The iconic and diagrammatic features of abduction, as expressed in Peirce’s works after 1890, allow one to re-read the Kantian concept of schema. By means of this new reading, it is possible to consider the dynamics between legality and creative acts, which, according to Emilio Garroni, keep cultures alive. This process can be analysed by a semiotic theory that could combine the features of Kant’s Aesthetic Judgment (as an answer to schema’s problems) and Peirce’s last theory of abduction. In this (...) way, it becomes possible to go beyond the simple subsumption, through Reflective Judgment, of sensible intuitions under a concept. Thus, creativity becomes the process, both mental and cultural, whereby a new regularity come from the background of the previous one as a result of the free play of our faculties (Musement), which sets links between universes of experience apparently very distant one from another. (shrink)

Toward the end of the Republic, Cicero was not alone in planning to collect his own letters for publication. Most likely, Caesar and Varro, among others, intended to do the same, and Cicero had access to letters by the Elder Cato and Cornelia. But it was not only authors or recipients who assembled and circulated letters. In December 59, Cicero wrote to his brother Quintus, who was concluding his mandate as governor of Asia, and encouraged him to leave behind a (...) positive image of himself. In particular, Cicero did not hide his concern at some carelessness Quintus displayed in sending out certain letters : of those, Quintus should destroy the ones he was able to find, while nothing could be done about some collections which had already been circulated and criticized. In other words, both the authors and their ill-wishers selected, assembled and circulated letters. Who chose which letters mattered enormously, since collections had the power to enhance or damage a person's public image. (shrink)

As the grandchild of Italian immigrants, photographer Gina J. Grillo has a personal impetus in her photographic studies of ethnic and immigrant life in the United States. In Between Cultures, Grillo explores the struggles immigrant children face as they develop their cultural identity in an environment completely new and foreign to them. Following the tradition of the pioneering photographers Jacob Riis and Lewis Hine, Grillo portrays the immigrant experience through children's eyes, unearthing a complex and poignant world. (...) She begins with images of newly arrived immigrant families at O'Hare International Airport during their first few hours in the United States, and then follows them through the gates and into Chicago's urban life: through her chronicle of citizenship ceremonies, cultural celebrations, weddings and dances, and other everyday scenes of immigrant life, Grillo captures the crucial elements that shape not only the characters of the children, but also the neighborhoods in which they reside. For adults, emigration to America is filled with both hope and fear, yet it is tempered by a mature understanding. For children, however, this same journey unfolds in the unrelenting present as they must constantly negotiate their individual identities and allegiances to culture, country, and kin. With moving quotations and drawings by immigrant children woven into Grillo's visual sequence, Between Cultures is a unique meditation on the development of individual identity through the reconciliation of multiple cultural heritages. (shrink)

El último jefe de gobierno republicano durante la guerra civil de España, Juan Negrín, tuvo que gestionar el exilio republicano. Consciente desde el otoño de 1938 de las debilidades de la República para vencer a los franquistas, inició un proceso cuya meta era usar parte de las riquezas de la República para subvenir a las necesidades de los refugiados en México. El exilio republicano a México ocasionó una división multilateral. Se exponen aquí algunos de los orígenes de las divisiones políticas (...) y cómo Negrín se refirió al final de la guerra en algunos manuscritos que forman parte de sus memorias. (shrink)

Abstract:In the prologue to the Rhetorica ad Herennium Book 4, the author boldly departs from tradition and explains that he will create his own examples, rather than drawing from poets and orators. This methodological discussion portrays itself as an exemplum and hence carries a meta-literary and mimetic dimension. In particular, this prologue anticipates and illustrates the precept propounded in Book 4; its fine style and rhythm amount to a defense of rhetoric itself; and this defense must be considered in the (...) political and cultural context of the time. (shrink)

Apuleius tells us of his own popularity as a writer, and yet both the literary and the material records are silent about his works for almost one hundred and fifty years after his death. Various attempts to identify allusions to his works before Lactantius and other fourth-century authors have proven unconvincing. This article suggests that there is a clear allusion to theMetamorphosesin Tertullian's treatiseAduersus Valentinianos(beginning of the third century). Tertullian uses Apuleius to denigrate the Valentinians and to assimilate the name (...) of one of their gods to the braying of an ass. (shrink)

Les philosophes, disait Robert Musil, sont des êtres violents qui, faute d'avoir une armée à leur disposition, se soumettent le monde en l'enfermant dans un système. Il peut aussi leur arriver de vouloir atteindre leurs objectifs en devenant les conseillers d'un prince. Ils s'exposent, en ce cas, à de pénibles frustrations, car le prince (" bon " roi ou " méchant " tyran) n'a que faire des conseils d'un naïf philosophe. Si je reviens ici sur les temps forts de (...) cette histoire (Platon et Denys, Descartes et Christine, Voltaire et Frédéric, Heidegger et Hitler, etc.), ce n'est pas pour inviter les philosophes à s'éloigner de la politique. C'est, au contraire, pour tenter d'instituer, entre le pouvoir et la pensée, un véritable dialogue. Encore faut-il, pour que celui-ci soit possible, que soit reconnue la nature paranoïaque de la démarche philosophique. C. D. (shrink)