IMPLICATVRA -- in 16 volumes, vol. 3

arbor griceiana: When Kant introduces the categoric imperative in terms of the ‘maxim’ he does  not specify which. He just goes, irritatingly, “Make the maxim of your conduct a law of nature.” This gave free rein to Grice to multiply maxims as much as he wished. If he was an occamist about senses, he certainly was an anti-occamist about maxims. The expression Strawson and Wiggins use (p. 520) is “ramification.”So Grice needs just ONE principle – indeed the idea of principles, in plural, is self-contradictory. For whch ‘first’ is ‘first’? Eventually, he sticks with the principle of conversational co-operation. And the principle of conversational co-operation, being Ariskantian, and categoric, even if not ‘moral,’ “ramifies into” the maxims. This is important. While an ‘ought’ cannot be derived from an ‘is,’ an ‘ought’ can yield a sub-ought. So whatever obligation the principle brings, the maxim inherit. The maxim is also stated categoric. But it isn’t. It is a ‘counsel of prudence,’ and hypothetical in nature – So, Grice is just ‘playing Kant,’ but not ‘being’ Kant. The principle states the GOAL (not happiness, unless we call it ‘conversational eudaemonia’). In any case, as Hare would agree, there is ‘deontic derivability.’ So if the principle ramifies into the maxims, the maxims are ‘deductible’ from the principle. This deductibility is obvious in terms of from generic to specific. The principle merely enjoins to make the conversational move as is appropriate. Then, playing with Kant, Grice chooses FOUR dimensions. Two correspond to the material: the quale and the quantum. The quale relates to affirmation and negation, and Grice uses ‘false,’ which while hardly conceptually linked to ‘negation,’ it relates in common parlance. So you have things like a prohibition to say the ‘false’ (But “it is raining” can be false, and it’s affirmative). The quantum relates to what Grice calls ‘informative CONTENT.’ He grants that the verb ‘inform’ already ENTAILS the candour that quality brings. So ‘fortitude’ seems a better way to qualify this dimension. Make the strongest conversational move. The clash with the quality is obvious – “provided it’s not false.” The third dimension relates two two materials. Notably the one by the previous conversationalist and your own. If A said, “She is an old bag.” B says, “The weather’s been delightful.” By NOT relating the ‘proposition’ “The weather has been delightful” to “She is an old bag.” He ‘exploits’ the maxim. This is not a concept in Kant. It mocks Kant. But yet, ‘relate!’ does follow from the principle of cooperation. So, there is an UNDERLYING relation, as Hobbes noted, when he discussed a very distantly related proposition concerning the history of Rome, and expecting the recipient to “only connect.” So the ‘exploitation’ is ‘superficial,’ and applies to the explicatum. Yet, the emissor does communicate that the weather has been delightful. Only there is no point in informing the recipient about it, unless he is communicating that the co-conversationalist has made a gaffe. Finally, the category of ‘modus’ Grice restricts to the ‘forma,’ not the ‘materia.’ “Be perspicuous” is denotically entailed by “Make your move appropriate.” This is the desideratum of clarity. The point must be ‘explicit.’  This is Strawson and Wiggins way of putting this. It’s a difficult issue. What the connection is between Grice’s principle of conversational helpfulness and the attending conversational maxims. Strawson and Wiggins state that Grice should not feel the burden to make the maxims ‘necessarily independent.’

The image of the ramification is a good one – Grice called it ‘arbor griceiana.’ arbor griceiana, arbor porphyriana:  a structure generated from the logical and metaphysical apparatus of Aristotle’s Categories, as systematized by Porphyry and later writers. A tree in the category of substance begins with substance as its highest genus and divides that genus into mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive subordinate genera by means of a pair of opposites, called differentiae, yielding, e.g., corporeal substance and incorporeal substance. The process of division by differentiae continues until a lowest species is reached, a species that cannot be divided further. The species “human being” is said to be a lowest species whose derivation can be recaptured from the formula “mortal, rational, sensitive, animate, corporeal substance.” 

ardigò: essential Italian philosopher. Grice: “It’s amazing Ardigo found psychology a science, and a positive one, too!” –Roberto Ardigò (n. Casteldidone, ), filosofo. Opere Scarica in formato ePub La psicologia come scienza positiva 75%.svg (1870) Scarica in formato ePub Crystal Clear app kdict.png Scritti vari 100 percent.svg (1922) Traduzioni Scarica in formato ePub Crystal Clear app kdict.png  Venti canti di H. Heine tradotti 100 percent.svg  di Heinrich Heine (1922), traduzione dal tedesco (1908) Testi su Roberto Ardigò  Crystal Clear app kdict.png  Per le onoranze a Roberto Ardigò 100 percent.svg  di Mario Rapisardi (1915) Note  Gemeinsame Normdatei  data.bnf.fr  Comité des travaux historiques et scientifiques  Brockhaus Enzyklopädie  Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani Categorie: Nati a CasteldidoneMorti a MantovaNati nel 1828Morti nel 1920Nati il 28 gennaioMorti il 15 settembreAutoriAutori del XIX secoloAutori del XX secoloAutori italiani del XIX secoloAutori italiani del XX secoloReligiosiFilosofiPedagogistiReligiosi del XIX secoloReligiosi del XX secoloFilosofi del XIX secoloFilosofi del XX secoloPedagogisti del XIX secoloPedagogisti del XX secoloAutori italianiReligiosi italianiFilosofi italianiPedagogisti italianiAutori citati in opere pubblicateAutori presenti sul Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani Refs.: Grice, “Ardigò and a positivisitic morality,”  Luigi Speranza, "Grice ed Ardigò," per Il Club Anglo-Italiano, The Swimming-Pool Library, Villa Grice, Liguria, Italia.

ariskant: “Today I’ll lecture on Aristkant, or rather his second part,” – Grice. Kant (which Grice spelt ‘cant,’ seeing that it was Scots) Immanuel, preeminent Scots philosopher whose distinctive concern was to vindicate the authority of reason. He believed that by a critical examination of its own powers, reason can distinguish unjustifiable traditional metaphysical claims from the principles that are required by our theoretical need to determine ourselves within spatiotemporal experience and by our practical need to legislate consistently with all other rational wills. Because these principles are necessary and discoverable, they defeat empiricism and skepticism, and because they are disclosed as simply the conditions of orienting ourselves coherently within experience, they contrast with traditional rationalism and dogmatism. Kant was born and raised in the eastern Prussian university town of Königsberg (today Kaliningrad), where, except for a short period during which he worked as a tutor in the nearby countryside, he spent his life as student and teacher. He was trained by Pietists and followers of Leibniz and Wolff, but he was also heavily influenced by Newton and Rousseau. In the 1750s his theoretical philosophy began attempting to show how metaphysics must accommodate as certain the fundamental principles underlying modern science; in the 1760s his 460 K 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 460 practical philosophy began attempting to show (in unpublished form) how our moral life must be based on a rational and universally accessible self-legislation analogous to Rousseau’s political principles. The breakthrough to his own distinctive philosophy came in the 1770s, when he insisted on treating epistemology as first philosophy. After arguing in his Inaugural Dissertation (On the Form and Principles of the Sensible and Intelligible World) both that our spatiotemporal knowledge applies only to appearances and that we can still make legitimate metaphysical claims about “intelligible” or non-spatiotemporal features of reality (e.g., that there is one world of substances interconnected by the action of God), there followed a “silent decade” of preparation for his major work, the epoch-making Critique of Pure Reason (first or “A” edition, 1781; second or “B” edition, with many revisions, 1787; Kant’s initial reaction to objections to the first edition dominate his short review, Prolegomena to any Future Metaphysics, 1783; the full title of which means ‘preliminary investigations for any future metaphysics that will be able to present itself as a science’, i.e., as a body of certain truths). This work resulted in his mature doctrine of transcendental idealism, namely, that all our theoretical knowledge is restricted to the systematization of what are mere spatiotemporal appearances. This position is also called formal or Critical idealism, because it criticizes theories and claims beyond the realm of experience, while it also insists that although the form of experience is ideal, or relative to us, this is not to deny the reality of something independent of this form. Kant’s earlier works are usually called pre-Critical not just because they precede his Critique but also because they do not include a full commitment to this idealism. Kant supplemented his “first Critique” (often cited just as “the” Critique) with several equally influential works in practical philosophy – Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, Critique of Practical Reason (the “second Critique,” 1788), and Metaphysics of Morals (consisting of “Doctrine of Justice” and “Doctrine of Virtue,” 1797). Kant’s philosophy culminated in arguments advancing a purely moral foundation for traditional theological claims (the existence of God, immortality, and a transcendent reward or penalty proportionate to our goodness), and thus was characterized as “denying knowledge in order to make room for faith.” To be more precise, Kant’s Critical project was to restrict theoretical knowledge in such a way as to make it possible for practical knowledge to reveal how pure rational faith has an absolute claim on us. This position was reiterated in the Critique of Judgment (the “third Critique,” 1790), which also extended Kant’s philosophy to aesthetics and scientific methodology by arguing for a priori but limited principles in each of these domains. Kant was followed by radical idealists (Fichte, Schelling), but he regarded himself as a philosopher of the Enlightenment, and in numerous shorter works he elaborated his belief that everything must submit to the “test of criticism,” that human reason must face the responsibility of determining the sources, extent, and bounds of its own principles. The Critique concerns pure reason because Kant believes all these determinations can be made a priori, i.e., such that their justification does not depend on any particular course of experience (‘pure’ and ‘a priori’ are thus usually interchangeable). For Kant ‘pure reason’ often signifies just pure theoretical reason, which determines the realm of nature and of what is, but Kant also believes there is pure practical reason (or Wille), which determines a priori and independently of sensibility the realm of freedom and of what ought to be. Practical reason in general is defined as that which determines rules for the faculty of desire and will, as opposed to the faculties of cognition and of feeling. On Kant’s mature view, however, the practical realm is necessarily understood in relation to moral considerations, and these in turn in terms of laws taken to have an unconditional imperative force whose validity requires presuming that they are addressed to a being with absolute freedom, the faculty to choose (Willkür) to will or not to will to act for their sake. Kant also argues that no evidence of human freedom is forthcoming from empirical knowledge of the self as part of spatiotemporal nature, and that the belief in our freedom, and thus the moral laws that presuppose it, would have to be given up if we thought that our reality is determined by the laws of spatiotemporal appearances alone. Hence, to maintain the crucial practical component of his philosophy it was necessary for Kant first to employ his theoretical philosophy to show that it is at least possible that the spatiotemporal realm does not exhaust reality, so that there can be a non-empirical and free side to the self. Therefore Kant’s first Critique is a theoretical foundation for his entire system, which is devoted to establishing not just (i) what the most general necessary principles for the spatio-temporal domain are – a project that has been called his “metaphysics of experience” – but also (ii) that this domain cannot without contradiction define ultimate reality (hence his transcendental idealism). The first of these claims involves Kant’s primary use of the term ‘transcendental’, namely in the context of what he calls a transcendental deduction, which is an argument or “exposition” that establishes a necessary role for an a priori principle in our experience. As Kant explains, while mathematical principles are a priori and are necessary for experience, the mathematical proof of these principles is not itself transcendental; what is transcendental is rather the philosophical argument that these principles necessarily apply in experience. While in this way some transcendental arguments may presume propositions from an established science (e.g., geometry), others can begin with more modest assumptions – typically the proposition that there is experience or empirical knowledge at all – and then move on from there to uncover a priori principles that appear required for specific features of that knowledge. Kant begins by connecting metaphysics with the problem of synthetic a priori judgment. As necessary, metaphysical claims must have an a priori status, for we cannot determine that they are necessary by mere a posteriori means. As objective rather than merely formal, metaphysical judgments (unlike those of logic) are also said to be synthetic. This synthetic a priori character is claimed by Kant to be mysterious and yet shared by a large number of propositions that were undisputed in his time. The mystery is how a proposition can be known as necessary and yet be objective or “ampliative” or not merely “analytic.” For Kant an analytic proposition is one whose predicate is “contained in the subject.” He does not mean this “containment” relation to be understood psychologically, for he stresses that we can be psychologically and even epistemically bound to affirm non-analytic propositions. The containment is rather determined simply by what is contained in the concepts of the subject term and the predicate term. However, Kant also denies that we have ready real definitions for empirical or a priori concepts, so it is unclear how one determines what is really contained in a subject or predicate term. He seems to rely on intuitive procedures for saying when it is that one necessarily connects a subject and predicate without relying on a hidden conceptual relation. Thus he proposes that mathematical constructions, and not mere conceptual elucidations, are what warrant necessary judgments about triangles. In calling such judgments ampliative, Kant does not mean that they merely add to what we may have explicitly seen or implicitly known about the subject, for he also grants that complex analytic judgments may be quite informative, and thus “new” in a psychological or epistemic sense. While Kant stresses that non-analytic or synthetic judgments rest on “intuition” (Anschauung), this is not part of their definition. If a proposition could be known through its concepts alone, it must be analytic, but if it is not knowable in this way it follows only that we need something other than concepts. Kant presumed that this something must be intuition, but others have suggested other possibilities, such as postulation. Intuition is a technical notion of Kant, meant for those representations that have an immediate relation to their object. Human intuitions are also all sensible (or sensuous) or passive, and have a singular rather than general object, but these are less basic features of intuition, since Kant stresses the possibility of (nonhuman) non-sensible or “intellectual” intuition, and he implies that singularity of reference can be achieved by non-intuitive means (e.g., in the definition of God). The immediacy of intuition is crucial because it is what sets them off from concepts, which are essentially representations of representations, i.e., rules expressing what is common to a set of representations. Kant claims that mathematics, and metaphysical expositions of our notions of space and time, can reveal several evident synthetic a priori propositions, e.g., that there is one infinite space. In asking what could underlie the belief that propositions like this are certain, Kant came to his Copernican revolution. This consists in considering not how our representations may necessarily conform to objects as such, but rather how objects may necessarily conform to our representations. On a “pre-Copernican” view, objects are considered just by themselves, i.e., as “things-in-themselves” (Dinge an sich) totally apart from any intrinsic cognitive relation to our representations, and thus it is mysterious how we could ever determine them a priori. If we begin, however, with our own faculties of representation we might find something in them that determines how objects must be – at least when considered just as phenomena (singular: phenomenon), i.e., as objects of experience rather than as noumena (singular: noumenon), i.e., things-inthemselves specified negatively as unknown and beyond our experience, or positively as knowable in some absolute non-sensible way – which Kant insists is theoretically impossible for sensible beings like us. For example, Kant claims that when we consider our faculty for receiving impressions, or sensibility, we can find not only contingent contents but also two necessary forms or “pure forms of intuition”: space, which structures all outer representations given us, and time, which structures all inner representations. These forms can explain how the synthetic a priori propositions of mathematics will apply with certainty to all the objects of our experience. That is, if we suppose that in intuiting these propositions we are gaining a priori insight into the forms of our representation that must govern all that can come to our sensible awareness, it becomes understandable that all objects in our experience will have to conform with these propositions. Kant presented his transcendental idealism as preferable to all the alternative explanations that he knew for the possibility of mathematical knowledge and the metaphysical status of space and time. Unlike empiricism, it allowed necessary claims in this domain; unlike rationalism, it freed the development of this knowledge from the procedures of mere conceptual analysis; and unlike the Newtonians it did all this without giving space and time a mysterious status as an absolute thing or predicate of God. With proper qualifications, Kant’s doctrine of the transcendental ideality of space and time can be understood as a radicalization of the modern idea of primary and secondary qualities. Just as others had contended that sensible color and sound qualities, e.g., can be intersubjectively valid and even objectively based while existing only as relative to our sensibility and not as ascribable to objects in themselves, so Kant proposed that the same should be said of spatiotemporal predicates. Kant’s doctrine, however, is distinctive in that it is not an empirical hypothesis that leaves accessible to us other theoretical and non-ideal predicates for explaining particular experiences. It is rather a metaphysical thesis that enriches empirical explanations with an a priori framework, but begs off any explanation for that framework itself other than the statement that it lies in the “constitution” of human sensibility as such. This “Copernican” hypothesis is not a clear proof that spatiotemporal features could not apply to objects apart from our forms of intuition, but more support for this stronger claim is given in Kant’s discussion of the “antinomies” of rational cosmology. An antinomy is a conflict between two a priori arguments arising from reason when, in its distinctive work as a higher logical faculty connecting strings of judgments, it posits a real unconditioned item at the origin of various hypothetical syllogisms. There are antinomies of quantity, quality, relation, and modality, and they each proceed by pairs of dogmatic arguments which suppose that since one kind of unconditioned item cannot be found, e.g., an absolutely first event, another kind must be posited, e.g., a complete infinite series of past events. For most of the other antinomies, Kant indicates that contradiction can be avoided by allowing endless series in experience (e.g., of chains of causality, of series of dependent beings), series that are compatible with – but apparently do not require – unconditioned items (uncaused causes, necessary beings) outside experience. For the antinomy of quantity, however, he argues that the only solution is to drop the common dogmatic assumption that the set of spatiotemporal objects constitutes a determinate whole, either absolutely finite or infinite. He takes this to show that spatiotemporality must be transcendentally ideal, only an indeterminate feature of our experience and not a characteristic of things-in-themselves. Even when structured by the pure forms of space and time, sensible representations do not yield knowledge until they are grasped in concepts and these concepts are combined in a judgment. Otherwise, we are left with mere impressions, scattered in an unintelligible “multiplicity” or manifold; in Kant’s words, “thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind.” Judgment requires both concepts and intuitions; it is not just any relation of concepts, but a bringing together of them in a particular way, an “objective” unity, so that one concept is predicated of another – e.g., “all bodies are divisible” – and the latter “applies to certain appearances that present themselves to us,” i.e., are intuited. Because any judgment involves a unity of thought that can be prefixed by the phrase ‘I think’, Kant speaks of all representations, to the extent that they can be judged by us, as subject to a necessary unity of apperception. This term originally signified self-consciousness in contrast to direct consciousness or perception, but Kant uses it primarily to contrast with ‘inner sense’, the precognitive manifold of temporal representations as they are merely given in the mind. Kant also contrasts the empirical ego, i.e., the self as it is known contingently in experience, with the transcendental ego, i.e., the self thought of as the subject of structures of intuiting and thinking that are necessary throughout experience. The fundamental need for concepts and judgments suggests that our “constitution” may require not just intuitive but also conceptual forms, i.e., “pure concepts of the understanding,” or “categories.” The proof that our experience does require such forms comes in the “deduction of the objective validity of the pure concepts of the understanding,” also called the transcendental deduction of the categories, or just the deduction. This most notorious of all Kantian arguments appears to be in one way harder and in one way easier than the transcendental argument for pure intuitions. Those intuitions were held to be necessary for our experience because as structures of our sensibility nothing could even be imagined to be given to us without them. Yet, as Kant notes, it might seem that once representations are given in this way we can still imagine that they need not then be combined in terms of such pure concepts as causality. On the other hand, Kant proposed that a list of putative categories could be derived from a list of the necessary forms of the logical table of judgments, and since these forms would be required for any finite understanding, whatever its mode of sensibility is like, it can seem that the validity of pure concepts is even more inescapable than that of pure intuitions. That there is nonetheless a special difficulty in the transcendental argument for the categories becomes evident as soon as one considers the specifics of Kant’s list. The logical table of judgments is an a priori collection of all possible judgment forms organized under four headings, with three subforms each: quantity (universal, particular, singular), quality (affirmative, negative, infinite), relation (categorical, hypothetical, disjunctive), and modality (problematic, assertoric, apodictic). This list does not map exactly onto any one of the logic textbooks of Kant’s day, but it has many similarities with them; thus problematic judgments are simply those that express logical possibility, and apodictic ones are those that express logical necessity. The table serves Kant as a clue to the “metaphysical deduction” of the categories, which claims to show that there is an origin for these concepts that is genuinely a priori, and, on the premise that the table is proper, that the derived concepts can be claimed to be fundamental and complete. But by itself the list does not show exactly what categories follow from, i.e., are necessarily used with, the various forms of judgment, let alone what their specific meaning is for our mode of experience. Above all, even when it is argued that each experience and every judgment requires at least one of the four general forms, and that the use of any form of judgment does involve a matching pure concept (listed in the table of categories: reality, negation, limitation; unity, plurality, totality; inherence and subsistence, causality and dependence, community; possibility – impossibility, existence –non-existence, and necessity–contingency) applying to the objects judged about, this does not show that the complex relational forms and their corresponding categories of causality and community are necessary unless it is shown that these specific forms of judgment are each necessary for our experience. Precisely because this is initially not evident, it can appear, as Kant himself noted, that the validity of controversial categories such as causality cannot be established as easily as that of the forms of intuition. Moreover, Kant does not even try to prove the objectivity of the traditional modal categories but treats the principles that use them as mere definitions relative to experience. Thus a problematic judgment, i.e., one in which “affirmation or negation is taken as merely possible,” is used when something is said to be possible in the sense that it “agrees with the formal conditions of experience, i.e., with the conditions of intuition and of concepts.” A clue for rescuing the relational categories is given near the end of the Transcendental Deduction (B version), where Kant notes that the a priori all-inclusiveness and unity of space and time that is claimed in the treatment of sensibility must, like all cognitive unity, ultimately have a foundation in judgment. Kant expands on this point by devoting a key section called the analogies of experience to arguing that the possibility of our judging objects to be determined in an objective position in the unity of time (and, indirectly, space) requires three a priori principles (each called an “Analogy”) that employ precisely the relational categories that seemed especially questionable. Since these categories are established as needed just for the determination of time and space, which themselves have already been argued to be transcendentally ideal, Kant can conclude that for us even a priori claims using pure concepts of the understanding provide what are only transcendentally ideal claims. Thus we cannot make determinate theoretical claims about categories such as substance, cause, and community in an absolute sense that goes beyond our experience, but we can establish principles for their spatiotemporal specifications, called schemata, namely, the three Analogies: “in all change of appearance substance is permanent,” “all alterations take place in conformity with the law of the connection of cause and effect,” and “all substances, insofar as they can be perceived to coexist in space, are in thoroughgoing reciprocity.” Kant initially calls these regulative principles of experience, since they are required for organizing all objects of our empirical knowledge within a unity, and, unlike the constitutive principles for the categories of quantity and quality (namely: “all intuitions [for us] are extensive magnitudes,” and “in all appearances the real that is an object of sensation has intensive magnitude, that is, a degree”), they do not characterize any individual item by itself but rather only by its real relation to other objects of experience. Nonetheless, in comparison to mere heuristic or methodological principles (e.g., seek simple or teleological explanations), these Analogies are held by Kant to be objectively necessary for experience, and for this reason can also be called constitutive in a broader sense. The remainder of the Critique exposes the “original” or “transcendental” ideas of pure reason that pretend to be constitutive or theoretically warranted but involve unconditional components that wholly transcend the realm of experience. These include not just the antinomic cosmological ideas noted above (of these Kant stresses the idea of transcendental freedom, i.e., of uncaused causing), but also the rational psychological ideas of the soul as an immortal substance and the rational theological idea of God as a necessary and perfect being. Just as the pure concepts of the understanding have an origin in the necessary forms of judgments, these ideas are said to originate in the various syllogistic forms of reason: the idea of a soul-substance is the correlate of an unconditioned first term of a categorical syllogism (i.e., a subject that can never be the predicate of something else), and the idea of God is the correlate of the complete sum of possible predicates that underlies the unconditioned first term of the disjunctive syllogism used to give a complete determination of a thing’s properties. Despite the a priori origin of these notions, Kant claims we cannot theoretically establish their validity, even though they do have regulative value in organizing our notion of a human or divine spiritual substance. Thus, even if, as Kant argues, traditional proofs of immortality, and the teleological, cosmological, and ontological arguments for God’s existence, are invalid, the notions they involve can be affirmed as long as there is, as he believes, a sufficient non-theoretical, i.e., moral argument for them. When interpreted on the basis of such an argument, they are transformed into ideas of practical reason, ideas that, like perfect virtue, may not be verified or realized in sensible experience, but have a rational warrant in pure practical considerations. Although Kant’s pure practical philosophy culminates in religious hope, it is primarily a doctrine of obligation. Moral value is determined ultimately by the nature of the intention of the agent, which in turn is determined by the nature of what Kant calls the general maxim or subjective principle underlying a person’s action. One follows a hypothetical imperative when one’s maxim does not presume an unconditional end, a goal (like the fulfillment of duty) that one should have irrespective of all sensible desires, but rather a “material end” dependent on contingent inclinations (e.g., the directive “get this food,” in order to feel happy). In contrast, a categorical imperative is a directive saying what ought to be done from the perspective of pure reason alone; it is categorical because what this perspective commands is not contingent on sensible circumstances and it always carries overriding value. The general formula of the categorical imperative is to act only according to those maxims that can be consistently willed as a universal law – something said to be impossible for maxims aimed merely at material ends. In accepting this imperative, we are doubly self-determined, for we are not only determining our action freely, as Kant believes humans do in all exercises of the faculty of choice; we are also accepting a principle whose content is determined by that which is absolutely essential to us as agents, namely our pure practical reason. We thus are following our own law and so have autonomy when we accept the categorical imperative; otherwise we fall into heteronomy, or the (free) acceptance of principles whose content is determined independently of the essential nature of our own ultimate being, which is rational. Given the metaphysics of his transcendental idealism, Kant can say that the categorical imperative reveals a supersensible power of freedom in us such that we must regard ourselves as part of an intelligible world, i.e., a domain determined ultimately not by natural laws but rather by laws of reason. As such a rational being, an agent is an end in itself, i.e., something whose value is not dependent on external material ends, which are contingent and valued only as means to the end of happiness – which is itself only a conditional value (since the satisfaction of an evil will would be improper). Kant regards accepting the categorical imperative as tantamount to respecting rational nature as an end in itself, and to willing as if we were legislating a kingdom of ends. This is to will that the world become a “systematic Kant, Immanuel Kant, Immanuel 465 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 465 union of different rational beings through common laws,” i.e., laws that respect and fulfill the freedom of all rational beings. Although there is only one fundamental principle of morality, there are still different types of specific duties. One basic distinction is between strict duty and imperfect duty. Duties of justice, of respecting in action the rights of others, or the duty not to violate the dignity of persons as rational agents, are strict because they allow no exception for one’s inclination. A perfect duty is one that requires a specific action (e.g. keeping a promise), whereas an imperfect duty, such as the duty to perfect oneself or to help others, cannot be completely discharged or demanded by right by someone else, and so one has considerable latitude in deciding when and how it is to be respected. A meritorious duty involves going beyond what is strictly demanded and thereby generating an obligation in others, as when one is extraordinarily helpful to others and “merits” their gratitude. Two of Grice’s main tutees were respectively Aristotelian and Kantian scholars: Ackrill and Strawson. Grice, of course, read Ariskant in the vernacular. Critique of Pure Reason. Translated by Francis Haywood. William Pickering. 1838. critick of pure reason. (first English translation) Critique of Pure Reason. Translated by J. M. D. Meiklejohn. 1855 – via Project Gutenberg.Critique of Pure Reason. Translated by Thomas Kingsmill Abbott. 1873.Critique of Pure Reason. Translated by Friedrich Max Müller. The Macmillan Company. 1881. (Introduction by Ludwig Noiré)Critique of Pure Reason. Translated by Norman Kemp Smith. Palgrave Macmillan. 1929. ISBN 1-4039-1194-0. Archived from the original on 2009-04-27.Critique of Pure Reason. Translated by Wolfgang Schwartz. Scientia Verlag und Antiquariat. 1982. ISBN 978-3-5110-9260-3.Critique of Pure Reason. Translated by Werner S. Pluhar. Hackett Publishing. 1996. ISBN 978-0-87220-257-3.Critique of Pure Reason, Abridged. Translated by Werner S. Pluhar. Hackett Publishing. 1999. ISBN 978-1-6246-6605-6.Critique of Pure Reason. Translated and edited by Paul Guyer and Allen W. Wood. Cambridge University Press. 1999. ISBN 978-0-5216-5729-7.Critique of Pure Reason. Translated by Marcus Weigelt. Penguin Books. 2007. ISBN 978-0-1404-4747-7. Grice’s favourite philosopher is Ariskant. One way to approach Grice’s meta-philosophy is by combining teleology with deontology. Eventually, Grice embraces a hedonistic eudaimonism, if rationally approved. Grice knows how to tutor in philosophy: he tutor on Kant as if he is tutoring on Aristotle, and vice versa. His tutees would say, Here come [sic] Kantotle. Grice is obsessed with Kantotle. He would teach one or the other as an ethics requirement. Back at Oxford, the emphasis is of course Aristotle, but he is aware of some trends to introduce Kant in the Lit.Hum. curriculum, not with much success. Strawson does his share with the pure reason in Kant in The bounds of sense, but White professors of moral philosophy are usually not too keen on the critique by Kant of practical reason. Grice is fascinated that an Irishman, back in 1873, cares to translate (“for me”) all that Kant has to say about the eudaimonism and hedonism of Aristotle. An Oxonian philosopher is expected to be a utilitarian, as Hare is, or a Hegelian, and that is why Grice prefers, heterodoxical as he is, to be a Kantian rationalist instead. But Grice cannot help being Aristotelian, Hardie having instilled the “Eth. Nich.” on him at Corpus. While he can’t read Kant in German, Grice uses Abbott’s Irish vernacular. Note the archaic metaphysic sic in singular.  More Kant. Since Baker can read the vernacular even less than Grice, it may be good to review the editions. It all starts when Abbott thinks that his fellow Irishmen are unable to tackle Kant in the vernacular. Abbott’s thing comes out in 1873: Kant’s critique of practical reason and other works on the theory of tthics, with Grice quipping. Oddly, I prefer his other work! Grice collaborates with Baker mainly on work on meta-ethics seen as an offspring, alla Kant, of philosophical psychology. Akrasia or egkrateia is one such topic. Baker contributes to PGRICE, a festschrift for Grice, with an essay on the purity, and alleged lack thereof, of this or that morally evaluable motive – rhetorically put: do ones motives have to be pure? For Grice morality cashes out in self-love, self-interest, and desire. Baker also contributes to a volume on Grice’s honour published by Palgrave, Meaning and analysis: essays on Grice. Baker organises of a symposium on the thought of Grice for the APA, the proceedings of which published in The Journal of Philosophy, with Bennett as chair, contributions by Baker and Grandy, commented by Stalnaker andWarner. Grice explores with Baker problems of egcrateia and the reduction of duty to self-love and interest.  Aristotle: preeminent Grecian philosopher born in Stagira, hence sometimes called the Stagirite. Aristotle came to Athens as a teenager and remained for two decades in Plato’s Academy. Following Plato’s death in 347, Aristotle traveled to Assos and to Lesbos, where he associated with Theophrastus and collected a wealth of biological data, and later to Macedonia, where he tutored Alexander the Great. In 335 he returned to Athens and founded his own philosophical school in the Lyceum. The site’s colonnaded walk peripatos conferred on Aristotle and his group the name ‘the Peripatetics’. Alexander’s death in 323 unleashed antiMacedonian forces in Athens. Charged with impiety, and mindful of the fate of Socrates, Aristotle withdrew to Chalcis, where he died. Chiefly influenced by his association with Plato, Aristotle also makes wide use of the preSocratics. A number of works begin by criticizing and, ultimately, building on their views. The direction of Plato’s influence is debated. Some scholars see Aristotle’s career as a measured retreat from his teacher’s doctrines. For others he began as a confirmed anti-Platonist but returned to the fold as he matured. More likely, Aristotle early on developed a keenly independent voice that expressed enduring puzzlement over such Platonic doctrines as the separate existence of Ideas and the construction of physical reality from two-dimensional triangles. Such unease was no doubt heightened by Aristotle’s appreciation for the evidential value of observation as well as by his conviction that long-received and well-entrenched opinion is likely to contain at least part of the truth. Aristotle reportedly wrote a few popular works for publication, some of which are dialogues. Of these we have only fragments and reports. Notably lost are also his lectures on the good and on the Ideas. Ancient cataloguers also list under Aristotle’s name some 158 constitutions of Grecian states. Of these, only the Constitution of Athens has survived, on a papyrus discovered in 0. What remains is an enormous body of writing on virtually every topic of philosophical significance. Much of it consists of detailed lecture notes, working drafts, and accounts of his lectures written by others. Although efforts may have been under way in Aristotle’s lifetime, Andronicus of Rhodes, in the first century B.C., is credited with giving the Aristotelian corpus its present organization. Virtually no extant manuscripts predate the ninth century A.D., so the corpus has been transmitted by a complex history of manuscript transcription. In 1831 the Berlin Academy published the first critical edition of Aristotle’s work. Scholars still cite Aristotle by , column, and line of this edition. Logic and language. The writings on logic and language are concentrated in six early works: Categories, On Interpretation, Prior Analytics, Posterior Analytics, Topics, and Sophistical Refutations. Known since late antiquity as the Organon, these works share a concern with what is now called semantics. The Categories focuses on the relation between uncombined terms, such as ‘white’ or ‘man’, and the items they signify; On Interpretation offers an account of how terms combine to yield simple statements; Prior Analytics provides a systematic account of how three terms must be distributed in two categorical statements so as to yield logically a third such statement; Posterior Analytics specifies the conditions that categorical statements must meet to play a role in scientific explanation. The Topics, sometimes said to include Sophistical Refutations, is a handbook of “topics” and techniques for dialectical arguments concerning, principally, the four predicables: accident what may or may not belong to a subject, as sitting belongs to Socrates; definition what signifies a subject’s essence, as rational animal is the essence of man; proprium what is not in the essence of a subject but is unique to or counterpredicable of it, as all and only persons are risible; and genus what is in the essence of subjects differing in species, as animal is in the essence of both men and oxen. Categories treats the basic kinds of things that exist and their interrelations. Every uncombined term, says Aristotle, signifies essentially something in one of ten categories  a substance, a quantity, a quality, a relative, a place, a time, a position, a having, a doing, or a being affected. This doctrine underlies Aristotle’s admonition that there are as many proper or per se senses of ‘being’ as there are categories. In order to isolate the things that exist primarily, namely, primary substances, from all other things and to give an account of their nature, two asymmetric relations of ontological dependence are employed. First, substance ousia is distinguished from the accidental categories by the fact that every accident is present in a substance and, therefore, cannot exist without a substance in which to inhere. Second, the category of substance itself is divided into ordinary individuals or primary substances, such as Socrates, and secondary substances, such as the species man and the genus animal. Secondary substances are said of primary substances and indicate what kind of thing the subject is. A mark of this is that both the name and the definition of the secondary substance can be predicated of the primary substance, as both man and rational animal can be predicated of Socrates. Universals in non-substance categories are also said of subjects, as color is said of white. Therefore, directly or indirectly, everything else is either present in or said of primary substances and without them nothing would exist. And because they are neither present in a subject nor said of a subject, primary substances depend on nothing else for their existence. So, in the Categories, the ordinary individual is ontologically basic. On Interpretation offers an account of those meaningful expressions that are true or false, namely, statements or assertions. Following Plato’s Sophist, a simple statement is composed of the semantically heterogeneous parts, name onoma and verb rhema. In ‘Socrates runs’ the name has the strictly referential function of signifying the subject of attribution. The verb, on the other hand, is essentially predicative, signifying something holding of the subject. Verbs also indicate when something is asserted to hold and so make precise the statement’s truth conditions. Simple statements also include general categorical statements. Since medieval times it has become customary to refer to the basic categoricals by letters: A Every man is white, E No man is white, I Some man is white, and O Not every man is white. On Interpretation outlines their logical relations in what is now called the square of opposition: A & E are contraries, A & O and E & I are contradictories, and A & I and E & O are superimplications. That A implies I reflects the no longer current view that Aristotle Aristotle 45   45 all affirmative statements carry existential import. One ambition of On Interpretation is a theory of the truth conditions for all statements that affirm or deny one thing or another. However, statements involving future contingencies pose a special problem. Consider Aristotle’s notorious sea battle. Either it will or it will not happen tomorrow. If the first, then the statement ‘There will be a sea battle tomorrow’ is now true. Hence, it is now fixed that the sea battle occur tomorrow. If the second, then it is now fixed that the sea battle not occur tomorrow. Either way there can be no future contingencies. Although some hold that Aristotle would embrace the determinism they find implicit in this consequence, most argue either that he suspends the law of excluded middle for future contingencies or that he denies the principle of bivalence for future contingent statements. On the first option Aristotle gives up the claim that either the sea battle will happen tomorrow or not. On the second he keeps the claim but allows that future contingent statements are neither true nor false. Aristotle’s evident attachment to the law of excluded middle, perhaps, favors the second option. Prior Analytics marks the invention of logic as a formal discipline in that the work contains the first virtually complete system of logical inference, sometimes called syllogistic. The fact that the first chapter of the Prior Analytics reports that there is a syllogism whenever, certain things being stated, something else follows of necessity, might suggest that Aristotle intended to capture a general notion of logical consequence. However, the syllogisms that constitute the system of the Prior Analytics are restricted to the basic categorical statements introduced in On Interpretation. A syllogism consists of three different categorical statements: two premises and a conclusion. The Prior Analytics tells us which pairs of categoricals logically yield a third. The fourteen basic valid forms are divided into three figures and, within each figure, into moods. The system is foundational because second- and third-figure syllogisms are reducible to first-figure syllogisms, whose validity is self-evident. Although syllogisms are conveniently written as conditional sentences, the syllogistic proper is, perhaps, best seen as a system of valid deductive inferences rather than as a system of valid conditional sentences or sentence forms. Posterior Analytics extends syllogistic to science and scientific explanation. A science is a deductively ordered body of knowledge about a definite genus or domain of nature. Scientific knowledge episteme consists not in knowing that, e.g., there is thunder in the clouds, but rather in knowing why there is thunder. So the theory of scientific knowledge is a theory of explanation and the vehicle of explanation is the first-figure syllogism Barbara: If 1 P belongs to all M and 2 M belongs to all S, then 3 P belongs to all S. To explain, e.g., why there is thunder, i.e., why there is noise in the clouds, we say: 3H Noise P belongs to the clouds S because 2H Quenching of fire M belongs to the clouds S and 1H Noise P belongs to quenching of fire M. Because what is explained in science is invariant and holds of necessity, the premises of a scientific or demonstrative syllogism must be necessary. In requiring that the premises be prior to and more knowable than the conclusion, Aristotle embraces the view that explanation is asymmetrical: knowledge of the conclusion depends on knowledge of each premise, but each premise can be known independently of the conclusion. The premises must also give the causes of the conclusion. To inquire why P belongs to S is, in effect, to seek the middle term that gives the cause. Finally, the premises must be immediate and non-demonstrable. A premise is immediate just in case there is no middle term connecting its subject and predicate terms. Were P to belong to M because of a new middle, M1, then there would be a new, more basic premise, that is essential to the full explanation. Ultimately, explanation of a received fact will consist in a chain of syllogisms terminating in primary premises that are immediate. These serve as axioms that define the science in question because they reflect the essential nature of the fact to be explained  as in 1H the essence of thunder lies in the quenching of fire. Because they are immediate, primary premises are not capable of syllogistic demonstration, yet they must be known if syllogisms containing them are to constitute knowledge of the conclusion. Moreover, were it necessary to know the primary premises syllogistically, demonstration would proceed infinitely or in a circle. The first alternative defeats the very possibility of explanation and the second undermines its asymmetric character. Thus, the primary premises must be known by the direct grasp of the mind noûs. This just signals the appropriate way for the highest principles of a science to be known  even demonstrable propositions can be known directly, but they are explained only when located within the structure of the relevant science, i.e., only when demonstrated syllogistically. Although all sciences exhibit the same formal structure and use Aristotle Aristotle 46   46 certain common principles, different sciences have different primary premises and, hence, different subject matters. This “one genus to one science” rule legislates that each science and its explanations be autonomous. Aristotle recognizes three kinds of intellectual discipline. Productive disciplines, such as house building, concern the making of something external to the agent. Practical disciplines, such as ethics, concern the doing of something not separate from the agent, namely, action and choice. Theoretical disciplines are concerned with truth for its own sake. As such, they alone are sciences in the special sense of the Posterior Analytics. The three main kinds of special science are individuated by their objects  natural science by objects that are separate but not changeless, mathematics by objects that are changeless but not separate, and theology by separate and changeless objects. The mathematician studies the same objects as the natural scientist but in a quite different way. He takes an actual object, e.g. a chalk figure used in demonstration, and abstracts from or “thinks away” those of its properties, such as definiteness of size and imperfection of shape, that are irrelevant to its standing as a perfect exemplar of the purely mathematical properties under investigation. Mathematicians simply treat this abstracted circle, which is not separate from matter, as if it were separate. In this way the theorems they prove about the object can be taken as universal and necessary. Physics. As the science of nature physis, physics studies those things whose principles and causes of change and rest are internal. Aristotle’s central treatise on nature, the Physics, analyzes the most general features of natural phenomena: cause, change, time, place, infinity, and continuity. The doctrine of the four causes is especially important in Aristotle’s work. A cause aitia is something like an explanatory factor. The material cause of a house, for instance, is the matter hyle from which it is built; the moving or efficient cause is the builder, more exactly, the form in the builder’s soul; the formal cause is its plan or form eidos; and the final cause is its purpose or end telos: provision of shelter. The complete explanation of the coming to be of a house will factor in all of these causes. In natural phenomena efficient, formal, and final causes often coincide. The form transmitted by the father is both the efficient cause and the form of the child, and the latter is glossed in terms of the child’s end or complete development. This explains why Aristotle often simply contrasts matter and form. Although its objects are compounds of both, physics gives priority to the study of natural form. This accords with the Posterior Analytics’ insistence that explanation proceed through causes that give the essence and reflects Aristotle’s commitment to teleology. A natural process counts essentially as the development of, say, an oak or a man because its very identity depends on the complete form realized at its end. As with all things natural, the end is an internal governing principle of the process rather than an external goal. All natural things are subject to change kinesis. Defined as the actualization of the potential qua potential, a change is not an ontologically basic item. There is no category for changes. Rather, they are reductively explained in terms of more basic things  substances, properties, and potentialities. A pale man, e.g., has the potentiality to be or become tanned. If this potentiality is utterly unactualized, no change will ensue; if completely actualized, the change will have ended. So the potentiality must be actualized but not, so to speak, exhausted; i.e., it must be actualized qua potentiality. Designed for the ongoing operations of the natural world, the Physics’ definition of change does not cover the generation and corruption of substantial items themselves. This sort of change, which involves matter and elemental change, receives extensive treatment in On Generation and Corruption. Aristotle rejects the atomists’ contention that the world consists of an infinite totality of indivisible atoms in various arrangements. Rather, his basic stuff is uniform elemental matter, any part of which is divisible into smaller such parts. Because nothing that is actually infinite can exist, it is only in principle that matter is always further dividable. So while countenancing the potential infinite, Aristotle squarely denies the actual infinite. This holds for the motions of the sublunary elemental bodies earth, air, fire, and water as well as for the circular motions of the heavenly bodies composed of a fifth element, aether, whose natural motion is circular. These are discussed in On the Heavens. The four sublunary elements are further discussed in Meteorology, the fourth book of which might be described as an early treatise on chemical combination. Psychology. Because the soul psyche is officially defined as the form of a body with the potentiality for life, psychology is a subfield of natural science. In effect, Aristotle applies the Aristotle Aristotle 47   47 apparatus of form and matter to the traditional Grecian view of the soul as the principle and cause of life. Although even the nutritive and reproductive powers of plants are effects of the soul, most of his attention is focused on topics that are psychological in the modern sense. On the Soul gives a general account of the nature and number of the soul’s principal cognitive faculties. Subsequent works, chiefly those collected as the Parva naturalia, apply the general theory to a broad range of psychological phenomena from memory and recollection to dreaming, sleeping, and waking. The soul is a complex of faculties. Faculties, at least those distinctive of persons, are capacities for cognitively grasping objects. Sight grasps colors, smell odors, hearing sounds, and the mind grasps universals. An organism’s form is the particular organization of its material parts that enable it to exercise these characteristic functions. Because an infant, e.g., has the capacity to do geometry, Aristotle distinguishes two varieties of capacity or potentiality dynamis and actuality entelecheia. The infant is a geometer only in potentiality. This first potentiality comes to him simply by belonging to the appropriate species, i.e., by coming into the world endowed with the potential to develop into a competent geometer. By actualizing, through experience and training, this first potentiality, he acquires a first actualization. This actualization is also a second potentiality, since it renders him a competent geometer able to exercise his knowledge at will. The exercise itself is a second actualization and amounts to active contemplation of a particular item of knowledge, e.g. the Pythagorean theorem. So the soul is further defined as the first actualization of a complex natural body. Faculties, like sciences, are individuated by their objects. Objects of perception aisthesis fall into three general kinds. Special proper sensibles, such as colors and sounds, are directly perceived by one and only one sense and are immune to error. They demarcate the five special senses: sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. Common sensibles, such as movement and shape, are directly perceived by more than one special sense. Both special and common sensibles are proper objects of perception because they have a direct causal effect on the perceptual system. By contrast, the son of Diares is an incidental sensible because he is perceived not directly but as a consequence of directly perceiving something else that happens to be the son of Diares  e.g., a white thing. Aristotle calls the mind noûs the place of forms because it is able to grasp objects apart from matter. These objects are nothing like Plato’s separately existing Forms. As Aristotelian universals, their existence is entailed by and depends on their having instances. Thus, On the Soul’s remark that universals are “somehow in the soul” only reflects their role in assuring the autonomy of thought. The mind has no organ because it is not the form or first actualization of any physical structure. So, unlike perceptual faculties, it is not strongly dependent on the body. However, the mind thinks its objects by way of images, which are something like internal representations, and these are physically based. Insofar as it thus depends on imagination phantasia, the mind is weakly dependent on the body. This would be sufficient to establish the naturalized nature of Aristotle’s mind were it not for what some consider an incurably dualist intrusion. In distinguishing something in the mind that makes all things from something that becomes all things, Aristotle introduces the notorious distinction between the active and passive intellects and may even suggest that the first is separable from the body. Opinion on the nature of the active intellect diverges widely, some even discounting it as an irrelevant insertion. But unlike perception, which depends on external objects, thinking is up to us. Therefore, it cannot simply be a matter of the mind’s being affected. So Aristotle needs a mechanism that enables us to produce thoughts autonomously. In light of this functional role, the question of active intellect’s ontological status is less pressing. Biology. Aristotle’s biological writings, which constitute about a quarter of the corpus, bring biological phenomena under the general framework of natural science: the four causes, form and matter, actuality and potentiality, and especially the teleological character of natural processes. If the Physics proceeds in an a priori style, the History of Animals, Parts of Animals, and Generation of Animals achieve an extraordinary synthesis of observation, theory, and general scientific principle. History of Animals is a comparative study of generic features of animals, including analogous parts, activities, and dispositions. Although its morphological and physiological descriptions show surprisingly little interest in teleology, Parts of Animals is squarely teleological. Animal parts, especially organs, are ultimately differentiated by function rather than morphology. The composition of, e.g., teeth and flesh is determined by their role in the overall functioning of the organism and, hence, requires Aristotle Aristotle 48   48 teleology. Generation of Animals applies the formmatter and actualitypotentiality distinctions to animal reproduction, inheritance, and the development of accidental characteristics. The species form governs the development of an organism and determines what the organism is essentially. Although in the Metaphysics and elsewhere accidental characteristics, including inherited ones, are excluded from science, in the biological writings form has an expanded role and explains the inheritance of non-essential characteristics, such as eye color. The more fully the father’s form is imposed on the minimally formed matter of the mother, the more completely the father’s traits are passed on to the offspring. The extent to which matter resists imposition of form determines the extent to which traits of the mother emerge, or even those of more distant ancestors. Aristotle shared the Platonists’ interest in animal classification. Recent scholarship suggests that this is less an interest in elaborating a Linnean-style taxonomy of the animal kingdom than an interest in establishing the complex differentiae and genera central to definitions of living things. The biological works argue, moreover, that no single differentia could give the whole essence of a species and that the differentiae that do give the essence will fall into more than one division. If the second point rejects the method of dichotomous division favored by Plato and the Academy, the first counters Aristotle’s own standard view that essence can be reduced to a single final differentia. The biological sciences are not, then, automatically accommodated by the Posterior Analytics model of explanation, where the essence or explanatory middle is conceived as a single causal property. A number of themes discussed in this section are brought together in a relatively late work, Motion of Animals. Its psychophysical account of the mechanisms of animal movement stands at the juncture of physics, psychology, and biology. Metaphysics. In Andronicus’s edition, the fourteen books now known as the Metaphysics were placed after the Physics, whence comes the word ‘metaphysics’, whose literal meaning is ‘what comes after the physics’. Aristotle himself prefers ‘first philosophy’ or ‘wisdom’ sophia. The subject is defined as the theoretical science of the causes and principles of what is most knowable. This makes metaphysics a limiting case of Aristotle’s broadly used distinction between what is better known to us and what is better known by nature. The genus animal, e.g., is better known by nature than the species man because it is further removed from the senses and because it can be known independently of the species. The first condition suggests that the most knowable objects would be the separately existing and thoroughly non-sensible objects of theology and, hence, that metaphysics is a special science. The second condition suggests that the most knowable objects are simply the most general notions that apply to things in general. This favors identifying metaphysics as the general science of being qua being. Special sciences study restricted modes of being. Physics, for instance, studies being qua having an internal principle of change and rest. A general science of being studies the principles and causes of things that are, simply insofar as they are. A good deal of the Metaphysics supports this conception of metaphysics. For example, Book IV, on the principle of non-contradiction, and Book X, on unity, similarity, and difference, treat notions that apply to anything whatever. So, too, for the discussion of form and actuality in the central books VII, VIII, and IX. Book XII, on the other hand, appears to regard metaphysics as the special science of theology. Aristotle himself attempts to reconcile these two conceptions of metaphysics. Because it studies immovable substance, theology counts as first philosophy. However, it is also general precisely because it is first, and so it will include the study of being qua being. Scholars have found this solution as perplexing as the problem. Although Book XII proves the causal necessity for motion of an eternal substance that is an unmoved mover, this establishes no conceptual connection between the forms of sensible compounds and the pure form that is the unmoved mover. Yet such a connection is required, if a single science is to encompass both. Problems of reconciliation aside, Aristotle had to face a prior difficulty concerning the very possibility of a general science of being. For the Posterior Analytics requires the existence of a genus for each science but the Metaphysics twice argues that being is not a genus. The latter claim, which Aristotle never relinquishes, is implicit in the Categories, where being falls directly into kinds, namely, the categories. Because these highest genera do not result from differentiation of a single genus, no univocal sense of being covers them. Although being is, therefore, ambiguous in as many ways as there are categories, a thread connects them. The ontological priority accorded primary substance in the Categories is made part of the very definition of non-substantial entities Aristotle Aristotle 49   49 in the Metaphysics: to be an accident is by definition to be an accident of some substance. Thus, the different senses of being all refer to the primary kind of being, substance, in the way that exercise, diet, medicine, and climate are healthy by standing in some relation to the single thing health. The discovery of focal meaning, as this is sometimes called, introduces a new way of providing a subject matter with the internal unity required for science. Accordingly, the Metaphysics modifies the strict “one genus to one science” rule of the Posterior Analytics. A single science may also include objects whose definitions are different so long as these definitions are related focally to one thing. So focal meaning makes possible the science of being qua being. Focal meaning also makes substance the central object of investigation. The principles and causes of being in general can be illuminated by studying the principles and causes of the primary instance of being. Although the Categories distinguishes primary substances from other things that are and indicates their salient characteristics e.g., their ability to remain one and the same while taking contrary properties, it does not explain why it is that primary substances have such characteristics. The difficult central books of the Metaphysics  VII, VIII, and IX  investigate precisely this. In effect, they ask what, primarily, about the Categories’ primary substances explains their nature. Their target, in short, is the substance of the primary substances of the Categories. As concrete empirical particulars, the latter are compounds of form and matter the distinction is not explicit in the Categories and so their substance must be sought among these internal structural features. Thus, Metaphysics VII considers form, matter, and the compound of form and matter, and quickly turns to form as the best candidate. In developing a conception of form that can play the required explanatory role, the notion of essence to ti en einai assumes center stage. The essence of a man, e.g., is the cause of certain matter constituting a man, namely, the soul. So form in the sense of essence is the primary substance of the Metaphysics. This is obviously not the primary substance of the Categories and, although the same word eidos is used, neither is this form the species of the Categories. The latter is treated in the Metaphysics as a kind of universal compound abstracted from particular compounds and appears to be denied substantial status. While there is broad, though not universal, agreement that in the Metaphysics form is primary substance, there is equally broad disagreement over whether this is particular form, the form belonging to a single individual, or species form, the form common to all individuals in the species. There is also lively discussion concerning the relation of the Metaphysics doctrine of primary substance to the earlier doctrine of the Categories. Although a few scholars see an outright contradiction here, most take the divergence as evidence of the development of Aristotle’s views on substance. Finally, the role of the central books in the Metaphysics as a whole continues to be debated. Some see them as an entirely selfcontained analysis of form, others as preparatory to Book XII’s discussion of non-sensible form and the role of the unmoved mover as the final cause of motion. Practical philosophy. Two of Aristotle’s most heralded works, the Nicomachean Ethics and the Politics, are treatises in practical philosophy. Their aim is effective action in matters of conduct. So they deal with what is up to us and can be otherwise because in this domain lie choice and action. The practical nature of ethics lies mainly in the development of a certain kind of agent. The Nicomachean Ethics was written, Aristotle reminds us, “not in order to know what virtue is, but in order to become good.” One becomes good by becoming a good chooser and doer. This is not simply a matter of choosing and doing right actions but of choosing or doing them in the right way. Aristotle assumes that, for the most part, agents know what ought to be done the evil or vicious person is an exception. The akratic or morally weak agent desires to do other than what he knows ought to be done and acts on this desire against his better judgment. The enkratic or morally strong person shares the akratic agent’s desire but acts in accordance with his better judgment. In neither kind of choice are desire and judgment in harmony. In the virtuous, on the other hand, desire and judgment agree. So their choices and actions will be free of the conflict and pain that inevitably accompany those of the akratic and enkratic agent. This is because the part of their soul that governs choice and action is so disposed that desire and right judgment coincide. Acquiring a stable disposition hexis of this sort amounts to acquiring moral virtue ethike arete. The disposition is concerned with choices as would be determined by the person of practical wisdom phronesis; these will be actions lying between extreme alternatives. They will lie in a mean  popularly called the “golden mean”  relative to the talents and stores of the agent. Choosing in this way is not easily done. It involves, for instance, feeling anger or extending Aristotle Aristotle 50   50 generosity at the right time, toward the right people, in the right way, and for the right reasons. Intellectual virtues, such as excellence at mathematics, can be acquired by teaching, but moral virtue cannot. I may know what ought to be done and even perform virtuous acts without being able to act virtuously. Nonetheless, because moral virtue is a disposition concerning choice, deliberate performance of virtuous acts can, ultimately, instill a disposition to choose them in harmony and with pleasure and, hence, to act virtuously. Aristotle rejected Plato’s transcendental Form of the Good as irrelevant to the affairs of persons and, in general, had little sympathy with the notion of an absolute good. The goal of choice and action is the human good, namely, living well. This, however, is not simply a matter of possessing the requisite practical disposition. Practical wisdom, which is necessary for living well, involves skill at calculating the best means to achieve one’s ends and this is an intellectual virtue. But the ends that are presupposed by deliberation are established by moral virtue. The end of all action, the good for man, is happiness eudaimonia. Most things, such as wealth, are valued only as a means to a worthy end. Honor, pleasure, reason, and individual virtues, such as courage and generosity, are deemed worthy in their own right but they can also be sought for the sake of eudaimonia. Eudaimonia alone can be sought only for its own sake. Eudaimonia is not a static state of the soul but a kind of activity energeia of the soul  something like human flourishing. The happy person’s life will be selfsufficient and complete in the highest measure. The good for man, then, is activity in accordance with virtue or the highest virtue, should there be one. Here ‘virtue’ means something like excellence and applies to much besides man. The excellence of an ax lies in its cutting, that of a horse in its equestrian qualities. In short, a thing’s excellence is a matter of how well it performs its characteristic functions or, we might say, how well it realizes its nature. The natural functions of persons reside in the exercise of their natural cognitive faculties, most importantly, the faculty of reason. So human happiness consists in activity in accordance with reason. However, persons can exercise reason in practical or in purely theoretical matters. The first suggests that happiness consists in the practical life of moral virtue, the second that it consists in the life of theoretical activity. Most of the Nicomachean Ethics is devoted to the moral virtues but the final book appears to favor theoretical activity theoria as the highest and most choiceworthy end. It is man’s closest approach to divine activity. Much recent scholarship is devoted to the relation between these two conceptions of the good, particularly, to whether they are of equal value and whether they exclude or include one another. Ethics and politics are closely connected. Aristotle conceives of the state as a natural entity arising among persons to serve a natural function. This is not merely, e.g., provision for the common defense or promotion of trade. Rather, the state of the Politics also has eudaimonia as its goal, namely, fostering the complete and selfsufficient lives of its citizens. Aristotle produced a complex taxonomy of constitutions but reduced them, in effect, to three kinds: monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy. Which best serves the natural end of a state was, to some extent, a relative matter for Aristotle. Although he appears to have favored democracy, in some circumstances monarchy might be appropriate. The standard ordering of Aristotle’s works ends with the Rhetoric and the Poetics. The Rhetoric’s extensive discussion of oratory or the art of persuasion locates it between politics and literary theory. The relatively short Poetics is devoted chiefly to the analysis of tragedy. It has had an enormous historical influence on aesthetic theory in general as well as on the writing of drama.  Refs.: The obvious keyword is “Kant,” – especially in the Series III on the doctrines, in collaboration with Baker. There are essays on the Grundlegung, too. The keyword for “Kantotle,” and the keywords for ‘free,’ and ‘freedom,’ and ‘practical reason,’ and ‘autonomy, are also helpful. Some of this material in “Actions and events,” “The influence of Kant on Aristotle,” by H. P. Grice, John Locke Scholar (failed), etc., Oxford (Advisor: J. Dempsey). The H. P. Grice Papers, BANC. Grice’s composite for Kant and Aristotle -- Grice as an Aristotelian commentator – in “Aristotle on the multiplicity of being,” – Grice would comment on Aristotle profusely at Oxford. One of his favourite tutees was J. L. Ackrill – but he regretted that, of all things Ackrill could do, he decided “to translate Aristotle into the vernacular!” -- commentaries on Aristotle, the term commonly used for the Grecian commentaries on Aristotle that take up about 15,000 s in the Berlin Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca 29, still the basic edition of them. Only in the 0s did a project begin, under the editorship of Richard Sorabji, of King’s , London, to translate at least the most significant portions of them into English. They had remained the largest corpus of Grecian philosophy not tr. into any modern language. Most of these works, especially the later, Neoplatonic ones, are much more than simple commentaries on Aristotle. They are also a mode of doing philosophy, the favored one at this stage of intellectual history. They are therefore important not only for the understanding of Aristotle, but also for both the study of the pre-Socratics and the Hellenistic philosophers, particularly the Stoics, of whom they preserve many fragments, and lastly for the study of Neoplatonism itself  and, in the case of John Philoponus, for studying the innovations he introduces in the process of trying to reconcile Platonism with Christianity. The commentaries may be divided into three main groups. 1 The first group of commentaries are those by Peripatetic scholars of the second to fourth centuries A.D., most notably Alexander of Aphrodisias fl. c.200, but also the paraphraser Themistius fl. c.360. We must not omit, however, to note Alexander’s predecessor Aspasius, author of the earliest surviving commentary, one on the Nicomachean Ethics  a work not commented on again until the late Byzantine period. Commentaries by Alexander survive on the Prior Analytics, Topics, Metaphysics IV, On the Senses, and Meteorologics, and his now lost ones on the Categories, On the Soul, and Physics had enormous influence in later times, particularly on Simplicius. 2 By far the largest group is that of the Neoplatonists up to the sixth century A.D. Most important of the earlier commentators is Porphyry 232c.309, of whom only a short commentary on the Categories survives, together with an introduction Isagoge to Aristotle’s logical works, which provoked many commentaries itself, and proved most influential in both the East and through Boethius in the Latin West. The reconciling of Plato and Aristotle is largely his work. His big commentary on the Categories was of great importance in later times, and many fragments are preserved in that of Simplicius. His follower Iamblichus was also influential, but his commentaries are likewise lost. The Athenian School of Syrianus c.375437 and Proclus 41085 also commented on Aristotle, but all that survives is a commentary of Syrianus on Books III, IV, XIII, and XIV of the Metaphysics. It is the early sixth century, however, that produces the bulk of our surviving commentaries, originating from the Alexandrian school of Ammonius, son of Hermeias c.435520, but composed both in Alexandria, by the Christian John Philoponus c.490575, and in or at least from Athens by Simplicius writing after 532. Main commentaries of Philoponus are on Categories, Prior Analytics, Posterior Analytics, On Generation and Corruption, On the Soul III, and Physics; of Simplicius on Categories, Physics, On the Heavens, and perhaps On the Soul. The tradition is carried on in Alexandria by Olympiodorus c.495565 and the Christians Elias fl. c.540 and David an Armenian, nicknamed the Invincible, fl. c.575, and finally by Stephanus, who was brought by the emperor to take the chair of philosophy in Constantinople in about 610. These scholars comment chiefly on the Categories and other introductory material, but Olympiodorus produced a commentary on the Meteorologics. Characteristic of the Neoplatonists is a desire to reconcile Aristotle with Platonism arguing, e.g., that Aristotle was not dismissing the Platonic theory of Forms, and to systematize his thought, thus reconciling him with himself. They are responding to a long tradition of criticism, during which difficulties were raised about incoherences and contradictions in Aristotle’s thought, and they are concerned to solve these, drawing on their comprehensive knowledge of his writings. Only Philoponus, as a Christian, dares to criticize him, in particular on the eternity of the world, but also on the concept of infinity on which he produces an ingenious argument, picked up, via the Arabs, by Bonaventure in the thirteenth century. The Categories proves a particularly fruitful battleground, and much of the later debate between realism and nominalism stems from arguments about the proper subject matter of that work. The format of these commentaries is mostly that adopted by scholars ever since, that of taking command theory of law commentaries on Aristotle 159   159 one passage, or lemma, after another of the source work and discussing it from every angle, but there are variations. Sometimes the general subject matter is discussed first, and then details of the text are examined; alternatively, the lemma is taken in subdivisions without any such distinction. The commentary can also proceed explicitly by answering problems, or aporiai, which have been raised by previous authorities. Some commentaries, such as the short one of Porphyry on the Categories, and that of Iamblichus’s pupil Dexippus on the same work, have a “catechetical” form, proceeding by question and answer. In some cases as with Vitters in modern times the commentaries are simply transcriptions by pupils of the lectures of a teacher. This is the case, for example, with the surviving “commentaries” of Ammonius. One may also indulge in simple paraphrase, as does Themistius on Posterior Analysis, Physics, On the Soul, and On the Heavens, but even here a good deal of interpretation is involved, and his works remain interesting. An important offshoot of all this activity in the Latin West is the figure of Boethius c.480524. It is he who first transmitted a knowledge of Aristotelian logic to the West, to become an integral part of medieval Scholasticism. He tr. Porphyry’s Isagoge, and the whole of Aristotle’s logical works. He wrote a double commentary on the Isagoge, and commentaries on the Categories and On Interpretation. He is dependent ultimately on Porphyry, but more immediately, it would seem, on a source in the school of Proclus. 3 The third major group of commentaries dates from the late Byzantine period, and seems mainly to emanate from a circle of scholars grouped around the princess Anna Comnena in the twelfth century. The most important figures here are Eustratius c.10501120 and Michael of Ephesus originally dated c.1040, but now fixed at c.1130. Michael in particular seems concerned to comment on areas of Aristotle’s works that had hitherto escaped commentary. He therefore comments widely, for example, on the biological works, but also on the Sophistical Refutations. He and Eustratius, and perhaps others, seem to have cooperated also on a composite commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics, neglected since Aspasius. There is also evidence of lost commentaries on the Politics and the Rhetoric. The composite commentary on the Ethics was tr. into Latin in the next century, in England, by Robert Grosseteste, but earlier than this translations of the various logical commentaries had been made by James of Venice fl. c.1130, who may have even made the acquaintance of Michael of Ephesus in Constantinople. Later in that century other commentaries were being tr. from Arabic versions by Gerard of Cremona d.1187. The influence of the Grecian commentary tradition in the West thus resumed after the long break since Boethius in the sixth century, but only now, it seems fair to say, is the full significance of this enormous body of work becoming properly appreciated. 

