The new edition of this manual brings together a decade's teaching in bioethics. It confronts new questions and monitors the latest far reaching experiments, whose results and publications need to be properly understood.

The time marked by the clock hands, the so-called “objective time,” is deeply different from the one perceived by the individual. Starting from this hypothesis, directly connected to the subjective modality of “living” the time and defined as time perspective, we will try to understand how much it affects the various domains of people's lives, attitudes, and experiences. Therefore, the research investigates whether all our decisions can be influenced by one or more time perspectives beyond our awareness. Last, but not (...) least, we will try to understand if some time perspectives in specific contexts are more functional and adaptive than others. (shrink)

For many years, psychological–clinical research has been aiming at studying the Mafia from different viewpoints: the man of honor's inner world, relational and psychopathological structures of his family matrices, connections between inner and social worlds, interiorized and social rules. Today, however, a complex phenomenon has come to light, which concerns the great connection between the Mafia and financial crime, and for us as researchers it is very interesting and complicated to analyze, because it involves the study of psychological peculiarities that (...) can be specifically found in the numerous illegalities. The crossbreeding of the various criminalities, which are always more interacting and merging and less isolated, makes this picture even more complex. (shrink)

v. 1. Il pensiero antico e medievale.--v. 2. Dal Rinascimento a Immanuel Kant.--v. 3. Dal Romanticismo allo strutturalismo.

Dans mon article, je vais essayer de développer une analyse de deux des plus importants chapitres du De anima d'Aristote : les chapitres 4 et 5 du livre III, où Aristote propose son traitement de la question de l'intellect. Sans entrer dans les détails de l'histoire de l'interprétation de ce texte, je propose d'identifier l'intellect dit ‘passif’ avec quelques traits distinctifs de la puissance de la phantasia ou imagination, et ce que l'on appelle ‘l'intelligence productive’ avec l'environnement cosmique, qui, en (...) vertu de ses régularités, produit les habitats qui vont agir sur la puissance sensorielle de l'être humain et qui, dans la production des expériences sensorielles de l'être humain, fera passer son esprit du statut d'intellect passif à celui d'intellectus in habitu. (shrink)

Sezione 1. Sullo sviluppo del concetto di creazione. L'idealismo magico. Creation, idealism and a new aestheicism.--sezione 2. Estetismo assoluto-una teoria della scienza. Coscienza ed energia-sul problema del rapporti tra psicologia e fiscia. Le monde n'est-il qu' un rêve? Vie et esthéticité. Aestetismus und der Ernst des Lebens (aus zwei Briefen).

The human being can be divided into body and mind, two inextricably linked aspects influencing each other. From birth, the body is the site of emotional experiences thanks to cellular memory. The t...

The recent in vitro derivation of gamete‐like cells from mouse embryonic stem (mES) cells is a major breakthrough and lays down several challenges, both for the further scientific investigation and for the bioethical and biolegal discourse. We refer here to these cells as gamete‐like (sperm‐like or oocyte‐like, respectively), because at present there is still no evidence that these cells behave fully like bona fide sperm or oocytes, lacking the fundamental proof, i.e. combination with a normally derived gamete of the opposite (...) sex to yield a normal individual. However, the results published so far do show that these cells share some defining features of gametes. We discuss these results in the light of the bioethical and legal questions that are likely to arise would the same process become possible with human embryonic stem (hES) cells. (shrink)

The usual representation of quantum algorithms, limited to the process of solving the problem, is physically incomplete. We complete it in three steps: extending the representation to the process of setting the problem, relativizing the extended representation to the problem solver to whom the problem setting must be concealed, and symmetrizing the relativized representation for time reversal to represent the reversibility of the underlying physical process. The third steps projects the input state of the representation, where the problem solver is (...) completely ignorant of the setting and thus the solution of the problem, on one where she knows half solution. Completing the physical representation shows that the number of computation steps required to solve any oracle problem in an optimal quantum way should be that of a classical algorithm endowed with the advanced knowledge of half solution. (shrink)

