This article is focused on the relation between peace and nonviolence. It claims that the main challenge for peace comes from the power of structural violence. This is the main form of evil in history. Today structural violence is at work in the political and economic global systems. They obey a logic of conflict. The exercise of nonviolence can avoid the tendency to transform the connection between violence, evil, dehumanization, and great organizational systems into a destiny. The dynamic that is (...) needed to effect this is to move from the primacy of automatism in political and market power to the primacy of human consciousness. Experiences such as reconciliation, democratic growth, restorative justice, and harmonization with the natural world should be considered as the effects of this systemic translation to nonviolence. (shrink)

Analisi di più aspetti dell’argomentazione giuridica, esposti in quattro saggi. 1. La ricerca della verità nella testimonianza della vittima dei processi per stupro, partendo dalla vicenda biblica di Susanna e i vecchioni, dal processo seicentesco per lo stupro di Artemisia Gentileschi, passando per il romanzo “A Passage to India”, fino all’esame della più recente giurisprudenza (Susanna, Artemisa, Adela … ovvero la semplice verità, di Emanuele Filograna). 2. La giustificazione dialogica e monologica delle argomentazioni: confronto tra le tesi di E. Tugendhat (...) e R. Alexy in merito alla teoria del consenso come giustificazione ultima non solo dell’argomentazione, ma anche della decisione giuridica (Giustificazione, argomentazione e decisione giuridica. Teorie dialogiche e fonologiche: Alexy e Tugendhat, di Massimo Mancini). 3. Analisi del particolare status argomentativo della giustificazione dei diritti umani, con particolare riferimento alla loro natura assoluta o storica, esaminando le argomentazioni relative ai diritti alla vita, alla libertà ed all’integrità fisica, cui corrispondono le rispettive violazioni: l’uccisione, la schiavitù e la tortura (Problemi di argomentazione e giustificazione dei diritti umani, di Massimo. Mancini). 4. Illustrazione degli elementi di continuità tra il processo accusatorio antico (greco e romano) e moderno e, segnatamente, della terzietà del giudice e della cross-examination, attraverso l’esame dei processi ad Oreste, Socrate ed Apuleio (La Verità nel contraddittorio, di Roberto Paradisi). (shrink)

This work is a generalization of the López-Ruiz, Mancini, and Calbet (LMC) and Shiner, Davison, and Landsberg (SDL) complexity measures, considering that the state of a system or process is represented by a continuous temporal series of a dynamical variable. As the two complexity measures are based on the calculation of informational entropy, an equivalent information source is defined by using partitions of the dynamical variable range. During the time intervals, the information associated with the measured dynamical variable is (...) the seed to calculate instantaneous LMC and SDL measures. To show how the methodology works generating indicators, two examples, one concerning meteorological data and the other concerning economic data, are presented and discussed. (shrink)

This work presents a discussion about the application of the Kolmogorov; López-Ruiz, Mancini, and Calbet ; and Shiner, Davison, and Landsberg complexity measures to a common situation in physics described by the Maxwell–Boltzmann distribution. The first idea about complexity measure started in computer science and was proposed by Kolmogorov, calculated similarly to the informational entropy. Kolmogorov measure when applied to natural phenomena, presents higher values associated with disorder and lower to order. However, it is considered that high complexity must (...) be associated to intermediate states between order and disorder. Consequently, LMC and SDL measures were defined and used in attempts to model natural phenomena but with the inconvenience of being defined for discrete probability distributions defined over finite intervals. Here, adapting the definitions to a continuous variable, the three measures are applied to the known Maxwell–Boltzmann distribution describing thermal neutron velocity in a power reactor, allowing extension of complexity measures to a continuous physical situation and giving possible discussions about the phenomenon. (shrink)

This high-level study discusses Newtonian principles and 19th-century views on electrodynamics and the aether. Additional topics include Einstein's electrodynamics of moving bodies, Minkowski spacetime, gravitational geometry, time and causality, and other subjects. Highlights include a rich exposition of the elements of the special and general theories of relativity.