aristotelian society: London – founded, as it should, in London, by an amateur -- Grice and the Aristotelian Society – his “Causal Theory of perception” was an invited contribution, a ‘popularisation’ for this Society, which was founded in London back in the day. The Aristotelian Society’s first president was S. H. Hodgson, of Christ Church, Oxford. He was succeeded by Bernard Bosanquet.

atomism: vide – in-dividuum, i. e. indivisible.  the theory, originated by Leucippus and elaborated by Democritus, that the ultimate realities are atoms and the void. The theory was later used by Epicurus as the foundation for a philosophy stressing ethical concerns, Epicureanism. 

arrow’s paradox – discussed by Grice in “Conversational reason.” Also called Arrow’s impossibility theorem, a major result in social choice theory, named for its discoverer, economist Kenneth Arrow. It is intuitive to suppose that the preferences of individuals in a society can be expressed formally, and then aggregated into an expression of social preferences, a social choice function. Arrow’s paradox is that individual preferences having certain well-behaved formalizations demonstrably cannot be aggregated into a similarly well-behaved social choice function satisfying four plausible formal conditions: 1 collective rationality  any set of individual orderings and alternatives must yield a social ordering; 2 Pareto optimality  if all individuals prefer one ordering to another, the social ordering must also agree; 3 non-dictatorship  the social ordering must not be identical to a particular individual’s ordering; and 4 independence of irrelevant alternatives  the social ordering depends on no properties of the individual orderings other than the orders themselves, and for a given set of alternatives it depends only on the orderings of those particular alternatives. Most attempts to resolve the paradox have focused on aspects of 1 and 4. Some argue that preferences can be rational even if they are intransitive. Others argue that cardinal orderings, and hence, interpersonal comparisons of preference intensity, are relevant. 

AD-SCRIPTVM -- ascriptum: Grice: Etymologically, ‘ad-scriptum’ -- ascriptivism, the theory that to call an action voluntary is not to describe it as caused in a certain way by the agent who did it, but to express a commitment to hold the agent responsible for the action. Ascriptivism is thus a kind of noncognitivism as applied to judgments about the voluntariness of acts. Introduced by Hart in “Ascription of Rights and Responsibilities,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 9, ascriptivism was given its name and attacked in Geach’s “Ascriptivism,” Philosophical Review 0. Hart recanted in the Preface to his Punishment and Responsibility.

AD-SOCIATUS -- associatum – Grice: “Etymologically, ad-sociatum” -- associationism: discussed by Grice as an example of a propositional complexum -- the psychological doctrine that association is the sole or primary basis of learning as well as of intelligent thought and behavior. Association occurs when one type of thought, idea, or behavior follows, or is contingent upon, another thought, idea, or behavior or external event, and the second somehow bonds with the first. If the idea of eggs is paired with the idea of ham, then the two ideas may become associated. Associationists argue that complex states of mind and mental processes can be analyzed into associated elements. The complex may be novel, but the elements are products of past associations. Associationism often is combined with hedonism. Hedonism explains why events associate or bond: bonds are forged by pleasant experiences. If the pleasantness of eating eggs is combined with the pleasantness of eating ham, then ideas of ham and eggs associate. Bonding may also be explained by various non-hedonistic principles of association, as in Hume’s theory of the association of ideas. One of these principles is contiguity in place or time. Associationism contributes to the componential analysis of intelligent, rational activity into non-intelligent, non-rational, mechanical processes. People believe as they do, not because of rational connections among beliefs, but because beliefs associatively bond. Thus one may think of London when thinking of England, not because one possesses an inner logic of geographic beliefs from which one infers that London is in England. The two thoughts may co-occur because of contiguity or other principles. Kinds of associationism occur in behaviorist models of classical and operant conditioning. Certain associationist ideas, if not associationism itself, appear in connectionist models of cognition, especially the principle that contiguities breed bonding. Several philosophers and psychologists, including Hume, Hartley, and J. S. Mill among philosophers and E. L. Thorndike 18749 and B. F. Skinner 490 among psychologists, are associationists. 

athenian dialectic, oxonian dialectic, roman dialeccti, Florentine dialectic, dialettica Bolognese -- Grice: “I should perhaps, echoing Sanzio, speak of the ‘Athenian school,’ which properly in proper Grecian, meant ‘otium’!” -- Socrates, Grecian philosopher, the exemplar of the examined life, best known for his dictum that only such a life is worth living. Although he wrote nothing, his thoughts and way of life had a profound impact on many of his contemporaries, and, through Plato’s portrayal of him in his early writings, he became a major source of inspiration and ideas for later generations of philosophers. His daily occupation was adversarial public conversation with anyone willing to argue with him. A man of great intellectual brilliance, moral integrity, personal magnetism, and physical self-command, he challenged the moral complacency of his fellow citizens, and embarrassed them with their inability to answer such questions as What is virtue?  questions that he thought we must answer, if we are to know how best to live our lives. His ideas and personality won him a devoted following among the young, but he was far from universally admired. Formal charges were made against him for refusing to recognize the gods of the city, introducing other new divinities, and corrupting the youth. Tried on a single day before a large jury 500 was a typical size, he was found guilty by a small margin: had thirty jurors voted differently, he would have been acquitted. The punishment selected by the jury was death and was administered by means of poison, probably hemlock. Why was he brought to trial and convicted? Part of the answer lies in Plato’s Apology, which purports to be the defense Socrates gave at his trial. Here he says that he has for many years been falsely portrayed as someone whose scientific theories dethrone the traditional gods and put natural forces in their place, and as someone who charges a fee for offering private instruction on how to make a weak argument seem strong in the courtroom. This is the picture of Socrates drawn in a play of Aristophanes, the Clouds, first presented in 423. It is unlikely that Aristophanes intended his play as an accurate depiction of Socrates, and the unscrupulous buffoon found in the Clouds would never have won the devotion of so serious a moralist as Plato. Aristophanes drew together the assorted characteristics of various fifth-century thinkers and named this amalgam “Socrates” because the real Socrates was one of several controversial intellectuals of the period. Nonetheless, it is unlikely that the charges against Socrates or Aristophanes’ caricature were entirely without foundation. Both Xenophon’s Memorabilia and Plato’s Euthyphro say that Socrates aroused suspicion because he thought a certain divine sign or voice appeared to him and gave him useful instruction about how to act. By claiming a unique and private source of divine inspiration, Socrates may have been thought to challenge the city’s exclusive control over religious matters. His willingness to disobey the city is admitted in Plato’s Apology, where he says that he would have to disobey a hypothetical order to stop asking his philosophical questions, since he regards them as serving a religious purpose. In the Euthyphro he seeks a rational basis for making sacrifices and performing other services to the gods; but he finds none, and implies that no one else has one. Such a challenge to traditional religious practice could easily have aroused a suspicion of atheism and lent credibility to the formal charges against him. Furthermore, Socrates makes statements in Plato’s early dialogues and in Xenophon’s Memorabilia that could easily have offended the political sensibilities of his contemporaries. He holds that only those who have given special study to political matters should make decisions. For politics is a kind of craft, and in all other crafts only those who have shown their mastery are entrusted with public responsibilities. Athens was a democracy in which each citizen had an equal legal right to shape policy, and Socrates’ analogy between the role of an expert in politics and in other crafts may have been seen as a threat to this egalitarianism. Doubts about his political allegiance, though not mentioned in the formal charges against him, could easily have swayed some jurors to vote against him. Socrates is the subject not only of Plato’s early dialogues but also of Xenophon’s Memorabilia, Socinus, Faustus Socrates 859   859 and in many respects their portraits are consistent with each other. But there are also some important differences. In the Memorabilia, Socrates teaches whatever a gentleman needs to know for civic purposes. He is filled with platitudinous advice, and is never perplexed by the questions he raises; e.g., he knows what the virtues are, equating them with obedience to the law. His views are not threatening or controversial, and always receive the assent of his interlocutors. By contrast, Plato’s Socrates presents himself as a perplexed inquirer who knows only that he knows nothing about moral matters. His interlocutors are sometimes annoyed by his questions and threatened by their inability to answer them. And he is sometimes led by force of argument to controversial conclusions. Such a Socrates could easily have made enemies, whereas Xenophon’s Socrates is sometimes too “good” to be true. But it is important to bear in mind that it is only the early works of Plato that should be read as an accurate depiction of the historical Socrates. Plato’s own theories, as presented in his middle and late dialogues, enter into philosophical terrain that had not been explored by the historical Socrates  even though in the middle and some of the late dialogues a figure called Socrates remains the principal speaker. We are told by Aristotle that Socrates confined himself to ethical questions, and that he did not postulate a separate realm of imperceptible and eternal abstract objects called “Forms” or “Ideas.” Although the figure called Socrates affirms the existence of these objects in such Platonic dialogues as the Phaedo and the Republic, Aristotle takes this interlocutor to be a vehicle for Platonic philosophy, and attributes to Socrates only those positions that we find in Plato’s earlier writing, e.g. in the Apology, Charmides, Crito, Euthyphro, Hippias Minor, Hippias Major, Ion, Laches, Lysis, and Protagoras. Socrates focused on moral philosophy almost exclusively; Plato’s attention was also devoted to the study of metaphysics, epistemology, physical theory, mathematics, language, and political philosophy. When we distinguish the philosophies of Socrates and Plato in this way, we find continuities in their thought  for instance, the questions posed in the early dialogues receive answers in the Republic  but there are important differences. For Socrates, being virtuous is a purely intellectual matter: it simply involves knowing what is good for human beings; once we master this subject, we will act as we should. Because he equates virtue with knowledge, Socrates frequently draws analogies between being virtuous and having mastered any ordinary subject  cooking, building, or geometry, e.g. For mastery of these subjects does not involve a training of the emotions. By contrast, Plato affirms the existence of powerful emotional drives that can deflect us from our own good, if they are not disciplined by reason. He denies Socrates’ assumption that the emotions will not resist reason, once one comes to understand where one’s own good lies. Socrates says in Plato’s Apology that the only knowledge he has is that he knows nothing, but it would be a mistake to infer that he has no convictions about moral matters  convictions arrived at through a difficult process of reasoning. He holds that the unexamined life is not worth living, that it is better to be treated unjustly than to do injustice, that understanding of moral matters is the only unconditional good, that the virtues are all forms of knowledge and cannot be separated from each other, that death is not an evil, that a good person cannot be harmed, that the gods possess the wisdom human beings lack and never act immorally, and so on. He does not accept these propositions as articles of faith, but is prepared to defend any of them; for he can show his interlocutors that their beliefs ought to lead them to accept these conclusions, paradoxical though they may be. Since Socrates can defend his beliefs and has subjected them to intellectual scrutiny, why does he present himself as someone who has no knowledge  excepting the knowledge of his own ignorance? The answer lies in his assumption that it is only a fully accomplished expert in any field who can claim knowledge or wisdom of that field; someone has knowledge of navigational matters, e.g., only if he has mastered the art of sailing, can answer all inquiries about this subject, and can train others to do the same. Judged by this high epistemic standard, Socrates can hardly claim to be a moral expert, for he lacks answers to the questions he raises, and cannot teach others to be virtuous. Though he has examined his moral beliefs and can offer reasons for them  an accomplishment that gives him an overbearing sense of superiority to his contemporaries  he takes himself to be quite distant from the ideal of moral perfection, which would involve a thorough understanding of all moral matters. This keen sense of the moral and intellectual deficiency of all human beings accounts for a great deal of Socrates’ appeal, just as his arrogant disdain for his fellow citizens no doubt contributed to his demise. Socrates Socrates 860   860  -- Socratic intellectualism, the claim that moral goodness or virtue consists exclusively in a kind of knowledge, with the implication that if one knows what is good and evil, one cannot fail to be a good person and to act in a morally upright way. The claim and the term derive from Socrates; a corollary is another claim of Socrates: there is no moral weakness or akrasia  all wrong action is due to the agent’s ignorance. Socrates defends this view in Plato’s dialogue Protagoras. There are two ways to understand Socrates’ view that knowledge of the good is sufficient for right action. 1 All desires are rational, being focused on what is believed to be good; thus, an agent who knows what is good will have no desire to act contrary to that knowledge. 2 There are non-rational desires, but knowledge of the good has sufficient motivational power to overcome them. Socratic intellectualism was abandoned by Plato and Aristotle, both of whom held that emotional makeup is an essential part of moral character. However, they retained the Socratic idea that there is a kind of knowledge or wisdom that ensures right action  but this knowledge presupposes antecedent training and molding of the passions. Socratic intellectualism was later revived and enjoyed a long life as a key doctrine of the Stoics.  -- Socratic irony, a form of indirect communication frequently employed by Socrates in Plato’s early dialogues, chiefly to praise insincerely the abilities of his interlocutors while revealing their ignorance; or, to disparage his own abilities, e.g. by denying that he has knowledge. Interpreters disagree whether Socrates’ self-disparagement is insincere.  -- Socratic paradoxes, a collection of theses associated with Socrates that contradict opinions about moral or practical matters shared by most people. Although there is no consensus on the precise number of Socratic paradoxes, each of the following theses has been identified as one. 1 Because no one desires evil things, anyone who pursues evil things does so involuntarily. 2 Because virtue is knowledge, anyone who does something morally wrong does so involuntarily. 3 It is better to be unjustly treated than to do what is unjust. The first two theses are associated with weakness of will or akrasia. It is sometimes claimed that the topic of the first thesis is prudential weakness, whereas that of the second is moral weakness; the reference to “evil things” in 1 is not limited to things that are morally evil. Naturally, various competing interpretations of these theses have been offered. Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Oxonian dialectic; or, Athenian dialetic, revisited.” Speranza, “Iconografia della scuola di atene.”

AD-TENVATVM attenuatum – Grice: “Etymologically, “ad-tenuatum” -- attenuated cases of communication -- Borderline – case -- degenerate case, an expression used more or less loosely to indicate an individual or class that falls outside of a given background class to which it is otherwise very closely related, often in virtue of an ordering of a more comprehensive class. A degenerate case of one class is often a limiting case of a more comprehensive class. Rest zero velocity is a degenerate case of motion positive velocity while being a limiting case of velocity. The circle is a degenerate case of an equilateral and equiangular polygon. In technical or scientific contexts, the conventional term for the background class is often “stretched” to cover otherwise degenerate cases. A figure composed of two intersecting lines is a degenerate case of hyperbola in the sense of synthetic geometry, but it is a limiting case of hyperbola in the sense of analytic geometry. The null set is a degenerate case of set in an older sense but a limiting case of set in a modern sense. A line segment is a degenerate case of rectangle when rectangles are ordered by ratio of length to width, but it is not a limiting case under these conditions. 

