The doctrine of great conjunctions, first theorized by the Arab astrologer Albumasar in the De magnis coniunctionibus, is a form of general astrology characterized...

It has been argued that the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries were a crucial period in the medieval development of the idea of contagion. Theologians and physicians cooperated in devising a conceptual model based on medical literature (Hippocratico-Galenic and Avicennian) and formulated primarily to explain the origin, transmission, and development of contagious diseases, but that was flexible enough to be applied to a number of other different phenomena (the communication of sin and vices, love sickness, fascination, etc.). This article explores the (...) ways in which Albert the Great contributed to the formation of this broad and highly articulated notion of contagion. First, he provided a systematic analysis of the mechanisms of pathogenesis and transmission of contagious diseases (in particular, pestilences and leprosy). Moreover, his interests encompassed several different forms of contagion, including the powers of stones (e.g., the attractive virtue of the magnet) and animals, the influences of the woman’s body and mind (mulier menstruata and vetula), fascination. Albert also provided different models for the explanation of the “contagious influence” (mechanical explanation based on physical contact, the Avicennian theory of psychosomatic transformations, the Avicennian doctrine of the power of the soul over external bodies, spiritual transmission of sins). As a result of his investigation into the mechanisms of disease transmission, air contamination, noxious influences, and fascination, Albert came to problematize the usual idea of natural causality based on the principle of contact between substances, and to test the potentials and limits of action at-a-distance. In particular, the present paper will examine Albert’s views on some of the phenomena explained through the concept of contagion: pestilences, leprosy, the basilisk, the menstruating woman, and fascination. (shrink)

According to the doctrine of the Great Year, after a long period of time the same astral configurations reappear and the planets return to their original positions. The end of a world cycle is marked by a natural cataclysm, after which the world is restored to its original state and history repeats itself. This article deals with Albert the Great’s views on the Great Year, focussing on two of his early theological works (the De iv coaequaevis and the Sentences commentary). (...) The evidence here provided offers a comprehensive overview of the variety of contexts and themes which Albert considers to be related to the Great Year. He is fully aware of the many doctrinal implications of the concept of the Great Year. His analysis is deeply embedded in the astronomical discussions on the phenomenon of the precession of the equinoxes. A predominantly scientific approach is evident in the care with which he distinguishes the different types of Great Year. The major contribution of these works to the debate lies in the analysis of the impact of the Great Year on Christian eschatology and, more generally, in the investigation of the relationship between astrology and physics, on the one hand, and eschatology, on the other. (shrink)

Riassunto: La geomanzia, una disciplina divinatoria importata dal mondo arabo, prosperò nel medioevo latino. Di fronte a tale popolarità traduttori e autori di trattati geomantici, filosofi, teologi e letterati si interrogarono sulla sua validità, sulle sue implicazioni filosofiche e sulla visione del mondo che essa presupponeva. Il presente contributo esamina questo dibattito. In particolare, si ricostruisce lo statuto epistemologico della geomanzia nei suoi rapporti con l’astrologia. Il problema della scientificità della geomanzia viene discusso anche nel contesto dell’azione della causalità celeste (...) sul mondo sublunare. Sono esaminati i ruoli del geomante e dell’interrogante ed è analizzato il concetto di intentio, che rimanda ad un’analisi psicologica peculiare della geomanzia. Caratterizza la geomanzia anche una dimensione rituale fatta di prescrizioni preliminari e di invocazioni da rivolgere alla divinità. Quanto detto impedisce di ridurre la geomanzia ad una semplice tecnica divinatoria; essa appare piuttosto una forma di sapienza rivelata solo al geomante esperto e moralmente degno, che attinge così la conoscenza di eventi futuri e cose nascoste. Da questa breve ricostruzione emerge l’articolata natura della geomanzia, contraddistinta, nella sua originaria versione araba, da una marcata impronta religiosa e da uno stretto, benché ambiguo, nesso con la profezia Islamica.: Geomancy, a divinatory discipline imported from the Arab world, flourished in the Latin Middle Ages. In the attempt to explain the popularity of geomancy, translators and authors of geomantic writings, philosophers, theologians, and other scholars addressed such issues as its validity, its philosophical implications, and the worldview it presupposed. This paper explores this debate, delineating the epistemological status of geomancy in relation to astrology. The problem of the scientificity of geomacy will be discussed with regard to the celestial influences on the sublunary world. In addition, the different roles played by both the geomancer and the consultant are examined. Attention will be paid to the concept of intentio, which implies a psychological analysis peculiar to geomancy. Geomancy is also characterized by ritual elements such as both preliminary prescriptions and invocations of God, meaning that it is not an ordinary divinatory technique, but a form of wisdom revealed only to experienced and upright geomancers, who can thus obtain knowledge of future events and hidden things. From this analysis emerges the complex nature of geomancy, whose original Arabic version had a prominent religious character and a close, albeit ambiguous, link with Islamic prophecy. (shrink)