This article analyses how the philosopher Piero Martinetti conceptualizes the survival of a person’s soul after death. Martinetti’s stance is strongly influenced by the philosophy of Plotinus. Martinetti shows that the relation between singularity and multiplicity is expressed in human beings as two different and complimentary perspectives: a fundamental identity in the atemporal dimension of the intelligible life of the spirit and a dynamic tension in the empiric order of the spatio-temporal becoming. Both dimensions express themselves in a finalistic way, (...) attracted from the One who operates in them as a force of harmonization and concentration. The One as Omnitudo realitatis is the cornerstone of Martinetti’s position in regards to the survival of the individual soul after death: a concentration that happens mysteriously, because it transcends the ability of the human mind to understand it – yet, it certainly happens. ≪One thing only we know: what is worth living will live.≫. (shrink)

Si esaminano gli argomenti di Trasimaco (anche alla luce della posizione di Callicle) e, segnatamente, il rapporto tra la legge e il potere costituito: il raffronto con il pensiero di Carl Schmitt prende avvio dal nodo centrale del significato attribuito al νόμος. Si analizzano le argomentazione nei dialoghi platonici per ricostruire la concezione del νόμος e gli elementi che possono fornire risposte indirette alla questione posta da Trasimaco, al di là della ricerca della definizione del concetto di giustizia, con particolare (...) attenzione alla legge ed alle forme di governo. Si esamina la relazione tra le tesi sulla sovranità elaborate da Schmitt e le teorie sul potere rintracciabili nelle posizioni di Trasimaco e di Callicle in rapporto ai frammenti di Pindaro ed Eraclito. Considerata la centralità della relazione amico-nemico nel pensiero di Schmitt, posta a confronto con le posizioni platoniche, si esamina la distinzione tra la concezione della legge come atto cognitivo di scoperta della verità e la sua fondazione sul principio della decisione da parte di chi detenga il potere sovrano, punto di arrivo dello sviluppo delle tesi hobbesiane da parte di Schmitt. (shrink)

Robert Nisbet's influential "Many Tocquevilles" is shown to be lacking in evidence for its contentions about Tocqueville's reputation from 1870 to 1940 and about American intellectuals' interpretations of his works after 1940. The uncritical reception accorded to "Many Tocquevilles" led to distortions of Tocqueville's thought and an erasure of an important part of the historical record, resulting in significant harm to the field. Nisbet made his unsupported assertions to bolster conservative political positions. Tocqueville was widely read between 1870 and 1940. (...) No evidence exists for Nisbet's claims about interpretations of Tocqueville's works supposedly made by subsequent American commentators. (shrink)

Recordando a Bachelard a medio siglo de su muerte (2011) -- Filosofia de la relatividad (2011) -- La proliferación de los conceptos de especie en la biología evolucionista (2010).

"Con uno stile piano, e nello stesso tempo acceso, Italo Mancini presenta una sintesi che potrebbe raccogliersi attorno al quesito sul "che fare, adesso?", soprattutto da parte di un credente, di fronte a forme sempre più avvertite di appesantimento e di invecchiamento della Terra.

Lettura prospettica di un caposaldo del pensiero hobbesiano: il sorgere del rapporto tra l'uomo ed il potere, tra la naturale condizione umana e la nozione di civiltà, attraverso due frammenti particolarmente rappresentativi della concezione hobbesiana del passaggio dallo stato di natura alla civiltà: il tredicesimo capitolo del Leviathan, sulla condizione naturale dell'uomo, ed il quinto capitolo, sulle cause ed origini della civitas, del De cive, giacché la mera esistenza dell'uomo ed il suo riconoscimento di una legge naturale, a giudizio di (...) Hobbes, non implica affatto necessariamente una qualsiasi forma consolidata di organizzazione sociale. Sebbene il De cive (pubblicato in latino nel 1642 e, in inglese, nel 1651) preceda cronologicamente il Leviathan (pubblicato, viceversa, dapprima in inglese, nel 1651, poi in latino, nel 1668), nell'ordine logico dell'esposizione qui presentata, il brano del Leviathan può essere considerato propedeutico al quinto capitolo del De cive, delineandone i presupposti, segnatamente la condizione di continuo pericolo per tutti causata dallo stato generale di reciproca guerra, che costituisce forse l'aspetto più noto (e frainteso) del pensiero hobbesiano. Per una migliore comprensione dei testi e delle differenti (spesso opposte) interpretazioni cui hanno dato vita, si è ritenuto di proporre, per quanto concerne i brani di Hobbes, tanto la loro traduzione in lingua italiana quanto le stesure originali in latino e inglese, presentate con i testi a fronte; tale scelta fornisce l'opportunità di osservare l'accurata scelta di alcuni dei vocaboli chiave della filosofia di Hobbes, la cui trasposizione da una lingua all'altra è stata spesso causa di fraintendimenti o volgarizzazioni in tutto o in parte ingiustificate. Allo scopo di offrire una più completa prospettiva del pensiero hobbesiano delineato nei brani selezionati, si è ritenuto di affiancare ad essi dei frammenti di interpreti novecenteschi (con delle sintetiche schede bio-bibliografiche) di alcuni concetti formulati da Hobbes e, segnatamente, di F. Tönnies, M. Horkheimer, L. Strauss, C. Schmitt, T. Parsons, N. Bobbio, H. Warrender. (shrink)

This book aims to introduce the Armenian version of Philo's writings also to those scholars not acquainted with Armenian Studies. The subject is approached from different perspectives - historical, hermeneutical, philological, linguistic - with special attention given to the reception of Philo in Armenian Christianity.