AD-TRIBVTVM -- attributum: Grice: “Etymologially, “ad-tributum” -- attribution theory, a theory in social psychology concerned with how and why ordinary people explain events. People explain by attributing causal powers to certain events rather than others. The theory attempts to describe and clarify everyday commonsense explanation, to identify criteria of explanatory success presupposed by common sense, and to compare and contrast commonsense explanation with scientific explanation. The heart of attribution theory is the thesis that people tend to attribute causal power to factors personally important to them, which they believe covary with alleged effects. For example, a woman may designate sexual discrimination as the cause of her not being promoted in a corporation. Being female is important to her and she believes that promotion and failure covary with gender. Males get promoted; females don’t. Causal attributions tend to preserve self-esteem, reduce cognitive dissonance, and diminish the attributor’s personal responsibility for misdeeds. When attributional styles or habits contribute to emotional ill-being, e.g. to chronic, inappropriate feelings of depression or guilt, attribution theory offers the following therapeutic recommendation: change attributions so as to reduce emotional ill-being and increase well-being. Hence if the woman blames herself for the failure, and if self-blame is part of her depressive attributional style, she would be encouraged to look outside herself, perhaps to sexual discrimination, for the explanation.

agostino: Grice: “I loved his semiotics in De magistro!” --  Or as Strawson would prefer, augustinus -- Augustinian semiotics -- Augustine, Saint, known as Augustine of Hippo 354430, Christian philosopher and church father, one of the chief sources of Christian thought in the West; his importance for medieval and modern European philosophy is impossible to describe briefly or ever to circumscribe. Matters are made more difficult because Augustine wrote voluminously and dialectically as a Christian theologian, treating philosophical topics for the most part only as they were helpful to theology  or as corrected by it. Augustine fashioned the narrative of the Confessions 397400 out of the events of the first half of his life. He thus supplied later biographers with both a seductive selection of biographical detail and a compelling story of his successive conversions from adolescent sensuality, to the image-laden religion of the Manichaeans, to a version of Neoplatonism, and then to Christianity. The story is an unexcelled introduction to Augustine’s views of philosophy. It shows, for instance, that Augustine received very little formal education in philosophy. He was trained as a rhetorician, and the only philosophical work that he mentions among his early reading is Cicero’s lost Hortensius, an exercise in persuasion to the study of philosophy. Again, the narrative makes plain that Augustine finally rejected Manichaeanism because he came to see it as bad philosophy: a set of sophistical fantasies without rational coherence or explanatory force. More importantly, Augustine’s final conversion to Christianity was prepared by his reading in “certain books of the Platonists” Confessions 7.9.13. These Latin translations, which seem to have been anthologies or manuals of philosophic teaching, taught Augustine a form of Neoplatonism that enabled him to conceive of a cosmic hierarchy descending from an immaterial, eternal, and intelligible God. On Augustine’s judgment, philosophy could do no more than that; it could not give him the power to order his own life so as to live happily and in a stable relation with the now-discovered God. Yet in his first years as a Christian, Augustine took time to write a number of works in philosophical genres. Best known among them are a refutation of Academic Skepticism Contra academicos, 386, a theodicy De ordine, 386, and a dialogue on the place of human choice within the providentially ordered hierarchy created by God De libero arbitrio, 388/39. Within the decade of his conversion, Augustine was drafted into the priesthood 391 and then consecrated bishop 395. The thirty-five years of his life after that consecration were consumed by labors on behalf of the church in northern Africa and through the Latin-speaking portions of the increasingly fragmented empire. Most of Augustine’s episcopal writing was polemical both in origin and in form; he composed against authors or movements he judged heretical, especially the Donatists and Pelagians. But Augustine’s sense of his authorship also led him to write works of fundamental theology conceived on a grand scale. The most famous of these works, beyond the Confessions, are On the Trinity 399412, 420, On Genesis according to the Letter 40115, and On the City of God 41326. On the Trinity elaborates in subtle detail the distinguishable “traces” of Father, Son, and Spirit in the created world and particularly in the human soul’s triad of memory, intellect, and will. The commentary on Genesis 13, which is meant to be much more than a “literal” commentary in the modern sense, treats many topics in philosophical psychology and anthropology. It also teaches such cosmological doctrines as the “seed-reasons” rationes seminales by which creatures are given intelligible form. The City of God begins with a critique of the bankruptcy of pagan civic religion and its attendant philosophies, but it ends with the depiction of human history as a combat between forces of self-love, conceived as a diabolic city of earth, and the graced love of God, which founds that heavenly city within which alone peace is possible. attributive pluralism Augustine 60   60 A number of other, discrete doctrines have been attached to Augustine, usually without the dialectical nuances he would have considered indispensable. One such doctrine concerns divine “illumination” of the human intellect, i.e., some active intervention by God in ordinary processes of human understanding. Another doctrine typically attributed to Augustine is the inability of the human will to do morally good actions without grace. A more authentically Augustinian teaching is that introspection or inwardness is the way of discovering the created hierarchies by which to ascend to God. Another authentic teaching would be that time, which is a distension of the divine “now,” serves as the medium or narrative structure for the creation’s return to God. But no list of doctrines or positions, however authentic or inauthentic, can serve as a faithful representation of Augustine’s thought, which gives itself only through the carefully wrought rhetorical forms of his texts. 

Austin -- , the other uastin. austinian: J.: discussed by Grice in his explorations on moral versus legal right. English legal philosopher known especially for his command theory of law. His career as a lawyer was unsuccessful but his reputation as a scholar was such that on the founding of  , London, he was offered the chair of jurisprudence. In 1832 he published the first ten of his lectures, compressed into six as The Province of Jurisprudence Determined. Although he published a few papers, and his somewhat fragmentary Lectures on Jurisprudence 1863 was published posthumously, it is on the Province that his reputation rests. He and Bentham his friend, London neighbor, and fellow utilitarian were the foremost English legal philosophers of their time, and their influence on the course of legal philosophy endures. Austin held that the first task of legal philosophy, one to which he bends most of his energy, is to make clear what laws are, and if possible to explain why they are what they are: their rationale. Until those matters are clear, legislative proposals and legal arguments can never be clear, since irrelevant considerations will inevitably creep in. The proper place for moral or theological considerations is in discussion of what the positive law ought to be, not of what it is. Theological considerations reduce to moral ones, since God can be assumed to be a good utilitarian. It is positive laws, “that is to say the laws which are simply and strictly so called, . . . which form the appropriate matter of general and particular jurisprudence.” They must also be distinguished from “laws metaphorical or figurative.” A law in its most general senseis “a rule laid down for the guidance of an intelligent being by an intelligent being having power over him.” It is a command, however phrased. It is the commands of men to men, of political superiors, that form the body of positive law. General or comparative jurisprudence, the source of the rationale, if any, of particular laws, is possible because there are commands nearly universal that may be attributed to God or Nature, but they become positive law only when laid down by a ruler. The general model of an Austinian analytic jurisprudence built upon a framework of definitions has been widely followed, but cogent objections, especially by Hart, have undermined the command theory of law. 

austin:  Grice: “Never to be confused with David Austin, of rosarian infame!” -- Grice referred to him as “Austin the younger,” in opposition to “Austin the elder” – (Austin never enjoyed the joke). j. l. H. P. Grice, “The Austinian Code.” English philosopher, a leading exponent of postwar “linguistic” philosophy. Educated primarily as a classicist at Shrewsbury and Balliol , Oxford, he taught philosophy at Magdalen . During World War II he served at a high level in military intelligence, which earned him the O.B.E., Croix de Guerre, and Legion of Merit. In 2 he became White’s Professor of Moral Philosophy at Oxford, and in 5 and 8 he held visiting appointments at Harvard and Berkeley, respectively. In his relatively brief career, Austin published only a few invited papers; his influence was exerted mainly through discussion with his colleagues, whom he dominated more by critical intelligence than by any preconceived view of what philosophy should be. Unlike some others, Austin did not believe that philosophical problems all arise out of aberrations from “ordinary language,” nor did he necessarily find solutions there; he dwelt, rather, on the authority of the vernacular as a source of nice and pregnant distinctions, and held that it deserves much closer attention than it commonly receives from philosophers. It is useless, he thought, to pontificate at large about knowledge, reality, or existence, for example, without first examining in detail how, and when, the words ‘know’, ‘real’, and ‘exist’ are employed in daily life. In Sense and Sensibilia 2; compiled from lecture notes, the sense-datum theory comes under withering fire for its failings in this respect. Austin also provoked controversy with his well-known distinction between “performative” and “constative” utterances ‘I promise’ makes a promise, whereas ‘he promised’ merely reports one; he later recast this as a threefold differentiation of locutionary, illocutionary, and perlocutionary “forces” in utterance, corresponding roughly to the meaning, intention, and consequences of saying a thing, in one context or another. Though never very stable or fully worked out, these ideas have since found a place in the still-evolving study of speech acts.  austinian code, The: The jocular way by Grice to refer to ‘The Master,’ whom he saw wobble on more than one occasion. Grice has mixed feelings (“or fixed meelings, if you prefer”) about Austin. Unlike Austin, Grice is a Midlands scholarship boy, and ends up in Corpus. One outcome of this, as he later reminisced is that Austin never cared to invite him to the Thursday-evenings at All Souls – “which was alright, I suppose, in that the number was appropriately restricted to seven.” But Grice confessed that he thought it was because “he had been born on the wrong side of the tracks.” After the war, Grice would join what Grice, in fun, called “the Playgroup,” which was anything BUT. Austin played the School Master, and let the kindergarten relax in the sun! One reason Grice avoided publication was the idea that Austin would criticise him. Austin never cared to recognise Grice’s “Personal Identity,” or less so, “Meaning.” He never mentioned his “Metaphysics” third programme lecture – but Austin never made it to the programme. Grice socialized very well with who will be Austin’s custodians, in alphabetical order, Urmson and Warnock – “two charmers.” Unlike Austin, Urmson and Warnock were the type of person Austin would philosophise with – and he would spend hours talking about visa with Warnock. Upon Austin’s demise, Grice kept with the ‘play group’, which really became one! Grice makes immense references to Austin. Austin fits Grice to a T, because of the ‘mistakes’ he engages in. So, it is fair to say that Grice’s motivation for the coinage of implicaturum was Austin (“He would too often ignore the distinction between what a ‘communicator’ communicates and what his expression, if anything, does.”). So Grice attempts an intention-based account of the communicator’s message. Within this message, there is ONE aspect that can usually be regarded as being of ‘philosophical interest.’ The ‘unnecessary implicaturum’ is bound to be taken Austin as part of the ‘philosophical interesting’ bit when it isn’t. So Grice is criticizing Austin for providing the wrong analysis for the wrong analysandum. Grice refers specifically to the essays in “Philosophical Papers,” notably “Other Minds” and “A Plea for Excuses.” But he makes a passing reference to “Sense and Sensibilia,” whose tone Grice dislikes, and makes a borrowing or two from the ‘illocution,’ never calling it by that name. At most, Grice would adapt Austin’s use of ‘act.’ But his rephrase is ‘conversational move.’ So Grice would say that by making a conversational ‘move,’ the conversationalist may be communicating TWO things. He spent some type finding a way to conceptualise this. He later came with the metaphor of the FIRST-FLOOR act, the MEZZANINE act, and the SECOND-FLOOR act. This applies to Fregeianisms like ‘aber,’ but it may well apply to Austinian-code type of utterances.  austinianism: Grice felt sorry for Nowell-Smith, whom he calls the ‘straight-man’ for the comedy double act with Austin at the Play Groups. “I would say ‘on principle’” – “I would say, ‘no, thanks.” “I don’t understand Donne.” “It’s perfectly clear to me.” By using Nowell-Sith, Grice is implicating that Austin had little manners in the ‘play group,’ “And I wasn’t surprised when Nowell-Smith left Oxford for good, almost.” Not quite, of course. After some time in the extremely fashionable Canterbury, Nowell-Smith returns to Oxford. Vide: nowell-smithianism. -- speech act theory, the theory of language use, sometimes called pragmatics, as opposed to the theory of meaning, or semantics. Based on the meaninguse distinction, it categorizes systematically the sorts of things that can be done with words and explicates the ways these are determined, underdetermined, or undetermined by the meanings of the words used. Relying further on the distinction between speaker meaning and linguistic meaning, it aims to characterize the nature of communicative intentions and how they are expressed and recognized. Speech acts are a species of intentional action. In general, one and the same utterance may comprise a number of distinct though related acts, each corresponding to a different intention on the part of the speaker. Beyond intending to produce a certain sequence of sounds forming a sentence in English, a person who utters the sentence ‘The door is open’, e.g., is likely to be intending to perform, in the terminology of J. L. Austin How to Do Things with Words, 2, 1 the locutionary act of saying expressing the proposition that a certain door is open, 2 the illocutionary act of making the statement expressing the belief that it is open, and 3 the perlocutionary act of getting his listener to believe that it is open. In so doing, he may be performing the indirect speech act of requesting illocutionary the listener to close the door and of getting perlocutionary the hearer to close the door. The primary focus of speech act theory is on illocutionary acts, which may be classified in a variety of ways. Statements, predictions, and answers exemplify constatives; requests, commands and permissions are directives; promises, offers, and bets are commissives; greetings, apologies, and congratulations are acknowledgments. These are all communicative illocutionary acts, each distinguished by the type of psychological state expressed by the speaker. Successful communication consists in the audience’s recognition of the speaker’s intention to be expressing a certain psychological state with a certain content. Conventional illocutionary acts, on the other hand, effect or officially affect institutional states of affairs. Examples of the former are appointing, resigning, sentencing, and adjourning; examples of the latter are assessing, acquitting, certifying, and grading. See Kent Bach and Robert M. Harnish, Linguistic Communication and Speech Acts, 9. The type of act an utterance exemplifies determines its illocutionary force. In the example ‘The door is open’, the utterance has the force of both a statement and a request. The illocutionary force potential of a sentence is the force or forces with which it can be used literally, e.g., in the case of the sentence ‘The door is open’, as a statement but not as a request. The felicity conditions on an illocutionary act pertain not only to its communicative or institutional success but also to its sincerity, appropriateness, and effectiveness. An explicit performative utterance is an illocutionary act performed by uttering an indicative sentence in the simple present tense with a verb naming the type of act being performed, e.g., ‘I apologize for everything I did’ and ‘You are requested not to smoke’. The adverb ‘hereby’ may be used before the performative verb ‘apologize’ and ‘request’ in these examples to indicate that the very utterance being made is the vehicle of the performance of the illocutionary act in question. A good test for distinguishing illocutionary from perlocutionary acts is to determine whether a verb naming the act can be used performatively. Austin exploited the phenomenon of performative utterances to expose the common philosophical error of assuming that the primary use of language is to make statements. 

AUTO-ARKHE -- autarkia: Grecian for ‘self-sufficiency,’ from ‘auto-‘, self, and ‘arkhe,’ principium. Autarkia was widely regarded as a mark of the human good, happiness eudaimonia. A life is self-sufficient when it is worthy of choice and lacks nothing. What makes a life self-sufficient  and thereby happy  was a matter of controversy. Stoics maintained that the mere possession of virtue would suffice; Aristotle and the Peripatetics insisted that virtue must be exercised and even, perhaps, accompanied by material goods. There was also a debate among later Grecian thinkers over whether a self-sufficient life is solitary or whether only life in a community can be self-sufficient. 

auto-phoric: Grice preferred, on occasion, the prefix ‘auto-‘ to what he calls the more barbaric ‘self-‘ – “But then the Romans did not really have an equivalent to Grecian ‘auto-‘, which helps.” -- self-referential incoherence, an internal defect of an assertion or theory, which it possesses provided that a it establishes some requirement that must be met by assertions or theories, b it is itself subject to this requirement, and c it fails to meet the requirement. The most famous example is logical positivism’s meaning criterion, which requires that all meaningful assertions be either tautological or empirically verifiable, yet is itself neither. A possible early example is found in Hume, whose own writings might have been consigned to the flames had librarians followed his counsel to do so with volumes that contain neither “abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number” nor “experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence.” Bold defiance was shown by Vitters, who, realizing that the propositions of the Tractatus did not “picture” the world, advised the reader to “throw away the ladder after he has climbed up it.” An epistemological example is furnished by any foundationalist theory that establishes criteria for rational acceptability that the theory itself cannot meet. 

.  

awareness: an Anglo-Saxon, “sort of,” term Grice liked – Grice: “The a- is archaic, is ware that is crucial.” -- for Grice, awareness means the doxastic attitude prefixed to any other state -- consciousness, a central feature of our lives that is notoriously difficult to characterize. You experience goings-on in the world, and, turning inward “introspecting”, you experience your experiencing. Objects of awareness can be external or internal. Pressing your finger on the edge of a table, you can be aware of the table’s edge, and aware of the feeling of pressure though perhaps not simultaneously. Philosophers from Locke to Nagel have insisted that our experiences have distinctive qualities: there is “something it is like” to have them. It would seem important, then, to distinguish qualities of objects of which you are aware from qualities of your awareness. Suppose you are aware of a round, red tomato. The tomato, but not your awareness, is round and red. What then are the qualities of your awareness? Here we encounter a deep puzzle that divides theorists into intransigent camps. Some materialists, like Dennett, insist that awareness lacks qualities or lacks qualities distinct from its objects: the qualities we attribute to experiences are really those of experienced objects. This opens the way to a dismissal of “phenomenal” qualities qualia, qualities that seem to have no place in the material world. Others T. Nagel, Ned Block regard such qualities as patently genuine, preferring to dismiss any theory unable to accommodate them. Convinced that the qualities of awareness are ineliminable and irreducible to respectable material properties, some philosophers, following Frank Jackson, contend they are “epiphenomenal”: real but causally inefficacious. Still others, including Searle, point to what they regard as a fundamental distinction between the “intrinsically subjective” character of awareness and the “objective,” “public” character of material objects, but deny that this yields epiphenomenalism. 

axioma – Grice: “Etymologically, possibly related to ‘axis,’ value.” -- Porphyry translated this as ‘principium,’ but Grice was not too happy about it! Referred to by Grice in his portrayal of the formalists in their account of an ‘ideal’ language. He is thinking Peano, Whitehead, and Russell. – the axiomatic method, originally, a method for reorganizing the accepted propositions and concepts of an existent science in order to increase certainty in the propositions and clarity in the concepts. Application of this method was thought to require the identification of 1 the “universe of discourse” domain, genus of entities constituting the primary subject matter of the science, 2 the “primitive concepts” that can be grasped immediately without the use of definition, 3 the “primitive propositions” or “axioms”, whose truth is knowable immediately, without the use of deduction, 4 an immediately acceptable “primitive definition” in terms of primitive concepts for each non-primitive concept, and 5 a deduction constructed by chaining immediate, logically cogent inferences ultimately from primitive propositions and definitions for each nonprimitive accepted proposition. Prominent proponents of more or less modernized versions of the axiomatic method, e.g. Pascal, Nicod 34, and Tarski, emphasizing the critical and regulatory function of the axiomatic method, explicitly open the possibility that axiomatization of an existent, preaxiomatic science may lead to rejection or modification of propositions, concepts, and argumentations that had previously been accepted. In many cases attempts to realize the ideal of an axiomatic science have resulted in discovery of “smuggled premises” and other previously unnoted presuppositions, leading in turn to recognition of the need for new axioms. Modern axiomatizations of geometry are much richer in detail than those produced in ancient Greece. The earliest extant axiomatic text is based on an axiomatization of geometry due to Euclid fl. 300 B.C., which itself was based on earlier, nolonger-extant texts. Archimedes 287212 B.C. was one of the earliest of a succession of postEuclidean geometers, including Hilbert, Oswald Veblen 00, and Tarski, to propose modifications of axiomatizations of classical geometry. The traditional axiomatic method, often called the geometric method, made several presuppositions no longer widely accepted. The advent of non-Euclidean geometry was particularly important in this connection. For some workers, the goal of reorganizing an existent science was joined to or replaced by a new goal: characterizing or giving implicit definition to the structure of the subject matter of the science. Moreover, subsequent innovations in logic and foundations of mathematics, especially development of syntactically precise formalized languages and effective systems of formal deductions, have substantially increased the degree of rigor attainable. In particular, critical axiomatic exposition of a body of scientific knowledge is now not thought to be fully adequate, however successful it may be in realizing the goals of the original axiomatic method, so long as it does not present the underlying logic including language, semantics, and deduction system. For these and other reasons the expression ‘axiomatic method’ has undergone many “redefinitions,” some of which have only the most tenuous connection with the original meaning.  The term ‘axiom’ has been associated to different items by philosophers. There’s the axiom of comprehension, also called axiom of abstraction, the axiom that for every property, there is a corresponding set of things having that property; i.e., f DA x x 1 A È f x, where f is a property and A is a set. The axiom was used in Frege’s formulation of set theory and is the axiom that yields Russell’s paradox, discovered in 1. If fx is instantiated as x 2 x, then the result that A 1 A È A 2 A is easily obtained, which yields, in classical logic, the explicit contradiction A 1 A & A 2 A. The paradox can be avoided by modifying the comprehension axiom and using instead the separation axiom, f DA x x 1 A Èfx & x 1 B. This yields only the result that A 1 A ÈA 2 A & A 1 B, which is not a contradiction. The paradox can also be avoided by retaining the comprehension axiom but restricting the symbolic language, so that ‘x 1 x’ is not a meaningful formula. Russell’s type theory, presented in Principia Mathematica, uses this approach.  Then there’s the axiom of consistency, an axiom stating that a given set of sentences is consistent. Let L be a formal language, D a deductive system for L, S any set of sentences of L, and C the statement ‘S is consistent’ i.e., ‘No contradiction is derivable from S via D’. For certain sets S e.g., the theorems of D it is interesting to ask: Can C be expressed in L? If so, can C be proved in D? If C can be expressed in L but not proved in D, can C be added consistently to D as a new axiom? Example from Gödel: Let L and D be adequate for elementary number theory, and S be the axioms of D; then C can be expressed in L but not proved in D, but can be added as a new axiom to form a stronger system D’. Sometimes we can express in L an axiom of consistency in the semantic sense i.e., ‘There is a universe in which all the sentences in S are true’. Trivial example: suppose the only non-logical axiom in D is ‘For any two sets B and B’, there exists the union of B and B’ ’. Then C might be ‘There is a set U such that, for any sets B and B’ in U, there exists in U the union of B and B’ ’. 

ayerianism:  Grice: “One of the most memorable pieces of Ayer’s philosophical depth is his ‘Saturday is in bed.’ It was so popular at Oxford that Ryle, Ayer’s tutor, felt he could use it without credit!’ -- a. j. , philosopher of Swiss ancestry, one of the most important of the Oxford logical positivists. He continued to occupy a dominant place in analytic philosophy as he gradually modified his adherence to central tenets of the view. He was educated at Eton and Oxford, and, after a brief period at the  of Vienna, became a lecturer in philosophy at Christ Church in 3. After the war he returned to Oxford as fellow and dean of Wadham . He was Grote Professor of the Philosophy of Mind and Logic at the  of London 659, Wykeham Professor of Logic in the  of Oxford and a fellow of New  978, and a fellow of Wolfson , Oxford 883. Ayer was knighted in 3 and was a Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur. His early work clearly and forcefully developed the implications of the positivists’ doctrines that all cognitive statements are either analytic and a priori, or synthetic, contingent, and a posteriori, and that empirically meaningful statements must be verifiable must admit of confirmation or disconfirmation. In doing so he defended reductionist analyses of the self, the external world, and other minds. Value statements that fail the empiricist’s criterion of meaning but defy naturalistic analysis were denied truth-value and assigned emotive meaning. Throughout his writings he maintained a foundationalist perspective in epistemology in which sense-data later more neutrally described occupied not only a privileged epistemic position but constituted the subject matter of the most basic statements to be used in reductive analyses. Although in later works he significantly modified many of his early views and abandoned much of their strict reductionism, he remained faithful to an empiricist’s version of foundationalism and the basic idea behind the verifiability criterion of meaning. His books include Language, Truth and Logic; The Foundations of Empirical Knowledge; The Problems of Knowledge; Philosophical Essays; The Concept of a Person; The Origins of Pragmatism; Metaphysics and Common Sense; Russell and Moore: The Analytical Heritage; The Central Questions of Philosophy; Probability and Evidence; Philosophy in the Twentieth Century; Russell; Hume; Freedom and Morality, Ludwig Vitters; and Voltaire. Born of Swiss parentage in London, “Freddie” got an Oxford educated, and though he wanted to be a judge, he read Lit. Hum (Phil.). He spent three months in Vienna, and when he returned, Grice called him ‘enfant terrible.’ Ayer would later cite Grice in the Aristotelian symposium on the Causal Theory of Perception. But the type of subtlety in conversational implicaturum that Grice is interested goes over Freddie’s head. (“That,” or he was not interested.” Grice was glad that Oxford was ready to attack Ayer on philosophical grounds, and he later lists Positivism as a ‘monster’ on his way to the City of Eternal Truth. “Verificationism” was anti-Oxonian, in being mainly anti-Bradleyian, who is recognised by every Oxonian philosopher as “one of the clearest and subtlest prosists in English, and particularly Oxonian, philosophy.” Ayer later became the logic professor at Oxford – which is now taught no longer at the Sub-Faculty of Philosophy, but the Department of Mathematics!

B

B: SUBJECT INDEX

B: NAME INDEX: ITALIANO

 BECCARIA

BOBBIO

BODEI

BOEZIO

BRUNO

BUONAFEDE

BUONARROTI

B: NAME INDEX: ENGLISH

BOSTOCK (Grice’s tutee at St. John’s)

babbage: discussed by Grice in his functionalist approach to philosophical psychology. English applied mathematician, inventor, and expert on machinery and manufacturing. His chief interest was in developing mechanical “engines” to compute tables of functions. Until the invention of the electronic computer, printed tables of functions were important aids to calculation. Babbage invented the difference engine, a machine that consisted of a series of accumulators each of which, in turn, transmitted its contents to its successor, which added to them to its own contents. He built only a model, but George and Edvard Scheutz built difference engines that were actually used. Though tables of squares and cubes could be calculated by a difference engine, the more commonly used tables of logarithms and of trigonometric functions could not. To calculate these and other useful functions, Babbage conceived of the analytical engine, a machine for numerical analysis. The analytical engine was to have a store memory and a mill arithmetic unit. The store was to hold decimal numbers on toothed wheels, and to transmit them to the mill and back by means of wheels and toothed bars. The mill was to carry out the arithmetic operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division mechanically, greatly extending the technology of small calculators. The operations of the mill were to be governed by pegged drums, derived from the music box. A desired sequence of operations would be punched on cards, which would be strung together like the cards of a Jacquard loom and read by the machine. The control mechanisms could branch and execute a different sequence of cards when a designated quantity changed sign. Numbers would be entered from punched cards and the answers punched on cards. The answers might also be imprinted on metal sheets from which the calculated tables would be printed, thus avoiding the errors of proofreading. Although Babbage formulated various partial plans for the analytical engine and built a few pieces of it, the machine was never realized. Given the limitations of mechanical computing technology, building an analytical engine would probably not have been an economical way to produce numerical tables. The modern electronic computer was invented and developed completely independently of Babbage’s pioneering work. Yet because of it, Babbage’s work has been publicized and he has become famous. 

baconian – “You can tell when a contitnental philosopher knows about insular philosopher when they can tell one bacon from the other.” – H. P. Grice. Francis: English philosopher, essayist, and scientific methodologist. In politics Bacon rose to the position of lord chancellor. In 1621 he retired to private life after conviction for taking bribes in his official capacity as judge. Bacon championed the new empiricism resulting from the achievements of early modern science. He opposed alleged knowledge based on appeals to authority, and on the barrenness of Scholasticism. He thought that what is needed is a new attitude and methodology based strictly on scientific practices. The goal of acquiring knowledge is the good of mankind: knowledge is power. The social order that should result from applied science is portrayed in his New Atlantis1627. The method of induction to be employed is worked out in detail in his Novum Organum 1620. This new logic is to replace that of Aristotle’s syllogism, as well as induction by simple enumeration of instances. Neither of these older logics can produce knowledge of actual natural laws. Bacon thought that we must intervene in nature, manipulating it by means of experimental control leading to the invention of new technology. There are well-known hindrances to acquisition of knowledge of causal laws. Such hindrances false opinions, prejudices, which “anticipate” nature rather than explain it, Bacon calls idols idola. Idols of the tribe idola tribus are natural mental tendencies, among which are the idle search for purposes in nature, and the impulse to read our own desires and needs into nature. Idols of the cave idola specus are predispositions of particular individuals. The individual is inclined to form opinions based on idiosyncrasies of education, social intercourse, reading, and favored authorities. Idols of the marketplace idola fori Bacon regards as the most potentially dangerous of all dispositions, because they arise from common uses of language that often result in verbal disputes. Many words, though thought to be meaningful, stand for nonexistent things; others, although they name actual things, are poorly defined or used in confused ways. Idols of the theater idola theatri depend upon the influence of received theories. The only authority possessed by such theories is that they are ingenious verbal constructions. The aim of acquiring genuine knowledge does not depend on superior skill in the use of words, but rather on the discovery of natural laws. Once the idols are eliminated, the mind is free to seek knowledge of natural laws based on experimentation. Bacon held that nothing exists in nature except bodies material objects acting in conformity with fixed laws. These laws are “forms.” For example, Bacon thought that the form or cause of heat is the motion of the tiny particles making up a body. This form is that on which the existence of heat depends. What induction seeks to show is that certain laws are perfectly general, universal in application. In every case of heat, there is a measurable change in the motion of the particles constituting the moving body. Bacon thought that scientific induction proceeds as follows. First, we look for those cases where, given certain changes, certain others invariably follow. In his example, if certain changes in the form motion of particles take place, heat always follows. We seek to find all of the “positive instances” of the form that give rise to the effect of that form. Next, we investigate the “negative instances,” cases where in the absence of the form, the qualitative change does not take place. In the operation of these methods it is important to try to produce experimentally “prerogative instances,” particularly striking or typical examples of the phenomenon under investigation. Finally, in cases where the object under study is present to some greater or lesser degree, we must be able to take into account why these changes occur. In the example, quantitative changes in degrees of heat will be correlated to quantitative changes in the speed of the motion of the particles. This method implies that backward causation Bacon, Francis 68   68 in many cases we can invent instruments to measure changes in degree. Such inventions are of course the hoped-for outcome of scientific inquiry, because their possession improves the lot of human beings. Bacon’s strikingly modern but not entirely novel empiricist methodology influenced nineteenth-century figures e.g., Sir John Herschel and J. S. Mill who generalized his results and used them as the basis for displaying new insights into scientific methodology. 

baconian: “You can tell when a continental philosopher knows the first thing about insular philosophy when they can tell one bacon from the other” – H. P. Grice. R., English philosopher who earned the honorific title of Doctor Mirabilis. He was one of the first medievals in the Latin West to lecture and comment on newly recovered work by Aristotle in natural philosophy, physics, and metaphysics. Born in Somerset and educated at both Oxford  and the  of Paris, he became by 1273 a master of arts at Paris, where he taught for about ten years. In 1247 he resigned his teaching post to devote his energies to investigating and promoting topics he considered neglected but important insofar as they would lead to knowledge of God. The English “experimentalist” Grosseteste, the man Peter of Maricourt, who did pioneering work on magnetism, and the author of the pseudo-Aristotelian Secretum secretorum influenced Roger’s new perspective. By 1257, however, partly from fatigue, Roger had put this work aside and entered the Franciscan order in England. To his dismay, he did not receive within the order the respect and freedom to write and teach he had expected. During the early 1260s Roger’s views about reforming the  curriculum reached Cardinal Guy le Gos de Foulques, who, upon becoming Pope Clement IV in 1265, demanded to see Roger’s writings. In response, Roger produced the Opus maius 1267  an encyclopedic work that argues, among other things, that 1 the study of Hebrew and Grecian is indispensable for understanding the Bible, 2 the study of mathematics encompassing geometry, astronomy, and astrology is, with experimentation, the key to all the sciences and instrumental in theology, and 3 philosophy can serve theology by helping in the conversion of non-believers. Roger believed that although the Bible is the basis for human knowledge, we can use reason in the service of knowledge. It is not that rational argument can, on his view, provide fullblown proof of anything, but rather that with the aid of reason one can formulate hypotheses about nature that can be confirmed by experience. According to Roger, knowledge arrived at in this way will lead to knowledge of nature’s creator. All philosophical, scientific, and linguistic endeavors are valuable ultimately for the service they can render to theology. Roger summarizes and develops his views on these matters in the Opus minus and the Opus tertium, produced within a year of the Opus maius. Roger was altogether serious in advocating curricular change. He took every opportunity to rail against many of his celebrated contemporaries e.g., Alexander of Hales, Bonaventure, Albertus Magnus, and Aquinas for not being properly trained in philosophy and for contributing to the demise of theology by lecturing on Peter Lombard’s Sentences instead of the Bible. He also wrote both Grecian and Hebrew grammars, did important work in optics, and argued for calendar reform on the basis of his admittedly derivative astronomical research. One should not, however, think that Roger was a good mathematician or natural scientist. He apparently never produced a single theorem or proof in mathematics, he was not always a good judge of astronomical competence he preferred al-Bitruji to Ptolemy, and he held alchemy in high regard, believing that base metals could be turned into silver and gold. Some have gone so far as to claim that Roger’s renown in the history of science is vastly overrated, based in part on his being confusedly linked with the fourteenthcentury Oxford Calculators, who do deserve credit for paving the way for certain developments in seventeenth-century science. Roger’s devotion to curricular reform eventually led to his imprisonment by Jerome of Ascoli the future Pope Nicholas IV, probably between 1277 and 1279. Roger’s teachings were said to have contained “suspect novelties.” Judging from the date of his imprisonment, these novelties may have been any number of propositions condemned by the bishop of Paris, Étienne Tempier, in 1277. But his imprisonment may also have had something to do with the anger he undoubtedly provoked by constantly abusing the members of his order regarding their approach to education, or with his controversial Joachimite views about the apocalypse and the imminent coming of the Antichrist. Given Roger’s interest in educational reform and his knack for systematization, it is not unlikely that he was abreast of and had something to say about most of the central philosophical issues of the day. If so, his writings could be an important source of information about thirteenth-century Scholastic philosophy generally. In this connection, recent investigations have revealed, e.g., that he may well have played an important role in the development of logic and philosophy of language during the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. In the course of challenging the views of certain people some of whom have been tentatively identified as Richard of Cornwall, Lambert of Auxerre, Siger of Brabant, Henry of Ghent, Boethius of Dacia, William Sherwood, and the Magister Abstractionum on the nature of signs and how words function as signs, Roger develops and defends views that appear to be original. The pertinent texts include the Sumule dialectices c.1250, the De signis part of Part III of the Opus maius, and the Compendium studii theologiae 1292. E.g., in connection with the question whether Jesus could be called a man during the three-day entombment and, thus, in connection with the related question whether man can be said to be animal when no man exists, and with the sophism ‘This is a dead man, therefore this is a man’, Roger was not content to distinguish words from all other signs as had been the tradition. He distinguished between signs originating from nature and from the soul, and between natural signification and conventional ad placitum signification which results expressly or tacitly from the imposition of meaning by one or more individuals. He maintained that words signify existing and non-existing entities only equivocally, because words conventionally signify only presently existing things. On this view, therefore, ‘man’ is not used univocally when applied to an existing man and to a dead man. 

bona fides: vs. mala fides: dishonest and blameworthy instances of self-deception; 2 inauthentic and self-deceptive refusal to admit to ourselves and others our full freedom, thereby avoiding anxiety in making decisions and evading responsibility for actions and attitudes Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 3; 3 hypocrisy or dishonesty in speech and conduct, as in making a promise without intending to keep it. One self-deceiving strategy identified by Sartre is to embrace other people’s views in order to avoid having to form one’s own; another is to disregard options so that one’s life appears predetermined to move in a fixed direction. Occasionally Sartre used a narrower, fourth sense: self-deceptive beliefs held on the basis of insincere and unreasonable interpretations of evidence, as contrasted with the dishonesty of “sincerely” acknowledging one truth “I am disposed to be a thief” in order to deny a deeper truth “I am free to change”. 

bain: a., philosopher and reformer, biographer of James Mill 2 and J. S. Mill 2 and founder of the first psychological journal, Mind 1876, to which Grice submitted his “Personal identity.” In the development of psychology, Bain represents in England alongside Continental thinkers such as Taine and Lotze the final step toward the founding of psychology as a science. His significance stems from his wish to “unite psychology and physiology,” fulfilled in The Senses and the Intellect 1855 and The Emotions and the Will 1859, abridged in one volume, Mental and Moral Science 1868. Neither Bain’s psychology nor his physiology were particularly original. His psychology came from English empiricism and associationism, his physiology from Johannes Muller’s 180158 Elements of Physiology 1842. Muller was an early advocate of the reflex, or sensorimotor, conception of the nervous system, holding that neurons conduct sensory information to the brain or motor commands from the brain, the brain connecting sensation with appropriate motor response. Like Hartley before him, Bain grounded the laws of mental association in the laws of neural connection. In opposition to faculty psychology, Bain rejected the existence of mental powers located in different parts of the brain On the Study of Character, 1861. By combining associationism with modern physiology, he virtually completed the movement of philosophical psychology toward science. In philosophy, his most important concept was his analysis of belief as “a preparation to act.” By thus entwining conception and action, he laid the foundation for pragmatism, and for the focus on adaptive behavior central to modern psychology.  . 

bite off more than you can chew: To bite is the function of the FRONT teeth (incisors and canines); the back teeth (molars) CHEW, crush, or grind. So the relation is Russellian.  1916 G. B. Shaw Pygmalion 195 The mistake we describe metaphorically as ‘biting off more than they can chew’.  a1960 J. L. Austin Sense & Sensibilia (1962) i. 1 They [sc. doctrines] all bite off more than they can chew. While the NED would not DARE define this obviousness, the OED does not. to undertake too much, to be too ambitious – “irrational” simpliciter for Grice (WoW).

basilides: philosopher, he improved on Valentinus’s doctrine of emanations, positing 365 the number of days in a year levels of existence in the Pleroma the fullness of the Godhead, all descending from the ineffable Father. He taught that the rival God was the God of the Jews the God of the Old Testament, who created the material world. Redemption consists in the coming of the first begotten of the Father, Noûs Mind, in human form in order to release the spiritual element imprisoned within human bodies. Like other gnostics he taught that we are saved by knowledge, not faith. He apparently held to the idea of reincarnation before the restoration of all things to the Pleroma. 

basis: basing relation, also called basis relation, the relation between a belief or item of knowledge and a second belief or item of knowledge when the latter is the ground basis of the first. It is clear that some knowledge is indirect, i.e., had or gained on the basis of some evidence, as opposed to direct knowledge, which assuming there is any is not so gained, or based. The same holds for justified belief. In one broad sense of the term, the basing relation is just the one connecting indirect knowledge or indirectly justified belief to the evidence: to give an account of either of the latter is to give an account of the basing relation. There is a narrower view of the basing relation, perhaps implicit in the first. A person knows some proposition P on the basis of evidence or reasons only if her belief that P is based on the evidence or reasons, or perhaps on the possession of the evidence or reasons. The narrow basing relation is indicated by this question: where a belief that P constitutes indirect knowledge or justification, what is it for that belief to be based on the evidence or reasons that support the knowledge or justification? The most widely favored view is that the relevant belief is based on evidence or reasons only if the belief is causally related to the belief or reasons. Proponents of this causal view differ concerning what, beyond this causal relationship, is needed by an account of the narrow basing relation. 

