Il campo di esperienza che Galvano della Volpe ha aperto nella filosofia italiana del Novecento non si chiude con la fine di una stagione culturale.

Da dove viene il nostro senso di possesso del corpo e quali configurazioni dell’esperienza lo rendono possibile? Il senso di appartenenza di cui facciamo esperienza a proposito del nostro corpo comprende il livello fenomenologico del corpo vissuto come noi lo sentiamo “dall’interno”, ossia il corpo che viviamo dalla prospettiva della prima persona come sigillo della nostra individualità e come punto-zero del nostro orientamento nel mondo. Husserl fornisce una ricostruzione di questo modo fondamentale di esperire il nostro corpo mediante (...) una analisi fenomenologica regressiva che mira a identificare nelle sensazioni tattili di localizzazione il fattore fondamentale che porta alla costituzione sintetica del corpo vissuto. Nella parte conclusiva di questo testo cercherò di delimitare un ambito di possibile convergenza tra analisi fenomenologica e gli approcci sperimentali più recenti nelle scienze cognitive, per stabilire una relazione produttiva tra i due campi d’indagine. (shrink)

According to the conceptualist view in the philosophy of perception, we must possess concepts for all the objects, properties and relations which feature in our perceptual experiences. In this paper, I investigate the possibility of developing an argument against the conceptualist view by appealing to the notion of attention. In Part One, I begin by setting out an apparently promising version of such an argument, a version which appeals to a link between attention and perceptual demonstrative concept possession. In Part (...) Two, however, I show how the conceptualist can challenge what appears to be the key premise of the argument, and I go on to describe, in Part Three, an important further difficulty which we face if we attempt to overcome this challenge in a particular way. My conclusion will be that the conceptualist's challenge to the argument is convincing and hence that the argument remains inconclusive. (shrink)

A lesion to the brain is not necessary for a successful neural transplantation. Embryonic Purkinje cells placed on the surface of an uninjured adult cerebellum can develop and migrate into the host molecular layer. Both the Purkinje cells that migrated into the host cerebellum and those that remained in the graft were innervated by collateral sprouting of adult intact climbing fibers.

Volume II of Classical Recursion Theory describes the universe from a local (bottom-up or synthetical) point of view, and covers the whole spectrum, from the recursive to the arithmetical sets. The first half of the book provides a detailed picture of the computable sets from the perspective of Theoretical Computer Science. Besides giving a detailed description of the theories of abstract Complexity Theory and of Inductive Inference, it contributes a uniform picture of the most basic complexity classes, ranging from small (...) time and space bounds to the elementary functions, with a particular attention to polynomial time and space computability. It also deals with primitive recursive functions and larger classes, which are of interest to the proof theorist. The second half of the book starts with the classical theory of recursively enumerable sets and degrees, which constitutes the core of Recursion or Computability Theory. Unlike other texts, usually confined to the Turing degrees, the book covers a variety of other strong reducibilities, studying both their individual structures and their mutual relationships. The last chapters extend the theory to limit sets and arithmetical sets. The volume ends with the first textbook treatment of the enumeration degrees, which admit a number of applications from algebra to the Lambda Calculus. The book is a valuable source of information for anyone interested in Complexity and Computability Theory. The student will appreciate the detailed but informal account of a wide variety of basic topics, while the specialist will find a wealth of material sketched in exercises and asides. A massive bibliography of more than a thousand titles completes the treatment on the historical side. (shrink)

La reconstruction est encore incomplète et lacunaire, mais l’on devine déjà l’allure complète du projet. Le trait les plus importants en sont les suivants. -/- i) Le premier niveau empirique correspond à ce que Piaget a appelé les tableaux perceptifs, et à leurs copies dans la mémoire, mais sans ordre temporel, sans structure spatiale et ne contenant pas encore des objets. ii) La première construction théorique permet d’obtenir le temps. iii) A partir de l’ordre temporel, une première structure spatiale (bidimensionnelle) (...) est possible, sans introduction de nouveaux niveaux théoriques. Ces niveaux théoriques semblent en revanche être nécessaires pour la construction d’une structure spatiale tri- dimensionnelle. Ce pas n’a pas encore été franchi. Il sera cer- tainement relié à la construction de la notion d’objet. iv) Ici la construction présente un premier grand vide. Un saut est effectué jusqu’à une théorie générale de la substance, appelée système physique. Il s’agit en réalité d’une théorie de la mesure, c’est-à-dire du procédé qui permet à la fois de connaître les propriétés des systèmes physiques, propriétés qui exigent un niveau théorique propre, et de définir un premier critère d’acceptation de l’identification des substances. Il s’agit d’une théorie holiste relative à l’introduction de termes théoriques. v) Cette description générale permet les premiers pas vers une théorie de la mécanique quantique. vi) Il est aussi possible dans le même cadre de recomprendre les notions élémentaires de la mécanique classique, sans présupposer les notions de masse et de force. vii) Dans d’autres travaux, qui ont servi de préparation à celui-ci, les notions de sujet, d’intersubjectivité et de conscience ont également été approchées d’une façon constructiviste. L’esquisse de la construction a même été prolongée jusqu’au domaine de la morale. Ces dernières notions ne font pas l’objet de cette recherche. -/- Ces éléments ont été évoqués ici pour donner une vision d’ensemble du projet, qui peut être visualisé dans le schéma suivant. (shrink)

