This article claims that, despite its ambivalent relationship with the heterarchical paradigm,A Union of Peoplesis a truly innovative contribution to the complex debate on the European project, especially in the current troubled climate. Its ability to dismantle the prevailing positivist understanding of the interaction between legal orders and to stand out from the overwhelming and often repetitive literature on the philosophy of EU law should be praised. What is especially noteworthy is the idea of “corrective justice.” This notion explains very (...) well the adoption of financial assistance measures as expression of a new form of solidarity, based on the notion of fair redress for a committed wrong, namely the structural deficiencies detectable in the design of the eurozone. (shrink)

The question addressed by this article is whether a form of constituent power exists at the EU level. It is argued that European integration has not suppressed the idea of people as constituent power. Instead, the idea of ‘people’ has been constructed through the discourses of security and rights. Ever since the early stages of European integration, the security and rights discourses have consisted in the articulation of a meta-constitutional rationale, which is here called the ‘security of the European project’, (...) i.e. a form of political morality that is pursued by the EU as a polity over time and aims at its own survival. Security and rights discourses have contributed to constructing two ideas of ‘people-as-constituent-power’. The first idea is that of ‘mobile people’, i.e. people exercising EU free movement rights. The second idea is that of ‘peoples’ in the plural, conceived as States and citizens at the same time. Nevertheless, these discourses are characterised by a certain degree of ambiguity and have been unrolling as if the development of the EU polity was a mere technical, neutral matter. This state of affairs cannot continue: the European project has always been a political project, and, as integration reaches its more advanced stages, the time has come to disclose its political nature and address conflict openly. (shrink)

The book ‘The Methodology of Constitutional Theory’, edited by Kyritsis and Lakin, is a welcome contribution to the field of public law and legal theory. It is a rich and varied collection of essay...

Human brain organoids (HBOs) are three-dimensional biological entities grown in the laboratory in order to recapitulate the structure and functions of the adult human brain. They can be taken to be novel living entities for their specific features and uses. As a contribution to the ongoing discussion on the use of HBOs, the authors identify three sets of reasons for moral concern. The first set of reasons regards the potential emergence of sentience/consciousness in HBOs that would endow them with a (...) moral status whose perimeter should be established. The second set of moral concerns has to do with an analogy with artificial womb technology. The technical realization of processes that are typically connected to the physiology of the human body can create a manipulatory and instrumental attitude that can undermine the protection of what is human. The third set concerns the new frontiers of biocomputing and the creation of chimeras. As far as the new frontier of organoid intelligence is concerned, it is the close relationship of humans with new interfaces having biological components capable of mimicking memory and cognition that raises ethical issues. As far as chimeras are concerned, it is the humanization of nonhuman animals that is worthy of close moral scrutiny. A detailed description of these ethical issues is provided to contribute to the construction of a regulative framework that can guide decisions when considering research in the field of HBOs. (shrink)

Lewis et al. (2011) attempted to restore the reputation of Samuel George Morton, a 19th century physician who reported on the skull sizes of different folk-races. Whereas Gould (1978) claimed that Morton’s conclusions were invalid because they reflected unconscious bias, Lewis et al. alleged that Morton’s findings were, in fact, supported, and Gould’s analysis biased. We take strong exception to Lewis et al.’s thesis that Morton was “right.” We maintain that Gould was right to reject Morton’s analysis as inappropriate and (...) misleading, but wrong to believe that a more appropriate analysis was available. Lewis et al. fail to recognize that there is, given the dataset available, no appropriate way to answer any of the plausibly interesting questions about the “populations” in question (which in many cases are not populations in any biologically meaningful sense). We challenge the premise shared by both Gould and Lewis et al. that Morton’s confused data can be used to draw any meaningful conclusions. This, we argue, reveals the importance of properly focusing on the questions asked, rather than more narrowly on the data gathered. (shrink)

17 lessons in the discipline of desire -- 18 lessons in the discipline of action -- 17 lessons in the discipline of assent.