. 

bath: Grice never referred to William of Occam as “William” (“that would be rude”). Similarlly, his Adelard of Bath is referred to as “Bath.” (“Sometimes I wish people would refer to me as “Harborne” but that was the day!”). “Of course, it is amusing to refer to adelard as “Bath” since he was only there for twelve years! But surely to call him “Oxford” would be supernumerary!”. Grice found inspiration on Adelard’s “On the same and the different,” and he was pleased that he had been educated not far from Bath, at Clifton! Adelard is Benedictine monk notable for his contributions to the introduction of Arabic science in the West. After studying at Tours, he taught at Laon, then spent seven years traveling in Italy, possibly Spain, and Cilicia and Syria, before returning to England. In his dialogue On the Same and the Different, he remarks, concerning universals, that the names of individuals, species, and genera are imposed on the same essence regarded in different respects. He also wrote Seventy-six Questions on Nature, based on Arabic learning; works on the use of the abacus and the astrolabe; a work on falconry; and translations of Abu Ma’shar’s Arabic active euthanasia Adelard of Bath 9 4065A-   9 Shorter Introduction to Astronomy, al-Khwarizmi’s fl. c.830 astronomical tables, and Euclid’s Elements.

bayle: p., Grice on longitudinal history of philosophy. philosopher who also pioneered in disinterested, critical history. A Calvinist forced into exile in 1681, Bayle nevertheless rejected the prevailing use of history as an instrument of partisan or sectarian interest. He achieved fame and notoriety with his multivolume Dictionnaire historique et critique 1695. For each subject covered, Bayle provided a biographical sketch and a dispassionate examination of the historical record and interpretive controversies. He also repeatedly probed the troubled and troubling boundary between reason and faith philosophy and religion. In the article “David,” the seemingly illicit conduct of God’s purported agent yielded reflections on the morals of the elect and the autonomy of ethics. In “Pyrrho,” Bayle argued that self-evidence, the most plausible candidate for the criterion of truth, is discredited by Christianity because some self-evident principles contradict essential Christian truths and are therefore false. Finally, provoking Leibniz’s Theodicy, Bayle argued, most relentlessly in “Manichaeans” and “Paulicians,” that there is no defensible rational solution to the problem of evil. Bayle portrayed himself as a Christian skeptic, but others have seen instead an ironic critic of religion  a precursor of the  Enlightenment. Bayle’s purely philosophical reflections support his self-assessment, since he consistently maintains that philosophy achieves not comprehension and contentment, but paradox and puzzlement. In making this case he proved to be a superb critic of philosophical systems. Some examples are “Zeno of Elea”  on space, time, and motion; “Rorarius”  on mind and body and animal mechanism; and “Spinoza”  on the perils of monism. Bayle’s skepticism concerning philosophy significantly influenced Berkeley and Hume. His other important works include Pensées diverses de la comète de 1683 1683; Commentaire philosophique sur ces paroles de Jesus Christ: contrain les d’entrer 1686; and Réponse aux questions d’un provincial1704; and an early learned periodical, the Nouvelles de la République des Lettres 1684 87. 

beattie, j. Common-sense – H. P. Grice, “The so-called English common-sense,” Beattie: j. philosopher and poet who, in criticizing Hume, widened the latter’s audience. A member of the Scottish school of common sense philosophy along with Oswald and Reid, Beattie’s major work was An Essay on the Nature and Immutability of Truth 1771, in which he criticizes Hume for fostering skepticism and infidelity. His positive view was that the mind possesses a common sense, i.e., a power for perceiving self-evident truths. Common sense is instinctive, unalterable by education; truth is what common sense determines the mind to believe. Beattie cited Hume and then claimed that his views led to moral and religious evils. When Beattie’s Essay was tr. into G. 1772, Kant could read Hume’s discussions of personal identity and causation. Since these topics were not covered in Hume’s Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Beattie provided Kant access to two issues in the Treatises of Human Nature critical to the development of transcendental idealism.

beccaria, one of the most essential of Italian philosophers – Referred to by H. P. Grice in his explorations on moral versus legal right, studied in Parma and Pavia and taught political economy in Milan. Here, he met Pietro and Alessandro Verri and other Milanese intellectuals attempting to promote political, economical, and judiciary reforms. His major work, Dei delitti e delle pene “On Crimes and Punishments,” 1764, denounces the contemporary methods in the administration of justice and the treatment f criminals. Beccaria argues that the highest good is the greatest happiness shared by the greatest number of people; hence, actions against the state are the most serious crimes. Crimes against individuals and property are less serious, and crimes endangering public harmony are the least serious. The purposes of punishment are deterrence and the protection of society. However, the employment of torture to obtain confessions is unjust and useless: it results in acquittal of the strong and the ruthless and conviction of the weak and the innocent. Beccaria also rejects the death penalty as a war of the state against the individual. He claims that the duration and certainty of the punishment, not its intensity, most strongly affect criminals. Beccaria was influenced by Montesquieu, Rousseau, and Condillac. His major work was tr. into many languages and set guidelines for revising the criminal and judicial systems of several European countries. Se dimostrerò non essere la pena di morte né utile, né necessaria, avrò vinto la causa dell’umanità.»  (da Dei delitti e delle pene) Cesare Beccaria Bonesana, marchese di Gualdrasco e di Villareggio[2] (Milano, 15 marzo 1738 – Milano, 28 novembre 1794), è stato un giurista, filosofo, economista e letterato italiano considerato tra i massimi esponenti dell'illuminismo italiano, figura di spicco della scuola illuministica milanese.  La sua opera principale, il trattato Dei delitti e delle pene, in cui viene condotta un'analisi politica e giuridica contro la pena di morte e la tortura sulla base del razionalismo e del pragmatismo di stampo utilitarista, è tra i testi più influenti della storia del diritto penale ed ispirò tra gli altri il codice penale voluto dal granduca Pietro Leopoldo di Toscana.  Nonno materno di Alessandro Manzoni, Cesare Beccaria è considerato inoltre come uno dei padri fondatori della teoria classica del diritto penale e della criminologia di scuola liberale[3]. Cesare Beccaria nacque a Milano (allora appartenente all'impero asburgico), figlio di Giovanni Saverio di Francesco e di Maria[4] Visconti di Saliceto, il 15 marzo 1738. Fu educato a Parma dai gesuiti e si laureò in Giurisprudenza il 13 settembre 1758 all'Università degli Studi di Pavia. Il padre aveva sposato la Visconti in seconde nozze nel 1736, dopo essere rimasto vedovo nel 1730 di Cecilia Baldroni.  Nel 1760 Cesare sposò Teresa Blasco contro la volontà del padre, che lo costrinse a rinunciare ai diritti di primogenitura (mantenne però il titolo di marchese[5]); da questo matrimonio ebbe quattro figli: Giulia (1762-1841), Maria (1766-1788), nata con gravi problemi neurologici e morta giovane, Giovanni Annibale nato e morto nel 1767 e Margherita anch'essa nata e morta nel 1772.  Il padre lo cacciò anche da casa dopo il matrimonio, così dovette essere ospitato da Pietro Verri, che lo mantenne anche economicamente per un periodo.  Teresa morì il 14 marzo 1774, a causa della sifilide o della tubercolosi. Beccaria, dopo appena 40 giorni di vedovanza, firmò il contratto di matrimonio con Anna dei Conti Barnaba Barbò, che sposò in seconde nozze il 4 giugno 1774, ad appena 82 giorni dalla morte della prima moglie. Da Anna Barbò ebbe un altro figlio, Giulio.[6] l suo avvicinamento all'Illuminismo avvenne dopo la lettura delle Lettere persiane di Montesquieu e del “Contratto sociale” di Rousseau, grazie ai quali si entusiasmò per i problemi filosofici e sociali ed entrò nel cenacolo di casa Verri, dove aveva sede anche la redazione del Caffè, il più celebre giornale politico-letterario del tempo, per il quale scrisse sporadicamente. Dopo la pubblicazione di alcuni articoli di economia, nel 1764 diede alle stampe Dei delitti e delle pene, capolavoro ispirato dalle discussioni in casa Verri del problema dello stato deplorevole della giustizia penale. Inizialmente anonimo è un breve scritto contro la tortura e la pena di morte che ebbe enorme fortuna in tutta Europa e nel mondo e in particolare in Francia.  Contro le posizioni di Beccaria uscì, nel 1765 il testo Note ed osservazioni sul libro intitolato Dei delitti e delle pene di Ferdinando Facchinei. Le polemiche che ne seguirono contribuirono alla decisione di mettere il trattato di Beccaria all'Indice dei libri proibiti nel 1766, a causa della distinzione tra peccato e reato. Nel 1766 Beccaria viaggiò poi controvoglia fino a Parigi, e solo dietro l'insistenza dei fratelli Verri e dei filosofi francesi desiderosi di conoscerlo. Fu accolto per breve tempo nel circolo del barone d'Holbach. La sua giustificata gelosia per la moglie lontana e il suo carattere ombroso e scostante, fecero sì che appena possibile tornasse a Milano, lasciando solo il suo accompagnatore Alessandro Verri a proseguire il viaggio verso l'Inghilterra.[6] Il carattere riservato e riluttante di Beccaria, tanto nelle vicende private quanto nelle pubbliche, ebbe nei fratelli Verri, e soprattutto in Pietro, un fondamentale punto di appoggio e di stimolo soprattutto quando iniziò ad interessarsi allo studio dell'economia. Come Rousseau, Beccaria era a tratti paranoico e aveva spesso sbalzi d'umore, la sua personalità era abbastanza indolente e il carattere debole, poco brillante e non portato alla vita sociale; ciò non gli impediva però di esprimere molto bene i concetti che aveva in mente, soprattutto nei suoi scritti.[6]  Tornato a Milano nel 1768 ottenne la cattedra di Scienze Camerali (economia politica), creata per lui nelle scuole palatine di Milano e cominciò a progettare una grande opera sulla convivenza umana, mai completata.   Antonio Perego, L'Accademia dei Pugni. Da sinistra a destra: Alfonso Longo (di spalle), Alessandro Verri, Giambattista Biffi, Cesare Beccaria, Luigi Lambertenghi, Pietro Verri, Giuseppe Visconti di Saliceto Entrato nell'amministrazione austriaca nel 1771, fu nominato membro del Supremo Consiglio dell'Economia, carica che ricoprì per oltre vent'anni, contribuendo alle riforme asburgiche sotto Maria Teresa e Giuseppe II. Fu criticato per questo dagli amici (tra cui Pietro Verri), che gli rimproveravano di essere diventato un burocrate[7]. Gli studiosi, però, considerano questi giudizi ingiusti dal momento che Cesare Beccaria si dedicò ad importanti riforme, che richiedevano una notevole preparazione intellettuale, non solo amministrativa. Fra queste ci fu la riforma delle misure dello stato milanese, intrapresa prima di quella del sistema metrico decimale francese, e a cui Beccaria, insieme al fratello Annibale, dedicò quasi vent'anni della sua vita. (La riforma, notevolmente complessa, coinvolse alla fine solo il braccio milanese. La successiva riforma dei pesi non fu mai realizzata.)[8]  Il suo rapporto con la figlia Giulia, futura madre di Alessandro Manzoni, fu conflittuale per gran parte della sua vita; ella era stata messa in collegio (nonostante Beccaria avesse spesso deprecato i collegi religiosi) subito dopo la morte della madre e lì dimenticata per quasi sei anni: suo padre non volle più sapere niente di lei per molto tempo e non la considerò mai sua figlia, bensì il frutto di una relazione extraconiugale delle numerose che la moglie aveva avuto. Beccaria non si sentiva adeguato al ruolo di padre, inoltre negò l'eredità materna alla figlia, avendo contratto dei debiti: ciò gli diede la fama di irriducibile avarizia.[6] Giulia uscì dal collegio nel 1780, frequentando poi gli ambienti illuministi e libertini. Nel 1782 la diede in sposa al conte Pietro Manzoni, più vecchio di vent'anni di lei: il nipote Alessandro nacque nel 1785, ma pare fosse in realtà il figlio di Giovanni Verri, fratello minore di Pietro e Alessandro, e amante di Giulia. Prima della morte del padre, Giulia abbandonò il marito, nel 1792, per andare a vivere a Parigi insieme al conte Carlo Imbonati, rompendo i rapporti definitivamente col padre, [6] e temporaneamente anche con il figlio.  Beccaria morì a Milano il 28 novembre 1794, a causa di un ictus, all'età di 56 anni, e trovò sepoltura nel Cimitero della Mojazza, fuori Porta Comasina, in una sepoltura popolare (dove fu sepolto anche Giuseppe Parini) anziché nella tomba di famiglia. Quando tutti i resti vennero traslati nel cimitero monumentale di Milano, un secolo dopo, si perse traccia della tomba del grande giurista. Pietro Verri, con una riflessione valida ancora oggi, deplorò nei suoi scritti il fatto che i milanesi non avessero onorato abbastanza il nome di Cesare Beccaria, né da vivo né da morto, che tanta gloria aveva portato alla città. Ai funerali di Beccaria era presente anche il giovane nipote Alessandro Manzoni (che riprenderà molte delle riflessioni del nonno e di Verri nella Storia della colonna infame e nel suo capolavoro, I promessi sposi), nonché il figlio superstite ed erede, Giulio.[9] Beccaria fu influenzato dalla lettura di Locke, Helvetius, Rousseau e, come gran parte degli illuministi milanesi, dal sensismo di Condillac. Fu influenzato anche dagli enciclopedisti, in particolare da Voltaire e Diderot. Partendo dalla classica teoria contrattualistica del diritto, derivata in parte dalla formulazione datane da Rousseau, che sostanzialmente fonda la società su un contratto sociale (nell'omonima opera) teso a salvaguardare i diritti degli individui e a garantire in questo modo l'ordine, Beccaria definì in pratica il delitto in maniera laica come una violazione del contratto, e non come offesa alla legge divina, che appartiene alla coscienza della persona e non alla sfera pubblica[10]. La società nel suo complesso godeva pertanto di un diritto di autodifesa, da esercitare in misura proporzionata al delitto commesso (principio del proporzionalismo della pena) e secondo il principio contrattualistico per cui nessun uomo può disporre della vita di un altro (Rousseau non considerava moralmente lecito nemmeno il suicidio, in quanto non l'uomo, ma la natura, nella visione del ginevrino, aveva potere sulla propria vita, e quindi tale diritto non poteva certamente andare allo Stato, che comunque avrebbe violato un diritto individuale). Il punto di vista illuministico del Beccaria si concentra in frasi come «Non vi è libertà ogni qual volta le leggi permettono che in alcuni eventi l'uomo cessi di essere persona e diventi cosa». Ribadisce come è necessario neutralizzare l'«inutile prodigalità di supplizi» ampiamente diffusi nella società del suo tempo. La tesi umanitaria, messa in risalto da Voltaire, è parzialmente da lui accantonata, in quanto Beccaria vuole dimostrare pragmaticamente l'inutilità della tortura e della pena di morte, più che la loro ingiustizia. Egli è infatti consapevole che i legislatori sono mossi più dall'utile pratico di una legge, che da principi assoluti, di ordine religioso o filosofico[11]. Beccaria afferma infatti che «se dimostrerò non essere la morte né utile né necessaria, avrò vinto la causa dell'umanità». Beccaria quindi si inserisce nel filone utilitaristico: considera l'utile come movente e metro di valutazione di ogni azione umana.   Monumento a Cesare Beccaria, Giuseppe Grandi, Milano L'ambito della sua dottrina è quello general-preventivo, nel quale si suppone che l'uomo sia condizionabile in base alla promessa di un premio o di un castigo e, nel contempo, si ritiene che sussista fra ogni cittadino e le istituzioni una conflittualità più o meno latente. Sostiene la laicità dello Stato. Adotta come metodo d'indagine quello analitico-deduttivo (tipico della matematica) e per lui l'esperienza è da intendersi in termini fenomenici (approccio sensista).  La natura umana si svolge in una dimensione edonistico-pulsionistica, ovvero sia i singoli, sia la moltitudine, agiscono seguendo i loro sensi. In poche parole l'uomo è caratterizzato dall'edonismo. Gli individui possono essere paragonati a dei «fluidi» messi in movimento dalla costante ricerca del piacere, intesa come fuga dal dolore. L'uomo però è una macchina intelligente capace di razionalizzare le pulsioni, in modo da consentire la vita in società; infatti certamente ogni uomo pretende di essere autonomo e insindacabile nelle sue decisioni, ma si rende conto della convenienza della vita sociale. Ma la conflittualità rimane e quindi bisogna impedire che il cittadino venga sedotto dall'idea di infrangere la legge al fine di perseguire il proprio utile a tutti i costi, pertanto il legislatore, da «abile architetto», deve predisporre sanzioni e premi in funzione preventiva; è necessario tenere sotto controllo i «fluidi», inibendo le pulsioni antisociali.  Tuttavia Beccaria sostiene che la sanzione deve essere sì idonea e sicura, a garantire la difesa sociale, ma al contempo mitigata e rispettosa della persona umana.  «Il fine delle pene non è di tormentare ed affliggere un essere sensibile, né di disfare un delitto già commesso. Può egli in un corpo politico, che, ben lungi di agire per passione, è il tranquillo moderatore delle passioni particolari, può egli albergare questa inutile crudeltà stromento del furore e del fanatismo o dei deboli tiranni? Le strida di un infelice richiamano forse dal tempo che non ritorna le azioni già consumate? Il fine dunque non è altro che d'impedire il reo dal far nuovi danni ai suoi cittadini e di rimuovere gli altri dal farne uguali. Quelle pene dunque e quel metodo d'infliggerle deve esser prescelto che, serbata la proporzione, farà una impressione più efficace e più durevole sugli animi degli uomini, e la meno tormentosa sul corpo del reo.[12]» «Parmi un assurdo che le leggi, che sono l'espressione della pubblica volontà, che detestano e puniscono l'omicidio, ne commettono uno esse medesime, e, per allontanare i cittadini dall'assassinio, ordinino un pubblico assassinio»  (Dei delitti e delle pene, cap. XXVIII)  Illustrazione allegorica da Dei delitti e delle pene: la giustizia personificata respinge il boia, con in mano una testa, e una spada. La pena di morte, “una guerra della nazione contro un cittadino”, è inaccettabile perché il bene della vita è indisponibile, quindi sottratto alla volontà del singolo e dello Stato. Inoltre essa:  non è un vero deterrente non è assolutamente necessaria in tempo di pace Essa non svolge un'adeguata azione intimidatoria poiché lo stesso criminale teme meno la morte di un ergastolo perpetuo o di una miserabile schiavitù: si tratta di una sofferenza definitiva contro una sofferenza ripetuta. Ai soggetti che assistono alla sua esecuzione, inoltre, essa può apparire come uno spettacolo o suscitare compassione. Nel primo caso, essa indurisce gli animi, rendendoli più inclini al delitto; nel secondo, non rafforza il senso di obbligatorietà della legge e il senso di fiducia nelle istituzioni.  Questa condizione è assai più potente dell'idea della morte e spaventa più chi la vede che chi la soffre; è quindi efficace ed intimidatoria, benché tenue. In realtà così facendo viene sostituita alla morte del corpo la morte dell'anima, il condannato viene annichilito interiormente. Tuttavia non è la punizione fine a sé stessa l'obiettivo di Beccaria, ma egli utilizza questo argomento dell'afflittività penale per convincere i governanti e i giudici, in quanto il suo fine resta eminentemente rieducativo e risarcitivo (il condannato non deve essere afflitto o torturato, ma deve riparare il danno in maniera economico-politica, come previsto da una concezione puramente utilitaristica e di giustizia anti-retributiva).[13]  Beccaria ammette che il ricorso alla pena capitale sia necessario solo quando l'eliminazione del singolo fosse il vero ed unico freno per distogliere gli altri dal commettere delitti, come nel caso di chi fomenta tumulti e tensioni sociali: ma questo caso non sarebbe applicabile se non verso un individuo molto potente e solo in caso di una guerra civile. Tale motivazione fu usata, per chiedere la condanna di Luigi XVI, da Maximilien de Robespierre, il quale era inizialmente avverso alla pena capitale ma in seguito diede il via ad un uso spropositato della pena di morte e poi al Terrore; comportamenti del tutto inammissibili nel pensiero di Beccaria, che infatti prese le distanze, come molti illuministi moderati, dalla Rivoluzione francese dopo il 1793.  La tortura, “l'infame crociuolo della verità”, viene confutata da Beccaria con varie argomentazioni:  essa viola la presunzione di innocenza, dato che «un uomo non può chiamarsi reo fino alla sentenza del giudice». consiste in un'afflizione e pertanto è inaccettabile; se il delitto è certo porta alla pena stabilita dalle leggi, se è incerto non si deve tormentare un possibile innocente. non è operativa in quanto induce a false confessioni, poiché l'uomo, stremato dal dolore, arriverà ad affermare falsità al fine di porre termine alla sofferenza. è da rifiutarsi anche per motivi di umanità: l'innocente è posto in condizioni peggiori del colpevole. non porta all'emenda del soggetto, né lo purifica agli occhi della collettività. Beccaria ammette razionalmente l'afflizione della tortura nel caso di testimone reticente, cioè a chi durante il processo si ostini a non rispondere alle domande; in questo caso la tortura trova una sua giustificazione, ma egli preferisce comunque chiederne la totale abolizione, in quanto l'argomento utilitario viene in questo caso sopraffatto comunque da quello razionale (il fatto che è ingiusto applicare una pena preventiva, sproporzionata e comunque violenta).  Il carcere preventivo Beccaria mostra dubbi e raccomanda cautela nella custodia cautelare in attesa di processo, attuata negli ordinamenti penali solitamente in casi di pericolo di fuga, reiterazione o inquinamento delle prove, e alla sua epoca assolutamente discrezionale e ingiusta. «Un errore non meno comune che contrario al fine sociale, che è l'opinione della propria sicurezza, è il lasciare arbitro il magistrato esecutore delle leggi, d'imprigionare un cittadino, di togliere la libertà ad un nemico per frivoli pretesti, e il lasciare impunito un amico ad onta degl'indizi più forti di reità. La prigionia è una pena che per necessità deve, a differenza di ogni altra, precedere la dichiarazione del delitto; ma questo carattere distintivo non le toglie l'altro essenziale, cioè che la sola legge determini i casi, nei quali un uomo è degno di pena. La legge dunque accennerà gli indizi di un delitto che meritano la custodia del reo, che lo assoggettano ad un esame e ad una pena.[14]»  Può essere necessaria, ma essendo comunque una pena contro un presunto innocente, come la tortura (concezione garantista della giustizia), non deve essere attuata tramite arbitrio di un magistrato o di un ufficiale di polizia. La carcerazione dopo cattura e prima del processo è ammessibile solo quando ci sia, oltre ogni dubbio la prova della pericolosità dell'imputato: «pubblica fama, la fuga, la stragiudiciale confessione, quella d'un compagno del delitto, le minacce e la costante inimicizia con l'offeso, il corpo del delitto, e simili indizi, sono prove bastanti per catturare un cittadino. Ma queste prove devono stabilirsi dalla legge e non dai giudici, i decreti de' quali sono sempre opposti alla libertà politica, quando non sieno proposizioni particolari di una massima generale esistente nel pubblico codice».[14]  Le prove dovranno essere quanto più solide quanto la prigionia rischi di essere lunga o pesante: «A misura che le pene saranno moderate, che sarà tolto lo squallore e la fame dalle carceri, che la compassione e l'umanità penetreranno le porte ferrate e comanderanno agli inesorabili ed induriti ministri della giustizia, le leggi potranno contentarsi d'indizi sempre più deboli per catturare».[14]  Egli raccomanda inoltre la piena riabilitazione per la carcerazione ingiusta: «Un uomo accusato di un delitto, carcerato ed assoluto, non dovrebbe portar seco nota alcuna d'infamia. Quanti romani accusati di gravissimi delitti, trovati poi innocenti, furono dal popolo riveriti e di magistrature onorati! Ma per qual ragione è così diverso ai tempi nostri l'esito di un innocente? perché sembra che nel presente sistema criminale, secondo l'opinione degli uomini, prevalga l'idea della forza e della prepotenza a quella della giustizia; si gettano confusi nella stessa caverna gli accusati e i convinti; perché la prigione è piuttosto un supplizio, che una custodia del reo, e perché la forza interna tutrice delle leggi è separata dalla esterna difenditrice del trono e della nazione, quando unite dovrebbono essere».[14]  Il carattere della sanzione  Frontespizio di Scritti e lettere inediti del 1910  Cesare Beccaria, incisione da Dei delitti e delle pene Beccaria indica come la sanzione deve possedere alcuni requisiti:  la prontezza ovvero la vicinanza temporale della pena al delitto l’infallibilità ovvero vi deve essere la certezza della risposta sanzionatoria da parte delle autorità la proporzionalità con il reato (difficile da realizzare ma auspicabile) la durata, che dev'essere adeguata la pubblica esemplarità, infatti la destinataria della sanzione è la collettività, che constata la non convenienza all'infrazione essere la «minima delle possibili nelle date circostanze»[15] Secondo Beccaria, per ottenere un'approssimativa proporzionalità pena-delitto, bisogna tener conto:  del danno subito dalla collettività del vantaggio che comporta la commissione di tale reato della tendenza dei cittadini a commettere tale reato Non dev'essere comunque una violenza gratuita, ma dev'essere dettata dalle leggi, oltre a possedere tutti i caratteri razionali citati, e sprovvista di personalismi e sentimenti irrazionali di vendetta.  La pena è oltretutto una extrema ratio, infatti si dovrebbe evitare di ricorrere ad essa quando si hanno efficaci strumenti di controllo sociale (non deve inoltre colpire le intenzioni in maniera analoga al fatto compiuto: ad esempio, l'attentato fallito non è paragonabile a uno riuscito). Per questi motivi è importante attuare degli espedienti di “prevenzione indiretta”, come ad esempio: un sistema ordinato della magistratura, la diffusione dell'istruzione nella società, il diritto premiale (premiare la virtù del cittadino, anziché punire solo la colpa), una riforma economico-sociale che migliori le condizioni di vita delle classi sociali disagiate. Beccaria si dichiara inoltre sospettoso verso il sistema delatorio (cosiddetta collaborazione di giustizia), da usare solo per prevenire delitti importanti, in quanto incoraggia il tradimento e favorisce dei criminali rei confessi dando loro l'impunità.[16]  Per quanto riguarda l'istituto premiale nella pena già comminata, cioè le amnistie e la grazia, essi possono essere usati ma con cautela: al condannato che si comporta in maniera esemplare durante l'esecuzione della pena o in casi specifici, ma solo in caso di pene pesanti, esse possono essere concesse; suggerisce però di limitare la discrezionalità del governante e del giudice, poiché egli teme che lo strumento della clemenza venga usato per favoritismi, come nell'Antico Regime, eliminando anche pene lievi a persone che siano potenti o vicini politicamente o umanamente al sovrano: «La clemenza è la virtú del legislatore e non dell'esecutor delle leggi», scrive infatti.[17]  Pertanto il fine della sanzione non è quello di affliggere, ma quello di impedire al reo di compiere altri delitti e di intimidire gli altri dal compierne altri, fino a parlare di "dolcezza della pena", in contrasto alla pena violenta:  «Uno dei più gran freni dei delitti non è la crudeltà delle pene, ma l'infallibilità di esse. La certezza di un castigo, benché moderato farà sempre una maggiore impressione che non il timore di un altro più terribile, unito con la speranza dell'impunità; perché i mali, anche minimi, quando son certi, spaventano sempre gli animi umani, e la speranza, dono celeste, che sovente ci tien luogo di tutto, ne allontana sempre l'idea dei maggiori, massimamente quando l'impunità, che l'avarizia e la debolezza spesso accordano, ne aumenti la forza. L'atrocità stessa della pena fa sì che si ardisca tanto più per schivarla, quanto è grande il male a cui si va incontro; fa sì che si commettano più delitti, per fuggir la pena di uno solo.  I paesi e i tempi dei più atroci supplicii furon sempre quelli delle più sanguinose ed inumane azioni, poiché il medesimo spirito di ferocia che guidava la mano del legislatore, reggeva quella del parricida e del sicario. (...) Perché una pena ottenga il suo effetto basta che il male della pena ecceda il bene che nasce dal delitto, e in questo eccesso di male deve essere calcolata l'infallibilità della pena e la perdita del bene che il delitto produrrebbe. Tutto il di più è dunque superfluo e perciò tirannico.[18]»  Il diritto all'autodifesa: sul porto di armi Il pensiero di Beccaria sul porto di armi, che egli riteneva un utile strumento di deterrenza del crimine, si riassume nelle seguenti citazioni:  «Falsa idea di utilità è quella che sacrifica mille vantaggi reali per un inconveniente o immaginario o di troppa conseguenza, che toglierebbe agli uomini il fuoco perché incendia e l'acqua perché annega, che non ripara ai mali che col distruggere. Le leggi che proibiscono di portare armi sono leggi di tal natura; esse non disarmano che i non inclinati né determinati ai delitti, mentre coloro che hanno il coraggio di poter violare le leggi più sacre della umanità e le più importanti del codice, come rispetteranno le minori e le puramente arbitrarie, e delle quali tanto facili ed impuni debbon essere le contravvenzioni, e l'esecuzione esatta delle quali toglie la libertà personale, carissima all'uomo, carissima all'illuminato legislatore, e sottopone gl'innocenti a tutte le vessazioni dovute ai rei? Queste peggiorano la condizione degli assaliti, migliorando quella degli assalitori, non iscemano gli omicidii, ma gli accrescono, perché è maggiore la confidenza nell'assalire i disarmati che gli armati. Queste si chiamano leggi non prevenitrici ma paurose dei delitti, che nascono dalla tumultuosa impressione di alcuni fatti particolari, non dalla ragionata meditazione degl'inconvenienti ed avantaggi di un decreto universale»  Influenza Anche Ugo Foscolo rileverà nelle Ultime lettere di Jacopo Ortis che "le pene crescono coi supplizi".  L'opera ed il pensiero di Beccaria, inoltre, influenzarono la codificazione del Granducato di Toscana, concretizzata nella Riforma della legislazione criminale toscana, promulgata da Pietro Leopoldo d'Asburgo nel 1787, meglio conosciuta come "Codice leopoldino" col quale la Toscana divenne il primo stato in Europa ad eliminare integralmente la pena di morte e la tortura dal proprio sistema penale.  Il filosofo utilitarista Jeremy Bentham ne riprenderà alcune idee.  Le idee del Beccaria stimolarono un dibattito (si pensi alle critiche che Kant gli mosse nella sua Metafisica dei costumi[19]) ancora vivo e attuale oggi.  Citazioni e riferimenti  Monumento a Cesare Beccaria, Milano Nel 1837 venne realizzato un monumento a Cesare Beccaria, opera dello scultore Pompeo Marchesi, posto sulla scalinata richiniana del palazzo di Brera. Nel 1871 venne inaugurato un secondo monumento in marmo a Milano (oggi piazza Beccaria); a causa del deterioramento, nel 1913 il monumento fu sostituito da una copia in bronzo. Gli è stato dedicato un asteroide: 8935 Beccaria. Il carcere minorile di Milano è a lui intitolato. A lui è intitolato un prestigioso Liceo Classico milanese, il Ginnasio Liceo Statale Cesare Beccaria. A lui è dedicato uno dei 3 dipartimenti della Facoltà di Giurisprudenza dell'Università degli Studi di Milano. Opere Del disordine e de' rimedi delle monete nello Stato di Milano nell'anno 1762 (1762) Dei delitti e delle pene, München, 1764. Dei delitti e delle pene, Livorno, Marco Cortellini, 1765. Dei delitti e delle pene, Harlem [i.e. Parigi?], [s.n.], 1766. Dei delitti e delle pene, Harlem, Giovanni Claudio Molini, 1780. Ricerche intorno alla natura dello stile (1770) Elementi di economia pubblica (1804) Raccolte di articoli Gli articoli di Beccaria per Il caffè sono in: Gianni Francioni, Sergio Romagnoli (a cura di) «Il Caffè» dal 1764 al 1766, Collana «Pantheon», Bollati Boringhieri Editore, 2005 Due volumi,  Genealogia Dati tratti da genealogia settecentesca della famiglia Beccaria[20] con indicazione della discendenza di Cesare Beccaria.  Simone - «attese a negozi con prosperità gli anni 1557».   Gerolamo - «tesoriere di vari luoghi pii, uomo di molti trafici gli anni 1596». Sposò Isabella Busnata di Giovanni Stefano.    Galeazzo - «I.C. causidico nel civile».   Francesco - «cassiere generale del Banco Sant'Ambrogio sino a morte ed agente del luogo Pio della Carità». Sposò Anna Cremasca.Filippo - «Successe al padre nel posto di cassiere suddetto, che poscia rinunciò e si fece sacerdote». Anastasia - «Monaca in Vigevano»    Giovanni - «Alla morte di suo padre ebbe un'entrata di scuti 5000 con che la trattò alla cavalleresca». Sposò Maddalena Bonesana figlia di Francesco («rimaritata nel conte Isidoro del Careto»).   Francesco - «Fece aquisto de sudetti feudi di Gualdrasco e Villareggio nel vicariato di Settimo per istrumento 3 marzo 1705 rogato dal notaio Benag.a. Creato marchese nel 1711 per cesareo diploma». Sposò Francesca Paribelli di Nicolò «da Sondrio nella Valtellina».    Giovanni Saverio (1697-1782) - Secondo marchese di Gualdrasco e di Villareggio. Ereditò il cognome Bonesana del prozio Cesare Bonesana. Con decreto 21 dicembre 1759 entrò a far parte del patriziato milanese.[21] Sposò (1) nel 1730 Cecilia Baldironi (1706-1731) (2) nel 1736 Maria Visconti di Saliceto (1709-1773)  (2) Cesare - Terzo marchese di Gualdrasco e di Villareggio. Sposò (1) nel 1761 Teresa de Blasco (1745-1774) (2) nel 1774 Anna Barbò (1752-1803).    (1) Giulia (1762-1841) - Sposò nel 1782 Pietro Manzoni.   (1) Anna Maria Aloisia (1766-1788)    (1) Giovanni Annibale (1767-...)    (2) Margherita Teresa (1775-...)    (2) Giulio (1775-1858) - Quarto marchese di Gualdrasco e di Villareggio. Sposò nel 1821 Antonietta Curioni de Civati (1805-1866). Due figlie   (2) Francesca Cecilia (1739-1742)        (2) Cesare Antonio (1740-1742)    (2) Maddalena (n. 1747) - Sposò (1) nel 1766 Giulio Cesare Isimbardi (1742 -1778) (2) nel 1778 ... Tozzi.    (2) Annibale (1748-1805) - Sposò nel 1776 Marianna Vaccani (1756-1803).    (2) Francesco (1749-1856) - Sposò nel 1775 Rosa Conti (vedova Fè).   Carlo (1778-1835) - Sposò nel 1827 Rosa Tronconi (1800-1867)   Giacomo (1779-1854)                                                    Filippo Maria - abate   Carlo    Teresa - monaca    Chiara - monaca    Nicola Francesco[22] (1702-1765) -Laureato in legge, membro del collegio dei giurisperiti dal 1738, fu anche giudice a Milano e a Pavia.[23][24]    Giuseppe   Marianna   Ignazio   Anna Maria - Sposò un Cattaneo «fisico»   Gerolamo - «Canonico ordinario del Duomo»   Angiola - Sposò Alberto Priorino nel 1619   Note ^ tendente al deismo ^ Il nome di «marchese di Beccaria», usato talvolta nella corrispondenza, si trova in molte fonti (tra cui l'Enciclopedia Britannica) ma è errato: il titolo esatto era «marchese di Gualdrasco e di Villareggio» (cfr. Maria G. Vitali, Cesare Beccaria, 1738-1794. Progresso e discorsi di economia politica, Paris, 2005, p. 9. Philippe Audegean, Introduzione, in Lione, 2009, p. 9. ) ^ John Hostettler, Cesare Beccaria: The Genius of 'On Crimes and Punishments', Hampshire, Waterside Press, 2011, p. 160, ISBN 978-1-904380-63-4. ^ Indicata come "Ortensia" in Pompeo Litta, Visconti, in Famiglie celebri italiane. ^ Renzo Zorzi, Cesare Beccaria. Dramma della Giustizia, Milano, 1995, p. 53.  Pirrotta, art. cit ^ C. e M. Sambugar, D. Ermini, G. Salà, op, cit.. ^ Emanuele Lugli, 'Cesare Beccaria e la riduzione delle misure lineari a Milano,' Nuova Informazione Bibliografica 3/2015, 579-602., DOI:10.1448/80865. URL consultato l'11 dicembre 2015. ^ Beccaria non riposa sul Lario ^ F.Venturi, Settecento riformatore, Einaudi, Torino, 1969 ^ Sambugar, Salà, Letteratura modulare, vol. I ^ Dei delitti e delle pene, capitolo XII ^ Cesare Beccaria, la scoperta della libertà, con Lucio Villari, Il tempo e la storia, Rai Tre  Dei delitti e delle pene, capitolo VI ^ Dei delitti e delle pene, Capitolo XLVII ^ Dei delitti e delle pene, Capitoli 38 e seguenti ^ Dei delitti e delle pene, capitolo 46, Delle grazie ^ Dei delitti e delle pene, capitolo 27 ^ I. Kant, La metafisica dei costumi, traduzione e note di G. Vidari, revisione di N. Merker, 10ª ed., Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2009 [1797], pp. 168-169, ISBN 978-88-420-2261-9.  «Il marchese Beccaria, per un affettato sentimento umanitario, sostiene [...] la illegalità di ogni pena di morte: essa infatti non potrebbe essere contenuta nel contratto civile originario, perché allora ogni individuo del popolo avrebbe dovuto acconsentire a perdere la vita nel caso ch'egli avesse a uccidere un altro (nel popolo); ora questo consenso sarebbe impossibile perché nessuno può disporre della propria vita. Tutto ciò però non è che sofisma e snaturamento del diritto». ^ Teatro genealogico delle famiglie nobili milanesi, su Hispanic Digital Library. ^ Felice Calvi, Il patriziato milanese, Milano, 1875, pp. 52-53. ^ Nella genealogia settecentesca è indicato un Nicolò abbate. ^ Pietro Verri, Scritti di argomento familiare e autobiografico, a cura di G. Barbarisi, Roma, 2003, p. 118. ^ Franco Arese, Il Collegio dei nobili Giureconsulti di Milano, in Archivio Storico Lombardo, 1977, p. 162. Bibliografia Cesare Beccaria, Ricerche intorno alla natura dello stile, Milano, Società tipografica de' classici italiani, 1822. Cesare Beccaria, Scritti e lettere inediti, Milano, Hoepli, 1910. Cesare Beccaria, Opere, I, Firenze, Sansoni, 1958. Cesare Beccaria, Opere, II, Firenze, Sansoni, 1958. Introduzione a Beccaria, Enza Biagini, Roma-Bari,Laterza, 1992 Antoine-Marie Graziani, Fortune de Beccaria, Commentaire 2009/3 (Numéro 127). Voci correlate Dei delitti e delle pene Diritti umani Ergastolo Tortura Pena capitale Del disordine e de' rimedi delle monete nello stato di Milano nel 1762 Altri progetti Collabora a Wikisource Wikisource contiene una pagina dedicata a Cesare Beccaria Collabora a Wikiquote Wikiquote contiene citazioni di o su Cesare Beccaria Collabora a Wikimedia Commons Wikimedia Commons contiene immagini o altri file su Cesare Beccaria Collegamenti esterni Cesare Beccaria, su Treccani.it – Enciclopedie on line, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana. Modifica su Wikidata Cesare Beccaria, in Enciclopedia Italiana, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana. Modifica su Wikidata Cesare Beccaria, in Dizionario di storia, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana, 2010. Modifica su Wikidata (EN) Cesare Beccaria, su Enciclopedia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. Modifica su Wikidata Cesare Beccaria, in Dizionario biografico degli italiani, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana. Modifica su Wikidata (EN) Cesare Beccaria, su Find a Grave. Modifica su Wikidata Opere di Cesare Beccaria, su Liber Liber. Modifica su Wikidata Opere di Cesare Beccaria / Cesare Beccaria (altra versione), su openMLOL, Horizons Unlimited srl. Modifica su Wikidata (EN) Opere di Cesare Beccaria, su Open Library, Internet Archive. Modifica su Wikidata (EN) Audiolibri di Cesare Beccaria, su LibriVox. Modifica su Wikidata Vita di C.Beccaria, su zam.it. V · D · M Coterie holbachiana V · D · M Illuministi italiani Controllo di autoritàVIAF (EN) 71387114 · ISNI (EN) 0000 0001 2102 2100 · SBN IT\ICCU\CFIV\016390 · LCCN (EN) n50006242 · GND (DE) 118855263 · BNF (FR) cb11890868c (data) · BNE (ES) XX934658 (data) · NLA (EN) 35072077 · BAV (EN) 495/29466 · CERL cnp00401448 · NDL (EN, JA) 00432653 · WorldCat Identities (EN) lccn-n50006242 Biografie Portale Biografie Diritto Portale Diritto Economia Portale Economia Filosofia Portale Filosofia Letteratura Portale Letteratura Categorie: Giuristi italiani del XVIII secoloFilosofi italiani del XVIII secoloEconomisti italianiNati nel 1738Morti nel 1794Nati il 15 marzoMorti il 28 novembreNati a MilanoMorti a MilanoFilosofi del dirittoIlluministiUtilitaristiLetterati italianiOppositori della pena di morteStudiosi di diritto penale del XVIII secoloCriminologi italianiStoria del dirittoNobili italiani del XVIII secoloStudenti dell'Università degli Studi di Pavia[altre]. Refs.: Luigi Speranza, "Grice e Beccaria," per Il Club Anglo-Italiano, The Swimming-Pool Library, Villa Grice, Liguria, Italia.

