2018, 4 (1) ARGUMENTA The Journal of the Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy First published 2018 by the University of Sassari © 2018 University of Sassari Produced and designed for digital publication by the Argumenta Staff All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior permission in writing from Argumenta. Editor Masssimo Dell’Utri (University of Sassari) Editorial Board Carla Bagnoli (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia), Francesca Boccuni (University San Raffaele, Milano), Stefano Caputo (University of Sassari), Massimiliano Carrara (University of Padova), Richard Davies (University of Bergamo), Ciro De Florio (Università Cattolica, Milano), Elisabetta Galeotti (University of Piemonte Orientale), Pier Luigi Lecis (University of Cagliari), Olimpia Giuliana Loddo (University of Cagliari), Giuseppe Lorini (University of Cagliari), Marcello Montibeller (University of Sassari), Giulia Piredda (IUSS- Pavia), Pietro Salis (University of Cagliari) Argumenta is the official journal of the Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy (SIFA). It was founded in 2014 in response to a common demand for the creation of an Italian journal explicitly devoted to the publication of high quality research in analytic philosophy. From the beginning Argumenta was conceived as an international journal, and has benefitted from the cooperation of some of the most distinguished Italian and non-Italian scholars in all areas of analytic philosophy. Contents Editorial 3 The Background of Constitutive Rules 5 Special Issue Edited by Giuseppe Lorini and Wojciech Żełaniec Presentism and Causal Processes 159 Ernesto Graziani Indicative Conditionals as Strict Conditionals 177 Andrea Iacona Book Reviews 193 Editorial The first issue of the fourth volume of Argumenta opens with a Special Is- sue, edited by Giuseppe Lorini and Wojciech Żełaniec, devoted to a topic that in recent years has been registering a growing, if sometimes rather critical, atten- tion by a fair number of scholars: constitutive rules. As the two editors make clear in their Introduction, constitutive rules high- light the fact that, over and above rules that prescribe and regulate, there are rules that create new forms of acts, facts, objects, events etc., where the facts in question are what John Searle has termed “institutional”. The discovery of this new area of research has significantly influenced the philosophical analysis of norms and normativity. This Special Issue comprises ten essays authored by some of the best minds currently pursuing this influential line of research, and focused on the task of carefully examining the diverse aspects of, and concepts that are germane to, the issue of the background of constitutive rules. After the Special Issue, we present two articles: the former, entitled Pre- sentism and Causal Processes, is an ingenious attempt to reconcile presentism and causation on the basis of a new approach to causation, while the latter, entitled Indicative Conditionals as Strict Conditionals, suggests that in a considerably wide class of cases the semantic and logical properties of conditionals can be elucidat- ed by employing the resources of modal propositional logic. It is our conviction that these articles will greatly contribute to foster the discussion of their respec- tive topics. Argumenta 4, 1 (2018): 3-4 © 2018 University of Sassari ISSN 2465-2334 4 Editorial The section of Book Reviews then rounds off the number once again. We are proud to offer readers three new thoughtful reviews of as many interesting books. As always, all the articles appearing in Argumenta are freely accessible and freely downloadable. I heartily thank the Assistant Editors for their invaluable work on the preparation of this issue, and all the colleagues who have acted as referees. Buona lettura! Massimo Dell’Utri Editor Argumenta 4,1 (2018) Special Issue The Background of Constitutive Rules Edited by Giuseppe Lorini and Wojciech Żełaniec The Journal of the Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy Contents The Background of Constitutive Rules. 9 Introduction Edited by Giuseppe Lorini and Wojciech Żełaniec Two Concepts of Constitutive Rules 21 Jaap Hage The Occasions of Law 41 (and the Occasions of Interpretation) Frederick Schauer Constitutive Rules 51 John R. Searle Searle on Normativity and Institutional Metaphysics 55 William Butchard and Robert D’Amico Meta-meta-institutional Concepts? 