Tal vez no le resulte inútil al pensamiento postmetafísico verse reflejado en los cánones de la filosofía del ser. Discutir así en forma de tesis y valorar las ideas del ultimo Habermas es el cometido de este trabajo. Queda al descubierto, de esta manera, la interpretación habermasiana reduccionista de la metafísica, su olvido del ser y de la cuestión de la verdad, su retractación ante la cuestión religiosa y las consecuencias que de todo ello se desprenden.

Nel cammino della filosofia il realismo ha spesso costituito l’asse fondamentale della ricerca. Esso è in grado di rinnovare il pensiero, oggi, quando la filosofia moderna si è chiusa, sostituita dalla presente povertà postmetafisica e dal disfattismo della ragione. Il volume mette alla prova la forza del realismo, intrecciando riflessione teoretica e riflessione storiografica, e dando voce ad autori come Tommaso d’Aquino, Hegel, Schelling, Gentile, Maritain, Bontadini, Severino, Putnam.

ONE OBSERVATION FORCES ITSELF UPON US AT THE OUTSET. It is just as hard to think about the problem of life today as it was a hundred or a thousand years ago. If we observe the state of the sciences, we are led to the conviction that an important issue still remains open: to develop a philosophy of life and the organism that is adequate to the level of biological discoveries. Our most urgent need in the dialogue among science, philosophy, (...) and theology does not arise, as it has happened for centuries, from physics and cosmology but from the life sciences, notably biology and genetics. This is a necessity on which thinkers of different schools, such as Hans Jonas and John Polkinghorne, are agreed. Physics is no longer the guiding science, or the sole guiding science: its place has been taken by biology, and it is high time that philosophy and theology turned to address the issues it raises, without entrusting the realm of nature and life solely to the sciences. While there is still a rich crop of studies about the Big Bang theory and scientific cosmology in general, little has been written on philosophical biology, where the presence of the theologians has been exiguous. One may wonder why this should be so: perhaps because the Big Bang theory seems allusively to evoke the truth of the creation, though a more careful consideration of this scientific theory, rather controversial and highly speculative, shows that it has nothing to do with the theme of creation, as it deals only with the cosmic becoming: as such it is unable to formulate statements on what transcends becoming and on creation understood as the total position in being of all things. But one may also conjecture that this insufficient interest in biology stems from the difficult problem of teleology and, more generally, from the reductionist attitude frequently displayed by scientists when they pass beyond their own field of research and formulate hypotheses and theories with universal implications, as they are prompted by an unbridled enthusiasm which has proved ill-advised on other occasions in the past. (shrink)

La critica e l'abbandono del nichilismo teoretico e la ripresa postmoderna della filosofia dell'essere si corrispondono punto a punto in un intreccio difficilmente separabile. L'intento della ricerca non è nutrito di preoccupazioni morali sul negativo esito etico del nichilismo, ma piuttosto dalle intime perplessità sollevate dal carattere antirealistico e perciò teoreticamente più o meno nichilistico di molte scuole filosofiche moderne: la tradizione del realismo, che pur ha percorso alquanto esilmente la filosofia moderna per tanti riguardi platonizzante, idealistica, positivistica, nominalistica, potrebbe (...) forse costituire il miglior reagente speculativo per pensare a fondo la questione del nichilismo. (shrink)

Książka nawiązuje do encykliki Papieża Jana Pawła II Fides et ratio. W czterech rozdziałach są w niej omawiane takie pojecia, jak: filozofia, objawienie, prawda, wiara, rozum, metafizyka, mądrość. Possenti wyraża nadzieję, że nie tylko objawienie jest katolickie, tzn. powszechne, ale także rozum. Dzięki temu jest możliwe pogodzenie wiary i rozumu. Książka jest pisana przystępnym, spokojnym, nieagresywnym językiem, zrozumiała także dla czytelników mniej obeznanych z filozofią. Jeśli nie odpowiada na wszystkie pytania i nie rozwiązuje wszystkich trudności, to przynajmniej pokazuje, gdzie (...) kryją się niebezpieczeństwa i zachęca do szukania bezpieczniejszej drogi, jaką jest filozofia realistyczna z klasyczny definicją prawdy. (shrink)

