Nel Corpus Galenicum sono molte le citazioni del nome di Dioscoride e della sua opera, il De materia medica, talvolta con minime differenze nel contenuto o con commenti eruditi di Galeno. Oltre a queste riprese più esplicite, ci sono anche alcuni passaggi degli scritti galenici che potrebbero avere come fonte il De materia medica. Questo anche sulla base di alcuni n-grams che ricorrono in entrambi gli autori, l’uno source text e l’altro target text. Esaminando le citazioni più o meno esplicite (...) dell’opera dioscoridea in Galeno, questo contributo si propone di mostrare l’influenza de il buono accoglitor del quale negli scritti del medico di Pergamo e il suo rapporto con il modello dioscorideo. (shrink)

According to Smell Objectivism, the smells we perceive in olfactory experience are objective and independent of perceivers, their experiences, and their perceptual systems. Variations in how things smell to different perceivers or in different contexts raise a challenge to this view. In this paper, I offer an objectivist account of non-illusory contextual variation: cases where the same thing smells different in different contexts of perception and there is no good reason to appeal to misperception. My central example is that of (...) dihydromyrcenol, a substance that can smell both woody and citrusy depending on what other odourants one has recently been exposed to. I first argue that the subjects’ apparently conflicting reports about the way dihydromyrcenol smells are best understood as comparative characterisations of a smell. Given this understanding, different reports can be correctly made in response to perceiving the very same smell. I then argue that the phenomenal difference between the experiences subjects have across contexts can be explained compatibly with Smell Objectivism. On the account proposed, subjects perceive the very same smell but different qualities, notes, or aspects of it are salient to them, depending on the context of perception. I then consider how the proposed defence of Smell Objectivism can be adapted to other cases where the same thing is reported as smelling different in different contexts. (shrink)

In spite of a large and diverse body of research on the topic, the relationship between Christianity and modernity is still an open question and a nodal point for our understanding of Western civilization. This paper aims at providing an original contribution to this debate by bringing into play the impact of gender-related views and practices. In particular, it focuses on Catholic Modernism, and analyzes this phenomenon and its repression by the Vatican hierarchy from the understudied perspective of female historiography (...) by way of an exemplary case study: the life and work of Maude Petre. Maude Petre (1863–1942) was a British Roman Catholic, member of a female religious community, a leading figure of Catholic Modernism, and one of its first historians. Because of the long-term patterns of gender imbalance which shaped the Catholic establishment and milieu, Petre's position as an active female modernist intellectual gave her a truly unique perspective on the confrontation between tradition and change within Western Christianity. Her work offers an outstanding opportunity to revise existing definitions of Catholic Modernism, while also opening new avenues to interpret the religious entanglements of the Western intellectual tradition at large. (shrink)

Introduction "Of all the Europeans who are living and have lived I have the most universal (umfanglichste) of souls: Plato Voltaire - - - this ...

Fertility treatment enables involuntary childless people to have genetically related children, something that, for many, is a valuable life project. In this paper, I respond to two sets of objections that have been raised against expanding state-funded fertility treatment provision for existing treatments, such as in vitro fertilisation (IVF), and against funding new treatments, such as uterine transplantation (UTx). Following McTernan, I refer to the first set of objections as the ‘one good among many’ objection. It purports that it is (...) unjustifiable for the state to prioritise the funding of the life project of becoming a parent through fertility treatment provision over the funding of other life projects that people might have. Following Lotz, I refer to the second set of objections as the ‘norm-legitimation’ objection. It maintains that the provision of costly forms of fertility treatment, such as UTx, would legitimise problematic social norms concerning genetic relatedness, reproduction and parenting, and that states should not engage in such a legitimation. In response to these objections, I defend the view that (reproductive) preferences ought to be taken more seriously when discussing fertility treatment provision and parental projects, and that not doing so can be costly, especially for women. The approach defended in this paper seeks to avoid disregarding and policing preferences and to reconcile their fulfilment with political projects aimed at improving the material and social conditions of sub-fertile people: people who, for social or biological reasons (or an intersection of the two), are unable to reproduce unassisted. (shrink)

v. 1. Convergences of British schools of psychoanalysis, Piager's analysis, the Gestalt school and ethology, and ethics of British idealism vs logical realism and prescriptivism.

