The official documents of the Parisian Faculty of Arts (starting from the Statute of March 1255) show a close identification between the philosophical sciences and the corresponding textbooks: to learn a particular science means essentially to read certain, prescribed books. The case of theology seems to be different, however. In spite of the fact that the Bible served as a paradigm for the ‘textualization’ of all kinds of knowledge, and even of the whole world, it did not fit perfectly the (...) epistemological criteria which Aristotle’s Posterior analytics established as necessary for every science. Already in the second half of the 13thcentury, both Thomas Aquinas and Henry of Ghent tried to construct theology as a science, in the Aristotelean sense, by appealing respectively to the theory of the subalternation of the sciences and to the doctrine of the lumen medium. The different reactions to these two models by Godfrey of Fontaines, Durandus of Saint-Pourçain and Peter Auriol seem to indicate a process in which theology can constitute itself as a true science only through a broadening of its textual basis, outside the scope of Sacred Scripture. (shrink)

Magazines, leaflets, weblogs, and a variety of other media incessantly spread messages advising us on how to achieve or maintain our health or well-being. In such messages, the iconic representation of the face is predominant, and reveals an interesting phenomenon: the “face of health” seems to be unattainable as such, and is generally represented in a differential way, that is to say, by making reference to its opposite – the “face of illness”, or at least of malaise. In fact, the (...) face is crucial in the medical domain: since ancient times, face observation has played an essential role in diagnostic practices, both in Western medicine (which resorts to the concept of facies, intended as the distinctive facial expression or appearance associated with a specific medical condition, for the description of pathological states) and Eastern preventive and healing techniques (within which the so-called Mian Xiang, or ‘face reading’, is fundamental, and connects the medical sphere with other aspects such as personality, talents, and dispositions). Drawing on the semiotic analysis of relevant case studies extending from classical iconography to present-day digital mediascapes, this paper investigates the representation of the face of health (and illness) across time and space, specifically focusing on the analogies and differences between the Western and the Eastern semiosphere. To this purpose, it relies on both literature concerning the representation and understanding of the face and studies on medical sign systems and discourses. (shrink)

Journal Name: Semiotica Issue: Ahead of print.

Ante el panorama político doctrinario del siglo XIX caracterizado por dos filosofías opuestas y predominantes, como eran el liberalismo y el socialismo, en el presente artículo se sistematiza, por medio de una reconstrucción histórica y filosófica, la evolución del movimiento político de la Democracia Cristiana en Europa, en particular en Francia y Alemania, a través de las obras y acciones políticas de sus pioneros. Esta corriente ideológica se presenta como una �vía intermedia o alternativa� para un proyecto político fundado sobre (...) una visión cristiana de la vida y del hombre, equidistante de las posiciones del liberalismo y del socialismo radicales. (shrink)

Journal Name: Semiotica Issue: Ahead of print.

Researching for the sources of the Ars geomantiae – the oldest divinatory handbook of Western geomancy, translated from Arabic into Latin by Hugo of Santalla in 12th-century northern Spain – led to a double outcome: on the one hand, it showed the nature of Hugo’s cultural competence, imbued with the texts and scientific knowledge of his time; on the other hand, it revealed a series of historico-philosophical and philological data relating to the appearance of his version. In particular, the analysis (...) of the three explicit sources of the Sayings attributed to Socrates, of the Centiloquium of pseudo-Ptolemy and of the Isagoge ad Techne Galieni of Iohannitius has allowed not only to give a direct insight into the fundamental contribution of Arabic culture in the 12th-century translation of scientific studies, but also to carry out a more certain clarification on the dating of the Ars geomantiae and its placement within the translating activity of the master of Santalla. Finally, the question of the hermeticity of the text, raised by the reference to Enoch, one of the three Hermes of Abu- Ma’šar’s legend, has specified to what extent the Ars geomantiae belongs to the Hermetic tradition. (shrink)

According to Thagard and Stewart :1–33, 2011), creativity results from the combination of neural representations, and combination results from convolution, an operation on vectors defined in the holographic reduced representation framework. They use these ideas to understand creativity as it occurs in many domains, and in particular in science. We argue that, because of its algebraic properties, convolution alone is ill-suited to the role proposed by Thagard and Stewart. The semantic pointer concept allows us to see how we can apply (...) the full range of HRR operations while keeping the modal representations so central to Thagard and Stewart’s theory. By adding another combination operation and using semantic pointers as the combinatorial basis, this modified version overcomes the limitations of the original theory and perhaps helps us explain aspects of creativity not covered by the original theory. While a priori reasons cast doubts on the use of HRR operations with modal representations :5039–5054, 1987) such as semantic pointers, recent models point in the other direction, allowing us to be optimistic about the success of the revised version. (shrink)

