L'antigiudaismo cristiano è essenzialmente la credenza che il popolo ebraico debba rinunciare alla propria fede e convertirsi al cristianesimo. In questo testo viene studiata la prima forma sistematica di antigiudaismo sviluppata in termini filosofici e teologici da Agostino d'Ippona. Alla luce dell'analisi filosofica sembra che l'avversione di Agostino per la fede ebraica si fondi su un'autentica rimozione della specificità del popolo eletto, della Legge e della Rivelazione sul Sinai.

This monograph uses deconstruction—a philosophical movement originated by Jacques Derrida—to read the most authoritative book in Judaism: the Talmud. Examining deconstruction in comparison with Kant’s and Hegel’s philosophies, the volume argues that the movement opens an innovative debate on Jewish Law. -/- First, the monograph interprets deconstruction within the major streams of continental philosophy; then, it criticizes many aspects of Foucault’s and Agamben’s philosophy, rejecting their notion of law. On these premises, the research delivers a close examination of many fundamental (...) aspects of the Talmud. Consequently, it provides a short history of Rabbinic literature, a history of the dissemination of the Talmud from Babylon to Northern France, and an analysis of Talmudic vocabulary from a deconstructive perspective. Each key concept of the Talmud is analysed according to the deconstructive dialectics between orality and writing. Closing with a comparison between the Talmud and Derrida’s most enigmatic text, Glas, the study argues that deconstruction dismantles the traditional notion of the Talmud to outline a new approach to Jewish Law. -/- Reading the Talmud through deconstruction, this new angle makes the volume an essential resource for students and scholars interested in Jewish studies, continental philosophy, and the Middle East. (shrink)

Cet ouvrage rend hommage à différents « Maîtres à penser » qui, par leur oeuvre, ont notablement enrichi leur discipline. Les juristes, historiens, politistes, philosophes, économistes étudiés ici ont en commun de réfléchir sur le pacte démocratique. Comment articuler liberté et égalité, économie et politique, religion et laïcité, violence et norme coercitive... pour qu'advienne une harmonie synonyme de paix sociale? Chacun - Sturzo, Cuche, Pocock, Quesnay, Zagrebelsky, Makhno, Fanon, Rivero, Albert, Bataille, Desjardins - apporte sa propre réponse. La diversité des (...) auteurs est à l'image de la dimension résolument pluridisciplinaire de ce nouvel opus du Bulletin annuel de Villetaneuse. (shrink)

In questo articolo verrà preso in esame il tema della prigionia dell’anima e della sua successiva liberazione, partendo da uno dei tre racconti visionari di Avicenna, intitolato Hayy Ibn Yaqzân e indagandone le fonti filosofiche. Si partirà dall’analisi del il mito della caverna di Platone e dell’interpretazione allegorica data ad esso dal filosofo al-Fārābī. Tenendo presente questa lettura, saranno sviluppate alcune riflessioni sull’oggetto e sul significato di questi racconti visionari: allegorie filosofiche sulla natura della conoscenza, allegorie religiose di carattere gnostico (...) sul tema della liberazione dell’anima dalla sua prigione terrena raffigurata dall’occidente e della sua conseguente salvezza, o un insieme di queste due possibili interpretazioni.Sebbene il focus del contributo sia l’opera avicenniana si terrà conto anche dello scritto successivo di Suhrawardī, contenutisticamente analogo, ma con finalità diverse.In this article I study the theme of imprisonment of the soul and its subsequent release, starting from one of the three visionary tales of Avicenna, entitled Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān. I start with the analysis of the possible sources of Islamic authors, such as the Plato’s myth of the cave and its allegorical interpretation given by the philosopher al-Fārābī.I develop some thoughts about the Avicenna’s possible objectives in writing the visionaries tales: 1. the philosophical allegories about the nature of knowledge, 2. the religious allegories with Gnostic character on the theme of the liberation of the soul from its earthly prison, represented by the West, and its consequent salvation, or 3. a combination of these two possible interpretations?The article focuses on Avicenna and the philosophical sources that could have inspired his tales, and taking into account Suhrawardī’s later writing, that has a similar content, but probably with different intentions. (shrink)