Lewis et al. (2011) attempted to restore the reputation of Samuel George Morton, a 19th century physician who reported on the skull sizes of different folk-races. Whereas Gould (1978) claimed that Morton's conclusions were invalid because they reflected unconscious bias, Lewis et al. alleged that Morton's findings were, in fact, supported, and Gould's analysis biased. We take strong exception to Lewis et al.’s thesis that Morton was “right.” We maintain that Gould was right to reject Morton's analysis as inappropriate and (...) misleading, but wrong to believe that a more appropriate analysis was available. Lewis et al. fail to recognize that there is, given the dataset available, no appropriate way to answer any of the plausibly interesting questions about the “populations” in question (which in many cases are not populations in any biologically meaningful sense). We challenge the premise shared by both Gould and Lewis et al. that Morton's confused data can be used to draw any meaningful conclusions. This, we argue, reveals the importance of properly focusing on the questions asked, rather than more narrowly on the data gathered. (shrink)

Giovanni Jervis was a prominent figure in the Italian intellectual landscape of the last fifty years. A student of the philosopher-ethnologist Ernesto De Martino, the main focus of his research was on social psychiatry and psychology, the foundations of psychology, and the psychological aspects of social and political problems. This article explores his rethinking of the psychoanalytic criticism of the subject. I shall try to show that Jervis has given shape to the premises of a philosophical anthropology that originally aims (...) to fit aspects of de Martino’s phenomenological psychology of identity and the psychodynamic theme of defense mechanisms into the ontological framework of the cognitive sciences. (shrink)

We report the identification of a recurrent, 520-kb 16p12.1 microdeletion associated with childhood developmental delay. The microdeletion was detected in 20 of 11,873 cases compared with 2 of 8,540 controls and replicated in a second series of 22 of 9,254 cases compared with 6 of 6,299 controls. Most deletions were inherited, with carrier parents likely to manifest neuropsychiatric phenotypes compared to non-carrier parents. Probands were more likely to carry an additional large copy-number variant when compared to matched controls. The clinical (...) features of individuals with two mutations were distinct from and/or more severe than those of individuals carrying only the co-occurring mutation. Our data support a two-hit model in which the 16p12.1 microdeletion both predisposes to neuropsychiatric phenotypes as a single event and exacerbates neurodevelopmental phenotypes in association with other large deletions or duplications. Analysis of other microdeletions with variable expressivity indicates that this two-hit model might be more generally applicable to neuropsychiatric disease. © 2010 Nature America, Inc. All rights reserved. (shrink)

Volume 11, Issue 1, March 2020, Page 92-100.

We prove ExpTime-membership of the satisfiability problem for loosely ∀-guarded first-order formulas with a bounded number of variables and an unbounded number of constants. Guarded fragments with constants are interesting by themselves and because of their connection to hybrid logic.

Part One: The problems of modern hermeneutics of the Qur'ān: 1. What is hermeneutics? -- 2. The Qur'ān as event -- 3. Tafsīr and ta'wīl -- 4. Symbolism -- 5. Being and language -- 6. Literary hermeneutics -- 7. Structure and historicity -- 8. Scientific hermeneutics -- 9. The translation of the Qur'ān as hermeneutical exercise -- 10. Hermeneutics and praxis -- Conclusion -- Part two: The Qur'ān and phenomenology: 1. Introduction -- 2. A phenomenological path in the Qur'ān -- (...) Conclusion: From hermeneutics to praxis -- Bibliography -- Index. (shrink)

This book provides a detailed discussion of the theoretical and practical implications of the change driven by ICTs. Such a change is often much more profound than an emphasis on information technology and society can capture, for not only does it bring about ethical and policy vacuums that call for a new understanding of ethics, politics and law, but it also "re-ontologizes reality", as propounded by Luciano Floridi's philosophy and ethics of information. The informational turn is transforming our understanding of (...) reality by challenging the conventional ways we have of thinking about our world and our identities in terms of stable and enduring structures and beliefs. The information age we inhabit brings to completion our self-understanding as informational systems that produce, process, and exchange information with other informational systems, in an environment that is itself made up of information. The present volume provides us with a better understanding of the normative nature and role of information, helping us to grasp the sense and extent to which informational resources serve as "constraining affordances" guiding our behaviours. It does so by delineating the background against which we build our beliefs about reality, make decisions, and behave, through our interactions with a multi-agent system that is increasingly dependent on ICTs. The book will be of interest to a vast audience, ranging from information technologists, ethicists, policy makers, social and legal scholars, and all those willing to embrace the following three tenets: we construct our world and ourselves informationally; by constructing our world and ourselves we thereby become aware of our limits; it is precisely these limits that make us become human beings. (shrink)

