame, and of applying legal and penal sanctions. Secondly, it seems to pave the way for de facto discrimination against individuals who are deemed “incurable” and socially dangerous. I will thus try to argue that, on one hand, empirical data in support of this hypothesis remains insufficient, and that variations in the tendency to commit crime vary over time and between cultures, seemingly providing evidence against this theory. On the other hand, there are valid moral reasons to reject, in any case, the legal and social implications of such a neuroscientific perspective.

Liabeuf Nicolas, Université Paris IV, [email protected]

An argument for the indispensabilty of substance in doing ontology

Usually, contemporary metaphysicians dealing with the notion of sub-stance try to define it in adopting an “independence criterion” (Hoff-man & Rosenkrantz, 1991) or an “identity-dependence criterion” (Lowe, 1989). Using freely the notion of subsistence introduced by philosophers like Wittgenstein and Meinong, I balance both views, i.e., substance qua an independent entity vs. substance qua a subsistent entity. To respect an attended criterion of ontological neutrality, I argue metaphysicians should rest on a substance minimally defined as a generic subsistent entity. In front of that, independent substance breaks down the required neutrality because it implies some relational commitment towards non-substantial entities. I take the category of subsistent entity as a primitive, unstructured, unanalysable point of departure and rehearse an upshot for the realist task of metaphysicians attempting to describe “the fundamental structure of reality”: any categorial ontology is a substantial ontology because ontologists need subsistent entities to do their job (whatever are their basic entities, tropes, atoms, and so on). I argue also that a property of subsistence is uneliminable owing to the necessary process of entity introduction in every ontological task. As a result, explicit substantial ontologies have an advantage upon their rivals.

Lorusso Ludovica, University of Sassari, [email protected]

The biological meaning of the social concept of race

In this paper I will analyse the dichotomy between social and biological properties of racial categories used in biomedical sciences. I will introduce two different ontological issues: the first one is about the existence of human races in the sense of taxonomic categories; the second one concerns the existence of genetic differences between human races causally related to epidemiological differences. I will then face the epistemological issue about the role of the concept of human race in biomedical research by means of analysing the different definitions and properties of this concept. I will make a distinction between a self-reported or social concept of race and a taxonomic concept of race and I will point out what are their biological properties, so breaking the existing dichotomy between social and biological race. I will show how the concept of race is unjustified if used to represent genetic diversity causally involved to determine epidemiological differences between 54 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero human populations. Instead, the concept of race is justified and extremely useful if deprived of its taxonomic significance and used to define social boundaries between human populations. The problem of using human race in medicine is not about race, but it is about genetic hypotheses invoked to explain the epidemiological differences between races.

Löschke Jörg, Berne University, [email protected]

Four types of special normative Commitments

In recent years, philosophers have developed an increased interest in forms of normative claims which seem to stand in conflict with conceptions of morality that focus on impartiality: It is widely recognized that morality includes forms of partiality, which implies that we have special commitments against certain persons, commitments we do not have against persons in general. There are debates about what we owe to friends, to family members or to compatriots. The question of the normative status of special commitments therefore affects normative ethics as well as political philosophy. While the discussion about special commitments has gained more and more importance, it is not clear how those commitments in question should be labeled. There are several notions that are used to describe said forms of special commitments, and in the literature about this topic, they are often used interchangeably: Some authors talk about special responsibilities, some talk about special obligations; others refer to those special commitments as duties of partiality or as agent-relative duties. In my presentation, I want to show that the notions mentioned above are not to be used interchangeably; rather, they are to be applied to quite different phenomena, and each notion transports distinct implications. This differentiation leads to a pluralist account of special commitments: The notions are to applied to different phenomena, cannot used interchangeably and call for different strategies of justification.

Marconi Diego, University of Turin, [email protected]

Concepts: Too Heavy a Burden

The notion of concept has been used profusely both in cognitive psychology and in philosophy, more so since the decline of the "linguistic turn". Both psychologists and philosophers have been trying to characterize a single notion that would be suitable for most or all the different contexts in which the word "concept" has been employed, or else to show that one notion ought to be preferred over the others (usually a cognitively-oriented notion according to the psychologists and a non-cognitively-oriented one according to the philosophers). I will argue that no single, coherent notion of concept can serve both purposes, the psychologists' and the philosophers'. As they are both entirely legitimate, we need (at least) two distinct notions of concept: attempts at making do with one notion are bound to fail, and generate confusions meanwhile.

Marti Genoveva, University of Barcelona, [email protected]

55 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero

Reference Without Cognition

Meini Cristina, Università del Piemonte orientale, [email protected] Paternoster Alfredo, University of Bergamo, [email protected]

Le emozioni confuse di Damasio

Riprendendo una linea di pensiero che si trova già in William James, Antonio Damasio (1994; 1999; 2010) suggerisce che le emozioni vadano identificate con pattern di reazioni corporee a certe classi di stimoli. Le elaborazioni mentali successive danno adito al sentimento (feeling) inconscio e quindi alla coscienza del sentimento. Trattandosi di un modello in tensione tanto con il senso comune quanto con la maggioranza delle teorie delle emozioni proposte in psicologia, è utile esaminare se vi siano ragioni empiriche e concettuali che sostengono questa identificazione. Sosterremo che (a) la giustificazione della tesi dell’identificazione è fondamentalmente evoluzionistica, fondata sull’idea che le emozioni debbano essere state selezionate per assolvere un certo ruolo funzionale alla sopravvivenza; e (b) la nozione di sentimento inconscio presenta dei problemi che potrebbero forse trovare una soluzione collocando le emozioni sullo sfondo di una teoria della coscienza di secondo ordine.

Melas Alessandra, University of Sassari, [email protected]

Absolute Coincidences and Salmon's Interactive Fork Model. An attempt to describe and explain chance by means of a causal criterion

According to a particular definition of "chance", intersections between different events that belong to independent causal chains are the origin of accidental events, called "absolute coincidences". A new account devoted to showing the strong relation between chance intended as absolute coincidences and Salmon's interactive fork model is provided, in an attempt to endorse the idea that chance can be described and partially explained in terms of a causal criterion.

Melis Giacomo, NIP, University of Aberdeen, [email protected]

Is There a Quick Argument to Establish the Empirical Defeasibility of A Priori Justified Beliefs?

I investigate whether accepting the claim that all a priori justifiable beliefs are also justifiable a posteriori can provide us with the means to advance a quick argument to establish the empirical defeasibility of a priori justified beliefs. On inspection, the quick argument that I will present turns out to rely on the empirical nature of testimony, the gist of it being that since a priori justified beliefs can be defeated by testimony, and testimony is an empirical source, then a priori justified beliefs can be defeated empirically. I argue that even if we were to accept that testimony is an empirical source of warrant, we still would not be in the position to accept that testimonial defeat is, at bottom, empirical. This is so because testimonial defeat (and justification) ultimately 56 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero appeals to some non-testimonial defeater (justifier), and it is the status of these non-testimonial defeaters – on which the testimonial ones stand – that we should look at when we want to assess the a priori/a posteriori status of the defeat. I conclude that we can’t assign testimony a pivotal role in an argument aiming to show that a priori justified beliefs can be empirically defeated.

Meloni Gabriele, The University of Edinburgh, [email protected]

Plato’s banishment of the poets or mass media theory: Why (and how) Plato released poetry

Plato’s attitude toward poetry looks prima facie a dilemma. On the one hand he expresses hard criticism against poetry and he even banishes the poets from the ideal state he envisages in the Republic. On the other hand he constantly prizes Homer as well as many other bards. In this paper I intend to show that Plato’s criticism of poetry is not an aesthetic attitude, but rather a justified concern about the pursuit of truth through poetry, as it were the main source of teaching, moral value, knowledge and information in the ancient Greek society. Such a claim is historically justified by the totally different role poets had in the ancient Greek society, which is widely substantiated. Besides, my approach explains why Plato attacks the bards from an educational and epistemological standpoint in the Republic, while he esteems beauty and the high aesthetic value of art in other several passages. In conclusion, the present work allows solving the vexata quaestio of Plato’s attitude toward poetry by reconstructing a coherent (and positive) picture of Plato’s attitude on Art. It also emphasizes that Plato’s arguments against poetry work as a mass-media theory.

Mezzadri Daniele, United Arab Emirates University, [email protected]

Frege on the Normativity and Constitutivity of Logic for Thought

In this paper I discuss a tension in Frege’s philosophy of logic. On the one hand Frege considers logic to be normative, in so far as its laws give prescriptions on how thinking should be performed. On the other, however, Frege sees logic as constitutive of the very possibility of thought, because it sets forth necessary conditions for thought. Thus the tension arises; the view according to which logic is normative for thought seems incompatible with the idea that abiding by the laws of logic forms a precondition for thought. After discussing Frege’s views on the normativity and constitutivity of logic for thought, I analyse some interpretations of Frege’s conception of logic that deal with this question, and show them to be inadequate on the grounds that they – by rejecting one of the two strands in Frege’s view of logic – cannot be correct readings of his conception of logic as a whole. I then move on to Kant. In Kant’s reflection on logic one can find a similar characterisation of logic as normative for – and constitutive of – thought. I then analyse the solution to this tension in Kant; logic is seen by Kant to be constitutive of the faculty of understanding but normative for human thought, which is under the influence of sensibility. I finally claim that a solution along the lines of Kant’s can be drawn in the case of Frege. Frege regarded logic to be constitutive of what he 57 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero calls ‘the mind’ – or pure thought – but normative for human thought, whose judgements are often determined by merely psychological (as opposed to logical) grounds. This, I argue, solves the aforementioned tension in Frege’s conception of logic.

Michel Christoph, Universität Stuttgart, [email protected]

An approach to Moore's Paradox

I suggest an account of the oddnness of believing Moorean conjunctions, making assumptions about the nature of attitudes and about 2nd-order belief-formation. Transparent attitudes, beliefs are object-evaluations and provide a necessary and sufficient first-personal basis for true 2nd-order beliefs. This entails that justified 2nd-order beliefs need to build on 1st-order evaluations. If we can accept this, Moorean beliefs of both general types cannot be justified. Contrary to Shoemaker (1995) or Heal (1994), we need not assume a constitutive relation between 1st-order beliefs and 2nd-order beliefs in order to avoid Moorean beliefs. Moorean beliefs are never justified and rational subjects will never form them. The oddness of Moorean beliefs requires a situationalist view of attitudes, dispositionalism also in its broadest understanding does not come to terms with Moore’s Paradox.

Mingardo Daria, University of Padova, [email protected]

Metafore e Parafrasi

Una delle questioni più discusse nella letteratura sulla metafora riguarda la parafrasabilità delle metafore. Nonostante la vivacità della discussione, la questione è ancora aperta: non c’è accordo né sul come caratterizzare la nozione di parafrasi, né sulla risposta da dare all’interrogativo se sia o meno possibile parafrasare le metafore, e perché. Lo scopo di questo contributo è argomentare a favore di una versione indebolita della teoria della non parafrasabilità delle metafore avanzata da Davidson. Più nello specifico, cercherò di sostenere che è plausibile parlare di non parafrasabilità delle metafore, ma solo limitatamente ad un certo tipo di metafore, e solo in maniera relativa (non esiste, cioè, la non parafrasabilità assoluta). Le metafore cui è possibile applicare, almeno relativamente, la tesi della non parafrasabilità sono metafore molto risonanti quali ‘Questo oscuro chiarore che cade dalle stelle’: in modi che cercherò di chiarire, questo tipo di metafore mostrano infatti una resistenza alla parafrasi che non si riscontra nel caso di metafore come ‘Giulietta è il sole’. Suggerirò, inoltre, che la differenza tra metafore parafrasabili e metafore (relativamente) non parafrasabili possa essere spiegata ricorrendo alla nozione di ineffabilità fenomenologica recentemente formulata da Liang (2011), dove per ‘ineffabilità fenomenologica’ Liang intende l’impossibilità di dare una descrizione esaustiva dell’esperienza soggettiva (si tratta di un’ineffabilità non assoluta). Le metafore sarebbero allora tanto meno parafrasabili quanto più vengono usate per tentare di esprimere esperienze (relativamente) inesprimibili.

58 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero

Montibeller Marcello, Università di Sassari, [email protected] Todini Liliana, Università di Roma La Sapienza, [email protected]

Neuroimmagini e psicoterapia: vent'anni dopo Grünbaum

Gli studi di Adolf Grünbaum sulla psicoanalisi hanno segnato indubbiamente un momento essenziale della cultura epistemologica contemporanea. Il motto per cui la psicoanalisi vanterebbe “più conversioni che guarigioni”, l’idea per cui i risultati terapeutici non sarebbero di principio diversi da quelli ottenuti da una buona conversazione con un amico carismatico, sono diventati cultura comune dei filosofi della scienza e della mente. Noi intendiamo discutere le tesi del filosofo americano, alla luce della recente evoluzione delle tecniche di neuroimaging, concentrandoci, in particolare, su due questioni che ci paiono di particolare interesse: 1) La possibilità di costruire un’ontologia delle psicoterapie correlando stati mentali del tipo ipotizzato dal loro apparato teorico a fenomeni neurobiologici ben individuati. 2) La possibilità di distinguere l’effetto terapeutico dal placebo anche in ambito psicoterapico. Attraverso la discussione che verrà presentata si intende mettere in evidenza come l’aggiornamento del quadro di riferimento di questo dibattito ai risultati attualmente ottenuti dalle neuroscienze, mostri un panorama molto più complesso di quello esaminato dal filosofo americano, nel quale alcune tradizionali dicotomie finiscono per apparire prive di senso. Si argomenterà, in fine, come l’evoluzione di questo patrimonio conoscitivo dovrebbe determinare la “riscrittura” di parte della nostra metodologia di analisi filosofica di queste tematiche.

