07 APhEx num 7, anno 2013

The text offers a Critical Review of "Dalla comunicazione al linguaggio. Scimmie, ominidi e umani in una prospettiva darwiniana" by Francesco Ferretti and Ines Adornetti. The author critically reflects on the book by considering its methodologies, its arguments, and its relation with other books of the same type and on the same subject.

Mary Brenda Hesse (1924 ) is an English scientist and philosopher of science, who has focused in particular [on the study of science and] on the epistemological debate on the role played by models and analogies in the development of scientific theories. In the literature there are many studies devoted to the reconstruction of her positions in this particular debate. There are, however, fewer studies devoted to the understanding of her theory of language, concept-formation and concept-function. This paper aims to provide a partial reconstruction of the semantic theory proposed by Hesse. In what follows I will examine her views about the function of predicates, the semantic relationship between language and world and, finally, her network theory of meaning.

The Knowability Paradox is a short argument whose conclusion is that if every truth is knowable, then every truth is also known. If one accepts the further plausible assumption that there are truths that as a matter of fact nobody knows, from the conclusion of the argument it is possible to derive that there are truths that it’s impossible to know. The argument has been considered by many as paradoxical insofar it seems to show the existence of necessary epistemic limitations from the mere contingent existence of ignorance. Furthermore, the conclusion of the paradox has been considered problematic for several philosophical theories such as the internal realism of Putnam and the semantic antirealism of Dummett and Wright, according to which every truth is knowable (at least in principle). The present contribution aims to provide an introduction to the paradox and to the philosophical debate about it. I will summarize the historical circumstances in which the paradox was originally formulated and present the various philosophical theories potentially threatened by it. I will then discuss the main reactions to the conclusion of the paradox and I will examine the criticisms addressed to it.

In this paper, the essays edited by Aldo Trucchio in the volume Cartografie di guerra (Mimesis, 2011) are examined. The reasons why the contemporary world, the evolution of democracy, and the transformation of war into international police operations can (or even must) still be comprehended starting from Kant, are shown. Indeed, Kant is one of the main protagonists of the epistemic, economic and political change which characterised his time –and thus, he is a subtle observer of mature modernity. Moreover, his works discuss the main concepts necessary to give a philosophical ground to any political and institutional project. Thanks to its approach, the volume integrates history and current events, philosophy and action, and offers a wide number of reflections on ethics and right, coexistence and war, democracy and the dream of a perpetual peace, thus resulting absolutely interesting for any readers.

This article discusses attempts to produce counterexamples to modus ponens. I open by clarifying what it means to give a counterexample to a logical principle. I then consider three types of attack on modus ponens: (i) McGee-style counterexamples in which the major premise consists of iterated conditionals (ii) Lycan-style counterexamples and (iii) objections to modus ponens based on counterexamples to modus tollens. For each kind of counterexample, I discuss the main critical responses. In the final section, I implement a formal semantics that is independently motivated: one can combine this semantics with two different definitions of logical consequence. According to one of them, modus ponens is invalid. According to the other, it is valid.