Vittorio Possenti’s Terza Navigatione is a much welcome and needed ado about nothing. More precisely, it is much ado about the nihilism that presently smothers Western philosophy and culture. Mired in nihilism, contemporary philosophy and culture attempt to comprehend themselves, and get lost in a nihilistic smog. Instead of recognizing the essentially nihilistic nature of the intellectual confusion that confronts them, contemporary philosophy and culture tend to see this nihilism in accidental forms, such as consumerism, moral relativism, technocracy. (...) As Possenti rightly understands, the West’s current intellectual malaise is much deeper, and more difficult to eradicate, than these accidental instantiations might suggest. Possenti’s central question is: How can philosophy and Western culture transcend nihilism when it surrounds us, like the air we breathe? (shrink)

Nell'attuale societA globale, dominata dalla massimizzazione dell'agire funzionale e dal conseguente paradosso antropologico dell'autofinalizzazione dei media (tecnica, denaro, informazione, consenso, successo, potere), la risorsa sempre piU scarsa E diventata il senso con la conseguente e inevitabile riduzione delle persone a funzioni di un apparato tecno-plutocratico al servizio di pochissimi potentati finanziari, industriali, mediatici e militari. Pertanto, la motivazione a essere-vivere, non solo a sopravvivere, e l'omogeneo fine umano di pienezza, inteso come orizzonte piU ampio e ricco dell'azione umana, costituiscono oggi (...) il punto di massima emergenza per lo sviluppo della societA e la contestuale promozione della comunitA. Il rischio sempre piU forte dell'affermazione della societA totalitaria, dove in nome della sicurezza le persone sono disposte a rinunciare alla libertA, sancisce l'urgenza del passaggio dal principio di separazione a quello di integrazione, che promuove il primato dell'essere sull'avere-apparire. CiO favorisce la scoperta e la scelta consapevole del proprio essere e del corrispondente fine umano di pienezza quale prerogativa fondamentale per vivere la libertA personale e comune nella storia. Alla luce di questo giudizio storico, a cinquant'anni dalla morte, avvenuta prematuramente a Roma il 3 febbraio 1964, la Fondazione Gramsci, in collaborazione con il Dipartimento di Filosofia dell'UniversitA "La Sapienza" di Roma, ha organizzato un seminario di studi sulla persona e il pensiero del filosofo torinese Felice Balbo. Il suo ricco itinerario e i suoi molteplici rapporti con la storia e la realtA del proprio tempo lo hanno portato all'elaborazione di una originale e piU che mai attuale filosofia dell'essere indispensabile per affrontare e risolvere i principali nodi storici del nostro tempo. Saggi di Marcello MustE, Vittorio Possenti, Giorgio Rivolta, Giulia Boringhieri, Giovanni Turbanti, Ferruccio Ricciardi e Mario Fadda. (shrink)

Ad aprire questo volume è l’eccezionale testo Über Leib und Seele di Max Scheler sinora rimasto inedito. Seguono le interviste a Roger Scruton e Pierangelo Sequeri. Nella storia dell’Occidente il concetto di anima ha radici profonde. Esso sembra essere in uso principalmente in un contesto cristiano, la sua origine però è contemporaneo l’anima ha però subito una trasformazione, per cui pare lecito parlarne in contesti religiosi mentre sembra sempre più opportuno trattare di mente o cervello in altri ambiti. Questo volume, (...) attraverso una corale di contributi, vuole offrire uno studio sul tema dell’anima, mettendo in evidenza la trasformazione che nella storia della cultura tale concetto ha subito. Sono qui inclusi gli studi di Gianfranco Basti, Christopher Hughes, Joseph Karbowski, Andrea Lavazza, Antonio Petagine, Vittorio Possenti, Josef M. Seifert. Chiude il volume una ricca sezione di cronache di convegni e testi di recente pubblicazione. (shrink)

