Keeping Doors Open: Another Reason to Be Skeptical of Fine-Based Vaccine Policies [Special Issue]
Issue: Issue 13 • Author/s: Stefano Calboli, Vincenzo Fano
Topics: Epidemiology, Epistemology, Philosophy of Medicine, Philosophy of science
An impressive effort by the scientific community has quickly made available SARS-CoV-2 vaccines, indispensable allies in the fight against COVID-19. Nevertheless, in liberal democracies, getting vaccinated is an individual choice and a not-negligible number of persons might turn out to be vaccine refusers. Behavioral and Cognitive (B&C) scientists have cast light on the key behavior drivers of the vaccine choice and suggested choice architectures to boost vaccine uptake. In this paper, we identify a somehow neglected psychological phenomenon, that it is reasonable to believe to hamper the vaccine uptake whereby…
Can a City Be Relocated? Exploring the Metaphysics of Context-Dependency
Issue: Issue 13 • Author/s: Fabio Bacchini, Nicola Piras
Topics: Epistemology, Metaphysics, Philosophy of science, Theoretical philosophy
This paper explores the Persistence Question about cities, that is, what is necessary and sufficient for two cities existing at different times to be numerically identical. We first show that we can possibly put an end to the existence of a city in a number of ways other than by physically destroying it, which reveals the metaphysics of cities to be partly different from that of ordinary objects. Then we focus in particular on the commonly perceived vulnerability of cities to imaginary relocation; and we make the hypothesis that cities…
Reconsidering an Ontology of Properties for Quantum Theories [Special Issue]
Issue: Issue 16 • Author/s: Emanuele Rossanese
Topics: Epistemology, Logic, Metaphysics, Ontology, Philosophy of science
Da Costa, Lombardi and Lastiri (2013) have proposed an ontology of properties for non-relativistic quantum mechanics within the structure of the modal-Hamiltonian interpretation of the theory. Recently, this proposal has been developed in order to discuss the nature of entanglement and indistinguishability in such an ontology (Fortin and Lombardi 2022) and to explain how particles emerge from an ontology of properties (Lombardi and Dieks 2016). Oldofredi (2021) has also proposed an ontology of properties for Relational Quantum Mechanics. The aim of my paper is then to discuss an ontology of…