We discuss the solution proposed by Fermi to the so called “4/3 problem” in the classical theory of the electron, a problem which puzzled the physics community for many decades before and after his contribution. Unfortunately his early resolution of the problem in 1922–1923 published in three versions in Italian and German journals (after three preliminary articles on the topic) went largely unnoticed. Even more recent texts devoted to classical electron theory still do not present his argument or acknowledge the (...) actual content of those articles. The calculations initiated by Fermi at the time are completed here by formulating and discussing the conservation of the total 4-momentum of the accelerated electron as seen from the instantaneous rest frame in which it is momentarily at rest. (shrink)

C'est un truisme de constater que la déontologie professionnelle des avocats est, depuis une vingtaine d'années environ, en pleine évolution. Il importe de préciser celles des règles qui peuvent légitimement s'adapter aux conceptions du monde moderne et réaffirmer celles qui sont irréductibles car elles constituent la base même de la profession. Me Remo Danovi analyse les diverses facettes de ces changements en mettant bien en lumière ce qui doit demeurer, à travers tout, " la loi d'Antigone ".

Apparue il y a une dizaine d’années dans le vocabulaire des relations internationales, la « diplomatie scientifique » reste mal connue, une erreur fréquente étant de la confondre avec la coopération scientifique internationale. Prenant appui sur des exemples puisés dans l’histoire et dans l’actualité des relations internationales, ce texte peut être lu comme une introduction générale à la diplomatie scientifique. Celle-ci appartient au champ des politiques publiques et recouvre des pratiques variées, identifiées à partir des grands objectifs poursuivis par les (...) États qui s’y engagent : attirer, coopérer, influencer. (shrink)

Network analysis views complex systems as networks with well-defined structural properties that account for their complexity. These characteristics, which include scale-free behavior, small worlds and communities, are not to be found in networks such as random graphs and lattices that do not correspond to complex systems. They provide therefore a robust ground for claiming the existence of “complex networks” as a non-trivial subset of networks. The theory of complex networks has thus been successful in making systematically explicit relevant marks of (...) complexity in the form of structural properties, and this success is at the root of its current popularity. Much less systematic has been, on the other hand, the definition of the properties of the building components of complex networks. The obvious assumption is that these components must be nodes and links. Generally, however, the internal structure of nodes is not taken into account, and links are serendipitously identified by the perspective with which one looks at the network to be analyzed. For instance, if the nodes are Web pages that contain information about scientific papers, one point of view will match the relevant links with hyperlinks to similar Web pages, and another with citations of other articles. We intend to contribute here a systematic approach to the identification of the components of a complex network that is based on information theory. The approach hinges on some recent results arising from the convergence between the theory of complex networks and probabilistic techniques for content mining. At its core there is the idea that nodes in a complex network correspond to basic information units from which links are extracted via methods of machine learning. Hence the links themselves are viewed as emergent properties, similarly to the broader structural properties mentioned above. Indeed, beside rounding up the theory, this approach based on learning has clear practical benefits, in that it makes networks emerge from arbitrary information domains. We provide examples and applications in a variety of contexts, starting from an information-theoretic reconstruction of the well-known distinction between “strong links” and “weak links” and then delving into specific applications such as business process management and analysis of policy making. (shrink)

Triangular Landscapes: Environment, Society, and the State in the Nile Delta under Roman Rule. By Katherine Blouin. Oxford Studies on the Roman Economy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. Pp. xxv + 429, illus. $150.

In order to understand how the logic of public management can enrich humanistic management’s practices, the current paper will analyze the managerial practices adopted by public administrations within a situation of emergency, a condition where the specific features of the public management can emerge more clearly. Specifically, it will focus on the ways in which the municipality of Bergamo (one of the hardest-hit cities) have reacted to the Covid-19 pandemic, outlining interesting managerial practices especially from the point of view of (...) Humanistic Management’s theory. Such interest resides also in the fact that although the Humanistic Management’s field of research has dealt with a wide range of topics (including human development, emancipation and progress), so far, however, it has not yet considered public administrations, whose role is by definition oriented towards human development through the creation of public value. The analysis of public management through the lens of Humanistic Management can be useful in various respects. Above all, the difference between public administrations and private enterprises can also lead to a very much different process of value creation, based on collaborative forms of production as well as relational and reflexive forms of management. In accordance with the Humanistic Management framework, also business organizations must generate social wellbeing. From this point of view, the lesson of public administrations can be extremely useful for business organization and management alike. (shrink)

