1,722,322 research outputs found
THE NATURAL AMBIGUITY OF THE NOTION OF ‘NATURAL’, AND HOW TO OVERCOME IT
Get PDFIn this paper I will explore the ramification of the distinction between fact and values
in order to show that human values enter in various ways in both science and
(nano)technologies without violating Hume’s fact/value distinction. Among the nanotechnologies,
I will discuss the case study provided by the use of microchips implanted under
our skin: though they do not obviously overcome the limits of the natural laws (intended in
the descriptive sense), their application might in principle jeopardize our ethical principles
in a way that is more powerful than previously existing ‘macrotechnology’. This greater
power depends on the fact that the properties of the macroworld depend on the ‘nanoworld’,
but not conversely
Presentism/Eternalism and Endurantism/Perdurantism: why the unsubstantiality of the first debate implies that of the second1
Get PDFThe main claim that I want to defend in this paper is that the there are logical equivalences between eternalism and perdurantism on the one hand and presentism and endurantism on the other. By “logical equivalence” I mean that one position is entailed and entails the other. As a consequence of this equivalence, it becomes important to inquire into the question whether the dispute between endurantists and perdurantists is authentic, given that Savitt (2006) Dolev (2006) and Dorato (2006) have cast doubts on the fact that the debate between presentism and eternalism is about “what there is”. In this respect, I will conclude that also the debate about persistence in time has no ontological consequences, in the sense that there is no real ontological disagreement between the two allegedly opposite positions: as in the case of the presentism/eternalism debate, one can be both a perdurantist and an endurantist, depending on which linguistic framework is preferre
Introduzione [a Acer Ferrara 100. Per una storia della casa pubblica a Ferrara e provincia. Studi e documenti IACP 1920 / ACER 2020]
No full textIl testo introduce i contenuti del volume collettaneo "ACER Ferrara 100. Per una storia della casa pubblica a Ferrara e provincia. Studi e documenti IACP 1920 / ACER 2020", a cura di E. Dorato, R. Farinella e M. Nani, definendone contesto, articolazione e finalità
Architettura dell'Educazione
No full textArchitettura dell’Educazione è il primo volume della collana I Quaderni, una narrazione a più voci dove contributi di diverse discipline si alternano alle soluzioni progettuali sviluppate dallo studio Mario Cucinella Architects su come i luoghi più importanti della società civile si potranno evolvere grazie all’architettura e alle dinamiche che questa è in grado di generare. Gli spazi dell'apprendimento, della cura, del lavoro, dell'abitare: quali sfide e quali riflessioni progettuali ci impongono oggi e, soprattutto, porranno domani in un mondo complesso e in costante mutamento?
Architettura dell’Educazione guarda al futuro attraverso una riflessione sulla qualità degli ambienti dell'apprendimento in cui le giovani generazioni si formano e crescono. Obiettivo di questo quaderno è quello di fare tesoro delle esperienze pluriennali espresse dalle personalità e dalle realtà d’eccezione che animano il volume, alimentando un dibattito collettivo che ponga l'architettura al centro della riflessione. Per far ciò, il volume presenta diversi saggi multidisciplinari insieme a numerose esperienze progettuali sviluppate sul tema delle scuole innovative dallo studio Mario Cucinella Architects, supportate da una serie di progetti virtuosi realizzati in anni recenti nel nostro Paese.
Il quaderno vuole essere un vero e proprio “strumento di lavoro” non solo per i progettisti, ma anche e soprattutto per insegnanti, dirigenti scolastici, amministratori, decisori politici e, non da ultimo, per i genitori e per gli stessi studenti. Lo spazio dell'educazione è – o dovrebbe essere – stimolante, inclusivo, sicuro: uno spazio che, per sua definizione, diviene esso stesso dispositivo educante, poiché capace di accogliere e coltivare le aspirazioni, i talenti e i bisogni di ognuno
THE NATURALNESS OF THE NATURALISTIC FALLACY AND THE ETHICS OF NANOTECHNOLOGY
Get PDFIn the first part of this paper, I try to clear the ground from frequent misconceptions about the relationship between fact and value by examining some uses of the adjective “natural” in ethical controversies. Such uses bear evidence to our “natural” tendency to regard nature (considered in a descriptive sense, as the complex of physical and biological regularities) as the source of ethical norms. I then try to account for the origin of this tendency by offering three related explanations, the most important of which regards it as the outcome of an adaptation: if any behaviour that favours our equilibrium with the environment is potentially adaptive, nothing can be more effective for this goal than developing an attitude toward the natural world that regards it as a dispenser of sacred norms that must be invariably respected. By referring to the Aristotelian notion of human flourishing illustrated in the first part of the paper, in the second I discuss some ethical problems raised by mini-chips implantable under in our bodies. I conclude by defending the potential beneficial effects of such new technological instrument
TRUTH, LAWS AND THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE
Get PDFIn this paper I analyze the difficult question of the truth of mature
scientific theories by tackling the problem of the truth of laws. After introducing
the main philosophical positions in the field of scientific realism, I discuss and
then counter the two main arguments against realism, namely the pessimistic metainduction
and the abstract and idealized character of scientific laws. I conclude by
defending the view that well-confirmed physical theories are true only relatively to
certain values of the variables that appear in the law
How to combine and not to combine physics and metaphysics
Get PDFIn this paper I will argue that if physics is to become a coherent metaphysics of nature it needs an “interpretation”. As I understand it, an interpretation of a physical theory amounts to offering (1) a precise formulation of its ontological claims and (2) a clear account of how such claims are related to the world of our experience. Notably, metaphysics enters importantly in both tasks: in (1), because interpreting our best physical theories requires going beyond a merely instrumentalist view of science and therefore using our best metaphysical theories; in (2), because a philosophical elaboration of the theories of the world that are implicit in our experience is one of the tasks of analytic metaphysics, and bridging possible explanatory gaps or even conflicts between the physical image and the manifest image of the world is a typical philosophical task that involves science and metaphysic
Nuove tipologie di spazi. Sostenibilità, indicatori e principi progettuali
No full textIl contributo propone una riflessione sulle caratteristiche degli spazi per l'apprendimento, in un'ottica di progettazione di edifici scolastici innovativi. Dopo l'introduzione di alcuni set di indicatori progettuali già sviluppati in anni recenti, si arriva alla definizione di tre macro-tipologie di indicatori qualitativi, suddivisi in "spazi", "ambiente" e "città-comunità"
Do Dispositions and Propensities have a role in the Ontology of Quantum Mechanics? Some Critical Remarks
Get PDFIn order to tackle the question posed by the title – notoriously answered in the positive, among others, by Heisenberg, Margenau, Popper and Redhead – I first discuss some attempts at distinguishing dispositional from non-dispositional properties, and then relate the distinction to the formalism of quantum mechanics. Since any answer to the question titling the paper must be interpretation-dependent, I review some of the main interpretations of quantum mechanics in order to argue that the ontology of theories regarding “wave collapse” as a genuine physical process could be interpreted as being irreducibly dispositional. In non-collapse interpretations, on the contrary, the appeal to dispositions is simply a way to reformulate the predictive content of the algorithm of the theory in a fancier metaphysical language
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