History, Humanities, and Society

I argue that a capacity for mindreading conceived along the line of simulation theory provides the cognitive basis for forming we-centric representations of actions and goals. This explains the plural first personal stance displayed by we-intentions in terms of the underlying cognitive processes performed by individual minds, while preserving the idea that they cannot be analyzed in terms of individual intentional states. The implication for social ontology is that this makes sense of the plural subjectivity of joint actions without making group agents require either a corporate body or the unity of consciousness.

In this paper I consider the relevance of Tomasello’s work on social cognition to the theory of communicative action. I argue that some revisions are needed to cope with Tomasello’s results, but they do not affect the core of the theory. Moreover, they arguably reinforce both its explanatory power and the plausibility of its normative claims. I proceed in three steps. First, I compare and contrast Tomasello’s views on the ontogeny of human social cognition with the main tenets of Habermas’ theory of communicative action. Second, I suggest how to reframe the role of language in the theory of communicative rationality in order to integrate the two theories. Third, I show how this affects social ontology, supporting the view that the construction of social reality is normatively constrained.

By endorsing that Bildung is a condition for thought, McDowell explicitly sets out to revive a theme in classical german philosophy. As long as the concept of Bildung is intended to play a role McDowell’s theory of meaning and reasons, however, it is best understood in the light of his distinctive combination of neo-Fregeanism about content and Wittgensteinianism about rule-following. The Fregean part is there to ensure that reasons are objective, the Wittgensteinian move is to account for our grasping of reasons. I argue that, as it stands, the project can hardly succeed. According to this reading, Bildung not only provides the epistemic resources to access reasons; it shapes them in a way that is in tension with the idea that reasons are objective in the sense required. I conclude with a guess about the amendment needed to keep the project in the air.

In the Logical Investigations Husserl sets out the idea of a Logical Grammar as a theory intended to explain how complex expressions can be constructed out of simple ones so that their meaning turns out to be determined by the meanings of their constituent parts and the way they are put together.
Meanings are therefore classified into formal categories that match the syntactic categories of linguistic expressions, so that the logical properties of expressions turn out to reflect their grammatical properties. As long as linguistic meaning reduces to the intentional content of mental representations, however, it is not trivial to account for how they relate to syntax.
Husserl’s take on these issues suggests the following:
1) The syntactic form of representations (both mental and linguistic) carries information about their semantic role;
2) The logical form of representations supervenes on their syntactic form;
3) The phenomenology of thought is broadly language-like.

The phenomenology of alienation is rich, yet it is far from clear how to account for a paradox it raises about consciousness. Consciousness cannot be said to be false in the same way beliefs can be. Talks of alienation rather suggest that we may happen to un- dergo experiences that look as if they are not ours. The paradox is therefore different, and far deeper, than paradoxes and irrationalities affecting beliefs in self-deception, wishful thinking and the like. As a consequence, explanations working at the level of beliefs and their etiology seem at least incomplete. I argue that a complete account may involve the distortion of mechanisms operating in social cognition. Simulation theories of mind reading, in particular, seem to provide the theoretical tools to ex- plain how subjective experience can turn out to look alienated or “false”.

Husserl's Logical Grammar is intended to explain how complex expressions can be constructed out of simple ones so that their meaning turns out to be determined by the meanings of their constituent parts and the way they are put together. Meanings are thus understood as structured contents and classified into formal categories to the effect that the logical properties of expressions reflect their grammatical properties. As long as linguistic meaning reduces to the intentional content of pre-linguistic representations, however, it is not trivial to account for how semantics relates to syntax in this context. In this paper, I analyze Husserl's Logical Grammar as a system of recursive rules operating on representations and suggest that the syntactic form of representations (both mental and linguistic) contributes to their semantics because it carries information about semantic role. I further discuss Husserl's syntactic account of the unity of propositions and argue that, on this account, logical form supervenes on syntactic form. In the last section I draw some implications for the phenomenology of thought and conjecture that the structural features it displays are likely to convey the syntactic structures of an underlying language-like representational system.

abstract: The connection between science and democracy can be read along two different lines. The first claims that they share some basic assumptions about rationality. The second rejects the neutrality of science and claims that democratic deliberations aims at establishing moral truths. I argue that, while the first line of thought is sound, the second is problematic.

