Mario De Caro

Davidson in Focus

Insofar as the notion of systematic philosophy can make sense in the analytic world, Donald Davidson is a systematic philosopher. While he has never directly written about some of the most fundamental branches of philosophy, as the classic systematic philosophers used to do (he has never discussed ethical or political issues, for example), Davidson’s fundamental contributions to many fields, such as the philosophy of language and metaphysics, epistemology and the theory of action, the philosophy of mind and the theory of explanation form a complex, integrated whole in which any single part is interdependent on the others. This holistic feature of Davidson’s philosophy gives us clear evidence of its systematic character — besides being a major source of its notorious difficulty. However, in his quite formidable, but remarkably original philosophical system, two notions play a fundamental role: interpretation and causation.

Bellarmine's Revenge? On Some Recent Trends in the Roman Catholic Church Concerning the Relation of Faith and Science

At least since the time of Galileo, the attitude of the Roman Catholic Church toward science has been ambivalent, but by the end of the twentieth century, it seemed that an open-minded and tolerant tendency had definitely prevailed. Now, however, in the early years of the new century, the antiscientific stance has made a vigorous comeback, and sometimes in surprisingly outmoded guises. Although it is probably a position still held by only a minority in the Church, this antiscientific stance appears to have been adopted by members in the highest ranks of the Catholic Church, including the pope. This article analyzes the roots, nature, and cultural and political implications of this antiscientific renaissance within Catholicism by looking at two of its main expressions, which concern, respectively, the attitude one should take toward the natural sciences and the social sciences.

“Bellarmino’s Revenge”

At least since the time of Galileo, the attitude of the Roman Catholic Church toward science has been ambivalent, but by the end of the twentieth century, it seemed that an open-minded and tolerant tendency had definitely prevailed. Now, however, in the early years of the new century, the antiscientific stance has made a vigorous comeback, and sometimes in surprisingly outmoded guises. Although it is probably a position still held by only a minority in the Church, this antiscientific stance appears to have been adopted by members in the highest ranks of the Catholic Church, including the pope. This article analyzes the roots, nature, and cultural and political implications of this antiscientific renaissance within Catholicism by looking at two of its main expressions, which concern, respectively, the attitude one should take toward the natural sciences and the social sciences.

Von Wright on the Mind-Body Problem

Looking at the development of Professor von Wright’s philosophy, one could be surprised by the fact that, until very recently, he didn’t appear interested in the mind-body problem. In his “Intellectual Autobiography”, written in 1972–73, for example, von Wright writes — referring to his youthful interest in the mind-body problem and the other fundamental metaphysical questions about the nature of reality — that “strangely enough, this is an aerea in which, as an active philosopher I have (so far) done no work at all”.1

On Galileo’s Platonism, Again

Several decades ago Alexandre Koyre’s interpretation of Galileo as a Platonist of a specific sort was the dominant view, but today it is largely out of fashion. In this paper I argue that, if wrong regarding the experimental side of Galilean science, Koyre’s interpretation was substantially correct as to its crucial ontological and epistemological components. In this light I defend the view that Galileo should be seen as an advocate of a physico-mathematical version of Platonism.

