08 APhEx num 8, anno 2013

Analytic philosophy of film was born and has been so far developed mainly in the field of aesthetics, but ends up also cover other areas of philosophy. Cinema is in fact a cultural phenomenon that, like language, can create works of art, but is not limited in the domain of art: it is not reducible to an art form. The paper will present the contemporary debate on cinema and will address some questions about films that are preliminary with respect to the aesthetic issue. First, the ontological question: what is the mode of existence of films? Second, the question of the definition: what is a film? Third, the semantic question: how can films carry meaning? Fourth, the pragmatic question: for what purposes are films used?

Some works of art manifest (or recommend) dubious and, in some cases, clearly despicable moral perspectives. For example, the propaganda film Triumph of the Will by Leni Riefensthal expresses (and tries to evoke) admiration for Adolf Hitler. Nevertheless, Triumph of the Will is considered a masterpiece of the documentary genre. This and many other similar examples raise the following questions: Is it possible to consider a work of art a masterpiece and, at the same time, an instance of immorality? Does or should the moral assessment of a work of art affect its artistic assessment?

The paper is a review of Colin McGinn’s Mindfucking: a critique of mental manipulation. After a short introduction to McGinn’s work, the first part of the paper offers a thorough chapter-by-chapter analysis of the book. The second part follows other commentators in pointing out that several arguments in the book are not bullet-proof, and eventually suggests that the book is better appreciated as a mere philosophical divertissement. An appendix reports about recent events that led McGinn to resign his position at the University of Miami.

The phenomenon of disagreement has been receiving a great deal of attention in contemporary philosophy of language and epistemology, though for different reasons. In philosophy of language,The aim of the present paper is to provide a survey of both debates by presenting and assessing the most interesting proposals on these two topics advanced thus far.

What is the mental realization of the knowledge of lexical meaning? Does our ability to use words depend on the possession of lexical concepts specifically designed to represent their senses, or is it a product of other factors, such as encyclopedic knowledge and non-linguistic categorization? The paper introduces some of the main answers that philosophers of language, linguists and psychologists have given to this question, discusses their key arguments, and summarizes the recent debate on the topic.