In today’s pluralistic society, clinical ethics consultation cannot count on a pre-given set of rules and principles to be applied to a specific situation, because such an approach would deny the existence of different and divergent backgrounds by imposing a dogmatic and transcultural morality. Clinical ethics support (CES) needs to overcome this lack of foundations and conjugate the respect for the difference at stake with the necessity to find shared and workable solutions for ethical issues encountered in clinical practice. We (...) argue that a pragmatist approach to CES, based on the philosophical theories of William James, John Dewey, and Charles Sanders Peirce, can help to achieve the goal of reaching practical solutions for moral problems in the context of today’s clinical environment, characterized by ethical pluralism. In this article, we outline a pragmatist theoretical framework for CES. Furthermore, we will show that moral case deliberation, making use of the dilemma method, can be regarded an example of a pragmatist approach to CES. (shrink)

Die Reihe Monographien und Texte zur Nietzsche-Forschung (MTNF) setzt seit mehreren Jahrzehnten die Agenda in der sich stetig verändernden Nietzsche-Forschung. Die Bände sind interdisziplinär und international ausgerichtet und spiegeln das gesamte Spektrum der Nietzsche-Forschung wider, von der Philosophie über die Literaturwissenschaft bis zur politischen Theorie. Die Reihe veröffentlicht Monographien und Sammelbände, die einem strengen Peer-Review-Verfahren unterliegen. Die Buchreihe wird von einem internationalen Redaktionsteam geleitet.

In connecting embodied, embedded, extended, and enactive (4E) cognition with affectivity and emotions, the framework of “situated affectivity” has recently emerged. This framework emphasizes the interactions between the emoter and the environment in the unfolding of our affective lives (Colombetti and Krueger 2015; Griffiths and Scarantino 2009; Piredda 2022; Stephan and Walter 2020). In the last decades, there has also been a growing interest in the philosophical analysis of technology and artifacts (Houkes and Vermaas 2010; Margolis and Laurence 2007; Preston (...) 2022). The aim of this special issue is to foster the interaction between philosophical reflections on affectivity and those on technology, further developing this fruitful borderland (Clowes et al. 2021; Colombetti 2020; Fasoli 2018; Krueger and Osler 2019; Heersmink 2018; Piredda and Candiotto 2019; Piredda 2020; Viola 2021). -/- . (shrink)

The benefits of full ectogenesis, that is, the gestation of human fetuses outside the maternal womb, for women ground many contemporary authors’ arguments on the ethical desirability of this practice. In this paper, I present and assess two sets of arguments advanced in favour of ectogenesis: arguments stressing ectogenesis’ equality-promoting potential and arguments stressing its freedom-promoting potential. I argue that although successfully grounding a positive case for ectogenesis, these arguments have limitations in terms of their reach and scope. Concerning their (...) limited reach, I contend that ectogenesis will likely benefit a small subset of women and, arguably, not the group who most need to achieve equality and freedom. Concerning their limited scope, I contend that these defences do not pay sufficient attention to the context in which ectogenesis would be developed and that, as a result, they risk leaving the status quo unchanged. After providing examples of these limitations, I move to my proposal concerning the role of ectogenesis in promoting women’s equality and freedom. This proposal builds on Silvia Federici’s, Mariarosa Dalla Costa’s and Selma James’ readings of the international feminist campaign ‘Wages for Housework’. It maintains that the political perspective and provocation that ectogenesis can advance should be considered and defended. (shrink)

Teaching responsible conduct of research (RCR) to PhD students is crucial for fostering responsible research practice. In this paper, we show how the use of Moral Case Deliberation—a case reflection method used in the Amsterdam UMC RCR PhD course—is particularity valuable to address three goals of RCR education: (1) making students aware of, and internalize, RCR principles and values, (2) supporting reflection on good conduct in personal daily practice, and (3) developing students’ dialogical attitude and skills so that they can (...) deliberate on RCR issues when they arise. What makes this method relevant for RCR education is the focus on values and personal motivations, the structured reflection on real experiences and dilemmas and the cultivation of participants’ dialogical skills. During these structured conversations, students reflect on the personal motives that drive them to adhere to the principles of good science, thereby building connections between those principles and their personal values and motives. Moreover, by exploring personal questions and dilemmas related to RCR, they learn how to address these with colleagues and supervisors. The reflection on personal experiences with RCR issues and questions combined with the study of relevant normative frameworks, support students to act responsibly and to pursue RCR in their day-to-day research practice in spite of difficulties and external constraints. (shrink)

