I interpret the first part of Croce’s Estetica as an example of ageneral foundational argument about knowledge. I argue thatCroce uses correctly this very general argumentative structure.I argue that this foundational attempt could not be read neitheras a trascendental nor a reductionist attempt. I suggest that thevery best way to look at it is to be found in Croce’s later works.I then conclude with some problems that arises within the foundational context.Keywords: knowledge, foundationalism, intuition, concept.

In the this article I try to show how an interaction between the phenomenological works of Enzo Paci and of Bernhard Waldenfels can lead to some interesting results concerning Husserl's search for a rigorous and apodictic ground for knowledge and for a universal science which involves the whole life of consciousness also in its intersubjective aspects. I do not try to compare the two thinkers, nor to assess the correctness of their interpretation of Husserl's thought, but to show through their (...) thoughts some remarks concerning problems which are still crucial in the philosophical and phenomenological debate. Paci's insistence on the practical and existential value of phenomenological reflection leads to constantly have to face the question “what is to be done?”, demanding in this way for an answering to the provocation of the Alien so well analysed by Waldenfels. Through such a process a common constitution does preserve from the lost of diversity and, at the same time, does not escape responsibility. (shrink)

Today, bioethical themes are no longer the exclusive patrimony of university classrooms. Everyone is talking about them ; «secular» and «catholics» alike. Catholics are often accused of imposing a «confessional» point of view. This article wishes to clarify this point given its importance in themes regarding the life and death of man, such as : artificial fecundation, abortion, cloning, brain death, organ transplants, and euthanasia. The article is based on a philosophical reflection starting with anthropological considerations. The extensive number of (...) themes does not allow taking all of them into consideration. Thus the article adheres to the following outline : 1. Establish the epistemological bases for a rational discourse based on universal premises, with particular reference to artificial fecundation and the nature of human sexuality. 2. Analize the «human nature» condition of the embryo, of the physically and mentally disabled, of the terminally ill, and their status as «human persons» ; this discourse is founded on the ontological status of the human body. 3. Present the value of the human body as a psycho-biological unity, which constitutes man's substantial unity. 4. We call this psycho-biological unity «person»: «corpore et anima unus» ; an individual subject with a rational nature, with its own singularity and oneness. The person has an absolute value, therefore cloning, even for «therapeutic reasons», is contrary to its ontological status. 5. From. (shrink)

My main claim is that, in order to account for the nature of human mind, philosophy of mind should embody topics usually treated by disciplines as ethics or applied philosophy so as to enrich the pure notion of cognitive experience to the extent of treating the whole of human experience. I begin with considering the Cartesian approach to the "cogito". I argue for the claim that cartesian-like dualists (Descartes and Locke, Kant and Husserl) fail in treating the opposition of internalism (...) and externalism concerning experience. This failure commits them to a form of epistemological idealism unable to manage the "veil of perception" objection. I then settle a provisional account for the mind, mainly dependent on a Berkeleyan-Humean deflationist approach to it, showing the necessity to incorporate in it robust practical topics from an ontological point of view. (shrink)

The theory of speech acts put forward by Adolf Reinach in his "The A Priori Foundations of the Civil Law" of 1913 rests on a systematic account of the ontological structures associated with various different sorts of language use. One of the most original features of Reinach's account lies in hIs demonstration of how the ontological structure of, say, an action of promising or of commanding, may be modified in different ways, yielding different sorts of non-standard instances of the corresponding (...) speech act varieties. The present paper is an attempt to apply this idea of standard and modified instances of ontological structures to the realm of judgement and cognition, and thereby to develop a Reinachian theory of how intentionality is mediated through language in acts of thinking and speaking. (shrink)