_The Uprising_ is an Autonomist manifesto for today's precarious times, and a rallying cry in the face of the catastrophic and irreversible crisis that neoliberalism and the financial sphere have established over the globe. In his newest book, Franco "Bifo" Berardi argues that the notion of economic recovery is complete mythology. The coming years will inevitably see new surges of protest and violence, but the old models of resistance no longer apply. Society can either stick with the prescriptions and (...) "rescues" that the economic and financial sectors have demanded at the expense of social happiness, culture, and the public good; or it can formulate an alternative. For Berardi, this alternative lies in understanding the current crisis as something more fundamental than an economic crisis: it is a crisis of the social imagination, and demands a new language by which to address it. This is a manifesto against the idea of growth, and against the concept of debt, the financial sector's two primary linguistic means of manipulating society. It is a call for exhaustion, and for resistance to the cult of energy on which today's economic free-floating market depends. To this end, Berardi introduces an unexpected linguistic political weapon--poetry: poetry as the insolvency of language, as the sensuous birth of meaning and desire, as that which cannot be reduced to information and exchanged like currency. If the protests now stirring about the world are to take shape and direction, then the revolution will be neither peaceful nor violent--it will be linguistic, or will not be at all. (shrink)

This paper discusses an earlier emendation to fr. 54 GRF Funaioli from Varro's De bibliothecis and argues that, while the text et citro refers to cedar oil, it should not be emended to et cedro. A comparison with a passage from Pliny the Elder (HN 13.86) is used to support the view presented in the article.

We introduce a modal expansion of paraconsistent Nelson logic that is also as a generalization of the Belnapian modal logic recently introduced by Odintsov and Wansing. We prove algebraic completeness theorems for both logics, defining and axiomatizing the corresponding algebraic semantics. We provide a representation for these algebras in terms of twiststructures, generalizing a known result on the representation of the algebraic counterpart of paraconsistent Nelson logic.

An erudite and witty collection of Umberto Eco's essays on mass culture from the 1960s through the 1980s, including major pieces which have not been translated into English before. The discussion is framed by opposing characterizations of current intellectuals as apocalyptic and opposed to all mass culture, or as integrated intellectuals, so much a part of mass culture as to be unaware of serving it. Organized in four main parts, "Mass Culture: Apocalypse Postponed," "Mass Media and the Limits of (...) Communication," "The Rise and Fall of Counter-Cultures," and "In Search of Italian Genius," Eco looks at a variety of topics and cultural productions, including the world of Charlie Brown, distinctions between highbrow and lowbrow, the future of literacy, Chinese comic strips, whether countercultures exist, Fellini's Ginger and Fred, and the Italian genius industry. (shrink)

Umberto Eco -- Stephen Jay Gould -- Jean-Claude Carrière -- Jean Delumeau.

A literary prank leads to deadly danger in this “endlessly diverting” intellectual thriller by the author of The Name of the Rose (Time). Bored with their work, three Milanese book editors cook up an elaborate hoax that connects the medieval Knights Templar with occult groups across the centuries. Becoming obsessed with their own creation, they produce a map indicating the geographical point from which all the powers of the earth can be controlled—a point located in Paris, France, at Foucault’s Pendulum. (...) But in a fateful turn the joke becomes all too real. When occult groups, including Satanists, get wind of the Plan, they go so far as to kill one of the editors in their quest to gain control of the earth. Orchestrating these and other diverse characters into his multilayered semiotic adventure, Umberto Eco has created a superb cerebral entertainment. "An intellectual adventure story…sensational, thrilling, and packed with arcana."—The Washington Post Book World. (shrink)

The world’s press may have lost interest in the ongoing enquiry into the deep‐rooted corruption in Italian business. But what exactly was going on, and what can be done to improve matters? The writers of this authoritative study are Faculty members of the prestigious Italian Business School, SDA Bocconi, Via F. Bocconi 8, 8‐20136 Milano, where Umberto Lago lectures in Strategy and Roberto Castoldi in Accounting. They both lecture on the Business Policy course at Bocconi University.

An examination of new forms of alienation in our never-off, plugged-in culture—and a clarion call for a “conspiracy of estranged people.” We can reach every point in the world but, more importantly, we can be reached from any point in the world. Privacy and its possibilities are abolished. Attention is under siege everywhere. Not silence but uninterrupted noise, not the red desert, but a cognitive space overcharged with nervous incentives to act: this is the alienation of our times... —from The (...) Soul at Work Capital has managed to overcome the dualism of body and soul by establishing a workforce in which everything we mean by the Soul—language, creativity, affects—is mobilized for its own benefit. Industrial production put to work bodies, muscles, and arms. Now, in the sphere of digital technology and cyberculture, exploitation involves the mind, language, and emotions in order to generate value—while our bodies disappear in front of our computer screens. In this, his newest book, Franco “Bifo” Berardi—key member of the Italian Autonomist movement and a close associate of Félix Guattari—addresses these new forms of estrangement. In the philosophical landscape of the 1960s and 1970s, the Hegelian concept of alienation was used to define the harnessing of subjectivity. The estrangement of workers from their labor, the feeling of alienation they experienced, and their refusal to submit to it became the bases for a human community that remained autonomous from capital. But today a new condition of alienation has taken root in which workers commonly and voluntarily work overtime, the population is tethered to cell phones and Blackberries, debt has become a postmodern form of slavery, and antidepressants are commonly used to meet the unending pressure of production. As a result, the conditions for community have run aground and new philosophical categories are needed. The Soul at Work is a clarion call for a new collective effort to reclaim happiness. The Soul at Work is Bifo's long overdue introduction to English-speaking readers. This Semiotext edition is also the book's first appearance in any language. (shrink)