69 A Tale on Schwyzer and the Force of Technical Ends (Live from Ruritania) Guglielmo Feis Constitutive Rules: The Manifest Image and the Deep 85 Image Maurizio Ferraris Constitutive Rules, Normativity, and A Priori Truth 95 Terry F. Godlove, Jr. What Does it Mean that Constitutive Rules Are in 111 Force? Bartosz Kaluziński The Ludic Background of Constitutive Rules in 125 Bernard Suits Filip Kobiela Constitutive Rules and the Internal Point of View 139 Corrado Roversi The Background of Constitutive Rules Introduction Giuseppe Lorini* and Wojciech Żełaniec** * University of Cagliari ** University of Gdańsk 1. Two Revolutions in the Philosophy of Norms In the twentieth century two revolutionary turns were accomplished in the phil- osophical research on norms and normativity: The first was the creation of a full-fledged deontic logic, a decade-long development which went through stag- es1 before it culminated in the publication of the essay “Deontic Logic” by Georg Henrik von Wright in 1951. The second was the conceiving of the idea of a constitutive rule. The first turn opened a new field of study, to wit that con- cerning logical relations between norms (recall e.g. the question asked by von Wright (1951: 5) if there are any “logical truths peculiar to deontic concepts”) and the logical structure of norms themselves; the second, by contrast, had con- sequences for the typological research of norms, the analysis of the functions that a norm can perform, and hence also the extension of normativity as such, that is, the inclusion in the extension of “normativity” of such phenomena as would not have been considered normative before the invention (or the discov- ery) of constitutive rules. The present special issue of Argumenta, entitled “The Background of Consti- tutive Rules”, is devoted to some aspects of that second revolution in the philos- ophy of norms, accomplished in the past century. It consisted, as we have briefly said, in putting forward the hypothesis that, beside the traditional roles of rules in regulating human behaviour by bestowing upon it deontic qualifications such as “obligatory”, “prohibited”, “permitted” or “facultative”, some rules may well influence our life in a more radical manner, viz. changing the ontological and conceptual structure of our everyday world. Aside from the function of giving prescriptions and regulating (in the strict sense of this word, i.e. presupposing that that which is to be regulated already exists or at least is conceivable), a new normative function is revealed: the “constitutive” one. New ground is about to 1 Regrettably, a true history of deontic logic has still to be written. However, in the words of Morscher (1975: 255), the book by Kalinowski (1972b) “könnte ebensogut den Titel ‘Ge- schichte der Normenlogik’ tragen” (could just as well have been entitled “A History of the Logic of Norms”), i.e. deontic logic, more or less. The German translation (Kalinowski 1972a) by Wolfgang Klein is in certain respects improved (by the translator). Argumenta 4,1 (2018): 9-19 © 2018 University of Sassari ISSN 2465-2334 DOI 10.14275/2465-2334/20187.int 10 Giuseppe Lorini and Wojciech Żełaniec be broken: that issuing from the idea that rules not just regulate (types of) behav- iour but are also apt to “do things with”, to speak with J.L. Austin, and thus to have direct impact on reality, changing its ontological structure. In fact, by means of constitutive rules new forms of acts, facts, objects, events etc. are cre- ated, of which the relevant rules are conditions of possibility, not just in the on- tological sense but, too, in the sense of sheer conceivability. Such acts etc., ren- dered ontologically and epistemologically possible (conceivable) by means of constitutive rules, came to be called “institutional” or “thetic” phenomena.2 2. A New Idea of Rule: Constitutive Rules The first time ever (as far as we could establish) the idea of a constitutive rule makes its appearance in 1923 in Lemberg (Lwów), then Poland, where, in a Polish congress of philosophy, a young legal scholar and philosopher, Czesław Znamierowski, held a lecture with the title “Z nauki o normie postępowania” (From the research on the norm of conduct).3 In this lecture Znamierowski dis- tinguished between the traditional concept of a norm of conduct, which he be- lieved is that of an “imperative” norm, and a new concept, or a new species of norms, which he called “construction norm”. By way of a play-on-words one could be tempted to call that a distinction between “constriction norms” and “construction norms”.4 Three years later, in his book Podstawowe pojęcia teorji prawa. Część pierwsza: Układ prawny i norma prawna (Basic concepts for a theory of law. Part one: The legal system and legal norms) (1924: 72), he explained that a construction norm or a norm of construction (in Polish: norma konstrukcyjna) is one which, conferring new, conventional meaning on various types of acts and objects, constructs a new type of act.5 As Znamierowski (1924: 103) chose to put it, “[a] norm of construction creates