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1519Modeling Measurement: Error and UncertaintyIn Marcel Boumans, Giora Hon & Arthur Petersen (eds.), Error and Uncertainty in Scientific Practice, Pickering & Chatto. pp. 79-96. 2014.In the last few decades the role played by models and modeling activities has become a central topic in the scientific enterprise. In particular, it has been highlighted both that the development of models constitutes a crucial step for understanding the world and that the developed models operate as mediators between theories and the world. Such perspective is exploited here to cope with the issue as to whether error-based and uncertainty-based modeling of measurement are incompatible, and thus…Read more
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1287A Logic of Justification and TruthmakingReview of Symbolic Logic 6 (2): 323-342. 2013.In the present paper we propose a system of propositional logic for reasoning about justification, truthmaking, and the connection between justifiers and truthmakers. The logic of justification and truthmaking is developed according to the fundamental ideas introduced by Artemov. Justifiers and truthmakers are treated in a similar way, exploiting the intuition that justifiers provide epistemic grounds for propositions to be considered true, while truthmakers provide ontological grounds for propo…Read more
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1200A New Semantics for Systems of Logic of EssenceStudia Logica 102 (3): 411-440. 2014.The purpose of the present paper is to provide a way of understanding systems of logic of essence by introducing a new semantic framework for them. Three central results are achieved: first, the now standard Fitting semantics for the propositional logic of evidence is adapted in order to provide a new, simplified semantics for the propositional logic of essence; secondly, we show how it is possible to construe the concept of necessary truth explicitly by using the concept of essential truth; fin…Read more
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1098From times to worlds and back again: a transcendentist theory of persistenceThought: A Journal of Philosophy 2 (1): 210-220. 2013.Until recently, an almost perfect parallelism seemed to hold between theories of identity through time and across possible worlds,as every account in the temporal case(endurantism,perdurantism, exdurantism) was mirrored by a twin account in the modal case (trans-world identity, identity-via-parts, identity-via-counterparts). Nevertheless, in the recent literature, this parallelism has been broken because of the implementation in the debate of the relation of location. In particular, endurantism …Read more
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920On Representing Information: A Characterization of the Analog/Digital DistinctionDialectica 67 (4): 455-483. 2013.The common account of the analog vs digital distinction is based on features of physical systems, being related to the usage of continuous vs discrete supports respectively. It is proposed here to alternatively characterize the concepts of analog and digital as related to coding systems, of which a formal definition is given, by suggesting that the distinction refers to the strategy adopted to define the coding function: extensional in digital systems, isomorphic intensional in analog systems. T…Read more
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903The Truthmaker Solution to the Gettier ProblemsEpistemologia 38 66-78. 2015.A truthmaker solution to the Gettier problems is based on the idea that knowledge can be defined as justified true belief provided that the source of one’s justification is suitably connected with what makes the believed proposition true. Different developments of this basic intuition have been recently criticized on the basis of a series of arguments aiming at showing that no truthmaker theory can allow us to solve Gettier problems, since the very idea underlying such solution is ineffective. I…Read more
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725Voluntary Imagination: A Fine-Grained AnalysisReview of Symbolic Logic 1-26. 2020.We study imagination as reality-oriented mental simulation : the activity of simulating nonactual scenarios in one’s mind, to investigate what would happen if they were realized. Three connected questions concerning ROMS are: What is the logic, if there is one, of such an activity? How can we gain new knowledge via it? What is voluntary in it and what is not? We address them by building a list of core features of imagination as ROMS, drawing on research in cognitive psychology and the philosophy…Read more
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697Basic Action Deontic LogicIn Olivier Roy, Allard Tamminga & Malte Willer (eds.), Deontic Logic and Normative Systems, College Publications. pp. 80-92. 2016.The aim of this paper is to introduce a system of dynamic deontic logic in which the main problems related to the definition of deontic concepts, especially those emerging from a standard analysis of permission in terms of possibility of doing an action without incurring in a violation of the law, are solved. The basic idea is to introduce two crucial distinctions allowing us to differentiate (i) what is ideal with respect to a given code, which fixes the types of action that are abstractly pres…Read more
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604In Defence of TranscendentismActa Analytica 31 (2): 225-234. 2016.How do objects persist through time? According to endurantism, objects persist through time and do not have temporal parts. According to the transcendentist version of endurantism, objects exist at times by participating in events that occur at those times. This version of transcendentism offers specific metaphysical and semantical advantages over other versions of endurantism. In this paper, we defend transcendentist endurantism against a series of criticisms that have been recently offered by …Read more
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585Perspectival Logic of Acceptance and RejectionLogique and Analyse 265-283. 2017.This paper aims at developing a logical theory of perspectival epistemic attitudes. After presenting a standard framework for modeling acceptance, where the epistemic space of an agent coincides with a unique epistemic cell, more complex systems are introduced, which are characterized by the existence of many connected epistemic cells, and different possible attitudes towards a proposition, both positive and negative, are discussed. In doing that, we also propose some interesting ways in which t…Read more
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584Logic of Implicit and Explicit JustifiersIn L. Felline, A. Ledda, F. Paoli & E. Rossanese (eds.), New Directions in Logic and the Philosophy of Science, College Publications. pp. 119-131. 2016.The aim of this paper is to provide an intuitive semantics for systems of justification logic which allows us to cope with the distinction between implicit and explicit justifiers. The paper is subdivided into three sections. In the first one, the distinction between implicit and explicit justifiers is presented and connected with a proof-theoretic distinction between two ways of interpreting sequences of sentences; that is, as sequences of axioms in a certain set and as sequences proofs constru…Read more