Moretti Luca, Aberdeen University, [email protected]

A defence of Dogmatism

Jimmy Pryor (2000) and (2004) has put forward an interesting view in epistemology called dogmatism. According to dogmatism, when you experience as if p you acquire immediate justification for believing p that does not presuppose your justification for believing anything else – e.g. for believing that no sceptical scenario is instantiated or that your perception organs are reliable. Dogmatism is appealing for a number of reasons: it appears intuitive and natural, it explains the foundationalist thesis that there are (basic) beliefs justified directly by our perceptions, and it answers arguments for global external world scepticism. Yet dogmatism has been targeted with objections of different sort. In this paper, I defend dogmatism from White (2006)’s objections. White argues that dogmatism cannot be accepted because it proves incoherent once formalised in Bayesian terms. I respond that the objection is unsuccessful because of two reasons. First, Bayesianism cannot properly formalise perceptual justification (in the dogmatist’s sense). Second, Bayesian justification – unlike perceptual justification – does depend the prior probability of hypotheses, which cannot be determined when discussing global scepticism.

59 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero

Morganti Matteo, University of Rome 'Roma TRE', [email protected]

Barbour’s Machian Physics and Relationism about Time

Leibniz notoriously defended a relationist conception of space and time, which was attacked by Newton and his followers. Later on, Mach tried to revive the basic Leibnizian insights and construct a completely relational physics. This attempt too wasn't really successful, and substantivalism about space-time seems the dominant view. The Machian perspective on contemporary physics developed in the last two decades or so by Julian Barbour, however, seems to vindicate relationism about space and time, as well as justify a separation of space from time in spite of Einsteinian relativity. This, though, at the cost of making time unreal. In this paper, it is argued that it is possible - perhaps even preferable - to retain Barbour’s relationist framework and apply it to time while setting aside both the timeless character of the universe he construes and questions about space. Some potentially problematic aspects of this proposal are discussed.

Moruzzi Sebastiano, University of Bologna, [email protected] Coliva Annalisa, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, [email protected]

Relativism in Contradiction?

The paper explores the possibility of providing a relativistic accout of faultless disagreement by means of the conceptual tools of dialeitheism. We argue that such strategy faces serious problems in avoiding the trivialization problem for the targeted areas of discourse and for making sense of the rationality of targeted disputes.

Müller Franziska, Université de Fribourg, CH [email protected]

The Problem of Minimal Action

According to a standard theory, what distinguishes actions from other events is their causal origin, namely that they are caused by a distinctive mental state. Following this, Wegner and others claimed that our sense of agency is derived from an experienced correspondence of the two elements. Against this view, several authors raised the argument from minimal action (Pacherie, Bayne, Proust). This argument is based on the claim that in most of our everyday activities, we do not experience any intention that accompanies or precedes the action even though we do experience these activities as actions. One reply to this argument is to say that we need a more sophisticated account of intentions. This stance claims that those minimal actions only lack an intention preceding the action, but they do contain a lower-level intention present in the action. Thus this solution sticks to the initial idea that what is crucial to action is it's mental causal origin. Other authors claimed that what distinguishes those minimal actions from mere happenings is not a 60 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero consciously accessible state, but some sort of motor representation underlying the experience but not itself conscious. I claim that both those accounts fail accounting for what we really do care about in.

Mura Alberto Mario, Università di Sassari, [email protected]

The many ways by which probability theory is a generalization of propositional logic

The study of the relationship between probability theory and formal logic goes back to Boole. The basic tenet common to the efforts in this area of research is that probability theory is a generalization or an extension of formal logic. But there are at least five different directions along which such a tenet was argued and developed: (1) partial implication (Keynes and Carnap); (2) the theory of coherence as a generalization of logical consistency (Ramsey and de Finetti); (3) the view according to which the conditional probability P (q | p) represents an extension of the standard propositional logic that aims at capturing the logical relations involving indicative conditionals (Adams); (4) an axiomatic formalisation of probability encompassing propositional logic (Popper), (5) the direction that aims at characterizing probabilistic dependence as a measure of logical dependence, so that pairs of sentences whose truth-conditions are absolutely logically independent would be also probabilistically independent (Wittgenstein). This paper will critically examine these different points of view. It will be argued that the direction of partial implication is untenable. A different explicatum for the idea of partial implication will be proposed. It will be shown that all the other directions do make sense, even though the received accounts (except Popper’s account) must be substantially revised. This contribution will indicate briefly the lines according to which such a revision should be done.

Muresan Vlad, Babes-Bolyai University Cluj-Napoca, [email protected]

Reality as a Visual Language in Berkeley’s Dialogue Alciphron

One of the latest works of George Berkeley, the neglected dialogue Alciphron develops – among other philosophical contributions - an innovating theory of visual language. Against the claim that we can only accept perceptible proof, he constrains Alciphron (a free-thinker) to admit that the soul, as an invisible principle governing the motions of the body cannot be perceived but is real nevertheless. In the same way we infer an invisible principle as the mover of the visible body, we must infer an invisible principle as the mover of all nature. This rational agent governing the world has arranged the reality in regularities that combines things exactly like in a language: this visual language speaks to our eyes, instead of speaking to our ears, but it speaks nevertheless. The aim of our presentation is to inquire into the particularities of this visual language (in which physical reality becomes the body of an intelligible message), and to interrogate the possibilities and the limits of such a non-conceptual semantics. Berkeley takes the challenge of actually proving that in these optical language things themselves can be considered a sort of meta-language. On a first level, things are things, and they are spoken about. 61 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero

On a second level, however, things speak themselves about something. Things, –alone or combined – become second-order signs, and they stand for superior meanings, informing and instructing us about reality and about how to act in relation to it.

Murez Michael, Institut Jean Nicod, [email protected]

Self Location and Prospective Control

The conjunction of the simple view of belief (as a relation between a subject and a proposition) and the simple view of propositions (as individuated by their truth-conditions) is traditionally thought to face the problem of self locating belief, i.e. that it fails to explain famous cases in which subjects believe and desire the same propositions but are not disposed to act similarly. Popular responses reject the simple view of belief by introducing a new term into the belief relation, or the simple view of propositions by adopting finer grained contents. I propose a novel approach, which requires neither. What is needed is only an independently motivated extension of the list of attitudes contributing to action. Self-locating "belief", I argue, is actually a psychologically more complicated phenomenon than has been supposed, combining belief and what I call prospective control‚ roughly, the attitude we have towards what feels within our power to bring about. Introducing this notion allows for a solution to the problem of self-location, which interestingly connects our capacity to self-locate with a distinctive feature of our experience as agents, the systematic link between where we locate ourselves and which possibilities feel directly within practical reach.

Murillo Lara Luis Alejandro, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, [email protected]

Minds and Bodies: Trying to overcome a dead end

The mind–body problem seems to stem from a particular conception of the human being and its surrounding world, a conception deeply rooted in western thought. According to this conception, human beings are a kind of entity profoundly different from objects in the world. The problem arises when it is concedes not only that human beings are these ‘minds’, but that are also physical bodies: what could be the relationship between these two fundamentally different components of human nature? I think that the mind– body problem is unsolvable, and I propose that this is a case of unsolvability where the very starting point is wrong. It is the kind of unsolvability found in pseudoproblems. In cases like this, when the problem has no solution, then it is not a true problem but a conception mistake. My suggestion is that dissipating the mind–body problem will require a whole new conception of the human beings and their relationship with the world. Under which lines would be built this new conception? We can find a trace of them in the key elements we have to refuse from the traditional conception: that the boundaries between us and the surrounding world are essentially given, that we’re something essentially different from it, that the chief relationship between us and the world are knowledge and action, etc.

62 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero

Nasta Andrei, University of East Anglia, [email protected]

Negation and economy

The present article is concerned with philosophy of linguistics, and more particularly with the relation between first order logic (Fol), natural language (NL) semantics/pragmatic, and what I shall call the notion of economy. One purpose of the present paper is to show how much the NL negation differs from its classical Fol counterpart. Another purpose is to sketch a rule-based approach that can account for negation behaviour. The third aim is to emphasize the economy-features of the ensuing system.

Nida-Rümelin Martine, University of Fribourg, [email protected]

Self-awareness and First Person Thought

According to a widely accepted and important insight, first person thought does not involve using any descriptive concept of oneself. This insight may appear to imply that we do not employ any substantial I-concept (any concept associated with some genuine understanding of the referent) when thinking of ourselves in the first person mode. I will argue that it is a mistake to draw this conclusion. The concept used in first person thought is non-descriptive and nonetheless substantial. According to the view proposed the relevant concept has its origin in the specific pre-reflexive and non-conceptual kind of self-awareness which is necessarily involved in any conscious experience. This kind of self-awareness present in any case of experiencing must be understood as included in the experiencing itself and it is a kind of awareness which, in a sense to be clarified, is non-intentional. Pre-reflexive self- awareness in the sense at issue is the basis for the formation of a substantial and nonetheless non-descriptive concept of oneself. It is substantial since it presupposes an understanding of oneself as a specific experiencing subject among others but it is, nonetheless, non-descriptive since it does not involve any conceptualization of any individuating property of the individual referred to.

Oliveri Gianluigi, University of Palermo, [email protected] Gaglio Salvatore, University of Palermo, [email protected]

Wittgenstein, Turing, and Neural Networks

The main task of this paper is grounding the socio-anthropological `naturalization' of meaning operated by the later Wittgenstein in his remarks on rule-following in the Philosophical Investigations in considerations relating to models of low-level (biological) processes of imitation, training, and learning. If the operation suggested above is successful, two of its immediate consequences are that the social aspect of language can no longer be considered as a primitive notion, but needs to be placed upon, if not reduced to, a biological foundation; and that the study of thought, and actually of certain brain processes, becomes prior in the order of explanation to the 63 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero study of language. The issues raised in this article are relevant to `Wittgenstein scholarship', to any attempt to produce an acceptable philosophy of language, and to all those interested in the tenability of one of the corner stones of analytic philosophy, the so-called `priority thesis': the study of language is prior, in the order of explanation, to the study of thought.

Orsi Francesco, University of Tartu, [email protected]

Higher-order Internalism about Moral Judgment

In this paper I aim to make a case for taking seriously an overlooked version of internalism about moral judgment: Higher-order Internalism (HOI): It is necessary that, if a person judges that she is morally required to F, then she is, at least to some extent, motivated to be motivated to F. In the first part of the paper I argue that HOI is a plausible candidate for articulating the folk conception of the relation between first-person moral judgments and motivation. I do this by examining two sets of folk responses: 1) actual responses to described cases of normal, depressed, apathetic, and psychopathic agents, as reported and discussed in a forthcoming paper by C. Strandberg and F. Björklund; 2) reasonably expected responses to five standard anti-internalist scenarios presented by R. Shafer-Landau. I argue that HOI provides a coherent explanation of why the majority of people respond to the scenarios as they do, or as they are reasonably expected to do. In a nutshell, people find the combination of sincere moral judgment and lack of motivation to act less puzzling when a second-order motivation to be thus motivated can be inferred in the agent. In the second part I take up and reply to a few objections to HOI both taken as a folk conception and as an original proposal in the internalism/externalism debate about moral motivation. In this context I show the strengths of HOI with respect to other recent forms of so called “deferred” internalism, where the necessary connection is held to be between the moral judgment and either the agent’s previous motivation to act, or the agent’s belonging to a community of agents who are normally motivated by their moral judgments.

Osimani Barbara, Catholic University of Milan, [email protected]

Evidence of pharmaceutical harms: a philosophical enquiry

In the last decade a series of papers, written mainly by epidemiologists, have supported the view that evidence of pharmaceutical harm and benefit should be evaluated according to different criteria (Vandenbroucke and Psaty 2008, Vandenbroucke 2004, 2006, 2007, 2008, Psaty and Vandenbroucke 2008, Papanikolaou et al. 2006; Stricker and Psaty, 2004, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, 2007). These studies underline the different value of randomized controlled experiments and observational studies (included case reports) for pharmaceutical benefit and risk assessment. Some have also proposed a reversal of the hierarchy for risk detection with respect to benefit assessment (Vandenbroucke 2008). The common upshot of these analyses is that no epistemic advantage of randomized vs. observational studies should be claimed in principle, but rather their evidential strength should be evaluated with respect to whether they are used to evaluate the claimed 64 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero therapeutic benefit or to assess/discover unintended effects. The present paper presents the epistemological rationales underpinning evidence hierarchies, and elaborates on Vandebroucke’s methodological pluralism. I will point out that a differential treatment of benefit an risk evidence is justified not only by the different epistemological structures of the question concerning them (discovery vs. testing), and by the different methodological conditions which can be assumed to hold in either case, but also by the priors associated with yet-unobserved side effects: a default high prior for an undefined risk.

Ottonello Irene, Università di Genova, [email protected]

Naturalizzare il rispetto per le persone

Molti di noi si saranno trovati nella situazione di pestare il piede del proprio vicino su un autobus affollato e avranno sollevato il piede facendo qualche cenno di scusa al suo indirizzo. E lo avranno fatto nonostante ci abbia spinto salendo o trovando davvero brutti i suoi occhiali. Allo stesso modo, non facciamo notare all’anziano vicino di casa che per la terza volta consecutiva ci sta raccontando lo stesso episodio accaduto 20 anni fa. Ma inebetiti sorrideremo! Adottiamo questo genere di condotte perché riconosciamo gli altri in quanto persone e in quanto tali le rispettiamo. Questo breve paper considera da vicino la base giustificativa del rispetto fino ad offrire una concezione naturalizzata di esso. A tal fine, muoverò dalla concezione kantiana, per la quale il rispetto è “la risposta appropriata” alla dignità delle persone in quanto tali e ne criticherò il concetto di autonomia della volontà che presuppone. L’idea principale è che la concezione kantiana commetta un errore di attribuzione di valore, il quale blinda il rispetto ad un processo decisionale e motivazionale che non può fare a meno della libertà trascendentale o di fare pensare ad essa. Tenterò, quindi, di superarla, mostrando come uno dei suoi più noti esponenti, John Rawls, abbia aperto ad una concezione “naturalizzata” del rispetto.

Paganini Elisa, [email protected], Università di Milano

Can we do away with names?

