The purpose of this paper is to analyse the nature of bureaucratization within public research bodies and its relationship to scientific performance, focusing on an Italian case-study. The main finding is that the bureaucratization of the research sector has two dimensions: public research labs have academic bureaucratization since researchers spend an increasing part of their time in administrative matters (i.e., preparing grant applications, managing grants/projects, and so on); whereas universities mainly have administrative bureaucratization generated by the increase over time of (...) administrative staff in comparison with researchers and faculty. In addition, I show that research units with higher bureaucratization have lower scientific performance. (shrink)

Dès ses origines, l’écologie a toujours voulu présupposer l’existence parmi les êtres vivants non-humains d’un ordre, d’un équilibre naturel qu’il est nécessaire d’affirmer pour nier ou refouler l’apparente « guerre de tous contre tous » censée régner entre les différentes espèces naturelles. L’article essaie de définir les présupposés théologiques de cette idée d’ordre, et de montrer qu’au centre de l’interaction entre toutes les espèces, il y a une activité d’inclusion et d’inséparation qui se manifeste par l’alimentation.

Oggi come in passato l'Oriente è vittima di stereotipi derivati dalla tradizione orientalistica ottocentesca che ha contribuito a plasmare una miriade di cliché esotici dai quali fatichiamo a renderci indipendenti. In questo intervento si cerca di segnalare, e in parte demitizzare, alcuni di tali luoghi comuni, con particolare riferimento al contesto musicale russo di fine Ottocento. Nel quadro dell'immaginario dell'Oriente che si sviluppa nella cultura russa si colloca la suite sinfonica Sekherezada op. 35 di Nikolaj Andreevič Rimskij-Korsakov: temi popolari di (...) sapore orientaleggiante si sviluppano su impianti sonori di grande effetto che trasportano gli uditori in un mondo lontano, sconosciuto, immaginato, chiamato Oriente As a consequence of the multitude of exotic cliché shaped by the eighteenth-century orientalistic tradition, the East has always fallen victim to a series of misleading stereotypes from which we can hardly set free.The aim of this paper is to bring to light and demythologize some of those cliché, with particular attention paid to the eighteenth-century musical output in Russia. Among the Russian musical works that focus on the theme of the East is the symphonic suite Sekherezada op. 35 composed by Nikolaj Andreevič Rimskij-Korsakov: oriental-sounding folk themes develop on impressive sonorities taking the listener to a far-away, unknown, imaginary place, called “East”. (shrink)

We barely talk about them and seldom know their names. Philosophy has always overlooked them; even biology considers them as mere decoration on the tree of life. And yet plants give life to the Earth: they produce the atmosphere that surrounds us and they are the origin of the oxygen that animates us. Plants embody the most direct, elementary connection that life can establish with the world. In this book, philosopher Emanuele Coccia argues that, as the very creator of (...) atmosphere, plants occupy the fundamental position from which we should analyze all elements of life. From this standpoint, we can no longer perceive the world as a simple collection of objects or a universal space containing all things, but as the site of a veritable metaphysical mixture. One implication of Coccia’s claim is that since the atmosphere of life is rendered possible through plants alone, life only perpetuates itself through the very circle of consumption undertaken by plants. In other words, life exists only insofar as it consumes other life, removing any moral or ethical considerations from the equation. In contrast to trends of thought which discuss nature and the cosmos in general terms, Coccia’s account brings the infinitely small together with the infinitely big, offering a radical redefinition of the place of humanity within the realm of life. Faced as we are with ever more complex and urgent ecological questions, this path-breaking account of the life of plants will appeal not only to students and scholars of philosophy but to a wide range of readers interested in our relation to the natural world. (shrink)

Nous en parlons à peine et leur nom nous échappe. La philosophie les a toujours négligées ; même la biologie les considère comme une simple décoration de l'arbre de la vie. Et pourtant, les plantes donnent vie à la Terre : elles fabriquent l'atmosphère qui nous enveloppe, elles sont à l'origine du souffle qui nous anime. Les végétaux incarnent le lien le plus étroit et élémentaire que la vie puisse établir avec le monde. Sous le soleil et les nuages, en (...) se mêlant à l'eau et au vent, leur existence est une interminable contemplation cosmique. Ce livre part de leur point de vue - celui des feuilles, des racines et des fleurs - pour comprendre le monde non plus comme une simple collection d'objets, ou un espace universel contenant toute chose, mais bien comme l'atmosphère générale, le climat, un lieu de véritable mélange métaphysique. (shrink)