Answering to Richard Barbrook’s statements concerning the « the numeric nobility » and « Californian » ideology; Bifo who has lived directly events bound by free radios adventure restores facts and institutionalizing meaning of Felix Guattari’s activist activity. Through the figure of the « technos-nomads », he shows how rhizomatic thought is alone in capacity to realize current changes in the networks universes. He puts bombast it, «aesthetics paradigm » only to realize and to fight against the depth of the (...) contemporary infringements on the sensibility. (shrink)

A wide-ranging exploration of the present, and the future, of the Unconscious. The Unconscious knows no time, it has no before-and-after, it does not have a history of its own. Yet, it is not always the same. As it emerges in the life of people and societies, the Unconscious is shaped by ever-changing historical conditions: its form depends on the unique 'psychosphere' of each historical age. In the early twentieth century, Freud characterised the Unconscious as the dark side of the (...) well-ordered framework of Progress and Reason. At the end of the past century, Deleuze and Guattari described it as a laboratory: the magmatic force that ceaselessly brings about new possibilities of imagination. Today, at a time of viral pandemics and in the midst of the catastrophic collapse of capitalism, the Unconscious has begun to emerge in yet another form. In this book, Franco 'Bifo' Berardi vividly illustrates the form in which the Unconscious will make itself manifest for decades to come, and the challenges that it will pose to our possibilities of political action, poetic imagination, and therapy."--Publisher's description. (shrink)

Il volume si presenta come un manuale di riferimento sul pensiero di Umberto Galimberti, una miscellanea di studi cui ha contribuito un alto numero di studiosi di diverse discipline. Questo libro indaga il lungo arco del lavoro galimbertiano: dal pensiero simbolico, dalla fenomenologia alla psichiatria, fino ad approdare alla riflessione sull'età della tecnica e alla consulenza filosofica.

The world’s press may have lost interest in the ongoing enquiry into the deep‐rooted corruption in Italian business. But what exactly was going on, and what can be done to improve matters? The writers of this authoritative study are Faculty members of the prestigious Italian Business School, SDA Bocconi, Via F. Bocconi 8, 8‐20136 Milano, where Umberto Lago lectures in Strategy and Roberto Castoldi in Accounting. They both lecture on the Business Policy course at Bocconi University.

We live in an age of impotence. Stuck between global war and global finance, between identity and capital, we seem to be incapable of producing the radical change that is so desperately needed. Is there still a way to disentangle ourselves from a global order that shapes our politics as well as our imagination? In his most systematic book to date, renowned Italian theorist Franco Berardi tackles this question through a solid yet visionary analysis of the three fundamental concepts (...) of Possibility, Potency, and Power. Characterizing Possibility as the content, Potency as the energy, and Power as the form, Berardi suggests that the road to emancipation unravels from the awareness that the field of the possible is only limited, and not created, by the power structures that implement it. Other futures and other worlds are always already inscribed within the present, despite power's attempt at keeping them invisible. Overcoming any temptation of giving in to despair or nostalgia, Berardi proposes the notion of 'futurability' as a way to remind us that even within the darkness of our current crisis lies dormant the horizon of possibility. (shrink)

This is the second of a series of papers that investigate fragments of quasi-Nelson logic (QNL) from an algebraic logic standpoint. QNL, recently introduced as a common generalization of intuitionistic and Nelson’s constructive logic with strong negation, is the axiomatic extension of the substructural logic |$FL_{ew}$| (full Lambek calculus with exchange and weakening) by the Nelson axiom. The algebraic counterpart of QNL (quasi-Nelson algebras) is a class of commutative integral residuated lattices (a.k.a. |$FL_{ew}$|-algebras) that includes both Heyting and Nelson algebras (...) and can be characterized algebraically in several alternative ways. The present paper focuses on the algebraic counterpart (a class we dub quasi-Nelson implication algebras, QNI-algebras) of the implication–negation fragment of QNL, corresponding to the connectives that witness the algebraizability of QNL. We recall the main known results on QNI-algebras and establish a number of new ones. Among these, we show that QNI-algebras form a congruence-distributive variety (Cor. 3.15) that enjoys equationally definable principal congruences and the strong congruence extension property (Prop. 3.16); we also characterize the subdirectly irreducible QNI-algebras in terms of the underlying poset structure (Thm. 4.23). Most of these results are obtained thanks to twist representations for QNI-algebras, which generalize the known ones for Nelson and quasi-Nelson algebras; we further introduce a Hilbert-style calculus that is algebraizable and has the variety of QNI-algebras as its equivalent algebraic semantics. (shrink)

We look at extensions (i.e., stronger logics in the same language) of the Belnap–Dunn four-valued logic. We prove the existence of a countable chain of logics that extend the Belnap–Dunn and do not coincide with any of the known extensions (Kleene’s logics, Priest’s logic of paradox). We characterise the reduced algebraic models of these new logics and prove a completeness result for the first and last element of the chain stating that both logics are determined by a single finite logical (...) matrix. We show that the last logic of the chain is not finitely axiomatisable. (shrink)

"Eco wittily and enchantingly develops themes often touched on in his previous works, but he delves deeper into their complex nature... this collection can be read with pleasure by those unversed in semiotic theory." —Times Literary Supplement.