While many sociocultural, contextual, biological, behavioral, and psychological variables may contribute to the widespread under-representation of girls and women in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics field, this study focused on STEM-gender stereotypes, school experiences, and adolescence as critical factors in driving students' interest and motivation in STEM. Based on this, the study investigated differences by gender and national context in adolescents' STEM-gender stereotypes, school empowerment, and school engagement in a preliminary step, and simultaneously examined how adolescents' STEM-gender stereotypes were (...) related to school empowerment and school engagement as well as to socioeconomic status. These latter relations were considered within the context of the potential moderating role of gender and national context. Participants included 213 Italian adolescents and 214 Nigerian adolescents, who completed measures of school empowerment and engagement, STEM-gender stereotypes, and SES. A multivariate analysis of covariance showed that Nigerian girls and boys reported significantly higher levels of school empowerment, school engagement, and STEM-gender stereotypes than their Italian peers. Moreover, regardless of the national context, boys scored significantly higher on school empowerment and STEM-gender stereotypes than girls. Furthermore, a multiple-group path analysis revealed how higher school empowerment was related to lower STEM-gender stereotypes in both Italian and Nigerian girls' groups, while higher school engagement was associated with lower STEM-gender stereotypes only in the Nigerian groups. Regardless of gender and nationality, higher SES was linked to lower STEM-gender stereotypes. These findings particularly suggest that school empowerment and school engagement can be relevant dimensions to be studied and to develop strategies to counteract STEM-gender stereotypes in adolescence. Nonetheless, gender and national context are key factors to be considered. Limitations, strengths, future research, and educational implications are discussed. (shrink)

Previous studies consistently showed age-related differences in temporal judgment and temporal memory. Importantly, emotional valence plays a crucial role in older adults’ information processing. In this study, we examined the effects of emotions at the intersection between time and memory, analysing age-related differences in a temporal source memory task. Twenty-five younger adults (age range 18–35), 25 old adults (age range 65–74), and 25 old–old adults (age range 75–84) saw a series of emotional pictures in three sessions separated by a one-day (...) rest period. In the fourth session, participants were asked to indicate in which session (1, 2, or 3) they saw each picture. Results showed that old–old adults tended to collocate negative pictures distant in time, while positive stimuli were remembered as more recent than real, compared to neutral pictures. To a lower extent, people over 65 showed the same pattern of results. In contrast, emotional valence did not affect younger adults’ temporal positioning of stimuli. Current findings fit well with the Socio-Emotional Selectivity Theory’s assumptions and extended the literature on the positivity effect to temporal source memory. (shrink)

In the U.S., ‘employee wellness’ programs are increasingly attached to employer-provided health insurance. These programs attempt to nudge employees, sometimes quite forcefully, into healthy behaviors such as smoking cessation and exercise routines. Despite being widely promoted as saving on healthcare costs, numerous studies undermine this rationale. After documenting the programs’ failure to deliver a positive return on investment, we analyze them as instead providing an opportunity for employers to exercise increasing control over their employees. Based on human capital theory and (...) neoliberal models of subjectivity that emphasize personal control and responsibility, these programs treat wellness as a lifestyle that employees must be cajoled into adopting, extending the workplace not just into the home but into the bodies of workers, and entrenching the view that one belongs to one’s workplace. At the same time, their selective endorsement of health programs (many scientifically unsupported) produce a social truth of wellness framed as fitness for work. We conclude by arguing that the public health initiatives occluded by the private sector’s promotion of wellness programs would be a much better investment of resources. (shrink)

On the basis of an analysis of the relevant parts of Tractatus logico-philosophicus, a definition of the property of saying something, and of the obviously correlated property of saying nothing, is given. By applying that definition, both tautologies and contradictions are sanctioned as saying nothing, as lacking sense, in full agreement with Wittgenstein's explicit statements. On the other hand, a recent systematic attempt by A. Negro to extract from the Tractatus a criterion for sense containment and a criterion for saying (...) more, that is, for comparing the amount of sense of propositions, leads to the conclusion that the sense of any proposition is contained in the sense of a contradiction and that contradictions say more than any other propositions. The problem faced in this paper is that of restoring consistency between Negro's criteria, which on the whole give a correct interpretation of the text of the Tractatus, and Wittgenstein's thesis that, not only tautologies, but also contradictions say nothing. (shrink)