This multifaceted collection of essays, reminiscences, and professional papers combine to create an exceptional tribute to the unusual, enigmatic, and ultimately fascinating personality of Georg Kreisel. An eminently influential logician and mathematical philosopher, Kreisel is revealed as much more in this entertaining juxtaposition of viewpoints from famous contributors like Verena Huber-Dyson, Sol Feferman, and Francis Crick. Mathematics fans and armchair philosophers will delight in this look at Kreisel as he conveys his unique personal and intellectual influence.

It has become a truism that we live in so-called information societies where new information technologies have made information abundant. At the same time, information science has made us aware of many phenomena tied to the way we process information. This article explores a series of socio-epistemic information phenomena resulting from processes that track truth imperfectly: pluralistic ignorance, informational cascades, and belief polarization. It then couples these phenomena with the hypothesis that modern information technologies may lead to their amplification so (...) as to give rise to what are called “infostorms.” This points to the need for studying further the exact relations between information technologies and such infostorms, as well as the ways we may design technologies to avoid being misled away from what we have good reasons to believe. (shrink)

The American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 12, Issue 2, Page 46-48, February 2012.

Background:In the variegated legislative framework on advance directives, the first specific regulation in Italy on this issue came into force only in 2018.Research objective:This qualitative study...

Scanning the corpus and repertoire of anthropological science, insofar as we wish and are able to, we note that ethnological observations and studies on theatre are not lacking, but that they seem to have been isolated opportunities for investigation that have never grown into a research tradition.

Actin is a key protein in numerous cellular functions. One recent study has identified a large set of genes, associated with the actin cytoskeleton, which could be grouped into a wide spectrum of cytoplasmic and nuclear functions, such as protein biosynthesis and gene transcription.1 Deletions of many of the identified genes affected cellular actin organization,1 suggesting a functional link between different actin fractions probably regulated through changes in actin dynamics. The data are very exciting; speculations on the crosstalk between cytoplasmic (...) and nuclear actin fractions in different cellular contexts may help placing the results in perspective to further understand how actin‐mediated signalling affects cellular functions, such as gene expression. BioEssays 29:407–411, 2007. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Even before Erving Goffman, in his studies of interaction, develops and makes the most of the metaphor of a daily life entirely composed of representation, or even stage acting, sociology had already stolen from theatre a number of terms and modes particular to it: the concept of “role”, to take the most classic example, but also the term “actor”, which sociology in fact translates as social actor.

This article deals with civil society organizations active in the field of family policy and demographic issues in contemporary Russia. This article uses Michel Foucault’s concepts of biopolitics and governmentality and later developments discussing technologies of citizenship. More specifically, using interviews, documents, and participant observations, so-called “daddy-schools” that have emerged in and around Saint Petersburg since 2008, are studied as a mode of governmentality. The analysis shows how the civic initiative studied attempted to empower fathers and how it has altered (...) demographic discourses while approaching similar societal goals as the state does in its biopolitical strategies. Thus, the daddy-schools provide a complementary discourse concerning fatherhood while approaching the same perceived demographic crisis that the Russian state is challenged by. (shrink)

In his Convention David Lewis defined conventions as behavioural regularities instantiating proper coordination equilibria made salient by precedent and operational by this being common knowledge. While later proponents of game theoretical approaches in the study of convention have agreed on dropping Lewis’ eccentric ‘coordination’ requirement as well as that of common knowledge, they are confused as to whether conventions should be regarded as proper thereby precluding mixed equilibria. In this paper I argue that mixed equilibria may not be conventions, but (...) also suggest that the reason for this reveals that though common knowledge is not necessary for a convention to operate, it may be utilized to identify the conventional aspect of a given practice. (shrink)