H.-I. Marrou's Traité de la musique selon l'esprit de Saint Augustin is a useful document about the relationship between 1930s French music and non-conformist culture. His stress on the moral aim of music recalls the claim for a spiritual revolution that informs the spirit of 1930 and Jeune France's manifesto: the reading of Marrou's Traité helps us defining the humanistic poetics of music of the '30s, and the historical context mutually explains and justify most of Marrou's thought .His thought is (...) in fact developed in the wake of Christian Platonism revised by Augustine, subject to a series of small changes in sight of a better and more relevant moral theology. The philosophical outcome isn't very convincing, both for many appeals to the authority principle, and for frequent contradictions clearly emerging in his arguments. The tension between the fidelity to the doctrine, the attempts to re-read the music from an apologetic viewpoint and the aim to suggest a practical philosophy produces a methodological setback so striking that it represents one of the greater limits of the Treaty.Marrou's remarks about the relationship between Christianity and ancient philosophy are certainly as interesting as questionable from the point of view of the history of philosophy. He goes so far to correct Augustine himself, especially as regards the Pythagorean influence on his thought, to stress instead a religious component of the music that doesn't seem so evident in the Augustinian analysis.Quest'ultimo viene infatti sviluppato sulla scia del platonismo cristiano mediato da Agostino, che viene sottoposto a una serie di piccoli mutamenti in funzione di una migliore e più attuale teologia morale. L'esito filosofico non è tuttavia dei più convincenti, vuoi per i numerosi appelli al principio d'autorità, vuoi per le frequenti contraddizioni argomentative che emergono dal testo in modo evidente. La tensione tra la fedeltà alla dottrina, il tentativo di rilettura della musica in chiave apologetica e la proposta di una filosofia pratica producono così un vistoso scacco metodologico che rappresenta uno dei limiti maggiori del Trattato.Le considerazioni di Marrou sul rapporto tra cristianesimo e filosofia antica sono certamente molto interessanti ma assai discutibili da un punto di vista storico-filosofico. L’autore si spinge fino a correggere Agostino stesso, soprattutto per quanto riguarda la componente pitagorica della sua riflessione, per sottolineare invece una componente religiosa della musica che non sembra così evidente nella riflessione agostiniana.. (shrink)

The Cogito and the Mexican Salamander.Philosophy and the Rest of Sciences in the late Merleau-Ponty The article examines Merleau-Ponty’s almost parallel reading – in his last courses at the Collège de France – of the Cartesian cogito and the development of the Axolotl, the salamander studied by American biologist Coghill. My hypothesis is that the metaphysics of the cogito and the biology of the Axolotl represented for Merleau-Ponty two ways of access to the same discovery. Descartes came up against a (...) phenomenon, the cogito, which required the reshaping of metaphysics as a sort of (impossible) psychology of the event or the absolute. Within the field of anatomy, Coghill came up against a phenomenon, the embryogenesis of the Axolotl, which similarly required a sort of conversion of anatomy into embryology. Therefore, bios and psyché, “embryonality” and the cogito, would be nothing but the denomination of the objects that psychology and biology meet along their borders, names for what we could refer to as “event,” “continuum,” “becoming” or, according to an old but still suitable definition, “absolute.” This has countless consequences on the relationship between the so-called human sciences and the so-called natural sciences, their eternally missed dialogue, their false complementarity and the illusion that the famous “two cultures” do actually exist.Il Cogito e la lucertola messicana.La filosofia e il resto delle scienze nell’ultimo Merleau-Ponty L’articolo prende in esame la lettura quasi parallela che Merleau-Ponty svolge, negli ultimi corsi di lezione al Collège de France, del cogito cartesiano e dello sviluppo dell’Axolotl, la lucertola studiata dal biologo americano Coghill. La nostra ipotesi è che la metafisica del cogito, e la biologia dell’Axolotl, rappresentino agli occhi di Merleau-Ponty due modi d’accesso a una stessa scoperta. Dall’interno della metafisica, Descartes si imbatte in un fenomeno, il cogito appunto, che esige che la metafisica si istituisca come una sorta di (impossibile) psicologia dell’eventoo dell’assoluto. Tutta la metafisica sarebbe psicologia, cioè indicazione del luogo assoluto nel quale è inscritto ogni luogo. Dall’interno dell’anatomia, Coghill siimbatte in un fenomeno, lo sviluppo dell’embrione dell’Axolotl, che esige analogamente che tutta l’anatomia si risolva in embriologia. Il vivente sarebbe allora in generale questa condizione di gemmazione e autoorganizzazione, e l’embriologia sarebbe la scienza (impossibile) di questo divenire perfettamenteanoggettuale. Bios e psyché, “embrionalità” e cogito non sarebbero che i nomi di ciò che la psicologia e la biologia incontrano al loro confine, nomi di ciò che infilosofia si chiama evento, continuum, divenire, o, con un vecchio e adattissimo termine, assoluto. Il che comporta innumerevoli conseguenze circa il rapporto trale cosiddette scienze umane e le cosiddette scienze naturali, sul loro dialogo eternamente mancato, sulla loro falsa complementarietà, sull’illusione che si diano davvero le celebri “due culture”. (shrink)

