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32Logically Unknowable Propositions: a criticism to Tennant's three-partition of Anti-Cartesian propositionsIn P. Hanna (ed.), An Anthology of Philosophical Studies, Vol.2, Atiner. pp. 181-194. 2009.The Knowability Paradox is a logical argument that, starting from the plainly innocent assumption that every true proposition is knowable, reaches the strong conclusion that every true proposition is known; i.e. if there are unknown truths, there are unknowable truths. The paradox has been considered a problem for every theory assuming the Knowability Principle, according to which all truths are knowable and, in particular, for semantic anti-realist theories. A well known criticism to the Knowab…Read more
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72Ontology for information systems: artefacts as a case studyMind and Society 7 (2): 143-156. 2008.The goal of the paper is to analyse some specific features of a very central concept for top-level ontologies for information systems: i.e. the concept of artefact. Specifically, we analyse the relation to be a copy of that is strongly linked to the notion of artefact and—as we will demonstrate—could be useful to distinguish artefacts from objects of other kinds. Firstly, we outline some intuitive and commonsensical reasons for the need of a clarification of the notion of artefact in ontologies …Read more
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28Comments on HughesDialectica 59 (4). 2005.The aim of this paper is to discuss Hughes’ formulation of three‐dimensionalism. Firstly, I observe that the linguistic data do not clearly support his formulation. Secondly, the arguments he uses to state his formulation could be disputed either on the basis of a difference between ordinary language and regimented language, or on the basis of a different notion of temporal part
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545Unity and Plurality. Philosophy, Logic, and SemanticsOxford University Press. 2016.This volume brings together new work on the logic and ontology of plurality and a range of recent articles exploring novel applications to natural language semantics. The contributions in this volume in particular investigate and extend new perspectives presented by plural logic and non-standard mereology and explore their applications to a range of natural language phenomena. Contributions by P. Aquaviva, A. Arapinis, M. Carrara, P. McKay, F. Moltmann, O. Linnebo,…Read more
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37Assertions and Hypotheses: A Logical Framework for their Opposition RelationsLogic Journal of the IGPL. 2016.Following the speech act theory, we take hypotheses and assertions as linguistic acts with different illocutionary forces. We assume that a hypothesis is justified if there is at least a scintilla of evidence for the truth of its propositional content, while an assertion is justified when there is conclusive evidence that its propositional content is true. Here we extend the logical treatment for assertions given by Dalla Pozza and Garola (1995, Erkenntnis, 43, 81–109) by outlining a pragmatic l…Read more
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59Towards a Formal Account of Identity CriteriaIn Majda Trobok Nenad Miščević & Berislav Žarnić (eds.), Between Logic and Reality, Springer. pp. 227--242. 2012.
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20Propositions: Semantic and Ontological Issues (edited book)BRILL. 2006.This special issue of GPS collects 11 papers (and a long introduction), by leading philosophers and young researchers, which tackle more or less from close the topic of propositions by trying to provide the reader with a cross-section of the ongoing debate in this area. The raised issues range over the semantics, the ontology, the epistemology, and the philosophy of mathematics and stimulate the reader to reflect on crucial problems such as the following: are propositions objects? In the positiv…Read more
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25Preliminaries to a logic of malfunctionIn Pavel Arazim Michal Dancak (ed.), The Logica Yearbook, College Publications. pp. 33-47. 2015.
