Philosophical Inquiries

K. Ansell-Pearson, P. Loeb, "Nietzsche’s 'Thus Spoke Zarathustra': A Critical Guide"

Andrea Inzaghi — 2025-03-19

Review of: K. Ansell-Pearson and P. Loeb (eds.), Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Critical Guide, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2022; £29.17, ISBN: 9781108855143

Philosophy and Novel Foods

Elena Bossini — 2025-03-19

Introduction for the focus "Philosophy and Novel Foods"

Guido Cusinato, Periagoge. Theory of Singularity and Philosophy as an Exercise of Transformation

Luca Mori — 2024-12-13

Review of Guido Cusinato, Periagoge. Theory of Singularity and Philosophy as an Exercise of Transformation

Expanding epistemic public trust

Piero Avitabile — 2024-12-13

This paper examines how communication between experts and lay citizens influences the development of criteria for epistemic public trust, building upon the detailed framework proposed by Irzik and Kurtulmus (2019). We first analyse the epistemic significance of trust and its implications in the public sphere. Our focus is twofold: identifying what attributes make experts trustworthy and exploring the reasons and second-order evidence that lay people can utilize to justify their trust in experts. We argue that the way experts engage in argumentation plays a crucial role: it is essential for their epistemic responsibility towards lay citizens and serves as a key indicator of their trustworthiness. Based on these considerations, we suggest an additional criterion for experts – facilitating rather than hindering the public discussion. Using an example from expert and layperson discussions during the COVID-19 pandemic, we demonstrate how this criterion can be practically applied.

Feyerabendian pluralism in practice: lessons from the Di Bella case

Luca Tambolo — 2024-12-13

This paper contrasts two ingredients of Feyerabendian pluralism: the idea that the proliferation of theories and methods is good for science (the “limited pluralism” view) and the view of knowledge as an ever increasing ocean of mutually incompatible alternatives (the “oceanic” view). We argue that, in order for Feyerabendian pluralism to be tenable, the limited pluralism view should be decoupled from the oceanic one, and the latter rejected. We use as a case study that of Luigi Di Bella, an obscure Italian physician who in 1997-1998 suddenly became a national celebrity as the self-proclaimed discoverer of “the cure for cancer”. When the case erupted, no evidence of the efficacy of Di Bella’s unconventional approach to cancer treatment was available, and the relevant experts concurred that the so-called “Di Bella method” (DBM) did not show any promise. Yet, the Parliament passed a piece of ad hoc legislation authorizing a series of phase II state-funded clinical trials aimed at assessing the DBM. Asking what course of action a Feyerabendian pluralist would have recommended in this scenario allows one to probe into the – limited, as it turns out – validity of some of Feyerabend’s views on theoretical pluralism.

Feyerabend’s humanitarian pluralism and its relevance for science-based policy

Karim Bschir — 2024-12-13

A strong commitment to pluralism on multiple levels (methodological, theoretical, ontological as well as political) is a defining feature of Paul Feyerabend’s philosophical corpus. However, for Feyerabend, pluralism is not just an epistemologically preferable account within the philosophy of science. He also believes that pluralism is the only account of science that is compatible with a humanitarian outlook.

In the first part of this paper, I will reconstruct Feyerabend’s theoretical pluralism in the context of his criticism of Thomas Kuhn’s account. I will show that Feyerabend’s critical engagement with Kuhn’s model of scientific revolutions in the early 1960s was crucially important for the development of his own pluralistic account of science. In the second part, I will discuss and critically analyse the ethical-political stance that underlies Feyerabend’s pluralism. In the final part, I briefly summarize a series of papers that I have published together with Simon Lohse, in which we apply Feyerabend’s pluralism to current discussions about the role of evidence-based policy advice during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Wisdom, scientific expertise, and laypeople:

Pierluigi Barrotta — 2024-12-13

Throughout his career, Feyerabend was seriously concerned with the authoritative role claimed by experts within democratic societies. He repeatedly argued that citizens should not be intimidated by the authority of science, and they should resist any attempt to strip themselves of their right to have a say in important social matters of public concern. We do not share Feyerabend’s anarchist approach to philosophy of science; nevertheless, we believe that some aspects of his philosophy of science can easily be incorporated into a constructive philosophy of scientific expertise. The aim of this essay is to argue for two theses that we believe have an unequivocal Feyerabendian “flavour”: a) that to be a good scientific expert, the scientist must be endowed with wisdom; and b) that public opinion is not limited to setting the goals that the scientific expert should take as exogenous data. In this way, we outline a normative model of the epistemic contributions that citizens and scientific experts can make to solve public problems.