benthamian: -- semiotics -- j. Engish philosopher of ethics and political-legal theory. Born in London, he entered Queen’s, Oxford, at age 12, and after graduation entered Lincoln’s Inn to study law. He was admitted to the bar in 1767 but never practiced. He spent his life writing, advocating changes along utilitarian lines maximal happiness for everyone affected of the whole legal system, especially the criminal law. He was a strong influence in changes of the British law of evidence; in abolition of laws permitting imprisonment for indebtedness; in the belief, basic Bentham, Jeremy 79   79 reform of Parliamentary representation; in the formation of a civil service recruited by examination; and in much else. His major work published during his lifetime was An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation 1789. He became head of a “radical” group including James Mill and J. S. Mill, and founded the Westminster Review and  , London where his embalmed body still reposes in a closet. He was a friend of Catherine of Russia and John Quincy Adams, and was made a citizen of France in 1792. Pleasure, he said, is the only good, and pain the only evil: “else the words good and evil have no meaning.” He gives a list of examples of what he means by ‘pleasure’: pleasures of taste, smell, or touch; of acquiring property; of learning that one has the goodwill of others; of power; of a view of the pleasures of those one cares about. Bentham was also a psychological hedonist: pleasures and pains determine what we do. Take pain. Your state of mind may be painful now at the time just prior to action because it includes the expectation of the pain say of being burned; the present pain or the expectation of later pain  Bentham is undecided which motivates action to prevent being burned. One of a person’s pleasures, however, may be sympathetic enjoyment of the well-being of another. So it seems one can be motivated by the prospect of the happiness of another. His psychology here is not incompatible with altruistic motivation. Bentham’s critical utilitarianism lies in his claim that any action, or measure of government, ought to be taken if and only if it tends to augment the happiness of everyone affected  not at all a novel principle, historically. When “thus interpreted, the words ought, and right and wrong . . . have a meaning: when otherwise, they have none.” Bentham evidently did not mean this statement as a purely linguistic point about the actual meaning of moral terms. Neither can this principle be proved; it is a first principle from which all proofs proceed. What kind of reason, then, can he offer in its support? At one point he says that the principle of utility, at least unconsciously, governs the judgment of “every thinking man . . . unavoidably.” But his chief answer is his critique of a widely held principle that a person properly calls an act wrong if when informed of the facts he disapproves of it. Bentham cites other language as coming to the same thesis: talk of a “moral sense,” or common sense, or the understanding, or the law of nature, or right reason, or the “fitness of things.” He says that this is no principle at all, since a “principle is something that points out some external consideration, as a means of warranting and guiding the internal sentiments of approbation. . . .” The alleged principle also allows for widespread disagreement about what is moral. So far, Bentham’s proposal has not told us exactly how to determine whether an action or social measure is right or wrong. Bentham suggests a hedonic calculus: in comparing two actions under consideration, we count up the pleasures or pains each will probably produce  how intense, how long-lasting, whether near or remote, including any derivative later pleasures or pains that may be caused, and sum them up for all persons who will be affected. Evidently these directions can provide at best only approximate results. We are in no position to decide whether one pleasure for one hour is greater than another pleasure for half an hour, even when they are both pleasures of one person who can compare them. How much more when the pleasures are of different persons? Still, we can make judgments important for the theory of punishment: whether a blow in the face with no lasting damage for one person is more or less painful than fifty lashes for his assailant! Bentham has been much criticized because he thought that two pleasures are equal in value, if they are equally intense, enduring, etc. As he said, “Quantity of pleasure being equal, pushpin is as good as poetry.” It has been thought e.g., by J. S. Mill that some pleasures, especially intellectual ones, are higher and deserve to count more. But it may be replied that the so-called higher pleasures are more enduring, are less likely to be followed by satiety, and open up new horizons of enjoyment; and when these facts are taken into account, it is not clear that there is need to accord higher status to intellectual pleasures as such. A major goal of Bentham’s was to apply to the criminal law his principle of maximizing the general utility. Bentham thought there should be no punishment of an offense if it is not injurious to someone. So how much punishment should there be? The least amount the effect of which will result in a greater degree of happiness, overall. The benefit of punishment is primarily deterrence, by attaching to the thought of a given act the thought of the painful sanction  which will deter both the past and prospective lawbreakers. The punishment, then, must be severe enough to outweigh the benefit of the offense to the agent, making allowance, by addition, for the uncertainty that the punishment will actually occur. There are some harmful acts, however, that it is Bentham, Jeremy Bentham, Jeremy 80   80 not beneficial to punish. One is an act needful to produce a greater benefit, or avoid a serious evil, for the agent. Others are those which a penal prohibition could not deter: when the law is unpublished or the agent is insane or an infant. In some cases society need feel no alarm about the future actions of the agent. Thus, an act is criminal only if intentional, and the agent is excused if he acted on the basis of beliefs such that, were they true, the act would have caused no harm, unless these beliefs were culpable in the sense that they would not have been held by a person of ordinary prudence or benevolence. The propriety of punishing an act also depends somewhat on its motive, although no motive e.g., sexual desire, curiosity, wanting money, love of reputation  is bad in itself. Yet the propriety of punishment is affected by the presence of some motivations that enhance public security because it is unlikely that they  e.g., sympathetic concern or concern for reputation  will lead to bad intentional acts. When a given motive leads to a bad intention, it is usually because of the weakness of motives like sympathy, concern for avoiding punishment, or respect for law. In general, the sanction of moral criticism should take lines roughly similar to those of the ideal law. But there are some forms of behavior, e.g., imprudence or fornication, which the law is hardly suited to punish, that can be sanctioned by morality. The business of the moral philosopher is censorial: to say what the law, or morality, ought to be. To say what is the law is a different matter: what it is is the commands of the sovereign, defined as one whom the public, in general, habitually obeys. As consisting of commands, it is imperatival. The imperatives may be addressed to the public, as in “Let no one steal,” or to judges: “Let a judge sentence anyone who steals to be hanged.” It may be thought that there is a third part, an explanation, say, of what is a person’s property; but this can be absorbed in the imperatival part, since the designations of property are just imperatives about who is to be free to do what. Why should anyone obey the actual laws? Bentham’s answer is that one should do so if and only if it promises to maximize the general happiness. He eschews contract theories of political obligation: individuals now alive never contracted, and so how are they bound? He also opposes appeal to natural rights. If what are often mentioned as natural rights were taken seriously, no government could survive: it could not tax, require military service, etc. Nor does he accept appeal to “natural law,” as if, once some law is shown to be immoral, it can be said to be not really law. That would be absurd. 

berlin: “If Berlin and I have something in common is a tutor!” – H. P. Grice. Berlin: I. Russian-born philosopher and historian of ideas. He is widely acclaimed for his doctrine of radical objective pluralism; his writings on liberty; his modification, refinement, and defense of traditional liberalism against the totalitarian doctrines of the twentieth century not least Marxism-Leninism; and his brilliant and illuminating studies in the history of ideas from Machiavelli and Vico to Marx and Sorel. A founding father with Austin, Ayer, and others of Oxford philosophy in the 0s, he published several influential papers in its general spirit, but, without abandoning its empirical approach, he came increasingly to dissent from what seemed to him its unduly barren, doctrinaire, and truthdenying tendencies. From the 0s onward he broke away to devote himself principally to social and political philosophy and to the study of general ideas. His two most important contributions in social and political theory, brought together with two other valuable essays in Four Essays on Liberty 9, are “Historical Inevitability” 4 and his 8 inaugural lecture as Chichele Professor of Social and Political Theory at Oxford, “Two Concepts of Liberty.” The first is a bold and decisive attack on historical determinism and moral relativism and subjectivism and a ringing endorsement of the role of free will and responsibility in human history. The second contains Berlin’s enormously influential attempt to distinguish clearly between “negative” and “positive” liberty. Negative liberty, foreshadowed by such thinkers as J. S. Mill, Constant, and above all Herzen, consists in making minimal assumptions about the ultimate nature and needs of the subject, in ensuring a minimum of external interference by authority of any provenance, and in leaving open as large a field for free individual choice as is consonant with a minimum of social organization and order. Positive liberty, associated with monist and voluntarist thinkers of all kinds, not least Hegel, the G. Idealists, and their historical progeny, begins with the notion of self-mastery and proceeds to make dogmatic and far-reaching metaphysical assumptions about the essence of the subject. It then deduces from these the proper paths to freedom, and, finally, seeks to drive flesh-and-blood individuals down these preordained paths, whether they wish it or not, within the framework of a tight-knit centralized state under the irrefragable rule of rational experts, thus perverting what begins as a legitimate human ideal, i.e. positive self-direction and self-mastery, into a tyranny. “Two Concepts of Liberty” also sets out to disentangle liberty in either of these senses from other ends, such as the craving for recognition, the need to belong, or human solidarity, fraternity, or equality. Berlin’s work in the history of ideas is of a piece with his other writings. Vico and Herder 6 presents the emergence of that historicism and pluralism which shook the two-thousand-yearold monist rationalist faith in a unified body of truth regarding all questions of fact and principle in all fields of human knowledge. From this profound intellectual overturn Berlin traces in subsequent volumes of essays, such as Against the Current 9, The Crooked Timber of Humanity 0, and The Sense of Reality 6, the growth of some of the principal intellectual movements that mark our era, among them nationalism, fascism, relativism, subjectivism, nihilism, voluntarism, and existentialism. He also presents with persuasiveness and clarity that peculiar objective pluralism which he identified and made his own. There is an irreducible plurality of objective human values, many of which are incompatible with one another; hence the ineluctable need for absolute choices by individuals and groups, a need that confers supreme value upon, and forms one of the major justifications of, his conception of negative liberty; Berlin, Isaiah Berlin, Isaiah 85   85 hence, too, his insistence that utopia, namely a world where all valid human ends and objective values are simultaneously realized in an ultimate synthesis, is a conceptual impossibility. While not himself founder of any definable school or movement, Berlin’s influence as a philosopher and as a human being has been immense, not least on a variety of distinguished thinkers such as Stuart Hampshire, Charles Taylor, Bernard Williams, Richard Wollheim, Gerry Cohen, Steven Lukes, David Pears, and many others. His general intellectual and moral impact on the life of the twentieth century as writer, diplomat, patron of music and the arts, international academic elder statesman, loved and trusted friend to the great and the humble, and dazzling lecturer, conversationalist, and animateur des idées, will furnish inexhaustible material to future historians. 

bi-conditional: As Grice notes, ‘if’ is the only non-commutative operator; so trust Mill to make it commutative, “if p, q, then if q, p.” Cited by Strawson after ‘if,’ but dismissed by Grice in  his list of ‘formal devices’ as ‘too obvious.’ --  the logical operator, usually written with a triple-bar sign S or a doubleheaded arrow Q, used to indicate that two propositions have the same truth-value: that either both are true or else both are false. The term also designates a proposition having this sign, or a natural language expression of it, as its main connective; e.g., P if and only if Q. The truth table for the biconditional is The biconditional is so called because its application is logically equivalent to the conjunction ‘P-conditional-Q-and-Q-conditional-P’.  According to Pears, and rightly, too, ‘if’ conversationally implicates ‘iff.’

black box – used by Grice in his method in philosophical psychology -- a hypothetical unit specified only by functional role, in order to explain some effect or behavior. The term may refer to a single entity with an unknown structure, or unknown internal organization, which realizes some known function, or to any one of a system of such entities, whose organization and functions are inferred from the behavior of an organism or entity of which they are constituents. Within behaviorism and classical learning theory, the basic functions were taken to be generalized mechanisms governing the relationship of stimulus to response, including reinforcement, inhibition, extinction, and arousal. The organism was treated as a black box realizing these functions. Within cybernetics, though there are no simple inputoutput rules describing the organism, there is an emphasis on functional organization and feedback in controlling behavior. The components within a cybernetic system are treated as black boxes. In both cases, the details of underlying structure, mechanism, and dynamics are either unknown or regarded as unimportant. 

blackburn’s skull. Blackburn's "one-off predicament" of communicating without a shared language illustrates how Grice's theory can be applied to iconic signals such as the drawing of a skull to wam of danger. See his Spreading the Word. III. 112.

blindsight: studied by Grice and Warnock, “Visa.” -- a residual visual capacity resulting from lesions in certain areas of the brain the striate cortex, area 17. Under routine clinical testing, persons suffering such lesions appear to be densely blind in particular regions of the visual field. Researchers have long recognized that, in primates, comparable lesions do not result in similar deficits. It has seemed unlikely that this disparity could be due to differences in brain function, however. And, indeed, when human subjects are tested in the way non-human subjects are tested, the disparity vanishes. Although subjects report that they can detect nothing in the blind field, when required to “guess” at properties of items situated there, they perform remarkably well. They seem to “know” the contents of the blind field while remaining unaware that they know, often expressing astonishment on being told the results of testing in the blind field. 

