Group-deliberative competences and group knowledge

Under what conditions is a group belief resulting from deliberation constitutive of group knowledge? What kinds of competences must a deliberating group manifest when settling a question so that the resulting collective belief can be considered group knowledge? In this paper, we provide an answer to the second question that helps make progress on the first question. In particular, we explain the epistemic normativity of deliberation-based group belief in terms of a truth norm and an evidential norm, introduce a virtue-reliabilist condition on deliberative group knowledge, and provide an account and a taxonomy of the types of group competences that are necessary for this type of collective knowledge.     

Report on work in progress: “Towards a new science of the human”

A multidisciplinary and global study of the evolutionary process of the universe in general and mankind in particular is proposed, drawing from both modern science, approached by taking into consideration its various interdependent aspects; and the study of western and eastern ancient traditions, which prove to have a common foundation that is the comprehension and the control of the evolutionary process itself.

Such a study will lead to the compilation of a “Corpus Unus” of the new science of the human, a science which does not belong to a race, a culture or an age, but is specific to the human being as such.

Such a science will imply the exploration of mankind and of the evolutionary process, and applying the results in a pragmatic way to the betterment of human beings, society, and universe.     

Cities as Collective Beings

This article introduces the concepts of System, Autonomous System, Intelligent System, Multiple System, and Collective Being. It deals with issues related to managing these different levels of systemic aggregation. The author then discusses applications related to Architecture and design with particular reference to cities.     

Oral and written language in a case of childhood phonemic deafness

Neuropsychologic and neurolinguistic studies performed on an 11-year-old Landau-Kleffner boy are reported. At age 3 his language began to deteriorate progressively until complete disappearance. At the same time, the patient developed epileptic seizures. When 6 years old, he was taught to match objects to the corresponding written word, and subsequently he was able to learn reading and writing to such extent that he could attend primary school. BAER and primary cortical auditory responses were normal, whereas late cortical components were grossly retarded and distorted. Phonemic discrimination, identification, and production were absent, and in contrast, lexical-semantic abilities tested through reading and writing were normal. In visual STM tasks, phonologic mediation was absent. The role of phonologic mediation in language acquisition is then hypothesized.     

Research on Intercessory Prayer: Theoretical and Methodological Considerations

Belief in the healing power of prayer is found in various religious traditions. Spiritually grounded clinical interventions, such as intercessory prayer (IP), need to be understood in a broader sense. This essay features the IP trials, observing the controversial relationship between inconsistent results and allegedly inadequate methods and theoretical hypothesis. A survey of the literature was conducted including publications indexed until September 2013, focusing on the trials developed in the field and on the critics about the methodological design. Recent meta-analyses and multicenter studies found inconclusive results in the investigation of IP. Clinical trials on IP present some methodological difficulties: The intervention is not fully controlled; the primary outcome is not properly defined; and the theoretical models seem inconsistent. The “non-local consciousness” model may be appropriate for studies of IP. Directions for future research: greater emphasis on the evaluation of the effectiveness of this intervention in animal models; selection of subjects and healers who have previous connection; considering the hypothesis of non-local consciousness in the study design.     

Uncertainties

In contemporary science uncertainty is often represented as an intrinsic feature of natural and of human phenomena. As an example we need only think of two important conceptual revolutions that occurred in physics and logic during the first half of the twentieth century: (1) the discovery of Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle in quantum mechanics; (2) the emergence of many-valued logical reasoning, which gave rise to so-called ‘fuzzy thinking’. I discuss the possibility of applying the notions of uncertainty, developed in the framework of quantum mechanics, quantum information and fuzzy logics, to some problems of political and social sciences.     

A pragmatic interpretation of intuitionistic propositional logic

We construct an extension ^P of the standard language of classical propositional logic by adjoining to the alphabet of a new category of logical-pragmatic signs. The well formed formulas of are calledradical formulas (rfs) of ^P;rfs preceded by theassertion sign constituteelementary assertive formulas of ^P, which can be connected together by means of thepragmatic connectives N, K, A, C, E, so as to obtain the set of all theassertive formulas (afs). Everyrf of ^P is endowed with atruth value defined classically, and everyaf is endowed with ajustification value, defined in terms of the intuitive notion of proof and depending on the truth values of its radical subformulas. In this framework, we define the notion ofpragmatic validity in ^P and yield a list of criteria of pragmatic validity which hold under the assumption that only classical metalinguistic procedures of proof be accepted. We translate the classical propositional calculus (CPC) and the intuitionistic propositional calculus (IPC) into the assertive part of ^P and show that this translation allows us to interpret Intuitionistic Logic as an axiomatic theory of the constructive proof concept rather than an alternative to Classical Logic. Finally, we show that our framework provides a suitable background for discussing classical problems in the philosophy of logic.This paper is an enlarged and entirely revised version of the paper by Dalla Pozza (1991) worked out in the framework of C.N.R. project n. 89.02281.08, and published in Italian. The basic ideas in it have been propounded since 1986 by Dalla Pozza in a series of seminars given at the University of Lecce and in other Italian Universities. C. Garola collected the scattered parts of the work, helped in solving some conceptual difficulties and refining the formalism, yielded the proofs of some propositions (in particular, in Section 3) and provided physical examples (see in particular Remark 2.3.1).