This is the first issue of the inaugural volume of Argumenta, an online half-yearly journal freely accessible and freely downloadable. As the Latin name of the journal suggests, our goal is to publish papers characterized by good argumentation and systematic reasoning, in the tradition of the best analytic philosophy.
Indeed, Argumenta is the official journal of the Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy (SIFA), founded in 1992 in close collaboration with the European Society for Analytic Philosophy (ESAP). On a par with the other European Societies constituting the ESAP’s network, SIFA promotes the collaboration and exchange of ideas among scholars in analytic philosophy from the whole of Europe and the rest of the world. Accordingly, Argumenta warmly encourages submissions from analytic philosophers everywhere.
It is certainly not a simple task to say what analytic philosophy amounts to nowadays. Over more than a century much water has flowed under the bridge, and perhaps only a few thinkers would now subscribe to the central theses with which that trend in philosophy was first identified. However, what we deem of everlasting importance is the stress laid by that school of thought on the clarity and structure of the arguments supporting claims, hypotheses, and theories— again, the stress revealed by this journal’s name.
The purpose of the journal is to publish philosophical articles of current interest and to encourage the exchange of ideas, especially the exploration of borderline themes with respect to classic topics in analytic philosophy, as well as themes intersecting different fields of inquiry. All submissions will undergo a standard double blind refereeing procedure.
In order to launch Argumenta we invited a number of distinguished colleagues to submit papers for the inaugural issue. Since the number of submissions was considerably greater than we expected, we have decided to spread those papers that passed the review process over the two issues of the first volume, arranged in alphabetical order. We heartily thank all the authors who submitted their papers in response to our request: we take this as an important mark of encouragement. Likewise, we are very grateful to the Government of the Autonomous Region of Sardinia (RAS), whose generous funding made it possible to launch this enterprise, the colleagues and friends who have agreed to become members of the Advisory Board, and the colleagues who acted as referees.
Buona lettura!
Massimo Dell’Utri
Editor