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581An Internal Limit of the Structural Analysis of CausationAxiomathes 26 (4): 429-450. 2016.Structural models of systems of causal connections have become a common tool in the analysis of the concept of causation. In the present paper I offer a general argument to show that one of the most powerful definitions of the concept of actual cause, provided within the structural models framework, is not sufficient to grant a full account of our intuitive judgements about actual causation, so that we are still waiting for a comprehensive definition. This is done not simply by focusing on a set…Read more
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482On a New Tentative Solution to Fitch’s ParadoxErkenntnis 81 (3): 597-611. 2016.In a recent paper, Alexander argues that relaxing the requirement that sound knowers know their own soundness might provide a solution to Fitch’s paradox and introduces a suitable axiomatic system where the paradox is avoided. In this paper an analysis of this solution is proposed according to which the effective move for solving the paradox depends on the axiomatic treatment of the ontic modality rather than the limitations imposed on the epistemic one. It is then shown that, once the ontic mod…Read more
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482A Classical Logic of Existence and EssenceLogic and Logical Philosophy 29 (4): 541-570. 2020.The purpose of this paper is to provide a new system of logic for existence and essence, in which the traditional distinctions between essential and accidental properties, abstract and concrete objects, and actually existent and possibly existent objects are described and related in a suitable way. In order to accomplish this task, a primitive relation of essential identity between different objects is introduced and connected to a first order existence property and a first order abstractness pr…Read more
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460A new framework for justification logicJournal of Applied Non-Classical Logics 25 (4): 308-323. 2015.The logic of justification provides an in-depth analysis of the epistemic states of an agent. This paper aims at solving some of the problems to which the common interpretation of the operators of justification logic is subject by providing a framework in which a crucial distinction between potential and explicit justifiers is exploited. The paper is subdivided into three sections. The first section offers an introduction to a basic system LJ of justification logic and to the problems concerning…Read more
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434On the factivity of implicit intersubjective knowledgeSynthese 191 (8): 1909-1923. 2014.The concept of knowledge can be modelled in epistemic modal logic and, if modelled by using a standard modal operator, it is subject to the problem of logical omniscience. The classical solution to this problem is to distinguish between implicit and explicit knowledge and to construe the knowledge operator as capturing the concept of implicit knowledge. In addition, since a proposition is said to be implicitly known just in case it is derivable from the set of propositions that are explicitly kn…Read more
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308Enriching Deontic LogicJournal of Logic and Computation 1 1-23. 2018.It is well known that systems of action deontic logic emerging from a standard analysis of permission in terms of possibility of doing an action without incurring in a violation of the law are subject to paradoxes. In general, paradoxes are acknowledged as such if we have intuitions telling us that things should be different. The aim of this paper is to introduce a paradox-free deontic action system by (i) identifying the basic intuitions leading to the emergence of the paradoxes and (ii) exploi…Read more
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298A suitable semantics for implicit and explicit beliefLogique Et Analyse 58 (231). 2015.In the present paper a new semantic framework for modelling the distinction between implicit and explicit belief is proposed and contrasted with the currently standard framework based on the idea that explicit belief can be construed as implicit belief accompanied by awareness. It is argued that within this new framework it is possible to get both a more intuitive interpretation of the aforementioned distinction and a straightforward solution to two critical problems to which the standard view i…Read more
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263Aristotelian universals, strong immanence, and constructionSynthese 203 (2): 1-15. 2024.The Aristotelian view of universals, according to which each universal generically depends for its existence on its instantiations, has recently come under attack by a series of ground-theoretic arguments. The last such arguments, presented by Raven, promises to offer several significant improvements over its predecessors, such as avoiding commitment to the transitivity of ground and offering new reasons for the metaphysical priority of universals over their instantiations. In this paper, we arg…Read more
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221Outline of a general model of measurementSynthese 175 (2): 123-149. 2010.Measurement is a process aimed at acquiring and codifying information about properties of empirical entities. In this paper we provide an interpretation of such a process comparing it with what is nowadays considered the standard measurement theory, i.e., representational theory of measurement. It is maintained here that this theory has its own merits but it is incomplete and too abstract, its main weakness being the scant attention reserved to the empirical side of measurement, i.e., to measure…Read more
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142Measurement, Models, and UncertaintyIEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement 61 (8). 2012.Against the tradition, which has considered measurement able to produce pure data on physical systems, the unavoidable role played by the modeling activity in measurement is increasingly acknowledged, particularly with respect to the evaluation of measurement uncertainty. This paper characterizes measurement as a knowledge-based process and proposes a framework to understand the function of models in measurement and to systematically analyze their influence in the production of measurement resul…Read more
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86Quantity and quantity valueProc. TC1-TC7-TC13 14th IMEKO Joint Symposium. 2011.The concept system around ‘quantity’ and ‘quantity value’ is fundamental for measurement science, but some very basic issues are still open on such concepts and their relations. This paper proposes a duality between quantities and quantity values, a proposal that simplifies their characterization and makes it consistent.