The Cogito and the Mexican Salamander.Philosophy and the Rest of Sciences in the late Merleau-Ponty The article examines Merleau-Ponty’s almost parallel reading – in his last courses at the Collège de France – of the Cartesian cogito and the development of the Axolotl, the salamander studied by American biologist Coghill. My hypothesis is that the metaphysics of the cogito and the biology of the Axolotl represented for Merleau-Ponty two ways of access to the same discovery. Descartes came up against a (...) phenomenon, the cogito, which required the reshaping of metaphysics as a sort of (impossible) psychology of the event or the absolute. Within the field of anatomy, Coghill came up against a phenomenon, the embryogenesis of the Axolotl, which similarly required a sort of conversion of anatomy into embryology. Therefore, bios and psyché, “embryonality” and the cogito, would be nothing but the denomination of the objects that psychology and biology meet along their borders, names for what we could refer to as “event,” “continuum,” “becoming” or, according to an old but still suitable definition, “absolute.” This has countless consequences on the relationship between the so-called human sciences and the so-called natural sciences, their eternally missed dialogue, their false complementarity and the illusion that the famous “two cultures” do actually exist.Il Cogito e la lucertola messicana.La filosofia e il resto delle scienze nell’ultimo Merleau-Ponty L’articolo prende in esame la lettura quasi parallela che Merleau-Ponty svolge, negli ultimi corsi di lezione al Collège de France, del cogito cartesiano e dello sviluppo dell’Axolotl, la lucertola studiata dal biologo americano Coghill. La nostra ipotesi è che la metafisica del cogito, e la biologia dell’Axolotl, rappresentino agli occhi di Merleau-Ponty due modi d’accesso a una stessa scoperta. Dall’interno della metafisica, Descartes si imbatte in un fenomeno, il cogito appunto, che esige che la metafisica si istituisca come una sorta di (impossibile) psicologia dell’eventoo dell’assoluto. Tutta la metafisica sarebbe psicologia, cioè indicazione del luogo assoluto nel quale è inscritto ogni luogo. Dall’interno dell’anatomia, Coghill siimbatte in un fenomeno, lo sviluppo dell’embrione dell’Axolotl, che esige analogamente che tutta l’anatomia si risolva in embriologia. Il vivente sarebbe allora in generale questa condizione di gemmazione e autoorganizzazione, e l’embriologia sarebbe la scienza (impossibile) di questo divenire perfettamenteanoggettuale. Bios e psyché, “embrionalità” e cogito non sarebbero che i nomi di ciò che la psicologia e la biologia incontrano al loro confine, nomi di ciò che infilosofia si chiama evento, continuum, divenire, o, con un vecchio e adattissimo termine, assoluto. Il che comporta innumerevoli conseguenze circa il rapporto trale cosiddette scienze umane e le cosiddette scienze naturali, sul loro dialogo eternamente mancato, sulla loro falsa complementarietà, sull’illusione che si diano davvero le celebri “due culture”. (shrink)