Eckhart's interest in semantics has thus far been overlooked in literature probably because no extensive and sistematic treatment is found in his corpus. Yet, his views in this field deserve attent...

Some computational phenomena rely essentially on pragmatic considerations, and seem to undermine the independence of the specification from the implementation. These include software development, deviant uses, esoteric languages and recent data-driven applications. To account for them, the interaction between pragmatics, epistemology and ontology in computational artefacts seems essential, indicating the need to recover the role of the language metaphor. We propose a User Levels (ULs) structure as a pragmatic complement to the Levels of Abstraction (LoAs)-based structure defining the ontology and (...) epistemology of computational artefacts. ULs identify a flexible hierarchy in which users bear their own semantic and normative requirements, possibly competing with the logical specification. We formulate a notion of computational act intended in its pragmatic sense, alongside pragmatic versions of implementation and correctness. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction The Evolving Evolutionary Synthesis Population Genetics vs. Developmental Genetics Evo‐Devo's Central Target: The Study of Evolvability Origins? Conclusion Postscript: Counterpoint Acknowledgments References.

The Wealth of Ideas, first published in 2005, traces the history of economic thought, from its prehistory to the present day. In this eloquently written, scientifically rigorous and well documented book, chapters on William Petty, Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Karl Marx, William Stanley Jevons, Carl Menger, Léon Walras, Alfred Marshall, John Maynard Keynes, Joseph Schumpeter and Piero Sraffa alternate with chapters on other important figures and on debates of the period. Economic thought is seen as developing between two opposite poles: (...) a subjective one, based on the ideas of scarcity and utility, and an objective one based on the notions of physical costs and surplus. Professor Roncaglia focuses on the different views of the economy and society and on their evolution over time and critically evaluates the foundations of the scarcity-utility approach in comparison with the Classical/Keynesian approach. (shrink)

Modern society is challenged by a loss of efficiency in national governance systems values, and lifestyles. Corporate social responsibility (CSR) discourse builds upon a conception of organizational legitimacy that does not appropriately reflect these changes. The problems arise from the a-political role of the corporation in the concepts of cognitive and pragmatic legitimacy, which are based on compliance to national law and on relatively homogeneous and stable societal expectations on the one hand and widely accepted rhetoric assuming that all members (...) of society benefit from capitalist production on the other. We therefore propose a fundamental shift to moral legitimacy, from an output and power oriented approach to an input related and discursive concept of legitimacy. This shift creates a new basis of legitimacy and involves organizations in processes of active justification vis-à-vis society rather than simply responding to the demands of powerful groups. We consider this a step towards the politicization of the corporation and attempt to re-embed the debate on corporate legitimacy into its broader context of political theory, while reflecting the recent turn from a liberal to a deliberative concept of democracy. (shrink)

Philosophers distinguish between having a property essentially and having it accidentally. The way the distinction has been drawn suggests that it is modal in character, and so that it can be captured in terms of necessity, or cognate notions. The present chapter takes the suggestion at face value by considering a number of modal characterizations of the essential/accidental distinction that have been articulated and discussed since the early 20th century, as well as some of the challenges that they face.

O presente artigo visa apresentar algumas das regras normativas do código monástico budista relacionadas ao ato de esmolar alimentos pelos renunciantes de ambos os sexos das comunidades budistas, Saṃgha. O ato de esmolar alimentos, assim como todo o conjunto de características comportamentais e morais relacionado aos praticantes monásticos, se tornou um importante elemento que proporcionou identidade para as Saṃghas do Buda, uma vez que benfeitores – que moravam nas cidades e vilas ao entorno das comunidades – acabavam por reconhecer monges, (...) bhikṣus e monjas, bhikṣunīs distinguindo das demais religiosidades e comunidades da Índia Antiga. Essas regras instituídas pelo Buda histórico, e preservadas pelas comunidades, evidenciam o grande cuidado no tocante à nutrição dos praticantes, especialmente em relação ao como e o que se alimentar, a higiene pessoal, bem como o comportamento dos bhikṣus e das bhikṣunīs com todo esse processo. O objetivo da atenção à alimentação não era outro que proporcionar condições adequadas para o desenvolvimento dos praticantes em relação aos estudos e à meditação. (shrink)

Many models of (un)ethical decision making assume that people decide rationally and are in principle able to evaluate their decisions from a moral point of view. However, people might behave unethically without being aware of it. They are ethically blind. Adopting a sensemaking approach, we argue that ethical blindness results from a complex interplay between individual sensemaking activities and context factors.