Hawthorne and Lepore (forthcoming) defend a sceptical attitude towards what Kaplan (1990) called common currency names (from now on, cc-names). If they are correct, the belief that there are such entities is ungrounded. I argue instead that they provide no reason to contend the existence of cc- names. Hawthorne and Lepore’s argument may be summed up as follows. They assume the following conditional: (A) If a cc-name exists, then its occurrences have something in common in order to belong to the same cc- name. They argue that there are reasons to believe that: (B) name occurrences do not have something in common in order to belong to the same cc-name. They conclude that it is reasonable to suppose (applying modus tollens to (A) and (B)) that (C) cc-names do not exist. I will argue that, contrary to what they claim, there is at least one good reason to assume that (B) is false and, as a consequence, it is not reasonable to suppose that cc- names do not exist (i.e. it is not reasonable to suppose (C)). 65 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero

Paglieri Fabio, ISTC-CNR Rome, [email protected]

Self-control by excellence

Building on the Aristotelian distinction between excellence and continence, I argue that deliberately habituating oneself to have the right behavioral inclinations (excellence) constitutes a genuine form of self-control – in fact, its supreme manifestation. This claim is opposed to the dominant “continent view”, according to which self-control concerns only situations where the agent is conflicted between a mistaken-but-attractive option and a superior- but-unexciting goal. I will endeavor to show that this view is flawed in two important respects: first, it does not give proper weight to the development of self-control (or lack thereof), thus failing to appreciate the extended time scale over which self-control is mostly relevant – namely, one's whole life; second, the continent view is blind to the fact that not being tempted to misbehave is the most secure and less painful way of ensuring proper conduct, so that excluding it in principle from the set of self-control strategies seems unnecessarily restrictive, to say the least. In making my case for self- control by excellence, I will also discuss the relationship between pre- commitment strategies and character formation, the role of habits in fostering self-control, and the importance of deliberate self-habituation, as opposed to cultural education and social scaffolding.

Palma Adriano, uKZn, [email protected]

Doctrine

The main thrust of Ludwig Wittgenstein' Tractatus is put to task since nothing establishes that the limits of my language are the limits of my word. More technically nothing at all follows, even accepting the metaphysics of this form of egotistic empiricism that the language Tractatus adopts, namely the calculus of propositions, for all its aesthetic elegance has anything to do with either logic or (natural) language. While the effect of the ode to the truth tables may be underestimated, it does point to the notion that a linguistic expression may have a logical form.

Panza Marco, IHPST, University Paris I-Sorbonne, [email protected]

Platonism without Existence (in Mathematics)

Patrone Fabio, Università di Genova, [email protected]

Identità, lombrichi, fasi e identità personale

In questo intervento il mio scopo è mostrare quale sia il modo migliore di risolvere alcuni tra i cosiddetti “casi puzzle” dell'identità personale. Cosa mi accadrebbe se mi dividessi come un'ameba o se dividessi in due il mio cervello 66 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero e lo trapiantassi in due copie del mio corpo? Cosa comportano esperimenti mentali come questi, in cui le nostre convinzioni riguardo ai criteri di identità tra persone sembrano essere messi in discussione? Argomenterò che vi sono quattro modi per superare questo impasse: (i) considerare che l'identità non è ciò che conta nella sopravvivenza (Parfit); (ii) proporre nozioni di identità che non siano l'identità stretta, come sostengono Gallois e Gibbard; (iii) adottare una metafisica a là David Lewis considerando una relazione psicologica non tra persone ma tra fasi spazio-temporali o, rimanendo in ambito quadrimensionalista, (iv) sostenere la stage view di Theodore Sider. Tentando di mostrare come da un lato non sia semplice appoggiare la tesi di Parfit e dall'altro non sia fruttuoso, benché affascinante, comprare una teoria dell'identità che non sia transitiva, sosterrò che una teoria quadridimensionalista dell'identità personale come quella adottata da Sider permetta una soluzione più solida delle altre ai puzzle.

Pedrini Patrizia, University of Florence, University of Modena & Reggio-Emilia, [email protected]

Deception, Self-Deception, and Self-Enhancement. Getting Their Relationships Right

Von Hippel & Trivers (2011) argue that “self-deception evolved to facilitate interpersonal deception by allowing people to avoid the cues to conscious deception that might reveal deceptive intent” (p. 1). In general, self- deception's "others-dependence" is shown to be crucial. It is also said to have another important function: self-enhancement. In this paper I will argue that: 1) The claim that self-deception primarily evolved in service of others’ deception can be true for some instances of self-deception, but it cannot (and should not) be generalized, on pain of losing important features of some possible motivation to self-deception and risking to rely on an oversimplified story of its role. 2) Even if the "others-dependence" hypothesis is highly appealing and intelligible in light of the importance of the relationships within which we forge our psychological identity over time, there are acts of self- deception that are not directly linked to the immediate social domain, but to more internalized “others” with whom both our inner explicit dialogue and our unconscious interactions are primarily directed. 3) The claim that self- enhancement is a stable goal of self-deception is seriously threatened by the existence of the so called “twisted self-deception”, where the subject is motivated to believe a proposition she does not like to believe.

Pellegrino Gianfranco, Luiss Guido Carli, [email protected]

Individual Responsibility for Climate Change

Are we individually responsible of global anthropogenic climate change? Do we have individual duties to act in order to mitigate the dangerous effects of climate change? The majority of authors writing on this topic seem to agree upon the idea that obligations to mitigate present and future climate changes concern governments and collective groups, not individuals, because there is no direct responsibility of individuals in intending and causing climate change. As individuals, we have the duty to prompt our governments to act against 67 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero climate change, but we have no obligation to substitute governmental action with ours. The clearest recent statement of this view has been given by Walter Sinnott-Armstrong. In this paper, I'll challenge the standard story, by claiming that individuals have full responsibility for climate change, and that the common-sense conception of moral responsibility can be extended to increasing-temperatures conducts. In particular, I'll defend the following principle: Strategic harm principle: If (1) substantial harms depend on the combination of my action with others' actions, (2) my act only is not sufficient either to bring about those harms or to prevent them, and (3) I don't know whether my fellow-beings will bring about the actions needed to harm, then I am obliged to abstain from my action, at least when this is a display of due care.

Perconti Pietro, University of Messina, [email protected]

Cognitive science and common sense: a quasi-pragmatist view

In my talk I would like to investigate the influence cognitive science has on common sense view, especially on everyday ability to interpret other people behaviour by means of a mentalistic vocabulary. The aim is to understand the kind of changes common sense should be subjected to in order to be compatible with the scientific worldview. I will attempt to show the possibilities of a “quasi-pragmatist” attitude, inspired by the idea that common sense has neither an unitary structure nor a speculative intent. Rather, it is articulated at two different levels: a deep and a superficial level of common sense. The deep level consists of know how procedures, of metaphorical frames based on the imaginative bodily representations, and of a set of adaptive behaviours, like disgust and the feelings of pain and pleasure. Superficial level includes beliefs and judgements. They can be true or false and are culture-dependent. The “quasi-pragmatistic” account is based on the idea that the deepest level of common sense is oriented toward the efficacy, and not to the truth. Furthermore, deep common sense is unavailable for any fast change because it depends on human biology more than on culture conventions. On the contrary, superficial common sense is really challenged by the findings of cognitive science.

Piazza Tommaso, Universidade de Porto, [email protected]

Perceptual Justification as Non-evidential,

In this paper I try to establish three claims. The first one pertains to the commitments descending from one’s possible endorsement of Evidentialism about epistemic justification. The second one says that these commitments are incompatible with the – independently plausible – claim that perceptual experiences epistemically justify. The third one tries to detail an alternative non-evidentialist account of perceptual justification, and motivates on the basis of the non-evidentialist account the rejection of Evidentialism.

Pickel Bryan, University of Barcelona, [email protected]

68 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero

Variables under Attitudes

Millians such as Kaplan, Salmon, and Soames appeal to the simi- larities between names and free-variables in order to support their contentious conclusion that a name contributes nothing more than its referent to the se- mantic processing of a sentence that contains it and that co-referential proper names are consequently substitutable salva veritate even in attitude ascrip- tions. This paper examines whether renewed appreciation for the complexities involved in the semantics of variables can be used to resist this argument. Specifically, Sam Cumming has recently proposed that attitude ascriptions re- late agents to open propositions, which are true or false only relative to an assignment function. I reject his proposal, arguing that it does not appropri- ately link the conditions under which a belief ascription is true to the truth conditions of the belief ascribed.

Pinedo-García Manuel De, Universidad de Granada, [email protected] Bernd Edson, Universidad de Granada [email protected] Gaitán-Torres Antonio, Universidad Carlos III, [email protected]

Second-person perspective and second-person authority

In this paper we will argue that there is a kind of epistemic authority that the second person has over my mental states, distinct from, and irreducible to, first-person authority. This authority has a double dimension. A weak one: the second person often has an authority over the content of my mental states. A stronger one: the second person plays a constitutive role regarding the existence and first-personal access to some kinds of mental attitudes. Regarding the strong role played by second-person authority we will focus on two types of states: reactive emotions, such as resentment or gratitude, for which the second person plays a constitutive role during the period of introduction in practices of ascription of mentality, and intentions related to both joint action and action whose purpose is to make the agent intelligible. These intentions necessitate, during the whole life of the agent, a second person. We finish this paper contrasting our insistence on a constitutive role for the second person with the view, popular in the cognitive science, according to which some intentions and emotions are innate.

Pistoia Reda Salvatore, Università di Siena & Rutgers University, [email protected]

Tanto lo produco, quel senso, quanto mi eccede. La rilevanza delle implicature scalari per una teoria del significato

Il recente dibattito sulla natura del fenomeno noto come “implicatura scalare” ha portato alla luce una nuova istanza di significazione che appare problematica per le caratterizzazioni correnti dell’interfaccia semantica/pragmatica. Nella prima parte della presentazione saranno discusse le caratteristiche essenziali di questa nuova istanza di significazione, e se ne sottolineeranno gli elementi di novità rispetto ad istanze di significazione puramente pragmatiche o costruite sul modello della 69 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero risoluzione degli indicali. Nella seconda parte un nuovo modello sarà presentato, caratterizzato secondo una concezione del Significato come Responsabilità. Nel corso della presentazione argomenti di natura teorica saranno presentati, con particolare riferimento alla manifestazione linguistica delle implicature scalari. Allo stesso tempo, sarà offerta una caratterizzazione empirica del fenomeno e della sua distribuzione.

Plebani Matteo, Università Ca' Foscari, Venezia, [email protected]

From Presuppositionalism to Non-factualism

The paper analyzes Stephen Yablo’s argument for the view that some ontological questions, for instance those about the existence of abstract mathematical objects, have no answer (call this view “non-factualism”). In particular, it investigates whether the premises of Yablo’s argument could be used to develop an argument for nominalism. Nominalism claims that the question about the existence of numbers has a determinate answer ("no"). Thus, nominalism is incompatible with non-factualism (according to which there is no answer to the question). Yablo therefore needs the entailment from presuppositionalism to nominalism not to work. After introducing presuppositionalism in Section 0, I will present a straightforward argument from presuppositionalism to nominalism in Section 1. I will extract from Yablo’s writing a strategy to reply to the argument - and show that it has some weak points. I will then propose another strategy to reply to the argument presented in Section 1 and argue that it is superior to that of Yablo. I will conclude suggesting that a presuppositionalist who wants to be a non- factualist adopt this second strategy.

Polakis Ioannis-Markos, Panteion University Of Social And Political Sciences, [email protected]

Is Aristotle's Rhetoric Political?

This paper examines the political implications of Aristotle's Rhetoric, from an epistemological point of view. In short, I argue that the transition from Plato's concept of rhetoric to Aristotle's art of rhetoric, exceeds a mere change of standpoints. In particular, I sketch in broad terms the threefold line of argument that transforms the methodological premises of platonic origin for the concepts of “art”, “reason” and “plausible” and allows the same pivotal concepts, to rearrange, in an altogether new conceptual system. Consequently, my interpretation underlines the transitive character of the first chapter of Rhetoric that concludes with a novel definition of the task of rhetoric. Since this definition encompasses a tense relation between “reason” and “plausible”, it appears nonsensical from a Platonic perspective. However, from this new vantage point, the epistemological interest of rhetoric is broadened and amplified. Thus, the transition to an art of rhetoric can be seen as a grammatically non linear while epistemologically progressive process with important political implications. In other words, Aristotle's theoretical venture elevates rhetoric as a rational political instrument, accessible to every citizen of the “polis”. Its independence serves the judgment and confirms the freedom of the public space. 70 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero

Predelli Stefano, University of Nottingham, [email protected]

Express Yourself: An Introduction to Non Truth-Conditional Meaning

The idea of non truth-conditional meaning occupies a fairly uncontroversial place in the study of a very wide variety of natural-language phenomena (ranging from interjections, greetings, slurs, and the like). It has perhaps not played an equally central role in the discussion of more genuinely philosophical issues (such as, to cite two among many, the diatribe between various forms of contextualism, and the semantic debates surrounding various non-cognitivist positions in ethics). My aim is that of presenting an approach to non truth-conditional meaning able to highlight its interaction with the classic apparatus of ‘logical’ semantics (with particular attention to indexicality), and of studying the resulting non-orthodox ‘meaning-governed’ properties of certain expressions.

Pugliese Nastassja, University of Georgia, [email protected]

Bare particulars and the Identity of indiscernibles: a logical riddle?

Allaire (1963) and Sider (2006) argue against the bundle theory of universals defending that there must be a bearer to hold properties together in order to explain the individuation of a particular. They call this bearer a bare particular (Allaire) or thin particular (Sider). The postulation of this entity leads - according to them- to a rather unsettling consequence: the falsity of the traditional Principle of Identity of Indiscernibles (PII). My claim is that the consequences extracted from the concept of bare particular or thin particular is due to a confusion between objects and description of objects. I will defend that bare and thin particulars are perfectly good linguistic entities, i.e., they are formal counterparts of concrete or thick particulars but are not part of the physical object. Therefore, the only kind of consequences that can be derived from the existence of bare/thin particulars are logical-linguistic. Moreover, I will suggest that the distinction between metaphysical and logical principles can shed light on the nature and the place of PII.

Raclavsky Jiri, Masaryk University in Brno, [email protected]

Rigidity of General Terms as Rigidity of Descriptions (A Proposal Framed within a Hyperintensional Semantics)

Unlike rigidity of singular terms, there seems to be no consensus as regards rigidity of predicates (general terms). The aim of this paper is to establish the rigid / non-rigid distinction on exact notions, viz. the notion of reference as framed within a certain (hyperintensional) semantic theory. Consequently, a rigorous definition of a rigid designator of an individual (which is applicable to proper names and individual descriptions) is possible. The definition is straightforwardly adaptable to the definition of a rigid designator of a class of individuals (applicable to common predicates), etc. (and so on up). Thus not 71 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero only generality, but also inner unity of the theory of rigidity can be achieved. Another important feature of the present proposal is its stress on modality, since the modal stability of reference is the exclusive aspect leading to the division of expressions into rigid and non-rigid.