The year 2005 has been named the World Year of Physics in recognition of the 100th anniversary of Albert Einstein's "Miracle Year," in which he published four landmark papers which had deep and great influence on the last and the current century: quantum theory, general relativity, and statistical mechanics. Despite the enormous importance that Einstein’s discoveries played in these theories, most physicists adopt a version of quantum theory which is incompatible with the idea that motivated Einstein in the first place. (...) This seems to suggest that Einstein was fundamentally incapable of appreciating the `quantum revolution,’ and that his vision of physics as an attempt to reach a complete and comprehensive description of reality was ultimately impossible to obtain. Relativity theory has provided us with a picture of reality in which the world can be though as independent on who observes it, and the same can be said for statistical mechanics. Instead, quantum mechanics seems to suggest that physical objects do not exist `out there’ when someone is not observing them. In this framework, it is often suggested that any kind of causal explanation is impossible in the atomic and subatomic world, and therefore should be abandoned. This is why many think that it is in principle impossible for quantum theory to provide us with a coherent and comprehensive view of the world, in contrast with what happens with relativity and statistical mechanics. Is it really impossible to pursue Einstein’s ideal of physics also in the quantum framework? This book argues that this is not the case: the central idea is that Einstein’s vision of physics is still a live option, and indeed it is the one that best allows obtaining a unitary understanding of our physical theories. One can consider all the three theories mentioned above, suitably modified, as theories that are able to account and explain the world around us without too much departure from the classical framework. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------- -/- La teoria della relatività, la meccanica statistica e la meccanica quantistica hanno profondamente rivoluzionato il nostro modo di concepire spazio, tempo, materia, probabilità e causalità, nonché il rapporto tra universo fisico ed osservatore, nozioni che sono state al centro della discussione filosofica dal mondo greco fino ai nostri giorni. Questo volume, opera di Valia Allori, Mauro Dorato, Federico Laudisa e Nino Zanghì, non solo intende suggerire nuovi metodi di confronto tra fisica e filosofia, ma prova altresì a rendere espliciti i presupposti filosofici che sono presenti nell'interpretazione che i fisici stessi danno del formalismo matematico. (shrink)

v. 1. Scritti di Sciacca -- v. 2. Scritti su Sciacca.

This chapter explores Michel Foucault's contribution to a critical assessment of modern and contemporary psychiatric practice. It focuses firstly on the History of Madness : the social, political, cultural, epistemological construction of the object "psychiatric patient" and "psychiatric pathology"; the gradual historical shift from "madness" to "psychiatric pathology" and its social and epistemological consequences; the horizons and limits of the romantic task Foucault assumes on this basis ; the critique Jacques Derrida formulated about this project, and particularly about Foucault's reading (...) of Descartes. Secondly, it examines Foucault's course on Psychiatric Power, focusing on the sociopolitical consequences of this medicalization process: i.e., the construction of the object "psychiatric patient" as "disciplinated bodies", and the general context of this anthropological metamorphosis Foucault studied in his books Discipline and Punish, The Will to Knowledge, and in his course Naissance de la biopolitique. (shrink)

This work explores issues with the eliminativist formulation of ontic structural realism. An ontology that totally eliminates objects is found lacking by arguing, first, that the theoretical frameworks used to support the best arguments against an object-oriented ontology (quantum mechanics, relativity theory, quantum field theory) can be seen in every case as physical models of empty worlds, and therefore do not represent all the information that comes from science, and in particular from fundamental physics, which also includes information about local (...) interactions between objects. Secondly, by giving a critical assessment of the role of symmetries in these fundamental physical theories; and, lastly, by warning about unfounded metaphysical assumptions. An argument is made for a moderate form of structural realism instead, one in which objects play the fundamental role of representing symmetries and bearing their conserved charges, and of participating in the network of interactions observed in the world. (shrink)

"'Tutta la nostra vita è un esercizio alla visione dell'Uno' : affrontando il pròblema per eccellenza della tradizione neoplatonica, il rapporto tra Unità e Molteplicità, il testo tenta di rinvenire il ligamen essenziale che muove le riflessioni di tre grandi pensatori della tarda antichità, cioè Plotino, Proclo e Dionigi Areopagita; questo, all'interno di una prospettiva teoretica, critica ed ermeneutica che tiene conto anche dei guadagni filosofici conseguiti da Hegel, Gentile e Severino, e dalla poesia pensante di Dante. Nello sforzo di (...) cogliere lo Stesso che si agita nelle differenze di cui si costituisce il mondo, si offre, nel corso dell'analisi, una disamina dei principali nodi aporetici che una metafisica henologica evoca: Uno e Tutto, Infinito e finito, processione e conversione, Eternità e tempo, immagine e linguaggio, Immediato e mediato. In particolare, il filo rosso che guida queste specificazioni è rintracciato nell'inesausta dialettica tra Pensiero ed Essere, da cui e in cui, in grazia di una 'magia che tutto produce', l'ignoranza umana si apre all'Altro-non-Altro, rendendosi divina"--. (shrink)