Inclusive design prescribes addressing the needs of the widest possible audience in order to consider human differences. Taking differences seriously, however, may imply severely restricting “the widest possible audience”. In confronting this paradox, we investigate to what extent Rawls’ theory of justice as fairness applies to design. By converting the paradox into the question of how design can be fair, we show that the demand for equitability shifts from the design output to the design process. We conclude that the two main questions about justice find application in design: the question about the standards of justice and the question about its metrics. We endorse a Rawlsian approach to the former, while some revision may be due regarding the latter.

In his latest book, Panebianco advances a rather complex theoretical framework for social sciences. In this paper I discuss some of its implications for the epistemology and the ontology of social sciences. In particular, I will make the case for a sensible epistemological pluralism and for the explanatory relevance of ontological relations, suggesting that mechanistic effects partly depend on the latter. As for the first point, I argue that the weak individualism connected with micro-foundations and mechanistic explanations may allow in some case holistic explanations to be acceptable on empirical grounds.  As for the second, I argue that making sense of emergence requires dropping downward causation and letting the relevant explanatory work to be done by the constraints part-whole relations and environmental conditions impose on the functioning of mechanisms.

On Jaeggi's reading, the immanent and progressive features of ideology critique are rooted in the connection between its explanatory and its normative tasks. I argue that this claim can be cashed out in terms of the mechanisms involved in a functional explanation of ideology and that stability plays a crucial role in this connection. On this reading, beliefs can be said to be ideological if (a) they have the function of supporting existing social practices, (b) they are the output of systematically distorted processes of belief formation, (c) the conditions under which distorting mechanisms trigger can be traced back to structural causal factors shaped by the social practice their outputs are designed to support. Functional problems thus turn out to be interlocked with normative problems because ideology fails to provide principles to regulate cooperation that would be accepted under conditions of non-domination, hence failing to anchor a stable cooperative scheme. By explaining ideology as parasitic on domination, ideology critique points to the conditions under which cooperation stabilizes as those of a practice whose principles are accepted without coercion. Thus, it entails a conception of justice whose principles are articulated as part of a theory of social cooperation. 1. Jaeggi on Ideology Rachel Jaeggi has advanced a conception of ideology and ideology critique according to which the normative task of critique must be properly connected with its explanatory task in order for critique to be immanent and promote change. In what follows I discuss Jaeggi's view in the light of a moderately cognitivist conception of ideology. I maintain that the explanatory task places three connected demands on a theory of ideology that relate to the functional, the epistemic, and the genetic dimension of ideology. In this context, I try to outline how these demands impact on the normative and progressive dimensions of ideology critique. In the present section I review Jaeggi's main claims concerning the connection between the analytical and the critical tasks of a theory of ideology, focusing in particular on the interlocking of

In this chapter, I consider the claim for pluralism commonly advanced in political philosophy as a claim concerning the standards, methods, and norms for forming belief and judgment about certain kinds of facts. After distinguishing between descriptive and normative epistemic pluralism, I contend that in this context pluralism needs to rest on grounds that are stronger than fallibilism yet weaker than relativism in order to enjoy a distinct standing. The idea of reasonable pluralism seems to devise a variety of normative pluralism designed to meet this demand. I argue, however, that this is an unstable position and suggest that an epistemic view of deliberation may be better suited to making sense of political justification. The latter view, though, is bound to dispense with normative pluralism.

Ideology is commonly defined along functional, epistemic, and genetic dimensions. This paper advances a reasonably unified account that specifies how they connect and locates the mechanisms at work. I frame the account along a recent distinction between anchoring and grounding, endorse an etiological reading of functional explanations, and draw on current work about the epistemology of delusion, looping effects, and structuring causes to explain how ideologies originate, reproduce, and possibly collapse. This eventually allows articulating how the legitimating function of ideologies relates to the constitutive and causal role they play when embedded into the facts they are originally designed to anchor.

Inclusive design approaches like universal design prescribe addressing the needs of the widest possible audience in order to consider human differences. Taking differences seriously, however, may imply that “the widest possible audience” is severely restricted. In confronting this paradox, we recruit Rawls’ theory of justice as fairness. Applying Rawls’ principles to universal design implies that users derive which design allows for equitable use by deliberating under a veil of ignorance concerning their own capacities or limitations. Rather than addressing everyone’s needs, being designed universally then means matching what everyone would choose under the condition sketched. Since this can hardly apply to single artefacts, we suggest considering the social distribution of usability as the proper domain of fairness in design instead. Under this reading, just design concerns how usability is distributed across relevant users. Differences in usability are acceptable if overall usabil...