A great deal of "epistemological" thought is dedicated to the question of the origin of the ideas that form our ordinary conception of reality.1 How do we obtain our view of the world as a whole composed of discrete substances, endowed with space-time extension, which are the substrata of specific qualities, linked to each other by different kinds of relation?This is a question that is certainly less problematic in contexts of thought that defend "pluralist" ontologies—where being is thought to amount (...) to a plurality of discrete and self-subsistent entities. There... (shrink)

"El método seguido puede llamarse con una sola palabra comparativo. He tratado, en efecto, de que las ideas y los hechos procedan a la par, ayudándome también a veces del estudio de los vocablos, con los cuales las unas y los otros han sido expresados; he hecho que caminasen de frente los varios pueblos que concurrieron más eficazmente al desenvolvimiento de las instituciones jurídicas y sociales, así como también a los diferentes sistemas escogidos por los autores, y he procurado, por (...) fin, poner de relieve la correlación constante entre la vida económica, jurídica y moral en los distintos períodos de la historia y el concierto admirable que siempre se manifiesta entre las varias partes del organismo social. Presento este ensayo tal como ha llegado a ser después de varios años de trabajo y estudio, debiendo limitarme a hacer observar que, por razón de la lógica que lo rige, las varias partes de que consta se suponen recíprocamente por modo tal, que los primeros capítulos son la preparación indispensable para la inteligencia de los siguientes, y los últimos sirven de ilustración y complemento a los primeros. Por mi parte habré alcanzado el objeto que me proponía si logro infundir en alguno de mis lectores la profunda convicción que tengo de que el estudio del mundo social y humano ofrece tantos goces y no menores maravillas al sociólogo, como al físico y al naturalista el estudio del mundo material y orgánico, y que las investigaciones libros y sin prejuicios acerca de las instituciones primitivas de la sociedad, lejos de conmover las eternas convicciones del género huma-no, logran al fin confirmarlas científicamente". Giuseppe Carle. (shrink)

In metaphysical theorizing, it is common to use expressions whose function is that of denoting or being true of absolutely everything. Adopting a scolastic term, these may be called ‘transcendentals’. Different metaphysical theories may adopt different transcendentals, the most usual candidates being ‘thing’, ‘entity’, ‘object’, ‘be’, ‘exist’, and their counterparts in various languages dead or alive. We call ‘transcendental disagreement’ any dissent between philosophical theories or traditions that may be described as a disagreement in the choice of transcendentals. Examples of (...) transcendental disagreement include the debate about Lewis's conception of actuality and a number of recent discussions between Meinongians and their ‘Quinean’ rivals. A case is made for the conclusion that, as such, transcendental disagreements are purely terminological in character. It is argued that transcendental disagreements are generally to be assessed on pragmatic rather than on metaphysical grounds. Finally, the paper makes a start in the analysis of those pragmatic grounds which include the pursuit of univocity, fairness, and ease of comparison between theories. (shrink)

A interpretação da filosofia de Nāgārjuna como um niilismo metafísico radical é comum tanto entre os autores antigos quanto nos estudos budológicos contemporâneos. Uma primeira leitura da doutrina da vacuidade proposta por esse autor, com efeito, parece levar à conclusão de que nada existe em última análise e, portanto, a realidade em si seria equivalente a um puro não-ser. Uma tal metafísica do nada, entretanto, seria duplamente problemática: primeiramente, ela parece sofrer de graves incovenientes lógico-conceituais; em segundo lugar, ela colocaria (...) Nāgārjuna fora da ortodoxia budista, por ser o niilismo uma doutrina explicitamente reprovada pelo Buda histórico. Uma leitura mais atenta e completa dos textos a nossa disposição, entretanto, nos leva a concluir que a filosofia do fundador da escola Madhyamaka não pode ser considerado como um niilismo metafísico, mas sim, ao invés disso, como uma tentativa de evitar e de eliminar qualquer metafísica, tanto afirmativa quanto negativa, em total acordo com o programa filosófico – já presente no ensinamento do Buda – do “caminho do meio”, equidistante das categorias do ser e do não-ser. (shrink)