Bardzo uważne przeczytanie książki Przekroczyć próg nadziei pod kątem występujących w niej elementów chrześcijańskiej nauki spolecznej jest poważnym wyzwaniem. Przed zabraniem się do tej pracy przeczytałem wywiad udzielony przez kardynała Karola Wojtyły profesorowi Vittorio Possenti w 1978 roku, ale jeszcze przed jego wyborem na Papieża, zatytułowany O możliwości nauki spolecznej Kosciola. Wywiad ten zostal opublikowany we włoskim kwartalniku Il Nuovo Areopago dopiero po encyklice Centesimus annus, czyli po 1 maja 1991 roku, jako komentarz kwartalnika do tej encykliki. Polskie (...) tlumaczenie tego wywiadu wydal Ośrodek Chrzescijanskiej Myśli Spłlecznej AUGUSTINUM w serii Dokumenty, nr 11, z dn. 15 stycznia 1992 roku. (shrink)

Bardzo uważne przeczytanie książki Przekroczyć próg nadziei pod kątem występujących w niej elementów chrześcijańskiej nauki spolecznej jest poważnym wyzwaniem. Przed zabraniem się do tej pracy przeczytałem wywiad udzielony przez kardynała Karola Wojtyły profesorowi Vittorio Possenti w 1978 roku, ale jeszcze przed jego wyborem na Papieża, zatytułowany O możliwości nauki spolecznej Kosciola. Wywiad ten zostal opublikowany we włoskim kwartalniku Il Nuovo Areopago dopiero po encyklice Centesimus annus, czyli po 1 maja 1991 roku, jako komentarz kwartalnika do tej encykliki. Polskie (...) tlumaczenie tego wywiadu wydal Ośrodek Chrzescijanskiej Myśli Spłlecznej AUGUSTINUM w serii Dokumenty, nr 11, z dn. 15 stycznia 1992 roku. (shrink)

This is the latest book of Vittorio Possenti, professor of history of moral philosophy at the University of Venice and one of the major experts on the thought of Jacques Maritain. Possenti deals here with the situation of liberal Western societies from the point of view of classical political philosophy, understood as the tradition of political thought originating in Aristotle and adopted by Aquinas and modern Thomists such as Jacques Maritain.

The source basis of the article is composed of pope John Paul’s II encyclicals – Laborem exercens (1981), Solicitudo rei socialis (1987), Centesimus annus (1991), Fides et ratio (1998), the Apostle’s Letter Tertio Millennio adveniente (1994) as well as the interview with priest cardinal Karol Wojtyla given to Vittorio Possenti on 21st of June 1978 in Mediolan. I shall separate the following issues:1) relations of concepts: social teaching of the Church, social doctrine of the Church and catholic social (...) teaching; 2) relation theory – practice from the point of view of social doctrine of the Church; 3) social doctrine of the Church versus ideology; 4) in what sense may we talk about the historism of social doctrine of the Church?; 5) periodisation of the development of social doctrine of the Church. (shrink)

My initial scope will be limited: starting from a neurobiological standpoint, I will analyse how actions are possibly represented and understood. The main aim of my arguments will be to show that, far from being exclusively dependent upon mentalistic/linguistic abilities, the capacity for understanding others as intentional agents is deeply grounded in the relational nature of action. Action is relational, and the relation holds both between the agent and the object target of the action , as between the agent of (...) the action and his/her observer . Agency constitutes a key issue for the understanding of intersubjectivity and for explaining how individuals can interpret their social world. This account of intersubjectivity, founded on the empirical findings of neuroscientific investigation, will be discussed and put in relation with a classical tenet of phenomenology: empathy. I will provide an 'enlarged' account of empathy that will be defined by means of a new conceptual tool: the shared manifold of intersubjectivity. (shrink)

A new class of visuomotor neuron has been recently discovered in the monkey’s premotor cortex: mirror neurons. These neurons respond both when a particular action is performed by the recorded monkey and when the same action, performed by another individual, is observed. Mirror neurons appear to form a cortical system matching observation and execution of goal-related motor actions. Experimental evidence suggests that a similar matching system also exists in humans. What might be the functional role of this matching system? One (...) possible function is to enable an organism to detect certain mental states of observed conspecifics. This function might be part of, or a precursor to, a more general mind-reading ability. Two different accounts of mind-reading have been suggested. According to “theory theory‘, mental states are represented as inferred posits of a naive theory. According to “simulation theory‘, other people’s mental states are represented by adopting their perspective: by tracking or matching their states with resonant states of one’s own. The activity of mirror neurons, and the fact that observers undergo motor facilitation in the same muscular groups as those utilized by target agents, are findings that accord well with simulation theory but would not be predicted by theory theory. (shrink)