È possibile esporre e comprendere l’etica ebraica ‘stando su un piede solo’ ossia in poche e semplici formule? Non è piuttosto il giudaismo un cammino lungo e complesso, e dunque anzitutto halakhà, un insieme di norme tese a santificare la vita quotidiana e a rafforzare un’identità di popolo? Quali sono i nessi tra la sfera etica, di sua natura universale, e la sfera delle pratiche simbolico-rituali, che caratterizzano e rendono particolare lo stile di vita ebraico? Cosa dice poi il pensiero (...) rabbinico in merito all’etica del lavoro, o sulle attuali urgenze ecologiche, sull’esercizio del potere, sulla difesa dei diritti umani? In queste pagine la delicata questione del rapporto tra etica e halakhà viene indagata alla luce degli antichi dibattiti rabbinici fino alle discussioni contemporanee passando naturalmente attraverso la grande lezione etica di Maimonide. Uno studio affascinante e impegnativo, guidato dalla stella polare della giustizia, secondo il dettame della Torà: “La giustizia, la giustizia seguirai” (Deuteronomio 16,20). (shrink)

Si analizza lo stretto rapporto tra il diritto (in particolare, il linguaggio giuridico) e la comunicazione fin dall'antichità, segnatamente in relazione al concetto di legittimazione della sovranità; si esaminano alcuni aspetti metodologici comunicativi (in special modo informativi) e giuridici alla luce delle loro prospettive storiche ed economiche. Si presentano ed analizzano alcuni differenti orizzonti comunicativi, quali quelli propri delle scienze economiche e, nelle scienze giuridiche, quelli connessi alla struttura proposizionale e argomentativa del discorso giuridico, con particolare riferimento alle teorie dell'argomentazione (...) di R. Alexy e J. Habermas ed alla possibilità di delineare una procedura regolamentare per assicurarne il controllo di razionalità. La questione centrale affrontata è l'esigenza di conciliare le metodologie comunicative e i caratteri propri del diritto, senza snaturarne le rispettive funzioni. Uno dei nodi fondamentali è costituito dalle condizioni di accessibilità e partecipazione alla comunicazione e all’informazione giuridica, elementi socialmente critici, connessi all'attuazione del principio di eguaglianza in ogni ordinamento giuridico. La distanza tra l'esoterica sfera del linguaggio giuridico e la dimensione concreta dei suoi destinatari, in massima parte soggetti ai quali spesso non ne risulta comprensibile tanto la forma quanto il contenuto (ma non per questo meno coinvolti negli effetti provocati dall'applicazione del diritto), richiede la ricerca di soluzioni complesse ed articolate, non esauribili nella mera applicazione delle pur elaborate e raffinate metodologie comunicative, spesso attuabili senza particolari adattamenti in molti casi di interazione con altre discipline. Infine, si esaminano le ulteriori opportunità offerte dallo sviluppo di nuove tecnologie e dalla loro applicazione al diritto, riscontrandovi la medesima esigenza di appropriate valutazioni e variazioni per il loro adattamento alle particolarità della comunicazione giuridica. (shrink)

