Name der Zeitschrift: Paragrana Jahrgang: 26 Heft: 1 Seiten: 115-129.

We typically conceive of sensation as a residue of empiricism and idealism, both of which claim to reduce our experience to a sum of elementary data that the subject encounters. For Merleau-Ponty, sensation is none of these things: it defines our ability to let ourselves be solicited by the relief and questions of the world. What is sensed is not an inert datum but a gesture of existence that concerns me, invites me to correspond to it and follow it. When (...) I respond to the invitations of what I sense, the connection between me and the world functions as the immobile axis around which the whirls of a whirlwind are formed. Whirlwind of sensation or whirlwind of sleep, because sensing is also made of a night time-space in which the connection with things seem to be broken. The inertia of sleep is whirling in its own way, just as the dynamism of sensation has its own condition of possibility in an immeasurable measure of apathy and indifference. (shrink)

L'autore espone un confronto tra Jean-Luc Nancy, forse il filosofo francese vivente di maggior successo della sua generazione (è nato nel 1940), e alcune figure del pensiero contemporaneo: Merleau-Ponty, Agamben, Sartre, Bataille, Lévinas. Questo esame aiuta a meglio comprendere il significato di novità, recupero e contestazione dei maggiori temi della filosofia del XX secolo che la riflessione di Nancy rappresenta. Il concetto-guida della comunicazione serve per presentare in modo organico una speculazione che la maggior parte degli studi critici finora comparsi (...) si accontenta di passare in rassegna e di ridurre a un cumulo più o meno interessante di motivi "postmoderni". (shrink)

Tragedy became the explicit focus of only a few essays by Georges Bataillle. In spite of this fact, tragedy is one of his most enduring speculative obsessions, especially during his violent intellectual experiences in the Thirties. The brilliance of a tragically wasted self is the dark side of each self-exposing singularity. The real tragic gesture, the one that gives a structure to community, is the sacrifice of Orestes fleeing the Furies. In the depths of despair he bites and tears a (...) finger from his left hand, thus causing the collapse of his personal consistency. Such gesture potentially infects the other singularities, thus becoming able to build together a tragic community. (shrink)

A contemporary of Giordano Bruno and Galileo, Tommaso Campanella was a controversial philosopher, theologian, astrologer, and poet who was persecuted during the Inquisition and spent much of his adult life imprisoned because of his heterodox views. He is best known today for two works: _The City of the Sun_, a dialogue inspired by Plato’s _Republic_, in which he prophesies a vision of a unified, peaceful world governed by a theocratic monarchy; and his well-meaning _Defense of Galileo_, which may have (...) done Galileo more harm than good because of Campanella’s previous conviction for heresy. But Campanella’s philosophical poems are where his most forceful and undiluted ideas reside. His poetry is where his faith in observable and experimental sciences, his astrological and occult wisdom, his ideas about deism, his anti-Aristotelianism, and his calls for religious and secular reform most put him at odds with both civil and church authorities. For this volume, Sherry Roush has selected Campanella’s best and most idiosyncratic poems, which are masterpieces of sixteenth-century Italian lyrics, displaying a questing mind of great, if unorthodox, brilliance, and showing Campanella’s passionate belief in the intrinsic harmony between the sacred and secular. (shrink)

ABSTRACTAlbert Camus has rarely been considered as a theoretician of democracy. Nonetheless, from the end of the Thirties it is possible to find in his different writings several observations relating to politics and the life of democracy and democracies. The second half of the Forties saw this interest, intertwined with the new post-WWII context, being explicitly dedicated to such subjects in the form of several articles and observations. Through the latter, Camus developed a radical – literally ‘that goes to roots’ (...) – analysis of twentieth century politics, defining an identity between democracy and modesty and using them to face the nihilistic attitude spread by totalitarian regimes and ‘conquering spirits’ within the same western society. Such attention to ‘modesty’ was also defined in direct connection with the idea that Camus developed during the same period on the concept of Art and the role of the artist. According to Camus, the artist – or the ‘eternal girondin’ – is like a democrat who tries to defend pluralism and unity against homologation and totality. Through tracing the historical growth of such a reflection and its relevance in defining some critical issues, this study leads us to a better understanding of contemporary politics and its crisis. (shrink)