This paper aims to explore an overlooked aspect of deep-fake technology, specifically its application as a protective tool for concealing the identities of targeted individuals or whistleblowers. Since its emergence in 2017, deep-fakes have been intertwined with various sociotechnical imaginaries. Traditionally, deep-fake technology has been portrayed as a potential threat to privacy and a weapon for disseminating false information, evident from its definitions which emphasize its deceptive nature and malicious use. Moreover, the origins of deepfakes, such as the creation and (...) online distribution of altered pornographic material with harmful intentions, further reinforce this perception. As a result of blurring the boundaries between reality and fiction, truth and falsehood, these synthetic media forms not only pose a risk of disinformation and deception but also offer unexplored avenues for creative expression. Thus, this study examines deep-fake technology as a form of ‘digital camouflage’ by analyzing its usage in David France’s documentary film _Welcome to Chechnya_ (2020). The argument presented in this paper suggests that this illustration challenges the dominant narrative surrounding deep-fakes and highlights an ethical and potentially positive application of this technology. (shrink)

Apparue il y a une dizaine d’années dans le vocabulaire des relations internationales, la « diplomatie scientifique » reste mal connue, une erreur fréquente étant de la confondre avec la coopération scientifique internationale. Prenant appui sur des exemples puisés dans l’histoire et dans l’actualité des relations internationales, ce texte peut être lu comme une introduction générale à la diplomatie scientifique. Celle-ci appartient au champ des politiques publiques et recouvre des pratiques variées, identifiées à partir des grands objectifs poursuivis par les (...) États qui s’y engagent : attirer, coopérer, influencer. (shrink)

Resumen: En este trabajo se presenta un abordaje explicativo del enfoque epistemológico -tal como es definido por J. Padrón- propio de la corriente de pensamiento convencionalmente denominada teoría crítica. En la primera parte abordamos su dimensión ontológica a través de la categoría de totalidad, tal como T. Adorno y M. Horkheimer la desarrollan a lo largo de sus trabajos, en oposición al empirismo popperiano. En la sección siguiente damos cuenta de la dimensión gnoseológica de la teoría crítica, desarrollando las reflexiones (...) y discusiones en torno a lo político en la producción científica y empleando como eje conductor el debate entre K. Popper y T. Adorno, con especial énfasis en el vínculo entre ciencia y praxis, entre producción de conocimiento científico e intencionalidad crítica y transformadora del mundo social, lo cual constituye un fundamento parcialmente meta-teórico clave para este enfoque. Finalmente, en las conclusiones, explicitamos algunas implicancias de lo trabajado para la investigación social actual: la centralidad de oponer a la creciente fragmentación e hiperespecialización del campo científico la noción ontológica de totalidad y la necesidad de acompañar la construcción crítica del conocimiento con una adecuada metacrítica de la posición teórica y práctica del investigador.: In this paper, we discuss the epistemological approach -as defined by J. Padrón- called critical theory. In the first part, we explain its ontological dimension through the category of totality, as T. Adorno and M. Horkheimer develop it throughout their works, in opposition to Popperian empiricism. In the following section, we analyse the gnoseological dimension of critical theory around the political in scientific production, using as a driving axis the debate between K. Popper and T. Adorno with special emphasis on the link between science and praxis, the production of scientific knowledge and a critical and transformational intentionality of the social world, which constitutes a partially meta-theoretical basis for this approach. Finally, in the conclusions, we explain some central implications for the current social research: the increasing fragmentation and hyper specialization of the scientific field against the ontological notion of totality, and the need to follow the critical construction of knowledge with an adequate meta-critical theoretical and practical position of the researcher. (shrink)

Atran's putative module for folk biology is evaluated with respect to evidence from patients showing category-specific impairments for living kinds. Existing neuropsychological evidence provides no support for the primacy of categorization at the generic species level. We outline reasons for this and emphasize that such claims should be tested using inductive reasoning tasks.

Delusion is an exceptional test case for the principal categories of common sense and philosophical thought such as ‘reason’, ‘truth’ and ‘reality’. Via an engagement with the legacy of Freud and the most remarkable results of 20th-century psychiatry, the author’s aim is to analyse the paradoxical forms of delusion and to shed light on the logics that underlie and orient its specific modalities of temporalization, conceptualization and argumentation.

The ‘standard picture of meaning’ suggests that natural languages are composed of two different kinds of words: concrete words whose meaning rely on observable properties of external objects and abstract words which are essentially linguistic constructs. In this study, we challenge this picture and support a new view of the nature and composition of abstract concepts suggesting that they also rely to a greater or lesser degree on body-related information. Specifically, we support a version of this new view which we (...) call “x-ception theory” maintaining that abstract concepts are based on internal information of a proprioceptive, interoceptive and affective kind. Secondly, we address a methodological issue concerning the so-called concreteness and imageability measures, two tools that are widely used in (mainly psycholinguistic) empirical research to assess the degree of concreteness of specific words. On the basis of this analysis we argue that—even though the classical concreteness and imageability measures were developed in relation to the standard picture of meaning—they can also be used in the new framework of x-ception theory. In particular, we suggest that the discrepancy between these two measures provides a clue as to whether a word relies on internal information. By contrast, we argue that a new measure for concreteness recently proposed in order to address some problems with the old measure is completely inappropriate for this aim. (shrink)

Novelty, the creation of new information, has been the hallmark of Juri M. Lotman’s thought. This issue resurfaces in the discussion of his now famous article “On the semiosphere,” in which Lotman, drawing on Vernadsky, identifies the principles of symmetry, asymmetry, and enantiomorphism as pivotal aspects of the semiotic mechanism of the semiosphere. Specular phenomena and mirror reflections have not only found a prominent place in contemporary semiotic theories of different scholarly traditions – from general semiotics (Eco, Volli) to cognitive (...) semiotics (Sonesson) and to the semiotics of culture (Lotman, Levin) – but they also nail down a key element of the inner mechanism of Lotman’s concept of the semiosphere. By using the analogy of thefacereflecting in amirror, Lotman remarks: “It is also like a face, which, wholly reflected in a mirror, is also reflected in any of its fragments, which, in this form, represents the part and yet remains similar to the whole mirror.” By capitalizing on this excerpt, this study unpacks the significance of Lotman’s idea of specular mechanisms as generators of meaning within the semiosphere. (shrink)

Perceiving and recognizing others via their faces is of pivotal importance. The ability to perceive others in the environment – to discern between friends and foes, selves and others – as well as to detect and seek to predict their possible moves, plans, and intentions, is a set of skills that has proved to be essential in the evolutionary history of humankind. The aim of this study is to explore the subject of face recognition as a semiotic phenomenon. The scope (...) of this inquiry is limited to face perception by the human species. The human face is analysed on the threshold between biological processes and cultural processes. We argue that the recognition of likenesses has a socio-cultural dimension that should not be overlooked. By drawing on Georg Lichtenberg’s remarks on physiognomy, we discuss the critique of the semiotic bias, the association of ideas, and the mechanism of typification involved in face recognition. Face typification is discussed against the background of face recognition and face identification. We take them as three gradients of meaning that map out a network of relationships concerning different cognitive operations that are at stake when dealing with the recognition of faces. (shrink)

From prehistoric stone tools, to machines, to computers, things have traveled a long road along with human beings. Changing with the times, places, and methods of their production, emerging from diverse histories, and enveloped in multiple layers of meaning, things embody ideas, emotions, and symbols of which we are often unaware. The meaning of "thing" is richer than that of "object," which is something that is manipulated with indifference or according to impersonal technical procedures. Things also differ from merchandise, objects (...) that can be sold or exchanged or seen as status symbols. Things, in the philosophical sense, are nodes of relationships with the life of others, chains of continuity among generations, bridges that connect individual and collective histories, junctions between human civilizations and nature. Things incite us to listen to reality, to make them part of ourselves, giving fresh life to an otherwise suffocating interiority. Things also reveal the hidden aspect of a "subject" in its most secret and least explored side. Things are the repositories of ideas, emotions, and symbols whose meaning we often do not understand. In an unexpected but coherent journey that includes the visions of classic philosophers from Aristotle to Husserl and from Hegel to Heidegger, along with the analysis of works of art, Bodei addresses issues such as fetishism, the memory of things, the emergence of department stores, consumerism, nostalgia for the past, the self-portraits of Rembrandt and Dutch still-lifes of the seventeenth century. The more we are able to recover objects in their wealth of meanings and integrate them into our mental and emotional horizons, he argues, the broader and deeper our world becomes. (shrink)

The present study investigates and thematizes the interrelation between face masking, concealment, and deceit. It starts from the premise that the significance of disguise and deceit in the history of ideas should be reversed as these methods of the management of human appearance are not only regarded as coercive methods to manipulate and exert power over others but also as tactics skillfully used by the weak in order to outmaneuver those who are in a position of power. The study traces (...) the matrix of simulation and dissimulation as forming the structure of deceit, it reviews some of the main theories of disguise within the field of semiotics, and it singles out two main dimensions of disguise, one geared upon dynamism and the other based on the static features of the face. This study suggests that classifications of masks elaborated in semiotic theory hitherto are useful but insufficient to encompass the full scope of such phenomenon. For this reason, the study provides a new typology of masks. (shrink)

The capability approach developed by Amartya Sen focuses on the enhancement of people’s capabilities, i.e. their real freedom to choose a life course they have reason to value. Applying the CA to the organizational context, the focus of human resource management is transformed, shifting away from the needs of the organization to the freedoms of the individual. This shift happens also inside the so-called ‘liberated companies,’ firms with an organizational form that allows employees the complete freedom, along with the responsibility, (...) to take any actions they decide are best. In this paper we show the contribution of the capability approach for management and for organizational ethics by focusing on this innovative model of ‘liberated companies.’. (shrink)

This paper presents a theoretical investigation of the issue of lying from a semiotic perspective and its specific aim is the analysis of the theory of the lie asconceived by Aurelius Augustinus, bishop of Hippo, also known as Augustine or St. Augustine. The latter devoted two short treatises to the issue oflying: De mendacio and Contra mendacium, written in ca. 395 DC and 420 DC, respectively. Th e paper will focus on duplicity and intention to deceive as fundamental and necessary (...) features of the lie. Augustine’s chief contribution to the study of human deception was to have severed the assessment of what is a lie from factual falsity. For Augustine, at the kernel of the notion of lying lies the idea of intentionality. Following this line of thought, the paper singles out two types of intentionality, namely the intention to assert a falsehood and the intention to mislead. On the basis of this double nature of intentionality, the present paper seeks to outline a theoretical framework for the study of species of falsehoods. The outcome is a typology of untruthfulness that envisages a fourfold inventory of falsehoods based on the difference between jokes, errors, lies and pretences. (shrink)

This paper seeks to shed light on an unwritten chapter in the history of Tartu semiotics, that is, to draw a parallel between Juri Lotman and Emile Benvenisteon the status of natural language among other systems of signs. The tenet that language works as a ‘primary modelling system’ represents one of the trademarksof the Tartu-Moscow school. For Lotman, the primacy assigned to natural language in respect to other systems of signs lied in the fact that the former functions as a (...) ‘model’ for the latter thus regarded as ‘secondary modelling systems’. Yet how does language carry out its function of being a model for other sign systems? Is language the only primary modelling system? This paper seeks to foster the abovementioned claim of the primacy of natural language and argues that this issue deserves a closer inspection. In order to follow this route, it suggests a parallel between Lotman and Benveniste arguing that there exist several points in common that lead to a convergence of positions between these two remarkable scholars. The paper explores such a possibility, arguing that Lotman’s and Benveniste’s positions open up an interesting debate with specific reference to the relations laid down between language and other system of signs. (shrink)