Già nel 1821 Guizot ammonisce il governo francese, ma più generalmente tutti gli operatori del diritto, contro il diffondersi dell'impiego della teoria dei “fatti generali” nei processi per reati politici, considerandola un'intollerabile ingerenza politica nella sfera della giustizia e della sua amministrazione. Nei processi penali, l'esposizione e l'esame di fatti generali, “sans rapport direct et visible avec les accusés”, viene criticata da Guizot in quanto usualmente adottata come strumento per colpire fazioni opposte al potere dominante, obbligato, in assenza di fatti (...) e prove specifiche, a piegare la magistratura ai propri desideri, trasformando delle opinioni in autentici reati, contestandone l'uso illegittimo sia da parte dell'inquisizione che del comitato di salute pubblica. In una vicenda contemporanea (l'indagine della procura della repubblica di Roma nei confronti dei dirigenti responsabili del servizio per le informazioni e la sicurezza democratica - SISDE) si può rilevare l'applicazione della teoria dei fatti generali in circostanze opposte a quelle osservate da Guizot; invece di supplire all'assoluta assenza di un qualsiasi reato (assenza comunque caratteristica della maggioranza dei complotti politici, finché non sono posti in atto), dei fatti generali vengono addotti, come strumenti, a fianco di circostanziati, precisi ed individuali indizi (se non addirittura prove, ampiamente documentabili) di reati penalmente rilevanti, relativi a circostanze e fatti niente affatto in fieri, piuttosto accertati e continuati, provocando nuove accuse fino a configurare un autentico tentativo di complotto ai danni delle istituzioni della repubblica. Indipendentemente dall'esito dell'inchiesta, la scomparsa (se non dal codice, almeno dalla prassi giudiziaria) dell'uso di ipotesi cospiratorie e della teoria dei fatti generali costituirebbe un significativo progresso nella civilisation giuridica, facendo tesoro di quanto Guizot esprime sulle cause e conseguenze di tali strumenti e contribuendo a marcare decisamente il limite che separa la giustizia dalla politica. (shrink)

L'importanza del significante non deve far sì che questo sia interpretato come l'unica componente del linguaggio umano, sebbene ne sia una delle più elevate; pur intendendo la comunicazione umana come convenzionale, nel convenire occorre distinguere, tra convenzione essenziale e funzionale: è certo vero che solo nella prima, nel linguaggio come nel diritto, si potrà incontrare il significante, ma nella seconda sono concentrati i molteplici prodotti della prima, che si presentano come precipitati o cristallizzati a seguito di una reazione chimica, che (...) hanno perso sì la dimensione esistenziale, ma hanno conservato origine e natura umane. Così deve essere debitamente considerato anche il ruolo del senso già dato, del significato positivo dei vocaboli: in particolare, proprio nel linguaggio giuridico, politico ed economico, si è sempre manifestato il bisogno di uno specifico vocabolario, se non di un gergo, che risponda con maggior aderenza o efficacia alle esigenze delle argomentazioni trattate. Nel linguaggio giuridico ed economico si può riscontrare una certa omogeneità nelle società complesse contemporanee, una comune tendenza alla generazione (o forse degenerazione) di terminologie e fraseologie esoteriche che si spingono ben al di là delle logiche e necessarie esigenze di specializzazione, somigliando più a gerghi approssimativi (ad esempio il legalese, per gli anglofoni, assume sempre più la fisionomia di un vero e proprio slang) che ad appropriati e scientifici codici comunicativi. Un fenomeno comune a tali linguaggi è il frequente ricorso alle sigle, abbreviazioni o acronimi, il cui uso generalizzato conduce spesso ad effetti in contraddizione con la loro causa originaria: espedienti linguistici apparentemente coniati allo scopo di migliorare, velocizzare ed estendere la comprensione di termini e concetti complessi, al contrario, generano frequentemente confusione e misunderstanding al di fuori del loro specializzato e ristretto ambito di provenienza e, qualche volta, anche all’interno. Un'adeguata risposta alla proliferazione e diffusione di nuove e sommarie terminologie, abbreviazioni e slogan, che solo apparentemente arricchiscono il lessico, restringendo sempre più, al contrario, l'ambito della convenzione essenziale, potrebbe essere forse ottenuta solo attraverso il recupero della dimensione ontologica del linguaggio, mantenendone sì l'elevato grado di specializzazione, ma non rinunciando per questo alla ricchezza espressiva tanto dei vocaboli quanto della fraseologia. (shrink)

