Philosophical Inquiries

Introduction

Leonardo Massantini — 2025-07-23

Introduction

Ermylos Plevrakis (hrsg.), Hegels Philosophie der Realität Brill, Leiden-Boston, 2024, pp. 364, € 181,26, ISBN 978-90-04-70551-7

Benedetta Gori — 2025-07-23

Review of: Ermylos Plevrakis (hrsg.), Hegels Philosophie der Realität, Brill, Leiden-Boston, 2024, pp. 364, € 181,26, ISBN 978-90-04-70551-7

Machines that Move Us

Alessandra Fussi — 2025-07-23

This article examines the shifting boundaries between service and social robots through the analysis of three case studies: Spot, a quadruped service robot designed for functional tasks, and two humanoid robots, Kaspar and Zeno, employed in therapeutic settings with children diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). The discussion highlights how Spot’s overtly mechanical appearance may reduce the likelihood of triggering the uncanny valley effect, in contrast to the more human-like features of Kaspar and Zeno. While the humanoid robots tend to elicit positive symbolic associations within therapeutic contexts, Spot’s reception varies significantly depending on its use—appearing trustworthy in industrial environments yet raising concern when deployed by police in marginalized communities. Kaspar and Zeno function as affective mediators in therapeutic interactions, though claims about their capacity to teach emotional recognition should be critically reassessed. The paper also reflects on the sociopolitical implications of weaponized robots inspired by Spot, underscoring the need to understand robotic technologies as co-constructed within broader societal and political frameworks.

Technoethics and Situated Cognition: The Case of Exoskeletons

Leonardo Massantini — 2025-07-23

This paper offers a theoretical and ethical framework capable of describing the effects that exoskeletons (i.e., an emerging type of wearable technology) can have on users, especially on their embodiment. After the introduction, in section two we explain what exoskeletons are with a focus on occupational - or industrial - exoskeletons. We then present the major opportunities and threats that these technologies present from an ethical point of view, especially in the occupational sector. In section three we further address the ethical challenges of exoskeletons, especially whether these technologies are morally acceptable or simply individually accepted by relying on the theories of situated cognition and affectivity, which we integrate by introducing the concept of body invasion, derived from Slaby’s mind invasion. By changing the embodiment of workers, wearable technologies such as exoskeletons might impose cognitive and affective repertoires that might go against the fulfillment of goals the user would otherwise choose for herself. Finally, we show why iterative design is not enough to address the ethical challenges posed by exoskeletons especially when individual acceptance and moral acceptability are conflated.

Cavell's Perfectionism and Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics

Paolo Babbiotti — 2025-07-23

This article offers a rereading of the Nicomachean Ethics in light of the moral perfectionism outlined by Stanley Cavell in Conditions Handsome and Unhandsome (1990) and Cities of Words (2004). In the first part, after clarifying possible misunderstandings related to the idea of “perfectionism” and presenting Cavell’s perfectionist or “Emersonian” vision, we analyze his original interpretation of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics in Cities of Words. Specifically, we focus on Cavell’s commentary on Aristotle’s doctrines of happiness and friendship, which highlights the role of the philosophical style Aristotle employs throughout the work. In the second part of the article, we turn more closely to the Nicomachean Ethics itself, examining the nature of this Aristotelian treatise not only in comparison with modern works of ethics but also, and above all, in relation to Aristotle’s other treatises. In doing so, we emphasize two main aspects of the Nicomachean Ethics: the audience for whom the work is intended and its style. We conclude by examining the practical aim of this text and testing Cavell’s reading hypothesis in Cities of Words concerning the final books of the Nicomachean Ethics (8, 9, and 10).

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"

