The Goods and Services Directive adopted in December 2004 is the very first European Community instrument to implement the principle of gender equality outside the workplace. As such it has the potential to close an important gap in European Union law. This note, however, contends that the limited scope of application of the Directive, together with doubts surrounding its legal base and position within the overall gender equality framework of the Union, have significantly undermined its potential. Nevertheless, it is suggested (...) that for the future, should these criticisms be adequately addressed, then the Directive may provide an important platform for the wider diffusion of the gender equality principle beyond the sphere of European employment law. (shrink)

Cancer diagnosed during pregnancy is a rare event. The most common type of malignancy diagnosed in pregnant women is breast cancer, whose incidence is expected to raise in the next future due to delayed childbirth, as well as to the increased occurrence of the disease at young age. Pregnant women diagnosed with breast cancer are exposed to multiple sources of stress, which may lead to poorer obstetric outcomes, such as preterm birth and low birth weight. In addition, pregnancy involves physiological (...) changes in the breasts that may blur the signs of cancer, with delayed diagnosis and poor prognosis. However, the lived experience of these women was investigated in very few studies. Given this scenario, we conducted this qualitative study to describe and understand women’s subjective experience of being diagnosed with breast cancer during pregnancy. The study was conducted following the principles of Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. Participants were five women with breast cancer diagnosed during pregnancy, purposefully recruited at a public hospital during medical visits and interviewed at treatment initiation. The interview transcripts were analyzed using thematic analysis. The textual analysis led to the identification of three main themes related to: the emotional storm experienced after cancer diagnosis, and the importance of receiving appropriate information and being focused on treatment decisions; physical changes and comparisons with healthy women, associated with feelings of sadness and inadequacy; being positive, feeling free to disclose all kinds of emotions, religion and spirituality as sources of strength. The paradoxical coexistence of pregnancy and cancer represents a stressful experience for women and their loved ones. Adopting a systemic perspective may be important to understand the effects of such a complex condition, also considering its impact on healthcare workers. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to analyze how Niccolò Machiavelli conceptualizes the people in the Discorsi sopra prima deca di Tito Livio. For this purpose, in first place, we will sequentially restore the mentions on people that are linked to the passions. In second place, we will focus on the treatment of the different passions. Finally, we will illuminate what kind of people are at stake and how the people intervene in the construction of the political bond.

The aim of this article is to analyze La Mandragola di Niccolò Machiavelli and in particular the character of Lucretia, the female protagonist of the play. We will try to demonstrate that Machiavelli’s Mandragola exceeds the literary record and contains its own theoretical-political potential. For this purpose, we will first restore the textual mentions of Lucretia and analyze what Machiavelli says about her. Secondly, we will briefly focus on the Roman legend of Lucretia, as it appears in Tito Livio’s account (...) in order to illuminate the uniqueness of the Machiavellian Lucretia. Finally, we will outline the conclusions. (shrink)

After establishing its roots in basic forms of sensorimotor coupling between an organism and its environment, the new wave in cognitive science known as “enactivism” has turned to higher-level cognition, in an attempt to prove that even socioculturally mediated meaning-making processes can be accounted for in enactivist terms. My article tries to bolster this case by focusing on how the production and interpretation of stories can shape the value landscape of those who engage with them. First, it builds on the (...) idea that narrative plays a key role in expressing the values held by a society, in order to argue that the interpretation of stories cannot be understood in abstraction from the background of storytelling in which we are always already involved. Second, it presents interpretation as an example of what Di Paolo et al. ( 2010 ) have called in their recent enactivist manifesto a “joint process of sensemaking”: just like in face-to-face interaction, the recipient of the story collaborates with the authorial point of view, generating meaning. Third, it traces the meaning brought into the world by interpretation to the activation and, potentially, the restructuring of the background of the recipients of the story. (shrink)

In this pa per we probe the eth i cal re sponse of Emmanel Lévinas from the per spec tive of spe - cific suf fer ing that so cial re la tions im pose on the ma jor ity of hu man ity. We an a lyze the el e ments of his ethic which al lows us to “read” the in jus - tices and dis-equal i ties that..

The author aims to sketch out a biographical and philosophical profile of Alberto Caracciolo, Italian philosopher in the second half of the twentieth century. In order to reach a better understanding of the philosopher's religious point of view, he believes it is necessary to emphasize both Caracciolo's juvenile friendship with Teresio Olivelli - martyr of the resistance against Nazism - and his critical engagement with the thought of great philosophers such as Croce, Leopardi, Kant, Troeltsch, Jaspers and Heidegger. (...) The author intends also to analyze how Caracciolo's renewal of religious tradition, reconsidered through the concept of Liberalität, connected with his restless and anxious way of considering the malum mundi, led towards an original interpretation of European nihilism. This involves an idea of philosophy, linked to an inexhaustible question and to an ethical and religious view of human life, grounded in a paradoxical way on the imperative of eternity. (shrink)

La vita e le opere di Landolfo Caracciolo O.F.M. sono state descritte in modo sistematico da Salerno.1 Rispetto a questa descrizione, che ha posto il bacellierato sentenziario di Caracciolo intorno al 1320, va assunta la ricostruzione di Schabel, che ha spiegato come Caracciolo abbia letto le Sententiae a Parigi dopo Pietro Aureolo e prima di Francesco d’Ascoli e Francesco di Meyronnes.2 Successivamente Landolfo avrebbe ricevuto la prima cattedra in teologia dello Studium fran-cescano di Napoli, inaugurandovi la tradizione (...) scotista.3Landolfo fu ministro provinciale della Terra di Lavoro e svolse parecchie missioni diplomatiche per conto della regina Giovanna I di Napoli. Nel 1327 fu designato vescovo di.. (shrink)