In this work, I investigate the implications of reversing the common assumption of rationality on behalf of human agents typically underlying philosophical research. Instead, I assume that human agents can become rational only if they learn to edge against their dumbness. Specifically, I show that intelligence cannot be considered the opposite of dumbness. To this end, I embrace the difference among System 1, System 2, and System 1.5. On these grounds, I argue that System 2 can be considered the system (...) of intelligence, whereas Systems 1 and 1.5 can be viewed as the systems of rationality. More precisely, I argue that System 2 concerns theoretical reasoning, whereas System 1 and 1.5 concern practical reasoning. Accordingly, I show that people are dumber whenever they fail to have rational control over System 1 via System 1.5, whereas people become more rational whenever they manage to have rational control over System 1 via System 1.5. Interestingly, both cases can be considered the causes of two distinct social processes. On one side, when dumbness increases among individuals, social groups achieve coordination that detriments general welfare. On the other, when dumbness decreases among individuals, social groups achieve coordination that maximizes general welfare. (shrink)

Several studies have lately revealed that social media conceal at least three dangerous pitfalls. Firstly, social media can negatively impact sociopolitical processes in advanced liberal democracies by becoming vehicles for the spread of false information that augments political polarization (Lee et al. 2017; Ostillio 2018). Secondly, as a result of the first point, social mediacan rapidly become a source of incorrect beliefs for those subjects with low digital literacy (Guess et al. 2019). Thirdly, because of the first and second points, (...) intentionally deceitful manipulations of social media content are potent generators of information cascades that increase group polarizations across groups of vulnerable social media users (Jang and Kim2018, Wang et al. 2018, Colliander 2019). These findings support the claim that the circulation of biased content on social media potentially threatens sociopolitical stability in liberal Western democracies (Duffy 2018; Sunstein 2018). Although this claim is far from being speculative, as shown by the FacebookFile investigations (Wall Street Journal 2019) and the center for humane technology’s recen tresearch, it introduces a thorny dilemma regarding the founding principles of liberal Western democracies. Namely, should Western legislators limit free speech by introducing severe penalties for those who spread fake news and the likes on social media? Or should they let the free market autonomously produce efficient technology allowing people to identify biased social media content?In other words, is a libertarian solution to the plight of online fake news and the like preferable to adequate legislation that punishes those who spread such content? Though appealing, it is unrealistic to believe that the free market can resolve this problem. On the other hand, it is realistic to suppose that Western governments should engage in a merciless battle against biased social media content. For instance, following the publication of the Report of the independent High level Group on fake news and online disinformation in 2018, the European Union introduced new directives to limit the spread of fake news online in 2021, when the Covid19 pandemic started fading. Although initiatives as such might look like limitations of free speech, there is solid philosophical ground to defend such initiatives. To prove this contention, we resort to Hobbes’s (1651, Part II, §18 and §29) argument that humans can avoid falling back into the Hobbesian state of war only if they stipulate a covenant. Specifically, we appeal to Hobbes’s (1651) argument in favor of bestowing the sovereign the right to ban those seditious doctrines that might undermine peace and sociopolitical stability in the Hobbesian Commonwealth. In this regard, we show that the Hobbesian covenant resolves conflict among humans in the same way a correlated equilibrium limits noncooperation in game theory. Namely, like game theory players, citizens enjoy greater welfare whenever they observe rules that mitigate conflict (Slomp 2010). Accordingly, we argue that citizens would be better off only if Western governments introduced severe penalties for those who intentionally spread fake news. Notably, we argue that effective regulation would create disincentives for spreading biased content and incentives for spreading truthful content. Furthermore, we argue that effective regulation against online fake news would assuage the polarizing effects of online availability cascades on social networks. Importantly, we provide empirical evidence supporting these claims by showing that the lack of effective regulation led the American government to miserably fail to contain the devasting effects of the online infodemic (i.e., the epidemic of false online information)that took place during the first two waves of the Covid19 pandemic (Evanega et al. 2020, Milosh et al. 2020). (shrink)

Tommaso Campanella’s dignitas hominis acquires its own autonomous and innovative historiographical value in recognizing the connection between mens and religion as a distinctive element of human be...

