What I intend to do in the following pages is to focus on what might be termed the most important turn in the very dimension of ideality throughout the history of Western culture: the introduction of the notion of ideal drawn from Plato’s notion of idea, and especially its singular contemporary destiny. In the first part of the article, I am going to analyze Kant’s introduction of the notion of ideal and Hegel’s reading of it, and I am going to (...) argue that the former affirms a dualistic relationship which the latter negates. In the second part of the article, I am going to reason on the actual effects of both the affirmation and the negation of the dualism between the ideal and the real, especially focusing on the forms of totalitarianism and anarchism which characterized the twentieth-century history of Western culture. This will lead me to argue that we should try to avoid both the bad uses of the ideal and the death of the ideal in order to work on a notion of ideal which could be an exceedingly promising tool for us to change and improve the real. This change and improvement can be achieved through the affirmation of the dualistic relationship between the ideal and the real, and more specifically through what I will call an evolutionary notion of ideal versus a revolutionary notion of ideal. (shrink)

This study explores how different actors operating in a knowledge ecosystem catalyse sustainability-oriented innovation. Through collaborative practices among actors, knowledge ecosystems constitute a fertile ground for sustainability-oriented innovation to grow and flourish by creating value for businesses and society. The current literature on knowledge ecosystems is lacking in outlining governing mechanisms to foster collaborative practices aimed at advocating open innovation for sustainability transition. This study aims to close this literature gap. Through interview data collected in a knowledge ecosystem, we apply (...) precepts of grounded theory to reveal four forms of metagovernance—network design, network framing, network management and network participation. This study proposes a conceptual framework of metagovernance forms as powering layers to foster sustainability-oriented innovation in a knowledge ecosystem. We further discuss potential weaknesses that may jeopardise the development of sustainability-oriented innovation in the knowledge ecosystem. This study contributes to the literature on sustainability-oriented innovation by acknowledging metagovernance as the appropriate governing mechanism that balances the activities and processes of sustainability-oriented innovations for becoming and being sustainable. (shrink)

Facebook and other social networking sites allow observation of others’ interactions that in normal, offline life would simply be undetectable. Drawing on this specific property, the theory of social learning, and the most direct implications of emotional contagion, our pilot experiment aimed to test whether the exposure to others’ grateful interactions on Facebook enhances users’ felt gratitude, expressed gratitude, and their subjective well-being. For the threefold purpose, we created ad hoc Facebook groups in which the exposure to some accomplices’ exchange (...) of grateful messages for 2 weeks was experimentally manipulated and users’ felt/expressed gratitude and well-being were consequently assessed. Results partially supported both hypotheses. Observing others’ exchange of grateful posts/comments on Facebook appeared to enhance participants’ in-person expression of gratitude, but not their direct and subjective experiences of gratitude. Similarly, exposure to others’ grateful messages improved some components of subjective well-being, such as satisfaction with life, but not negative and positive affect. Taken together, however, our preliminary findings suggest for the first time that social networking sites may actually amplify the spreading of gratitude and its benefits. Implications of our results for professionals and future research in the field of health, education, and social media communication are discussed. (shrink)

The present study had two goals: to test the validity of Planned Happenstance Career Inventory in the Italian context and to explore the relations between PHC skills and vocational identity processes within a sample of 472 undergraduate students attending university in the southern of Italy. Moreover, we examined relations between the PHCI and measures of vocational identity processes. With regard to the first goal, results show that for the Italian version of the instrument was confirmed the multifactor structure of the (...) original version. The multi-group analyses showed that invariance between genders is supported. Convergent validity and divergent validity of the measure were reported. Concerning the second goal, the skills of planned happenstance show different associations with Vocational Identity Dimensions. As hypothesized, the exploration and commitment dimensions of vocational identity status are positive related to Planned Happenstance Skills. These findings suggest implications for career guidance and counseling. (shrink)

