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In this essay, we discuss the relationship between God and the modal profile of the states of affairs. There is a well-known dilemma about this relationship: both the view that the necessity and the possibility of the states of affairs are dependent on God and the view that they are not dependent have unpalatable consequences. If the necessity of the states of affairs depends on God, then those states of affairs do not really seem necessary. By contrast, if the necessity of the states of affairs does not depend on God, then God is not the fundamental entity. However, the fundamentality of God is a cornerstone of classical theism. We present a bi-modal framework that solves the dilemma, by distinguishing between global and local necessities. This framework also proves useful for solving other dilemmas such as the problem whether God can or cannot do evil actions.

Lo scopo di questo articolo è quello di offrire un modello per il cosiddetto disaccordo religioso. Si tratta di un modello logico, ovvero di una struttura formale, in cui è possibile caratterizzare precisamente le zone di conflitto tra religioni e, analogamente, le zone di possibile accordo. L’implementazione di questo modello, come vedremo, è dipendente da quanto precise riusciranno a essere le descrizioni dei vari credi e questo è notoriamente un problema spinoso. Tuttavia, crediamo che non sia insormontabile e che un modello approssimato e difettoso sia sempre comunque meglio che lasciare intentata la strada per risolvere il conflitto.

In this chapter, we will analyze several philosophical issues related to the concept of the Metaverse. After having argued that the technological and conceptual propellant of the Metaverse is virtual reality, the fundamental properties characterizing virtual reality are illustrated, and the degree of reality possessed by virtual reality is questioned. In this regard, two different views exist: virtual realist and virtual irrealist. The former argues that virtual entities are real, while the latter argues that virtual entities are not real but are akin to characters in fiction. Virtual realists do not affirm, of course, that virtual entities are composed of atoms and molecules in the same manner as physical entities, but rather that they are made of bits, that is, ultimately, of information. However, this does not diminish their reality compared to the entities encountered in everyday life. No direct argument will be given here in favor of one position over the other, but an ethical dilemma regarding virtual reality will be proposed: are actions that are evil within the real world also evil within virtual reality? Since our responses to this question vary from case to case, depending on the level of realism of virtual reality, our conclusion will be that the reality of the virtual is a matter of degree.

Fragmentalism allows incompatible facts to constitute reality in an absolute manner, provided that they fail to obtain together. In recent years, the view has been extensively discussed, with a focus on its formalisation in modeltheoretic terms. This paper focuses on three formalisations: Lipman’s approach, the subvaluationist interpretation, and a novel view that has been so far overlooked. The aim of the paper is to explore the application of these formalisations to the alethic modal case. This logical exploration will allow us to study (i) cases of metaphysical incompatibility between modal facts and (ii) cases of modal dialetheias. In turn, this will enrich our understanding of the role of impossibility in the fragmentalist framework.

In this article, we take into consideration two semantics of the future tense: linearism, according to which future-tense sentences are interpreted on a single history, and universalism, according to which they are evaluated by universally quantifying on the plurality of future histories that radiate from the present instant. Specifcally, we focus on a objection advanced against universalism: if universalism were correct semantics of will, negated future-tense sentences of natural language should have two readings, depending on the scope of negation with respect to the universal quantifer on histories. However, since natural language does not show this difference, one may conclude that there is no universal quantifer in the interpretation of these sentences. We show that this conclusion is premature. First, will has clear scope interactions with indefnite nouns phrases, contrary to what linearism predicts. Second, it is possible to extend the treatment of vague predicates as partial predicates to will: Since partial predicates have no scope interactions with negation, this can account for the scopelessness of will. The partiality of truth conditions is not restricted to will but also pertains to counterfactuals and generics and probably is part of a general tendency to maximize contraries.

In this paper, we discuss the coherence and the stability of three rather plausible philosophical intuitions: the idea that all that exists is present (Presentism); the idea that there exists a true future, although it is just a contingent future (Thin Red Line); and the idea that a proposition depends on (or is grounded in) a truthmaker (Truthmaking). We will not show that assuming these three ideas together is logically incoherent; however, their combination seems to be very difficult to hold and, ultimately, it should be discarded. As a consequence, some of these assumptions must be rejected. We will analyze in detail one of the most promising strategies that can be pursed to reconcile Truthmaking and Presentism: adopting a liberalized version of Truthmaking, for which not only what exists but also what will exist and what existed can ground the truth of a proposition. However, as for the future, this strategy works only if the future is historically closed. If there are future contingents, this line of defense is flawed.

In this short paper we consider Linnebo's thin/thick dichotomy: first, we show that it does not overlap with the very common one between abstract/concrete objects; second, on the basis of some difficulties with the distinction, we propose, as a possible way out, to move from thin/thick objects to thin/thick concepts.

In this paper, we aim to examine the relationships between four solutions to the dilemma of divine foreknowledge and human freedom— theological determinism, Molinism, simple foreknowledge and open theism—and divine providence and theodicy. Some of these solutions— theological determinism and Molinism, in particular—highlight God’s government of the world. Some others—simple foreknowledge and open theism—highlight human autonomy and freedom. In general, the more libertarian human freedom is highlighted, the less God’s government of the history of the world seems possible. However, the task of theodicy becomes easier because humans are fully responsible for the evil they do. Conversely, the more God’s government is highlighted, the more human freedom seems to be restricted. Moreover, God seems to be directly or indirectly responsible for evil in the world. Because of the trade–off between control and freedom, each solution finds itself at ease with some problems, while on other fronts, it must adopt a defensive position. As we will see, no solution can solve all problems; thus, the pros and cons of each solution should be weighed carefully.