Si esaminano gli argomenti di Trasimaco (anche alla luce della posizione di Callicle) e, segnatamente, il rapporto tra la legge e il potere costituito: il raffronto con il pensiero di Carl Schmitt prende avvio dal nodo centrale del significato attribuito al νόμος. Si analizzano le argomentazione nei dialoghi platonici per ricostruire la concezione del νόμος e gli elementi che possono fornire risposte indirette alla questione posta da Trasimaco, al di là della ricerca della definizione del concetto di giustizia, con particolare (...) attenzione alla legge ed alle forme di governo. Si esamina la relazione tra le tesi sulla sovranità elaborate da Schmitt e le teorie sul potere rintracciabili nelle posizioni di Trasimaco e di Callicle in rapporto ai frammenti di Pindaro ed Eraclito. Considerata la centralità della relazione amico-nemico nel pensiero di Schmitt, posta a confronto con le posizioni platoniche, si esamina la distinzione tra la concezione della legge come atto cognitivo di scoperta della verità e la sua fondazione sul principio della decisione da parte di chi detenga il potere sovrano, punto di arrivo dello sviluppo delle tesi hobbesiane da parte di Schmitt. (shrink)

For Guizot, legal sovereignty is a divine, absolute prerogative precluded from mankind. The best possible form of government is that based upon a representative system, since such a system continuosly shifts the attibution of power from one subject to another. Guizot's analysis, which also denies the modern democratic principle of the sovereignty of the will of the people, examines certain aspects common to all representative systems, such as the relationship between the elected and the electorate and between the majority and (...) the minority, independently of the extension of suffrage. In particular, Guizot examines the relationship between public opinion and the common interest in an optic which is beyond his time and proves to be very appropriate today. He consideres the common interest to be a virtual and hypothetical component of the representative relationship, pre-eminent as regards the indications ascertained through the majority vote. (shrink)

The paper addresses two issues that have been recently debated in the literature on free will, moral responsibility, and the theory of punishment. The first issue concerns the descriptive project, the second both the substantive and the prescriptive project. On theoretical, historical and empirical grounds, we claim that there is no rationale for fearing that the spread of neurocognitive findings will undermine the ordinary practice of responsibility attributions. We hypothetically advocate two opposite views: that such findings would cause the collapse (...) of all punitive practices; that, on the contrary, such findings would open the way to more humane forms of punishment, which would be justified on purely utilitarian grounds. We argue that these views are both wrong, since whereas a sound punitive system can be justified without any reference to moral responsibility, it will certainly not improve the humaneness of punishment. (shrink)

This paper is about the development of a face-to-face collaborative technology to support shifting attitudes of participants in conflict via a narration task. The work is based on two cultural elements: conflict resolution theory and the design of a collaboration enforcing interface designed specifically for the task. The general claim is that participants may achieve a greater understanding of and appreciation for the other’s viewpoint under conditions that support partaking in a tangible joint task and creating a shared narration. Specifically, (...) a co-located interface for producing a joint narration as a tool for favoring reconciliation is presented and discussed. The process based on this technology implicitly includes classical steps in conflict resolution approaches, such as escalation and de-escalation. Our goal is to show that this interface is effective and constitutes an alternative to a typical face-to-face moderated discussion. (shrink)

This paper is about the development of a face-to-face collaborative technology to support shifting attitudes of participants in conflict via a narration task. The work is based on two cultural elements: conflict resolution theory and the design of a collaboration enforcing interface designed specifically for the task. The general claim is that participants may achieve a greater understanding of and appreciation for the other’s viewpoint under conditions that support partaking in a tangible joint task and creating a shared narration. Specifically, (...) a co-located interface for producing a joint narration as a tool for favoring reconciliation is presented and discussed. The process based on this technology implicitly includes classical steps in conflict resolution approaches, such as escalation and de-escalation. Our goal is to show that this interface is effective and constitutes an alternative to a typical face-to-face moderated discussion. (shrink)