Volume 19, Issue 9, September 2019, Page 37-39.

In the spring of 1784 the Marquis of Puységur, a great landowner and colonel in an artillery regiment, was called to the bedside of Victor, the son of his steward, who was suffering from pneumonia. Puységur was a follower of the new holistic medicine taught in an atmosphere of intense enthusiasm and scandal by Franz-Anton Mesmer, an Austrian doctor who had been living in Paris for several years. As a disciple of Mesmer, he intended to direct his ‘vital fluid’ onto (...) the young patient, by means of ‘magnetic passes’, to provoke ‘spasms’ which would lead to a calm state and an improvement in health. But things did not go as anticipated. Instead of displaying the anticipated spasms, the young Victor sank into a strange state of unconsciousness which, at first sight, resembled a deep sleep. Then he revived once more and came to life with a new personality. Freed from his inhibitions, he no longer spoke his habitual dialect, but the French of aristocrats, and he had no hesitation in berating his school teacher, whose secret thoughts he appeared to be able to read. Finally, he forecast the stages by which he would be cured and the remedies which would be suitable for him. Puységur wrote down all these strange facts and the following year he published a report which caused a sensation. Soon, throughout France, somnambulists appeared and observations about their subjects gathered. From that time onwards, the incomprehensible facts apparently evident in ‘provoked’ or ‘artificial somnambulism’ and also in ‘magnetic sleep’ - such expressions were used by Puységur and his followers for the state that he had just discovered - were to give rise to huge controversy. The Marquis of Puységur triggered the development nineteenth century of a movement of reflections and practices which have generally been referred to by the expression ‘animal magnetism’, invented by Mesmer. On the eve of the Revolution and throughout the nineteenth century this movement held a real fascination for philosophers, writers, and scholars. But there has been a tendency to overlook this episode in European culture, which has ultimately become a “lost continent” in our own period. (shrink)

‘What is important is to understand that every fact is already a theory. The blue of the sky already demonstrates the fundamental laws of chromatics. We should not look for anything behind these phenomena; they themselves are the theory’ Goethe, Maximen und Reflexionen, n. 575Because of the density of the aphorism, the quotation above implies more than the words seem to say explicitly. It refers to an apprehension of reality in a poetic and conceptual mode, a vision of the world (...) and humanity opposed to the mechanistic one that emerged from eighteenth century rationalism. Indeed Goethe is a milestone in the history of the themes inherited from ancient traditions and the Renaissance that have in common the project of integrating ‘the science of humankind, the science of nature and a study of the destiny of humanity through the adventure of existence’. (shrink)

A critical survey of the main philosophical theories about events and event talk, organized in three main sections: (i) Events and Other Categories (Events vs. Objects; Events vs. Facts; Events vs. Properties; Events vs. Times); (ii) Types of Events (Activities, Accomplishments, Achievements, and States; Static and Dynamic Events; Actions and Bodily Movements; Mental and Physical Events; Negative Events); (iii) Existence, Identity, and Indeterminacy.

This paper is concerned with certain ontological issues in the foundations of geographic representation. It sets out what these basic issues are, describes the tools needed to deal with them, and draws some implications for a general theory of spatial representation. Our approach has ramifications in the domains of mereology, topology, and the theory of location, and the question of the interaction of these three domains within a unified spatial representation theory is addressed. In the final part we also consider (...) the idea of non-standard geographies, which may be associated with geography under a classical conception in the same sense in which non-standard logics are associated with classical logic. (shrink)

Considering topology as an extension of mereology, this paper analyses topological variants of mereological essentialism (the thesis that an object could not have different parts than the ones it has). In particular, we examine de dicto and de re versions of two theses: (i) that an object cannot change its external connections (e.g., adjacent objects cannot be separated), and (ii) that an object cannot change its topological genus (e.g., a doughnut cannot turn into a sphere). Stronger forms of structural essentialism, (...) such as morphological essentialism (an object cannot change shape) and locative essentialism (an object cannot change position) are also examined. (shrink)