We propose a new interpretation of the equation E=mc² in special relativity by generalizing ideas of ontological emergence to fundamental physics. This allows us to propose that mass, as a property, can be considered to emerge from energy, using a well-known definition of weak ontological emergence. Einstein’s famous equation gains in this way a clearer philosophical interpretation, one that avoids the problems of previous attempts, and is fully consistent with the kinematic properties of special relativity, while yielding fresh insights concerning (...) the nature of mass. (shrink)

Degrowth is the literal translation of 'decroissance', a French word meaning reduction. Launched by activists in 2001 as a challenge to growth, it became a missile word that sparks a contentious debate on the diagnosis and prognosis of our society. 'Degrowth' became an interpretative frame for a new (and old) social movement where numerous streams of critical ideas and political actions converge. It is an attempt to re-politicise debates about desired socio-environmental futures and an example of an activist-led science now (...) consolidating into a concept in academic literature. This article discusses the definition, origins, evolution, practices and construction of degrowth. The main objective is to explain degrowth's multiple sources and strategies in order to improve its basic definition and avoid reductionist criticisms and misconceptions. To this end, the article presents degrowth's main intellectual sources as well as its diverse strategies (oppositional activism, building of alternatives and political proposals) and actors (practitioners, activists and scientists). Finally, the article argues that the movement's diversity does not detract from the existence of a common path. (shrink)

According to Marshall et al. (2024), some of the patients who refuse to stay in observation after being resuscitated following an opioid overdose are likely not making an autonomous choice. While I do not intend to dispute this claim, it merits discussion what is the concept of autonomy at play in making this assessment. I contend that the concept at work is more substantive than Marshall et al. acknowledge—and more substantive, too, than the form of autonomy usually thought to underpin (...) the moral justification of the requirement of informed consent . (shrink)

A restrictive view of self-control identifies exercises of self-control with synchronic intrapsychic processes, and pictures diachronic and externally-scaffolded strategies not as proper instances of self-control, but as clever ways of avoiding the need to exercise that ability. In turn, defenders of an inclusive view of self-control typically argue that we should construe self-control as more than effortful inhibition, and that, on grounds of functional equivalence, all these diverse strategies might be properly described as instances of self-control. In this paper, I (...) take a fresh look at this debate by focusing on cases of addiction. I argue that addicted agents face a paradigmatic sort of self-control challenge, which makes addiction an important test case for theories of self-control. And I discuss evidence that highlights both the unreliability of synchronic intrapsychic strategies and the crucial role that is played by diachronic and externally-scaffolded strategies in successful attempts at achieving abstinence by addicted individuals. Abstaining addicts are a paradigmatic case of agents who successfully exercise self-control, and they mostly do so by relying on diachronic and externally-scaffolded strategies. This, I argue, lends further support to an inclusive view of self-control. (shrink)

It is often assumed that, except perhaps in a few rare cases, people with addiction can be aptly held responsible for having acquired the condition. In this chapter, I consider the argument that supports this view and draw attention to a number of challenges that can be raised against it. Assuming that early decisions to use drugs were made in possession of normal-range psychological capacities, I consider the key question of whether drug users who later became addicted should have known (...) that addiction was a likely outcome of their decisions to use drugs in a way that makes them blameworthy for their lack of foresight. I focus on three different points of contention surrounding this claim: how likely the outcome to be predicted was, how tolerable risk should be weighed against the expected value of decisions to use, and how reliable the relevant predictive abilities of the average person are. Once we consider in some detail what would have to be true in order for someone to be aptly held responsible for becoming addicted, the prospects for making a convincing case to that effect look, I argue, somewhat more uncertain than they might at first appear. (shrink)

