1. La filosofia antica-India, Cina, Grecia -- 2. La filosofia tardo-antica e medioevale: ebraismo, cristianesimo, islamismo -- 3.1. La filosofia moderna: umanesimo, Riforma, rivoluzione scientifica (1350-1715) -- 3.2. La filosofia moderna: illuminismo, criticismo, idealismo (1715-1815) -- 4.1. La filosofia contemporanea: scientismi, sroticismi, irrazionalismi -- 4.2. La filosofia contemporanea: filosofie analitiche e continentali.

The investigation of how humans perceive and respond to emotional signals conveyed by the human body has been for a long time secondary compared with the investigation of facial expressions and emotional scenes recognition. The aims of this behavioral study were to assess the ability to process emotional body postures and to test whether motor response is mainly driven by the emotional content of the picture or if it is influenced by motor resonance. Emotional body postures and scenes (IAPS) divided (...) into three clusters (fear, happiness, and neutral) were shown to 25 healthy subjects (13 males, mean age ± SD: 22.3 ± 1.8 years) in a three-alternative forced choice task. Subjects were asked to recognize the emotional content of the pictures by pressing one of three keys as fast as possible in order to estimate response times (RTs). The rating of valence and arousal was also performed. We found shorter RTs for fearful body postures as compared with happy and neutral postures. In contrast, no differences across emotional categories were found for the IAPS stimuli. Analysis on valence and arousal and the subsequent item analysis showed an excellent reliability of the two sets of images used in the experiment. Our results show that fearful body postures are rapidly recognized and processed, probably thanks to the automatic activation of a series of central nervous system structures orchestrating the defensive threat reactions, strengthening and supporting previous neurophysiological and behavioral findings in body language processing. (shrink)

O artigo apresenta as lutas dos trabalhadores rurais boias frias no Brasil, valorizando sua riqueza e protagonismo em momentos históricos em que elas eram invisibilizadas tanto pela ditadura como por visões pré-concebidas de quem seriam os sujeitos das lutas por reforma agrária. O universo empírico da pesquisa é a região de Ribeirão Preto e Araraquara, no estado de São Paulo, representativa das contradições entre uma agricultura produtivista e a proletarização de um amplo contingente de trabalhadores. A partir deste contexto, propõe-se (...) uma metodologia centrada nas especificidades das lutas, não deduzidas das condições objetivas, mas marcada pelas experiências vividas pelos trabalhadores e pela identificação de seus interesses. (shrink)

v. 1. History of the ancient and mediaeval philosophy.--v. 2. History of modern philosophy.

ABSTRACTThis paper analyses the discourses produced on their websites by the two organisations that conducted the official ‘leave’ and ‘remain’ campaigns in the Brexit referendum. The analysis, whi...

Volume 16, Issue 4, September 2019, Page 381-388.

An examination of new forms of alienation in our never-off, plugged-in culture—and a clarion call for a “conspiracy of estranged people.” We can reach every point in the world but, more importantly, we can be reached from any point in the world. Privacy and its possibilities are abolished. Attention is under siege everywhere. Not silence but uninterrupted noise, not the red desert, but a cognitive space overcharged with nervous incentives to act: this is the alienation of our times... —from The (...) Soul at Work Capital has managed to overcome the dualism of body and soul by establishing a workforce in which everything we mean by the Soul—language, creativity, affects—is mobilized for its own benefit. Industrial production put to work bodies, muscles, and arms. Now, in the sphere of digital technology and cyberculture, exploitation involves the mind, language, and emotions in order to generate value—while our bodies disappear in front of our computer screens. In this, his newest book, Franco “Bifo” Berardi—key member of the Italian Autonomist movement and a close associate of Félix Guattari—addresses these new forms of estrangement. In the philosophical landscape of the 1960s and 1970s, the Hegelian concept of alienation was used to define the harnessing of subjectivity. The estrangement of workers from their labor, the feeling of alienation they experienced, and their refusal to submit to it became the bases for a human community that remained autonomous from capital. But today a new condition of alienation has taken root in which workers commonly and voluntarily work overtime, the population is tethered to cell phones and Blackberries, debt has become a postmodern form of slavery, and antidepressants are commonly used to meet the unending pressure of production. As a result, the conditions for community have run aground and new philosophical categories are needed. The Soul at Work is a clarion call for a new collective effort to reclaim happiness. The Soul at Work is Bifo's long overdue introduction to English-speaking readers. This Semiotext edition is also the book's first appearance in any language. (shrink)

