A classical objection to pictorial communication is that pictures are intrinsically ambiguous and a picture, per se, can communicate an indeterminate number of different contents. The standard interpretation of this objection is that pictures are subordinate to language and that pictorial communication is parasitic on verbal communication. We argue that in many cases verbal communication presents a similar indeterminacy, which is resolved by resorting to pragmatic mechanisms. In this spirit, we propose a pragmatic approach which explains pictorial communication in terms (...) of implicatures in a wide sense. (shrink)

The essay examines Thomas Hill Green’s idealistic reading of Aristotle’s Metaphysics and De anima, starting from his “monopsychist” view of human understanding. His criticism of the Aristotelian notion of substance leads him to a recalibration of hylomorphism and a “noetization” of matter, which could be seen as an averroizing move. Green holds that there is only one “Eternal Consciousness” and that the individual thinking subjects are particular manifestations of it. As for Averroes’ unity of intellect, this idea derives from a (...) “left-wing” account of the potency of thought. But there are several other ontological, ethical, religious, and political consequences in making potency something essentially spiritual. The comparison between the two philosophers could help to throw light on the ‘obscure’ conception of “Eternal Consciousness”. (shrink)

The article analyses and comments on the collective volume entitled Storia della metafisica, edited by Enrico Berti. The author goes through the various contributions dedicated to a prominent metaphysician or a metaphysic current and lets emerge the different recalibration experienced by the concepts of ‘transcendence’ and ‘transcendental’. Berti’s preliminary choice is indeed to include in a history of metaphysics only those metaphysicians who have considered transcendence particularly relevant in their philosophical enterprises. From this survey, it is possible to assert the (...) good health of metaphysics in the contemporary Italian debate. (shrink)

The article analyses and comments on the collective volume entitled Storia della metafisica, edited by Enrico Berti. The author goes through the various contributions dedicated to a prominent metaphysician or a metaphysic current and lets emerge the different recalibration experienced by the concepts of ‘transcendence’ and ‘transcendental’. Berti’s preliminary choice is indeed to include in a history of metaphysics only those metaphysicians who have considered transcendence particularly relevant in their philosophical enterprises. From this survey, it is possible to assert the (...) good health of metaphysics in the contemporary Italian debate. (shrink)

The attention paid to Italian philosophy in the recent historiographical and theoretical debate is constantly increasing: therefore it becomes necessary understanding first of all if there is such...