Can addiction be credibly invoked as an excuse for moral harms secondary to particular decisions to use drugs? This question raises two distinct sets of issues. First, there is the question of whether addiction is the sort of consideration that could, given suitable assumptions about the details of the case, excuse or mitigate moral blameworthiness. Most discussions of addiction and moral responsibility have focused on this question, and many have argued that addiction excuses. Here I articulate what I take to (...) be the best argument for this view, based on the substantial difficulty that people with severe addiction experience in controlling drug-related behavior. This, I argue, may in some cases be sufficient to ground a mitigating excuse, given the way in which addiction undermines agents’ responsiveness to relevant moral reasons to do otherwise. Much less attention has been devoted to a second set of issues that critically affect the possibility of applying this mitigating excuse in particular cases, derived from the ambivalent nature of agential control in addiction. In order to find a fitting response to moral harm, the person with the right standing to blame must make a judgment about the extent to which the agent possessed certain morally relevant capacities at the time of the act. In practice, this will often prove tremendously difficult to assess. The ethical challenge for the person with the right standing to blame is fundamentally one of making a judgment about matters that seem underdetermined by the available evidence. (shrink)

In previous works, an ontology of properties for quantum mechanics has been proposed, according to which quantum systems are bundles of properties with no principle of individuality. The aim of the present article is to show that, since quasi-set theory is particularly suited for dealing with aggregates of items that do not belong to the traditional category of individual, it supplies an adequate meta-language to speak of the proposed ontology of properties and its structure.

Following the proposal of a new kind of selective structural realism that uses as a basis the distinction between framework and interaction theories, this work discusses relevant applications in fundamental physics. An ontology for the different entities and properties of well-known theories is thus consistently built. The case of classical field theories—including general relativity as a classical theory of gravitation—is examined in detail, as well as the implications of the classification scheme for issues of realism in quantum mechanics. These applications (...) also shed light on the different range of applicability of the ontic and epistemic versions of structural realism. (shrink)

abstract The so‐called ‘morning‐after pill’ is a drug that prevents pregnancy if taken no later than 72 hours after presumably fertile sexual intercourse. This article argues against a right of conscientious objection for pharmacists with regard to dispensing this drug. Some arguments that might be advanced in support of this right will be considered and rejected. Section 2 argues that from a philosophical point of view, the most relevant question is not whether the morning‐after pill prevents implantation nor is it (...) whether preventing implantation is tantamount to abortion. Section 3 suggests a more general philosophical question as most pertinent, namely whether and to what extent a pharmacist can justifiably be exempted from dispensing the morning‐after pill when to do so would entail participating in something that goes against his or her deepest moral or religious convictions. Section 4 explains why, within liberal institutions, pharmacists should not have the right to conscientious objection to dispensing the morning‐after pill. (shrink)

While some form of loss of control is often assumed to be a common feature of the diverse manifestations of addiction, it is far from clear how loss of control should be understood. In this paper, I put forward a concept of decrease in control in addiction that aims to fill this gap and thus provide a general framework for thinking about addictive behavior. The development of this account involves two main steps. First, I present a view of degrees of (...) control as the degree to which an agent would be responsive to potential or counterfactual sufficient reasons to do otherwise. Second, I sketch an account of the relevant control-undermining factors in addiction that is consonant with my proposed view of degrees of control. Being a high-level functional property, reasons-responsiveness is particularly well suited to frame an account of control-undermining factors that is doubly pluralistic: it encompasses the contribution of factors both internal and external to the agent, and it is consistent with various proposals as to the precise nature of the anomaly taking place in the psychology of addiction. (shrink)

La obra del cantautor vallenato Máximo Jiménez se mantiene más vigente que nunca. Sus canciones poseen un valor testimonial y literario que aporta a la construcción de un relato plural de Colombia y que, por lo mismo, también permite cuestionar las narrativas hegemónicas de nuestra mitología nacional en torno al conflicto político, en la medida en que concreta la voluntad colectiva del campesinado por recordar y hacer memoria de sus procesos organizativos como agremiación, así como también de hacer frente a (...) problemáticas tales como la reforma agraria, la violencia política, el gamonalismo, la inercia y el abandono estatal y la desigual tenencia de tierras, especialmente en los departamentos de Córdoba y Sucre, a partir de finales de la década del sesenta, en el marco de las reivindicaciones de la agremiación conocida como la Asociación Nacional de Usuarios Campesinos (ANUC). De forma contraria a lo que aseguran algunos pensadores, como Walter Ong sobre las culturas orales, la música de Máximo Jiménez se sitúa de forma crítica y con honda sensibilidad histórica frente a la política colombiana y sus prácticas de poder, así como también frente al panorama geopolítico e internacional de la época. En esa medida, el presente trabajo realiza un análisis sociocrítico de las canciones de Máximo Jiménez, particularmente, focalizando su manera de comprender la noción de ‘Pueblo’ y en la manera en que sus canciones establecen una relación entre sus textos y los hechos sociales que le circundan. (shrink)