This paper is dedicated to the relationship between ordinary moral thought and ethical theory in Sidgwick’s The Methods of Ethics. I suggest that different contents of ordinary moral thought play different roles and are lent different philosophical weight in Sidgwick’s arguments. I start by showing how Sidgwick appeals to certain features of ordinary moral thought, deduced from moral language and experience, both in criticising rival metaethical positions and in establishing his own claims. I then turn to the notion of common-sense (...) morality. After clarifying what Sidgwick means by this expression, I argue that common-sense morality has neither probative value in Sidgwick’s argument for the utilitarian principle nor independent validity, and that its authority is ultimately motivated on utilitarian grounds. Pointing out how different contents of ordinary moral thought play different argumentative roles in the foundation and defence of Sidgwick’s utilitarianism enables to ac- count more comprehensively for Sidgwick’s arguments and moral methodology and provides with a more articulated account of the dialectic between his utilitarian theory and ordinary moral thought. (shrink)

This article aims to connect issues in the epistemology of modality with issues in the philosophy of music, exploring how modalizing takes place in the context of musical performance. On the basis of studies of jazz improvisation and of classical music, it is shown that considerations about what is sonically, musically, and agentively possible play an important role for performers in the Western tonal tradition. We give a more systematic sketch of how a modal epistemology for musical performance could be (...) constructed. We argue that it is necessary to adopt a pluralist approach toward the modal epistemology of music. (shrink)

In this paper I would like to propose the notion of “affective artifact”, building on an analogy with theories of cognitive artifacts and referring to the development of a situated affective science. Affective artifacts are tentatively defined as objects that have the capacity to alter the affective condition of an agent, and that in some cases play an important role in defining that agent’s self. The notion of affective artifacts will be presented by means of examples supported by empirical findings, (...) by discussing a tentative definition and classification, and by considering several related but differing notions. Within the framework of situated affectivity, the notion of affective artifacts will represent a further step in the enterprise of understanding how the environment helps us scaffold our affective processes. I will conclude that affective artifacts play a key role in the philosophy of cognitive science, the philosophy of technology and in the debate about the self. (shrink)

Smells are often said to be ineffable, and linguistic research shows that languages like English lack a dedicated olfactory lexicon. Starting from this evidence, I propose an account of how we talk about smells in English. Our reports about the way things smell are comparative: When we say that something smells burnt or like roses, we characterise the thing's smell by noting its similarity to the characteristic smells of certain odorous things (burnt things, roses). The account explains both the strengths (...) and limitations of our smell discourse, and has implications for philosophical discussions of the relation between language and appearances. (shrink)

Hinduism is considered one of the most ancient religions in the world. Although the technological innovation of modernization has undermined the reliance on their traditions, Hindus may still rely on Hindu Scripture when making decisions. From their standpoint, contrary to Western medicine, human lives cannot be reduced to statistical and empirical facts. They focus more on preserving the spirit, rather than considering survival as one of the goals of medicine. Consequently, when a preterm infant is born, Hindu parents might struggle (...) to understand the goals of Western neonatologists. This divergence may create misunderstandings when discussing end-of-life decisions. Since they value relational aspects to be of utmost importance, they may accept treatments only in the likelihood of good neurological outcomes. Being able to interact allows Hindus to act virtuously with the aim of purifying their soul toward moksa. When it comes to end-of-life decisions on behalf of newborns, Hindu parents may opt to forgo treatments and let the baby peacefully die, while praying for their soul to have a better rebirth. This paper aims to evaluate quality-of-life assessment in the Hindu tradition in comparison with the Catholic tradition. It draws parallelisms between these two different religions to investigate whether an inter-religious dialogue is possible. This work will help Catholic, and more broadly Western, doctors to have a better understanding of the Hindu end-of-life views. (shrink)

BackgroundClinical ethics support aims to support health care professionals in dealing with ethical issues in clinical practice. Although the prevalence of CES is increasing, it does meet challenges and pressing questions regarding implementation and organization. In this paper we present a specific way of organizing CES, which we have called integrative CES, and argue that this approach meets some of the challenges regarding implementation and organization.MethodsThis integrative approach was developed in an iterative process, combining actual experiences in a case study (...) in which we offered CES to a team that provides transgender health care and reflecting on the theoretical underpinnings of our work stemming from pragmatism, hermeneutics and organizational and educational sciences.ResultsIn this paper we describe five key characteristics of an integrative approach to CES; 1. Positioning CES more within care practices, 2. Involving new perspectives, 3. Creating co-ownership of CES, 4. Paying attention to follow up, and 5. Developing innovative CES activities through an emerging design.ConclusionsIn the discussion we compare this approach to the integrated approach to CES developed in the US and the hub and spokes strategy developed in Canada. Furthermore, we reflect on how an integrative approach to CES can help to handle some of the challenges of current CES. (shrink)

