Francesco Berto

This profound exploration of one of the core notions of philosophy—the concept of existence itself—reviews, then counters (via Meinongian theory), the mainstream philosophical view running from Hume to Frege, Russell, and Quine, summarized thus by Kant: “Existence is not a predicate.” The initial section of the book presents a comprehensive introduction to, and critical evaluation of, this mainstream view. The author moves on to provide the first systematic survey of all the main Meinongian theories of existence, which, by contrast, reckon existence to be a real, full-fledged property of objects that some things possess, and others lack. As an influential addition to the research literature, the third part develops the most up-to-date neo-Meinongian theory called Modal Meinongianism, applies it to specific fields such as the ontology of fictional objects, and discusses its open problems, laying the groundwork for further research. In accordance with the latest trends in analytic ontology, the author prioritizes a meta-ontological viewpoint, adopting a dual definition of meta-ontology as the discourse on the meaning of being, and as the discourse on the tools and methods of ontological enquiry. This allows a balanced assessment of philosophical views on a cost-benefit basis, following multiple criteria for theory evaluation. Compelling and revealing, this new publication is a vital addition to contemporary philosophical ontology.

The Ontology of Meinongianism

Existence as a Real Property

Gabriele Rossi

Jacopo Tagliabue

The Mathematics of the Models of Reference is a detailed exposition of the modeling of physical and informational reality pursued by iLabs Milan ( www.ilabs.it ), a private research lab in applied Artificial Intelligence. Based on an original approach to cellular automata theory, this book includes an array of axiomatic formal theories, ranging from a discrete, mereological model of the structure of space-time, to non-standard computation and recursion theory. The appendices to the volume explain the applications of the theory in the algorithmic recapture of a variety of physical, biological, and cognitive phenomena. Francesco Berto Logic & Formal Modeling @ iLabs PhD in Philosophy, has studied at the University of Notre Dame (Indiana, USA), at the Sorbonne-Ecole Normale Superieure of Paris, and is currently lecturer at the University of Aberdeen. He has published various papers and monographs in ontology and the philosophy of logic. Gabriele Rossi Director of iLabs A.I. Department @ iLabs Has a degree in Economic and Social Disciplines at the Bocconi University in Milan and is CEO of Diagramma, a leading company in insurance software applications. Expert in Artificial Intelligence, in 2007 he has co-authored with Antonella Canonico the book Semi-Immortality, a manifesto of European transhumanism. Jacopo Tagliabue Chief Scientist for Qualitative Modeling @ iLabs A PhD student with a degree in Philosophy at the University San Raffaele of Milan, has studied Economics at LSE, Statistics at New York University, and Complex Systems at the Santa Fe Institute. He has published papers in ontology and non-standard computation.

The Mathematics of the Models of Reference

The Complete Guide to the Incompleteness Theorem

There's Something about Gdel

Paola Scalari

Mal d'amore. Relazioni familiari tra confusioni sentimentali e criticità educative

Lorenzo Bottai

Che cos'è una contraddizione

un'interpretazione analitica del metodo

Che cos'è la dialettica hegeliana?

i rivali del principio di non-contraddizione

Teorie dell'assurdo

dal quadrato rotondo ai mondi impossibili

L'esistenza non è logica

Matteo Plebani

A Contemporary Guide

Ontology and Metaontology

Nel 1930 un ragazzo ventitreenne di nome Kurt Gödel dimostrò un teorema destinato a cambiare per sempre la nostra comprensione della matematica e, forse, di noi stessi: il Teorema di Incompletezza dell'Aritmetica. Questo libro ci guida, e senza presupporre alcuna particolare competenza matematica, nei segreti della leggendaria dimostrazione di Gödel e delle sue controverse implicazioni filosofiche. Francesco Berto mostra come alcuni usi del Teorema oggi invocato in migliaia di siti Internet, in discorsi di politica, religione, sociologia e, naturalmente, ermeneutica e postmodernismo - sorgano da buffi fraintendimenti del risultato gödeliano. E discute le posizioni dei molti nomi celebri del pensiero contemporaneo che hanno sentito il bisogno di dir la loro sul Teorema. Da Wittgenstein al profeta dell'Intelligenza Artificiale Douglas Hofstadter, vincitore del Premio Pulitzer col celebre Gödel, Escher, Bach; dal fisico Roger Penrose, per il quale invece il Teorema di Incompletezza mostra che nessun computer può emulare la mente umana, allo stesso Kurt Gödel, che associò la propria scoperta a un'intuizione puramente intellettuale dell'infinito.

la guida completa al teorema di incompletezza

Tutti pazzi per Gödel!