Plato's political thought gave rise to a number of concepts and issues - such as the idea of a normative theory, the philosophical foundation of politics, the philosopher-kings, the standard of utopian theory - which have played a significant role on Western political and philosophical thought. -/- This volume aspires to bring out Plato's concept of efficacy in a normative theory. -/- By efficacy, the author means the way in which the theory conceives of its practical realization. If in the (...) Republic this issue is particularly problematic, in the Laws, instead, the claim of realizability becomes the main concern. -/- By defining the concept of efficacy and going through the main works of Plato, this conceptual and textual analysis aims to shed a new light on Plato's political thought, which is neither a utopia, nor a short term political program, but the first normative theory encompassing a theory of efficacy. (shrink)

This book addresses the metaphysics of Armstrongian states of affairs, i.e. instantiations of naturalist universals by particulars. The author argues that states of affairs are the best candidate for truthmakers and, in the spirit of logical atomism, that we need no molecular truthmakers for positive truths. In the book's context, this has the pleasing result that there are no molecular states of affairs. Following this account of truthmaking, the author first shows that the particulars in (first-order) states of affairs are (...) bare particulars. He then argues that the properties in states of affairs are simple, non-relational and concrete universals. Next, he argues that (material) relations in states of affairs are external relations. Lastly, he argues that a state of affairs is unified by a distinctive formal relation without giving rise to Bradley’s regress. (shrink)

Artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming part of the everyday. During this transition, people’s intention to use AI technologies is still unclear and emotions such as fear are influencing it. In this paper, we focus on autonomous cars to first verify empirically the extent to which people fear AI and then examine the impact that fear has on their intention to use AI-driven vehicles. Our research is based on a systematic survey and it reveals that while individuals are largely afraid of (...) cars that are driven by AI, they are nonetheless willing to adopt this technology as soon as possible. To explain this tension, we extend our analysis beyond just fear and show that people also believe that AI-driven cars will generate many individual, urban and global benefits. Subsequently, we employ our empirical findings as the foundations of a theoretical framework meant to illustrate the main factors that people ponder when they consider the use of AI tech. In addition to offering a comprehensive theoretical framework for the study of AI technology acceptance, this paper provides a nuanced understanding of the tension that exists between the fear and adoption of AI, capturing what exactly people fear and intend to do. (shrink)

Daniel Dennett is arguably one of the most influential yet radical philosophers in America today. In this volume, Dennett is confronted by colleagues and critics, from philosophy, biology and psychology. His reply constitutes an extensive essay which clarifies, and develops further, central themes in his philosophy. The debate ranges over Dennett's whole corpus, but special attention is given to his major work on consciousness, Consciousness Explained. The volume includes a critical assessement of Dennett's views on behaviouralism and the subjectivity of (...) consciousness, the nature of perception and mental representation, intentional laws and computational psychology, the rationality of thought, culture as a virus, the architecture of mind, and the role of artifacts in thinking. Also included is an introduction to Dennett's philosophy and a full bibliography of his publications. (shrink)

Human cerebral organoids are three-dimensional biological cultures grown in the laboratory to mimic as closely as possible the cellular composition, structure, and function of the corresponding organ, the brain. For now, cerebral organoids lack blood vessels and other characteristics of the human brain, but are also capable of having coordinated electrical activity. They have been usefully employed for the study of several diseases and the development of the nervous system in unprecedented ways. Research on human cerebral organoids is proceeding at (...) a very fast pace and their complexity is bound to improve. This raises the question of whether cerebral organoids will also be able to develop the unique feature of the human brain, consciousness. If this is the case, some ethical issues would arise. In this article, we discuss the necessary neural correlates and constraints for the emergence of consciousness according to some of the most debated neuroscientific theories. Based on this, we consider what the moral status of a potentially conscious brain organoid might be, in light of ethical and ontological arguments. We conclude by proposing a precautionary principle and some leads for further investigation. In particular, we consider the outcomes of some very recent experiments as entities of a potential new kind. (shrink)