How and to what extent do people take into account the intentions of others? Alessandro Duranti sets out to answer this question, showing that the role of intentions in human interaction is variable across cultures and contexts. Through careful analysis of data collected over three decades in US and Pacific societies, Duranti demonstrates that, in some communities, social actors avoid intentional discourse, focusing on the consequences of actions rather than on their alleged original goals. In other cases, he argues, (...) people do speculate about their own intentions or guess the intentions of others, including in some societies where it was previously assumed they avoid doing so. To account for such variation, Duranti proposes an 'intentional continuum', a concept that draws from phenomenology and the detailed analysis of face-to-face interaction. A combination of new essays and classic re-evaluations, the book draws together findings from anthropology, linguistics and philosophy to offer a penetrating account of the role of intentions in defining human action. (shrink)

The debate about the appropriate standards for upstream corporate social responsibility of multinational corporations has been on the public and academic agenda for some three decades. The debate originally focused narrowly on “contract responsibility” of MNCs for monitoring of upstream contractors for “sweatshop” working conditions violating employee rights. The authors argue that the MNC upstream responsibility debate has shifted qualitatively over time to “full producer responsibility” involving an expansion from “contract responsibility” in three distinct dimensions. First, there is an expansion (...) of scope from working conditions to human rights and social and environmental impacts broadly defined. Second, there is expansion in depth of this broader responsibility to the whole upstream supply chain without regard to contracting status. Upstream responsibility now includes all suppliers, including direct contractors and the chain of suppliers to such contractors. Finally, the change in CSR scope and depth has led to an evolution of CSR management practice. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to present a system of modal connexive logic based on a situation semantics. In general, modal connexive logics are extensions of standard modal logics that incorporate Aristotle’s and Boethius’ theses, that is the thesis that a sentence cannot imply its negation and the thesis that a sentence cannot imply a pair of contradictory sentences. A key problem in devising a connexive logic is to come up with a system that is both sufficiently strong to (...) fulfill some specific connexive theses and sufficiently well-motivated from a semantical point of view. The approach proposed here tries to address this problem by defining an appropriate connexive relation in terms of more basic notions. The result is a well-motivated system of modal connexive logic that nicely fits in both with the traditional ideas concerning the connexive conditional and with the current developments in connexive logic. (shrink)

Wittgenstein has written a great number of remarks relevant to aesthetical issues: he has questioned the relation between aesthetics and psychology as well as the status of our norms of judgment; he has drawn philosophers attention to such topics as aspect-seeing and aspect-dawning, and has brought insights into the nature of our aesthetic reactions. The examination of this wide range of topics is far from being completed, and the purpose of this book is to contribute to such completion. It gathers (...) both papers discussing some of Wittgenstein s most provocative and intriguing statements on aesthetics, and papers bringing out their implications for art critic and art history, as well as their significance to epistemology and to the study of human mind.". (shrink)

Tobacco companies have started to position themselves as good corporate citizens. The effort towards CSR engagement in the tobacco industry is not only heavily criticized by anti-tobacco NGOs. Some opponents such as the the World Health Organization have even categorically questioned the possibility of social responsibility in the tobacco industry. The paper will demonstrate that the deep distrust towards tobacco companies is linked to the lethal character of their products and the dubious behavior of their representatives in recent decades. As (...) a result, tobacco companies are not in the CSR business in the strict sense. Key aspects of mainstream CSR theory and practice such as corporate philanthropy, stakeholder collaboration, CSR reporting and self-regulation, are demonstrated to be ineffective or even counterproductive in the tobacco industry. Building upon the terminology used in the leadership literature, the paper proposes to differentiate between transactional and transformational CSR arguing that tobacco companies can only operate on a transactional level. As a consequence, corporate responsibility in the tobacco industry is based upon a much thinner approach to CSR and has to be conceptualized with a focus on transactional integrity across the tobacco supply chain. (shrink)

