In the present article, we investigated the relation between socio-demographic variables and personality factors with religious fundamentalism. Our data were collected from a sample of 125 Italian Catholic participants. Correlation analyses showed a significant association between RF and the openness domain of personality, including both facet scales. We also found a significant association between RF and conscientiousness. Regarding socio-demographic variables, we found significant correlations between RF and years of education, church attendance, belief, and age, while there was no significant correlation (...) between RF and gender. Path analysis showed that the effects on RF of socio-demographic factors are stronger than those of personality factors. (shrink)

The exceptional pandemic due to the 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has obliged all Italians to stay at home. In the literature, there are evidences that traumatic global events, such as natural catastrophes and pandemic, have negative effects on the physical and psychological health of the population. We carried out a survey to analyze the physical and psychological conditions of Italians during the pandemic. Due to the severe limitations in moving during the phase one lockdown, the survey was administered by internet. (...) Results show that Italians followed the provisions established by the Italian government to avoid contamination, but 43% of them declared to have suffered from physical symptoms, in particular migraine, sleep disorders, persistent exhaustion, and difficulty of concentration. They have great fear to be contaminated or that relatives or friends can be contaminated, and they actively take actions to avoid contamination. Participants declared that they had suffered a lot of inconveniences due to restrictions in their movements, and that their life habits were strongly changed. They spent their time at home in different activities, but their psychological well-being was strongly impaired by the lockdown. The level of anxiety tripled, in relation to the prepandemic period, and 30% of males and 41% of females declared to have severe levels of depression. Participants with high levels of optimism and hopefulness show a stronger resilience against anxiety and depression. In addition, there is a negative correlation between anxiety and depression and the five factors of personality. These results show that psychological diseases must not be neglected, and that people in lockdown do need support for their psychological health, also with the help of internet and communication technologies. (shrink)

The Law and Economics approach to law dominates the intellectual discussion of nearly every doctrinal area of law in the US and its influence is growing steadily outside America as well. 2013 marked the fortieth anniversary of the publication of Richard Posner's Economic Analysis of Law, the book that launched the Law and Economics movement. The eighth edition of the book was published in 2011, this time competing against over twenty textbooks, collections and casebooks on law and economics. Although there (...) has been phenomenal growth in this area questions remain. Why has Law and Economics movement become so successful? What is the current status of the Chicago School? What are the alternative theories and how much influence do they exert? What can be considered mainstream today? What are the norms and values underlying this impressive body of research? These issues, amongst others, are thoroughly explored by the contributors. (shrink)

Due to the confinement imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic situation, companies adopted remote work more than ever. The rapid rise of remote work also affected local life and many employers introduced or extended their telework activities because of the associated advantages. However, despite the evident positive benefits, some employees were pressured to work remotely while ill. This evidence brought new challenges to the presenteeism literature. This article investigates how individual, economic/societal, and organizational/sectorial/supervisory-related variables can moderate the role of a contagious (...) disease, such as the COVID-19, in explaining presenteeism behavior. Moreover, the current research presents a multi-level conceptual model to describe how a new construct of remote-work presenteeism behavior mediates the relationship between different post pandemic health conditions and future cumulative negative consequences. The authors suggested that the widespread pervasive adoption of remote work because of COVID-19 has important implications for the presenteeism literature and opens avenues for further research. (shrink)

Presents the Nicomachean Ethics as a work of political philosophy, emphasizing the interplay between its practical political concerns and its underlying philosophic perspective and arguing that it is rhetorical in the precise Aristotelian meaning of the term.

In an expression of extended thanks, Zolberg writes of the effects of his personal experience on his academic history. His academic practices of rejecting two widespread reductionisms - disciplinary boundaries and societal management of cultural diversity - are demonstratively formed through his personal experiences in academia, the Army, West Africa, and Europe, culminating in his comparative social science methods and politics.

The paper attempts to walk some first steps toward a unified and empirically oriented theory of both the structure and the history of physics. Physics is considered a structured whole made up of three interconstitutive elements (conceptual system, object, experimental procedures). This conceptual system is always already interpreted while it is this interpretation which ties the system to our overall experience thereby making it understood. It is argued that our experience is always ideologically (and thence socially) determined and that this (...) interpretation inevitably harbours the ideological element in the form of scientifically unwarranted ideological "assumptions." The character of such "assumptions" is discussed, some examples are given and some consequences for the history of physics are drawn. (shrink)

La découverte scientifique radicale, et le changement radical de paradigme associé, sont traités ici comme découlant de la mise à jour de ce qu’on appelle des ‘assomptions’ d’arrière-plan. Celles-ci sont considérées comme plus ou moins équivalentes aux ‘propositions charnières’ discutées par Wittgenstein dans De la certitude. Sur cette base, diverses questions liées aux changements de signification, au changement théorique, à l’incommensurabilité, etc., sont discutées. On montre que la conception d’ensemble de Kuhn, une fois précisée, n’implique ni l’idéalisme ni le relativisme, (...) et que la rationalité et le progrès scientifique peuvent être sauvés d’une manière acceptable par les scientifiques praticiens. (shrink)

This public lecture commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Center for the Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh provides a brief history of philosophical activity in Greece from ancient to modern times. The lecture culminates in an exploration of the Center's fruitful interactions with Greece's contemporary philosophical community.