The Morality of Creativity: Virtue and Responsibility of Creatives

Chiara Palazzolo — 2025-07-23

Creativity is often perceived as “extra-moral” existing outside the realm of moral virtues and within aesthetics. However, creativity is also connected to ethics and extends beyond the domain of art. Many philosophers consider creativity as an intrinsically valuable character trait or virtue (Kieran, 2014; Zagzebski, 1996; Swanton, 2022). Other scholars, including Reilly and others, 2022 Qin Li, and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, 2014 emphasize the moral foundation of creativity in professions such as science and art. They argue that professional ethics, related to one's role, demonstrate how creativity significantly impacts society, particularly future generations, by shaping behavior, thought, and cultural development. Celebrations of influential individuals such as Albert Einstein, Wolfgang A. Mozart and others highlight society's respect and recognition for creativity and genius. These figures represent the pinnacle of human adaptability and success, illustrating the profound effects of creative genius on social progress (Simonton, 1994). Understanding the moral perspectives of undeniably creative individuals, both individually and collectively, further clarifies the link between world-shaping creativity and morality. In this sense, creativity can be considered not only a virtue of character but also a collective virtue, insofar as in some professional domains, creativity is employed as a collaborative enterprise. Moreover, it underscores that creative professionals possess a sense of goodness not only within their specific domain, such as orchestras and ensembles, but also towards the community they serve, reflecting a responsibility to their audience (Reilly and others 2022), thereby challenging the notion that artistic professions are exempt from moral responsibilities. Creativity can be understood as an individual or collective virtue, enabling us to learn from responsible creative subjects.

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.

Mind invasion — From individuals to nations

Achim Stephan — 2025-07-23

This paper details different ways in which people’s affective life, and in consequence, their behavior is negatively influenced by how others—from individuals to nations—have structured the environment, i.e., different facets of what Jan Slaby has called “mind invasion.” We start by introducing key ideas and concepts from the debate about situated affectivity relevant for the subsequent discussion. The main part explores a wide variety of settings in which people’s minds are invaded, from rather localized offline interactions between two individuals over online interactions and Onlifeenvironments where real world interactions between some people merge with online activities to mind invasions at a national or even worldwide level.

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.

Photography and social networks: a case study in situated affectivity

Giulia Piredda — 2025-07-23

In our activity on social networks, we tend to crystallize happy moments of our life that we want to share with other people. In doing so, we seem to display the best version of ourselves, and in editing our digital self, we can create an ideal self. In the traditional debate on the risks of technology, many researchers have expressed the fear that this tendency could represent a way of falsifying the reality of our selves by offering a single piece of information about our lives: one in which we are happy, satisfied with our life choices and fulfilled. This risks generating negative effects in others as it produces comparisons in which people may be left feeling dissatisfied; sometimes, especially at a certain age, it could even be dangerous to linger in comparisons of this sort (for a general discussion on these topics see Fasoli 2019; Toma 2016). But: is it really a problem – something ‘bad’ – that we tend to publish our positive moments?

In this paper I would like to offer a different interpretation of this phenomenon, framing it within the terms of two recent philosophical debates and showing that there is another more innocent, and perhaps naïve, interpretation of this tendency, which has to do with the question: for whom do we post pictures? Who is the recipient of our posts on social networks?

I will discuss these questions by framing them within the context of the debate on situated affectivity (Griffiths & Scarantino 2009; Colombetti & Krueger 2015), and exploring the interpretation of posts on social networks as potential examples of affective artifacts (Piredda 2020). Moreover, posts on social networks may be interpreted within the discussion of the extended/distributed self as pieces of our extended selves (Belk 2013; Candiotto, Piredda 2019; Heersmink 2017). Taking a first-person perspective on this problem changes the evaluation of this phenomenon and highlights the role of photography in structuring our life-narrative – a role it played even before the arrival of social networks.

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.

Transformative Scaffolding: Painting to Grieve

Jussi Saarinen — 2025-07-23

In contemporary philosophy of mind, scaffolding designates the various ways in which our cognitions and affects are enabled, regulated, and modified by environmental factors that range from material artifacts and other people to architectural designs and cultural practices (Clark 2008; Sterelny 2010; Colombetti & Krueger 2015; Coninx & Stephan 2021). In this article, I expand the scope of scaffolding theory by applying it to a previously unexamined type of phenomenon: existential transformations. In short, these are processes where an individual’s basic sense of reality undergoes profound and relatively long-lasting alterations. My main claim is that the use of external scaffolding can play a crucial role in such periods of extensive existential change. To unpack this claim, I proceed as follows. First, based on phenomenological theorization on the structure of experience in general (Heidegger 1927; Køster & Fernandez 2023), and then on the experience of grieving in particular (Køster 2022; Ratcliffe 2023; Higgins 2024), I specify what I mean by an existential transformation and the shifts in one’s sense of reality that it entails. I then draw on psychoanalytical thinking (Winnicott 1971; Bollas 2018) to introduce the notion of transformative scaffolds, i.e., environmental resources that can in various ways be used to enable, support, and regulate a marked shift from one experiential world into another. To exemplify this kind of scaffolded transformation, I return to the topic of grief and discuss how the practice of painting can beneficially shape post-bereavement mourning. To conclude, I recap my main theses and consider how they might inform future research on the scaffolded mind.

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.