bobbio: essential Italian philosopher, who’s written on Fregeian sense ‘senso,’ – the need for sense – the search for sense, meaning meaning.  «Il compito degli uomini di cultura è più che mai oggi quello di seminare dei dubbi, non già di raccogliere certezze.»  (Norberto Bobbio, Invito al colloquio, in Politica e cultura, Einaudi, Torino 1955, p. 15.) Norberto Bobbio (Torino, 18 ottobre 1909 – Torino, 9 gennaio 2004) è stato un filosofo, giurista, politologo, storico e senatore a vita italiano.  Considerato «al tempo stesso il massimo teorico del diritto e il massimo filosofo [italiano] della politica […] nella seconda metà del Novecento», fu «sicuramente quello che ha lasciato il segno più profondo nella cultura filosofico-giuridica e filosofico-politica e che più generazioni di studiosi, anche di formazione assai diversa, hanno considerato come un maestro».[5] Bobbio nacque a Torino il 18 ottobre 1909 da Luigi (medico) e Rosa Caviglia.  Una condizione familiare agiata gli permise un'infanzia serena. Il giovane Norberto scrive versi, ama Bach e la Traviata, ma svilupperà, per causa di una non ben determinata malattia infantile[7] «la sensazione della fatica di vivere, di una permanente e invincibile stanchezza» che si aggravò con l'età, traducendosi in un taedium vitae, in un sentimento malinconico, che si rivelerà essenziale per la sua maturazione intellettuale.[7]  Studiò prima al Ginnasio e poi al Liceo classico Massimo D'Azeglio dove conoscerà Leone Ginzburg, Vittorio Foa e Cesare Pavese, poi divenute figure di primo piano della cultura dell'Italia repubblicana. Dal 1928, come molti giovani dell'epoca, fu infine iscritto al Partito Nazionale Fascista.  La sua giovinezza, come da lui stesso descritto fu: "vissuta tra un convinto fascismo patriottico in famiglia e un altrettanto fermo antifascismo appreso nella scuola, con insegnanti noti antifascisti, come Umberto Cosmo e Zino Zini, e compagni altrettanto intransigenti antifascisti come Leone Ginzburg e Vittorio Foa".  Allievo di Gioele Solari e Luigi Einaudi, si laureò in Giurisprudenza l'11 luglio 1931 con una tesi intitolata Filosofia e dogmatica del Diritto, conseguendo una votazione di 110/110 e lode con dignità di stampa.[8] Nel 1932 seguì un corso estivo all'Università di Marburgo, in Germania, insieme a Renato Treves e Ludovico Geymonat, ove conoscerà le teorie di Jaspers e i valori dell'esistenzialismo. L'anno seguente, nel dicembre 1933, conseguì la laurea in Filosofia sotto la guida di Annibale Pastore con una tesi sulla fenomenologia di Husserl[9], riportando un voto di 110/110 e lode con dignità di stampa[8], e nel 1934 ottenne la libera docenza in Filosofia del diritto, che gli aprì le porte nel 1935 all'insegnamento, dapprima all'Università di Camerino, poi all'Università di Siena e a Padova (dal 1940 al 1948). Nel 1934 pubblicò il primo libro, L'indirizzo fenomenologico nella filosofia sociale e giuridica. Le sue frequentazioni sgradite al regime gli valsero, il 15 maggio 1935, un primo arresto a Torino, insieme agli amici del gruppo antifascista Giustizia e Libertà; fu quindi costretto, a seguito di una intimazione a presentarsi davanti alla Commissione provinciale della Prefettura per discolparsi, a inoltrare esposto a Benito Mussolini. La chiara reputazione fascista di cui godeva la famiglia gli permise però una piena riabilitazione, tanto che, pochi mesi dopo, con il richiesto intervento di Mussolini e di Gentile, ottenne la cattedra di filosofia del diritto a Camerino, che era occupata da un altro ordinario ebreo, espulso a seguito delle leggi razziali.[10] Dopo un diniego iniziale a causa dell'arresto di tre anni prima, fu reintegrato grazie all'intervento di Emilio De Bono, amico di famiglia, mentre era presidente di commissione il cattolico e dichiarato antifascista Giuseppe Capograssi.[11]  È in questi anni che Norberto Bobbio delineò parte degli interessi che saranno alla base della sua ricerca e dei suoi studi futuri: la filosofia del diritto, la filosofia contemporanea e gli studi sociali, uno sviluppo culturale che Bobbio vive contemporaneamente al contesto politico temporale. Un anno dopo le leggi razziali, infatti, esattamente il 3 marzo 1939, giurò fedeltà al fascismo per poter ottenere la cattedra all'Università di Siena. E rinnovò il giuramento nel 1940, a guerra dichiarata, per prendere il posto del professor Giuseppe Capograssi, a sua volta insediatosi nel 1938 nella cattedra del professor Adolfo Ravà estromesso dall'Università di Padova perché ebreo[12]. Questo episodio della sua vita - spesso riportato come se Bobbio avesse preso direttamente il posto di Ravà[13] - fu poi oggetto di svariate polemiche.  Nel '42, un giovane Bobbio affermò davanti alla Società Italiana di Filosofia del Diritto che Capograssi crebbe in «quel rinascimento idealistico del XX secolo, nel nostro campo di studi iniziato, stimolato, e, quel ch'è di più, criticamente fondato da Giorgio Del Vecchio».[14] Nel 1942 partecipò al movimento liberalsocialista fondato da Guido Calogero e Aldo Capitini e, nell'ottobre dello stesso anno, aderì al Partito d'Azione clandestino.  Nei primi mesi del 1943 respinse l'"invito" del ministro Biggini (che poco dopo redasse, su impulso di Mussolini, la costituzione della Repubblica di Salò) a partecipare a una cerimonia presso l'Università di Padova durante la quale si sarebbe dedicata una lampada votiva da collocare al sacrario dei caduti della rivoluzione fascista nel cimitero della città[15].  Nel 1943 sposò Valeria Cova: dalla loro unione nacquero i figli Luigi, Andrea e Marco. Il 6 dicembre del 1943 fu arrestato a Padova per attività clandestina e rimase in carcere per tre mesi. Nel 1944 venne pubblicato il saggio La filosofia del decadentismo, nel quale criticò l'esistenzialismo e le correnti irrazionalistiche, rivendicando al contempo le esigenze della ragione illuministica.[16]  Dopo la liberazione collaborò regolarmente con Giustizia e Libertà, quotidiano torinese del Partito d'azione, diretto da Franco Venturi. Collaborò all'attività del Centro di studi metodologici con lo scopo di favorire l'incontro tra cultura scientifica e cultura umanistica, e poi con la Società Europea di Cultura.  Nel 1945 pubblicò un'antologia di scritti di Carlo Cattaneo, col titolo Stati uniti d'Italia, premettendovi uno studio, scritto tra la primavera del 1944 e quella del 1945 dove sosteneva che il federalismo come unione di stati diversi era da considerarsi superato dopo l'avvenuta unificazione nazionale.  Il federalismo a cui pensava Bobbio era quello inteso come "teorica della libertà" con una pluralità di centri di partecipazione che potessero esprimersi in forme di moderna democrazia diretta.[17]  Nel 1948 lasciò l'incarico a Padova e venne chiamato alla cattedra di filosofia del diritto dell'Università di Torino, annoverando corsi di notevole importanza come Teoria della scienza giuridica (1950), Teoria della norma giuridica (1958), Teoria dell'ordinamento giuridico (1960) e Il positivismo giuridico (1961).  Dal 1962 assunse l'incarico di insegnare scienza politica, che ricoprirà sino al 1971; fu tra i fondatori della odierna facoltà di Scienze politiche all'Università di Torino insieme con Alessandro Passerin d'Entrèves, al quale subentrò nella cattedra di filosofia politica nel 1972 mantenendola fino al 1979 anche per l'insegnamento di Filosofia del diritto e Scienza politica. Dal 1973 al 1976 divenne preside della facoltà ritenendo che mentre gli incarichi accademici fossero «onerosi e senza onori» era l'insegnamento l'attività principale della sua vita: «un abito e non solo una professione».  La politica, del resto, divenne via via un tema fondamentale nel suo percorso intellettuale e accademico, e parallelamente alla pubblicazioni di carattere giuridico, aveva avviato un dibattito con gli intellettuali del tempo; nel 1955 aveva scritto Politica e cultura, considerato una delle sue pietre miliari, mentre nel 1969 era uscito il libro Saggi sulla scienza politica in Italia.  Nei venticinque anni accademici all'ombra della Mole Antonelliana, Bobbio svolse anche diversi tra corsi su Kant, Locke, lavori su Hobbes e Marx, Hans Kelsen, Carlo Cattaneo, Hegel, Vilfredo Pareto, Gaetano Mosca, Piero Gobetti, Antonio Gramsci, e contribuì con una pluralità di saggi, scritti, articoli e interventi di grande rilievo che lo portarono, in seguito a diventare socio dell'Accademia dei Lincei e della British Academy. Divenuto condirettore con Nicola Abbagnano della Rivista di filosofia a partire dal '53[21], fu come questi socio dell'Accademia delle Scienze di Torino, della quale entrò a far parte il 9 marzo dello stesso anno per essere confermato socio nazionale e residente dal 26 aprile 1960[22].  Significativa la collaborazione, sul tema pacifista, col filosofo e amico antifascista Aldo Capitini, le cui riflessioni comuni sfoceranno nell'opera I problemi della guerra e le vie della pace (1979). Nel 1953 partecipò alla lotta condotta dal movimento di Unità Popolare contro la legge elettorale maggioritaria e nel 1967 alla Costituente del Partito Socialista Unificato. Nel tempo delle contestazioni giovanili, Torino fu la prima città a farsi carico della protesta, e Bobbio, fautore del dialogo, non si sottrasse a un difficile confronto con gli studenti, tra i quali il suo stesso primogenito Luigi che militava all'epoca in Lotta Continua. Nel contempo, venne anche incaricato dal Ministero per la Pubblica Istruzione quale membro della Commissione tecnica per la creazione della facoltà di sociologia di Trento.   Guido Calogero e Norberto Bobbio alla Rencontres internationales de Genève (settembre 1953).[23] Nel 1971 Bobbio fu tra i firmatari della lettera aperta pubblicata sul settimanale L'Espresso sul caso Pinelli. Nel 1998 Norberto Bobbio in una lettera indirizzata ad Adriano Sofri pubblicata su La Repubblica ripudiò il tono del linguaggio utilizzato nell'appello ma senza ritrattarne l'adesione al contenuto di critica sui fatti legati a Piazza Fontana.[24]  Il 14 febbraio 1972 scrivendo a Guido Fassò intorno al problema democratico, Bobbio si sfogava sostenendo che «questa nostra democrazia è divenuta sempre più un guscio vuoto, o meglio un paravento dietro cui si nasconde un potere sempre più corrotto, sempre più incontrollato, sempre più esorbitante [...] Democrazia di fuori, nella facciata. Ma dietro la tradizionale prepotenza dei potenti che non sono disposti a rinunciare nemmeno a un'oncia del loro potere, e lo mantengono con tutti i mezzi, prima di tutto con la corruzione [...] La democrazia non è soltanto metodo, ma è anche un ideale: è l'ideale egualitario. Dove questo ideale non ispira i governanti di un regime che si proclama democratico, la democrazia è un nome vano. Io non posso separare la democrazia formale da quella sostanziale. Ho il presentimento che dove c'è soltanto la prima un regime democratico non è destinato a durare [...] Sono molto amaro, amico mio. Ma vedo questo nostro sistema politico sfasciarsi a poco a poco [...] a causa delle sue interne, profonde, forse inarrestabili degenerazioni».[25]  A metà degli anni settanta, nel solco di un sempre più vivace impegno civile, e alle soglie di uno dei periodi più drammatici in Italia (culminato col rapimento e l'omicidio di Aldo Moro), provocò un vivace dibattito sia negando l'esistenza di una cultura fascista sia trattando estensivamente sui rapporti tra democrazia e socialismo.  L'8 maggio 1981, alla vigilia dei referendum sull'aborto, rilascia un'intervista al Corriere della Sera nella quale afferma la sua contrarietà all'interruzione della gravidanza [26]  Successivamente la sua attenzione si concentrò a favore di una "politica per la pace", con motivati distinguo a sostegno del diritto internazionale in occasione della Guerra del Golfo del 1991.  Delle venticinque lettere inedite che fanno parte della corrispondenza epistolare che Bobbio tenne con Danilo Zolo e che ora sono state rese pubbliche nel volume L'alito della libertà, a cura dello stesso Zolo, interessante quella del 25 febbraio 1991 riguardante la "Guerra del Golfo" che vide protagonisti nel gennaio del 1991 gli Stati Uniti di George Bush senior, le forze dell'ONU e vari paesi arabi alleati contro l'Iraq di Saddam Hussein che aveva invaso il Kuwait. Bobbio definì "giusta" questa guerra non rendendosi conto che quella parola «... poteva essere interpretata in modo diverso da come l'avevo intesa io... come guerra "giustificata" in quanto rispondente a un'aggressione.» Bobbio quindi si lamentò delle polemiche nate al riguardo da parte di "pacifisti da strapazzo". Il fatto che l'ONU, scrisse Bobbio, avesse autorizzato l'intervento in guerra contro l'Iraq, la rendeva "legale", in questo senso, "giusta".  Bobbio però riconobbe che l'ONU fosse stato successivamente, nel corso della guerra, messo da parte e gli "spietati bombardamenti" su Baghdad hanno fatto sì che si possa temere che «...se la pace sarà instaurata con la stessa mancanza di saggezza con cui è stata condotta la guerra, anche questa guerra sarà stata, come tante altre inutile.» Nel 1979 fu nominato professore emerito dell'Università di Torino e nel 1984, ai sensi del secondo comma dell'articolo 59 della Costituzione italiana, avendo «illustrato la Patria per altissimi meriti» in campo sociale e scientifico, fu nominato senatore a vita dal Presidente della Repubblica Sandro Pertini. In quanto membro del Senato si iscrisse prima come indipendente nel gruppo socialista, poi dal 1991 al gruppo misto ed infine dal 1996 al gruppo parlamentare del Partito Democratico della Sinistra, poi divenuto dei Democratici di Sinistra.[27]   Norberto Bobbio e Natalia Ginzburg a Barolo per festeggiare gli ottant'anni di Vittorio Foa (4 ottobre 1990).[28] Nel 1994, dopo la stagione di mani pulite, e la cosiddetta fine della Prima Repubblica, venne pubblicato il saggio Destra e sinistra, i cui contenuti provocarono un notevole dibattito culturale, agitando non poco l'humus della politica italiana. Il libro toccò le cinquecentomila copie vendute in pochi mesi e venne ripubblicato l'anno successivo, riveduto e ampliato, con risposte ai critici.  A riconoscimento di un'intera vita lucidamente dedicata alle scienze del diritto, della politica, della filosofia e della società, tra dubbio e metodo, tra ethos e laicità, Bobbio ricevette lauree honoris causa da molte università, tra le quali quelle di Parigi (Nanterre), Buenos Aires, Madrid (tre, in particolare alla Complutense) e Bologna,[29] e vinse il Premio europeo Charles Veillon per la saggistica nel 1981, il Premio Balzan del 1994,[30] ed il Premio Agnelli nel 1995.  Nel 1997 pubblicò la sua autobiografia. Nel 1999 uscì una terza edizione aggiornata del suo best seller, ormai tradotto in una ventina di lingue. Nel 2001 morì la moglie Valeria, e Bobbio iniziò un graduale ritiro dalla vita pubblica, pur rimanendo in attività e curando ulteriori pubblicazioni. Fecero rumore le sue osservazioni critiche sia nei confronti di Silvio Berlusconi sia della partitopenia (ossia mancanza di partiti)[31], e le riflessioni sulla crisi della sinistra e della socialdemocrazia europea. Il 18 ottobre 2003, ricevette il "Sigillo Civico" della sua Torino "per l'impegno politico e il contributo alla riflessione storica e culturale".  Dopo avervi trascorso la maggior parte della vita, Norberto Bobbio morì a Torino il 9 gennaio 2004. Secondo le sue volontà, alcuni giorni dopo la morte, la salma venne tumulata, con una cerimonia civile strettamente privata nel cimitero di Rivalta Bormida, comune piemontese in provincia di Alessandria.[32][33] Il pensiero di Norberto Bobbio si forma nei primi decenni del Novecento in una temperie filosofica dominata dell'idealismo. Tuttavia, come molti studiosi torinesi, non abbraccia mai questa visione del mondo: dopo un primo accostamento alla fenomenologia, significativamente attestato dalle sue opere sulla filosofia di Husserl, si avvicina al filone neorazionalista e neoempirista fiorito in Europa, specialmente oltralpe in Germania ed attorno al Circolo di Vienna.  Negli anni quaranta e cinquanta Bobbio entra in contatto con la filosofia analitica di tradizione anglosassone. Compie studi di analisi del linguaggio, tracciando le prime linee di ricerca della scuola analitica italiana di filosofia del diritto, di cui è ancora oggi riconosciuto figura eminente di riferimento. Al riguardo vanno menzionati perlomeno i due saggi: Scienza del diritto e analisi del linguaggio del 1950[34] e Essere e dover essere nella scienza giuridica del 1967[35].  Dedica studi specifici a Hobbes, a Pareto e a molti filosofi e teorici della politica di cui già s'è detto. Vede nell'Illuminismo un modello di rigore e di rifiuto del dogmatismo di cui riprende l'ideale razionalistico, traducendolo anche nell'analisi del sistema democratico e parlamentare. Sino dagli anni cinquanta si occupa di temi quali la guerra e la legittimità del potere, dividendo la sua produzione tra la filosofia giuridica, la storia della filosofia e i temi di attualità politica.  Durante gli ultimi anni del fascismo, Bobbio matura la convinzione della necessità di uno Stato democratico, che sgombri il campo dal pericolo della politica ideologizzata e delle ideologie totalitarie sia di destra che di sinistra; auspica una gestione laica della politica e un approccio filosofico-culturale ad essa, che aiuti a superare la contrapposizione fra capitalismo e comunismo e a promuovere la libertà e la giustizia.  Nel saggio Quale socialismo? (1976), Bobbio critica sia la dialettica marxista sia gli obiettivi dei movimenti rivoluzionari, sostenendo che le conquiste borghesi dovevano estendersi anche alla classe dei proletari. Bobbio ritiene fallimentare solo l'esperienza marxista-leninista, mentre prevede che le istanze di giustizia rivendicate dai marxisti possano, in futuro, riaffiorare nel panorama politico.  Il pensiero di Bobbio diviene così, soprattutto tra gli intellettuali dell'area socialista, un modello esemplare, grazie al suo 'sapere impegnato', certamente «più preoccupato di seminare dubbi che di raccogliere consensi». Egli stesso riprenderà la riflessione su un tema a lui caro, quello del rapporto tra politica e cultura, proponendo, tra le pagine di Mondoperaio, una «autonomia relativa della cultura rispetto alla politica» secondo la quale «la cultura non può né deve essere ridotta integralmente alla sfera del politico».  Nel 1994 esce l'opera Destra e sinistra, nella quale Bobbio focalizza le differenze fra le due ideologie e i due indirizzi politico-sociali; la destra, secondo l'autore, è caratterizzata dalle tendenze alla disuguaglianza, al conservatorismo ed è ispirata da interessi, mentre la sinistra persegue l'uguaglianza, la trasformazione, ed è sospinta da ideali. In quest'opera, Bobbio si esprime anche in favore dei diritti animali[36].  Nell'opera L'età dei diritti (1990), Bobbio individua i diritti fondamentali che consentono lo sviluppo di una democrazia reale e di una pace giusta e duratura. Una partecipazione collettiva e non coercitiva alle decisioni comunitarie, una contrattazione delle parti, l'allargamento del modello democratico a tutto il mondo, la fratellanza fra gli uomini, il rispetto degli avversari, l'alternanza senza l'ausilio della violenza, una serie di condizioni liberali, vengono indicati da Bobbio come capisaldi di una democrazia, che seppur cattiva, è preferibile ad una dittatura.  Per tutta la vita scrittore di numerosissimi articoli, anche tramite interviste, Norberto Bobbio incarna l'ideale della filosofia critica e militante che lo vede protagonista anche del Centro di studi metodologici di Torino e tra i fondatori del Centro studi Piero Gobetti di Torino che conserva la sua biblioteca e il suo archivio, «Mi ritengo un uomo del dubbio e del dialogo. Del dubbio, perché ogni mio ragionamento su una delle grandi domande termina quasi sempre, o esponendo la gamma delle possibili risposte, o ponendo ancora un'altra grande domanda. Del dialogo, perché non presumo di sapere quello che non so, e quello che so metto alla prova continuamente con coloro che presumo ne sappiano più di me.»  (Norberto Bobbio, Elogio della mitezza, Linea d'ombra edizioni, Milano 1994, p. 8.) Contrario alla figura dell'intellettuale «Profeta»[37], preferendo il ruolo del «Mediatore» impegnato «nella difficile arte del dialogo» (e ciò è anche testimoniato dal colloquio intrattenuto con i marxisti per un riesame critico del loro «dogmatismo e settarismo» che coinvolse anche Togliatti)[38][39][40], il suo atteggiamento teoretico fu segnato da una positiva «ambivalenza» fra una posizione realista e una idealista che non rifuggiva le complessità del discorso, ricorrendo sovente al paradosso. Ciò gli valse, in virtù dell'amore per il dibattito che consideri «il pro e il contro» di ogni questione[41], la qualifica di filosofo «de la indecisión» (Rafael de Asís Roig)[41][42], giacché ogni suo «ragionamento su una delle grandi domande [si concludeva] quasi sempre, o esponendo la gamma delle possibili risposte, o ponendo ancora un'altra grande domanda».[43] Nell'ultimo libro che raccoglie saggi, scritti e testimonianze su maestri, amici ed allievi, Bobbio comincia ricordando i tre maestri Francesco Ruffini, Piero Martinetti e Tommaso Fiore. L'elenco degli amici è lungo e annovera compagni di studio come Antonino Repaci[44][45] come Renato Treves e Ludovico Geymonat e colleghi come Nicola Abbagnano, Bruno Leoni, Alessandro Passerin d'Entrèves e Giovanni Tarello. Bobbio ricorda poi gli allievi Paolo Farneti, Morris Lorenzo Ghezzi, Amedeo Giovanni Conte, Uberto Scarpelli che, come Bobbio stesso scrive, nel 1972 fu naturaliter suo successore a Torino sulla cattedra di Filosofia del diritto.  Traggono ispirazione dal pensiero di Bobbio le "lezioni Bobbio", svoltesi nel 2004, e la manifestazione "Biennale Democrazia" di Torino. Medaglia d'oro ai benemeriti della scuola della cultura e dell'arte - nastrino per uniforme ordinaria Medaglia d'oro ai benemeriti della scuola della cultura e dell'arte — Roma, 2 giugno 1966.[46] Gran Croce del Merito Civile - nastrino per uniforme ordinaria         Gran Croce del Merito Civile — Roma, 10 febbraio 1984.[2] Laurea honoris causa in Scienze Politiche - nastrino per uniforme ordinaria Laurea honoris causa in Scienze Politiche — Università degli Studi di Sassari, 5 maggio 1994.[2] Onorificenza dell'Ordine Messicano Aquila Azteca - nastrino per uniforme ordinaria Onorificenza dell'Ordine Messicano Aquila Azteca — Torino, 21 novembre 1994.[2] Intitolazioni A Norberto Bobbio è stata intitolata la biblioteca dell'Università di Torino, sita in Lungo Dora Siena, 100 A.  Gli è stato inoltre intitolato un istituto di istruzione superiore a Carignano, nella provincia di Torino, denominato appunto "I.I.S Norberto Bobbio".  A lui è intitolata la biblioteca civica di Rivalta Bormida, paese natale della madre Rosa Caviglia.[47]  Opere Per una più completa bibliografia, si rinvia a Carlo Violi, Bibliografia degli scritti di Norberto Bobbio 1934-1993, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 1995, ISBN 978-88-420-4778-0.  Norberto Bobbio, L'indirizzo fenomenologico nella filosofia sociale e giuridica, a cura di P. Di Lucia, Torino, Giappichelli, 2018 [1934], ISBN 978-88-921-0936-0. Norberto Bobbio, Scienza e tecnica del diritto, Torino, Istituto giuridico della Regia Università, 1934, ISBN non esistente. Norberto Bobbio, L'analogia nella logica del diritto, a cura di P. Di Lucia, Milano, Giuffrè, 2006 [1938], ISBN 978-88-14-13218-6. Norberto Bobbio, La consuetudine come fatto normativo, introduzione di P. Grossi, Torino, Giappichelli, 2010 [1942], ISBN 978-88-348-1745-2. Norberto Bobbio, La filosofia del decadentismo, Torino, Chiantore, 1944, ISBN non esistente. Carlo Cattaneo e Norberto Bobbio, Stati Uniti d'Italia. Scritti sul federalismo democratico, prefazione di N. Urbinati, Roma, Donzelli, 2010 [1945], ISBN 978-88-6036-505-7. Norberto Bobbio, Teoria della scienza giuridica, Torino, Giappichelli, 1950, ISBN non esistente. Norberto Bobbio, Politica e cultura, introduzione e cura di F. Sbarberi, Torino, Einaudi, 2005 [1955], ISBN 978-88-06-17292-3. Norberto Bobbio, Studi sulla teoria generale del diritto, Torino, Giappichelli, 1955, ISBN non esistente. Norberto Bobbio, Teoria della norma giuridica, Torino, Giappichelli, 1958, ISBN non esistente. Norberto Bobbio, Teoria dell'ordinamento giuridico, Torino, Giappichelli, 1960, ISBN non esistente. I corsi di lezione sulla norma e sull'ordinamento giuridico sono stati rifusi in Norberto Bobbio, Teoria generale del diritto, Torino, Giappichelli, 1993, ISBN 88-348-3071-7. Norberto Bobbio, Il positivismo giuridico, Lezioni di Filosofia del diritto raccolte dal dott. Nello Morra, Torino, Giappichelli, 1996 [1961], ISBN 88-348-6167-1. Norberto Bobbio, Locke e il diritto naturale, introduzione di Gaetano Pecora, Torino, 2017 [1963], ISBN 978-88-921-0945-2. Norberto Bobbio, Da Hobbes a Marx. Saggi di storia della filosofia, 2ª ed., Napoli, Morano, 1971 [1964], ISBN non esistente. Norberto Bobbio, Italia civile. Ritratti e testimonianze, 2ª ed., Firenze, Passigli, 1986 [1964], ISBN 978-88-368-0315-6. Norberto Bobbio, Giusnaturalismo e positivismo giuridico, prefazione di L. Ferrajoli, 4ª ed., Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2018 [1965], ISBN 978-88-420-8668-0. Norberto Bobbio, Profilo ideologico del Novecento italiano, in Storia della letteratura italiana, 9 voll., direttori E. Cecchi e N. Sapegno, vol. 9 (Il Novecento), Milano, Garzanti, 1965-69, pp. 105-200, ISBN non esistente. Ristampato come opera a sé stante, per Einaudi, nel 1986 (ISBN 88-06-59313-7), quindi, nuovamente per Garzanti, nel 1990 (ISBN 88-11-67410-7). Norberto Bobbio, Saggi sulla scienza politica in Italia, 2ª ed., Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2005 [1969], ISBN 978-88-420-6387-2. Norberto Bobbio, Diritto e Stato nel pensiero di Emanuele Kant, lezioni raccolte dallo studente Gianni Sciorati, 2ª ed., Torino, Giappichelli, 1969 [1957], ISBN non esistente. Norberto Bobbio, Una filosofia militante. Studi su Carlo Cattaneo, Torino, Einaudi, 1971, ISBN non esistente. Norberto Bobbio, La teoria delle forme di governo nella storia del pensiero politico, anno accademico 1975-76, Torino, Giappichelli, 1976, ISBN 978-88-348-0525-1. Norberto Bobbio, Quale socialismo? Discussione di un'alternativa, 5ª ed., Torino, Einaudi, 1977, ISBN non esistente. Norberto Bobbio, Il problema della guerra e le vie della pace, 4ª ed., Bologna, Il Mulino, 2009 [1979], ISBN 978-88-15-13300-7. Norberto Bobbio, Studi hegeliani. Diritto, società civile, Stato, Torino, Einaudi, 1981, ISBN non esistente. Norberto Bobbio, Le ideologie e il potere in crisi. Pluralismo, democrazia, socialismo, comunismo, terza via e terza forza, Firenze, Le Monnier, 1981, ISBN 88-00-84034-5. Norberto Bobbio, Il futuro della democrazia. Una difesa delle regole del gioco, Torino, Einaudi, 1984, ISBN 88-06-57547-3. Norberto Bobbio, Maestri e compagni, 3ª ed., Firenze, Passigli, 1994 [1984], ISBN 88-368-0309-1. Norberto Bobbio, Il terzo assente. Saggi e discorsi sulla pace e sulla guerra, 2ª ed., Casale Monferrato, Sonda, 2013 [1989], ISBN 978-88-7106-007-1. Norberto Bobbio, Thomas Hobbes, Torino, Einaudi, 2004 [1989], ISBN 978-88-06-16968-8. Norberto Bobbio, L'età dei diritti, Torino, Einaudi, 2014 [1990], ISBN 978-88-06-22343-4. Norberto Bobbio, Il dubbio e la scelta. Intellettuali e potere nella società contemporanea, Roma, Carocci, 2001 [1993], ISBN 88-430-1838-8. Norberto Bobbio, Elogio della mitezza e altri scritti morali, Milano, Il Saggiatore, 2014 [1994], ISBN 978-88-428-1882-3. Norberto Bobbio, Destra e sinistra. Ragioni e significati di una distinzione politica, edizione del ventennale con una introduzione di M.L. Salvadori e due commenti vent'anni dopo di D. Cohn-Bendit e di M. Renzi, Roma, Donzelli, 2014 [1994], ISBN 978-88-6843-262-1. Norberto Bobbio, Tra due repubbliche. Alle origini della democrazia italiana, con una nota storica di T. Greco, Roma, Donzelli, 1996, ISBN 978-88-7989-211-7. Norberto Bobbio, Eguaglianza e libertà, Torino, Einuadi, 2009 [1995], ISBN 978-88-06-19868-8. Norberto Bobbio, De senectute e altri scritti autobiografici, a cura di P. Polito, prefazione di G. Zagrebelsky, Torino, Einaudi, 2006 [1996], ISBN 978-88-06-18493-3. Norberto Bobbio, Né con Marx né contro Marx, a cura di C. Violi, Roma, Editori Riuniti, 2016 [1997], ISBN 978-88-6473-197-1. Norberto Bobbio, Autobiografia, a cura di A. Papuzzi, 3ª ed., Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2014 [1997], ISBN 978-88-420-5752-9. Norberto Bobbio, Teoria generale della politica, a cura di M. Bovero, Torino, Einaudi, 2009 [1999], ISBN 978-88-06-19985-2. Norberto Bobbio, Trent'anni di storia della cultura a Torino (1920-1950), introduzione di A. Papuzzi, Torino, Einaudi, 2002 [1977], ISBN 88-06-16250-0. Norberto Bobbio e Maurizio Viroli, Dialogo intorno alla repubblica, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2003 [2001], ISBN 978-88-420-6953-9. Norberto Bobbio, Liberalismo e Democrazia, introduzione di F. Manni, Milano, Simonelli, 2006 [1985], ISBN 978-88-9320-148-3. Norberto Bobbio, Contro i nuovi dispotismi. Scritti sul berlusconismo, premessa di E. Marzo, postfazione di F. Sbarberi, Bari, Dedalo, 2008, ISBN 978-88-220-5508-8. Norberto Bobbio, Etica e politica. Scritti di impegno civile, progetto editoriale e saggio introduttivo di M. Revelli, Mondadori, 2013 [2009], ISBN 978-88-04-63388-4. Note ^ Premio "Artigiano della Pace" – giovanipace.sermig.org, su giovanipace.sermig.org. URL consultato il 3 dicembre 2013 (archiviato dall'url originale l'8 dicembre 2013).  Premi e riconoscimenti a Norberto Bobbio – www.centenariobobbio.it, su centenariobobbio.it. URL consultato il 3 dicembre 2013 (archiviato dall'url originale il 12 settembre 2011). ^ Fondazione Internazionale Balzan – Premiati: Norberto Bobbio - www.balzan.org ^ Hegel-Preis der Landeshauptstadt Stuttgart - Stadt Stuttgart: Bisherige Preisträger - www.stuttgart.de ^ Luigi Ferrajoli, L'itinerario di Norberto Bobbio: dalla teoria generale del diritto alla teoria della democrazia (PDF), in Teoria politica, n. 3, 2004, p. 127. URL consultato il 4 luglio 2019. ^ N. Bobbio, seconda tavola fuori testo.  Scrive Bobbio: «[Fui] esonerato, per mia vergogna, dalle ore di ginnastica per una malattia infantile restata, almeno per me, misteriosa». (Norberto Bobbio, De senectute, Einaudi, Torino 1996, pp. 27, 31 e passim)  Fondo Norberto Bobbio – L'Inventario: Stanza studio Bobbio (SB) – www.centrogobetti.it (PDF), su centrogobetti.it, 213-214. URL consultato il 4 dicembre 2013. ^ N. Bobbio, p. 18. ^ Cesare Maffi, Massimo Bontempelli: punito da fascisti e antifascisti, in ItaliaOggi, n. 206, 1º settembre 2018, p. 11. ^ Nello Ajello, Una vita per la democrazia nel secolo delle dittature, su ricerca.repubblica.it, 10 gennaio 2004. URL consultato il 10 luglio 2019 (archiviato il 10 luglio 2019). ^ Anna Pintore, RAVÀ, Adolfo Marco, in Dizionario biografico degli italiani, vol. 86, Torino, Treccani, 2016. URL consultato il 28 aprile 2019. ^ A puro titolo d'esempio si veda Diego Gabutti, Norberto Bobbio non esitò a occupare la cattedra del professore ebreo Adolfo Ravà, cacciato dall'università per motivi razziali, in ItaliaOggi, 31 maggio 2018, p. 13. URL consultato il 28 aprile 2019. ^ Francesco Gentile, Società italiana di filosofia del diritto (atti del XXV Congresso), La via della guerra e il problema della pace, a cura di Vincenzo Ferrari, Filosofia giuridica della guerra e della pace, Milano, Courmayeur, Franco Angeli, 21-23 settembre 2006, p. 545, ISBN 978-88-464-9578-5, OCLC 230711533. URL consultato il 10 luglio 2019 (archiviato il 10 luglio 2019). ^ "Laicità e immanentismo nel pensiero di Norberto Bobbio", di Alfonso Di Giovine, in Democrazia e diritto, n. 4, 2015, p. 54. ^ Nicola Abbagnano, Storia della filosofia, volume 9. Il pensiero contemporaneo: il dibattito attuale, UTET, Torino 1998, p. 361. ^ Norberto Bobbio, Tra due repubbliche: alle origini della democrazia italiana, Donzelli Editore, 1996 pag.149 ISBN 88-7989-211-8 ^ A ottobre del 1955 Fortini si reca in Cina in visita ufficiale nella Repubblica Popolare Cinese con la prima delegazione italiana formata, tra gli altri, da Piero Calamandrei, Norberto Bobbio, Enrico Treccani e Cesare Musatti. Il viaggio durerà un mese e il diario della visita verrà pubblicato l'anno seguente in Asia Maggiore. ^ Così Fortini chiama scherzosamente Bobbio assimilandolo a Cartesio (Descartes) e al suo razionalismo ^ Franco Fortini, Asia Maggiore, Einaudi, Torino 1956, pp. 121-123. ^ Ricordo di Norberto bobio, in Rivista di Filosofia, vol. XCV, n. 1, Bologna, Società Editrice Il Mulino, Aprile 2004. URL consultato il 13 marzo 2019 (archiviato l'8 giugno 2004). ^ Proiflo biografico di Norberto Bobbio, su accademiadellescienze.it, 2005. URL consultato il 13 marzo 2019 (archiviato il 13 marzo 2019). ^ N. Bobbio, decima tavola fuori testo. ^ "Non dobbiamo chiedere scusa per Piazza Fontana" ^ Guido Fassò, La democrazia in Grecia, Giuffrè Editore, Milano 1999, p. XI. ^ «con l'aborto si dispone di una vita altrui». Affermava la necessità di evitare il concepimento non voluto e non gradito; e concludeva, rispondendo a Nascimbeni: «Vorrei chiedere quale sorpresa ci può essere nel fatto che un laico consideri come valido in senso assoluto, come un imperativo categorico, il "non uccidere". E mi stupisco a mia volta che i laici lascino ai credenti il privilegio e l'onore di affermare che non si deve uccidere».(in Intervista a Bobbio) ^ Senato della Repubblica, su senato.it. ^ N. Bobbio, ventesima tavola fuori testo. ^ Centenario Norberto Bobbio, su centenariobobbio.it (archiviato dall'url originale il 5 aprile 2009). ^ Premio Balzan [collegamento interrotto], su balzan.com. ^ I timori di Bobbio Democrazia senza partiti - La Repubblica ^ Ha lasciato scritto Norberto Bobbio: «Ho compiuto 90 anni il 18 ottobre. La morte dovrebbe essere vicina a dire il vero, l'ho sentita vicina tutta la vita. Non ho mai neppure lontanamente pensato di vivere così a lungo. Mi sento molto stanco, nonostante le affettuose cure di cui sono circondato, di mia moglie e dei miei figli. Mi accade spesso nella conversazione e nelle lettere di usare l'espressione 'stanchezza mortale'. L'unico rimedio alla stanchezza 'mortale' è il riposo della morte. Decido funerali civili in comune accordo con mia moglie e i miei figli. In un appunto del 10 maggio 1968 (più di trent'anni fa) trovo scritto: vorrei funerali civili. Credo di non essermi mai allontanato dalla religione dei padri, ma dalla Chiesa sì. Me ne sono allontanato ormai da troppo tempo per tornarvi di soppiatto all'ultima ora. Non mi considero né ateo né agnostico. Come uomo di ragione e non di fede, so di essere immerso nel mistero che la ragione non riesce a penetrare fino in fondo, e le varie religioni interpretano in vari modi. Alla morte si addice il raccoglimento, la commozione intima di coloro che sono più vicini, il silenzio. Breve cerimonia in casa, o, se sarà il caso, in ospedale. Nessun discorso. Non c'è nulla di più retorico e fastidioso dei discorsi funebri». (Ne La Repubblica del 10 gennaio 2004 la cronaca del funerale di Bobbio.) ^ Né ateo né agnostico ma lontano dalla Chiesa, in «La Repubblica», 10 gennaio 2004. ^ Norberto Bobbio, Scienza del diritto e analisi del linguaggio (PDF), in Rivista trimestrale di diritto e procedura civile, n. 2, giugno 1950, pp. 342-367. URL consultato il 5 luglio 2019. ^ Norberto Bobbio, Essere e dover essere nella scienza giuridica (PDF), in Rivista di filosofia, n. 3, luglio-settembre 1967, pp. 235-262. URL consultato il 5 luglio 2019. ^ «Mai come nella nostra epoca sono state messe in discussione le tre fonti principali di disuguaglianza: la classe, la razza ed il sesso. La graduale parificazione delle donne agli uomini, prima nella piccola società familiare e poi nella più grande società civile e politica è uno dei segni più certi dell'inarrestabile cammino del genere umano verso l'eguaglianza. E che dire del nuovo atteggiamento verso gli animali? Dibattiti sempre più frequenti ed estesi, riguardanti la liceità della caccia, i limiti della vivisezione, la protezione di specie animali diventate sempre più rare, il vegetarianesimo, che cosa rappresentano se non avvisaglie di una possibile estensione del principio di eguaglianza al di là addirittura dei confini del genere umano, un'estensione fondata sulla consapevolezza che gli animali sono eguali a noi uomini, per lo meno nella capacità di soffrire? Si capisce che per cogliere il senso di questo grandioso movimento storico occorre alzare la testa dalle schermaglie quotidiane e guardare più in alto e più lontano». (da Destra e sinistra, Donzelli, Roma 1994) ^ N. Bobbio, p. LIV, nota 11: «È significativo che nella sua ultima lezione accademica tenuta come titolare della cattedra di Filosofia della politica a Torino il 16 maggio 1979, ‘presente’ come egli stesso ricorderà ‘il collega cui mi sentivo intellettualmente e politicamente più vicino, Alessandro Passerin d'Entrèves’, Bobbio abbia citato ‘con forza la celebre frase che subito dopo la Prima guerra mondiale, di fronte agli allievi, che pretendevano dal celebre professore un orientamento politico, Max Weber pronunciò: «La cattedra non è né per i demagoghi né per i profeti»’. (N. Bobbio, Il mestiere di vivere, il mestiere di insegnare, il mestiere di scrivere, colloquio con Pietro Polito, in “Nuova Antologia”, a. CXXXIV, vol. 583, fasc. 2211, luglio-settembre 1999, pp. 5-47)». ^ N. Abbagnano, Storia della filosofia, vol. IX, UTET per Gruppo Editoriale L'Espresso S.p.A., Torino 2006, pp. 459-460, ove è detto: «Bobbio, dai primi anni Cinquanta in poi, ha ricorrentemente tallonato la sinistra marxista, provocandola con intenti costruttivi e spingendola ad un esame critico del suo persistente dogmatismo e settarismo. Il documento più importante di tali provocazioni, nel decennio in esame, è la raccolta di saggi Politica e cultura del 1955. Alcuni di questi saggi appaiono in origine sulla rivista ‘Nuovi argomenti' che [...] costituisce in quegli anni uno dei più significativi luoghi d'incontro tra area laica e quella marxista. Lì appare, nel 1954, uno dei saggi più provocatori, in senso costruttivo, [...] rivolti a quest'area (dalla quale si risponderà con gli interventi di Della Volpe e di Togliatti): quello dal titolo molto significativo Democrazia e dittatura». ^ Scrive Bobbio: «Pur non essendo mai stato comunista [...] [e] avendo dedicato la maggior parte degli scritti di critica politica a discutere coi comunisti su temi fondamentali come la libertà e la democrazia [...], [ho] sempre considerato i comunisti, o per lo meno i comunisti italiani, non come nemici da combattere ma come interlocutori di un dialogo sulle ragioni della sinistra». (N. Bobbio, Teoria generale della politica, Einaudi, Torino 2009, p. 618) ^ Sul pensiero di Bobbio circa il comunismo, si veda anche l'intervista a cura di Giancarlo Bosetti, «No, non c'è mai stato il comunismo giusto» (PDF), in l'Unità, 3 aprile 1998. Segue alla pagina successiva Archiviato il 26 agosto 2016 in Internet Archive..  N. Bobbio, p. 203. ^ N. Bobbio, p. XVII. ^ N. Bobbio, Elogio della mitezza, Linea d'ombra edizioni, Milano 1994, p. 8. ^ Antonino Repaci, magistrato e uomo della Resistenza, nipote di Leonida Repaci ^ Istituto storico della Resistenza e della società contemporanea in provincia di Cuneo, su beniculturali.ilc.cnr.it:8080. URL consultato il 19 febbraio 2020 (archiviato dall'url originale il 26 aprile 2019). ^ Sito della Presidenza della Repubblica, www.quirinale.it ^ Comune di Rivalta Bormida | La Biblioteca, su www.comune.rivalta.al.it. URL consultato il 14 luglio 2020.  Bibliografia Norberto Bobbio, Giuseppe Tamburrano, Carteggio su marxismo, liberalismo, socialismo, Roma, Editori Riuniti, ISBN 978-88-359-5937-3 Pier Paolo Portinaro, Introduzione a Bobbio, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2008, ISBN 978-88-420-8632-1. Voce "Norberto Bobbio" in AA. VV., Biografie e bibliografie degli Accademici Lincei, Accademia dei Lincei, Roma 1976, pp. 749–750 Enrico Lanfranchi, Un filosofo militante. Politica e cultura nel pensiero di Norberto Bobbio, Bollati Boringhieri, Torino 1989; Nunzio Dell'Erba, Norberto Bobbio l'accento sulla democrazia, in "Storia e problemi contemporanei", luglio-dicembre 1990, a. III, n. 6, pp. 33–41. Angelo Mancarella, Norberto Bobbio e la politica della cultura. Le sfide della ragione, "Ideologia e Scienze sociali", 26, Lacaita Editore, Bari-Roma 1995 Giuseppe Gangemi, Meridione, Nordest, Federalismo. Da Salvemini alla Lega Nord, Rubbettino, Soveria Mannelli 1996 Girolamo Cotroneo, Tra filosofia e politica. Un dialogo con Norberto Bobbio, Soveria Mannelli, Rubbettino, 1998, ISBN 978-88-7284-629-2. Silvio Paolini Merlo, Consuntivo storico e filosofico sul "Centro di Studi Metodologici" di Torino (1940-1979), Pantograf (CNR), Genova 1998 Morris Lorenzo Ghezzi, La distinción entre hechos y valores en el pensamento de Norberto Bobbio, Editorial U. Externado de Colombia, Bogotá 2007, ISBN 9789587109818 Tommaso Greco, Norberto Bobbio. Un itinerario intellettuale tra filosofia e politica, Donzelli, Roma 2000 Costanzo Preve, Le contraddizioni di Norberto Bobbio. Per una critica del bobbianesimo cerimoniale, CRT, Pistoia 2004 Gustavo Zagrebelsky, Massimo L. Salvadori, Riccardo Guastini, Norberto Bobbio tra diritto e politica, Laterza, Roma-Bari 2005 Marco Revelli (a cura di), Norberto Bobbio maestro di democrazia e di libertà, Cittadella Editrice, Assisi 2005 Valentina Pazé (a cura di), L'opera di Norberto Bobbio. Itinerari di lettura, Milano, Franco Angeli, 2005. ISBN 88-464-7037-0. Roberto Giannetti, Tra liberaldemocrazia e socialismo. Saggi sul pensiero politico di Norberto Bobbio, Plus, Pisa 2006 Antonio Punzi (a cura di), Omaggio a Norberto Bobbio (1909-2004). Metodo, linguaggio, Scienza del diritto, Giuffrè, Milano 2007 Paola Agosti, Marco Revelli (a cura di), Bobbio e il suo mondo. Storie di impegno e di amicizia nel '900, Aragno, Torino 2009 Enrico Peyretti, Dialoghi con Norberto Bobbio su politica, fede, nonviolenza , Claudiana, Torino (2011) Nunzio Dell'Erba, Norberto Bobbio, in Id., Intellettuali laici nel '900 italiano", Vincenzo Grasso editore, Padova 2011, pp. 235–254 Pier Paolo Portinaro, «Bobbio, Norberto» in Il contributo italiano alla storia del Pensiero – Diritto, Roma, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana, 2012. Ruiz Miguel Alonso, Politica, historia y derecho en Norberto Bobbio [Fontamara ed.], 2016. Mario G. Losano, Norberto Bobbio. Una biografia culturale, Carocci, Roma 2018, 510 pp. ISBN 978-88-430-9269-7 Tommaso Greco, Norberto Bobbio e la storia della filosofia del diritto, in Diacronìa. Rivista di storia della filosofia del diritto, n. 2, 2019, pp. 77-105, ISBN 978-88-333-9347-6. URL consultato il 25 marzo 2020. Norberto Bobbio; Franco Pierandrei, Introduzione alla costituzione, Roma, Laterza, 1982, OCLC 896184660. Altri progetti Collabora a Wikiquote Wikiquote contiene citazioni di o su Norberto Bobbio Collabora a Wikimedia Commons Wikimedia Commons contiene immagini o altri file su Norberto Bobbio Collegamenti esterni Sito ufficiale, su centenariobobbio.it (archiviato dall'url originale). Modifica su Wikidata Norberto Bobbio, su Treccani.it – Enciclopedie on line, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana. Modifica su Wikidata Norberto Bobbio / Norberto Bobbio (altra versione), in Enciclopedia Italiana, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana. Modifica su Wikidata Norberto Bobbio, in Dizionario biografico degli italiani, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana. Modifica su Wikidata Norberto Bobbio, su BeWeb, Conferenza Episcopale Italiana. Modifica su Wikidata (EN) Norberto Bobbio, su Find a Grave. Modifica su Wikidata Opere di Norberto Bobbio, su openMLOL, Horizons Unlimited srl. Modifica su Wikidata (EN) Opere di Norberto Bobbio / Norberto Bobbio (altra versione), su Open Library, Internet Archive. Modifica su Wikidata (EN) Norberto Bobbio, su Goodreads. Modifica su Wikidata Norberto Bobbio / Norberto Bobbio (altra versione) / Norberto Bobbio (altra versione) / Norberto Bobbio (altra versione) / Norberto Bobbio (altra versione) / Norberto Bobbio (altra versione), su senato.it, Senato della Repubblica. Modifica su Wikidata Registrazioni di Norberto Bobbio, su RadioRadicale.it, Radio Radicale. Modifica su Wikidata Le opere di Norberto Bobbio (Biblioteca e Archivio "Norberto Bobbio" del Centro Studi "Piero Gobetti" di Torino), su erasmo.it. Commemorazione di Norberto Bobbio, su giornaledifilosofia.net. Epistolario Norberto Bobbio - Danilo Zolo Norberto Bobbio, dal sito dell'ANPI - Associazione Nazionale Partigiani d'Italia (ultimo accesso del 15 ottobre 2009) I presupposti filosofici nell'opera di Norberto Bobbio di Franco Manni V · D · M Antifascismo (1919-1943) V · D · M Senatori a vita di nomina presidenziale Controllo di autorità VIAF (EN) 108336166 · ISNI (EN) 0000 0001 2146 9332 · SBN IT\ICCU\CFIV\001885 · Europeana agent/base/145783 · LCCN (EN) n79043174 · GND (DE) 119330849 · BNF (FR) cb12023289q (data) · BNE (ES) XX858171 (data) · NLA (EN) 35019728 · BAV (EN) 495/107923 · NDL (EN, JA) 00433641 · WorldCat Identities (EN) lccn-n79043174 Biografie Portale Biografie Diritto Portale Diritto Filosofia Portale Filosofia Politica Portale Politica Storia Portale Storia Categorie: Senatori della IX legislatura della Repubblica ItalianaSenatori della X legislatura della Repubblica ItalianaSenatori dell'XI legislatura della Repubblica ItalianaSenatori della XII legislatura della Repubblica ItalianaSenatori della XIII legislatura della Repubblica ItalianaSenatori della XIV legislatura della Repubblica ItalianaFilosofi italiani del XX secoloGiuristi italiani del XX secoloPolitologi italianiNati nel 1909Morti nel 2004Nati il 18 ottobreMorti il 9 gennaioNati a TorinoMorti a TorinoSenatori a vita italianiReligione e politicaAntifascisti italianiPolitici del Partito d'AzioneBrigate Giustizia e LibertàPersone legate alla Resistenza italianaResistenza padovanaVincitori del premio BalzanTeorici dei diritti animaliPersonalità dell'agnosticismoOppositori della pena di morteProfessori dell'Università degli Studi di CamerinoProfessori dell'Università degli Studi di TorinoMembri dell'Accademia delle Scienze di TorinoRettori dell'Università degli Studi di TrentoLaureati Honoris Causa dell'Università di BolognaFilosofi del dirittoFilosofi della politica[altre]. Refs.: Luigi Speranza, "Grice e Bobbio," per Il Club Anglo-Italiano, The Swimming-Pool Library, Villa Grice, Liguria, Italia.

bodei: essential Italian philosopher. Remo Bodei (Cagliari, 3 agosto 1938 – Pisa, 7 novembre 2019[1]) è stato un filosofo e accademico italiano.   Indice 1 Biografia 2 Pensiero 3                                  Citazioni 4 Opere 5 Onorificenze 6 Note 7 Altri progetti 8                            Collegamenti esterni Biografia Laureato all'Università di Pisa, perfezionò la sua preparazione teoretica e storico-filosofica a Tubinga e Friburgo, frequentando le lezioni di Ernst Bloch ed Eugen Fink; a Heidelberg, con Karl Löwith e Dieter Henrich; poi all'Università di Bochum. Conseguì inoltre il diploma di licenza e il diploma di perfezionamento della Scuola Normale Superiore.  Fu visiting professor presso le Università di Cambridge, Ottawa, New York, Toronto, Girona, Città del Messico, UCLA (Los Angeles) e tenne conferenze in molte università europee, americane e australiane.  Dal 1981 al 1983 fu nel comitato redazionale della rivista Laboratorio politico.  Dal 1995 collaborava con Massimo Cacciari, Massimo Donà, Giuseppe Barzaghi, Salvatore Natoli e Stefano Zamagni nell’iniziativa La filosofia nei luoghi del silenzio[2], un tentativo di coniugare filosofia e contemplazione nella forma del ritiro comunitario.  Dal 2006 fu docente di ruolo in Filosofia alla UCLA di Los Angeles, dopo aver a lungo insegnato Storia della filosofia ed Estetica alla Scuola Normale Superiore e all'Università di Pisa, dove continuò a tenere, sia pur saltuariamente, qualche corso.  Era anche membro dell'Advisory Board internazionale dello IED - Istituto Europeo di Design.  Dal 13 novembre 2015 Remo Bodei fu socio corrispondente dell'Accademia dei Lincei, per la classe di Scienze Morali, Storiche e Filosofiche.  Remo Bodei è morto il 7 novembre 2019, a 81 anni. Era marito della storica Gabriella Giglioni.  I suoi libri sono stati tradotti in molte lingue.  Pensiero Si interessò a fondo della filosofia classica tedesca e dell'Idealismo, esordendo con la fondamentale monografia Sistema ed epoca in Hegel, dopo aver già tradotto in italiano l'importante Hegels Leben (Vita di Hegel) di Johann Karl Friedrich Rosenkranz. Appassionato cultore della poesia hölderliniana, all'autore dell'Hyperion dedicò saggi di notevole interesse. Con il volume Geometria delle passioni estese la sua meditazione anche a protagonisti della filosofia moderna come Cartesio, Hobbes e soprattutto Spinoza. Studioso del pensiero utopistico del Novecento, in particolare del marxismo eterodosso di Ernst Bloch e di autori 'francofortesi' come Theodor Adorno e Walter Benjamin, intervenne nella discussione sulla filosofia politica italiana, confrontandosi e dialogando in particolare con Norberto Bobbio, Michelangelo Bovero, Salvatore Veca e Nicola Badaloni. Nei suoi studi sull'estetica curò l'edizione dell'Estetica del brutto di Johann Karl Friedrich Rosenkranz e analizzò in particolare concetti centrali come le categorie del bello e del tragico. Costante la sua attenzione per Sigmund Freud e gli sviluppi della psicoanalisi, per le logiche del delirio e per fenomeni in apparenza quotidiani ma sconvolgenti come l'esperienza del déjà vu. Filosofo di una ragione laica, sulla scia di Ernst Bloch, autore di Ateismo nel cristianesimo, cercò di distillare anche nel teorico del compelle intrare, Agostino d'Ippona, le possibili linee di un "ordo amoris" capace di assicurarci quell'identità in cui, come vuole il Padre della Chiesa, saremmo noi stessi pienamente: dies septimus, nos ipsi erimus ("il settimo giorno saremo noi stessi").  Nel 1992 vinse il Premio Nazionale Letterario Pisa Sezione Saggistica.[3]  Bodei inoltre curò la traduzione e l'edizione italiana di testi di Hegel, Karl Rosenkranz, Franz Rosenzweig, Ernst Bloch, Theodor Adorno, Siegfried Kracauer, Michel Foucault.  Molti suoi lavori hanno per oggetto lo spessore e la storia delle domande che riguardano la ricerca della felicità da parte del singolo, le indeterminate attese collettive di una vita migliore, i limiti che imprigionano l'esistenza e il sapere entro vincoli politici, domestici e ideali. Già in Scomposizioni (1987), affrontò alcuni temi della genealogia dell'uomo contemporaneo e propose la metafora della geometria variabile per indagare le strutture concettuali ed espositive che, contraendosi o espandendosi sino a noi, orientano la percezione e la formulazione di problemi. La sua analisi dell'interazione di queste configurazioni mobili proseguì in Geometria delle passioni (1991) e in Destini personali (2002) che hanno avuto rilevante successo di pubblico.  Alla divulgazione dell'amore per la filosofia dedicò alcune conferenze e un libro (Una scintilla di fuoco, 2005).  Negli ultimi tempi stava lavorando sulla storia e sulle teorie della memoria.  Citazioni «Ciascuno di noi vive nell'immaginazione altre vite, alimentate dai testi letterari e dai media. Per loro tramite tenta di porre rimedio alla limitatezza della propria esistenza. (citato in Corriere della sera, 16 gennaio 2009)»  «Malgrado i ripetuti annunci è certo che la filosofia, al pari dell'arte, non è affatto 'morta'. Essa rivive anzi a ogni stagione perché corrisponde a bisogni di senso che vengono continuamente - e spesso inconsapevolmente - riformulati. A tali domande, mute o esplicite, la filosofia cerca risposte, misurando ed esplorando la deriva, la conformazione e le faglie di quei continenti simbolici su cui poggia il nostro comune pensare e sentire»  (Remo Bodei, La filosofia nel Novecento, Roma, Donzelli, 1997, p. 188) «Nel passato il progresso delle civiltà umane era relativo, sottoposto a cicli naturali di distruzioni e di rinascite, che ne spezzavano periodicamente il consolidamento e la crescita»  (Remo Bodei, Limite, Il Mulino, 2016, p. 66) Opere Sistema ed epoca in Hegel, Bologna, Il Mulino, 1975. Riedizione ampliata con il titolo: La civetta e la talpa. Sistema ed epoca in Hegel, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2014. Hegel e Weber. Egemonia e legittimazione, (con Franco Cassano), Bari, De Donato, 1977 Multiversum. Tempo e storia in Ernst Bloch, Napoli, Bibliopolis, 1979 (Seconda edizione ampliata, 1983). Scomposizioni. Forme dell'individuo moderno, Torino, Einaudi, 1987. Riedizione ampliata, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2016. Hölderlin: la filosofia y lo trágico, Madrid, Visor, 1990. Ordo amoris. Conflitti terreni e felicità celeste, Bologna, Il Mulino, 1991 (Terza edizione ampliata, 2005). Geometria delle passioni. Paura, speranza e felicità: filosofia e uso politico, Milano, Feltrinelli, 1991 (Settima edizione ampliata, 2003). Le prix de la liberté, Paris, Éditions du Cerf, 1995. Le forme del bello, Bologna, Il Mulino, 1995. Seconda edizione riveduta e ampliata Bologna, Il Mulino, 2017. La filosofia nel Novecento, Roma, Donzelli, 1997. Se la storia ha un senso, Bergamo, Moretti & Vitali, 1997. La politica e la felicità (con Luigi Franco Pizzolato), Roma, Edizioni Lavoro, 1997. Il noi diviso. Ethos e idee dell'Italia repubblicana, Torino, Einaudi, 1998. Le logiche del delirio. Ragione, affetti, follia, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2000. I senza Dio. Figure e momenti dell'ateismo, Brescia, Morcelliana, 2001. Il dottor Freud e i nervi dell'anima. Filosofia e società a un secolo dalla nascita della psicoanalisi, Roma, Donzelli, 2001. Destini personali. L'età della colonizzazione delle coscienze, Milano, Feltrinelli, 2002. Delirio e conoscenza, Remo Bodei, in Il Vaso di Pandora, Dialoghi in psichiatria e scienze umane, Vol. X, N. 3, 2002. Una scintilla di fuoco. Invito alla filosofia, Bologna, Zanichelli, 2005. Piramidi di tempo. Storie e teoria del déjà vu, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2006. Paesaggi sublimi. Gli uomini davanti alla natura selvaggia, Milano, Bompiani, 2008. Il sapere della follia, Modena, Fondazione Collegio San Carlo per FestivalFilosofia, 2008. Il dire la verità nella genealogia del soggetto occidentale in A.A. V.V., Foucault oggi, Milano, Feltrinelli, 2008. La vita delle cose, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2009. Ira. La passione furente, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2011. Beati i miti, perché avranno in eredità la terra (con Sergio Givone), Torino, Lindau, 2013. Immaginare altre vite. Realtà, progetti, desideri, Milano, Feltrinelli, 2013. Limite, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2016. Le virtù Cardinali (con Giulio Giorello, Michela Marzano e Salvatore Veca), Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2017. Dominio e sottomissione. Schiavi, animali, macchine, Intelligenza Artificiale, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2019. Onorificenze Grand'Ufficiale dell'Ordine al merito della Repubblica Italiana. - nastrino per uniforme ordinaria Grand'Ufficiale dell'Ordine al merito della Repubblica Italiana. — 1º giugno 2001. Di iniziativa del Presidente della Repubblica.[4] Cavaliere dell'Ordine delle Palme Accademiche - nastrino per uniforme ordinaria Cavaliere dell'Ordine delle Palme Accademiche immagine del nastrino non ancora presente Cittadino onorario di Siracusa, Modena, Carrara e Roccella Jonica. Note ^ È morto il filosofo Remo Bodei, aveva 81 anni, su fanpage.it, 7 novembre 2019. ^ Repubblica 18/08/2015 ^ Albo d'oro, su premionazionaleletterariopisa.onweb.it. URL consultato il 7 novembre 2019. ^ «Bodei Prof. Remo: Grande Ufficiale Ordine al Merito della Repubblica Italiana», sito della presidenza della repubblica. Altri progetti Collabora a Wikiquote Wikiquote contiene citazioni di o su Remo Bodei Collabora a Wikimedia Commons Wikimedia Commons contiene immagini o altri file su Remo Bodei Collegamenti esterni Remo Bodei, su Treccani.it – Enciclopedie on line, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana. Modifica su Wikidata Opere di Remo Bodei, su openMLOL, Horizons Unlimited srl. Modifica su Wikidata (EN) Opere di Remo Bodei, su Open Library, Internet Archive. Modifica su Wikidata (FR) Pubblicazioni di Remo Bodei, su Persée, Ministère de l'Enseignement supérieur, de la Recherche et de l'Innovation. Modifica su Wikidata Registrazioni di Remo Bodei, su RadioRadicale.it, Radio Radicale. Modifica su Wikidata Remo Bodei: Spinoza, un filosofo maledetto, sul portale RAI Filosofia, su filosofia.rai.it. Scheda del professor Bodei nel sito del Dipartimento di filosofia dell'Università di Pisa, su fls.unipi.it. V · D · M Vincitori del Premio Dessì Controllo di autorità VIAF (EN) 93378846 · ISNI (EN) 0000 0001 2143 8173 · SBN IT\ICCU\CFIV\036989 · LCCN (EN) n83031948 · GND (DE) 171981901 · BNF (FR) cb12027782n (data) · BNE (ES) XX860072 (data) · NLA (EN) 35783373 · WorldCat Identities (EN) lccn-n83031948 Biografie Portale Biografie Filosofia Portale Filosofia Categorie: Filosofi italiani del XX secoloFilosofi italiani del XXI secoloAccademici italiani del XX secoloAccademici italiani del XXI secoloNati nel 1938Morti nel 2019Nati il 3 agostoMorti il 7 novembreNati a CagliariMorti a PisaAccademici dei LinceiAccademici italiani negli Stati Uniti d'AmericaProfessori della Scuola Normale SuperioreProfessori dell'Università della California, Los AngelesProfessori dell'Università di PisaStudenti dell'Università di Pisa[altre]. Refs.: Luigi Speranza, "Grice e Bodei," per Il Club Anglo-Italiano, The Swimming-Pool Library, Villa Grice, Liguria, Italia.