Raehme Boris, Freie Universitaet Berlin, [email protected]

A Simple Argument Against Deflationism About Truth

A central claim of deflationist accounts of truth is that ‘true’ has no explanatory role to play in the philosophical elucidation of our epistemic and discursive practices. My paper scrutinizes this deflationist thesis with respect to the following – highly plausible – normative constraint on the speech act of assertion: (N) [It is correct to assert that p] only if it is true that p. Deflationists argue that ‘true’ plays a purely generalizing role in (N) and justify this claim by pointing out that the content of particular instances of (N), say, (T+) [It is correct to assert that some dogs are vicious] only if it is true that some dogs are vicious can equally well be expressed without using ‘true’: (T-) [It is correct to assert that some dogs are vicious] only if some dogs are vicious. While conceding this last point to the deflationist, I argue that the particular ‘true’- free instances of (N) themselves stand in need of explanation and that the only candidate explanation in the offing is in terms of truth. The main thesis of my paper is, then, that by claiming that ‘true’ cannot be used explanatorily, deflationists – unlike non-deflationists – about truth deprive themselves of the resources to answer the following simple question: Why does (T-) hold good?

Ramachandran Murali. University of Sussex. [email protected]

Knowledge of One's Epistemic Limitations: A Paradoxical Solution to Some Surprising Paradoxes

I look at you. I know that my perceptual abilities are limited. I know I can only estimate your height just by perception and logic alone. I stop knowing propositions of the form: you are taller than n cm for values of n well below your actual height. Thus: (1) I know that [if I know you are over k cm tall, then you are in fact taller than k+1 cm tall]. (2) But, I certainly know that you are over 0 cm tall. (3) Hence, it follows from what I know that you are over 1 cm tall. (4) But, repeating the reasoning, it follows from what I know that you are over 2 cm tall. (5) And so on ad infinitum, leading to absurdity. Williamson uses a similar argument as a reductio of the KK-principle. But, while the above reasoning does rely on the KK-principle, I argue that in the sort of example we are considering, the principle holds good; the fault lies instead with my use of the first premise, which specifies my epistemic limitations, to extend my knowledge. The students’ reasoning in the surprise examination paradox is guilty of the same error I suggest.

72 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero

Reaber Grant, Northern Institute of Philosophy, University of Aberdeen, [email protected]

The Structure of Justification and the Analysis of Knowledge

There has been a recent resurgence of interest in the Gettier Problem, though much suspicion remains that there is something misguided about trying to solve it. The solutions on offer tend to appeal to notions like luck, safety, aptness, and credit that are so malleable that the accounts offer little guidance in regimenting our intuitions. The solutions are also unappealing to justificational internalists. I offer a foundationalist, internalist-friendly solution to the Gettier Problem in the broad spirit of Michael Clark's No False Lemmas proposal but drawing on recent work on fallible immediate justification. My solution has much more predictive power than the currently fashionable externalist-friendly solutions, and given certain assumptions about the structure of justification, it can even accommodate the (widespread but less- than-universal) intuition that fake barn cases are Gettier cases, an intuition that previous solutions in this tradition were not able to accommodate.

Rebera Andrew, [email protected]

Russell’s Retreat from Complexity: Denoting Complexes and Propositions

The first two decades of the twentieth century saw Russell’s philosophy undergo considerable modification. Prominent within this general trend was a retreat from commitment to the existence of complex entities. This paper is concerned with Russell’s abandonment of propositions as complex entities, and the attendant replacement of his binary theory of judgment with the “multiple relation theory”. This aspect of Russell’s development is addressed through comparison with his abandoning of “denoting complexes” in “On Denoting”. I present an account of Russell’s notorious argument against denoting complexes, the “Gray’s Elegy Argument”. I contend that the argument identifies a difficulty concerning the structure – and ultimately, the complexity – of denoting complexes. In effect it poses a dilemma: if denoting complexes genuinely are complex unities, our comprehension of certain intensional constructions cannot be explained; but if denoting complexes are not unified entities, then, to all intents and purposes, they do not really exist. Returning to the question of propositions, I identify the parallels between Russell’s argument for rejecting denoting complexes and his theory of judgment. If my arguments are correct, Russell’s gradual abandoning of propositions was, in fact, more closely connected to the abandoning of denoting complexes than is currently supposed.

Reichard Ulrich, University of Durham, [email protected]

Naturalizing Propositions: A Plea for Inherently Meaningful Structures

Soames has recently argued that the traditional problem of the unity of the proposition is a ‘pseudo-problem’ which only masks a ‘real problem’ in the 73 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero philosophy of language: that no structure is inherently meaningful, but becomes meaningful only given an interpretation. The source of the representational character of propositions thus has to lie in the cognitive acts of agents. Soames, therefore, identifies propositions with types of acts of predication. I argue that his solution to the traditional unity problem is purely stipulative and that the traditional problem reappears even if we accept the stipulation. I also argue that Soames’ solution to the ‘real problem’, although a step into the right direction, is problematic: an explanation of why some cognitive events are predications whereas others are not can only be structural. Yet, in that case the relevant structures cannot be mere abstractions. I therefore suggest reconsidering Soames’ claim that there are no inherently meaningful structures and argue that, in the light of recent linguistic theory, there is good reason for assuming that some cognitive structures are indeed inherently meaningful.

Reichlin Massimo, Università Vita-Salute San Raffaele, [email protected]

The neo-sentimentalist argument against moral rationalism: some critical observations

On the basis of the empirical evidence concerning the role of emotions in moral judgments, new sentimentalist approaches to metaethics have been proposed. Nichols' theory of sentimental rules, in particular, associates the emphasis on emotive reactions to the relevance of a normative body of rules that guide our judgment on actions. According to Nichols, the emotive mechanism of concern explains the acquisition of the moral capacity and, together with the evidence on psychopaths and on autistic children, shows the implausibility of a) moral rationalism, both as a conceptual and as an empirical thesis; b) motivational internalism; and c) moral objectivism. However, if we distinguish between a) the initial acquisition of morality in children and b) the adult experience of it, we can see that to accept a central role of the emotive mechanisms in the first is not to have shown their centrality in the second. In particular, it is not possible to account for the normative theory in purely emotive terms, even though we accept that their emotive connotation favours the evolutive success of the norms. A moderate rationalist view, grounded on the notion of reflective endorsement and on the cooperation between emotions and rational capacities seems quite compatible with the empirical evidence and can justify plausible forms of internalism and objectivism.

Reuter Kevin, Birkbeck, University of London, [email protected]

Sellars and Austin on Appearances and Introspection

In ‘Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind’ (1956), Sellars presents (1) an analysis of appearance-statements, and (2) a positive account of introspection that has rightly been argued to be the forerunner of the theory-theory of self- awareness. While I am sympathetic to the ingenious ideas of (2), I argue in this paper that (1) is flawed in an important respect which requires the refinement of (2). Sellars’s claim that an appearance-statement like ‘the tie 74 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero looks green’ is the withholding of endorsement of the propositional content ‘the tie is green’, ignores that the status of appearance-statements crucially depends on the intentions of the speaker. By using two insights from Austin’s lectures ‘Sense and Sensibilia’ (1962), I show how Sellars’s account can be amended.

Ricci Riccardo, University of Exeter, [email protected] Polonioli Andrea, University of Edinburgh, [email protected]

Are Evolutionary Psychologists Really Acquainted with Evolutionary Biology? A Reply to Machery and Cohen

Philosophers have recently spent a lot of ink discussing the status of evolutionary behavioral sciences. A common objection leveled against these disciplines is that these hinge on an outdated version of evolutionary theory. Recently, however, it has been argued that philosophers, in their turn, are not acquainted with how evolutionary behavioral sciences work, and not researchers in these fields that neglect contemporary evolutionary theory. Specifically, philosophers have been charged with focusing on a group of seminal high church studies which are not representative of the current scientific production, resulting in them remaining ‘largely impervious to the evolution of the evolutionary approaches to human behavior and psychology’ (Machery and Cohen 2012, 186). Were the point correct, conclusions drawn by many philosophers of science would turn out to be unwarranted. M&C deploy a quantitative analysis based on bibliometrics in lieu of a qualitative one in order to assess philosophers’ standard objections to evolutionary behavioral scientists, arguing that philosophers’ criticisms miss the mark. This paper delivers a critical assessment of M&C’s case. Specifically, it discusses the limits of an application of bibliometrics to this context and suggests that qualitative analysis should not be dismissed but rather improved. Moreover, whereas philosophers’ discussion might rest on high church studies, there are reasons to think that this is not really a thorny problem. To prove this point, we discuss recent accounts in the field that seem to be as vulnerable to philosophers’ objections as the high church studies usually analyzed.

Rossi Francesca Micol, University of Edinburgh, [email protected]

Representation and internal models: a neurobiological perspective

In Representation Reconsidered (2007), William Ramsey suggests a partial eliminativism of mental representation in scientific psychology. He argues that only the Classical Computational Theories of Cognition (CCTC), but not Connectionism and Cognitive Neuroscience, are genuinely representational. In this paper I show why we should resist this assertion and instead look for a neurobiologically plausible account of cognition and representation. First, I claim that the CCTC’s commitment to representation via the notion of S- representation characterizes also connectionism and cognitive neuroscience. Ramsey fails to recognize this because he confuses a representational commitment with a positive theory of content based on isomorphism. I discuss two connectionist studies and show that they employ S- representations without embracing also the isomorphism-theory of content. I 75 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero then argue that Ramsey’s argument could work only if we divorce questions about the nature of cognition from questions about the nature of the structure where cognition is realized. I challenge Ramsey’s claim that representations must be discrete by resting on two neuroscientific studies that show its implausibility given the nature of our brain. I conclude by rejecting Ramsey’s conclusion and holding that a good explanation of cognition needs to be constrained also by empirical findings.

Roussin Juliette, Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne, [email protected]

Should Democracy Defer to Its Experts?

This paper addresses the question of the political status of experts in democracy. While expertise enjoys unavoidable political influence on collective decision-making, as a consequence of the epistemic division of labor, I argue that it may jeopardize the two basic democratic principles of citizens’ moral equality and intellectual autonomy. Bearing on highly complex and specialized issues, expert claims usually generate some kind of “epistemic deference” from ordinary citizens, who are denied the practical means of understanding and appraising the content, grounds or implications of expert claims on crucial political topics. This questions intellectual autonomy, by encouraging ordinary citizens to surrender their personal judgment to experts, and by making collective democratic control over experts ineffective or nonexistent in practice. Further, it implies some kind of public recognition of the experts’ epistemic superiority over “ordinary citizens” which possibly calls into question the democratic principle of equal moral status. I conclude the paper by showing how specific institutional arrangements can help reduce epistemic deference and protect equality and autonomy without losing the political benefits of expertise and epistemic division of labor. The paper has a twofold normative agenda. First, it attempts to highlight and criticize the democratic regimes’ current tendency to shelter some weak “epistocratic” patches within themselves. Second and jointly, it aims at overcoming the traditional tension in democratic theory between popular government and the rightness of political decisions by arguing that democracy should primarily secure the moral equality and autonomy of its members, because they are basic democratic principles to be satisfied, and because this is the only proper way to reach genuinely right collective decisions.

Saborido Cristian, Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia, [email protected]

Functional Explanation and Biological Organization

In the first part of this work, I propose a critical survey of the different perspectives in the philosophical debate on functional explanations, and I argue that some recent studies have set the basis of a new approach which grounds the teleological dimension of functional attributions in the organizational properties of living systems. This organizational account interprets functions as contributions of a trait to the maintenance of the organization that, in turn, maintains the trait. In the second part, I outline a 76 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero new proposal within this new (organizational) approach, based on an interpretation of living systems as organized self-maintaining systems. I argue that organizational closure -i.e. the web of mutual constraining actions of the material structures on their boundary conditions that collectively self- maintain the whole organization of the system- constitutes the causal regime in which functions appear, interpreted as the specific and distinguishable contributions of the various localizable components to the maintenance of the whole organization. Finally, I consider the implications and consequences of this new organizational approach in the understanding of the biological teleology and normativity, and I defend that it is in the best position to answer the objection that the organizational perspective seems unable to provide a unified grounding for both intra- and cross-generation functions.

Sacchi Elisabetta, University San Raffaele Milan, [email protected]

If Contents Ain’t in the Head Where Are Qualia?

The question I shall address is whether it is possible to defend a strong form of intentionalism (the thesis that the phenomenal character of a mental state consists purely in that state’s intentionality) which is compatible with both the idea that phenomenal properties are narrow and the idea that content is wide. I shall start by presenting the problem that content externalism poses for (strong) intentionalism. In the first part I shall criticize the phenomenal externalist’s move - which tries to preserve the idea that content is wide by identifying phenomenal properties with wide representational properties - by claiming that that move seems plausible only in so far as one conflates two distinct senses of “what it is like”. In the second part I shall try to show how one could avoid to pay the price of phenomenal externalism in order to preserve the idea that content is wide. What I shall suggest is a form of narrow intentionalism according to which phenomenal properties are narrow intentional properties which are not content properties but (psychological) properties of the subject’s “experience” of the content.

Salis Fiora, University of Lisbon, [email protected]

Desire and i-desire: Currie’s problem of satisfaction conditions

Over the past decade philosophers and cognitive scientists have been increasingly interested in issues related to the distinction between genuine desire and a hypothetical imaginative counterpart of desire. Gregory Currie recently argued in favor of the introduction of desire-like imaginings by investigating the nature of the mental states involved in our response to tragic fictions. My aim in this paper is to articulate Currie’s argument, disarm it and furthermore peruse its consequences. The hypothesis is that our response to works of fiction involves genuine desires.