With regards the crucial issue of the existence of the self, within canonical texts of the Buddhist Abhidharma schools we find passages that are frequently at odds with one another. Sometimes the Buddha defends or respects the belief in the self and in personal continuity; at other times he seems to deny that beyond the psycho-physical factors to which our existential experience can be reduced there is an ātman that contains, owns or controls these same factors; in further cases still, (...) he states that the use of the metaphysical categories of “being” and “non-being” must be avoided – thus, about the self (or everything else), it is inappropriate to say that it exists or that it does not exist. Faced with these divergences (or contradictions) within contemporary Buddhist studies, we can detect two main tendencies. Some scholars start from the assumption that the Buddha’s teaching is or should be coherent and univocal, and, therefore, propose readings of his original message that are supposed to iron out or conciliate any inconsistencies. Others believe that the inconsistencies are actually irreconcilable and, therefore, maintain that the Abhidharma canons are a composite and stratified redaction in which the opposite views of different writers overlap and intersect. Against these historiographical approaches, the purpose of the present paper is to show that the three aforementioned modes of the Buddha’s teaching are, in fact, both alternative and irreconcilable. This, however, far from presenting a puzzle to be solved or explained (by resorting to suppositions of which, in the canons, we have no explicit confirmation), is nothing more than a feature of the Buddha’s Dharma, which appears to be a teaching that develops different pedagogical/soteriological modes for different purposes, and which is conceived for the spiritual growth of followers with different intellectual and psychological profiles. (shrink)

On the philosophical dimensions of researches by Benoy Kumar Sarkar, 1887-1949, former professor of economics, University of Calcutta.

125. The madman. Have you not heard of that madman who lighted a lantern at the bright sunshine of the morning, ran to the market, and began ceaselessly screaming: "I seek God! I seek God!"?This present essay is a shortened and adapted version of the first chapter of a large book of mine devoted to a comparison between ancient Greece and Christianity, shortly to be published in English by Michigan State University Press. Its theoretical core is the idea of mediation, (...) that is to say, the intangible connective element acting as a medium capable of linking humans to the world and the divine sphere that made the world possible in ancient times2. All this is related to our experience of object meant not only as a... (shrink)

This dissertation examines Aquinas's teaching on the acts specific to temperance. According to a widespread interpretation of this teaching , the proper act of temperance is spontaneous, ordinate passion. Temperance thus not only causes someone to experience the right passions towards the right objects but does so antecedent to reason's command. Indeed, temperance is thought to have little if anything to do with reason's control of the passions. In an introductory chapter, I show that this understanding of temperance faces a (...) number of serious objections. In the next four chapters, I develop the thesis that the proper act of temperance is ordinate, consequent passion alone; the only relation temperance has to antecedent passion is simply to prevent it from ever being vehement, affecting only its intensity, not its ordination. ;I develop my thesis by examining Aquinas's teaching on the passions, which can only be consistently ordinate if commanded by reason ; reason's control of the passions, which can be consistent only if the sense appetite is habituated to obey reason alone, thus preventing it from being moved by any of the external or internal sense powers when they move antecedent to reason's command ; habit, which is not a principle of spontaneous action or passion, but is rather something we use only when we will . Temperance is thus a habit that gives reason nearly complete control of the passions, a moral virtue that is used only when we will and thus is exclusively a cause of ordinate, consequent passion . ;In the final chapter, observing that Aquinas is silent on the consistency with which the temperate person experiences spontaneous, ordinate passions, I attempt to fill this lacuna by developing the notions of "semi-virtue" and "semi-virtuous passion," building on Aquinas's teaching on the internal sense powers, especially the cogitative power. (shrink)

Los cambios en los procesos de producción del derecho y la modificación estructural del sistema de fuentes ponen en tela de juicio el modelo de derecho diseñado por el positivismo jurídico del XIX, basado en el monopolio legislativo en la creación del derecho y en la consideración de proceso de aplicación del derecho como un procedimiento de subsunción formal. En ese nuevo escenario, el momento aplicativo y hermenéutico del derecho adquieren un protagonismo central. En las nuevas y complejas funciones que (...) asume el intérprete del derecho para tratar de recomponer la unidad y la coherencia de los ordenamientos jurídicos complejos, faltos de plenitud y fragmentados, la recuperación del rol normativo autónomo de los principios jurídicos se convierte en una exigencia imprescindible. El autor ilustra ese renovado papel de los principios con ejemplos del derecho constitucional, el derecho tributario y el derecho procesal civil. (shrink)