In questo saggio vengono analizzate alcune caratteristiche metateoriche della filosofia analitica della religione.

Non-bivalent semantics of the future tense assert that propositions regarding future contingents are neither true nor false. One of the most relevant non-bivalent semantics is supervaluationism (Thomason in Theoria 36(3):264–281, 1970; Thomason, in: Gabbay, Guenthner (eds) Handbook of philosophical logic, Springer, Berlin, 1984), which preserves important logical principles. Recently, non-bivalent semantics are under attack from some pragmatics arguments: these semanticswould be incompatible with our practices of asserting future contingents and with the probability we ascribe to such assertions (Besson and Hattiangadi in Philosophical Studies 167(2):251–271, 2014; Cariani and Santorio in Mind 127(505):129–165, 2018). The aim of this paper is to defend supervaluationism against this kind of criticism.We argue that, if probability is interpreted as the subjective belief in a proposition and if a semantic contextualism is adopted, supervaluationism makes correct predictions concerning the norms that govern our practices of asserting future contingents. Obviously, other arguments can be proposed against supervaluationism, but they must be of a different kind, such as metaphysical arguments.

In this paper, we aim to examine the relationships between four solutions to the dilemma of divine foreknowledge and human freedom—theological determinism, Molinism, simple foreknowledge and open theism—and divine providence and theodicy. Some of these solutions—theological determinism and Molinism, in particular—highlight God’s government of the world. Some others—simple foreknowledge and open theism—highlight human autonomy and freedom. In general, the more libertarian human freedom is highlighted, the less God’s government of the history of the world seems possible. However, the task of theodicy becomes easier because humans are fully responsible for the evil they do. Conversely, the more God’s government is highlighted, the more human freedom seems to be restricted. Moreover, God seems to be directly or indirectly responsible for evil in the world. Because of the trade–off between control and freedom, each solution finds itself at ease with some problems, while on other fronts, it must adopt a defensive position. As we will see, no solution can solve all problems; thus, the pros and cons of each solution should be weighed carefully.

In this paper, we deal with the relationships among libertarian human freedom, divine omniscience and providence. Several models try to reconcile human freedom and divine prescience. However, we show that most of these models are defective in accounting for the providential aspect of the divine action. Moreover, the models that hypothesize a meticulous providence tend to restrict human freedom. We show that the Molinist solution can account for both divine prescience and providence without harming human freedom. However, Molinists are able to do so only on the basis of very expensive metaphysical assumptions.

The aim of this entry is to provide an overview of the most important philosophical issues concerning the Artificial Intelligence. The introduction is devoted to shortly analyze the meaning of the term “Artificial Intelligence” and its history; the first section presents Turing’s test and its philosophical significance for the question whether the machines can think. Then, it is discussed John Searle’s Chinese room argument with the exploration of the topics of consciousness and intentionality. The last section is devoted to Catholic Church’s view on these matters.

Supervaluationism is one of the most discussed approaches to the semantics of future tense sentences in a branching time. In this paper, we consider the criticism advanced by Malpass against Supervaluationism. This criticism relies on the fact that supervaluationists must accept as supertrue disjunctions whose disjuncts are not only supertrue-which supervaluationists are ready to acknowledge-but also not satisfiable. In order to show this, Malpass proposes a formula, FF1$$ F{F}_1 $$, which shows the existence of a satisfiable disjunction with unsatisfiable disjuncts in supervaluationist models. In reply, we show that formula FF1$$ F{F}_1 $$ cannot be expressed within a model (whether Ockhamist or supervaluationist) because it quantifies on models. It can be correctly characterised only within a meta-model that has the resources to quantify on various models. However, once that is done, FF1$$ F{F}_1 $$ is, for the advocates of Supervaluationism, no more demanding than other disjunctions because it just generalises at the meta-theoretical level what supervaluationists already acknowledge at the theoretical level.

According to some scholars, universalist semantics of the future are incompatible with classical ascriptions of probability. This alleged fact is used as an argument for the linearist semantics of the future. In this paper, we show that, on the contrary, universalist semantics of the future are in harmony with the theory of probability, while the advocates of linearist semantics have to pay high theoretical costs to maintain the coherence with the classical theory of probability.

The concept of autonomy is crucial for the theoretical characterization of robots and, more in general, complex technological artifacts. The aim of this paper is to provide a conceptual and logical framework in which it is possible to define two concepts of autonomy: autonomy of performance and autonomy of process. The analysis is carried out exploiting the logical resources of the counterfactual semantics – developed by Lewis’ and Stalnaker’s seminal works – and branching structures of the possible courses of actions. It allows to differentiate the autonomy of a robotic arm from the autonomy of a highly complex machine- like rovers for the explorations of the planets. The clarification of the concept of autonomy is, moreover, an essential precondition for the investigation concerning the ethics of artificial agents.