About the Notion of Truth in the Decoherent Histories Approach: a reply to Griffiths

Griffiths claims that the ``single family rule'', a basic postulate of the decoherent histories approach, rules out our requirement that any decoherent history has a unique truth value, independently from the decoherent family to which it may belong. Here we analyze the reasons which make our requirement indispensable and we discuss the consequences of rejecting it.Comment: 4 pages, Latex, to appear in Phys. Lett.

The New Science of Virtues

Although Vico\u2019s New Science (NS) has been interpreted from the standpoint of practical philosophy, his treatment of moral virtues has largely been overlooked. I show the pivotal role they play in the NS, where the history of humankind is the story of how vices and virtues unfold, and the domain of free will is centered on the possibility of making virtues of the passions. This sheds new light on such notions as the \u201cheterogony of ends\u201d; the relationship between \u201cbestioni\u201d and humankind; and the threat of the \u201cbarbarism of reflection\u201d. Also, it allows us to focus on fictional, mythological and historical figures, which are exemplary for their virtues/vices and which provide an insight into the way virtues shape the stages of history. After presenting an overview of some of Vico\u2019s sources, I argue that he engages in a close dialogue with the Aristotelian tradition and interprets moral virtues as a historical framework and a hermeneutical tool, suitable for assessing the moral stages of human historical evolution on the route to and from civilisation

The relativistic attitude in development: reflections on the implementation of the Ethiopian multinational Constitution

L’approccio allo sviluppo che considera la crescita economica come unico obiettivo può produrre degli effetti deleteri sui gruppi marginalizzati. Lo sviluppismo adottato in Etiopia dal 1991 illustra questo punto con riferimento ai contadini, ai popoli pastorali e alle minoranze etniche. La riflessione internazionale sullo sviluppo e il progresso nel campo dei diritti umani hanno portato all’emergere di nuovi paradigmi. L’articolo mostra come le misure correttive siano state caratterizzate da una crescente attitudine ‘relativistica’, che consiste nel dare considerazione alla rilevanza di articolazioni particolari di cultura, norme formali o informali, e condizioni locali. L’attitudine relativistica è prima definita e poi considerata in relazione alla compatibilità con la Costituzione Etiopica, adottata nel 1995 ma mai messa realmente in pratica. La pressione del movimento Qeerroo sta inducendo la coalizione al potere ad aprire effettivamente alla democratizzazione del paese e alla decentralizzazione. C’è quindi una concreta possibilità di rivedere anche le politiche sviluppiste, in linea sia con la Costituzione sia con i diritti umani di seconda e terza generazione.Under the development approach that targets economic growth as its sole objective the marginalised groups may seriously be impacted. The developmental policy adopted since 1991 in Ethiopia illustrates it in relation to small-holding farmers, pastoralists and ethnic minorities. At the international level, alternative development paradigms have evolved along with progress in human rights. This article shows that the corrective measures have been informed by a growing ‘relativistic’ attitude, consisting in giving consideration to the relevance of specific articulations of culture, formal or informal norms and local conditions. The relativistic attitude is first defined and then considered in terms of compatibility with the Ethiopian multinational Constitution, adopted in 1995 but never really implemented. Under the pressure of the Qeerroo movement the ruling coalition in Ethiopia is today opening up to democracy and effective decentralisation. There is today a concrete possibility to revise the country’s developmental policy, in line with the Constitution and respecting second and third generation human rights

Book Review: "Quantum Theory as an Emergent Phenomenon", by Stephen L. Adler

This is a book review of the book: "Quantum Theory as an Emergent Phenomenon", by Stephen L. Adler (Cambridge University Press - 2004)Comment: 3 pages, LaTe

I Will Survive: Capital Taxation, Voter Turnout and Time Inconsistency

This paper reconsiders the debate around the political determination of capital income taxes and explains why such taxes survive in most OECD countries. The political economy literature on redistributive politics (Persson and Tabellini 2003) emphasizes the role played by the lower class in the political arena: being labor more concentrated than capital, the majority of the population benefits by overtaxing capital and undertaxing labour. However, in reality, political participation (voting, lobbying, protesting etc.) is positively correlated with income. Therefore, a paradoxical result emerges: why do the upper class, who is politically more active and own most of the capital, still favour a positive capital tax? Hence, voters' income is not the sole relevant variable in the political determination of the capital tax. To reconcile this apparent puzzle, we propose a model that incorporates time inconsistency à la Laibson in individual preferences We show that time inconsistent individuals are politically more homogeneous (or “single-minded”) than far-sighted, and prefer to tax more capital income, instead of labor income, since accumulated saving are below the planned (and optimal) level and the distortionary effects of a higher capital tax are not only reduced but also delayed in time. We demonstrate that, since politicians find easier to please hyperbolic voters by proposing a tax policy that includes lower labor and higher capital taxes compared to an economy with only far sighted. Moreover, we show that, as the proportion of time inconsistent individuals in the population increases, the tax policy becomes more and more biased towards capital taxation.Political Economy, Multidimensional Voting, Capital Taxation, Redistribution, Hyperbolic Discounting

Que piensan los latinoamericanos del BID? (What Do Latin Americans Think of the IDB? )

Este trabajo emplea la encuesta Latinobarómetro para analizar las percepciones de los latinoamericanos sobre el Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo (BID), el Banco Mundial y el Fondo Monetario Internacional (FMI). Se analiza la manera en que las nociones de la gente sobre estas organizaciones multilaterales y sus juicios sobre las mismas se ven influenciados por las características demográficas y socioeconómicas de los encuestados, el país donde viven, la posición financiera del BID en ese país, las condiciones macroeconómicas y la orientación política de los encuestados, así como las actitudes hacia la democracia y el libre mercado. Los resultados indican que hay noticias tanto buenas como malas para el BID. Por el lado negativo, el BID es la menos conocida de las tres organizaciones internacionales, pero por el lado positivo, es la que tiene el mejor nivel entre los que están familiarizados con ellas. (Disponible en inglés)

Dissipative Continuous Spontaneous Localization (CSL) model

Collapse models explain the absence of quantum superpositions at the macroscopic scale, while giving practically the same predictions as quantum mechanics for microscopic systems. The Continuous Spontaneous Localization (CSL) model is the most refined and studied among collapse models. A well-known problem of this model, and of similar ones, is the steady and unlimited increase of the energy induced by the collapse noise. Here we present the dissipative version of the CSL model, which guarantees a finite energy during the entire system's evolution, thus making a crucial step toward a realistic energy-conserving collapse model. This is achieved by introducing a non-linear stochastic modification of the Schr\"odinger equation, which represents the action of a dissipative finite-temperature collapse noise. The possibility to introduce dissipation within collapse models in a consistent way will have relevant impact on the experimental investigations of the CSL model, and therefore also on the testability of the quantum superposition principle.Comment: 11 pages, 1 figure; v2 title changed, closer to published versio

Non-Markovian quantum trajectories: an exact result

We analyze the non-Markovian stochastic Schroedinger equation describing a particle subject to spontaneous collapses in space (in the language of collapse models), or subject to a continuous measurement of its position (in the language of continuous quantum measurement). For the first time, we give the explicit general solution for the free particle case (H = p^2/2m), and discuss the main properties. We analyze the case of an exponential correlation function for the noise, giving a quantitative description of the dynamics and of its dependence on the correlation time.Comment: 4 pages, RevTeX. Minor revision