What are conspiracy theories? And what, if anything, is epistemically wrong with them? I offer an account on which conspiracy theories are a unique way of holding a belief in a conspiracy. Specifically, I take conspiracy theories to be self-insulating beliefs in conspiracies. On this view, conspiracy theorists have their conspiratorial beliefs in a way that is immune to revision by counter-evidence. I argue that conspiracy theories are always irrational. Although conspiracy theories involve an expectation to encounter some seemingly disconfirming (...) evidence (allegedly planted by the conspirators), resistance to all counter- evidence cannot be justified on these grounds. (shrink)

This paper is a contribution to the philosophical debate on visual blur from a relationalist perspective. At the same time, it offers a methodological reflection on the adequacy of explanations of phenomenal similarities and differences among perceptual experiences. The debate on seeing blurrily has been shaped by two implicit assumptions concerning our explanations of differences and similarities between experiences of seeing blurrily and other experiences. I call those assumptions into question, and argue that we do not need to provide a (...) unified explanation of the character of blurry experiences for our account to be adequate. The diversity of blurry experiences supports a different, pluralist approach to explanations of how things appear to subjects. (shrink)

The conception of responsibility for beliefs typically assumed in the literature mirrors the practices ofaccountabilityfor actions. In this paper, I argue that this trend leaves a part of what it is to be responsible unduly neglected, namely the practices ofattributability.After offering a diagnosis for this neglect, I bring these practices into focus and develop a virtue-theoretic framework to vindicate them. I then investigate the specificity of the belief case and conclude by resisting two challenges, namely that attributability cannot amount to (...) genuine responsibility and that it can be reduced to a sort of accountability. (shrink)

Responses to the COVID-19 pandemic globally disrupted lives and contributed to the exacerbation of pre-existing inequalities. Women in research were also affected. The prominent role that women played in professional and personal care duties had a detrimental effect on their research outputs, potentially hindering their career progression. Moreover, the challenges faced by women academics during the pandemic, including job loss, increased mental health issues, and the intersection of gender with other socio-demographic traits exacerbated existing gender disparities within academia. By systematically (...) scoping the qualitative literature on the experiences of women researchers during the pandemic, this study sought to explore how women experienced and reacted to the challenges generated by the COVID-19 pandemic. A qualitative meta synthesis of the included studies revealed three themes: gendered professional expectations, colliding identities and coping strategies. These themes show how gendered roles such as teaching and professional care work, associated with the hierarchical and gendered division of tasks both at home and in the workplace, made women feel unsupported and alienated as relevant agents in the academic context. The study reveals the importance of pastoral care, teaching and service work as the essential backbone of the academic infrastructure, especially in times of crises. It also exposes how productivity-focused researcher assessment criteria, rewarding mainly individual results and unrewarding of care and service work, can be viewed as perpetuating structural inequalities based on gender, parenting situations, contractual situations and background. In conclusion, this study exposes the need to proactively address the gendered practices and implicit biases which reproduce inequalities within academia and highlights how paying attention to the experiences and needs of women researchers is essential for improving the resilience and crises preparedness of academic the system. (shrink)

My aim in this paper is to investigate what enables human flourishing from a Thomistic perspective by considering Aquinas’ natural inclinations. I will argue that human beings flourish in different ways, depending on their practices. However, not every practice contributes to human flourishing, but only those that are consistent with human nature, which agents grasp through their natural inclinations. To support this argument, I will critically analyze MacIntyre’s account, referring mainly to his latest work (2016). MacIntyre has the merit of (...) highlighting the role of practices in human flourishing by considering the narrative dimension in the agents’ lives, but he fails to recognize the properly metaphysical framework of human nature, that would be provided by the proper consideration of natural inclinations. (shrink)

1. Historically, our sense of smell has been deemed informationally impoverished, not very discerning, subjective, ineffable, and generally of little value (for an overview, see e.g., Barwich, 2020...