In this book, Franco Berardi guides the reader through a wry, dark, disconcerting but also brilliant and invigorating journey through the recent upheavals that we have witnessed. He argues that if our world is dead, then the space is open for another to appear - a world where apocalypse can shake us out of our contemporary zombie-like existence.

Introduction: Cartographies in becoming -- The happy depression -- Integrated world capitalism -- Planetary psychopathia -- Postmediatic affect -- User's manual-- Deleuze and the rhizomatic machine -- Why is anti-Oedipus the book of the '68 movement? -- Kafka, hypertext, and assemblages -- The tantric egg -- Chaosmosis -- The provisional eternity of friendship.

Essays discuss poetry, communication, television, form, aesthetics, bad taste, and art.

A recent paper by Jakl, Jung and Pultr succeeded for the first time in establishing a very natural link between bilattice logic and the duality theory of d-frames and bitopological spaces. In this paper we further exploit, extend and investigate this link from an algebraic and a logical point of view. In particular, we introduce classes of algebras that extend bilattices, d-frames and N4-lattices to a setting in which the negation is not necessarily involutive, and we study corresponding logics. We (...) provide product representation theorems for these algebras, as well as completeness, algebraizability results for the corresponding logics. (shrink)

The purpose is to study the strength of Ramsey’s Theorem for pairs restricted to recursive assignments ofk-many colors, with respect to Intuitionistic Heyting Arithmetic. We prove that for every natural number$k \ge 2$, Ramsey’s Theorem for pairs and recursive assignments ofkcolors is equivalent to the Limited Lesser Principle of Omniscience for${\rm{\Sigma }}_3^0$formulas over Heyting Arithmetic. Alternatively, the same theorem over intuitionistic arithmetic is equivalent to: for every recursively enumerable infinitek-ary tree there is some$i < k$and some branch with infinitely many (...) children of indexi. (shrink)

In preference aggregation a set of individuals express preferences over a set of alternatives, and these preferences have to be aggregated into a collective preference. When preferences are represented as orders, aggregation procedures are called social welfare functions. Classical results in social choice theory state that it is impossible to aggregate the preferences of a set of individuals under different natural sets of axiomatic conditions. We define a first-order language for social welfare functions and we give a complete axiomatisation for (...) this class, without having the number of individuals or alternatives specified in the language. We are able to express classical axiomatic requirements in our first-order language, giving formal axioms for three classical theorems of preference aggregation by Arrow, by Sen, and by Kirman and Sondermann. We explore to what extent such theorems can be formally derived from our axiomatisations, obtaining positive results for Sen’s Theorem and the Kirman-Sondermann Theorem. For the case of Arrow’s Theorem, which does not apply in the case of infinite societies, we have to resort to fixing the number of individuals with an additional axiom. In the long run, we hope that our approach to formalisation can serve as the basis for a fully automated proof of classical and new theorems in social choice theory. (shrink)

We present a possible computational content of the negative translation of classical analysis with the Axiom of (countable) Choice. Interestingly, this interpretation uses a refinement of the realizability semantics of the absurdity proposition, which is not interpreted as the empty type here. We also show how to compute witnesses from proofs in classical analysis of ∃-statements and how to extract algorithms from proofs of ∀∃-statements. Our interpretation seems computationally more direct than the one based on Godel's Dialectica interpretation.

A collection of essays discusses such topics as the nature of perception, the semiotic links between cognition and language, and iconism, with imaginative fables featuring animal heroes to illustrate the main points.

Irrational debt decisions at the individual level may harm collective welfare. For this reason, regulators are committed to encourage information-based behaviours in order to enhance likelihood of appropriate indebtedness. We analyse, with a diff-in-diff estimator, the Italian case offered by the Legislative Decree that reformed the consumer credit market adopting European Directive 2008/48/ec, and that reinforced the mandatory information acquisition, jointly asked to lenders and borrowers, before granting/receiving consumer credit. By using micro-data on 60.000 consumer credit borrowers, in total, randomly (...) sampled from the most relevant Italian Credit Bureau, our findings support that, in the medium term, the new consumer credit regulation has improved borrowers’ repayment ability, enhancing the quality of credit distribution. Nevertheless, a simplistic ‘better information-better behaviour’ relationship cannot be assured. This success is likely due to conjunct adaptation of behaviours, with shared responsibilities experienced on both the demand and offer side of the consumer credit marketplace. (shrink)