While Marx’s critique of David Ricardo is frequently debated, Marx’s critique of Samuel Bailey has, for far too long, remained in the shade. I try to show that Ricardo and Bailey represent two fundamental “moments” of Marx’s Darstellung. The word “moment” is here used in a non-generic sense: Ricardo’s and Bailey’s theories of value represent two opposite and contradictory sides of value’s category as presented in Marx’s critique of political economy. Building on the work of Hans Georg Backhaus, who claims (...) that the first chapter of Volume one of the Capital can be understood only as a metacritique of Bailey’s critique of Ricardo, this topic is developed in order to further clarify the connection of critique and presentation in Marx’s theory. (shrink)

The Quranic terms sarab, a hapax legomenon, and majmaʿ al-baḥrayn have generated a number of different interpretations among both Muslim exegetes and Western scholars. In this article I demonstrate how they can be better understood when read in the light of the cultural context of late antiquity and, in particular, of the cosmological imagery of this historical period.

Starting from the text Cibo ed etica by Franco Riva, this contribution intends to discuss the many questions raised by food ethics by questioning the thought of G.W.F. Hegel and F.W.J. Schelling. In dialogue with these two authors, the essay insists on the category of “hunger” as a characteristic trait of human ontology insofar as it is a figure of the original extroversion and openness to the other.

Albert Camus has been at the centre of a long and bitter controversy for his positions on the Algerian war. Accused of being a colonialist, marked by Eurocentrism and/or a de facto supporter of imperialism, he in fact joined the struggle for decolonization from his earliest steps in politics, untethering it, however, from any nationalist perspective. This essay delineates the formation of Camusian position on the Algerian crisis, its turning points and the path followed in this regard from the late (...) 1930s to the late 1950s, seeking to reveal his perspective of a decolonial federalism that would simultaneously transform Europe and Africa in order to establish a political community in which there would be neither dominant nor dominated. (shrink)

During the perinatal period, the establishment of the attachment relationship with the fetus and subsequently with the real child is crucial for the parents' and the child's well-being. Coherently with the assumption that the attachment relationship starts to develop during pregnancy, this systematic review aims to analyze and systematize studies focused on the association between pre-natal attachment and parent-to-infant attachment, in order to clarify the emerging results and provide useful information for clinical purposes. Nineteen studies were included. Sixteen researches identified (...) a positive relationship between pre-natal attachment and parent-to-infant attachment, and three articles highlighted a negative association between antenatal attachment and post-partum bonding disorders. These results were found both in women and men, in normative and at-risk pregnancies, adopting different assessment approaches. However, only small or moderate associations were found. Future studies are needed to further confirm these findings across different populations and with different methodological approaches. Moreover, studies would be needed in order to clarify mechanisms through which pre-natal attachment influences parent-to-infant attachment, as well as protective and risk factors which intervene between these two variables. (shrink)

This article introduces the key issues and themes that the articles in the Special Issue aim to apply and develop in greater detail. First, we argue that the field of collective remembering can be conceived as a site of active contestation, rather than simply a means of communicating a historic past or our deontic position in relation to these pasts. Approaching collective remembering as a Lieu de Dispute allows us, in turn, to foreground three consequential dimensions of remembrance, which the (...) articles in the issue examine in different ways: that collective remembering is an interpersonal, political and affective practice. This introduction discusses these three dimensions to collective remembering in greater detail, before outlining the remaining contents of the Special Issue. (shrink)

We introduce prime products as a generalization of ultraproducts for positive logic. Prime products are shown to satisfy a version of Łoś’s Theorem restricted to positive formulas, as well as the following variant of the Keisler Isomorphism Theorem: under the generalized continuum hypothesis, two models have the same positive theory if and only if they have isomorphic prime powers of ultrapowers.

Catharine Trotter Cockburn (1679–1749) was a versatile, learned lady, whose intellectual activity, both as a dramatist and as a philosopher, has been increasingly analysed by scholars in the last d...

L’articolo si propone di analizzare, alla luce di un esteso scandaglio documentario e di un accurato spoglio delle testate locali, i rapporti fra Pier Paolo Pasolini e il Cineguf bolognese, negli anni in cui lo scrittore fu studente del Liceo Galvani e poi fra gli iscritti alla Facoltà di Lettere, sotto alla guida di docenti come Carlo Calcaterra e Goffredo Coppola. Questa ricerca ha permesso non solo di approfondire la conoscenza della cultura spettatoriale del giovane Pasolini, ma ha anche consentito (...) di ricondurre all’avvio del 1940 la sua prima prova da scrittore per il cinema, e cioè il soggetto Il giovine della primavera, rimasto inedito fino all’uscita dei Meridiani a cura di Walter Siti e Franco Zabagli nel 2001. Proprio uno sguardo inedito alle attività del Cineguf consente infatti di comprendere quanto la vita del circolo poté pesare sulla passione del poeta per il grande schermo, spingendolo a provarsi nelle vesti di sceneggiatore. (shrink)

Journal Name: Philologus Issue: Ahead of print.