The purpose of this qualitative study was to analyse nurses’ professional dignity in their everyday working lives. We explored the factors that affect nursing professional dignity in practice that emerge in relationships with health professionals, among clinical nurses working in hospitals and in community settings in central Italy. The main themes identified were: (i) nursing professional dignity perceived as an achievement; (ii) recognition of dignity beyond professional roles. These two concepts are interconnected. This study provides insights into professional dignity in (...) nursing being perceived as an achievement linked to the intrinsic dignity of every human being. The ‘nursing professional dignity perceived as an achievement’ was perceived as having declined in different social factors. Some factors of nursing professional dignity perceived as an achievement were attained more easily in community settings. ‘Recognition of dignity beyond professional roles’ underpins the intrinsic dignity as an expression of humanity, embedded in persons regardless of any profession, and values, such as: respect, moral integrity, humility, working conscientiously and kindness. (shrink)

Ted Sider has famously argued that existence, in the unrestricted sense of ontology, cannot be vague, as long as vagueness is modeled by means of precisifications. The first section of Chapter 9 exposes some controversial assumptions underlying Sider’s alleged reductio of vague existence. The upshot of the discussion is that, although existence cannot be vague, it can be super-vague, i.e. higher-order vague, for all orders. The second section develops and defends a novel framework, dubbed negative supervaluationary semantics, which makes room (...) for the possibility of super-vague existence. (shrink)

: We discuss the role that transnational corporations should play in developing global governance, creating a framework of rules and regulations for the global economy. The central issue is whether TNCs should provide global rules and guarantee individual citizenship rights, or instead focus on maximizing profits. First, we describe the problems arising from the globalization process that affect the relationship between public rules and private firms. Next we consider the position of economic and management theories in relation to the social (...) responsibility of the firm. We argue that instrumental stakeholder theory and business and society research can only partially solve the global governance issue, and that more recent concepts of corporate citizenship and republican business ethics deliver theoretically and practically helpful, fresh insights. However, even these need further development, especially with regard to the legitimacy of corporate political activity. (shrink)

L’ambientazione dell’itinerario che qui si propone rinvia ad un’ermeneutica del diritto che concentra l’attenzione non su un settore – costituito da metodologie e principi ai quali attingere per la soluzione di conflitti nella prassi –, ma su una riflessione rigorosa. Tale ordine di pensiero muove dalla filosofia aristotelica del De Interpretatione, sino ai problemi della globalizzazione, trattati interrogandosi se l’ermeneutica occupi o meno un posto prioritario nel complesso universum giuridico. Si prende atto che l’arte dell’interpretazione appare sostituibile con un insieme (...) di teorie argomentative che, con il loro management, rischiano di banalizzare i concetti della responsabilità personale nella vita quotidiana dell’amministrazione della giustizia. (shrink)

This book contains essential contributions to enrich and broaden the application field of pragmatics. It provides an example of how the fruitful reflections and refined conceptual distinctions born in the philosophical field can find a practical application in addressing social, cognitive, clinical, and psychological problems. Its chapters address, from different points of view, the relationship between pragmatic linguistics and philosophy, and outline the possible application of pragmatic theories to different domains. Developed during the third Pragmasophia international conference, whose name is (...) derived from the Greek terms πρᾶγμα (action, fact) and σοφία (knowledge, science), the book aligns itself with its aim to study human actions and activities and how they take shape through language. But ‘Pragma’ and ‘Sophia’ also signal another purpose: highlighting the importance of creating links between empirical investigations on language use, and more traditional philosophical approaches. In this reading, ‘Pragma’ represents the experimental goal devoted to analysing and interpreting language facts. In contrast, the term ‘Sophia’ recalls the original vocation of past philosophers to pursue an ideal of ‘pure knowledge’, disconnected from any practical-economic interest. While maintaining the conference's original purpose of encouraging productive comparisons between different approaches, the book consists of two sections: first, on philosophical approaches, recalls more theoretical aspects (closer to the term ‘Sophia’); the second, ‘Inferential and Cognitive Pragmatics,’ addresses more practical issues affecting domains such as Greek literature, pragmatic disorders, dictionary entries, and speech analysis. The reader, whether in linguists, philosophy or psychology, obtains a complete overview of the most advanced current research lines, both theoretical and empirical, and thus contributes to broadening the scope of pragmatics. (shrink)