This article reviews the outstanding and thought-provoking work by Roberta De Monticelli (2021), _Towards a Phenomenological Axiology. Discovering What Matters_. The article addresses the reasons why it should be read by everyone but especially by help professions practitioners. Although we all deal with morality and value judgments on on mundane, everyday bases, the professional life of education and care practitioners is namely a series of morally-loaded practices and decision-making informed by morally oriented (expert) knowledge. Beyond the thesis advanced in the (...) book, its major contribution consists in making the reader think the inescapability of morality in everyday thinking and acting and the need for a reflective positioning towards this issue. By aligning with “the hedgehog vs. the fox” struggle proposed by the author as the framework of her theoretical proposal, the article advances what would be the doubts and counterarguments of a fox-like scholar in education. It illustrates why her “professional vision” cannot but notice what appears to be under-thematized by the hedgehog, i.e., the unavoidable mediation of language and social interaction that _precedes_ and therefore impacts the constitution of what the hedgehog convincingly notices: the entanglement of fact and value. The conclusion is dedicated to the (underestimated?) place of social sciences in such a debate, their tension between implicit normativity and presumed descriptivity, as well the challenges of the increasingly explicit normativity of applied social sciences. (shrink)

Claims advertising is nothing but a metaphysical hypothesis about the moral nature of things: objects aren't purely physical or economical entities. Any object, regardless of its nature, can become a complex of possible happiness--not just an object of value, but a moral source of perfection for any one of us.

This book is a rehabilitation sensibility. It defines what we call sensibility or sensible life by defining the ontological status of images. It shows that images have an intermediate ontological status and exist in an autonomous sphere. It also explores our interactions with images in dream, fashion and language.

Im letzten Jahrhundert hat sich das Museum von einer Institution, die sich auf die Vergangenheit und ihre Bewahrung konzentriert, zu einem Instrument der Wahrsagerei über die Zukunft von Kunst und Gesellschaft gewandelt. Der Aufsatz schlägt vor, ebenso die Museen für Naturgeschichte zu transformieren und für das Konzept einer Zeitgenossenschaft der Natur mit den entsprechenden Untersuchungsinstrumenten zu öffnen, sodass sie sich zu neuen Museen für zeitgenössische Natur entwickeln können. During the last century, art museums evolved from institutions focussing on the past (...) and its preservation to instruments of soothsaying about the future of art and society. This article suggests transforming museums for natural history in the same way, introducing them to the concept of a contemporaneity of nature via proper investigative tools in order to help outdated museums transforming into modern institutions, showcasing contemporary nature. (shrink)

A brilliant reflection on the interconnectedness of all life.

Starting from the distinction between concept and conception, the author proposes a pluralistic view of toleration focussed on the equality of individuals and cultures and on legal‐rational control of social relationship. Analyzing the basic marks of toleration (toleration and power, the costs of toleration, toleration and value) the author shows how the option for toleration is a choice for subjecting social relations to reason and rules (law) instead of passions and violence (war).

This is an exclusive interview with the film-maker Nurith Aviv. Her last film Misafa Lesafa, on the plural linguistic identity in Israel, is linked to her former work and analysed through its cultural background, its symbolic dimension and its technical realization.

Giovanni of Capestrano, who is largely ignored by non-specialists in religious history, is very well-known to scholars from the countries which he crossed during his turbulent mission of only six years between Wiener Neustadt and Ilok. However, the fragmentation of research in national historiographies remains very considerable, even though Giovanni's Great Mission seems to constitute, ex natura we could say, a point of convergence among them. The repeated efforts made during the past century to collect and publish his correspondence (still (...) little... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Preliminary remarksSince John Capistran is among the most relevant figures of the fifteenth century, not only for the Franciscan Order but more generally for political and religious life , the very substantial corpus of his correspondence has a long history as well as a long historiography. The approximately seven hundred letters he sent or received beginning in 1418 until his death in 1456, were discovered and studied one at (...) a time over the centuries, for quite different reasons and with different aims.Certainly the gradual process of discovering and studying these documents is marked by some milestones. For example, there is the celebration of his canonization process in 1623 , as well as the works of the so-called Capistran Commission. This commission was a team established in 1952 in Rome by the leadership of the Franciscan Order , which was located first in Grottaferrata, College of Quaracchi, then in the Antonianum, and was managed by friars Ottokar Bonmann and Paulis Bédrune.The research archive of Capistrano materials that is housed at the Franciscan Institute at St. Bonaventure University was brought together through the efforts of Gedeon Gál, OFM. Gedeon had been heading up work on the critical edition of the theological and philosophical writings of William of Ockham at the Institute. His interest in John Capistran came from the fact that he was a member of the Hungarian Franciscan Province of St. John Capistran. The greater part of the material came from the research files of Ottokar Bonmann who died before being able to start any actual editing work for an edition of Capistran. Knowing of Bonmann's work Gedeon asked Conrad Harkins, O.F.M., then director of the Franciscan Institute, to request that Bonmann's research be shipped to the Institute from Rome where it was being stored. Also while Conrad was on sabbatical in Italy, Gedeon asked him to photocopy the manuscript of Capistran's letters copied in the 1600s by Antonio Sessa of Palermo that resides in the library of the Basilica di Santa Maria in Aracoeli in Rome. That being done the copies were sent to the Franciscan Institute and joined with the Bonmann materials to form the archive. It is a heritage that deserves to be retrieved by scholars, in order to accomplish the work according to modern criteria, where accomplish means to create a final edition.Bonmann was very familiar with the earlier research on these letters and his work reinforces the fact that the edition was an obstacle course. This is the case not only because scholars' sensibilities regarding these kinds of documents changed throughout the centuries, previously viewed as a relic of a saint or an attestation of his sainthood, and – more recently – as a precious source about European history in the first half of the fifteenth century. Despite scholarly interest in the correspondence, it remains unpublished.In fact, the first to have the intention to publish all of the correspondence was Lucas Wadding, who received some materials about these letters at St. Isidore College in Rome, but he could not complete his project although he mentions it in his Annales Minorum. After Wadding many scholars tried to work on the same project but using criteria that – in several cases – are no longer helpful because their methods are out-of-date.For example, as we will soon see, collections such as those provided by Antonio Sessa in the seventeenth or by Atanasio Masci in the eighteenth century, are inspired by hagiographical criteria or, at least, not philological criteria. All of these collections were acquired by the Capistran Commission and then by Ottokar Bonmann who wrote an article on the subject in which.. (shrink)