Riassunto: Reificazione presenta notevoli discontinuità rispetto alle precedenti e alle successive trattazioni honnethiane e costituisce un tentativo audace di fondare una teoria sociale normativa su strutture ontologiche e antropologiche. Per salvare la pregnanza di questa prova, cercheremo di conciliare gli aspetti più contraddittori dell’opera, mostrando l’unitarietà di fondo dell’intero percorso honnethiano. Innanzitutto, occorre mettere a fuoco lo statuto del riconoscimento, preso di per se stesso, al fine di comprendere l’unità che si gioca alle spalle delle diverse versioni elaborate da Honneth. (...) Poi, ci concentreremo sul riferimento alla psicoanalisi e alla psicologia evolutiva, cercando di mettere in relazione i concetti di simbiosi e di imitazione neonatale. In terzo luogo, intendiamo illuminare la duplice dimensione del paradigma honnethiano del riconoscimento: da un lato, esso viene caratterizzato normativamente; dall’altro, ha una pretesa più propriamente ontologica e antropogenetica. Infine, occorre ridefinire l’orizzonte sorgivo del conflitto. Parole chiave: Axel Honneth; Riconoscimento; Intersoggettività; Antropogenesi; Teoria Critica Honneth’s Paradigm of Recognition: Interaction, Anthropogenesis, and Normativity: Reification demonstrates a number of discontinuities with Honneth’s earlier and later works and constitutes a bold attempt to ground a social normative theory on ontological and anthropological grounds. In order to respect the importance of this effort, I try to reconcile some of the more incompatible aspects of this work by pointing to the deep unity of the Honnethian path as a whole. First, I focus on the status of recognition itself, in order to reveal the unity of thought behind the different versions proposed by Honneth. Then, I concentrate on his references to psychoanalysis and evolutionary psychology, in an attempt to bring together the ideas of symbiosis and neonatal imitation. Third, I highlight the dual nature of the Honnethian recognition paradigm: on the one hand, it can be characterized as normative; on the other, it makes a truly ontological and anthropogenic claim. Finally, I redefine the source of the conflict between this and Honneth’s other work. Keywords: Axel Honneth; Recognition; Intersubjectivity; Anthropogenesis; Critical Theory. (shrink)

The poetic of Nespolo’s first artistic period of production is characterized by an intensive conceptualist approach based on activism, social contestation and on the use of objects and materials. These are artistic activities characterised by a critical reflection on action and on the use and consequences of art.

Este trabajo incluye algunas reflexiones sobre los desafíos a los derechos que derivan del populismo, de la tecnología y de la geopolítica.

The history of science is increasingly directing its attention to the diachronic examination of women's involvement within spaces dedicated to scientific inquiry. While this field of study boasts rich and meticulous historiography, delving into the sixteenth century leaves the impression of encountering either a noticeable absence of women in the realm of natural history or an underexplored period in this regard. Undoubtedly, within the Italian context of the time, the cultural milieu shaped by the Counter-Reformation further heightened the social challenges (...) faced by women.Notwithstanding these challenges, a noteworthy female figure emerges in the latter half of the sixteenth century – Francesca Fontana, the second wife of the natural history scholar Ulisse Aldrovandi (1522–1605). From an overall view of the sources, Fontana seems to assume a pivotal role in the realization of collections and works attributed to the eminent naturalist. This study aims to delineate the role played by Fontana within Aldrovandi's ‘officina naturale.’ By examining the available documents in a chronological order, my aim is to provide insights into the evolution of her education and her practical and technical skills, harnessed in the pursuit of her husband's enterprises and scholarly contributions. (shrink)