Recent studies reported the development of psychological distress symptoms in patients who recovered from COVID-19. However, evidence is still scarce and new data are needed to define the exact risk and protective factors that can explain the variability in symptoms manifestation. In this study, we enrolled 257 patients who recovered from COVID-19 and we evaluated the levels of psychological distress through the Symptoms Checklist-90-R scale. Data concerning illness-related variables were collected from medical records, while the presence of subjective cognitive difficulties, (...) both before and after the illness, as well as the level of the cognitive reserve, were assessed over a clinical interview. Results revealed that being female and reporting the presence of subjective cognitive difficulties after COVID-19 were associated with higher levels of psychological distress. At the same time, being admitted to the hospital and having a high CR were protective factors. Adding new information to this emerging research field, our results highlight the importance of a complete psychological and cognitive assessment in patients with COVID-19. (shrink)

Existenz und Coexistenz č l'opera in cui Eugen Fink espone la sua filosofia sociale in base ai presupposti dell'ontologia del "Mondo" che egli sviluppa a partire dal secondo dopoguerra. Cosě come questa ontologia si compone di piani di analisi differenti, anche la struttura della socialitÀ si rivela complessa e stratificata, tesa fra la descrizione fenomenologica e l'approfondimento speculativo. L'obiettivo del saggio č di esaminare tanto le premesse metodiche e teoriche dell'indagine finkiana, quanto le sue componenti strutturali, al fine di ricostruire (...) la risposta fornita dal pensatore alla questione della coesistenza, nonché la sua originale definizione del rapporto fra individuo e comunitÀ. (shrink)

La raccolta di saggi di estetica analitica curata da Giovanni Matteucci è introdotta da un contributo di Paolo D’Angelo che conclude: «la reciproca ignoranza che caratterizza l’estetica analitica e quella “continentale” (loro non ci leggono, noi non li leggiamo) è forse più di una stranezza: è uno scandalo che non sarebbe considerato tollerabile in qualsiasi settore della ricerca scientifica». Per cominciare a rispondere allo “scandalo”, che è più italiano che d’Oltralpe, Elementi di estetica...

La raccolta di saggi di estetica analitica curata da Giovanni Matteucci è introdotta da un contributo di Paolo D’Angelo che conclude: “la reciproca ignoranza che caratterizza l’estetica analitica e quella ‘continentale’ (loro non ci leggono, noi non li leggiamo) è forse più di una stranezza: è uno scandalo che non sarebbe considerato tollerabile in qualsiasi settore della ricerca scientifica”. Per cominciare a rispondere allo “scandalo”, che è più italiano che d’Oltralpe, Elementi di estetica...

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)

Si esamina, nell'esperienza giuridica, lo stato di eccezione nel senso più generale, come fenomeno straordinario, eventuale, ma che, una volta verificatosi, non possa rimanere giuridicamente ignorato né inspiegabile, analogamente al concetto del miracolo in teologia. Lo stato di eccezione non può essere neppure limitato alle sole condizioni di necessità; non può essere affrontato e risolto con le sole argomentazioni inerenti lo stato di costrizione, che rappresenta solo un aspetto della sua casistica, comprendente anche fattispecie create dall'esclusivo e libero esercizio della (...) volontà di chi provoca o determina lo stesso stato di eccezione. Per analizzare le caratteristiche del ragionamento giuridico nello stato di eccezione, si esaminano due casi. Il primo caso riguarda la cospirazione, il secondo caso di eccezione è la definizione giuridica dei diritti umani. (shrink)

In what follows, I shall focus on what may be defined as the engineering of hu- mans from a philosophical perspective. More precisely, I shall reflect upon the way in which our language increasingly changes when we define our relationship with emerging technologies, specifically human digital twins, which, as our tech- nological replica, can serve as privileged standpoints to try to understand the meaning of the shift from using distinguishable words to define humans and technologies (for instance, when we happen (...) to talk about our health in terms of self-perception) to using indistinguishable words to define humans and technol- ogies (for instance, when we happen to talk about our health in terms of human digital twins’ diagnoses and prognoses). The change of our language shows a kind of optimisation that is taken to the extreme, starting with the optimisation of human bodies’ performances: the more engineered humans are (in that they identify their purpose not with feeling good, for instance, but with preforming in faster and more profitable ways), the better they are (in that they measure themselves not against typically human values, such as feeling good, for in- stance, but against typically engineering values, such as efficiency). But a re- markable paradox emerges, whose meaning shall be the core of my philosophical reflection: the more humans work on optimising themselves, the more they (par- adoxically) work on moving optimisation from themselves, i.e. their capabilities as autonomous humans (starting with self-perception), to technologies, i.e. ways of engineering, specifically automating, themselves. (shrink)