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14On Dialetheic EntailmentIn The Logica Yearbook 2010, . 2011.The entailment connective is introduced by Priest (2006b). It aims to capture, in a dialetheically acceptable way, the informal notion of logical consequence. This connective does not “fall foul” of Curry’s Paradox by invalidating an inference rule called “Absorption” (or “Contraction”) and the classical logical theorem called “Assertion”. In this paper we show that the semantics of entailment, given by Priest in terms of possible worlds, is inadequate. In particular, we will argue that Priest’s…Read more
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118Paradox and Logical Revision. A Short IntroductionTopoi 34 (1): 7-14. 2015.Logical orthodoxy has it that classical first-order logic, or some extension thereof, provides the right extension of the logical consequence relation. However, together with naïve but intuitive principles about semantic notions such as truth, denotation, satisfaction, and possibly validity and other naïve logical properties, classical logic quickly leads to inconsistency, and indeed triviality. At least since the publication of Kripke’s Outline of a theory of truth , an increasingly popular dia…Read more
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72.4. Criteri d’identità e adeguatezza logicaRivista di Estetica 49 141-160. 2012.Aim of the paper is to make some steps towards a formal characterization of identity criteria. First of all, we analyse some logical requirements identity criteria are supposed to satisfy and observe that some commonly used identity criteria fail to meet some of them. We focus in particular on the equivalence requirement. We consider then the proposals which have been given so far and aimed at providing logical adequacy to non-equivalent identity conditions. To this purpose, we analyse Williamso…Read more
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139Cardinality and IdentityJournal of Philosophical Logic 36 (5): 539-556. 2007.P.T. Geach has maintained (see, e.g., Geach (1967/1968)) that identity (as well as dissimilarity) is always relative to a general term. According to him, the notion of absolute identity has to be abandoned and replaced by a multiplicity of relative identity relations for which Leibniz's Law - which says that if two objects are identical they have the same properties - does not hold. For Geach relative identity is at least as good as Frege's cardinality thesis which he takes to be strictly connec…Read more
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60The Knowability Paradox in the light of a Logic for PragmaticsIn Roberto Ciuni, Heinrich Wansing & Caroline Willkommen (eds.), Recent Trends in Philosophical Logic (Proceedings of Trends in Logic XI), Springer. pp. 47-58. 2014.The Knowability Paradox is a logical argument showing that if all truths are knowable in principle, then all truths are, in fact, known. Many strategies have been suggested in order to avoid the paradoxical conclusion. A family of solutions –ncalled logical revision – has been proposed to solve the paradox, revising the logic underneath, with an intuitionistic revision included. In this paper, we focus on so-called revisionary solutions to the paradox – solutions that put the blame on the underl…Read more
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64On biological identityBiology and Philosophy 19 (3): 443-457. 2004.In our paper, we propose a relativisticand metaphysically neutral identity criterionfor biological entities. We start from thecriterion of genidentity proposed by K. Lewinand H. Reichenbach. Then we enrich it to renderit more philosophical powerful and so capableof dealing with the real transformations thatoccur in the extremely variegated biologicalworld.
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90Relative Identity and the Number of ArtifactsTechné: Research in Philosophy and Technology 13 (2): 108-122. 2009.Relativists maintain that identity is always relative to a general term. According to them, the notion of absolute identity has to be abandoned and replaced by a multiplicity of relative identity relations for which Leibniz’s Law does not hold. For relativists RI is at least as good as the Fregean cardinality thesis, which contends that an ascription of cardinality is always relative to a concept specifying what, in any specific case, counts as a unit. The same train of thought on cardinality an…Read more
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250On the ontological commitment of mereologyReview of Symbolic Logic 2 (1): 164-174. 2009.In Parts of Classes (1991) and Mathematics Is Megethology (1993) David Lewis defends both the innocence of plural quantification and of mereology. However, he himself claims that the innocence of mereology is different from that of plural reference, where reference to some objects does not require the existence of a single entity picking them out as a whole. In the case of plural quantification . Instead, in the mereological case: (Lewis, 1991, p. 87). The aim of the paper is to argue that one—a…Read more
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23Two Arguments against Antirealism in Relation to Artefact KindsIn Guido Bonino, Greg Jesson & Javier Cumpa (eds.), Defending Realism: Ontological and Epistemological Investigations, De Gruyter. pp. 9-28. 2014.
Padua, Italy
Areas of Specialization
Metaphysics |
Logic and Philosophy of Logic |
Metaphysics and Epistemology |
Areas of Interest
Metaphysics |
Logic and Philosophy of Logic |
Metaphysics and Epistemology |