Feyerabend, experts, and dilettantes

John Preston — 2024-12-13

Paul Feyerabend’s 1970 article “Experts in a Free Society” tries to make the case that scientific experts can only be tolerated if they are dilettantes. He uses Galileo, Newton and Kepler as examples of great scientists whose writing is nothing like that of contemporary “experts”, these latter being represented by the authors of the well-known book Human Sexual Response, Bill Masters and Virginia Johnson. He goes on to argue against the idea that the Scientific Revolution represented the triumph of empiricism.

I take issue with the way Feyerabend represents Galileo as implacably opposed to empiricism, with his supposition that good science requires a particular personality, and with the way in which he represents the work of Masters and Johnson.

Introduction: The role of experts in democratic societies: In honor of Paul K. Feyerabend

Pierluigi Barrotta — 2024-12-13

Introduction to the Focus section of the issue XII, 1/2024

Consciousness lived through

Filippo Nobili — 2024-12-13

The paper aims to examine Brentano's account of inner consciousness and to assess its reception in Husserl's early works. Starting from the preliminary definition of psychic phenomena and an overview of some basic distinctions such as those between inner perception and observation, primary and secondary object, etc., I discuss Brentano's later thoughts in the light of his theory of relation and temporality, exposing a certain inconsistency with his initial assumptions. Subsequently, I examine Husserl's critical reception of inner consciousness in the Logical Investigations (1901) and in his lectures up to 1905, that is up to the first in-depth thematization of temporality, to which inner consciousness will be inextricably related. Indeed, Husserl’s redrafting of the inherited psychologistic lexicon helps to trace a prehistory of his phenomenology of time and to better understand the paradigmatic detachment of phenomenology from descriptive psychology.

An Ontological Guide to Make Novel Foods Familiar

Nicola Piras — 2025-03-19

The goal of this paper is to develop strategies for novel food familiarization based on ontological modelling. I begin by offering an array of criticisms to standard definitions of novel food, focusing on the European Union (EU) approach as a case study, showing its difficulty in identifying and categorizing novel foods (§1). Next, I refine the EU approach by setting up a more robust ontological categorization suitable for assessing kinds and grades of food novelty (§2). Then, I add a further layer to this ontology outlining initial steps to incorporate novel food items within already known and accepted ontological categories (i.e., local food and symbolic food) (§3). I conclude by arguing that the decision-making process regarding novel food ontological categorization should include input from stakeholders (§4).

Is this meat after all?

Elena Bossini — 2025-03-19

The supposedly shared understanding of what meat is has been undermined by the appearance of foodstuffs that claim to be meat even though they are derived from vegetable sources (plant-based meats) or are produced by cultivating animal cells in vitro (cultivated meat). After introducing the actors partaking in the negotiation over which foods can legitimately be called ‘meat’ – and demonstrating that the crux of this dispute is ontological rather than merely linguistic – the divergent concepts of “meat” that arise in this debate are analysed to elucidate their respective strengths and weaknesses. Subsequently, it is proposed that meat could be interpreted as an artefact represented by a functional concept apt at incorporating plant-based and cultivated meat into its content. Lastly, by examining this operation through the lens of conceptual engineering, the functional understanding of meat is presented as an epistemic, or even potentially semantic, amelioration of the concept of “meat”.