In this paper we suggest an understanding of the self within the conceptual framework of situated affectivity, proposing the notion of an affectively extended self and arguing that the construction, diachronic re-shaping and maintenance of the self is mediated first by affective interactions. We initially consider the different variations on the conception of the extended self that have been already proposed in the literature. We then propose our alternative, contextualising it within the current debate on situated affectivity. While the idea (...) that we exploit the external environment in order to manage our affective life is now rather widespread among philosophers, its potential consequences for and connections with the debate on the self remain underexplored. Drawing on James’ intuition of the “material self”, which clearly connects the self and the emotions in agency, and broadly envisioning an extension of the self beyond its organismic boundaries, we propose our pragmatist conception of the self: an affectively extended self that relies on affective artifacts and practices to construct its identity extended beyond skin and skull. (shrink)

This paper addresses the problem of pluralism in democratic societies, by exploiting some insights from the debate about the epistemology of disagreement. First, by focusing on the permissibility of experiments on nonhuman animals for research purposes, we provide an epistemic analysis of deep normative disagreements. We understand that to mean disagreements in which epistemic peers disagree about both the substantive content of an ethical issue and the correct justificatory reasons for their contrary claims. Second, we argue for a compromise solution (...) in which the reasons for reaching it are not prudential but grounded on the recognition of epistemic peerhood. (shrink)

This paper explores the ethics of introducing genome-editing technologies as a new reproductive option. In particular, it focuses on whether genome editing can be considered a morally valuable alternative to preimplantation genetic diagnosis. Two arguments against the use of genome editing in reproduction are analysed, namely safety concerns and germline modification. These arguments are then contrasted with arguments in favour of genome editing, in particular with the argument of the child’s welfare and the argument of parental reproductive autonomy. In addition (...) to these two arguments, genome editing could be considered as a worthy alternative to PGD as it may not be subjected to some of the moral critiques moved against this technology. Even if these arguments offer sound reasons in favour of introducing genome editing as a new reproductive option, I conclude that these benefits should be balanced against other considerations. More specifically, I maintain that concerns regarding the equality of access to assisted reproduction and the allocation of scarce resources should be addressed prior to the adoption of genome editing as a new reproductive option. (shrink)

Traditionally, ‘that’-clauses occurring in attitude attributions are taken to denote the objects of the attitudes. Prior raised a famous problem: even if Frege fears that the Begriffsschrift leads to a paradox, it is unlikely that he fears a proposition, a sentence or what have you as the alleged object denoted by the ‘that’-clause. The usual way out is to say that ‘that’-clauses do not contribute the objects of the attitudes but their contents. I will show that, if we accept this (...) answer, either we’d better stop working on attitude attributions or we’d better work harder on them. (shrink)

Autonomous sensory meridian response is a complex sensory-emotional experience characterized by pleasant tingling sensations initiating at the scalp. ASMR is triggered in some people by stimuli including whispering, personal attention, and crisp sounds. Since its inception, ASMR has been likened to synesthesia, but convincing empirical data directly linking ASMR with synesthesia is lacking. In this study, we examined whether the prevalence of synesthesia is indeed significantly higher in ASMR-responders than non-responders. A sample of working adults and students were surveyed about (...) their experience with ASMR and common types of synesthesia. The proportion of synesthetes who were classified as ASMR-responders was 52%, whereas 22% of ASMR-responders were also synesthetes. These results suggest that: over half of those identifying as synesthetes also experience ASMR, and that synesthesia is up to four times as common among ASMR-responders as among non-responders. Findings also suggest a prevalence rate for ASMR of approximately 20%. Overall, the co-occurrence of ASMR and synesthesia lends empirical support to the idea that ASMR may be driven by synesthetic mechanisms, but future research would benefit from examining how ASMR and synesthesia are different, as well as similar. (shrink)

In this paper, an integrated, cognitive view of different mechanisms, reasons and pathways to norm compliance is presented. After a short introduction, theories of norm compliance are reviewed, and found to group in four main typologies: the rational choice model of norm compliance; theories based on conditional preferences to conformity, theories of thoughtless conformity, and theories of norm internalization. In the third section of the paper, the normative architecture EMIL-A is presented. Previous work discussed the epistemic module of this normative (...) architecture, allowing for the generation of normative beliefs being formed. The fourth and fifth sections present the pragmatic modules of EMIL-A, i.e. norm adoption—leading to normative goals—and norm compliance—leading to their execution. Not only are several alternative reasons for norm adoption shown, but also several pathways to norm compliance are identified. Finally, a summary and ideas for future works conclude the paper. (shrink)