This paper provides a historical reevaluation of the originality and implications of Avempace's critique of Aristotle's causal explanation of the motion of projectiles. It also offers a serious revision of the place which has usually been assigned to Avempace in the history of science. The views regarding projectiles defended in Avempace's Arabic commentary are in sharp opposition to the anti-Aristotelian Avempace that was known in the Medieval West through Averroes. Avempace's commentary reveals only a moderate critic of Aristotle, a critic (...) who did not, in any case, break with the master, and who, therefore, did not even go as far as Philoponus in creating a new and more profound theory of projectile motion. (shrink)

The concept of scaffolding has wide resonance in several scientific fields. Here we attempt to adopt it for the study of development. In this perspective, the embryo is conceived as an integral whole, comprised of several hierarchical modules as in a recurrent circularity of emerging patterns. Within the developmental hierarchy, each module yields an inter-level relationship that makes it possible for the scaffolding to mediate the production of selectable variations. A wide range of genetic, cellular and morphological mechanisms allows the (...) scaffolding to integrate these modular variations into a functionally coordinate unit. A genetic scaffolding accounts for the inherited invariance of pattern formation during the embryo’s growth. At higher level, cells behave as agents endowed with the capacity to interpret any scaffolding variation as signs. The full hierarchy of a multi-level scaffolding is eventually attained when the embryo acquires the capacity to impose a number of developmental constraints on its constituting parts in a top-down direction. The acquisition of this capacity allows a semiotic threshold to emerge between the living cellular world and the underlying non-living molecular world. As this boundary is gradually defined during development, cells enter into new functional relationships, while, at the same time, are relieved from their physical determinism. The resulting constraints can thus become the driving forces that upgrade embryonic scaffolding from the simple molecular signalling to the complexity of sign recognition proper of a cellular community. In this semiotic perspective, the apparent goal directness of any developmental strategy should no longer be accounted for by a predetermined genetic program, but by the gradual definition of the relationships selected amongst the ones historically explored. (shrink)

By a theorem of R. Kaye, J. Paris and C. Dimitracopoulos, the class of the Πn+1-sentences true in the standard model is the only consistent Πn+1-theory which extends the scheme of induction for parameter free Πn+1-formulas. Motivated by this result, we present a systematic study of extensions of bounded quantifier complexity of fragments of first-order Peano Arithmetic. Here, we improve that result and show that this property describes a general phenomenon valid for parameter free schemes. As a consequence, we obtain (...) results on the quantifier complexity, finite axiomatizability and relative strength of schemes for Δn+1-formulas. (shrink)

A wide-ranging exploration of the present, and the future, of the Unconscious. The Unconscious knows no time, it has no before-and-after, it does not have a history of its own. Yet, it is not always the same. As it emerges in the life of people and societies, the Unconscious is shaped by ever-changing historical conditions: its form depends on the unique 'psychosphere' of each historical age. In the early twentieth century, Freud characterised the Unconscious as the dark side of the (...) well-ordered framework of Progress and Reason. At the end of the past century, Deleuze and Guattari described it as a laboratory: the magmatic force that ceaselessly brings about new possibilities of imagination. Today, at a time of viral pandemics and in the midst of the catastrophic collapse of capitalism, the Unconscious has begun to emerge in yet another form. In this book, Franco 'Bifo' Berardi vividly illustrates the form in which the Unconscious will make itself manifest for decades to come, and the challenges that it will pose to our possibilities of political action, poetic imagination, and therapy."--Publisher's description. (shrink)

This paper presents the Futurium platform used by Digital Futures, a foresight project launched by the European Commission's Directorate General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology (DG CONNECT). Futurium was initially developed with the primary purpose of hosting and curating visions and policy ideas generated by Digital Futures (Digital Futures was launched in July 2011 by DG CONNECT's Director General Robert Madelin following a prior DG CONNECT exercise called Digital Science.). However, it has turned into a platform on which to (...) experiment with new policymaking models based on scientific evidence and stakeholder participation, referred to in this paper as ‘Policy Making 3.0’. The platform hosts an online foresight toolkit to facilitate the joint creation of ideas to help design future policies. It leverages the potential of social networks, open data, semantic and knowledge mining technologies as well as participatory brainstorming techniques to engage stakeholders and harness their views and creativity to better inform policies that matter to them. The Futurium distinguishes between different variables, reflecting the emotional vs. rational mindsets of the participants, and offers the possibility to frame the engagement and co-creation process into multiple phases of a workflow. Futurium was developed to support Digital Futures, but its open architecture makes it easily adaptable to any policymaking/decision-making context where thinking ahead, participation, scientific evidence and agility are needed. Futurium is an early prototype implementation of the Policy Making 3.0 model, which is a long-term vision requiring further investigation and experimentation. The Futurium production website can be seen here: ec.europa.eu/digital-agenda/futurium. (shrink)

Teachers are necessarily free. The present article discusses the dual meaning of this necessity. The first meaning relates to freedom as an inevitable aspect of the actual reality in the classroom ; the second to teachers’ freedom as the ideal condition, or a prerequisite for optimal teaching. Existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre argued that human beings are “condemned to be free” and demanded that freedom be considered an imperative value. Philosopher of education Joseph Schwab, who analysed the practical nature of teaching, (...) concluded that teachers make choices every minute in the classroom, and demanded that their autonomy be expanded. This article identifies parallels between these two philosophical moves and suggests complementing features. Sartre adds universal depth to Schwab’s portrait of teachers, proving them to be an extreme expression of the human condition. Schwab provides Sartre’s analysis with concrete validation and practical suggestions for implementation. Combining these two approaches can further establish the importance of teacher autonomy and offer a unique conceptualisation of teacher agency as a partial response to the crisis of education in the postmodern era. (shrink)

The author publishes the initial fragment of an unknown treatise by Leon Battista Alberti on the casting of statues written around 1455 and preserved in cod. Ottob. lat. 1870. The fragment contains a discussion on the nature of light and the element of fire.

Introduction: Cartographies in becoming -- The happy depression -- Integrated world capitalism -- Planetary psychopathia -- Postmediatic affect -- User's manual-- Deleuze and the rhizomatic machine -- Why is anti-Oedipus the book of the '68 movement? -- Kafka, hypertext, and assemblages -- The tantric egg -- Chaosmosis -- The provisional eternity of friendship.

Background:A growing number of frameworks for the practice of clinical ethics are described in the literature. Among these, hermeneutical frameworks have helped highlight the interpretive and contextual nature of clinical ethics practice.Objectives:The aim of this article is to further advance this body of work by drawing on the ideas of Charles Taylor, a leading hermeneutical philosopher.Design/Findings:A Hermeneutical Rapprochement Framework is presented for clinical ethics practice, based on Taylor’s hermeneutical “retrieval” and “rapprochement.” This builds on existing hermeneutical approaches for the practice (...) of clinical ethics by articulating a framework with interpretive and reconciliatory scope that extends beyond the presenting “local” context. A Hermeneutical Rapprochement Framework considers broader socio-historical horizons and imaginaries grounded on Taylor’s expansive work in epistemological, ontological, political, and moral philosophy.Discussion:The framework is discussed in terms of how it can be operationalized for clinical practice as well as normative development. Implications for the educational preparation of clinical ethicists are also discussed. Although this work is directly relevant for clinical ethicists, it can also help inform the ethical practice of all clinicians. (shrink)

_The Uprising_ is an Autonomist manifesto for today's precarious times, and a rallying cry in the face of the catastrophic and irreversible crisis that neoliberalism and the financial sphere have established over the globe. In his newest book, Franco "Bifo" Berardi argues that the notion of economic recovery is complete mythology. The coming years will inevitably see new surges of protest and violence, but the old models of resistance no longer apply. Society can either stick with the prescriptions and (...) "rescues" that the economic and financial sectors have demanded at the expense of social happiness, culture, and the public good; or it can formulate an alternative. For Berardi, this alternative lies in understanding the current crisis as something more fundamental than an economic crisis: it is a crisis of the social imagination, and demands a new language by which to address it. This is a manifesto against the idea of growth, and against the concept of debt, the financial sector's two primary linguistic means of manipulating society. It is a call for exhaustion, and for resistance to the cult of energy on which today's economic free-floating market depends. To this end, Berardi introduces an unexpected linguistic political weapon--poetry: poetry as the insolvency of language, as the sensuous birth of meaning and desire, as that which cannot be reduced to information and exchanged like currency. If the protests now stirring about the world are to take shape and direction, then the revolution will be neither peaceful nor violent--it will be linguistic, or will not be at all. (shrink)

In this article I argue for an interpretive approach to bioethics with critically ill children. I begin by highlighting the dominant Anglo-American bioethical framework that defines standards for ethical care in critically ill children and then outline a critique of this framework. Drawing predominantly on the ideas of Charles Taylor, Michael Walzer and Richard Zaner, I call for a reconception of bioethics and propose an interpretive ‘thick’ framework that is centred on culture and context. Finally, I illustrate this interpretive approach (...) through a comparative study of two cases in pediatric intensive care: the narratives of Marc and Larry. These case studies reveal that ethical dilemmas in pediatric critical care can be traced to relational tensions over respect, trust and power rooted in the disparity of moral horizons among the persons involved. (shrink)

Background Ethical conflict is a problem with negative consequences, which can compromise the quality and ethical standards of the nursing profession and it is a source of stress for health care practitioners’, especially for nurses. Objectives The main aim of this study was to analyze Spanish critical care nurses’ level of exposure to ethical conflict and its association with sociodemographic, occupational, and COVID-19–related variables. Research Design, Participants, and Research context: This was a quantitative cross-sectional descriptive study conducted among 117 nurses (...) working in critical care units. Data collection tools were sociodemographic, occupational, and COVID-19–related questionnaires and previously validated Spanish version of Ethical Conflict in Nursing Questionnaire-Critical Care Version. Ethical Considerations We obtained permission from the Ethics Committee and participants' informed consent. Findings Data indicates a moderate level of exposure to ethical conflicts. The most frequent ethical conflicts were related to situations about "treatment and clinical procedures." The most intensity of ethical conflicts was related to situations about "treatment and clinical procedures" and "dynamics of the service and working environment." No statistical significance was identified between the socio-demographic variables and level of exposure to ethical conflicts. However, for critical care nurses working in ICU, nurses with perceived worked stress had a higher level of exposure to ethical conflicts. Likewise, critical care nurses whose family/friends were infected with COVID-19 had a higher level of exposure. Conclusions Critical care nurses experience a moderate level of exposure to ethical conflicts which is consistent with the results of previous studies. A deeper understanding of ethical conflicts in conflictive situations allows recognition of the situations that occur in everyday clinical practice, identification of the ethical conflicts, and facilitation of the nurses working in the challenging clinical situation. (shrink)

Can psychology contribute in some way to the approach to the fundamental questions of life? Psychology can be and indeed often is seen and used as a technique. In reality, every psychology carries in itself the seeds, more or less developed, of an anthropology, just as every anthropology cannot but have a pedagogical/psychological component. Without claiming to be comprehensive, the article raises some questions concerning the unavoidable integration of psychological aspects with the fundamental dimensions of being, such as the truth (...) to be known, the good to be worked for, and the unity or harmony found at the basis of human motivations. All this cannot disregard the pedagogical dimension/mission, recalling that the question is not 'what' or 'if' but rather 'which one' and 'how'. (shrink)

We live in an age of impotence. Stuck between global war and global finance, between identity and capital, we seem to be incapable of producing the radical change that is so desperately needed. Is there still a way to disentangle ourselves from a global order that shapes our politics as well as our imagination? In his most systematic book to date, renowned Italian theorist Franco Berardi tackles this question through a solid yet visionary analysis of the three fundamental concepts (...) of Possibility, Potency, and Power. Characterizing Possibility as the content, Potency as the energy, and Power as the form, Berardi suggests that the road to emancipation unravels from the awareness that the field of the possible is only limited, and not created, by the power structures that implement it. Other futures and other worlds are always already inscribed within the present, despite power's attempt at keeping them invisible. Overcoming any temptation of giving in to despair or nostalgia, Berardi proposes the notion of 'futurability' as a way to remind us that even within the darkness of our current crisis lies dormant the horizon of possibility. (shrink)

The majority of G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) self-assemble in the form dimeric/oligomeric complexes along the plasma membrane. Due to the molecular interactions they participate, GPCRs can potentially provide the framework for discriminating a wide variety of intercellular signals, as based on some kind of combinatorial receptor codes. GPCRs can in fact transduce signals from the external milieu by modifying the activity of such intracellular proteins as adenylyl cyclases, phospholipases and ion channels via interactions with specific G-proteins. However, in spite of (...) the number of cell functions they can actually control, both GPCRs and their associated signal transduction pathways are extremely well conserved, for only a few alleles with null or minor functional alterations have so far been found. This would seem to suggest that, beside a mechanism for DNA repairing, there must be another level of quality control that may help maintaining GPCRs rather stable throughout evolution. We propose here receptor oligomerization to be a basic molecular mechanism controlling GPCRs redundancy in many different cell types, and the plasma membrane as the first hierarchical cell structure at which selective categorical sensing may occur. Categorical sensing can be seen as the cellular capacity for identifying and ordering complex patterns of mixed signals out of a contextual matrix, i.e., the recognition of meaningful patterns out of ubiquitous signals. In this context, redundancy and degeneracy may appear as the required feature to integrate the cell system into functional units of progressively higher hierarchical levels. (shrink)

Hermeneutics, also referred to as interpretive phenomenology, has led to important contributions to nursing research. The philosophy of Charles Taylor has been a major source in the development of contemporary hermeneutics, through his ontological and epistemological articulations of the human sciences. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate that Taylor's ideas can further enrich hermeneutic inquiry in nursing research, particularly for investigations of ethical concerns. The paper begins with an outline of Taylor's hermeneutical framework, followed by a review of (...) his key ideas relevant for ethics research. The paper ends with a discussion of my empirical research with critically ill children in Canada and France in relation to Taylor's ideas, chiefly Social Imaginaries. I argue that Taylor's hermeneutics provides a substantive moral framework as well as a methodology for examining ethical concerns. (shrink)

Basilio Sabazio was the first in Italy to argue for the unity and corruptibility of either sublunar or celestial matter. In this paper new insight of his intellectual activity between Napoli and Milano is provided, and in particular his relationship with Scipione Capece, from whose letter to Giovan Francesco di Capua, Count of Palena we learn that Sabazio was an expert in philology and astronomy. The surviving part of an essay by Sabazio to the astronomer Francesco Cigalini from Como is (...) here edited with some informations about Cigalini’s reply. A newly recovered Sabazio’s astronomical work is here edited – from which his endorsement of Eraclides Ponticus’ astronomical system is evident –, as well as his Consilium to Pope Paolo III about the urgency of convening a general council. (shrink)

Any living organism interacts with and responds specifically to environmental molecules by expressing specific olfactory receptors. In this paper, this specificity will be first examined in causal terms with particular emphasis on the mechanisms controlling olfactory gene expression, cell-to-cell interactions and odor-decoding processes. However, this type of explanation does not entirely justify the role olfactory receptors have played during evolution, since they are also expressed ectopically in different organs and/or tissues. Homologous olfactory genes have in fact been found in such (...) diverse cells and/or organs as spermatozoa, testis and kidney where they are assumed to act as chemotactic sensors or renin modulators. To justify their functional diversity, homologous olfactory receptors are assumed to share the same basic role: that of conferring a self-identity to cells or tissues under varying environmental conditions. By adopting this standpoint, the functional attribution as olfactory or chemotactic sensors to these receptors should not be seen either as a cause conditioning receptor gene expression, or as a final effect resulting from genetically predetermined programs, but as a direct consequence of the environmental conditions olfactory receptor genes have explored during evolution. The association of odorant patterns with specific environmental or contextual situations makes their relationship semiotically triadic, due to the emergence of an interpretant capable of perceiving odorants as meaningful signs out of a noisy background. This perspective highlights the importance of odorant-receptor relationships as respect to the properties of the interacting partners. It is our contention that only when taken together can these different explanatory strategies provide a realistic account of how olfactory receptor genes have been structurally and functionally modified during evolution. (shrink)

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via the original article.

How have online communities affected the ways their users construct, view, and define their identity? In this paper, we will approach this issue by considering two philosophical sets of problems related to personal identity: the “Characterization Question” and the “Self-Other Relations Question.” Since these queries have traditionally brought out different problems around the concept of identity, here we aim at rethinking them in the framework of online communities. To do so, we will adopt an externalist and cognitive point of view (...) on online communities, describing them as virtual cognitive niches. We will evaluate and agree with the Attachment Theory of Identity, arguing that there is continuity between offline and online identity and that usually the latter contributes to the alteration of the former. Finally, we will discuss ways users can enact self-reflection on online frameworks, considering the impact of the Filter Bubble and the condition of Bad Faith. (shrink)

The essay illustrates the figure of Demetrios Kavàkis Rhaoul, Byzantine official at the service of the last two Paleologue emperors and of the Despots of the Peloponnese, who was also George Gemistos Plethon’s friend and student. Two short works of his are here published for the first time, one on the Sun God and another on the classification of the religions professed by humanity, alongside two small inedited letters by Plethon. In the first of the two writings, Kavàkis clears the (...) reasons for his aversion towards any kind of religion or philosophy that places the divine beyond the visible world and that believes in the existence of an intelligible or, even worse, over-intelligible world. These ideas lead him to clash not only with Christianity, but also with Plato and with the ideas of his beloved teacher Plethon, who, however, seems to agree with him in a dream. In the second writing this peculiar solar religion is reaffirmed, against the religion of poets and the religions of transcendence, warning however that nature wants some respect for the religion of ancestors, whichever this might be, when it is functional to the life of the society and of the State. (shrink)