boezio: Possibly the most important Italian philosopher of all time. Grice loved Boethius – “He made Aristotle intelligible at Clifton!” -- Anicius Manlius Severinus, Roman philosopher and Aristotelian translator and commentator. He was born into a wealthy patrician family in Rome and had a distinguished political career under the Ostrogothic king Theodoric before being arrested and executed on charges of treason. His logic and philosophical theology contain important contributions to the philosophy of the late classical and early medieval periods, and his translations of and commentaries on Aristotle profoundly influenced the history of philosophy, particularly in the medieval Latin West. His most famous work, The Consolation of Philosophy, composed during his imprisonment, is a moving reflection on the nature of human happiness and the problem of evil and contains classic discussions of providence, fate, chance, and the apparent incompatibility of divine foreknowledge and human free choice. He was known during his own lifetime, however, as a brilliant scholar whose knowledge of the Grecian language and ancient Grecian philosophy set him apart from his Latin contemporaries. He conceived his scholarly career as devoted to preserving and making accessible to the Latin West the great philosophical achievement of ancient Greece. To this end he announced an ambitious plan to translate into Latin and write commenbodily continuity Boethius, Anicius Manlius Severinus 91   91 taries on all of Plato and Aristotle, but it seems that he achieved this goal only for Aristotle’s Organon. His extant translations include Porphyry’s Isagoge an introduction to Aristotle’s Categories and Aristotle’s Categories, On Interpretation, Prior Analytics, Topics, and Sophistical Refutations. He wrote two commentaries on the Isagoge and On Interpretation and one on the Categories, and we have what appear to be his notes for a commentary on the Prior Analytics. His translation of the Posterior Analytics and his commentary on the Topics are lost. He also commented on Cicero’s Topica and wrote his own treatises on logic, including De syllogismis hypotheticis, De syllogismis categoricis, Introductio in categoricos syllogismos, De divisione, and De topicis differentiis, in which he elaborates and supplements Aristotelian logic. Boethius shared the common Neoplatonist view that the Platonist and Aristotelian systems could be harmonized by following Aristotle in logic and natural philosophy and Plato in metaphysics and theology. This plan for harmonization rests on a distinction between two kinds of forms: 1 forms that are conjoined with matter to constitute bodies  these, which he calls “images” imagines, correspond to the forms in Aristotle’s hylomorphic account of corporeal substances; and 2 forms that are pure and entirely separate from matter, corresponding to Plato’s ontologically separate Forms. He calls these “true forms” and “the forms themselves.” He holds that the former, “enmattered” forms depend for their being on the latter, pure forms. Boethius takes these three sorts of entities  bodies, enmattered forms, and separate forms  to be the respective objects of three different cognitive activities, which constitute the three branches of speculative philosophy. Natural philosophy is concerned with enmattered forms as enmattered, mathematics with enmattered forms considered apart from their matter though they cannot be separated from matter in actuality, and theology with the pure and separate forms. He thinks that the mental abstraction characteristic of mathematics is important for understanding the Peripatetic account of universals: the enmattered, particular forms found in sensible things can be considered as universal when they are considered apart from the matter in which they inhere though they cannot actually exist apart from matter. But he stops short of endorsing this moderately realist Aristotelian account of universals. His commitment to an ontology that includes not just Aristotelian natural forms but also Platonist Forms existing apart from matter implies a strong realist view of universals. With the exception of De fide catholica, which is a straightforward credal statement, Boethius’s theological treatises De Trinitate, Utrum Pater et Filius, Quomodo substantiae, and Contra Euthychen et Nestorium show his commitment to using logic and metaphysics, particularly the Aristotelian doctrines of the categories and predicables, to clarify and resolve issues in Christian theology. De Trinitate, e.g., includes a historically influential discussion of the Aristotelian categories and the applicability of various kinds of predicates to God. Running through these treatises is his view that predicates in the category of relation are unique by virtue of not always requiring for their applicability an ontological ground in the subjects to which they apply, a doctrine that gave rise to the common medieval distinction between so-called real and non-real relations. Regardless of the intrinsic significance of Boethius’s philosophical ideas, he stands as a monumental figure in the history of medieval philosophy rivaled in importance only by Aristotle and Augustine. Until the recovery of the works of Aristotle in the mid-twelfth century, medieval philosophers depended almost entirely on Boethius’s translations and commentaries for their knowledge of pagan ancient philosophy, and his treatises on logic continued to be influential throughout the Middle Ages. The preoccupation of early medieval philosophers with logic and with the problem of universals in particular is due largely to their having been tutored by Boethius and Boethius’s Aristotle. The theological treatises also received wide attention in the Middle Ages, giving rise to a commentary tradition extending from the ninth century through the Renaissance and shaping discussion of central theological doctrines such as the Trinity and Incarnation. Refs.: Boethiius, in Stanford Encyclopaedia. Luigi Speranza, "Grice e Boezio," per Il Club Anglo-Italiano, The Swimming-Pool Library, Villa Grice, Liguria, Italia. Bollettino della Società filosofica italiana.

bollettino della società filosofica italiana: the name is telling, this is a Bulletin of the Italian Philosophical Society. Oddly, there is no English Philosophical Society. Grice belonged to the OXFORD philosophical society. While there is Società filosofica at Bologna, the world’s oldest varsity, Bologna was never too strong in philosophy – when Italian philosophers preferred to teach directly to Parisians!

bolzano: b., an intentionalist philosopher considered by most as a pre-Griceian, philosopher. He studied philosophy, mathematics, physics, and theology in Prague; received the Ph.D.; was ordained a priest 1805; was appointed to a chair in religion at Charles  in 1806; and, owing to his criticism of the Austrian constitution, was dismissed in 1819. He composed his two main works from 1823 through 1841: the Wissenschaftslehre 4 vols., 1837 and the posthumous Grössenlehre. His ontology and logical semantics influenced Husserl and, indirectly, Lukasiewicz, Tarski, and others of the Warsaw School. His conception of ethics and social philosophy affected both the cultural life of Bohemia and the Austrian system of education. Bolzano recognized a profound distinction between the actual thoughts and judgments Urteile of human beings, their linguistic expressions, and the abstract propositions Sätze an sich and their parts which exist independently of those thoughts, judgments, and expressions. A proposition in Bolzano’s sense is a preexistent sequence of ideas-as-such Vorstellungen an sich. Only propositions containing finite ideas-as-such are accessible to the mind. Real things existing concretely in space and time have subsistence Dasein whereas abstract objects such as propositions have only logical existence. Adherences, i.e., forces, applied to certain concrete substances give rise to subjective ideas, thoughts, or judgments. A subjective idea is a part of a judgment that is not itself a judgment. The set of judgments is ordered by a causal relation. Bolzano’s abstract world is constituted of sets, ideas-as-such, certain properties Beschaffenheiten, and objects constructed from these. Thus, sentence shapes are a kind of ideas-as-such, and certain complexes of ideas-as-such constitute propositions. Ideas-as-such can be generated from expressions of a language by postulates for the relation of being an object of something. Analogously, properties can be generated by postulates for the relation of something being applied to an object. Bolzano’s notion of religion is based on his distinction between propositions and judgments. His Lehrbuch der Religionswissenschaft 4 vols., 1834 distinguishes between religion in the objective and subjective senses. The former is a set of religious propositions, whereas the latter is the set of religious views of a single person. Hence, a subjective religion can contain an objective one. By defining a religious proposition as being moral and imperatives the rules of utilitarianism, Bolzano integrated his notion of religion within his ontology. In the Grössenlehre Bolzano intended to give a detailed, well-founded exposition of contemporary mathematics and also to inaugurate new domains of research. Natural numbers are defined, half a century before Frege, as properties of “bijective” sets the members of which can be put in one-to-one correspondence, and real numbers are conceived as properties of sets of certain infinite sequences of rational numbers. The analysis of infinite sets brought him to reject the Euclidean doctrine that the whole is always greater than any of its parts and, hence, to the insight that a set is infinite if and only if it is bijective to a proper subset of itself. This anticipates Peirce and Dedekind. Bolzano’s extension of the linear continuum of finite numbers by infinitesimals implies a relatively constructive approach to nonstandard analysis. In the development of standard analysis the most remarkable result of the Grössenlehre is the anticipation of Weirstrass’s discovery that there exist nowhere differentiable continuous functions. The Wissenschaftslehre was intended to lay the logical and epistemological foundations of Bolzano’s mathematics. A theory of science in Bolzano’s sense is a collection of rules for delimiting the set of scientific textbooks. Whether a Bolzano, Bernard Bolzano, Bernard 93   93 class of true propositions is a worthwhile object of representation in a scientific textbook is an ethical question decidable on utilitarian principles. Bolzano proceeded from an expanded and standardized ordinary language through which he could describe propositions and their parts. He defined the semantic notion of truth and introduced the function corresponding to a “replacement” operation on propositions. One of his major achievements was his definition of logical derivability logische Ableitbarkeit between sets of propositions: B is logically derivable from A if and only if all elements of the sum of A and B are simultaneously true for some replacement of their non-logical ideas-as-such and if all elements of B are true for any such replacement that makes all elements of A true. In addition to this notion, which is similar to Tarski’s concept of consequence of 6, Bolzano introduced a notion corresponding to Gentzen’s concept of consequence. A proposition is universally valid allgemeingültig if it is derivable from the null class. In his proof theory Bolzano formulated counterparts to Gentzen’s cut rule. Bolzano introduced a notion of inductive probability as a generalization of derivability in a limited domain. This notion has the formal properties of conditional probability. These features and Bolzano’s characterization of probability density by the technique of variation are reminiscent of Vitters’s inductive logic and Carnap’s theory of regular confirmation functions. The replacement of conceptual complexes in propositions would, if applied to a formalized language, correspond closely to a substitutionsemantic conception of quantification. His own philosophical language was based on a kind of free logic. In essence, Bolzano characterized a substitution-semantic notion of consequence with a finite number of antecedents. His quantification over individual and general concepts amounts to the introduction of a non-elementary logic of lowest order containing a quantification theory of predicate variables but no set-theoretical principles such as choice axioms. His conception of universal validity and of the semantic superstructure of logic leads to a semantically adequate extension of the predicate-logical version of Lewis’s system S5 of modal logic without paradoxes. It is also possible to simulate Bolzano’s theory of probability in a substitution-semantically constructed theory of probability functions. Hence, by means of an ontologically parsimonious superstructure without possible-worlds metaphysics, Bolzano was able to delimit essentially the realms of classical logical truth and additive probability spaces. In geometry Bolzano created a new foundation from a topological point of view. He defined the notion of an isolated point of a set in a way reminiscent of the notion of a point at which a set is well-dimensional in the sense of Urysohn and Menger. On this basis he introduced his topological notion of a continuum and formulated a recursive definition of the dimensionality of non-empty subsets of the Euclidean 3-space, which is closely related to the inductive dimension concept of Urysohn and Menger. In a remarkable paragraph of an unfinished late manuscript on geometry he stated the celebrated curve theorem of Jordan. 

bonaria – a church on an Italian island – Grice sailed there during his Grand Tour to Italy and Greece. He loved it! And he loved reading the Latin inscriptions and practicing the Latin he had learned at Clifton.  H. P. Grice was going to visit the River Plate with Noel Coward, but he got sick -- – or South American philosophy – “Bonaria” was settled by Italians after the matron saint of sailors, “Bonaria,” – itself settled by Ligurians, the first Italians to settle in Buenos Aires and the Argentine area of the River Plate -- the philosophy of South America, which is European in origin and constitutes a chapter in the history of Western philosophy (rather than  say, Japanese – there was a strong emigration of Japanese to Buenos Aires, but they remained mainly in the dry laundry business). Pre-Columbian (“Indian”) indigenous cultures had developed ideas about the world that have been interpreted by some scholars as philosophical, but there is no evidence that any of those ideas were incorporated into the philosophy later practiced in Latin America. It is difficult to characterize Latin American philosophy in a way applicable to all of its 500-year history. The most one can say is that, in contrast with European and Anglo-American philosophy, it has maintained a strong human and social interest, has been consistently affected by Scholastic and Catholic thought, and has significantly affected the social and political institutions in the region. South American philosophers (especially if NOT from Buenos Aires) tend to be active in the educational, political, and social lives of their countries and deeply concerned with their own cultural identity (except if they are from Buenos Aires, who have their identity well settled in Europe, as European exiles or expatriates that that they are) The history of philosophy in Latin America can be divided into four periods: colonial, independentist, positivist, and contemporary. Colonial period (c.1550–c.1750). This period was dominated by the type of Scholasticism officially practiced in the Iberian peninsula. The texts studied were those of medieval Scholastics, primarily Aquinas and Duns Scotus, and of their Iberian commentators, Vitoria, Soto, Fonseca, and, above all, Suárez. The university curriculum was modeled on that of major Iberian universities (Salamanca, Alcalá, Coimbra), and instructors produced both systematic treatises and commentaries on classical, medieval, and contemporary texts. The philosophical concerns in the colonies were those prevalent in Spain and Portugal and centered on logical and metaphysical issues inherited from the Middle Ages and on political and legal questions raised by the discovery and colonization of America. Among the former were issues involving the logic of terms and propositions and the problems of universals and individuation; among the latter were questions concerning the rights of Indians and the relations of the natives with the conquerors. The main philosophical center during the early colonial period was Mexico; Peru became important in the seventeenth century. Between 1700 and 1750 other centers developed, but by that time Scholasticism had begun to decline. The founding of the Royal and Pontifical University of Mexico in 1553 inaugurated Scholastic instruction in the New World. The first teacher of philosophy at the university was Alonso de la Vera Cruz (c.1504–84), an Augustinian and disciple of Soto. He composed several didactic treatises on La Peyrère, Isaac Latin American philosophy 483 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 483 logic, metaphysics, and science, including Recognitio summularum (“Introductory Logic,” 1554), Dialectica resolutio (“Advanced Logic,” 1554), and Physica speculatio (“Physics,” 1557). He also wrote a theologico-legal work, the Speculum conjugiorum (“On Marriage,” 1572), concerned with the status of precolonial Indian marriages. Alonso’s works are eclectic and didactic and show the influence of Aristotle, Peter of Spain, and Vitoria in particular. Another important Scholastic figure in Mexico was the Dominican Tomás de Mercado (c.1530–75). He produced commentaries on the logical works of Peter of Spain and Aristotle and a treatise on international commerce, Summa de tratos y contratos (“On Contracts,” 1569). His other sources are Porphyry and Aquinas. Perhaps the most important figure of the period was Antonio Rubio (1548–1615), author of the most celebrated Scholastic book written in the New World, Logica mexicana (“Mexican Logic,” 1605). It underwent seven editions in Europe and became a logic textbook in Alcalá. Rubio’s sources are Aristotle, Porphyry, and Aquinas, but he presents original treatments of several logical topics. Rubio also commented on several of Aristotle’s other works. In Peru, two authors merit mention. Juan Pérez Menacho (1565–1626) was a prolific writer, but only a moral treatise, Theologia et moralis tractatus (“Treatise on Theology and Morals”), and a commentary on Aquinas’s Summa theologiae remain. The Chilean-born Franciscan, Alfonso Briceño (c.1587–1669), worked in Nicaragua and Venezuela, but the center of his activities was Lima. In contrast with the Aristotelian-Thomistic flavor of the philosophy of most of his contemporaries, Briceño was a Scotistic Augustinian. This is evident in Celebriores controversias in primum sententiarum Scoti (“On Scotus’s First Book of the Sentences,” 1638) and Apologia de vita et doctrina Joannis Scotti (“Apology for John Scotus,” 1642). Although Scholasticism dominated the intellectual life of colonial Latin America, some authors were also influenced by humanism. Among the most important in Mexico were Juan de Zumárraga (c.1468–1548); the celebrated defender of the Indians, Bartolomé de Las Casas (1474–1566); Carlos Sigüenza y Góngora (1645–1700); and Sor Juana Inés de La Cruz (1651–95). The last one is a famous poet, now considered a precursor of the feminist movement. In Peru, Nicolás de Olea (1635–1705) stands out. Most of these authors were trained in Scholasticism but incorporated the concerns and ideas of humanists into their work. Independentist period (c.1750–c.1850). Just before and immediately after independence, leading Latin American intellectuals lost interest in Scholastic issues and became interested in social and political questions, although they did not completely abandon Scholastic sources. Indeed, the theories of natural law they inherited from Vitoria and Suárez played a significant role in forming their ideas. But they also absorbed non-Scholastic European authors. The rationalism of Descartes and other Continental philosophers, together with the empiricism of Locke, the social ideas of Rousseau, the ethical views of Bentham, the skepticism of Voltaire and other Encyclopedists, the political views of Condorcet and Montesquieu, the eclecticism of Cousin, and the ideology of Destutt de Tracy, all contributed to the development of liberal ideas that were a background to the independentist movement. Most of the intellectual leaders of this movement were men of action who used ideas for practical ends, and their views have limited theoretical value. They made reason a measure of legitimacy in social and governmental matters, and found the justification for revolutionary ideas in natural law. Moreover, they criticized authority; some, regarding religion as superstitious, opposed ecclesiastical power. These ideas paved the way for the later development of positivism. The period begins with the weakening hold of Scholasticism on Latin American intellectuals and the growing influence of early modern philosophy, particularly Descartes. Among the first authors to turn to modern philosophy was Juan Benito Díaz de Gamarra y Dávalos (1745–83) in Mexico who wrote Errores del entendimiento humano (“Errors of Human Understanding,” 1781) and Academias filosóficas (“Philosophical Academies,” 1774). Also in Mexico was Francisco Javier Clavijero (1731–87), author of a book on physics and a general history of Mexico. In Brazil the turn away from Scholasticism took longer. One of the first authors to show the influence of modern philosophy was Francisco de Mont’Alverne (1784– 1858) in Compêndio de filosofia (1883). These first departures from Scholasticism were followed by the more consistent efforts of those directly involved in the independentist movement. Among these were Simón Bolívar (1783–1830), leader of the rebellion against Spain in the Andean countries of South America, and the Mexicans Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla (1753– 1811), José María Morelos y Paván (1765– 1815), and José Joaquín Fernández de Lizardi Latin American philosophy Latin American philosophy 484 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 484 (1776–1827). In Argentina, Mariano Moreno (1778–1811), Juan Crisóstomo Lafimur (d. 1823), and Diego Alcorta (d. 1808), among others, spread the liberal ideas that served as a background for independence. Positivist period (c.1850–c.1910). During this time, positivism became not only the most popular philosophy in Latin America but also the official philosophy of some countries. After 1910, however, positivism declined drastically. Latin American positivism was eclectic, influenced by a variety of thinkers, including Comte, Spencer, and Haeckel. Positivists emphasized the explicative value of empirical science while rejecting metaphysics. According to them, all knowledge is based on experience rather than theoretical speculation, and its value lies in its practical applications. Their motto, preserved on the Brazilian flag, was “Order and Progress.” This positivism left little room for freedom and values; the universe moved inexorably according to mechanistic laws. Positivism was a natural extension of the ideas of the independentists. It was, in part, a response to the needs of the newly liberated countries of Latin America. After independence, the concerns of Latin American intellectuals shifted from political liberation to order, justice, and progress. The beginning of positivism can be traced to the time when Latin America, responding to these concerns, turned to the views of French socialists such as Saint-Simon and Fourier. The Argentinians Esteban Echevarría (1805–51) and Juan Bautista Alberdi (1812–84) were influenced by them. Echevarría’s Dogma socialista (“Socialist Dogma,” 1846) combines socialist ideas with eighteenth-century rationalism and literary Romanticism, and Alberdi follows suit, although he eventually turned toward Comte. Alberdi is, moreover, the first Latin American philosopher to worry about developing a philosophy adequate to the needs of Latin America. In Ideas (1842), he stated that philosophy in Latin America should be compatible with the economic, political, and social requirements of the region. Another transitional thinker, influenced by both Scottish philosophy and British empiricism, was the Venezuelan Andrés Bello (1781–1865). A prolific writer, he is the most important Latin American philosopher of the nineteenth century. His Filosofía del entendimiento (“Philosophy of Understanding,” 1881) reduces metaphysics to psychology. Bello also developed original ideas about language and history. After 1829, he worked in Chile, where his influence was strongly felt. The generation of Latin American philosophers after Alberdi and Bello was mostly positivistic. Positivism’s heyday was the second half of the nineteenth century, but two of its most distinguished advocates, the Argentinian José Ingenieros (1877–1925) and the Cuban Enrique José Varona (1849–1933), worked well into the twentieth century. Both modified positivism in important ways. Ingenieros left room for metaphysics, which, according to him, deals in the realm of the “yet-to-be-experienced.” Among his most important books are Hacia una moral sin dogmas (“Toward a Morality without Dogmas,” 1917), where the influence of Emerson is evident, Principios de psicologia (“Principles of Psychology,” 1911), where he adopts a reductionist approach to psychology, and El hombre mediocre (“The Mediocre Man,” 1913), an inspirational book popular among Latin American youths. In Conferencias filosóficas (“Philosophical Lectures,” 1880–88), Varona went beyond the mechanistic explanations of behavior common among positivists. In Mexico the first and leading positivist was Gabino Barreda (1818–81), who reorganized Mexican education under President Juárez. An ardent follower of Comte, Barreda made positivism the basis of his educational reforms. He was followed by Justo Sierra (1848–1912), who turned toward Spencer and Darwin and away from Comte, criticizing Barreda’s dogmatism. Positivism was introduced in Brazil by Tobias Barreto (1839–89) and Silvio Romero (1851– 1914) in Pernambuco, around 1869. In 1875 Benjamin Constant (1836–91) founded the Positivist Society in Rio de Janeiro. The two most influential exponents of positivism in the country were Miguel Lemos (1854–1916) and Raimundo Teixeira Mendes (1855–1927), both orthodox followers of Comte. Positivism was more than a technical philosophy in Brazil. Its ideas spread widely, as is evident from the inclusion of positivist ideas in the first republican constitution. The most prominent Chilean positivists were José Victorino Lastarria (1817–88) and Valentín Letelier (1852–1919). More dogmatic adherents to the movement were the Lagarrigue brothers, Jorge (d. 1894), Juan Enrique (d. 1927), and Luis (d. 1953), who promoted positivism in Chile well after it had died everywhere else in Latin America. Contemporary period (c.1910–present). Contemporary Latin American philosophy began Latin American philosophy Latin American philosophy 485 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:40 AM Page 485 with the demise of positivism. The first part of the period was dominated by thinkers who rebelled against positivism. The principal figures, called the Founders by Francisco Romero, were Alejandro Korn (1860–1936) in Argentina, Alejandro Octavio Deústua (1849–1945) in Peru, José Vasconcelos (1882–1959) and Antonio Caso (1883–1946) in Mexico, Enrique Molina (1871– 1964) in Chile, Carlos Vaz Ferreira (1872–1958) in Uruguay, and Raimundo de Farias Brito (1862–1917) in Brazil. In spite of little evidence of interaction among these philosophers, their aims and concerns were similar. Trained as positivists, they became dissatisfied with positivism’s dogmatic intransigence, mechanistic determinism, and emphasis on pragmatic values. Deústua mounted a detailed criticism of positivistic determinism in Las ideas de orden y de libertad en la historia del pensamiento humano (“The Ideas of Order and Freedom in the History of Human Thought,” 1917–19). About the same time, Caso presented his view of man as a spiritual reality that surpasses nature in La existencia como economía, como desinterés y como caridad (“Existence as Economy, Disinterestedness, and Charity,” 1916). Following in Caso’s footsteps and inspired by Pythagoras and the Neoplatonists, Vasconcelos developed a metaphysical system with aesthetic roots in El monismo estético (“Aesthetic Monism,” 1918). An even earlier criticism of positivism is found in Vaz Ferreira’s Lógica viva (“Living Logic,” 1910), which contrasts the abstract, scientific logic favored by positivists with a logic of life based on experience, which captures reality’s dynamic character. The earliest attempt at developing an alternative to positivism, however, is found in Farias Brito. Between 1895 and 1905 he published a trilogy, Finalidade do mundo (“The World’s Goal”), in which he conceived the world as an intellectual activity which he identified with God’s thought, and thus as essentially spiritual. The intellect unites and reflects reality but the will divides it. Positivism was superseded by the Founders with the help of ideas imported first from France and later from Germany. The process began with the influence of Étienne Boutroux (1845–1921) and Bergson and of French vitalism and intuitionism, but it was cemented when Ortega y Gasset introduced into Latin America the thought of Scheler, Nicolai Hartmann, and other German philosophers during his visit to Argentina in 1916. The influence of Bergson was present in most of the founders, particularly Molina, who in 1916 wrote La filosofía de Bergson (“The Philosophy of Bergson”). Korn was exceptional in turning to Kant in his search for an alternative to positivism. In La libertad creadora (“Creative Freedom,” 1920–22), he defends a creative concept of freedom. In Axiología (“Axiology,” 1930), his most important work, he defends a subjectivist position. The impact of German philosophy, including Hegel, Marx, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and the neo-Kantians, and of Ortega’s philosophical perspectivism and historicism, were strongly felt in the generation after the founders. The Mexican Samuel Ramos (1897–1959), the Argentinians Francisco Romero (1891–1962) and Carlos Astrada (1894–1970), the Brazilian Alceu Amoroso Lima (1893–1982), the Peruvian José Carlos Mariátegui (1895–1930), and others followed the Founders’ course, attacking positivism and favoring, in many instances, a philosophical style that contrasted with its scientistic emphasis. The most important of these figures was Romero, whose Theory of Man (1952) developed a systematic philosophical anthropology in the context of a metaphysics of transcendence. Reality is arranged according to degrees of transcendence, the lowest of which is the physical and the highest the spiritual. The bases of Ramos’s thought are found in Ortega as well as in Scheler and N. Hartmann. Ramos appropriated Ortega’s perspectivism and set out to characterize the Mexican situation in Profile of Man and Culture in Mexico (1962). Some precedent existed for the interest in the culturally idiosyncratic in Vasconcelos’s Raza cósmica (“Cosmic Race,” 1925), but Ramos opened the doors to a philosophical awareness of Latin American culture that has been popular ever since. Ramos’s most traditional work, Hacia un nuevo humanismo (“Toward a New Humanism,” 1940), presents a philosophical anthropology of Orteguean inspiration. Astrada studied in Germany and adopted existential and phenomenological ideas in El juego existential (“The Existential Game,” 1933), while criticizing Scheler’s axiology. Later, he turned toward Hegel and Marx in Existencialismo y crisis de la filosofía (“Existentialism and the Crisis of Philosophy,” 1963). Amoroso Lima worked in the Catholic tradition and his writings show the influence of Maritain. His O espírito e o mundo (“Spirit and World,” 1936) and Idade, sexo e tempo (“Age, Sex, and Time,” 1938) present a spiritual view of human beings, which he contrasted with Marxist and existentialist views. Mariátegui is the most distinguished representative of MarxLatin American phiism in Latin America. His Siete ensayos de interpretación de la realidad peruana (“Seven Essays on the Interpretation of Peruvian Reality,” 1928) contains an important statement of social philosophy, in which he uses Marxist ideas freely to analyze the Peruvian sociopolitical situation. In the late 1930s and 1940s, as a consequence of the political upheaval created by the Spanish Civil War, a substantial group of peninsular philosophers settled in Latin America. Among the most influential were Joaquín Xirau (1895– 1946), Eduardo Nicol (b.1907), Luis Recaséns Siches (b.1903), Juan D. García Bacca (b.1901), and, perhaps most of all, José Gaos (1900–69). Gaos, like Caso, was a consummate teacher, inspiring many students. Apart from the European ideas they brought, these immigrants introduced methodologically more sophisticated ways of doing philosophy, including the practice of studying philosophical sources in the original languages. Moreover, they helped to promote Pan-American communication. The conception of hispanidad they had inherited from Unamuno and Ortega helped the process. Their influence was felt particularly by the generation born around 1910. With this generation, Latin American philosophy established itself as a professional and reputable discipline, and philosophical organizations, research centers, and journals sprang up. The core of this generation worked in the German tradition. Risieri Frondizi (Argentina, 1910–83), Eduardo García Máynez (Mexico, b.1908), Juan Llambías de Azevedo (Uruguay, 1907–72), and Miguel Reale (Brazil, b.1910) were all influenced by Scheler and N. Hartmann and concerned themselves with axiology and philosophical anthropology. Frondizi, who was also influenced by empiricist philosophy, defended a functional view of the self in Substancia y función en el problema del yo (“The Nature of the Self,” 1952) and of value as a Gestalt quality in Qué son los valores? (“What is Value?” 1958). Apart from these thinkers, there were representatives of other traditions in this generation. Following Ramos, Leopoldo Zea (Mexico, b.1912) stimulated the study of the history of ideas in Mexico and initiated a controversy that still rages concerning the identity and possibility of a truly Latin American philosophy. Representing existentialism was Vicente Ferreira da Silva (Brazil, b.1916), who did not write much but presented a vigorous criticism of what he regarded as Hegelian and Marxist subjectivism in Ensaios filosóficos (“Philosophical Essays,” 1948). Before he became interested in existentialism, he had been interested in logic, publishing the first textbook of mathematical logic written in South America – Elementos de lógica matemática (“Elements of Mathematical Logic,” 1940). A philosopher whose interest in mathematical logic moved him away from phenomenology is Francisco Miró Quesada (Peru, b.1918). He explored rationality and eventually the perspective of analytic philosophy. Owing to the influence of Maritain, several members of this generation adopted a NeoThomistic or Scholastic approach. The main figures to do so were Oswaldo Robles (b.1904) in Mexico, Octavio Nicolás Derisi (b.1907) in Argentina, Alberto Wagner de Reyna (b.1915) in Peru, and Clarence Finlayson (1913–54) in Chile and Colombia. Even those authors who worked in this tradition addressed issues of axiology and philosophical anthropology. There was, therefore, considerable thematic unity in South American philosophy. The overall orientation was not drastically different from the preceding period. The Founders vitalism against positivism, and the following generation, with Ortega’s help, took over the process, incorporating spiritualism and the new ideas introduced by phenomenology and existentialism to continue in a similar direction. As a result, the phenomenology amd existentialism dominated philosophy in South America. To this must be added the renewed impetus of neoScholasticism. Few philosophers worked outside these philosophical currents, and those who did had no institutional power. Among these were sympathizers of philosophical analysis, and those who contributed to the continuing development of Marxism. This situation has begun to change substantially as a result of a renewed interest in Marxism, the progressive influence of Oxford analytic philosophy (with a number of philosophers from Buenos Aires studying usually under British-Council scholarships, under P. F. Strawson, D. F. Pears, H. L. A. Hart, and others – these later founded the Buenos-Aires-based Argentine Society for Philosophical Analysis --. In Buenos Aires, English philosophy and culture in general is rated higher than others, due to the influence of the British emigration to the River-Plate area – The pragmatics of H. P. Grice is particularly influential in that it brings a breath of fresh area to the more ritualistic approach as favoured by his nemesis, J. L. Austin --. American philosophers are uually read provided they, too, had the proper Oxonian education or background -- and the development of a new philosophical current called the philosophy of liberation. Moreover, the question raised by Zea concerning the identity and possibility of a South American philosophy remains a focus of attention and controversy. And, more recently, there has been interest in postmodernism, the theory of communicative action, deconstructionism, neopragmatism, and feminism. Socialist thought is not new to South America. In this century, Emilio Frugoni (1880–1969) in Uruguay and Mariátegui in Peru, among others, adopted a Marxist perspective, although a heterodox one. But only in the last three decades has Marxism been taken seriously in Latin American academic circles. Indeed, until recently Marxism was a marginal philosophical movement in Latin America. The popularity of the Marxist perspective has made possible its increasing institutionalization. Among its most important thinkers are Adolfo Sánchez Vázquez (Spain, b.1915), Vicente Lombardo Toledano (b.1894) and Eli de Gortari (b.1918) in Mexico, and Caio Prado Júnior (1909–86) in Brazil. In contrast to Marxism, philosophical analysis arrived late in Latin America and, owing to its technical and academic character, has not yet influenced more than a relatively small number of philosophers – and also because in the milieu of Buenos Aires, the influence of French culture is considered to have much more prestige in mainstream culture than the more parochial empiricist brand coming from the British Isles – unless it’s among the Friends of the Argentine Centre for English Culture. German philosophy is considered rough in contrast to the pleasing to the ear sounds of French philosophy, and Buenos Aires locals find the very sound of the long German philosophical terms a source of amusement and mirth. Since Buenos Aires habitants are Italians, it is logical that they do not have much affinity for Italian philosophy, which they think it’s too local and less extravagant than the French. There was a strong immigration of German philosophers to Buenos Aires after the end of the Second World War, too. Colonials from New Zealand, Australia, Canada, or the former colonies in North America are never as welcomed in Buenos Aires as those from the very Old World. The reason is obvious: as being New-Worlders, if they are going to be educated, it is by Older-Worlders – Nobody in Buenos Aires would follow a New-World philosopher or a colonial philosopher – but at most a school which originated in the Continent of Europe. The British are regarded as by nature unphilosophical and to follow a British philosopher in Buenos Aires is considered an English joke! Nonetheless, and thanks in part to its high theoretical caliber, analysis has become one of the most forceful philosophical currents in the region. The publication of journals with an analytic bent such as Crítica in Mexico, Análisis Filosófico in Argentina, and Manuscrito in Brazil, the foundation of The Sociedad Argentina de Análisis Filosófico (SADAF) in Argentina and the Sociedad Filosófica Iberoamericana (SOFIA) in Mexico, and the growth of analytic publications in high-profile journals of neutral philosophical orientation, such as Revista Latinoamericana de Filosofía, indicate that philosophical analysis is well established in at least the most European bit of the continent: the river Plate area of Buenos Aires. The main centers of analytic activity are Buenos Aires, on the River Plate, and far afterwards, the much less British-influenced centers like Mexico City, or the provincial varsity of Campinas and São Paulo in Brazil. The interests of South American philosophical analysts center on questions of pragmatics, rather than semantics, -- and are generally sympathetic to Griceian developments -- ethical and legal philosophy, the philosophy of science, and more recently cognitive science. Among its most important proponents are Genaro R. Carrio (b.1922), Gregorio Klimovsky (b.1922), and Tomas Moro Simpson (b.1929), E. A. Rabossi (b. Buenos Aires), O. N. Guariglia (b. Buenos Aires), in Argentina – Strawson was a frequent lecturer at the Argentine Society for Philosopohical Analysis, and many other Oxonian philosophers on sabbatical leave. The Argentine Society for Philosophical Analysis, usually in conjunction with the Belgravia-based Anglo-Argentine Society organize seminars and symposia – when an Argentine philosopher emigrates he ceases to be considered an Argentine philosopher – students who earn their maximal degrees overseas are not counted either as Argentine philosophers by Argentine (or specifically Buenos Aires) philosophers (They called them braindrained, brainwashed!) Luis Villoro (Spain, b. 1922) in Mexico; Francisco Miró Quesada in Peru; Roberto Torretti (Chile, b.1930) in Puerto Rico; Mario Bunge (Argentina, b.1919), who emigrated to Canada; and Héctor-Neri Castañeda (Guatemala, 1924–91). The philosophy of liberation is an autochthonous Latin American movement that mixes an emphasis on Latin American intellectual independence with Catholic and Marxist ideas. The historicist perspective of Leopoldo Zea, the movement known as the theology of liberation, and some elements from the national-popular Peronist ideology prepared the ground for it. The movement started in the early 1970s with a group of Argentinian philosophers, who, owing to the military repression of 1976–83 in Argentina, went into exile in various countries of Latin America. This early diaspora created permanent splits in the movement and spread its ideas throughout the region. Although proponents of this viewpoint do not always agree on their goals, they share the notion of liberation as a fundamental concept: the liberation from the slavery imposed on Latin America by imported ideologies and the development of a genuinely autochthonous thought resulting from reflection on the South American reality. As such, their views are an extension of the thought of Ramos and others who earlier in the century initiated the discussion of the cultural identity of South America.

bonum: One of the four transcendentals, along with ‘unum,’ ‘pulchrum,’ and ‘verum’. Grice makes fun of Hare n “Language of Morals.” To what extent is Hare saying that to say ‘x is good’ means ‘I approve of x’? (Strictly: “To say that something is good is to recommend it”). To say " I approve of x " is in part to do the same thing as when we say " x is good " a statement of the form " X is good" strictly designates " I approve of X " and suggests " Do so as well". It should be in Part II to “Language of Morals”. Old Romans did not have an article, so for them it is unum, bonum, verum, and pulchrum. They were trying to translate the very articled Grecian things, ‘to agathon,’ ‘to alethes,’ and ‘to kallon.’ The three references given by Liddell and Scott are good ones. τὸ ἀ., the good, Epich.171.5, cf. Pl.R.506b, 508e, Arist.Metaph.1091a31, etc. The Grecian Grice is able to return to the ‘article’. Grice has an early essay on ‘the good,’ and he uses the same expression at Oxford for the Locke lectures when looking for a ‘desiderative’ equivalent to ‘the true.’ Hare had dedicated the full part of his “Language of Morals” to ‘good,’ so Grice is well aware of the centrality of the topic. He was irritated by what he called a performatory approach to the good, where ‘x is good’ =df. ‘I approve of x.’ Surely that’s a conversational implicaturum. However, in his analysis of reasoning (the demonstratum – since he uses the adverb ‘demonstrably’ as a marker of pretty much like ‘concusively,’ as applied to both credibility and desirability, we may focus on what Grice sees as ‘bonum’ as one of the ‘absolutes,’ the absolute in the desirability realm, as much as the ‘verum’ is the absolute in the credibility realm. Grice has an excellent argument regarding ‘good.’ His example is ‘cabbage,’ but also ‘sentence.’ Grice’s argument is to turn the disimpicatum into an explicitum. To know what a ‘cabbage,’ or a formula is, you need to know first what a ‘good’ cabbage is or a ‘well-formed formula,’ is. An ill-formed sentence is not deemed by Grice a sentence. This means that we define ‘x’ as ‘optimum x.’ This is not so strange, seeing that ‘optimum’ is actually the superlative of ‘bonum’ (via the comparative). It does not require very sharp eyes, but only the willingness to use the eyes one has, to see that our speech and thought are permeated with the notion of purpose; to say what a certain kind of thing is is only too frequently partly to say what it is for. This feature applies to our talk and thought of, for example, ships, shoes, sealing wax, and kings; and, possibly and perhaps most excitingly, it extends even to cabbages.“There is a range of cases in which, so far from its being the case that, typically, one first learns what it is to be a F and then, at the next stage, learns what criteria distinguish a good F from a F which is less good, or not good at all, one needs first to learn what it is to be a good F, and then subsequently to learn what degree of approximation to being a good F will qualify an item as a F; if the gap between some item x and good Fs is sufficently horrendous, x is debarred from counting as a F at all, even as a bad F.”“In the John Locke Lectures, I called a concept which exhibits this feature as a ‘value-paradeigmatic’ concept. One example of a value-paradeigmatic concept is the concept of reasoning; another, I now suggest, is that of sentence. It may well be that the existence of value-oriented concepts (¢b ¢ 2 . • • . ¢n) depends on the prior existence of pre-rational concepts ( ¢~, ¢~ . . . . ¢~), such that an item x qualifies for the application of the concept ¢ 2 if and only if x satisfies a rationally-approved form or version of the corresponding pre-rational concept ¢'. We have a (primary) example of a step in reasoning only if we have a transition of a certain rationally approved kind from one thought or utterance to another. --- bonum commune -- common good, a normative standard in Thomistic and Neo-Thomistic ethics for evaluating the justice of social, legal, and political arrangements, referring to those arrangements that promote the full flourishing of everyone in the community. Every good can be regarded as both a goal to be sought and, when achieved, a source of human fulfillment. A common good is any good sought by and/or enjoyed by two or more persons as friendship is a good common to the friends; the common good is the good of a “perfect” i.e., complete and politically organized human community  a good that is the common goal of all who promote the justice of that community, as well as the common source of fulfillment of all who share in those just arrangements. ‘Common’ is an analogical term referring to kinds and degrees of sharing ranging from mere similarity to a deep ontological communion. Thus, any good that is a genuine perfection of our common human nature is a common good, as opposed to merely idiosyncratic or illusory goods. But goods are common in a deeper sense when the degree of sharing is more than merely coincidental: two children engaged in parallel play enjoy a good in common, but they realize a common good more fully by engaging each other in one game; similarly, if each in a group watches the same good movie alone at home, they have enjoyed a good in common but they realize this good at a deeper level when they watch the movie together in a theater and discuss it afterward. In short, common good includes aggregates of private, individual goods but transcends these aggregates by the unique fulfillment afforded by mutuality, shared activity, and communion of persons. As to the sources in Thomistic ethics for this emphasis on what is deeply shared over what merely coincides, the first is Aristotle’s understanding of us as social and political animals: many aspects of human perfection, on this view, can be achieved only through shared activities in communities, especially the political community. The second is Christian Trinitarian theology, in which the single Godhead involves the mysterious communion of three divine “persons,” the very exemplar of a common good; human personhood, by analogy, is similarly perfected only in a relationship of social communion. The achievement of such intimately shared goods requires very complex and delicate arrangements of coordination to prevent the exploitation and injustice that plague shared endeavors. The establishment and maintenance of these social, legal, and political arrangements is “the” common good of a political society, because the enjoyment of all goods is so dependent upon the quality and the justice of those arrangements. The common good of the political community includes, but is not limited to, public goods: goods characterized by non-rivalry and non-excludability and which, therefore, must generally be provided by public institutions. By the principle of subsidiarity, the common good is best promoted by, in addition to the state, many lower-level non-public societies, associations, and individuals. Thus, religiously affiliated schools educating non-religious minority chilcommission common good 161   161 dren might promote the common good without being public goods. 