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80In defense of Aristotelian universalsSynthese 200 (2): 1-18. 2022.To be an Aristotelian about universals is to hold that universals depend for their existence on their exemplifiers. An argument against Aristotelianism about universals has recently been put forward by Costa to the effect that a contradiction follows from assuming a certain formulation of Aristotelianism together with some highly plausible principles governing the notions employed in that formulation. In this paper, we provide different ways of articulating the Aristotelian position which, while…Read more
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64Axiomatizing the Logic of ImaginationStudia Logica 107 (4): 639-657. 2019.In a recent paper Berto introduces a semantic system for a logic of imagination, intended as positive conceivability, and aboutness of imaginative acts. This system crucially adopts elements of both the semantics of conditionals and the semantics of analytical implications in order to account for the central logical traits of the notion of truth in an act of imagination based on an explicit input. The main problem left unsolved is to put forward a complete set of axioms for the proposed system. …Read more
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61Aristotelian and Naturalistic OntologyIn A. Corradini, S. Galvan & E. J. Lowe (eds.), Analytic Philosophy Without Naturalism, Routledge. 2006.The present paper analyses the correctness of an argument aiming to show that Aristotelian ontology justifies a better interpretation of the world than naturalistic ontology. The problems connected with this argument can be reduced to three: (1) the assumption of a scientific appoach to the world does not imply the exclusion of subjectivity or intentionality; (2) the assumption of an ontology of substances does not imlpy the exclusion of ontological models deriving from the scientific approach t…Read more
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55An Extensional Mereology for Structured EntitiesErkenntnis 87 2343-2373. 2020.In this paper, we present an extensional system of mereology suitable to account for the intuitive distinction between heaplike and non-heaplike entities. Since the need to capture this distinction has been a key motivation for non-extensional mereologies, we first assess the main non-extensional systems advanced in the last years and highlight some mereological and metaphysical difficulties they involve. We then advance a novel program, according to which the distinction between heaplike and no…Read more
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53Property evaluation typesMeasurement 45 (3): 437-452. 2012.An appropriate characterization of property types is an important topic for measurement science. On the basis of a set-theoretic model of evaluation and measurement processes, the paper introduces the operative concept of property evaluation type, and discusses how property types are related to, and in fact can be derived from, property evaluation types, by finally analyzing the consequences of these distinctions for the concepts of ‘property’ used in the International Vocabulary of Metrology – …Read more
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53Atoms, combs, syllables and organismsPhilosophical Studies 180 (7): 1995-2024. 2023.Mereological atomism is the thesis that everything is ultimately composed of atomic parts, i.e., parts without proper parts. Typically, this thesis is characterized by an axiom stating that everything has atomic parts. The present paper argues that the success of this standard characterization depends on how the notions of sum and composition are defined. In particular, we put forward a novel definition of mereological sum that: (i) is not equivalent to existing definitions in the literature, if…Read more
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51A structural interpretation of measurement and some related epistemological issuesStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 1-11. 2017.Measurement is widely applied because its results are assumed to be more reliable than opinions and guesses, but this reliability is sometimes justified in a stereotyped way. After a critical analysis of such stereotypes, a structural characterization of measurement is proposed, as partly empirical and partly theoretical process, by showing that it is in fact the structure of the process that guarantees the reliability of its results. On this basis the role and the structure of background knowle…Read more
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46Quantity and Quantity ValueMetrologia 49 (6): 756-764. 2012.The concept system around 'quantity' and 'quantity value' is fundamental for measurement science, but some very basic issues are still open on such concepts and their relation. This paper argues that quantity values are in fact individual quantities, and that a complementarity exists between measurands and quantity values. This proposal is grounded on the analysis of three basic 'equality' relations: (i) between quantities, (ii) between quantity values and (iii) between quantities and quantity v…Read more
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Areas of Specialization
Epistemology |
Logic and Philosophy of Logic |
General Philosophy of Science |
PhilPapers Editorships
Measurement in Science |