The notion of je ne sais quoi, whose rise characterises the decades in which the first scientific revolution marks a turning point in Western culture, tries to identify the human capacity for grasping what exceeds knowledge resulting from logos. But the further steps of the triumph of logos, starting from the second scientific revolution and its further developments, increasingly determine its fall. Moreover, th e recent history of Western culture may be read as follows: we have been increasingly entrusting our (...) understanding of what is and our prediction of what will be to an even more restricted form of rationality coinciding with logos, first, by progressively restricting logos to computation and, second, by progressively externalising computation from our minds to technologies, specifically algorithmic technologies. As such, should we think that computation is increasingly occupying the realm of je ne sais quoi by increasingly reckoning the unreckonable? The answer seems affirmative. In what follows, I shall critically focus on a promising case in point to try to understand the radical move from je ne sais quoi to computation: the case of the quantified self, which is addressed by medical humanities and sociology, but quite disregarded by philosophy – alternatively, I shall at least try to introduce the reasons why the case of the quantified self deserves a specifically philosophical study, starting from aesthetics and epistemology. (shrink)

Il presente saggio mette in evidenza come i Beiträge zur Charakterologie di Bahnsen abbiano rappresentato un primo filtro interpretativo per la ricezione in Nietzsche di alcuni importanti temi della filosofia di Schopenhauer. Il giovane Nietzsche condivide non solo la critica di Bahnsen al radicale dualismo posto da Schopenhauer tra volontà e intelletto, ma anche la tesi che le inclinazioni intellettuali derivino dalla peculiarità del carattere individuale. Le osservazioni di Bahnsen sulla dottrina del carattere di Schopenhauer rappresentano la chiave interpretativa con (...) cui Nietzsche spiega la sua adesione alla filosofia di Schopenhauer. Dal punto di vista di Nietzsche l’affinità con Schopenhauer è prova di un carattere incapace di soddisfare il suo bisogno metafisico attraverso il ricorso alla religione. Nietzsche concorda anche con Bahnsen sul fatto che l'eccessiva auto-riflessione inibisca l'azione e l'espressione autentica del carattere individuale e, di conseguenza, che la voce dell'istinto sia preferibile alla guida dell'intelletto. (shrink)

This book deals with the ethics of technology and addresses specific ethical problems related to some emerging technologies, mainly in the field of computer science (from machine learning models to extracting value from data to human–robot interaction). The contributions are authored mainly by scholars in ICT and other engineering fields who reflect on ethical and societal issues emerging from their own research activity. Thus, rather uniquely, the work overcomes the traditional divide between pure ethical theory that disregards what practitioners do (...) and mere R&D practice that ignores what theorists conceptualize. Conversely, the reader is enabled to understand what ethics means when it is actually put into work by engineering researchers. The book arises from a joint program between MIT and Politecnico di Milano aimed at training early career researchers in addressing the ethical issues of technology and critically reflecting on the social impacts of the emerging, and even disruptive, technologies they are currently developing through their novel research. Overall, it aims at spreading the task of developing technologies that, from the beginning, are designed to be responsible for human life, society, and nature. (shrink)

La relazione tra bellezza e utilità in architettura appare più complicata nel presente che nel passato. In particolare, nella cultura contemporanea si manifesta un antagonismo paradossale tra la prima e la seconda: più nascondiamo, e addirittura neghiamo, la dimensione dell’utilità di un oggetto architettonico più abbiamo la possibilità di aumentare la dimensione della sua bellezza. Ragionare sul significato della nozione di forma, articolata in morphe (la forma concreta, reale) ed eidos (la forma astratta, ideale), può portarci verso una soluzione possibile, (...) secondo la quale parlare di un eidos, che è eteronomo e referenziale e risponde ai bisogni e alle aspirazioni degli esseri umani, significa parlare di un eidos che include, e non esclude, l’idea che l’oggetto architettonico sia utile alle richieste umane – in particolare, a qualcosa che potremmo chiamare “misura umana ideale”. Allora, un oggetto architettonico può essere bello se la sua dimensione estetica afferma, e non nega, la sua utilità, perché affermare la sua utilità significa affermare una parte essenziale del suo statuto identitario. In ultimo, la relazione tra morphe ed eidos può essere istruttiva anche a proposito di altri due casi: il primo riguarda una morphe che sembra generare un eidos inedito; il secondo riguarda l’utilità di un elemento ornamentale. (shrink)

The aim of the article is reasoning on an analogy which may help understand what an algorithm can do and, especially, cannot do. The analogy is given by Poe’s Philosophy of composition, in which, by making reference to his poem The raven, he argues for a singular strategy of composition we may compare with an algorithmic writing. KeywordsAlgorithm, Philosophy of technology, Poe.