Debunking the pyramidal mind: A plea for synergy between reason and emotion

An instructive example of the present renaissance of emotivism is given by Chapman et al. (2009), who offered an evolutionary account of the genesis of morality whose main idea is that moral disgust is physiologically identical and phylogenetically connected to gustatory distaste. From common sense, we know that scowling is connected with repugnance and, consequently, with the attitude to refuse the substance that triggered that reaction. Evolutionarily, this phenomenon can be explained by referring to the crucial adaptive function that the attitude of refusal might have played, as early as 500 million years ago, in making survival easier for some primitive living beings. According to Chapman et al., “in the moral domain, this rejection impulse might have been co-opted to promote withdrawal from transgressors, or even from the thought of committing a transgression. If the primitive motivational system of disgust is indeed activated by abstract moral transgressions, it would provide strong support for the idea that the human moral sense is built from evolutionarily ancient precursors” (2009, p. 1222). The article suggests that the phylogenetic account is a necessary component of the explanation of the way of working of our moral sense, and this may appear to support the sentimentalist perspective. But is this correct? In our opinion, no. According to Chapman et al., when we face a morally relevant situation, our having the physiological reaction of disgust goes together with our having a moral attitude. But this isn’t so because, in assuming a moral attitude it is essential that we can (at least in principle) detach ourselves from our instinctive and immediate reactions. That the possibility of a detachment from our instinctive reactions in morally relevant situations is a necessary condition for morality can be shown by an example. Jim grew up in a racist environment but later became a convinced antiracist, even if, sometimes, he still fights against the effects of his education. One day, Jim encounters a wounded man who asks for help, but the man is of a different ethnic group, so Jim has an instinctive attitude of “moral disgust” and raises his lips. But now he is a convinced antiracist and consequently makes a rational effort to overcome his repugnance and help the man. This shows that the facial expressions of disgust do not have to go together with our moral attitudes. (Analogously, after reflection one could decide to perform an action that provokes in him/her a reaction of disgust because one has realized that such an action is morally required.) In any morally relevant situation, we have the possibility to detach ourselves from our instinctive reactions in order to evaluate whether they are morally acceptable. Very often they are (in those cases, the moral detachment will confirm the instinctive reactions); but this does not happen necessarily. The connection between moral attitudes and physiological reactions is an extrinsic one. Chapman et al.’s evolutionary hypothesis is interesting for investigating the enabling biological conditions of morality; but it is not relevant for explaining morality as such and even less so for assessing the truth of emotivism as a metaethical theory (De Caro, 2011). Moreover, it is important to note that the detachment from our instinctive repugnance can be, and probably in most cases is, accompanied by positive emotions (such as self-gratification for behaving in a way that we think is correct) that contribute to reinforce our decisions to

The view from outside On a distinctively cinematic achievement

What aesthetic interest do we have in watching films? In a much debated paper, Roger Scruton argued that this interest typically comes down to the interest in the dramatic representations recorded by such films. Berys Gaut and Catharine Abell criticized Scruton’s argument by claiming that films can elicit an aesthetic interest also by virtue of their pictorial representation. In this article, we develop a different criticism of Scruton’s argument. In our view, a film can elicit an aesthetic interest that does not come down to an interest in the dramatic representation or in the pictorial representation. We will argue that this is a distinctively cinematic interest. In section I we outline Scruton’s argument. In section II we point out an interest in how the cinematic medium presents the portrayed subject as detached from the spectator’s environment. In section III, by referring to Wittgenstein’s account of the contemplation from outside, we contend that the interest in films introduced in section II can count as an aesthetic interest. In section IV we argue that both documentaries and fiction films can elicit this kind of interest. In section V we compare the three different kinds of aesthetic interest that, in our view, a film can elicit. In section VI we describe the corresponding kinds of cinematic achievements.

Agire razionale e abiti: una visione non gerarchica

According to William James, on the one side, habits are humble mechanisms; on the other side, in the most important cases they have a very noble genesis. We reject both these ideas insofar as they depend on an old conception of the mind — one that appears to us to be totally inadequate. This is the “pyramidal” conception the mind, which was historically associated with the hierarchical conception of the cerebral functions dating back to the 19th Century. In our view, in order to make the most of James’s conception of habits, one has to uncouple the pragmatist elements of that view from the pyramidal picture of the mind. We conclude that the pragmatist view of habits does not need the pyramidal conception of the mind; neither does it need the connected ideas that habits are, at the same time, humble and noble.

Un catalogo del mondo

The paper discusses Maurizio Ferraris’ Documentalita by raising two objections. The first objection concerns Ferraris’ view that, in the case of all natural entities, there cannot be differences in the way a normal adult, a little child and an animal perceive them. It is claimed that this is not true for objects such as the sun that we (differently from little children and animals) cannot help perceiving as a gigantic hot celestial body. The second objection concerns the thesis that all social objects presuppose a written act. In this case the claim is that it is unclear which philosophy of mind can support such a view.

How to Deal with the Free Will Issue: The Roles of Conceptual Analysis and Empirical Science

The question of free will has been defined as “intractable”,TPPT as “arguably the most difficult problem in philosophy”,TPPT as one about which “nothing believable has [...] been proposed by anyone in the extensive public discussion of the subject”.TPPT David Hume (before proposing his own controversial solution) revealingly worded the complexity of the issue by referring to it as “the most contentious question of metaphysics, the most contentious science”.TPPT It was insightful on Hume’s part to mention, in this context, both philosophy and science. Certainly, one of the main difficulties of the free will issue is to understand what contributions are supposed to come, respectively, from philosophy (intended as a practice that essentially involves conceptual analysis) and from empirical investigation. In principle, three options are open when one reflects on what roles these two fields can play in the free will discussion: