Review of Luigi Maierù, John Wallis (1616-1703), una vita per un progetto. Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino Editore, 2007. 606 pp.

This special theme issue of Big Data & Society presents leading-edge, interdisciplinary research that focuses on examining how health-related information is circulating on social media. In particular, we are focusing on how computational and Big Data approaches can help to provide a better understanding of the ongoing COVID-19 infodemic and to develop effective strategies to combat it.

I agree with Capra that autopoiesis is the signature of life and that Maturana did well to reject Cartesian dualism. Contrary to how mainstream biology defines life, I point out that reproduction is a consequence of life, not its origin. Furthermore, I address the questions of whether both autopoiesis and cognition together are necessary for life and whether autopoiesis can be extended beyond the molecular domain. I also have words of criticism for Maturana, who called for “objectivity” to be put (...) in parentheses, and conclude with a reminder that it was Varela who was instrumental in making autopoiesis a household term. (shrink)

This book offers an up-to-date insight into the early philosophical debate on Einsteinian relativity. The essays explore the reception and interpretation of Einstein’s ideas by some of the most important philosophical schools of the time, such as logical positivism (Reichenbach), neo-Kantianism (Cassirer, Natorp), critical realism (Sellars), and radical empiricism (Mach). The book is aimed at physicists and historians of science researching the epistemological implications of the theory of relativity, as well as to scholars in philosophy interested in understanding how leading (...) philosophical figures of the early twentieth century reacted to the relativistic revolution. (shrink)

Folk-economic beliefs may be regarded as “evidential fictions” that exploit the natural tendency of human cognition to organize itself in narrative form. Narrative counter-arguments are likely more effective than logical debunking. The challenge is to convey sound economic reasoning in narratively conspicuous forms – an opportunity for economics to rethink its role and agency in public discourse, in the spirit of its old classics.

Risposte alle censure dell' "Ateismo triunfato" (1631).--Documenta ad Gallorum nationem.--Consultationes aphoristicae gerendae rei praesentis temporis cum Austriacis ac Italis ad hispanismi delectionem perficiendam (1635).--Compendium veritatis catholicae et falsitatis sectariorum de praedestinatione.--Censure al "De praedestinationes" (1636).

1. Prodromus philosophiae instaurandae. De sensu rerum et magia. Apologia pro Galileo.--2. Realis philosophia epilogistica. Astrologicorum libri VII.

The Renaissance perspective represents the three-dimensional space onto a bi-dimensional one. This cultural construction, which unifies real and virtual, like all simulations, has some limitations – the main one is that it only works from a precise viewpoint that rules the illusion. When moving away from this position the illusion becomes imperfect. Similar to physics, where reality depends on the observer’s position, perspective depends on the viewer’s position. Since perspective has been inherited by photography, cinema, video, computer images, virtual reality, (...) 3D videogames, we live in a perspective-based culture. In perception the boundaries between opposite qualities are often blurred and even indistinguishable. A screen is generally considered as rectangular, but it can be viewed as really rectangular only from its central perpendicular axis, at the crossing of the diagonals. When moving from this position it should appear as trapezoidal, but people still say it is rectangular: because they see it as rectangular or because they know it is rectangular? This threshold between vision and knowledge is imperceptible and obscure. Something similar happens with the senses. They are considered as separate entities: touch, hear, sight, smell and taste are described as distinct ways to detect the phenomenal world. But they are intermingled; the boundaries that are supposed to separate them are apparent: they are logically separable but not separate. The sensorial system is a cohesive and interrelated continuum where the senses act in synergy with each other. Continuity and discreteness, indistinguishability and distinction, inseparability and division are qualities to individuate, describe, classify and/or communicate the phenomena. These qualities are both theoretical and technical, since they depend on the general perspective of the analysis, on the goals to pursue, on the scale at which the phenomena are observed and on the accuracy of the instruments that are used. (shrink)

In questo contributo vengono indagati alcuni concetti della teologia aristotelica (il concetto di divino e quello di trascendenza) a partire da un’espressione emblematica utilizzata dallo storico francese Étienne Gilson per descrivere il Primo Motore Immobile aristotelico: “centrale elettrica della natura”. L’espressione del noto studioso non è soltanto particolarmente accattivante, ma risulta essere filosoficamente assai significativa poiché veicola perfettamente il significato che assume il Dio di Aristotele nell’economia complessiva del cosmo, più in particolare nel ciclo eterno delle corruzioni e delle generazioni. (...) La ricostruzione storica è finalizzata a mostrare la novità del messaggio cristiano contenuto nella Rivelazione e che trova nelle pagine di Tommaso d’Aquino una chiarezza concettuale, filosofico-metafisica, di eccezionale valore. In esse è possibile osservare la piena maturazione della nuova visione di tipo creazionista (basata sulla Metafisica dell’Esodo 3,14) che, pur in continuità con la visione aristotelica, ne approfondisce smisuratamente i presupposti metafisici. (shrink)

The novel pandemic called “Coronavirus Disease 2019”, as a global public health emergency and global threat, has affected many countries in unpredictable ways and impacted on physical activity behaviors to various extents. Specific populations including refugees, asylum seekers, and prisoners, are vulnerable groups with multiple complex health needs and worse health outcomes with respect to the general population worldwide and at high risk of death from the “Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome-related Coronavirus type 2”. Governments around the world have been implementing (...) preventive healthcare policies, including physical and social distancing, isolation, and confinement, to mitigate against the burden imposed by the COVID-19 outbreak. This pandemic period is characterized by reduced or lack of movement. During this period of lockdown, PA can represent an immunotherapy and a preventative approach to avoid the harmful effects of inactivity due to the pandemic. Moreover, PA could be prescribed to improve the immune system of specific populations, which particularly experience the condition of being confined. The present narrative review discusses the potential impacts of COVID-19 pandemic on these specific populations’ health status and the importance of performing PA/exercise to reduce the deleterious effects of COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, we aim to provide useful recommendations on PA/exercise for these specific populations to maintain their level of independence, physical, and mental health as well as their wellbeing. (shrink)

The papers presented in this volume in honour of Alfonso Maieru cover some of the major topics of his research area. The institutional and intellectual life of university training in the Middle Ages, including the peculiar tradition of related works, is the focus of the papers by Louis Jacques Bataillon, William J. Courtenay, Jacqueline Hamesse, Zenon Kaluza, Loris Sturlese and Olga Weijers. Three papers, by Jacopo Costa, Pasquale Porro and Thomas Ricklin, deal with philosophical problems in Dante'sMonarchia and Convivio. The (...) complex interrelations between logic and the other main aspects of medieval philosophy, with a particular attention to theology, metaphysics and natural philosophy, are the core of the other papers by Stefano Caroti, Sten Ebbesen, Barbara Faes de Mottoni, Simo Knuuttila, Alain de Libera, Olga Lizzini, Costantino Marmo, Claude Panaccio, Ivan Bendwell, Irene Rosier-Catach, Lambert Marie de Rijk, Leonardo Sileo, Luisa Valente, and Albert Zimmermann. A larger number of friends and colleagues of Alfonso Maieru than those who appear as contributors and editors of this volume have warmly welcomed its publication. We could say, therefore, that it is absolutely contingent that the Editors are: Stefano Caroti (Universita degli Studi di Parma), Ruedi Imbach (Universite de Paris-Sorbonne), Zenon Kaluza (Centre d'Etudes des Religions du Livre, C.N.R.S), Loris Sturlese (Universita degli Studi di Lecce) and Giorgio Stabile(Universita degli Studi di Roma "La Sapienza"). (shrink)

1. Critica de capire e altri scritti. 2. Scritti kantiani. 3. L'analitica trascendentale. 4. Il problema della scienza e il giudizio storico.

Following the murder of George Floyd, the Black Lives Matter-movement (BLM) took to the streets to protest against institutional racism. In these protests, one could often hear the slogan “No Justice, No Peace”. Drawing on legal theory, speech act theory and phenomenology, this article investigates what kind of justice and peace are called upon and how the slogan functions as a claim addressed to the legal order. First, the article shows that the rule of law provides a comprehensive normative framework (...) to evaluate what went wrong during the arrest of George Floyd. Second, the article maintains that the slogan should be understood as a passionate utterance in the sense of Stanley Cavell. Finally, drawing on a responsive phenomenology of legal order inspired by the work of Bernhard Waldenfels, the article concludes that the slogan is an extraordinary claim questioning the legal order, showing its contingent origins. (shrink)

Nel mio articolo propongo una lettura dei §§ 79-84 della Critica del Giudizio, parte della sezione Metodologia del Giudizio teleologico. Dapprima mi interrogo sul significato di una Methodenlehre del Giudizio teleologico, che rintraccio in un’attività metariflessiva del Giudizio; procedo poi ad una lettura analitica del testo nelle sue varie articolazioni, nella quale passo in rassegna le questioni attinenti alla specificità dello statuto epistemologico della teleologia, alla possibile convivenza tra finalismo e meccanicismo nella scienza della natura, all’origine della vita, allo scopo (...) ultimo della natura e allo scopo finale della creazione; approdo, infine, ad un’interpretazione per cui l’intera teleologia rationis humanae, che si estende dalla teleologia naturale alla teleologia morale passando per l’antropologia e per la filosofia della storia, viene in questa sezione riarticolata intorno ad un nuovo fulcro concettuale di livello trascendentale, che può garantire l’effettivo collegamento tra queste diverse parti della filosofia proprio perché esso non si esercita in forma di dominio legislativo, ma in forma di riflessione sul molteplice empirico e sulla causalità teleologica propria dell’uomo. (shrink)

1. Teoria del diritto -- 2. Teoria della democrazia -- 3. La sintassi del diritto.