This book challenges the Western contemporary “praise for Nature”. From food to body practices, from ecological discourses to the Covid-19 pandemic, contemporary imaginaries abound with representations of an ideal “pure Nature”, essentially defined according to a logic of denial of any artificial, modified, manipulated — in short, cultural — aspect. How should we contextualise and understand such an opposition, especially in light of the rich semantic scope of the term “nature” and its variability over time? And how can we — (...) if we actually can — envisage alternative models and approaches capable of better accounting for such richness and variability? The author addresses these fundamental issues, combining an initial theoretical problematisation of the concept of nature and its evolution — from classical philosophy to the crucial changes occurred through the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, Romanticism and the modern era, finally considering recent insights in philosophy, sociology, cultural anthropology and semiotics — with the analysis of its discursivisation — from the iconography of Mother Nature between the past and the present to the representation of catastrophic events in fictional and non-fictional texts, from clean eating and other popular food trends to the ambivalence of the naked body between its supposed natural ascription and its multiple cultural characterisations. Thus she introduces a critique of pure Nature, providing a systematic study of the way nature is attributed meaning and value in some of today’s most relevant discourses and practices, and finally tracing a possible path towards an “internatural turn”. (shrink)

Robotics has been increasingly adopted by religious communities around the world. In late 2015, a prototype of the “robot-monk” Xian’er was inaugurated at the Longquan Monastery in Beijing, with a second-generation model added in 2016 and a third robot released in 2018. Since then, Xian’er has been reciting Buddhist mantras and offering guidance on matters of faith to the thousands of worshippers visiting the temple every year or connecting with it online. In 2017, a robotic arm performing the Hindu Aarti (...) ritual, which involves moving a light in front of a deity following a circular pattern, also appeared. The same year, on the occasion of the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, Germany’s Protestant Church introduced a “robot-priest” called BlessU-2, able to give blessings in several languages, with a male or female voice. In 2018, roboticist Gabriele Trovato designed SanTO (acronym of “Sanctified Theomorphic Operator”), a small robot drawing inspiration from the statues of saints, in the aim to offer spiritual succour to Catholic believers, keep them company during prayer, and teach catechism. Such innovations are markedly changing the way people experience faith and religious practices, through a process of _dis_- and _re_-embodiment of “officiating agents”, which entails relevant transformations in terms of meaning-making processes, as well as related to the way devotees engage in ethical reasoning and decision-making, and to the normative protocols needed to regulate them. This paper addresses these crucial issues through a semiocultural approach, combining theoretical reflection with the analysis of the above-mentioned case studies. (shrink)

This volume offers new insights into food and culture. Food habits, preferences, and taboos are partially regulated by ecological and material factors - in other words, all food systems are structured and given particular functioning mechanisms by specific societies and cultures, either according to totemic, sacrificial, hygienic-rationalist, aesthetic, or other symbolic logics. This provides much “food for thought”. The famous expression has never been so appropriate: not only do cultures develop unique practices for the production, treatment and consumption of food, (...) but such practices inevitably end up affecting food-related aspects and spheres that are generally perceived as objectively and materially defined. This book explores such dynamics drawing on various theoretical approaches and analytical methodologies, thus enhancing the cultural reflection on food and, at the same time, helping us see how the study of food itself can help us understand better what we call “culture”. It will be of interest to anthropologists, philosophers, semioticians and historians of food. (shrink)

A number of studies have investigated glossolalia from different points of view, dealing with its various occurrences in the religious, psychopathological, and – more recently – also poetic and musical domains. The impossibility of fully understanding such a phenomenon through a purely linguistic approach has then increasingly emerged, pointing out the need to adopt a broader perspective. However, no extensive research has been developed on musical glossolalia – and especially on its non-religious forms – from such a point of view. (...) The present paper aims precisely at filling this gap: philosophical discussion of existing literature and the semiotic analysis of particularly relevant case studies of glossolalia in the musical domain help us shed new light on the functioning mechanisms of such a phenomenon, hence suggesting effective tools for understanding how it acquires meaning and produces sense. (shrink)

Wittgenstein's role was vital in establishing mathematics as one of this century's principal areas of philosophic inquiry. In this book, the three phases of Wittgenstein's reflections on mathematics are viewed as a progressive whole, rather than as separate entities. Frascolla builds up a systematic construction of Wittgenstein's representation of the role of arithmetic in the theory of logical operations. He also presents a new interpretation of Wittgenstein's rule-following considerations - the `community view of internal relations'.