Cultivated Meat: A New Lifeworld for Human Beings

Luca Lo Sapio — 2025-03-19

Several reports indicate that industrial animal agriculture significantly contributes to environmental pollution, resources depletion and the suffering of billions of animals. With the rising global demand for animal protein, partly driven by changing diets in countries like China and India, there is an increasing interest in more sustainable and humane alternatives. In this context, cultivated meat has emerged as one of the most promising food technologies for mitigating the impact of conventional meat production. In the first two paragraphs, the article briefly describes what is cultivated meat and what impact it may have on the environment and non-human animal wellbeing as well as the technical and socio-economic challenges it poses. In the third paragraph, it succinctly examines some positions from the ethical debate, with particular attention to Singer’s consequentialism and Francione’s abolitionist approach. Francione’s negative conclusions closely align with certain versions of virtue ethics. Paragraphs 4 and 5 will examine two such positions, specifically those of Carlo Alvaro and Ben Bramble, which have significantly influenced reflections in the field. In paragraph 6, contrasting the pessimistic views of Alvaro and Bramble, the article will present cultivated meat as a new opportunity for reshaping the human lifeworld. The final paragraph will discuss five key elements associated with cultivated meat and its moral implications.

Cultured meat in between Anthropocene crises

Alice Dal Gobbo — 2025-03-19

Cultured meat is an emerging food technology that promises to revolutionise not only meat production techniques but also the relations between human beings and other animals, and the rest of the biosphere. Cultured meat might be read as a food innovation for the Anthropocene, since it addresses ecological, health and inter-species issues that characterise this historical phase and its problematisation. I propose a reading of the potentiality and pitfalls of this emerging technology based on a perspective of political ecology, which I believe fundamental in highlighting the social shaping of innovation and its embeddedness in wider symbolic and material dynamics shaped by power. In particular, I engage with feminist debates over science, technology, inter-species relations and the issue of ecological crisis to put into light the highly ambivalent nature of this “hybrid” object. Given this complexity, I argue for a methodological approach to technoscience innovation and the shaping of future food imaginaries that draws on processes of mapping to stay close to marginal, unrepresented, and yet politically crucial voices.

New challenges to cultivated meat

Josh Milburn — 2025-03-19

Meat production raises a host of ethical problems that a move away from animal agriculture and towards cellular agriculture could, partially, resolve. Unsurprisingly, then, ethicists have offered a range of positive cases for cultivated meat, and ethics has been an important part of the broader conversation about the technology. However, academics continue to raise new ethical challenges to cultivated meat. In this paper, to bolster the positive ethical cases for cultivated meat offered elsewhere, we respond to three recent challenges to cultivated meat. These are Ben Bramble’s argument that we should not want to be the kind of people who want to eat cultivated meat; Carlo Alvaro’s suggestions that a virtuous individual would not eat cultivated meat and that cultivated meat will fail to eliminate animal agriculture; and Elan Abrell’s claim that endorsing cultivated meat represents a missed opportunity. All three challenges, we contend, fail.

Freedom as a detachment of finite beings from the Absolute in Schelling’s "Bruno"

Juan Jose Rodriguez — 2025-03-19

The dialogue Bruno of 1802 is arguably the natural starting point for any investigation on the concepts of finitude, evil and human freedom in Schelling’s middle metaphysics. In this dialogue the author elaborates for the first time in his system a concept of freedom and independence of the finite, which extends via his reformulation in Philosophy and Religion of 1804 to the Freedom Essay of 1809 and beyond to the works of 1810 and 1811 – Stuttgart Private Lectures and The Ages of the World. The central ontological problem of the dialogue relates to the possibility of a separation between the absolute and the world as space of finite beings, which, according to the system of identity first presented in 1801, cannot exist as such. The question we will then address concerns the status of the finite as such and how would it be possible to admit both its existence for consciousness and the positing of an absolute and infinite principle of philosophy. We will show how Schelling’s interest shifts, almost unintentionally, from the infinite principle to the finite as such, as a principle of freedom and self-initiation independent of the real.

Introduction: 15 Year of Discussion on Moral Enhancement

Sergio Filippo Magni — 2024-01-24

Improvement in knowledge of the neurobiological bases of behavioural disposition with moral relevance have stimulated ethical reflection on the opportunity to employ biotechnological devices and resources to improve human morality (Clarke, Savulescu, Coady & Giubilini 2016). Discussion on biotechnological moral enhancement, as a separated issue from that of biotechnological cognitive human enhancement, has started after the publication of two seminal articles in 2008: “The Perils of Cognitive Enhancement and the Urgent Imperative to Enhance the Moral Character of Humanity” written by Ingmar Persson & Julian Savulescu, and “Moral Enhancement” written by Thomas Douglas.