The evidence-based turn in education reveals renewed consensus on empiricism and shared trust in science as if it were the allegedly value-free basis for decision-making: good, justifiable governance should be a non-discretional corollary of scientific knowledge. The article focuses on some risks implied in pursuing the de-moralization of educational decision-making, namely the realistic, the reductionist, and the perspective fallacies, as well as the minimization of individual responsibility in favor of the third-person perspective implied in following protocols and guidelines. In the (...) discussion I address some possible reasons for the appeal of the evidence-based turn despite these risks: the contemporary pressure for “accountability” and the need to justify social policies and practices with consensual criteria. In the conclusion, I claim that educational decision-making should deploy rather than conceal its moral bases despite their being potentially highly divisive. Consequently, I make a case for “moral accountability”: making publicly inspectable what evidence-based education tries to conceal, i.e. the unavoidable value-ladeness of educational policies and practices. (shrink)

Rien n’est plus faux que l’image de Dante comme génie isolé, tranchant sur son époque. Il appartient au contraire à une génération d’intellectuels italiens très caractéristique: laïes, souvent actifs dans plus d’un domaine, pratiquant abondamment l’expression poétique, engagés dans l’action politique, ces savants-citoyens partagent également une forte conscience historique. Leur inventivité se manifeste, en philosophie, en médecine et en droit, autant que dans l’expression littéraire. Outre des facteurs endogènes, une clé de ce phénomène tient à la réception active du savoir (...) naturaliste élaboré à Paris, qui est lu en Italie hors du contrôle des théologiens. Les parcours parallèles d’une douzaine de personnalité hors du commun montrent la nécessité d’élargir les cadres habituels de l’histoire intellectuelle médiévale. (shrink)

The author summarizes here the main theme of the papers gathered in the second part of this issue. It describes the dual identities they deal with (linguistic identities,métissages, masked exiles and social intermingling) and places them in the context of an ongoing seminar work carried out at the Maison des sciences de l’homme in Paris.

Dalla figura di Macbeth emerge l'idea di un'epoca crudele e violenta, che tende a esaltare gli aspetti brutali e malvagi dell'uomo.

After decades of epistemological inquiry on the social construction of science, we have observed a renewed consensus on empiricism in application-oriented social sciences and a growing trust in evidence-based practice and decision-making. Drawing on the long-standing debate on value-ladenness, evidence and normativity in sciences, this article theoretically discusses and empirically illustrates the Life-World origins of methods in a domain of inquiry strongly characterized by an empiricist epistemic culture and a normative stance: Children and Media Studies. Adopting a reflexive approach to (...) their own research in such an epistemologically underexplored field, the authors analyze a standard research instrument and two procedures. The analysis illustrates how background assumptions shape the research method and how the procedures routinely conceal this work of shaping. In the discussion the authors cast light on the role scientific procedures play in the naturalization of a given moral order, and put forward the question of whether and how this “morality-building” feature of methods should be taken into account in the assessment of their appropriateness. In the conclusion the authors advance that the situated nature of scientific knowledge, rather than discrediting its relevance, is what makes it relevant, here and now, for the larger community the research may impact on. The authors discuss the risks of such a pragmatic outcome and propose the adoption of an oscillating epistemic stance as a way to cope with them. (shrink)

Analyses of embodied interaction still appear to explicitly or implicitly defend a human-centered approach to language and body in the material world. In this article, we propose to decenter our analytical position by acknowledging what artifacts, tools and architectural elements contribute to human activities and practices. Starting from a ‘ventriloqual’ perspective on communication, we demonstrate that the accountable character of people’s activities presupposes a form of material agency that tends to be neglected in our analyses. Far from neglecting human beings’ (...) contributions to their own activities, we show that this approach allows us to acknowledge their capacity to skillfully react and respond to what things indicate, say, or tell them to do. It is, we contend, in this back-and-forth process of actions and reactions that a certain dialogicity of things can be recognized. Decentering the analytical position by focusing on how things traceably contribute to shaping human interactions has, we contend, dramatic theoretical and methodological consequences. In the discussion we argue that resistance in taking a ventriloqual perspective to analyze the social life of things partially depends on its impact on the sensitive notion of responsibility. (shrink)