Salis Pietro, Università di Cagliari, [email protected]

Conceptual Norms and Argumentative Practices: the Question of Objectivity in Brandom's Inferentialism

77 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero

Inferentialism, especially Brandom’s theory (Brandom, 1994), is the project purported to understand meaning in terms of inferences, and language as a social practice governed by discursive norms. Discursive practice is thus understood as the basic rational practice, where commitments undertaken by participants are evaluated in terms of their being correct/incorrect. This model of explanation is also intended to rescue, in terms of reasons, the commitments we undertake ourselves and assess the commitments we attribute to others, in an objective sense: starting from our subjective normative and doxastic attitudes we should be able to use the normative discursive resources apt to assess our commitments, not only referring to what we take to be correct, but also referring to how things actually are. My main hypothesis is that this objectivity is not achieved only on the basis of the rational structure of discursive practice. The main doubt concerns the fact that material inferences, those responsible for the content of our concepts (and commitments), are in general non-monotonic. These inferences put experts in an advantageous position, namely as those capable of defeasible reasoning. I believe that this asymmetry among language users is the crucial factor in assessing the objectivity of claims within discursive practice.

Salvatore Nicola Claudio, University of Edinburgh, [email protected]

Hinge Propositions and External World Skepticism

In this paper, I present and discuss a number of current anti-skeptical strategies directly influenced by Wittgenstein’s remarks on ‘hinge propositions’. I aim to show how these proposals, both as viable interpretations of Wittgenstein’s thought and especially as anti-skeptical strategies, are ultimately unconvincing. Furthermore, I compare and contrast these approaches with another Wittgenstein-inspired position, according to which we should consider ‘hinge propositions’ as ‘rules of grammar’. I argue that this account represents a more viable solution—or, perhaps better, dissolution—of Cartesian-style skepticism.

Santambrogio Marco, Università di Parma, [email protected]

A problem for the relational theory of propositional attitudes

The relational theory of ascriptions of propositional attitudes – i.e., sentences such as ‘Russell believed that mathematics reduces to logic’ – holds that attitude verbs, such as ‘believe’, express binary relations whose extensions are formed by pairs composed of individuals and what ‘that’-clauses – e.g., ‘that mathematics reduces to logic’ – designate, and ‘that’-clauses are terms designating propositions. The theory predicts that inferences such as the one from (1) Russell believed that mathematics reduces to logic, and (2) That mathematics reduces to logic is Logicism, to (3) Russell believed Logicism, are valid. A puzzling anomaly is that, for many attitude verbs other than ‘believe’, the corresponding inferences are invalid. In some cases, the conclusions are not even grammatical. Several proposals for explaining the anomaly away have been offered. But it is invariably assumed that a class of verbs exists for which inferences such as the one above go through. I will show that it is not so. Even in belief reports, substituting the proposition that p for the clause 78 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero that p can result in a truth-value change. Presumably, the same happens for all attitude verbs. It is to be feared that the inability to substitute terms that ought to designate the same entity might amount to a decisive objection to the relational theory.

Santoni de Sio Filippo, Delft University of Technology, [email protected] Vincent Nicole, Macquarie University, [email protected] Bjørn Jespersen, Czech Academy of Sciences, [email protected]

Persons, roles, and excuse: why the BCN cannot tell us who we are

What is the relationship between is and ought — for instance, between findings revealed about our psychology as revealed by empirical studies in the BCN, and norms about what we ought to do or not do as expressed by different role responsibilities? What may we expect from one another given what the BCN reveal about our actual mental capacities? Do facts determine or in some other way constrain what norms we may legitimately impose onto one another, or are norms more autonomous? We argue that not only are norms not merely derivative from- or constrained by facts; and that not merely are norms not just standards against which we judge or assess people's actions; but, more importantly, and more substantially, that norms play a crucial role in constructing agency. In particular, the norms that we set in the social sphere – norms which express our expectations of one another – play a crucial role in making it possible to even recognise agents within an otherwise-myopic fact-driven world view. Norms both construct and protect agency and agents from the onslaught of an otherwise agentless and impersonal view of the universe in which all that there is is just the impersonal and relentless flow of cause and effect.

Santoro Daniele, Luiss University - Rome [email protected] Di Paola Marcello, Luiss Guido Carli, [email protected]

Imputare cause e attribuire responsabilità: una analisi pragmatica

Gli scienziati sociali spesso ritengono che vocabolario intenzionale non indispensabile nelle spiegazioni dei fenomeni sociali Al vocabolario intenzionale viene spesso sostituito quello espressamente causale. Tuttavia, nel linguaggio ordinario della psicologia di senso comune, così come nei modelli esplicativi caratteristici dell’economia, il vocabolario intenzionale è spesso intrecciato a quello causale. In questi casi i termini causali e le imputazioni di responsabilità mostrano una struttura esplicativa parallela: le cause vengono imputate come responsabili degli eventi, e gli atteggiamenti intenzionali vengono trattati alla stregua di cause. Questo fenomeno prospettico, piuttosto che invocare una riduzione, esige una analisi. In questo paper presentiamo una spiegazione di questo tipo di fenomeni linguistici attraverso un’analisi dell’uso del vocabolario delle cause e delle intenzioni. In particolare, difendiamo due tesi. La prima è che non vi sia una distinzione di principio tra spiegazioni causali e spiegazioni intenzionali; piuttosto, tali spiegazioni rivelano una comune grammatica dell’uso di questi concetti. Ritenere una persona responsabile si presenta pertanto come un gioco linguistico che non differisce, dal punto di vista grammaticale, dal gioco

79 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero linguistico dell’individuare le cause di un evento. Battezziamo un individuo come responsabile nello stesso modo in cui battezziamo una causa. Chiamiamo questa la teoria “espiatoria” della causa, in analogia all’immagine di capro espiatorio. La seconda tesi è che sia possibile fornire un modello di spiegazione pragmatica di questa teoria. Una teoria espiatoria della causa si presenta come una concezione a due strati in cui l’individuazione di una causa come reazione ad un effetto rappresenta la controparte esplicita di una prassi sociale dell’individuare cause e responsabilità. Intendiamo mostrare che soltanto una analisi dell’impiego di tali attribuzioni può rendere conto della distinzione funzionale tra la semantica degli asserti causali e la semantica degli asserti di responsabilità e che tale distinzione consiste essenzialmente nei diversi scopi di natura pratica a cui tali usi sono rivolti.

Sartorio Carolina, University of Arizona, [email protected]

Causation and Free Will

Schang Fabien, LHSP Henri Poincaré, Université de Lorraine, [email protected]

Which logic for iteratives?

By an iterative is meant the set of modal verbs whose application to a sentential content may be done repeatedly. The verb "knowing" is a famous case in point. Such a modality can be applied to a sentential content like "Rome is the capital of Italy". We then obtain the modal sentence "I know that Rome is the capital of Italy". Let us call by a "modality of first order" this sort of sentence including only one modality. If one repeat this operation n times, it results in a modal sentence of n-th order like "I know that ... that I know that Rome is the capital of Italy". The present talk proposes a reflection in philosophy of language about this kind of verbs: what are their rules of meaning, and which modern logic should be entitled to state these? The reflection will run into three steps. (1) We start with an empirical inquiry into French, English, German, or even Italian iteratives. A grammatical peculiarity of iteratives is that the modal verbs are always followed by a that-clause: knowing, believing, wanting, fearing, doubting, thinking, remembering, and the like. This shows first and foremost that not every modal verb is iterative, as witnessed by the verbs "ought" and "can". A logical interpretation of these natural constructions consists in presenting the iterative verb as a function applied to a sentential argument; this functional scheme is to be found within the range of modal logics, e.g. epistemic logic. (2) On the basis of these natural language logics, we then consider the following question: to what extent does iteration make sense? Attention is paid on a special case of iterative, namely: doubting. To the question: does the expression "I doubt that I doubt" have a distinctive meaning from "I doubt", it is replied that this proposition expresses an ambiguous psychological attitude and is reminiscent of the Cartesian cogito [1] in its features that argue both for and against iteration. We review some analyses of the concept of doubt, sometimes formal [2,3] and sometimes informal [7,9,10]; we especially emphasize the comment suggested by Hintikka [3] about the iteration of knowing, characterized by his theorem of positive introspection Kp -> KKp in the modal 80 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero system S4 and largely influenced by a Cartesian-minded reading of the related expression: knowing has to do with thinking; therefore I know (whatever) that I know, and there is no difference in meaning between first-order and higher- order epistemic iterations. Then we expose some objections addressed to this reading, inspired from the Pyrrhonian skepticism and mentioned by Sibajiban [9]. Our conclusion leads to a connection between iteration and self- reference. As a matter of fact, any higher-order iteration is trivial, i.e. can be reduced to a lower order iteration without loss of information, whenever the modality is attached to itself rather than the sentential content. Thus, "I doubt that I doubt (that p)" means that the second-order doubt is attached to the first-order doubt rather than the sentential content p. So is the case for the sentence "I know that I know (that p)", with the patent difference that iterative knowing is trivial and consistent whereas iterative doubt is trivial and inconsistent (without being plainly contradictory, however; about the difference between incoherence and contradiction, see [8]). (3) To conclude this talk, we insist upon the performative feature of iteratives [4] and argue for an illocutionary logical analysis of these verbs. Not only can the concept of doubt be compared to the speech act of denial, whose logical properties are distinct from sentential negation and helped to solve a version of the Liar Paradox in Parsons [6]. But furthermore, the peculiar case of iterative doubt brings out a second class of verbs within speech act theory: anti- performatives, displayed by Johansson [5] and whose effect on the speaker is self-defeating. To summarize our talk: a question liable to be handled by philosophy of mind is approached here by philosophy of language, especially the formal language of illocutionary acts. From a distinction between affirmative iteratives (such as knowing) and negative iteratives (such as doubting), the aim of this work is twofold: - to show that all or part of the iterative verbs lead to self-referential sentences;- to gather from this self- reference that the corresponding iterative verbs are either trivial and consistent (positive iteratives), or trivial and inconsistent (negative iteratives). Such a conclusion relies upon two working hypotheses, namely: - an inductive analysis of iteratives, starting from particular cases to general statements; - iterative verbs express psychological attitudes, and this gives rise to a transition between premises related to philosophy of mind and conclusions resorting to philosophy of language. References [1] Descartes, R.: Méditations Métaphysiques, éd. Le Livre de Poche (1990) [2] Hart, A. M.: "Toward a logic of doubt", International Logic Review 21(1980), 31-41 [3] Hintikka, J.: Knowledge and Belief, Ithaca Press (1962) [4] Hintikka, J.: "Cogito ergo sum: inference or performance?", Philosophical Review 71(1962), 3-32 [5] Johansson, I.: "Performatives and anti-performatives", Linguistics and Philosophy 26(2003), 661-702 [6] Parsons, T.: "Assertion, denial, and the Liar Paradox", Journal of Philosophical Logic 13(1984), 137-152 [7] Raju: "The Principle of Four-Cornered Negation in Indian Philosophy", The Review of Metaphysics 7(1954): 694-713 [8] Schang, F.: "Relative charity", Revista Brasileira de Filosofia 233(2009), 159-172 [9] Sibajiban: "Can doubt be doubted?", Mind 69(1970), 84-87 [10] Wittgenstein, L.: De la certitude, coll. Tel (1987)

81 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero

Schulz Moritz, Universitat de Barcelona, [email protected]

Do Gibbardian Stand-Offs Show Anything?

Gibbardian Stand-Offs constitute a puzzling phenomenon concerning indicative conditionals. There can be two symmetrical epistemic situations in which the epistemic subjects are fully justified on a veridical basis in accepting two apparently contradictory conditionals. The conclusion drawn from such cases is that indicative conditionals must be subjective in a certain way, for instance by being implicitly context-sensitive to an epistemic parameter. In this paper, I show that this is too strong a conclusion to draw.

Sebastian Miguel Angel, University of Barcelona, [email protected]

Towards a Metasemantic Theory of De Se Content

In the Stalnakerian framework, contents of mental states are ways of dividing the space of possibilities. According to this view, the object of mental states are possible worlds propositions. They distinguish worlds that I take to be candidates to be actual. When I have a state with de se content, its correctness condition do not merely concern the way the world might be but also oneself. Propositions are not well-suited to capture its content. We need a centered world proposition. If a possible world is a way the world might be, a centered world can be thought as a way the world might be for an individual. Centered worlds propositions do not just individuate a way the world could be, but also a certain logical position within this world [egan_appearance_2006]. We can think of them as functions from ordered pairs of worlds and individuals () to truth value. The set of worlds that constitutes the content is determined by the attribution of properties to things; i.e. by the representation of things as having properties. In the case of centered propositions the content is determined by the self- attribution of properties. This paper aims at providing the bricks for a naturalistic theory of de se content. In particular, after arguing that the content of conscious states is de se --the correctness conditions of conscious states concern the subject that is undergoing the experience as such-- I want to present the very basics for naturalizing their content. This would make it possible to appeal to conscious states in order to explain, in a naturalistic compatible way, the self-ascription of properties.

Segala Marco, Università dell'Aquila - Centre Alexandre Koyré, Paris, [email protected]

The gift: how philosophy contributed to the emergence of science as an autonomous enterprise

Today scientific research is clearly separated and autonomous from philosophy. Yet until two centuries ago things were different. Science was included in philosophical systems and was considered as able to offer limited and partial explanations of nature, while it was acknowledged that only philosophy could provide complete answers. In the period following the 82 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero

French Revolution such a view began to change and less than a century later science had abandoned its subordinate position in philosophical systems. It had become an autonomous enterprise, institutionally supported by the state, and pursued by people who had been trained by a dedicated educational system. It was a seminal moment, characterised by: a) the development of philosophical reflections on concepts that later became part of the philosophy of science (demarcation between science and non-science, progress, relationship between observation and theory); b) the proposal of new classifications of the scientific knowledge; c) the establishment of the last philosophical systems that tried to include science within their natural philosophy. Protagonists of that important period and contributors to its intellectual change were scientists-philosophers and philosopher-scientists whose ideas this paper analyses. Such a historical approach will show how philosophical reflection on scientific research contributed to provide our civilization with the exceptional gift of an autonomous scientific enterprise.