Between 1942 and 1943 seventeen important Italian architects published in “Domus”, which is one of the most prestigious journals of architecture, the designs of their ideal houses. The analysis of their proposals is singularly instructive for those philosophers who are interested in reasoning on the notion of ideal: the results of a precise concrete use of it clarify its philosophical meaning both in regard with the notion of ideal in general and in regard with the notion of ideal human being (...) in particular, if it is true that these architects’ exercises of imagination prove that there is no thought of ideal house if there is no thought of ideal human being as its foundation. (shrink)

Nelle pagine che chiudono la monografia The Transfiguration of the Commonplace: a Philosophy of Art Danto osserva che lo stile segue il destino che la sua etimologia determina: c’è stile quando lo stilus, che è lo strumento di scrittura latino che ha la caratteristica di lasciare «qualcosa del proprio carattere sulla superficie che segna», lascia sulla “superficie” “qualcosa” «del carattere della mano che lo dirige». Lo stile è una questione di “carattere” nel senso nel quale Aristotele descr...

The hendiadys of technology and ethics is neither novel nor what we really need. Even though dialogue between ethicsEthicsand technology, namely the humanitiesHumanities / human scientistand the social sciencesSocial sciences / social scientist, on the one hand, and science and engineeringEngineering / engineer, on the other hand, is explicitly encouraged in various ways, doing this effectively remains difficult. Obstacles to an authentic dialogue are many, ranging from scientific reasons to research policy reasons to institutional reasons. After reviewing these various obstacles, (...) we propose to pursue the following suggestion in order to overcome these difficulties: we do not just need more ethics, we need a qualitative shift. That is to say, rather than delegating the task of evaluating technological outcomes to moral philosophers and social scientistsSocial sciences / social scientist, we need to make the technological system capable of designing technology through ethicsEthics. This is precisely illustrated by the contributions collected in this volume, which are the result of a collaboration between the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Politecnico di Milano. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to analyze some rising issues that indexicality places to Husserl’s phenomenological semantics. We will conduct the discussion availing ourselves of the husserlian formulation of the problem and his attempt to solution, and of approaches to the problem from analytic philosophy and linguistics. In particular, in order to understand what essentially characterize indexicality and make it a puzzling problem, we will examine two of its fundamental features, that is the relationships it maintains with context and (...) perspective. We will try to sound out their compatibility with Husserl’s analysis and to highlight some internal difficulties in the phenomenological approach to the topic. (shrink)

Massimo Reichlin, Fondamenti di bioetica; Antonio D'Aloia, a cura di, La tempesta del Covid. Dimensioni bioetiche; Maria Zanichelli, a cura di, La persona come categoria bioetica. Prospettive umanistiche; Ferruccio Andolfi, a cura di, L'uomo e l'unico; Roberto Cipriani, L'incerta fede. Un'indagine quanti-qualitativa in Italia; Marcella D'Abbiero, Affetti privati, pubbliche virtù. La psiche come fattore politico.

The paper focuses on the current conditions of the Shoah’s memory transmission. The purpose is to point out the frames where a contemporary theory and praxis of the collective memory can be formulated. The first section, reffering to most recent studies, shows both components caracterizing today’s process of memorizing the Shoah: the passagge from memory to post-memory (Hirsh) and the whirling increase of the chance to record and reproduce the past (Derrida, Ferraris). In the second secion, referring to this theoretical (...) frame, I analyse the radical trasformations of the monument as the traditional media of the european public memory. The reference to the empirical case of the Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas, the Shoah’s Memorial designed by Peter Eisenman, underlines the shift from monument to counter-monument (Young, J. E.) by materializing both the troubles and an inventive strategy to exit the saturation of the current memorial speech. (shrink)