What We Owe the Future: A Million-Year View, by William MacAskill

B.V.E. Hyde — 2024-01-24

Review of: What We Owe the Future: A Million-Year View, by William MacAskill,

London: Oneworld Publications, 2022; hardback, 352 pp., £20.00, ISBN: 9780861546138

Public Reason and Biotechnological Moral Enhancement of Criminal Offender

Elvio Baccarini — 2024-01-24

There are two prominent classes of arguments in the debate on mandatory biotechnological moral enhancement (MBME) of criminal offenders. Some maintain that these interventions are not permissible because they do not respect some evaluative standards (my illustration is represented by autonomy). Others, however, argue that this type of intervention is legitimate. One of the latter argumentative lines appeals to the reduction of the high costs of incarceration. In this paper, I argue that such polarization in the debate suggests handling the problem of the protection of autonomy in the case of MBME of offenders as an allocative question. Moreover, I offer a novel approach to this question by adopting the Rawlsian method of public reason. According to this method, public decisions are legitimate only if they can be justified through reasons that can be accepted by each free, equal, and epistemically reasonable agent. I argue that, within this framework, for a specific class of criminal offenders, we can conclude that MBME, although undermining a certain form of autonomy, could be legitimately mandatory. Because of reasonable pluralism, the final verdict on legitimacy is made based on the results of fair procedures of decision-making among proposals supported by persons in a condition of reasonable disagreement.

Internal and External Moral Enhancements: The Ethical Parity Principle and the Case for a Prioritization

Matteo Galletti — 2024-01-24

Is there any moral difference between internal moral enhancements, which directly affect the biological nature of human beings, and external moral enhancements, which nudge choices and behavior without changing human biology? If Neil Levy's Ethical Parity Principle is applied, the answer should be no. Recently, John Danaher has argued that the Ethical Parity Principle is invalid and that there are ethical and political reasons for a prioritization of internal over external moral enhancements. Although Danaher's argument presents some interesting insights, it needs to be corrected with finer-grained distinctions of the types of moral enhancements.

Punishment from an Hegelian perspective

Manfred Man-fat Wu — 2025-03-19

This paper proposes that verbal insult as a serious crime should receive severe punishment. This principle is established based on Hegel’s perspective, that punishment should aim at restoring the injured universal recognition caused by the crime. Verbal insult is a severe crime because of the damage it inflicts on the universal will, thus the social and political contexts in terms of recognition. This also means that in Hegel’s advocacy of punishment to fit the crime, the considerations he gave on the crime’s effects on social and political contexts is a result of his primary importance given to mutual recognition. There is a common misconception that Hegel is a retributivist, which is mainly reflected by most discussions on Hegel’s theories of punishment focusing narrowly on the part of Abstract Right in his Philosophy of Right. Focusing narrowly in this part causes a lack of consideration taken into how crime and punishment should be treated after Abstract Right has been actualised into Objective Right. This paper focuses on this neglected aspect and discusses the importance of recognition restoration and contextual influences in the Objective Reality of ethical life (Sittlichkeit) in Hegel’s theory of punishment.

Measuring the simplicity of panpsychism

Taufiqurrahman — 2025-03-19

Panpsychism has recently emerged as a promising approach to addressing the hard problem of consciousness. This view posits that consciousness is both fundamental and ubiquitous. A recurring argument in its favour is the simplicity claim – that panpsychism is the simplest theory compared to its alternatives. However, the specific criteria for judging panpsychism as the simplest among competing theories remain underexplored by both its advocates and critics. This paper seeks to identify these criteria and assess the simplicity of panpsychism in relation to other metaphysical theories of consciousness. Through a comparative analysis, the paper argues that panpsychism is neither inherently simpler nor more complex than rival theories. The monistic version of panpsychism, for instance, entails a simpler ontological commitment than functionalism, the most widely accepted theory of consciousness. However, when ideological commitments are factored into the evaluation, even monistic panpsychism loses its purported simplicity advantage, let alone the dualistic versions of the theory.