Serban Maria, University of East Anglia, [email protected]

Mechanisms and Functions in the Mind: New and Old Challenges

Sometimes psychological explanations, just as biological explanations, consist in detailing the underlying mechanisms of purported cognitive capacities. To a first approximation, this view seems to be at odds with the more classical functionalist picture of psychological explanations. Traditionally, functionalism about psychological capacities is closely connected with the thesis of the autonomy of psychology from neuroscience. One standard form of the latter consists in denying the possibility of reduction. The form of reduction most proponents and critics of the autonomy of psychology appeal to is theory reduction. I believe that mechanistic explanations provide a different perspective for understanding the relation between the autonomy thesis and reductionism. Mechanistic explanations are reductionistic insofar as they appeal to lower level entities (i.e., the component parts of a mechanism and their operations) to explain a phenomenon. But, unlike theory reductionism, the mechanistic framework also recognizes the fundamental role that higher- order level disciplines, like psychology, play in discovering the organization within and between mechanisms. In this paper, I propose that the mechanistic approach is consistent with the autonomy of psychology from neuroscience. Moreover, I suggest that there are ways of revising the mechanistic framework so that it yields a promising research strategy within cognitive psychology.

Sgaravatti Daniele, Universität zu Köln, [email protected]

Concepts and Conceptions

I am going to argue that there are two notions of concept, and they are often confused, with very harmful theoretical consequences. Concepts in the intentional sense are essentially components of thoughts which refer to objects in the world. In the epistemic sense, a concept is the ability (which can be more or less reliable) to form categorization judgements. I will argue that the two notions should be distinguished, and that it is convenient to use the 83 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero word ‘concept’ for the first notion, and the word ‘conception’ for the second. Psychological theories of concepts tend to be more adequate as theories of conceptions. Interpreted this way, I will argue, some prominent psychological theories retain all the evidence there is in their favour, since the phenomena they are meant to explain all involve the application of concepts. On the other hand, many problems they have as theories of concepts disappear. Concepts are instead symbols which have essentially intentional properties. I will try to show that some traditional philosophical problems about concepts, such as the paradox of analysis and the problem of the cognitive value of identity claims, also disappear when concepts are clearly distinguished from conceptions.

Slagle Jim, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, [email protected]

Knowledge, Normativity, and Naturalized Epistemologies

W. V. Quine sought to “settle for psychology” and establish a new naturalized epistemology on descriptive principles rather than prescriptive principles used by normative epistemology. Yet normativity remains an enormous difficulty for naturalized epistemology. Quine tries to explain epistemic norms as hypothetical imperatives (or technical norms), such as those used by the sciences such as biology, but these could only prescribe conditionally and rationality prescribes unconditionally. The point of hypothetical imperatives is that one could reject the end in question and retain rationality, but this is not an option when rationality itself is the end. As such, hypothetical imperatives do not seem to resolve the problem of normativity for naturalized epistemology. This is further demonstrated by, for example, Norman Malcolm’s argument that purposive explanations are fundamentally non- contingent in nature. However, one form of naturalized epistemology, Alvin Plantinga’s, provides the tools necessary to resolve the problem of normativity while remaining naturalized. It does so by employing only those norms used by the sciences, such as biology, as Quine argued. However, these tools run contrary to much of the motivation for embracing a naturalized epistemology in the first place.

Smortchkova Joulia, Institut Jean Nicod, [email protected]

Phenomenal contrast methods for studying the contents of perception

What kinds of properties enter into the experiential contents of perception? Do only low-level properties (such as being blue, square, etc.) enter into perceptual experiences (poor content view) or do high level properties (such as being an agent, a banana, being sad, etc.) enter into experiential content as well (rich content view)? I focus on the arguments for the rich content view. I first critically examine the division between low-level properties and high- level properties which they presuppose. I then underline the limitations of an argument recently proposed to argue for the rich content view: the phenomenal contrast argument. I suggest one way to improve the method is by checking its predictions against the experimental data provided by psychological research on visual agnosia and perceptual adaptation. My aim in so doing is not simply to imply that the methods used by psychology are the 84 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero right ones: taken on their own they do not cut finely enough between competing possible interpretations of certain data. Instead, I outline how a combination of approaches might positively impact future research on such issues.

Songhorian Sarah, Vita-Salute San Raffaele University, [email protected]

Empathy: From Description to Prescription

Moral judgment and moral decision making have long been considered a product of reasoning. The truth is they are often guided by some emotive, and unconscious reactions coming from the “emotional brain” (Dalgleish 2004; Greene et al. 2001; Greene 2009; Greene, Haidt 2002). My focus will be that of understanding how the emotional path works. What emotional mechanism can trigger moral responses? Empathy defined as an emotional reaction triggered by someone else’s feelings can be the answer because it represents the emotional way of interacting with other individuals, and interaction is the basis of every moral behavior. Recent studies in neuroscience (Gallese 2001; Gallese et al. 2004; Rizzolatti, Sinigaglia 2006) have shown that it is an emotional analogous to the mirror neuron system (MNS). At this point the issues are of two kind: 1) The descriptive issue: what can neurosciences tell us about how we actually judge and decide? When and how do we empathize (Singer et al. 2004; Singer et al. 2006: De Vignemont, Singer 2006)? 2) The prescriptive one: what can we infer from these empirical studies for a moral theory that has to tell us how we should live?

Spolaore Giuseppe, University of Verona, [email protected]

Fictional truth, time, and agency

Fictional truth—or truth in fiction/pretense—has been the object of extended scrutiny among philosophers and logicians in the last decades [for example 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]. However relatively little attention, at least in the formal tradition, has been paid to its relationships with time and human agency (with some partial exceptions, e.g., [2]). As a contribution to fill this gap, I formulated a (provably sound and complete) theory of fiction-making TF, where fiction- making is understood as the exercise of choice in time over what is fictionally true. TF improves on a certain formal treatment of time and agency, close to that of so-called stit theory (see, e.g., [1]). For brevity, in the talk only a rough- and-ready presentation of TF is provided, and the focus is rather on its motivations. In the process, some interesting linguistic, inferential, and metaphysical issues are pointed out and discussed. References [1] N.D. Belnap et al. Facing the Future. Oxford UP, Oxford, 2001. [2] A. Bonomi. Fictional contexts. In P. Bouquet et al (eds), Perspectives on Contexts:215–249. CSLI, Stanford, 2007. [3] G. Currie. The Nature of Fiction. Cambridge UP, Cambridge, 1990. [4] D. Lewis. Truth in fiction. American Philosophical Quarterly, 15(1):37–46, 1978. 85 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero

[5] K. Walton. Mimesis as Make-Believe. Harvard UP, Cambridge, MA, 1990. [6] J. Woods. The Logic of Fiction. Mouton, The Hague, 1974. [7] J. Woods and P. Alward. The logic of fiction. In D. Gabbay and F. Guenthner (eds), Handbook of Philosophical Logic, 11:241–316. Springer, Dordrecht, 2004.

Stjernberg Fredrik, Linköping University, [email protected]

Do we have a determinate conception of truth (and do we need one)?

In my talk, I will be discussing to what extent we have a single conception of truth. When thinking about truth, we can agree on a few basic platitudes that can be seen as a starting point --- if something is true, it is the case, that logical reasoning preserves truth, and so on. But how are these starting points related to different conception of truth that we can find in debates concerning truth, as about how we should best revise our (possibly inconsistent) notion of truth to avoid the Liar and other paradoxes, or about which kinds of statements that are candidates for being true/false (are there moral truths, truths in mathematics, and so on?). I will be discussing a kind of indeterminacy that arises in our notion of truth, and examining what effect this resulting indeterminacy may have on other areas, arguing that it is mainly harmless. The resulting indeterminacy of the notion of truth can be contained.

Strollo Andrea, University of Helsinki, [email protected]

Deflationism, Conservativity, Expandability

One of the basic question we can wonder about truth is what, if anything, we gain if we have a truth predicate at our disposal. According to the well known deflationist approach, the property of truth is claimed to be a property without robust metaphysical substance. Such unsubstantiality has been explained by the technical notion of conservativity. I will argue that the real pivotal notion, for a deflationist metaphysics, is not conservativity but expandability of models. Then I will show that, unfortunately, under the light of expandability, deflationary theories fail. In fact, results in model theory show that both theories based upon tarskian clauses or T- sentences, despite being conservative, prevent expandability of models and contrast the alleged unsubstantiality of truth.

Szalek Piotr, Catholic University of Lublin, Trinity Hall Cambridge, [email protected]

The Solitary Man Thought Experiment

The paper is trying to demonstrate that the key to understand the Berkeleian anti-sceptical strategy lies in Berkeley’s assumptions about language expressed in his Solitary Man Thought Experiment, which is drafted by him in the “Manuscript Introduction”. The thought experiment show us that his strategy may be seen as a kind of a proto-semantic approach, which resembles, at least to some extent, the dominant philosophical tendency 86 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero associated with radical conventionalism. From such a perspective, we can describe Berkeley’s strategy as an attempt to redefine the conceptual apparatus, which is understood as a list of the basic meanings ascribed to the terms of the given language. Interestingly, the motivation for doing this is the empirical fact that the meanings are not strictly stipulated by our experience, which is a source of the misuses and misunderstanding of our philosophical discourse. Berkeley seems to mean that a sceptical threat is a consequence of the fact that some of our basic propositions about the world, contain the meanings, which we assert and which in fact form our world picture, but which are not unambiguously stipulated by data of our experience. They depend on the conceptual apparatus we use to describe our experiential data.

Tagliabue Jacopo, Università San Raffaele (Milano), iLabs (Milano) [email protected]

Digital Philosophy - Ontology in a Digital Universe

The so-called "computational philosophy" uses computational techniques to assist in philosophical inquiry and provide evidence that cannot be provided by more orthodox (a priori, “armchair”) philosophical methods: in this spirit, we investigate the results of applying tools from formal ontology and metaphysics to discrete universes (in particular, the computational structures known as cellular automata). The rationale behind the approach is two-fold: on the one hand, philosophical analysis may enhance our understanding of emergent properties in complex computational systems; on the other, we may use digital universe to do "philosophical debugging" - as the ontology of the universe gets more structured, checking at a glance the ramifications of a given theoretical choice may become impossible; however, if we teach our ontology to a computer, we can write a software to see, step by step, if the simulation produces the expected qualitative results. After explaining the potential benefits of the proposed framework in several fields (philosophy of course, but also Artificial Intelligence and semantic technologies) and discussing some preliminary objections to the generality of our approach, we conclude by showing some of our early results on emergence and causation as case studies.

Tagliafico Daniela, Laboratory for Ontology, University of Turin, [email protected]

On the distinction between dispositional and categorical predicates: Which modal thought?

According to a traditional definition, dispositional predicates (e.g. ‘fragile’, ‘soluble’ etc.) would differ from categorical predicates (e.g. ‘triangular’, ‘cow’ etc.) for the fact that they are the only ones that imply conditional statements. For example, saying that something is fragile implies to say that “if struck, then it would break”, and saying that something is soluble implies that “if put in water, then it would dissolve”. In my talk I will follow Choi’s argumentations (2005) in maintaining that, not only dispositional, but also categorical predicates imply conditionals, but what I will try to show is that these conditionals are of different kinds. More precisely, whereas the conditionals implied by categorical predicates state the necessity of the 87 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero consequent given the truth of the antecedent, the conditionals implied by dispositional predicated express the possibility (or, more precisely, the high probability) of the consequent given the truth of the antecedent.

Tanyi Attila, University of Konstanz, [email protected] Morganti Matteo University of Rome 'RomaTRE', [email protected]

Can reasons be propositions?

In this paper, we discuss the view that normative practical reasons are propositions (‘propositionalism’). Rather than to establish whether or not the view is compelling, we aim to do two things. First, to show that there is much more to be said on this matter than commonly thought. Secondly, to argue that there is at least one consistent and plausible way to support propositionalism. The connection between the first and the second task is the following. In order to formulate our positive suggestion, we isolate and spell out in some detail two objections to propositionalism that can be found only in embryonic form in the literature - in particular, in the work of Jonathan Dancy -, and for each of them sketch possible ways in which the propositionalist might respond. By pointing out the pros and cons of these complaints and responses, we then show that i) the objections can be met and ii) certain difficulties that have been raised against Dancy’s own views might justify a preference for (a certain version of) the propositionalist alternative, so vindicating the latter’s underlying motivations.

Tarnovanu Horia, University of St Andrews, [email protected]

Lessons from the Context Sensitivity of Causal Claims ‘…

[I]n both law and morals the various forms of causal connexion between act or omission and harm are the most obvious and least disputable reasons for holding anyone responsible.’ (H. L. A. Hart and A. M. Honoré 1959, p. 52). Context influences causal claims. For instance, X might mention human error as the cause of the K2 climbing accident, Y the collapse of a massive serac in the couloir, W the wrongly strung up ropes – and what is accepted as a cause by a speaker may be genuinely denied by others. According to causal contextualism, the acceptability of causal judgments of the form ‘c caused e’ (or employing similar causal verbs) varies across contexts. This view seems to raise an indeterminacy problem for moral evaluation. Assuming that responsibility ascriptions rest on the assessment of causal sequences relating agents, events, and consequences, there is a legitimate question whether moral evaluation inherits or not the context sensitivity of causal claims. I argue that causal contextualism motivates a version of scepticism about moral responsibility and therefore, the notable naturalist virtue of the standard view – that moral responsibility is tied to a natural relation between events in the world – also counts as one of its important limitations. The paper is divided in five sections. I start by defending the idea that moral responsibility for events rests on causation (section 1). I then discuss the sources of causal contextualism (section 2) and examine the ways it impacts moral assessment in complex situations (section 3). Eventually, I examine some alternative devices for stabilising causal thinking in moral contexts and show why their 88 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero applicability is in principle restricted (section 4). Section 5 states the conclusions.

Tarziu Gabriel, Romanian Academy Iasi Branch, [email protected]

Mathematics and science: interpreting the 19th century change

Maybe the most important thing that draws our attention when we look at the history of mathematics is represented by what has come to be regarded as the “dramatic shift” that took place in the mathematics of the 19th century. The most important aspect of this transformation – at least form a philosophical point of view– is represented by the separation of mathematics form science. If we regard the dispute between Maddy and Quine over the relation between mathematics and science from the perspective of a parallel with the history of science, it does seem that Maddy is in a better position because her view accommodates better the changes that took place in the 19th century mathematics. I will argue that this is only apparently so. What is misleading here is the fact that a philosophical view (about what happened in the 19th century mathematics) is taken as a historical fact. I will try to show that a closer look at the history of mathematics if far from backing up the view that we have a radical rupture in the 19th century mathematics, and so that Quine’s view is not in such a bad situation after all.