bonum: good-making characteristic, a characteristic that makes whatever is intrinsically or inherently good, good. Hedonists hold that pleasure and conducing to pleasure are the sole good-making characteristics. Pluralists hold that those characteristics are only some among many other goodmaking characteristics, which include, for instance, knowledge, friendship, beauty, and acting from a sense of duty. Refs.: H. P. Grice, “E. F. Carritt on an alleged ambiguity of ‘good.’” This was called a ‘transcendental,’ and it was a favourite topic of Achillini.

booleian: algebra: Peirce was irritated by the spelling “Boolean” “Surely it is Booleian.” 1 an ordered triple B,†,3, where B is a set containing at least two elements and † and 3 are unary and binary operations in B such that i a 3 b % b 3 a, ii a 3 b 3 c % a 3 b 3 c, iii a 3 † a % b 3 † b, and iv a 3 b = a if and only if a 3 † b % a 3 † a; 2 the theboo-hurrah theory Boolean algebra 95   95 ory of such algebras. Such structures are modern descendants of algebras published by the mathematician G. Boole in 1847 and representing the first successful algebraic treatment of logic. Interpreting † and 3 as negation and conjunction, respectively, makes Boolean algebra a calculus of propositions. Likewise, if B % {T,F} and † and 3 are the truth-functions for negation and conjunction, then B,†,3  the truth table for those two connectives  forms a two-element Boolean algebra. Picturing a Boolean algebra is simple. B,†,3 is a full subset algebra if B is the set of all subsets of a given set and † and 3 are set complementation and intersection, respectively. Then every finite Boolean algebra is isomorphic to a full subset algebra, while every infinite Boolean algebra is isomorphic to a subalgebra of such an algebra. It is for this reason that Boolean algebra is often characterized as the calculus of classes. 

bootstrap: Grice certainly didn’t have a problem with meta-langauge paradoxes. Two of his maxims are self refuting and ‘sic’-ed: “be perspicuous [sic]” and “be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity) [sic].” The principle introduced by Grice in “Prejudices and predilections; which become, the life and opinions of H. P. Grice,” to limit the power of the meta-language. The weaker your metalanguage the easier you’ll be able to pull yourself by your own bootstraps. He uses bootlaces in “Metaphysics, Philosophical Eschatology, and Plato’s Republic.”

border-line: case, in the logical sense, a case that falls within the “gray area” or “twilight zone” associated with a vague concept; in the pragmatic sense, a doubtful, disputed, or arguable case. These two senses are not mutually exclusive, of course. A moment of time near sunrise or sunset may be a borderline case of daytime or nighttime in the logical sense, but not in the pragmatic sense. A sufficiently freshly fertilized ovum may be a borderline case of a person in both senses. Fermat’s hypothesis, or any of a large number of other disputed mathematical propositions, may be a borderline case in the pragmatic sense but not in the logical sense. A borderline case per se in either sense need not be a limiting case or a degenerate case.

bosanquet: Cited by H. P. Grice. Very English philosopher (almost like Austin or Grice), the most systematic Oxford absolute idealist and, with F. H. Bradley, the leading Oxford defender of absolute idealism. Although he derived his last name from Huguenot ancestors, Bosanquet was thoroughly English. Born at Altwick and educated at Harrow and Balliol, Oxford, he was for eleven years a fellow of  University College, Oxford. The death of his father in 0 and the resulting inheritance enabled Bosanquet to leave Oxford for London and a career as a writer and social activist. While writing, he taught courses for the London Ethical Society’s Center for  Extension and donated time to the Charity Organization Society. In 5 he married his coworker in the Charity Organization Society, Helen Dendy, who was also the translator of Christoph Sigwart’s Logic. Bosanquet was professor of moral philosophy at St. Andrews from 3 to 8. He gave the Gifford Lectures in 1 and 2. Otherwise he lived in London until his death. Bosanquet’s most comprehensive work, his two-volume Gifford Lectures, The Principle of Individuality and Value and The Value and Destiny of the Individual, covers most aspects of his philosophy. In The Principle of Individuality and Value he argues that the search for truth proceeds by eliminating contradictions in experience. For Bosanquet a contradiction arises when there are incompatible interpretations of the same fact. This involves making distinctions that harmonize the incompatible interpretations in a larger body of knowledge. Bosanquet thought there was no way to arrest this process short of recognizing that all human experience forms a comprehensive whole which is reality. Bosanquet called this totality “the Absolute.” Just as conflicting interpretations of the same fact find harmonious places in the Absolute, so conflicting desires are also included. The Absolute thus satisfies all desires and provides Bosanquet’s standard for evaluating other objects. This is because in his view the value of an object is determined by its ability to satisfy desires. From this Bosanquet concluded that human beings, as fragments of the Absolute, acquire greater value as they realize themselves by partaking more fully in the Absolute. In The Value and Destiny of the Individual Bosanquet explained how human beings could do this. As finite, human beings face obstacles they cannot overcome; yet they desire the good i.e., the Absolute which for Bosanquet overcomes all obstacles and satisfies all desires. Humans can best realize a desire for the good, Bosanquet thinks, by surrendering their private desires for the sake of the good. This attitude of surrender, which Bosanquet calls the religious consciousness, relates human beings to what is permanently valuable in reality and increases their own value and satisfaction accordingly. Bosanquet’s defense of this metaphysical vision rests heavily on his first major work, Logic or the Morphology of Knowledge 8; 2d ed., 1. As the subtitle indicates, Bosanquet took the subject matter of Logic to be the structure of knowledge. Like Hegel, who was in many ways his inspiration, Bosanquet thought that the nature of knowledge was defined by structures repeated in different parts of knowledge. He called these structures forms of judgment and tried to show that simple judgments are dependent on increasingly complex ones and finally on an all-inclusive judgment that defines reality. For example, the simplest element of knowledge is a demonstrative judgment like “This is hot.” But making such a judgment presupposes understanding the contrast between ‘this’ and ‘that’. Demonstrative judgments thus depend on comparative judgments like “This is hotter than that.” Since these judgments are less dependent on other judgments, they more fully embody human knowledge. Bosanquet claimed that the series of increasingly complex judgments are not arranged in a simple linear order but develop along different branches finally uniting in disjunctive judgments that attribute to reality an exhaustive set of mutually exclusive alternatives which are themselves judgments. When one contained judgment is asserted on the basis of another, a judgment containing both is an inference. For Bosanquet inferences are mediated judgments that assert their conclusions based on grounds. When these grounds are made fully explicit in a judgment containing them, that judgment embodies the nature of inference: that one must accept the conclusion or reject the whole of knowledge. Since for Bosanquet the difference between any judgment and the reality it represents is that a judgment is composed of ideas that abstract from reality, a fully comprehensive judgment includes all aspects of reality. It is thus identical to reality. By locating all judgments within this one, Bosanquet claimed to have described the morphology of knowledge as well as to have shown that thought is identical to reality. Bosanquet removed an objection to this identification in History of Aesthetics 2, where he traces the development of the philosophy of the beautiful from its inception through absolute idealism. According to Plato and Aristotle beauty is found in imitations of reality, while in objective idealism it is reality in sensuous form. Drawing heavily on Kant, Bosanquet saw this process as an overcoming of the opposition between sense and reason by showing how a pleasurable feeling can partake of reason. He thought that absolute idealism explained this by showing that we experience objects as beautiful because their sensible qualities exhibit the unifying activity of reason. Bosanquet treated the political implications of absolute idealism in his Philosophical Theory of the State 8; 3d ed., 0, where he argues that humans achieve their ends only in communities. According to Bosanquet, all humans rationally will their own ends. Because their ends differ from moment to moment, the ends they rationally will are those that harmonize their desires at particular moments. Similarly, because the ends of different individuals overlap and conflict, what they rationally will are ends that harmonize their desires, which are the ends of humans in communities. They are willed by the general will, the realization of which is self-rule or liberty. This provides the rational ground of political obligation, since the most comprehensive system of modern life is the state, the end of which is the realization of the best life for its citizens. Refs.: H. P. Grice, “Bosanquet’s implicaturum.”

boyle: r.: Grice was a closet corpularianist. a major figure in seventeenthcentury natural philosophy. To his contemporaries he was “the restorer” in England of the mechanical philosophy. His program was to replace the vacuous explanations characteristic of Peripateticism the “quality of whiteness” in snow explains why it dazzles the eyes by explanations employing the “two grand and most catholic principles of bodies, matter and motion,” matter being composed of corpuscles, with motion “the grand agent of all that happens in nature.” Boyle wrote influentially on scientific methodology, emphasizing experimentation a Baconian influence, experimental precision, and the importance of devising “good and excellent” hypotheses. The dispute with Spinoza on the validation of explanatory hypotheses contrasted Boyle’s experimental way with Spinoza’s way of rational analysis. The 1670s dispute with Henry More on the ontological grounds of corporeal activity confronted More’s “Spirit of Nature” with the “essential modifications” motion and the “seminal principle” of activity with which Boyle claimed God had directly endowed matter. As a champion of the corpuscularian philosophy, Boyle was an important link in the development before Locke of the distinction between primary and secondary qualities. A leading advocate of natural theology, he provided in his will for the establishment of the Boyle Lectures to defend Protestant Christianity against atheism and materialism.

bradley: One of the few English philosophers who saw philosophy, correctly, as a branch of literature! (Essay-writing, strictly). f. h., Cited by H. P. Grice in “Prolegomena,” now repr. in “Studies in the Way of Words.” Also in Grice, “Metaphysics,” in D. F. Pears, “The nature of metaphysics,” -- the most original and influential nineteenth-century British idealist. Born at Clapham, he was the fourth son of an evangelical minister. His younger brother A. C. Bradley was a well-known Shakespearean critic. From 1870 until his death Bradley was a fellow of Merton , Oxford. A kidney ailment, which first occurred in 1871, compelled him to lead a retiring life. This, combined with his forceful literary style, his love of irony, the dedication of three of his books to an unknown woman, and acclaim as the greatest British idealist since Berkeley, has lent an aura of mystery to his personal life. The aim of Bradley’s first important work, Ethical Studies 1876, is not to offer guidance for dealing with practical moral problems Bradley condemned this as casuistry, but rather to explain what makes morality as embodied in the consciousness of individuals and in social institutions possible. Bradley thought it was the fact that moral agents take morality as an end in itself which involves identifying their wills with an ideal provided in part by their stations in society and then transferring that ideal to reality through action. Bradley called this process “selfrealization.” He thought that moral agents could realize their good selves only by suppressing their bad selves, from which he concluded that morality could never be completely realized, since realizing a good self requires having a bad one. For this reason Bradley believed that the moral consciousness would develop into religious consciousness which, in his secularized version of Christianity, required dying to one’s natural self through faith in the actual existence of the moral ideal. In Ethical Studies Bradley admitted that a full defense of his ethics would require a metaphysical system, something he did not then have. Much of Bradley’s remaining work was an attempt to provide the outline of such a system by solving what he called “the great problem of the relation between thought and reality.” He first confronted this problem in The Principles of Logic3, which is his description of thought. He took thought to be embodied in judgments, which are distinguished from other mental activities by being true or false. This is made possible by the fact that their contents, which Bradley called ideas, represent reality. A problem arises because ideas are universals and so represent kinds of things, while the things themselves are all individuals. Bradley solves this problem by distinguishing between the logical and grammatical forms of a judgment and arguing that all judgments have the logical form of conditionals. They assert that universal connections between qualities obtain in reality. The qualities are universals, the connections between them are conditional, while reality is one individual whole that we have contact with in immediate experience. All judgments, in his view, are abstractions from a diverse but non-relational immediate experience. Since judgments are inescapably relational, they fail to represent accurately non-relational reality and so fail to reach truth, which is the goal of thought. From this Bradley concluded that, contrary to what some of his more Hegelian contemporaries were saying, thought is not identical to reality and is never more than partially true. Appearance and Reality 3 is Bradley’s description of reality: it is experience, all of it, all at once, blended in a harmonious way. Bradley defended this view by means of his criterion for reality. Reality, he proclaimed, does not contradict itself; anything that does is merely appearance. In Part I of Appearance and Reality Bradley relied on an infinite regress argument, now called Bradley’s regress, to contend that relations and all relational phenomena, including thought, are contradictory. They are appearance, not reality. In Part II he claimed that appearances are contradictory because they are abstracted by thought from the immediate experience of which they are a part. Appearances constitute the content of this whole, which in Bradley’s view is experience. In other words, reality is experience in its totality. Bradley called this unified, consistent all-inclusive reality “the Absolute.” Today Bradley is mainly remembered for his argument against the reality of relations, and as the philosopher who provoked Russell’s and Moore’s revolution in philosophy. He would be better remembered as a founder of twentiethcentury philosophy who based metaphysical conclusions on his account of the logical forms of judgments. 

brentano: f., philosopher, one of the most intellectually influential and personally charismatic of his time. He is known especially for his distinction between psychological and physical phenomena on the basis of intentionality or internal object-directedness of thought, his revival of Aristotelianism and empirical methods in philosophy and psychology, and his value theory and ethics supported by the concept of correct pro- and anti-emotions or love and hate attitudes. Brentano made noted contributions to the theory of metaphysical categories, phenomenology, epistemology, syllogistic logic, and philosophy of religion. His teaching made a profound impact on his students in Würzburg and Vienna, many of whom became internationally respected thinkers in their fields, including Meinong, Husserl, Twardowski, Christian von Ehrenfels, Anton Marty, and Freud. Brentano began his study of philosophy at the Aschaffenburg Royal Bavarian Gymnasium; in 185658 he attended the universities of Munich and Würzburg, and then enrolled at the  of Berlin, where he undertook his first investigations of Aristotle’s metaphysics under the supervision of F. A. Trendelenburg. In 1859 60, he attended the Academy in Münster, reading intensively in the medieval Aristotelians; in 1862 he received the doctorate in philosophy in absentia from the  of Tübingen. He was ordained a Catholic priest in 1864, and was later involved in a controversy over the doctrine of papal infallibility, eventually leaving the church in 1873. He taught first as Privatdozent in the Philosophical Faculty of the  of Würzburg 186674, and then accepted a professorship at the  of Vienna. In 0 he decided to marry, temporarily resigning his position to acquire Saxon citizenship, in order to avoid legal difficulties in Austria, where marriages of former priests were not officially recognized. Brentano was promised restoration of his position after his circumvention of these restrictions, but although he was later reinstated as lecturer, his appeals for reappointment as professor were answered only with delay and equivocation. He left Vienna in 5, retiring to Italy, his family’s country of origin. At last he moved to Zürich, Switzerland, shortly before Italy entered World War I. Here he remained active both in philosophy and psychology, despite his ensuing blindness, writing and revising numerous books and articles, frequently meeting with former students and colleagues, and maintaining an extensive philosophical-literary correspondence, until his death. In Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkt “Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint,” 1874, Brentano argued that intentionality is the mark of the mental, that every psychological experience contains an intended object  also called an intentional object  which the thought is about or toward which the thought is directed. Thus, in desire, something is desired. According to the immanent intentionality thesis, this means that the desired object is literally contained within the psychological experience of desire. Brentano claims that this is uniquely true of mental as opposed to physical or non-psychological phenomena, so that the intentionality of the psychological distinguishes mental from physical states. The immanent intentionality thesis proBrentano, Franz Brentano, Franz 100   100 vides a framework in which Brentano identifies three categories of psychological phenomena: thoughts Vorstellungen, judgments, and emotive phenomena. He further maintains that every thought is also self-consciously reflected back onto itself as a secondary intended object in what he called the eigentümliche Verfleckung. From 5 through 1, with the publication in that year of Von der Klassifikation der psychischen Phänomene, Brentano gradually abandoned the immanent intentionality thesis in favor of his later philosophy of reism, according to which only individuals exist, excluding putative nonexistent irrealia, such as lacks, absences, and mere possibilities. In the meantime, his students Twardowski, Meinong, and Husserl, reacting negatively to the idealism, psychologism, and related philosophical problems apparent in the early immanent intentionality thesis, developed alternative non-immanence approaches to intentionality, leading, in the case of Twardowski and Meinong and his students in the Graz school of phenomenological psychology, to the construction of Gegenstandstheorie, the theory of transcendent existent and nonexistent intended objects, and to Husserl’s later transcendental phenomenology. The intentionality of the mental in Brentano’s revival of the medieval Aristotelian doctrine is one of his most important contributions to contemporary non-mechanistic theories of mind, meaning, and expression. Brentano’s immanent intentionality thesis was, however, rejected by philosophers who otherwise agreed with his underlying claim that thought is essentially object-directed. Brentano’s value theory Werttheorie offers a pluralistic account of value, permitting many different kinds of things to be valuable  although, in keeping with his later reism, he denies the existence of an abstract realm of values. Intrinsic value is objective rather than subjective, in the sense that he believes the pro- and anti-emotions we may have toward an act or situation are objectively correct if they present themselves to emotional preference with the same apodicity or unquestionable sense of rightness as other selfevident matters of non-ethical judgment. Among the controversial consequences of Brentano’s value theory is the conclusion that there can be no such thing as absolute evil. The implication follows from Brentano’s observation, first, that evil requires evil consciousness, and that consciousness of any kind, even the worst imaginable malice or malevolent ill will, is considered merely as consciousness intrinsically good. This means that necessarily there is always a mixture of intrinsic good even in the most malicious possible states of mind, by virtue alone of being consciously experienced, so that pure evil never obtains. Brentano’s value theory admits of no defense against those who happen not to share the same “correct” emotional attitudes toward the situations he describes. If it is objected that to another person’s emotional preferences only good consciousness is intrinsically good, while infinitely bad consciousness despite being a state of consciousness appears instead to contain no intrinsic good and is absolutely evil, there is no recourse within Brentano’s ethics except to acknowledge that this contrary emotive attitude toward infinitely bad consciousness may also be correct, even though it contradicts his evaluations. Brentano’s empirical psychology and articulation of the intentionality thesis, his moral philosophy and value theory, his investigations of Aristotle’s metaphysics at a time when Aristotelian realism was little appreciated in the prevailing climate of post-Kantian idealism, his epistemic theory of evident judgment, his suggestions for the reform of syllogistic logic, his treatment of the principle of sufficient reason and existence of God, his interpretation of a fourstage cycle of successive trends in the history of philosophy, together with his teaching and personal moral example, continue to inspire a variety of divergent philosophical traditions. 

broad: cited by H. P. Grice in “Personal identity” and “Prolegomena” (re: Benjamin on Broad on remembering). Charlie Dunbar 71, English epistemologist, metaphysician, moral philosopher, and philosopher of science. He was educated at Trinity , Cambridge, taught at several universities in Scotland, and then returned to Trinity, first as lecturer in moral science and eventually as Knightbridge Professor of Moral Philosophy. His philosophical views are in the broadly realist tradition of Moore and Russell, though with substantial influence also from his teachers at Cambridge, McTaggart and W. E. Johnson. Broad wrote voluminously and incisively on an extremely wide range of philosophical topics, including most prominently the nature of perception, a priori knowledge and concepts, the problem of induction, the mind Brentano’s thesis Broad, Charlie Dunbar 101   101 body problem, the free will problem, various topics in moral philosophy, the nature and philosophical significance of psychical research, the nature of philosophy itself, and various historical figures such as Leibniz, Kant, and McTaggart. Broad’s work in the philosophy of perception centers on the nature of sense-data or sensa, as he calls them and their relation to physical objects. He defends a rather cautious, tentative version of the causal theory of perception. With regard to a priori knowledge, Broad rejects the empiricist view that all such knowledge is of analytic propositions, claiming instead that reason can intuit necessary and universal connections between properties or characteristics; his view of concept acquisition is that while most concepts are abstracted from experience, some are a priori, though not necessarily innate. Broad holds that the rationality of inductive inference depends on a further general premise about the world, a more complicated version of the thesis that nature is uniform, which is difficult to state precisely and even more difficult to justify. Broad’s view of the mindbody problem is a version of dualism, though one that places primary emphasis on individual mental events, is much more uncertain about the existence and nature of the mind as a substance, and is quite sympathetic to epiphenomenalism. His main contribution to the free will problem consists in an elaborate analysis of the libertarian conception of freedom, which he holds to be both impossible to realize and at the same time quite possibly an essential precondition of the ordinary conception of obligation. Broad’s work in ethics is diverse and difficult to summarize, but much of it centers on the issue of whether ethical judgments are genuinely cognitive in character. Broad was one of the few philosophers to take psychical research seriously. He served as president of the Society for Psychical Research and was an occasional observer of experiments in this area. His philosophical writings on this subject, while not uncritical, are in the main sympathetic and are largely concerned to defend concepts like precognition against charges of incoherence and also to draw out their implications for more familiar philosophical issues. As regards the nature of philosophy, Broad distinguishes between “critical” and “speculative” philosophy. Critical philosophy is analysis of the basic concepts of ordinary life and of science, roughly in the tradition of Moore and Russell. A very high proportion of Broad’s own work consists of such analyses, often amazingly detailed and meticulous in character. But he is also sympathetic to the speculative attempt to arrive at an overall conception of the nature of the universe and the position of human beings therein, while at the same time expressing doubts that anything even remotely approaching demonstration is possible in such endeavors. The foregoing catalog of views reveals something of the range of Broad’s philosophical thought, but it fails to bring out what is most strikingly valuable about it. Broad’s positions on various issues do not form anything like a system he himself is reported to have said that there is nothing that answers to the description “Broad’s philosophy”. While his views are invariably subtle, thoughtful, and critically penetrating, they rarely have the sort of one-sided novelty that has come to be so highly valued in philosophy. What they do have is exceptional clarity, dialectical insight, and even-handedness. Broad’s skill at uncovering and displaying the precise shape of a philosophical issue, clarifying the relevant arguments and objections, and cataloging in detail the merits and demerits of the opposing positions has rarely been equaled. One who seeks a clear-cut resolution of an issue is likely to be impatient and disappointed with Broad’s careful, measured discussions, in which unusual effort is made to accord all positions and arguments their due. But one who seeks a comprehensive and balanced understanding of the issue in question is unlikely to find a more trustworthy guide. 

bruno: g., apeculative philosopher. He was born in Naples, where he entered the Dominican order in 1565. In 1576 he was suspected of heresy and abandoned his order. He studied and taught in Geneva, but left because of difficulties with the Calvinists. Thereafter he studied and taught in Toulouse, Paris, England, various G. universities, and Prague. In 1591 he rashly returned to Venice, and was arrested by the Venetian Inquisition in 1592. In 1593 he was handed over to the Roman Inquisition, which burned him to death as a heretic. Because of his unhappy end, his support for the Copernican heliocentric hypothesis, and his pronounced anti-Aristotelianism, Bruno has been mistakenly seen as the proponent of a scientific worldview against medieval obscurantism. In fact, he should be interpreted in the context of Renaissance hermetism. Indeed, Bruno was so impressed by the hermetic corpus, a body of writings attributed to the mythical Egyptian sage Hermes Trismegistus, that he called for a return to the magical religion of the Egyptians. He was also strongly influenced by Lull, Nicholas of Cusa, Ficino, and Agrippa von Nettesheim, an early sixteenth-century author of an influential treatise on magic. Several of Bruno’s works were devoted to magic, and it plays an important role in his books on the art of memory. Techniques for improving the memory had long been a subject of discussion, but he linked them with the notion that one could so imprint images of the universe on the mind as to achieve special knowledge of divine realities and the magic powers associated with such knowledge. He emphasized the importance of the imagination as a cognitive power, since it brings us into contact with the divine. Nonetheless, he also held that human ideas are mere shadows of divine ideas, and that God is transcendent and hence incomprehensible. Bruno’s best-known works are the  dialogues he wrote while in England, including the following, all published in 1584: The Ash Wednesday Supper; On Cause, Principle and Unity; The Expulsion of the Triumphant Beast; and On the Infinite Universe and Worlds. He presents a vision of the universe as a living and infinitely extended unity containing innumerable worlds, each of which is like a great animal with a life of its own. He maintained the unity of matter with universal form or the World-Soul, thus suggesting a kind of pantheism attractive to later G. idealists, such as Schelling. However, he never identified the World-Soul with God, who remained separate from matter and form. He combined his speculative philosophy of nature with the recommendation of a new naturalistic ethics. Bruno’s support of Copernicus in The Ash Wednesday Supper was related to his belief that a living earth must move, and he specifically rejected any appeal to mere mathematics to prove cosmological hypotheses. In later work he described the monad as a living version of the Democritean atom. Despite some obvious parallels with both Spinoza and Leibniz, he seems not to have had much direct influence on seventeenth-century thinkers. Refs.: Luigi Speranza, Bruniana.

bundle: theory: Is Grice proposing a ‘bundle theory’ of “Personal identity”: He defines “I” as an interlinked chain of mnemonic states, a view that accepts the idea that concrete objects consist of properties but denies the need for introducing substrata to account for their diversity. By contrast, one traditional view of concrete particular objects is that they are complexes consisting of two more fundamental kinds of entities: properties that can be exemplified by many different objects and a substratum that exemplifies those properties belonging to a particular object. Properties account for the qualitative identity of such objects while substrata account for their numerical diversity. The bundle theory is usually glossed as the view that a concrete object is nothing but a bundle of properties. This gloss, however, is inadequate. For if a “bundle” of properties is, e.g., a set of properties, then bundles of properties differ in significant ways from concrete objects. For sets of properties are necessary and eternal while concrete objects are contingent and perishing. A more adequate statement of the theory holds that a concrete object is a complex of properties which all stand in a fundamental contingent relation, call it co-instantiation, to one another. On this account, complexes of properties are neither necessary nor eternal. Critics of the theory, however, maintain that such complexes have all their properties essentially and cannot change properties, whereas concrete objects have some of their properties accidentally and undergo change. This objection fails to recognize that there are two distinct problems addressed by the bundle theory: a individuation and b identity through time. The first problem arises for all objects, both momentary and enduring. The second, however, arises only for enduring objects. The bundle theory typically offers two different solutions to these problems. An enduring concrete object is analyzed as a series of momentary objects which stand in some contingent relation R. Different versions of the theory offer differing accounts of the relation. For example, Hume holds that the self is a series of co-instantiated impressions and ideas, whose members are related to one another by causation and resemblance this is his bundle theory of the self. A momentary object, however, is analyzed as a complex of properties all of which stand in the relation of co-instantiation to one another. Consequently, even if one grants that a momentary complex of properties has all of its members essentially, it does not follow that an enduring object, which contains the complex as a temporal part, has those properties essentially unless one endorses the controversial thesis that an enduring object has its temporal parts essentially. Similarly, even if one grants that a momentary complex of properties cannot change in its properties, it does not follow that an enduring object, which consists of such complexes, cannot change its properties. Critics of the bundle theory argue that its analysis of momentary objects is also problematic. For it appears possible that two different momentary objects have all properties in common, yet there cannot be two different complexes with all properties in common. There are two responses available to a proponent of the theory. The first is to distinguish between a strong and a weak version of the theory. On the strong version, the thesis that a momentary object is a complex of co-instantiated properties is a necessary truth, while on the weak version it is a contingent truth. The possibility of two momentary objects with all properties in common impugns only the strong version of the theory. The second is to challenge the basis of the claim that it is possible for two momentary objects to have all their properties in common. Although critics allege that such a state of affairs is conceivable, proponents argue that investigation into the nature of conceivability does not underwrite this claim. 

buonafede: essential Italian philosopher. Appiano Buonafede, nome religioso di Tito Benvenuto Buonafede (Comacchio, 4 gennaio 1716 – Roma, 17 dicembre 1793), è stato un religioso e letterato italiano, procuratore e prefetto generale della Congregazione dei celestini.   Indice 1Biografia 2La polemica con il Baretti 3Il giudizio della critica 4Opere 5Note 6Bibliografia 7Voci correlate 8Altri progetti 9Collegamenti esterni Biografia  Abbazia di Santo Spirito al Morrone, sede del prefetto generale dei Celestini e dimora temporanea di Buonafede Nato nel 1716 in una famiglia patrizia, dopo aver frequentato le prime scuole nella natia Comacchio, rimasto orfano del padre, per poter proseguire gli studi entrò nel 1734 nella Congregazione dei celestini[1], mutando il nome secolare di Tito Benvenuto in quello religioso di Appiano[2]. Dopo aver frequentato il corso di filosofia a Bologna, dal 1737 seguì quello successivo di teologia a Roma[1]. Conclusi i tre di anni di studio romani, fu trasferito a Napoli come predicatore e insegnante di teologia.  Nella città partenopea pubblicò nel 1745 Ritratti poetici, storici e critici, opera accolta favorevolmente negli ambienti culturali napoletani frequentati da Buonafede, nella quale convivono giudizi critici su alcuni importanti esponenti del pensiero moderno (quali Machiavelli e Spinoza), con parziali accoglimenti di altri (Cartesio e Locke), in uno stile composito tra il barocco e l'arcadico[1].  Nel 1749 fu nominato abate di un monastero pugliese, per passare poi in uno di Bergamo e in una badia di Rimini. Nel 1754 Buonafede entrò nell'Accademia dell'Arcadia, assumendo il nome di Agatopisto Cromaziano[1] con il quale diede alle stampe numerosi lavori. Nel 1771, anche grazie alla benevolenza con cui le gerarchie della Chiesa avevano accolto i suoi scritti, fu nominato procuratore generale della Congregazione e trasferito a Roma. Sei anni dopo, divenne prefetto generale e, per ragioni del suo ufficio, fu obbligato a risiedere nell'abbazia di Santo Spirito al Morrone, nei pressi di Sulmona[1]. Buonafede, che a Roma aveva goduto della benevolenza di Clemente XIV e quella dei salotti letterari e arcadici, non si trovò a suo agio nell'isolamento della nuova residenza[1]. Trascorsi i tre anni dell'incarico di prefetto, nel 1780 assunse nuovamente l'ufficio di procuratore generale che, dimessosi, lasciò nel 1782[1].  Nel 1785 papa Pio VI lo nominò abate perpetuo di Sant'Eusebio, incarico che, senza richiedere eccessive cure, assicurò al Buonafede quei benefici economici che gli consentirono di attendere tranquillamente ai suoi lavori letterari e filosofici e di completare l'opera, dedicata allo stesso pontefice, Della restaurazione di ogni filosofia, particolarmente critica verso il pensiero moderno che aveva voluto rendersi indipendente dall'insegnamento della Chiesa cattolica[1].  Morì a Roma, ormai infermo[3], a settantasette anni, nel 1793.  La polemica con il Baretti  Il critico letterario Giuseppe Baretti: ebbe una violenta polemica con Buonafede Nel 1754 Buonafede pubblicò il Saggio di commedie filosofiche, contenente un testo in endecasillabi I filosofi fanciulli che, in uno stile comico, criticava celebri filosofi dell'antichità riportando, fuori dal contesto, citazioni dei loro scritti. Venivano beffeggiati, tra gli altri, Socrate, Democrito e Anassagora. L'opera trovò qualche apprezzamento[1]. Dieci anni più tardi, nel 1764, Giuseppe Baretti, scrittore e critico letterario torinese, in un numero del suo periodico la Frusta letteraria nel quale era solito firmarsi con lo pseudonimo di Aristarco Scannabue, espresse giudizi negativi sul Saggio del Buonafede trovandolo irrilevante e privo di comicità. L'abate, punto sul vivo, replicò immediatamente con il libello, dai toni assai aspri, Il bue pedagogo (1764)[1]. Gli rispose ancora Baretti con una nutrita serie di articoli, Discorsi fatti dall'autore della Frusta letteraria al reverendissimo padre don Luciano Firenzuola da Comacchio autore del Bue pedagogo, pubblicati su diversi numeri della Frusta[1]. La polemica, una delle più aspre e celebri delle cronache letterarie italiane del Settecento, proseguì ancora: Buonafede fece pressioni verso i responsabili della Repubblica di Venezia affinché eliminassero gli articoli apparsi sulla Frusta e perché Baretti fosse poi espulso dallo Stato Pontificio quando si trasferì ad Ancona. Il critico torinese non fu lasciato tranquillo neppure quando fuggì in Inghilterra: l'irriducibile Buonafede lo accusò allora di simpatie verso il protestantesimo[1].  Il giudizio della critica Il giudizio di Benedetto Croce fu piuttosto negativo, scrisse che le opere del Buonafede erano il risultato di «un ingegno da predicatore e da predicatore mestierante, che ha un impegno da assolvere, un sentimento da inculcare, un nemico da abbattere» senza che possano distrarlo dal suo fine «né la ricerca della verità delle cose né l'ammirazione di quel che è bello»[1].  Più positivo il giudizio di Giulio Natali, storico della letteratura e professore di letteratura italiana all'Università di Catania[4]: nella voce redatta per l'Enciclopedia Italiana, giudicò il Buonafede: «uomo d'ingegno acutissimo [...] scrittore non volgare, spesso arguto e vivace» e «dotato di dottrina assai superiore a quella del Baretti»[5].  Opere  Delle conquiste celebri, 1763 (Milano, Fondazione Mansutti) Ritratti poetici, storici e critici di varj uomini di lettere di Appio Anneo de Faba Cromaziano[6], Napoli, Stamperia di Giovanni di Simone, 1745. Saggio di commedie filosofiche con ampie annotazioni di A. Agatopisto Cromaziano, Faenza, pel Benedetti impressor vescovile, e delle insigni Accademie degl'illustrissimi sigg. Remoti e Filoponi, 1754. Sermone apologetico di T.B.B.[7] per la gioventù italiana contro le accuse contenute in un libro intitolato Della necessità e verità della religione naturale, e rivelata, Lucca, per Filippo Maria Benedini, 1756. Della malignità istorica discorsi tre di A. B. contro Pier Francesco Le Courayer nuovo interprete della Istoria del Concilio di Trento di Pietro Soave, Bologna, per Lelio dalla Volpe impr. dell'Instituto delle Scienze,1757. Dell'apparizione di alcune ombre novella letteraria di T.B.B., Lucca, appresso Jacopo Giusti nuovo stampatore alla Colonna del Palio, 1758. Istoria critica e filosofica del suicidio ragionato di Agatopisto Cromaziano, Lucca, Stamperia di Vincenzo Giuntini, a spese di Giovanni Riccomini, 1761. Il testo, edizione 1788, consultabile in Google libri. Delle conquiste celebri esaminate col naturale diritto delle genti libri due di Agatopisto Cromaziano ..., Lucca, per Giovanni Riccomini, 1763. Il bue pedagogo novelle menippee di Luciano da Fiorenzuola contro una certa Frusta pseudoepigrafa di Aristarco Scannabue, Lucca, 1764. Versi liberi di Agatopisto Cromaziano messi in luce da Timoleonte Corintio con una epistola della libertà poetica ..., Cesena , Società di Pallade per Gregorio Biasini al Palazzo Dandini, 1766. Della istoria e della indole di ogni filosofia di Agatopisto Cromaziano, 7 voll., Lucca, per Giovanni Riccomini, 1766-1781. Il genio borbonico, versi epici di Agatopisto Cromaziano nelle nozze auguste delle altezze reali di Ferdinando di Borbone, infante di Spagna ... e di Maria Amalia, arciduchessa infanta, Parma, per Filippo Carmignani, stampatore per privilegio di sua altezza reale, 1769. Della restaurazione di ogni filosofia ne' secoli XVI, XVII e XVIII di Agatopisto Cromaziano, 3 voll., Venezia, Stamperia Graziosi, 1785-1789. Il testo dell'ultimo volume consultabile in Google libri, nella edizione in quattro volumi pubblicata a Milano dalla Società Tipografica de classici italiani, 1837-38. Della letteratura comacchiese lezione parenetica in difesa della patria di Agatopisto Cromaziano giuniore, Parma, Bodoni, 1786. Opere di Agatopisto Cromaziano, 16 voll., Napoli, presso Giuseppe Maria Porcelli, 1787-1789. Epistole tusculane di un solitario ad un uomo di città, Gerapoli, 1789. Storia critica del moderno diritto di natura e delle genti di Agatopisto Cromaziano, fa parte della Biblioteca cristiano-filosofica decennio primo, consacrato alla divinità..., vol. 10, Firenze, nella Stamperia della Carità, 1799. Note  Fonte: G. Salinari, Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, riferimenti e link in Bibliografia. ^ Enciclopedie on line, riferimenti e link in Collegamenti esterni. ^ Soffriva di gotta e una caduta in piazza Navona aggravò le sue condizioni. G. Salinari, op. citata. ^ «Natali, Giulio» la voce nella Enciclopedia Italiana, III Appendice. ^ Fonte: G. Natali, Enciclopedia Italiana, riferimenti e link in Collegamenti esterni. ^ Altro pseudonimo, oltre quello prevalente di Agatopisto Cromaziano, di Buonafede. ^ Iniziali del suo nome secolare Tito Benvenuto Buonafede. Bibliografia Giambattista Salinari, «BUONAFEDE, Appiano (al secolo, Tito Benvenuto)» in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, Volume 15, Roma, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana, 1972. Gregorio Piaia: "Appiano Buonafede e le origini della storiografia filosofica cattolica”, "Vestigia philosophorum”. Il medioevo e la storiografia filosofica, Rimini, Maggioli Editore, 1983, pp. 214-232. Fondazione Mansutti, Quaderni di sicurtà. Documenti di storia dell'assicurazione, a cura di M. Bonomelli, schede bibliografiche di C. Di Battista, note critiche di F. Mansutti. Milano: Electa, 2011, p. 92. Ilario Tolomio: “Theism and the History of Philosophy: Appiano Buonafede”, en G. Piaia – G. Santinello (eds.): Models of the History of Philosophy. Vol. III: The Second Enlightenment and the Kantian Age, Dordrecht, Springer, 2015, pp. 359-379. Voci correlate Antonio Genovesi Congregazione dei celestini Giuseppe Baretti Frusta letteraria Altri progetti Collabora a Wikisource Wikisource contiene una pagina dedicata a Appiano Buonafede Collabora a Wikiquote Wikiquote contiene citazioni di o su Appiano Buonafede Collabora a Wikimedia Commons Wikimedia Commons contiene immagini o altri file su Appiano Buonafede Collegamenti esterni Appiano Buonafede, su Treccani.it – Enciclopedie on line, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana. Modifica su Wikidata Giulio Natali, Appiano Buonafede, in Enciclopedia Italiana, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana. Modifica su Wikidata Giambattista Salinari, Appiano Buonafede, in Dizionario biografico degli italiani, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana. Modifica su Wikidata Opere di Appiano Buonafede, su openMLOL, Horizons Unlimited srl. Modifica su Wikidata (EN) Opere di Appiano Buonafede, su Open Library, Internet Archive. Modifica su Wikidata Appiano Buonafede, in G. A. Barotti e altri, Memorie istoriche di letterati ferraresi, vol. III, Ferrara, 1811, pp. 197-204. Testo consultabile in Google Libri, su books.google.it. Ritratto di Appiano Buonafede. Sito "Cultura Italia - un patrimonio da esplorare", su culturaitalia.it. Controllo di autoritàVIAF (EN) 24656381 · ISNI (EN) 0000 0001 2124 5662 · SBN IT\ICCU\TO0V\260943 · LCCN (EN) n85351689 · GND (DE) 118942743 · BNF (FR) cb12240814h (data) · BNE (ES) XX1432000 (data) · NLA (EN) 35587054 · BAV (EN) 495/10399 · CERL cnp00402281 · WorldCat Identities (EN) lccn-n85351689 Biografie Portale Biografie Letteratura Portale Letteratura Categorie: Religiosi italianiLetterati italianiNati nel 1716Morti nel 1793Nati il 4 gennaioMorti il 17 dicembreNati a ComacchioMorti a RomaStoria dell'assicurazione[altre]. Refs.: Luigi Speranza, "Grice e Buonafede," per Il Club Anglo-Italiano, The Swimming-Pool Library, Villa Grice, Liguria, Italia.

Buonarroti: