In these essays grouped under the title Spectacles and Predicaments Gellner is doing in social theory what Luigi Pirandello did on the stage, namely, make us involved in the political predicaments of life rather than be a mere observer of the spectacle of politics. The book is divided into three parts: part one is concerned with philosophers and their philosophies by which we interpret humanity; part two deals with the nature of knowledge and its implications; and part three concerns (...) the political implications of philosophy. Just about all the essays are reviews of books dealing with the various topics of philosophy and socio-political questions. As a result the unity that one hopes to find is never really developed. (shrink)

The political legacy of classical German philosophy can contribute in a crucial way to the most recent developments of contemporary political thought, thereby also making sense of the contradictions underlying the social practices and institutional values of our societies. What justifies this perspective is, in the first place, the complexity of contemporaneity, which holds within itself a doubleness that can be understood in the light of the conceptual tools of classical German philosophy. On the one hand, contemporary societies seem to (...) be facing relentless crises in the modern idea of democracy, the political subject of the nation-state, and capitalist economic structures. On the other hand, there is an ever-increasing demand for rights and new forms of recognition, not to mention the emergence of grassroots movements that strive for greater political participation and generate new collective subjectivities. By radically questioning traditional philosophical categories, Kant, Fichte and Hegel provide a new and insightful understanding of the crucial challenges of modernity. They outline a conception of practical rationality and its multiple manifestations that is irreplaceable for philosophically understanding our contemporary world. (shrink)

Heidegger's affirmation is categorical: “… the thinking expressed in Being and Time is against humanism”. Heidegger's thesis is not only categorical, it is also polemical. He maintains that the humanist conception does not grasp man's essence, and it is for this reason that he is opposed to humanism, which is a doctrine that “has not thought profoundly enough of man's humanitas.

Principi e ordinamento romano : una riflessione sulle orme di Fritz Schulz -- Homo liber e homo sacer : due archetipi dell'appartenenza -- L'humanitas tra diritto romano e totalitarismo hitleriano -- Sull'eccezione di dolo generale -- L'arbitraggio sul prezzo -- Diritto romano e scienza del diritto -- Roma e i suoi giuristi nel pensiero di Nicolás Gómez Dávila -- Tradizione e misura umana del diritto: considerazioni sulla figura del giurista a partire da Giuseppe Grosso.

In this paper we compare the strategies applied by two successful biological components of the ecosystem, the viruses and the human beings, to interact with the environment. Viruses have had and still exert deep and vast actions on the ecosystem especially at the genome level of most of its biotic components. We discuss on the importance of the human being as contraptions maker in particular of robots, hence of machines capable of automatically carrying out complex series of actions. Beside the (...) relevance of designing and assembling these contraptions, it is of basic importance the goal for which they are assembled and future scenarios of their possible impact on the ecosystem. We can’t procrastinate the development and implementation of a highly inspired and stringent “ethical code” for human beings and humanoid robots because it will be a crucial aspect for the wellbeing of the mankind and of the entire ecosystem. (shrink)

This article aims to provide a semiotic analysis of environmental law and youth protests. More precisely, drawing on speech act theory this article regards both as types of communication and teases out the inherent voice and message, specifically with regard to the interests of future generations. The argument unfolds in three steps. First, the article looks into speaker and speech of environmental law and argues that it speaks, as legislation does, in the first-person plural voice of a ‘we’. Second, the (...) article examines a speech of Greta Thunberg through the lens of Stanley Cavell’s theory of passionate utterances. This interpretation will unlock the political stakes of Thunberg’s speech as she claims standing with those responsible for enacting environmental law. Finally, the consequences of this reading will be analysed by relating message and voice of environmental law. As youth protests question ordinary forms of political representation, new ways of safeguarding the interests of future generations are called upon. (shrink)

Society and contemporary culture unquestionably assign much importance to the search for quality. So can this kind of research include the mind? In his analysis, Luigi Longhin examines the causes of mental illness and psychic-mental suffering, the notions of individuality, social violence, and utopia; and he suggests a collaboration between the neurosciences and psychoanalysis, within a correct epistemological approach. The relationship between epistemology and psychoanalysis is examined. The objectivistic and relativistic shift in contemporary epistemology, and the problem of the (...) responsibility of the techno-scientific system are emphasized. Why such a privileged connection with philosophy? The contribution of philosophy is primarily epistemological. However, both epistemology and psychoanalysis run a risk; whilst epistemology runs the risk of being a knowledge which does not know, psychoanalysts run the risk of pursuing scientific knowledge without knowing its foundations. Hence there is a need for collaboration between the two forms of knowledge: the philosophical-epistemological and the scientific-psychoanalytic. Psychoanalysis works in two directions: on the one hand, it tries to eliminate the negative components of the mind, on the other hand, it tries to develop the trusting and creative parts of the self. (shrink)

En jetant la sonde de l’interrogation philosophique au lieu de soi, Jean-Luc Marion nous donne une approche organique et originale à la pensée d’Augustin, en entrecroisant entre eux deux plans herméneutiques : sur le premier, l’on poursuit un itinéraire de rapprochement au cœur de la confessio augustinienne permettant de réduire le vaste univers sémantique d’Augustin à un noyau génétique unifiant; sur le second plan, le parcours philosophique de l’auteur se développe ultérieurement, tendant à désarticuler un bloc théorique d’ontologie et métaphysique (...) et atteignant ainsi par une voie phénoménologique une idée de philosophie finalement affranchie de la présupposition du caractère central de la question de l’étant et du fondement. En tout cas, même si l’on ne veut pas donner trop d’éclat à la critique anti-ontologique et antimétaphysique caractérisant l’approche à la pensée augustinienne proposée dans cet ouvrage, l’acquis spéculatif de celle-ci ne semble pas diminuer. Un parmi les mérites principaux de ce livre est d’avoir restitué à la confessio sa dignité théorique, en y apercevant un lieu phénoménologique originaire où la relation entre moi et Dieu se noue; une relation dont le caractère paradoxal, autrement insoutenable, est résolu par le primat du don et de l’amour. Ce sont tous ces traits originaux qui nous mènent à dire qu’Au lieu de soi n’est pas seulement un livre sur Augustin, car il est plus qu’un livre sur Augustin. (shrink)

This article analyses the use of the term “‘political oeconomy” in the Wealth of Nations, considered by many the founding text of the discipline of Political Economy. It shows that Adam Smith could not accept the use of the term “political oeconomy” that had been made by other authors to indicate the subject matter of his scientific inquiry, devoted to the nature and causes of the wealth of nations; he used the term “political oeconomy” as a synonym for economic policy, (...) especially in the fourth book of the Wealth of Nations. In order to understand this statement, it is necessary to keep in mind the methodological and epistemological perspective developed by Smith; in his view, the inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations would have to discover the almost unchangeable rules that presided over the choices of the legislators in the field of public economy and in the management of public resources. By contrast, the term “political oeconomy” was used by Smith exactly to indicate the policies really adopted in these fields, policies which frequently altered the system of natural liberty. (shrink)

Because of a strong similarity between two passages in Philo Judaeus, Cher. 37 and Her. 206, and the verb ejpikhrukeuvomai which is used in both loci is almost always completed by a dative. The Author proposes to read bivw/ instead of bivou at Cher. 37.