Logica da zero a Gödel

"There is a principle in things, about which we cannot be deceived, but must always, on the contrary, recognize the truth - viz. that the same thing cannot at one and the same time be and not be" with these words of the Metaphysics, Aristotle introduced the Law of Non-Contradiction, which was to become the most authoritative principle in the history of Western thought. However, things have recently changed, and nowadays various philosophers, called dialetheists, claim that this Law does not hold unrestrictedly - that in peculiar circumstances the same thing may at the same time be and not be, and contradictions may obtain in the world. This book opens with an examination of the famous logical paradoxes that appear to speak on behalf of contradictions (e.g., the Liar paradox, the set-theoretic paradoxes such as Cantor's and Russell's), and of the reasons for the failure of the standard attempts to solve them. It provides, then, an introduction to paraconsistent logics - non-classical logics in which the admission of contradictions does not lead to logical chaos -, and their astonishing applications, going from inconsistent data base management to contradictory arithmetics capable of circumventing Godel's celebrated Incompleteness Theorem. The final part of the book discusses the philosophical motivations and difficulties of dialetheism, and shows how to extract from Aristotle's ancient words a possible reply to the dialetheic challenge. How to Sell a Contradiction will appeal to anyone interested in non-classical logics, analytic metaphysics, and philosophy of mathematics, and especially to those who consider challenging our most entrenched beliefs the main duty of philosophical inquiry. Francesco Berto is Lecturer in Logic and Metaphysics at the University of Venice, Italy. He has published articles in American Philosophical Quarterly, The Australasian Journal of Philosophy, Dialectica, Logique et Analyse, The European Journal of Philosophy, and the books La dialettica della struttura originaria [The Dialectics of the Basic Structure, Padua 2003], Che cos'e la dialettica hegeliana [What is Hegel's Dialectics?, Padua 2005], Teorie dell'assurdo [Theories of the Absurd, Rome 2006] and Logica da zero a Godel [Logic, from Zero to Godel, Rome 2007].

The Logic and Metaphysics of Inconsistency

How to Sell a Contradiction

the complete guide to the incompleteness theorem

There's something about Gödel

Ontology and Metaontology: A Contemporary Guide is a clear and accessible survey of ontology, focusing on the most recent trends in the discipline. Divided into parts, the first half characterizes metaontology: the discourse on the methodology of ontological inquiry, covering the main concepts, tools, and methods of the discipline, exploring the notions of being and existence, ontological commitment, paraphrase strategies, fictionalist strategies, and other metaontological questions. The second half considers a series of case studies, introducing and familiarizing the reader with concrete examples of the latest research in the field. The basic sub-fields of ontology are covered here via an accessible and captivating exposition: events, properties, universals, abstract objects, possible worlds, material beings, mereology, fictional objects. The guide's modular structure allows for a flexible approach to the subject, making it suitable for both undergraduates and postgraduates looking to better understand and apply the exciting developments and debates taking place in ontology today.

Mark Jago

Impossible Worlds

Edwin Mares

Koji Tanaka

Francesco Paoli

A logic is called 'paraconsistent' if it rejects the rule called 'ex contradictione quodlibet', according to which any conclusion follows from inconsistent premises. While logicians have proposed many technically developed paraconsistent logical systems and contemporary philosophers like Graham Priest have advanced the view that some contradictions can be true, and advocated a paraconsistent logic to deal with them, until recent times these systems have been little understood by philosophers. This book presents a comprehensive overview on paraconsistent logical systems to change this situation. The book includes almost every major author currently working in the field. The papers are on the cutting edge of the literature some of which discuss current debates and others present important new ideas. The editors have avoided papers about technical details of paraconsistent logic, but instead concentrated upon works that discuss more "big picture" ideas. Different treatments of paradoxes takes centre stage in many of the papers, but also there are several papers on how to interpret paraconistent logic and some on how it can be applied to philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of language, and metaphysics.

Paraconsistency: Logic and Applications

Quando limmaginazione supera la logica, anche limpossibile è permeabile al pensiero.Fin dalle sue origini, la filosofia ha coltivato lidea che lesistenza sia riducibile al pensiero logico, mentre il non-essere resta inconoscibile e impensabile. Non così per Francesco Berto: certe cose non esistono proprio, eppure possiamo riferirci ad esse, conoscerle e descriverle. Le storie di Sir Arthur Conan Doyle parlano del detective Sherlock Holmes, e Il signore degli anelli di Tolkien parla di Gandalf. Naturalmente, nelle storie che li descrivono, il detective e lo stregone hanno laria di essere molto, molto esistenti, mentre nel nostro mondo reale essi, semplicemente, non hanno lessere, non sono. E a non esistere non sono solo le cose che popolano il mondo letterario. Molte altre cose, pur essendo esistite in passato, ora non esistono più: Giulio Cesare, Leonardo da Vinci, Napoleone, George Washington, Michael Jackson, tutti i nostri cari estinti. Altre cose non solo non esistono, ma neppure potrebbero esistere un cerchio quadrato, o la violazione di una legge logica fondamentale eppure, perfino in questo caso limpossibile è tutto da esplorare. Questo libro ci guida in un viaggio metafisico intorno al senso dellessere, dal più antico pensiero dei Greci alla logica contemporanea di Bertrand Russell e di Quine, passando per lo scetticismo di David Hume e il razionalismo di Immanuel Kant.

Dal quadrato rotondo ai mondi impossibili

Qui comando io! Come farsi obbedire dai bambini. Atteggiamenti che portano al successo

Berto’s highly readable and lucid guide introduces students and the interested reader to Gödel’s celebrated Incompleteness Theorem, and discusses some of the most famous - and infamous - claims arising from Gödel's arguments. Offers a clear understanding of this difficult subject by presenting each of the key steps of the Theorem in separate chapters Discusses interpretations of the Theorem made by celebrated contemporary thinkers Sheds light on the wider extra-mathematical and philosophical implications of Gödel’s theories Written in an accessible, non-technical style

There's Something About Gödel

Francesco Berto

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