Terrone Enrico, University of Turin, [email protected]

Do we really see-in movies?

In order to apply the seeing-in theory of depiction to cinema, we need to revise the account of its distinctive twofoldness, which, according to Wollheim, articulates our experience of pictures in a configurational fold and in a recognitional one. In the case of movies, unlike the case of paintings, the configurational fold is indeed not analogous to seeing the marks on the surface, since movies are not constituted by marks but rather by points of light whose values can change in time. In this sense, the movie is rather similar to our visual field, considered as a dynamic optical array determined by the light distribution in the environment. Such a correspondence between the movie and the visual field gives us an alternative way to characterize the distinctive twofoldness of movies. The configurational fold will consist in experiencing, by means of our visual field F, a framed and detached surface constituted by dynamic color points and localized in our environment E, while the recognitional fold will consist in using this surface as a secondary visual field F’ that can give us information about another environment E’. Twofoldness, in the cinematic case, is a matter of nesting and of recursive application.

89 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero

Terzian Giulia, University of Bristol, [email protected]

On the simplicity of truth

In discussions of what (a theory of) truth ought to be like, it has sometimes been claimed that truth is, and ought to be formally depicted as, a simple notion. However, surprisingly little has been done to make this claim more precise, or to explore ways of systematically implementing the latter desideratum. In this paper I explore two suggestions about how one might interpret the claim that truth is simple. In the context of axiomatic theories of truth I consider whether the proof-theoretic ordinal of a theory might serve as a measure – an emphatically indirect one – of the simplicity of truth from the standpoint of that theory. In the case of semantic theories of truth, I investigate whether the simplicity of truth might be measured by the computational complexity of a given theory. This seems a slightly more promising candidate for a formal counterpart or interpretation of the notion of simplicity. I conclude by addressing a couple of general worries about the foregoing.

Testino Chiara, Università di Pavia, [email protected]

Different Minorities, Equal Respect

According to Kymlicka's account, modern multinational and/or polyethnic states are confronted with two main patterns of cultural diversity corresponding to two different kinds of minorities: national minorities or indigenous people who claim forms of self-government and autonomy in order to preserve their culture as distinct from the mainstream one; and immigrants or ethnic groups that negotiate polyethnic or accommodation rights in order to integrate into the larger society, while trying to make its institutions more accommodating to some traditional aspects of their culture of origin. Such claims would be justified since those groups would share, as members of a nation, what Kymlicka calls a cultural society: “a culture which provides its members with meaningful ways of life across the full range of human activities[...], encompassing both public and private spheres. These cultures tend to be territorially concentrated, and based on a shared language” (Kymlicka 1995: 76). Even without denying the validity of Kymlicka's arguments for the treatment of the cases he categorized – which apparently already proved to be suitable for implementation in some contexts – one can doubt that all the politically relevant meanings of the term “minority” can be grasped by his dichotomous account. Indeed such a model might represent a kind of diversity, so to speak, external to the majoritarian culture, while in liberal democratic regimes there is an internal pluralism which gives rise to less radical but probably just as crucial differences connected to what Kymlicka himself defines as sub-cultures. Contemporary theories of toleration and equal respect seem to be promising tools for dealing with such internal diversity. Thus my starting hypothesis is that a multicultural approach à la Kymlicka is able to tell only a part of the story. I shall then try to assess whether and what normative analysis in terms of toleration and respect can contribute to provide a unified account of minority rights, able to be sensitive to some kinds of differences the standard model is blind to.

90 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero

Tiercelin Claudine, Collège de France, [email protected]

Is there such a thing as metaphysical knowledge?

The talk will examine the conditions of possibility and the nature of metaphysical knowledge: 1) as compared with other types (mathematical, physical, ethical, philosophical) knowledge; 2) from the point of view of its methods (conceptual analysis, thought experiments, empirical intuitions, a posteriori inferences, economy of research); 3) from the point of view of various conceptions of knowledge itself as justified true beliefs, reliatibilism, virtue epistemology). Against humility, it will claim that metaphysical knowledge can be achieved, which implies 1. relying on conceptual analysis and on the continuous massaging of our folk intuitions; 2. trusting science without indulging into some kind of naturalized or scientistic metaphysics; 3. Still aiming, although within the framework of a fallibilist strategy of knowledge viewed as inquiry, at reaching the truth and at determining the real nature of properties and things.

Tomasetta Alfredo, Università di Bergamo, [email protected]

Emergentism Is No Solution

Metaphysical emergentism regarding the mind (m-emergentism) can be viewed as an attempt to find a middle way between materialist theories of mind and dualistic positions: the aim of my paper is to cast doubt on the very existence of the m-emergentist option as an alternative to dualism and materialism. A partial and commonly agreed characterization of metaphysical m-emergence is as follows: if the mind emerges from the physical then 1) the mind metaphysically supervenes on the physical and 2) this supervenience is a brute fact. In the literature the ‘bruteness’ mentioned in 2) has been interpreted in two ways: 2a) the existence of the mind is not logically necessitated by the existence of the physical world; 2b) the mind metaphysically supervenes on the physical world and yet there cannot be any explanation of this very supervenience. I argue that neither 2a) nor 2b) are acceptable ways to understand emergentist bruteness, because they are both incompatible with assumption 1). If this is so, I maintain, m-emergentism is not a viable option in the metaphysics of mind.

Tonneau Aurélien, I.H.P.S.T. University of Panthéon-Sorbonne, [email protected]

Metaphysics Explanation and Scientifics Laws

In Nature's Metaphysics (2007), Bird argues that the laws of nature derive from the dispositional essence of fundamental properties and proposes a formal frame for this metaphysics thesis. This analysis is today generally interpreted by philosophers of science as providing a defense of the incompatibility between a metaphysical explication for laws and their effective expression in sciences. I will explore this interpretation. I will show in particular that the quantitative character of fundamental scientific properties 91 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero does not allow us to derive a regularity that is general enough to give it the status of a scientific law. Finally I will defend that adapting the model conceptually by multi-track dispositions, even if it considers the derivations of the present model as particular cases, also fails to allow us to defend the conception of scientific laws, providing an additional argument for incompatibilists.

Torrengo Giuliano, University of Barcelona, [email protected]

Metaphysical Explanations

Lately, it has been suggested that metaphysics should not be confined to the ontological inquiry about what exists, but it should aim at telling a story about the fundamental features of reality and how they relate to each other and to what is derivative. There are of course many differences between those projects, but roughly the underlying idea is that the philosophical inquiry should focus on relations of metaphysical priority, such as being grounded in, being existentially dependent on, being composed of, being constituted by, etc. In the paper I will concentrate on the relation of grounding. Although often in the literature grounding is connected with the idea of explanation, it is not clear whether there is a unique notion of explanation that plays the alleged role in every case of grounding. My main aim will be to spell out a notion of fundamental metaphysical explanation which tracks certain instances of grounding relations, namely those that bottom down in what is most fundamental.

Tossut Silvia, Università Vita-Salute San Raffaele, [email protected]

Membership and Knowledge. Scientific Research as a Group Activity

Contemporary scientific research may be characterized as a truth-oriented group activity. This characterization suggests that there are two kinds of considerations that can be done about it: considerations about the collective nature of the activity at one side, considerations about the epistemic goal of the activity on the other side. I argue that a proper account of the intentions of the individuals involved shows that integration between these areas in philosophy is possible. This account could also suggest an answer to the problem of the relation between individual and social knowledge. The talk is divided into five parts: after presenting the issue, I summarize Bratman’s analysis of cooperative joint activities. Then, I turn to my proposal, arguing for the applicability of this account to scientific research, by adding a truth-orientation condition. In the following section, I compare my analysis with Alexander Bird’s one: Bird refers to a non-cognitive functional integration between the members of a society in order to explain the relationship between individual and social knowledge. I suggest a way to explain this power of non-cognitive relations. Finally, I apply my account to the relations between competing research teams and between scientists and laypersons.

92 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero

Tripodi Paolo, University of Turin, [email protected]

Wittgenstein, religious belief, and epistemic relativism

In this talk I explore Wittgenstein's later remarks on religious belief, especially on credal statements such as “I believe in the Last Judgement”. In my view, such remarks show that Wittgenstein was a sort of epistemic relativist. Preliminarily, I introduce Wittgenstein's idea that there is a gulf between (a certain kind of) believers and non-believers. Then, I reject the view according to which, in Wittgenstein's view, the gulf should be explained either in terms of some sort of linguistic incommensurability or in terms of the dichotomy between the descriptive and the expressive. Rather, I suggest that Wittgenstein defended an epistemological conception of the gulf in question, based on a distinction between the "evidence of the heart", which provides grounds for religious belief, on the one hand, and rational and empirical evidence, which provides grounds for our ordinary and scientific beliefs, on the other hand. Finally, I argue that since, in Wittgenstein's view, the believers' grounds are quite intelligible to non-believers but, nonetheless, believers and non-believers have incompatible standards of justification (neither of which is the correct one), then Wittgenstein's remarks on religious belief provide us, as it were, with all the ingredients to make an epistemic relativist cake.

Tripodi Vera, University of Barcelona, [email protected]

Stereotypes, Gendered Notions and Gender Gap in Philosophy

Recently, Wesley Buckwalter and Stephen Stich have argued that women and men tend to have different philosophical intuitions and that these differences may play a role in explaining the marginalization of women philosophers. To the contrary, I defend the view that intuitions are in part socially constructed and the product of stereotypical behaviours. My paper has two aims: firstly, to offer some speculations about the effect of Buckwalter and Stich’s hypothesis and to focus on whether intuition is a gendered notion; secondly, to argue that Buckwalter and Stich’s approach is inadequate, by showing that the data in the studies they report are insufficient to support their conclusion and that their thesis does not comply with the view that gender differs from one society to another.

Tsompanidis Vasilis, UNAM - Instituto de Investigaciones Filosoficas, [email protected]

Perceiving temporal properties and forming de re beliefs about time

The main motivation of this paper is to sketch a tenseless account of tensed belief as an externalist de re belief that could come close to explain why and how it normally leads to timely action. I first argue that tensed belief cannot be usefully described as a belief in events, times or things having the genuine metaphysical properties being past, present, or future. I then propose that tensed beliefs are perspectival, relational, and not completely conceptualized beliefs. Such an account avoids a specific problem for ‘hyper-intellectualized’ 93 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero accounts of tensed belief; predicting that a subject would have tensed beliefs in cases where tensed belief does not necessarily occur. I further defend the position that human beings are able to perceive temporal properties such as duration and order, and that human psychology includes a non-conceptual temporal framework mechanism akin to a spatial egocentric index. This can be straightforwardly combined with my externalist account to explain why timely action follows from a tensed belief without resting on shaky metaphysical grounds, resorting to brute biological facts, or ignoring quick timely reactions to immediate perceptions.

Tuzet Giovanni, Bocconi University, [email protected]

“Suspension of Disbelief”: A Coherentist Theory of Fiction

Why do we say that a certain fiction is good, or acceptable, or even credible? Are there any criteria that determine these judgments? The paper does not discuss the metaphysical status of fictional entities but, rather, the criteria of fiction acceptability or credibility, with reference to the legal domain in particular. Coleridge claimed that “poetic faith” involves a suspension of disbelief. If he was right, to be good a literary fiction must be credible. Of course, literary credibility does not mean truth or truthfulness. So, what does that mean? I consider the hypothesis that it means, in some senses to be specified, coherence. Coherence is not to be identified with logical consistency and is not easily definable. It is something more than mere logical consistency, being a sort of “making sense” that concerns not only the logical relations between sentences but also their content and relations to the world. Specifying such senses permits us to provide a coherentist theory of fiction that will be checked against some literary and legal fictions. Although the differences between these fictions must not be underestimated, the paper concludes that coherence provides a general explanation and justification of fictions and of our judgments on them.

Varzi Achille, Columbia University, [email protected]

Realism in the Desert

Vaselli Stefano, Università "La Sapienza", Roma, [email protected]

To be Realist in History, or: What Historical Documents really are?

How is it possible to understand the extension of the ontological independence of historical documents beyond our capacity to know them? Where does our interpretation of those findings begin? As every realist commitment must provide us with a suitable tool to solve the problem of findings’ reliability, in this paper we analyze how Searle’s Collective Intentionality (CI) cannot be a solution, because its definition of function of status (FS) as “X count as Y in C” permits, even only in principle, that the same entity X, which has counted as Y, in the faroff times historical context C0, 94 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero could “re-count” as Y ≠ Y in a more recent context Ct ≠ C0, after an involuntary forgery too. Being by definition iterative, FS could iterate clamorous twists making future historians’ CI lose the contact with the reality of original status’ functions. On the contrary, Ferraris’ Documentality satisfies this historical reliability test, because its definition of a social object as inscription of an act distinguishes between what a fact/event/object X of the past has been, and what characteristics X must possess to become a document, discerning, this way, voluntary from unintentional effects of the creation of an object, to instantiate a social fact, or to cause an historical event, and their different taxa of historicity.

Vassallo Nicla, University of Genoa, [email protected]

Abbozzi epistemologici per una lettura di Gottlob Frege su scetticismo e naturalismo

Al fine di iniziare a porre alcune basi per affrontare i rapporti che si rintracciano nella filosofia di Gottlob Frege tra scetticismo e naturalismo, occorre innanzitutto chiarire il peso che svolge in essa l’interesse epistemologico – interesse che va ben al di là di quello ridotto, se non insignificante, che Michael Dummett è disposto a riconoscere. Dopo questo iniziale chiarimento, la strada da intraprendere consiste nell’esaminare come Frege: affronta il tema dello scetticismo e a quali risultati approda; tratta il tema di psicologismo/antipsicologico– oggi naturalismo/antinaturalismo; si rapporta rispetto al concetto di “pensare”, concetto a cui conferire valore positivo equivale, stando ad alcuni, a sposare il naturalismo. Evidenziando diverse caratterizzazioni di pensare e ponendole in relazione con l’unica soluzione effettiva che Frege presenta per il dubbio scettico globale, ci si propone di abbozzare un’ipotesi in cui quelle caratterizzazioni e quella soluzione restituiscono visioni contemporanee di antinaturalismo, ma pure di naturalismo in epistemologia, a dispetto del notorio antipsicologismo/antinaturalismo fregeano. La complessità del discorso e delle variegate forme di epistemologie naturalizzate, ultimamente elaborate, costringeranno l’attenzione a focalizzarsi solo su alcune loro tipologie, a partire da quella più classica, che dobbiamo a Willard Van Orman Quine.

Vega-Encabo Jesús, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, [email protected] Broncano Fernando, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, [email protected]

Epistemic dependence, testimony, and trust

What is it distinctive of testimony as a source of knowledge? In this paper we will argue that the distinctiveness of testimony derives from the interpersonal and trusting relationship established between testifier and audience. Some of the specific risks associated with testimony as a source of knowledge have to do with the intentional involvement of epistemic agents. Testimony is characterized by the fragility of the situation where we accept others’ words. Do these distinctive features have any epistemological import? Firstly, we propose that in testimonial situations of dependence A’s reliance on B’s 95 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero perspective requires B’s epistemic good will. B has to be disposed to share his perspective regarding p. This epistemic disposition depends on the sensitivity he exhibits with respect to the perspectives involved in the situation. The exercise of this disposition contributes to the creation of a sort of interdependence between both epistemic agents. Secondly, we will argue that trust reflects a spontaneous and positive attitude towards a speaker B by means of which A assesses the situation of epistemic dependence they are involved in. Trust is so the outcome of the exercise of a capacity to cope with situations of epistemic risk. Trusting B is not based on an evidential assessment about what to expect of B, but it is not either indiscriminating or universally generalized. Trust is an attitude through which the epistemic subject establishes a cognitive relation with an environment where the possibility of obtaining knowledge or enhancing the epistemic quality of the own perspective depends on relying on the perspective of others.

Venturi Giorgio, Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, Université Paris 7, [email protected]

The unity of mathematics: the interplay between mathematical practice and foundational issues

We propose the distinction between two different kinds of foundation: one that is mainly philosophical and deals with ontological problems (“what there is?”); one that is mostly mathematical and has epistemological motivations (“why can we prove a theorem?”). The roots of such a distinction can be found in Hilbert’s works. We argue that a mathematical foundation should explain the main possibility of a proof, showing necessary and sufficient conditions. For what concern this kind of foundation, set theory provides the best framework for three reasons: universality (every piece of mathematics can be formalized within set theory), independence proofs (necessity of conditions), large cardinals (possibility to compare different principles). We argue that the distinction between these two kinds of foundation helps in understanding Benacerraf problem: ontology and epistemology pertain to scopes of different foundations. Then the objectivity and the unity of mathematics will be found, thanks to the foundational role of set theory, in the activity of giving proofs. We then argue against structuralism on the ground of recent results in set theory that show how the cumulative hierarchy intuition is not sufficient to decide between competing theories. We nevertheless argue that some set theory are “more equal” then others.

Vignolo Massimiliano, Università di Genova, [email protected]

Incompleteness Arguments

Some philosophers hold that the conclusions of Incompleteness Arguments are metaphysical claims about the existence of entities that might figure as constituents of propositions while their premises concern psychological data about speakers’ dispositions to truth evaluate sentences in contexts. Those philosophers reject Incompleteness Arguments claiming that psychological data have no bearing on metaphysical issues. I argue that such criticism is vitiated by a misunderstanding of the nature of Incompleteness Arguments. 96 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero

Villa Vittorio, Università di Palermo, [email protected]

Interpretazione giuridica e teorie del significato

Lo scopo del paper è presentare alcuni lineamenti di una teoria pragmaticamente orientata dell’interpretazione giuridica, che si ponga come alternativa agli approcci attualmente dominanti. Il punto di partenza della teoria è l’idea che esiste una relazione concettuale fra significato e interpretazione, tale per cui una teoria dell’interpretazione, in qualunque campo si sviluppi, ha bisogno di poggiare su di una teoria del significato. Questo presupposto viene poi declinato come indicazione metodologica nell’ambito dell’interpretazione giuridica, nel senso che la teoria del significato viene utilizzata, prima di tutto in sede ricostruttiva, per esaminare i presupposti semantici delle principali concezioni dell’interpretazione giuridica che si sono susseguite nell’arco degli ultimi due secoli di storia della cultura giuridica; e poi, in sede costruttiva, come punto di partenza nella elaborazione della teoria pragmaticamente orientata. La teoria del significato che viene prescelta nella costruzione della teoria è il contestualismo moderato. L’innesto di questa prospettiva all’interno dell’interpretazione giuridica dà vita ad un approccio dinamico, nel quale l’attività di attribuzione di un significato (nei due profili del senso e del riferimento) alle disposizioni giuridiche, da parte di giuristi e operatori (attività che rappresenta il nucleo paradigmatico dell’interpretazione giuridica), è vista come un processo di costruzione sequenziale, che trova nella dimensione del contesto (nei due sensi di contesto, distale e prossimale) un elemento da cui nessun atto interpretativo può prescindere.

Voltolini Alberto, University of Turin, [email protected]

Why, as responsible for pictoriality, seeing-in can only be inflected seeing-in

In this paper I first want to rescue from recent criticisms such as Newall (2011) Wollheim’s (19802) well-known thesis that the twofold experience of seeing- in is necessary for pictoriality, i.e., for what makes a pictorial representation pictorial. Secondly, I also want to maintain that inflectedness is a necessary condition of such an experience itself. Inflectedness is the phenomenon according to which the visible properties of the picture’s subject – the properties grasped in the proper ‘seeing-in’ fold of the seeing-in experience – are determined by seeing, in the other fold of that experience, the design properties of the picture (the properties of the picture in virtue of which the picture depicts what it does). As a result, recent broader conceptions of seeing-in such as Lopes (2005) and Nanay (2010) – according to which seeing- in may occur also without twofoldness (Lopes) or it may occur within a twofold mental state whose phenomenal character, if any, requires no experience of either folds (Nanay) – have to be set aside.

97 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero

Wareham Christopher, European School of Molecular Medicine (SEMM), University of Milan European Institute of Oncology (IEO), [email protected]

Distributing Life: Justice, Life Extension, and a Fair Innings

Caloric restriction mimetics (CRMs) are emerging biotechnologies that promise to substantially extend human lifespan. CRMs like resveratrol, metformin and rapamycin have been extensively tested in animals and have undergone clinical trials in humans, with positive indications for health and longevity. This raises important political questions of distributive justice. In this paper I assess the concern that life extension is unjust, since it would result in an ‘unfair innings.’ Interventions that substantially prolong lifespan seem likely to exacerbate existing disparities in healthspan, since they would be available only to wealthier groups that already have a greater chance of achieving a fair innings of healthy years. This has led some to contend that it would be fairer to ban substantial life extension. I begin by clarifying the theoretical basis of the fair innings argument. I indicate how it may be grounded by three different principles of fairness – egalitarianism, prioritarianism, and sufficientarianism. Thereafter I assess four policies with respect to CRMs – laissez faire, banning, equal access and differential access. I argue that all the relevant principles of fairness imply it would be fairest to provide differential public access to life extending CRMs.

Zanet Giancarlo, Università di Palermo, [email protected]

Matching Minds: Successes and Failures of Simulation Strategy in Mindreading

According to some of the leading proponents of simulation theory (ST), a crucial phase of mindreading is the matching phase, when the mindreader adopt the target's perspective on the world. In this paper I discuss some evidence from psychological literature showing that this kind of perspective taking process is egocentrically biased in many ways. I argue that psychological evidences of that sort are not to be considered just as a confirmation of ST, not even in an hybrid version of it. These evidences show some of the limits of ST and pose a genuine problem: since we, as mindreaders, succeed in understanding targets overcoming those egocentric biases, how do we achieve that result? How do we succeed in 'quarantining' our own mental states when inappropriate to understanding others? I envisage two lines of answer in the current debate: by means of a) theory or by means of b) normative considerations. The line pursued here is that, mostly when we fails in mindreading tasks, we conduct a rational effort of adjusting our misinterpretation that entails a balancing of a) and b). As a consequence, I propose that rationality theory and simulation theory of mindreading could fruitfully interact.

98 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero

Zardini Elia, University of Aberdeen, [email protected]

Getting One for Two, or the Contractors' Bad Deal. Towards a Unified Solution to the Semantic Paradoxes

The paper concerns transparent theories of truth, i.e. theories treating ‘ ‘P’ is true’ as fully intersubstitutable with ‘P’. It is first argued that transparency needs significant refinements because of context dependence, and possibly also because of the contingency of the metaphysics of language and the existence of truth-value gaps; these refinements undermine some prominent arguments that have been given against certain non-transparent theories. It is then examined what the prospects are of maintaining a suitably refined version of transparency in view of the other problem posed by the semantic paradoxes. In particular, three kinds of transparent theories—theories rejecting the law of excluded middle, theories rejecting the law of non- contradiction and theories rejecting the metarule of contraction—are compared with respect to the two most prominent semantic paradoxes: the Liar and Curry’s. It is argued that there are versions of the Liar paradox that do not rely on the law of excluded middle or the law of non-contradiction, and that such versions are blocked by the first two kinds of theories only by (implausibly) severing important connections between logical consequence and negation. Similarly, it is argued that Curry’s paradox does not rely on the law of excluded middle or the law of non-contradiction, and that it is blocked by the first two kinds of theories only by (implausibly) severing important connections between logical consequence and implication. All the paradoxes discussed are shown however to rely on the metarule of contraction, and so the third kind of theory is revealed to have the advantage of offering a unified solution to such paradoxes.

Zeman Dan, Institut Jean Nicod, [email protected]

On why the Operator Argument can support relativism

One traditional argument for introducing parameters others than possible worlds in the circumstances of evaluation has been “the Operator Argument” (Kaplan (1989)). Recently, this type of argument has been taken to support relativism about several expressions. In this paper I consider a type of objection to the claim that the Operator Argument could support relativism. I first present the Operator Argument, then two variants of the objection (one belonging to Lopez de Sa (2011), the other to Ninan (2010)). Then I discuss an assumption that the objectors make (what I call “semantic value pluralism”), and argue that the relativist is not forced to adopt it. Further, I argue that even if the assumption is adopted, the relativist can still use the Operator Argument to support her view. Finally, I plead for more transparency in the debate surrounding relativism, to be achieved by making the assumptions about semantic content explicit.

99 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero

Zipoli Caiani Silvano, Università di Milano, [email protected]

A New Look at Direct Perception

Gibson’s theory of affordance rests on the controversial assumption that perception is a process of directly picking up information from the environment without involving cognitive media, such as mental processing and representations. Although the notion of affordance has gained increasing interest in the fields of cognitive science and neuroscience over the years, direct perception still suffers from theoretical uncertainty and requires further conceptual analysis. This paper provides a critical interpretation of Gibson’s theory of direct perception, supporting an alternative framework for using the concept of directness in perception that may not endorse some statements of ecological psychology. I start by showing that Gibson’s theory relies on two distinctive assumptions, namely, anti-inferentialism and anti- representationalism. I then argue that Gibson’s assumptions lead to conceptual troubles, and that a different methodological approach is ultimately required. My claim is that focusing on the way perceptual information is actually processed may provide an alternative meaning to the notion of direct perception. Accordingly, I focus my attention on a particular pathway of visuomotor transformation, the ventro-dorsal stream, and argue that it represents a prototypical example of direct processing in perception. In conclusion, differences from and similarities to Gibson’s approach are discussed.

Zorzetto Silvia, University of Milan, [email protected] T

The lex specialis principle and its uses in legal reasoning

My purpose is to analyze the lex specialis principle and its main uses in the legal reasoning. As is well known, the idea that special rules derogate general rules lies in the heart of the Western legal tradition; jurists as well as legal philosophers are acquainted with this principle and use to present it as a positive rule against legal antinomies. Its meaning is often considered plain and clear. Albeit, I think this common view is deficient and unsatisfactory. The lex specialis principle is in fact used not only to resolve or prevent antinomies, but also to coordinate and integrate special and general rules to obtain a more complete regulation of a certain matter. This use of the lex specialis principle is of paramount importance in the domain of law: linking the rules together it represents in fact an essential device for legal systems. Furthermore, the lex specialis principle is used as an interpretative canon (i.e. a literal or textual canon); in one of its version, for instance, is a technique to determine the meaning of list of words (this particular version of lex specialis principle in common law is also called ejusdem generis rule). Moreover, the lex specialis principle is used as a legal argument. Indeed, lots of diverse legal arguments are often hidden under it so much so that I shall individuate a plurality of lex specialis arguments. On top of that, in many relevant cases there is an overlapping or a combination with some other traditional legal arguments such as the argument a contrariis, the argument from principle, the ratio legis argument and so on. In my paper I shall describe mainly these diverse connections in legal reasoning.

100 20th Anniversary Conference The Answers of Philosophy .

SIFA - Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, 12-15 September 2012, Alghero

Zucca Diego, Universita' "Ca Foscari", Venezia, [email protected]

Radical Disjunctivism about Perceptual Experience and Screening-Off Principle: An Intentionalist Reply

According to a recent version of disjunctivism about perceptual experience (Martin, Fish) the phenomenal character of veridical perceptual experiences is constituted by worldly features, so that no causally matching hallucinatory state could ever possess it. That view – Radical Disjunctivism cum Naive Realism – entails a “negative-epistemic” conception of hallucinations, such that a hallucination has no positive properties other than its epistemic- introspective indiscriminability from a certain veridical perception, where such indiscriminability itself is not grounded on any positively shared phenomenal character (on any relevant common factor). I will show that that view is untenable. Either introspective properties of hallucinations need to be kept an unaccountable mystery, or the main reason for introducing the theory is flawed: the Naive-Realist view on phenomenal character is introduced as the best explanation of the phenomenology of experience, namely, of what experiences seem to be to the subject through introspection. But either that seeming is accounted for by properties which are shared by hallucinations – so there is a common factor whose explanatory power screens off the veridicality-property in accounting for that seeming – or it is apriori unaccountable. Instead, an intentionalist view can elegantly explain indiscriminability in terms of sameness of representational content.

101