Cyber-bullying, and other issues related to violence being committed online in prosocial environments, are beginning to constitute an emergency worldwide. Institutions are particularly sensitive to the problem especially as far as teenagers are concerned inasmuch as, in cases of inter-teen episodes, the deterrent power of ordinary justice is not as effective as it is between adults. In order to develop the most suitable policies, institution should not be satisfied with statistics and sociological perspectives on the phenomenon, but rather seek a (...) deep ethical understanding—also referring to the biological and evolutionary past of human beings. The aim of this paper is to show a way to fill this theoretical gap, offering some answers that can illuminate future policy-oriented research and reflection. In order to do so, we will start by connecting our argument to evolutionary studies carried out in the past two decades, focusing on gossip as a tool for social assortment, thus endowed with a dual function: protect the group from free riders, intruders and bullies but also bully the deviant members. In the “Mediating gossip through social networks” section, we will see which aspects of gossip, vital for bullying, are co-opted by social network scenarios. A fundamental trait of human social life, that is the subdivision in smaller coalitions, or sub-groups, will be shown as missing in social networks dynamics—therefore constituting themselves as structurally violent. The “Why and how do social networks empower bullying?” section will deal with techno-ethical and epistemological concerns regarding how gossip, mediated by SN, manages to empower cyber-bullying. The “Self-gossip and self-mobbing in the light of the disruption of sub-moralities” section will characterize cyber-bullying as often sparked by self-gossip in a scenario where familiar sub-groups, which also mediate defense and mutual understanding, are disrupted. The “Discussion and conclusion” section will consist of a philosophical summary, divided in two parts: a pars destruens analyzing whether SN, in their actual configurations, are fit for being used by humans-like-us, and a pars construens examining the broad potential consequences of highly enforced regulation aimed at contrasting cyber-bullying. (shrink)

En este artículo respondo a las consideraciones incluidas en el fórum dedicado a mi libro La ley de la confianza, deteniéndome en particular en el rol de la filosofía del Derecho y en los ulteriores posibles desarrollos de la reflexión entre Derecho y confianza.

Summary Habituation mechanisms play a pivotal role in enabling organisms to filter out irrelevant stimuli and concentrate on essential ones. Through repeated exposure, the brain learns to disregard stimuli that are irrelevant, effectively ceasing to respond to potentially distracting input. Previous studies have demonstrated that the orienting response to visual distractors disrupting visual detection tasks habituates as tasks progress and distractors are encountered repeatedly, as their initial interference diminishes. Theoretical models posit that this reduction is contingent upon the establishment of (...) an internal representation of external stimuli. Moreover, further studies have indicated that habituation can be context- specific, suggesting that the mechanisms involved incorporate information about features of irrelevant stimuli that extend beyond their discrete characteristics. In this contribution, we further delved into the question of whether the context in which habituation occurs retains a general habituative capacity when a new, to-be-ignored stimulus is introduced. We discuss evidence indicating that the context in which habituation has already taken place facilitates the habituation process for a new stimulus. This suggests that it becomes easier to ignore new stimuli in contexts where we have already learned to disregard other stimuli, underscoring the intricate interplay between habituation, context, and attentional processes. (shrink)

The series is devoted to the study of scientific and philosophical texts from the Classical and the Islamic world handed down in Arabic. Through critical text editions and monographs, it provides access to ancient scientific inquiry as it developed in a continuous tradition from Antiquity to the modern period. All editions are accompanied by translations and philological and explanatory notes.

A logic is said to admit an equational completeness theorem when it can be interpreted into the equational consequence relative to some class of algebras. We characterize logics admitting an equational completeness theorem that are either locally tabular or have some tautology. In particular, it is shown that a protoalgebraic logic admits an equational completeness theorem precisely when it has two distinct logically equivalent formulas. While the problem of determining whether a logic admits an equational completeness theorem is shown to (...) be decidable both for logics presented by a finite set of finite matrices and for locally tabular logics presented by a finite Hilbert calculus, it becomes undecidable for arbitrary logics presented by finite Hilbert calculi. (shrink)

De Constantia Sapientis 17.1 contains two animal-based insults, the interpretation of which has heretofore proven controversial because of the difficulties in pinpointing the exact nature/identity of comparandum and comparatum. An adequate appreciation of the passage requires assessing the function of these contumeliae within Seneca's philosophical strategy. Their ontological vacuity reflects the imaginative status of the two animals selected to construct the jibes. Thus, one should resist rage, not only on account of this passion being self-damaging but also because imagination is (...) a faulty cognitive process. (shrink)

Two conjectures are proposed on Sophocles’ Thyestes (fr. 260a Radt) which restore Sophoclean language and metre.