Moral Knowledge, by Sarah McGrath

Luciana Ceri — 2023-03-24

Review of Moral Knowledge, by Sarah McGrath, Oxford University Press, 2019, x, 218 pages.

The Main Enterprise of the World: Rethinking Education, by Philip Kitcher

Alistair Miller — 2023-03-24

Review of "The Main Enterprise of the World: Rethinking Education" by Philip Kitcher, Oxford University Press, 2022, xiv, 416 pages

Responses to Critics

Sergio Tenenbaum — 2023-03-24

Tenenbaum on Instrumental Reason and the End of Procrastination

Matthias Haase — 2023-03-24

In Rational Powers in Action, Sergio Tenenbaum argues that instrumental rationality is constitutively rationality in action. According to his theory, we not only reason to action, we also reason from action: both the major premise and the conclusion of instrumental reasoning are intentional actions in progress. In the paper, I raise three objections. First, the view rests on the assumption of a symmetry between the starting point and the conclusion of instrumental reasoning. But in the cases of telic actions like building a house, the reasoning concludes with the completion of the action. Secondly, Tenenbaum conceives of the nexus between ends and means generally in terms of the relation between a temporally extended whole and its parts. This fails to account for distinction between telic action and conduct or praxis. Third, the theory implies that it is instrumentally irrational to abandon all of one’s ends. But this can’t be shown.

The Action-Guidingness of Rational Principles and the Problem of our own Imperfections

Erasmus Mayr — 2023-03-24

The following comment discusses the supposedly action-guiding role of rational principles and the question to what extent our imperfections as human agents should influence what these principles are. According to Sergio Tenenbaum, the principles of instrumental rationality (as stated in his theory) are meant to be action-guiding rather than merely evaluative. In the first part of the comment I look at how this action-guiding role is to be understood, especially when it comes to the pursuit of long-term indeterminate ends. The second part of the comment raises the question of whether the principles included in Tenenbaum’s Extended Theory of Rationality should be supplemented by principles for dealing with our own imperfections. I consider two possible sources for further principles: the risk that we will behave irrationally later on and uncertainty about the effectiveness of the means we take.

The Extended Theory of Instrumental Rationality and Means-Ends Coherence

John Brunero — 2023-03-24

In Rational Powers in Action, Sergio Tenenbaum sets out a new theory of instrumental rationality that departs from standard discussions of means-ends coherence in the literature on structural rationality in at least two interesting ways: it takes intentional action (as opposed to intention) to be what puts in place the relevant instrumental requirements, and it applies to both necessary and non-necessary means. I consider these two developments in more detail. On the first, I argue that Tenenbaum’s theory is too narrow since there could be instrumental irrationality with respect to an intention to f even if one is not yet engaged in any relevant intentional action. On the second, I argue against Tenenbaum’s claim that “an agent is instrumentally irrational if she knowingly fails to pursue some sufficient means to an end she is pursuing.”

Instrumental Rationality and Proceeding Acceptably over Time

Chrisoula Andreou — 2023-03-24

Theories of instrumental rationality often abstract away from the fact that actions are generally temporally extended and from crucial complications associated with this fact. Sergio Tenenbaum’s Rational Powers in Action (2020) reveals and navigates these complications with great acuity, ultimately providing a powerful revisionary picture of instrumental rationality that highlights the extremely limited nature of the standard picture. Given that I share Tenenbaum’s general concerns about the standard picture, my aim is to advance our general approach further by complicating and enriching debate regarding a picture of instrumental rationality that is accountable to the temporally extended nature of our actions and agency via the consideration of a few issues that merit further consideration and exploration. As I explain, despite stemming from or being associated with some important insights, some of the central ideas that Tenenbaum supports need to be qualified, modified, or reconsidered.

Rational Powers and Inaction

Sarah K. Paul — 2023-03-24

This discussion of Sergio Tenenbaum’s excellent book, Rational Powers in Action, focuses on two noteworthy aspects of the big picture. First, questions are raised about Tenenbaum’s methodology of giving primacy to cases in which the agent has all the requisite background knowledge, including knowledge of a means that will be sufficient for achieving her end, and no significant false beliefs. Second, the implications of Tenenbaum’s views concerning the rational constraints on revising our ends are examined.