L'impianto didattico di questa 'Storia' consente di: conciliare l'esposizione piana dei concetti con il rigore del linguaggio filosofico; favorire la percezione delle strutture concettuali, con il duplice scopo di illustrare adeguatamente sia l'impianto filosofico dei singoli autori sia lo sviluppo storico dei diversi problemi; presentare la storia del pensiero moderno in una chiave di categorie filosofiche, oltre che storico-evolutiva; delineare i contesti storici in cui nascono le diverse espressioni del pensiero moderno; rimarcare la diversità dei generi letterari utilizzati dagli autori, (...) mostrandone la connessione con il loro modo di filosofare. (shrink)

This book tells the story of modern ethics, namely the story of a discourse that, after the Renaissance, went through a methodological revolution giving birth to Grotius’s and Pufendorf’s new science of natural law, leaving room for two centuries of explorations of the possible developments and implications of this new paradigm, up to the crisis of the Eighties of the eighteenth century, a crisis that carried a kind of mitosis, the act of birth of both basic paradigms of the two (...) following centuries: Kantian ethics and utilitarianism. The new science of natural law carried a fresh start for ethics, resulting from a mixture of the Old and the New. It was, as suggested by Schneewind, an attempt at rescuing the content of Scholastic and Stoic doctrines on a new methodological basis. The former was the claim of existence of objective and universal moral laws; the latter was the self-aware attempt at justifying a minimal kernel of such laws facing skeptical doubt. What Bentham and Kant did was precisely carrying this strategy further on, even if restructuring it each of them around one out of two alternative basic claims. The nineteenth- and twentieth-century critics of the Enlightenment attacked both not on their alleged failure in carrying out their own projects, but precisely on having adopted Grotius’s and Pufendorf’s project. What counter-enlightenment has been unable to spell out is which alternative project could be carried out facing the modern condition of pluralism, while on the contrary, if we takes a closer look at developments in twentieth-century ethics or at on-going discussions on practical issues, we might feel inclined to believe that Grotius’s and Pufendorf’s project is as up-to-date as ever. -/- Table of Contents -/- Preface I. Fathers of the Reformation and Schoolmen 1.1. Luther: passive justice and the good deeds; 1.2. Calvin: voluntarism and predestination; 1.3. Baroque Scholasticism; 1.4. Casuistry and Institutiones morales -/- II Neo-Platonists, neo-Stoics, neo-Sceptics 2.1. Aristotelian, neo-Platonic, neo-Epicurean and neo-Cynic Humanists; 2.2. Oeconomica and the art of living; 2.3. Neo-Stoics; 2.4. Neo-Sceptics; 2.5. Moralistic literature -/- III Neo-Augustinians 3.l. The Jansenists on natura lapsa, sufficient grace, pure love; 3.2. Nicole on the impossibility of self-knowledge; 3.3. Nicole on self-love and charity; 3.4. Nicole against civic virtue, for Christian civility; 3.5. Malebranche on general laws and necessary evil; 3.6. Malebranche on Neo-Augustinianism and Platonism. -/- IV Grotius, Pufendorf and the new moral science 4.1. Grotius against Aristotle and the sceptics; 4.2. Mersenne and Gassendi; 4.3. Descartes on ethics as the last branch of philosophy’s tree; 4.4. Hobbes on scepticism and the new moral science; 4.5. Spinoza on the new moral science as a descriptive science;4.6. Locke on voluntarism and probabilism; 4.7. Pufendorf on natural law as an exact science; 4.8. Pufendorf on physical and moral entities; 10. Pufendorf on self-preservation -/- V The empiricist version of the new moral science: from Cumberland to Paley 5.1. Cumberland against Hobbesian voluntarism; 5.2. Cumberland and theological consequentialism; 5.3. Cumberland on universal benevolence and self-love; 5.4. Shaftesbury on the moral sense; 5.5. Hutcheson on natural law and moral faculties; 5.6. Gay, Brown, Paley and theological consequentialism. -/- VI The rationalist version of the new moral science: from Cudworth to Price 6.1. The Cambridge Platonists; 6.2. Shaftesbury on the moral sense; 6.3. Butler and a third way between voluntarism and scepticism; 6.4. Price and the rational character of moral truths; -/- VII Leibniz’s compromise between the new moral science and Aristotelianism 1.Leibniz against voluntarism; 2.Leibniz against the division between the physical and the moral good; 3.Leibniz on la place d’autrui and theological consequentialism; 4.Thomasius, Wolff, Crusius -/- VIII French eighteenth-century philosophers without the new moral science 8.1. The genealogy of our ideas of virtue and vice; 8.2. Maupertuis and moral arithmetic 8.3. The philosophes and the harmony of interests; 8.4. Rousseau on corruption, self-love, and virtue; 8.5. Sade on the merits of vice -/- IX Experimental moral science: Hume and Adam Smith 9.1. Mandeville’s paradox; 9.2. Hutcheson on the law of nature and moral faculties; 9.3. Hume on experimental moral philosophy and the intermediate principles; 9.4. Hume’s Law; 9.5. Hume on the fellow-feeling; 9.6. Hume on natural and artificial virtues and disinterested pleasure for utility; 9.7. Adam Smith’s anti-realist metaethics; 9.8. Adam Smith on self-deception and the paradox of happiness; 9.9. Adam Smith on sympathy and the impartial spectator; 9.10. Adam Smith on the twofold criterion for moral judgement and its paradox; 9.11. Reid on the refutation of scepticism and the self-evidence of duty -/- X Kantian ethics 10.1. Kantian metaethics: moral epistemology; 10.2. Kantian metaethics: moral ontology; 10.3. Kantian metaethics: moral psychology; 10.4. Kantian normative ethics; 10.5. Kant on the impracticability of applied ethics; 10.6. Kantian moral anthropology; 10.7. Civilisation and moralisation; 10.8. Theology on a moral basis and the origins of evil; 10.9. Fichte and the transformation of theoretical philosophy into practical philosophy XI Bentham and utilitarianism 11.1. Bentham’s linguistic theory; 11.2. Bentham’s moral ontology, psychology, and theory of action; 11.3. The principle of greatest happiness; 11.4. The critique of religious ethics; 11.5. The new morality; 11.6. Interest and duty; 11.7. Virtues; 11.8. Private ethics and legislation -/- XII Followers of the Enlightenment: liberal Judaism and Liberal Theology 12.1. Mendelssohn; 12.2. Salomon Maimon; 12.3. Haskalā and liberal Judaism; 12.4. Liberal Theology. -/- XIII Counter-Enlighteners 13.1.Romanticism and the fulfilment of individuality as the Summum Bonum; 13.2. Hegel on history as the making of liberty; 13.3. Hegel on the unhappy consciousness and the beautiful soul; 13.4. Hegel on Morality and Sittlichkeit; 13.5. Marx on ideology, alienation, and praxis; 13.6. Schopenhauer on compassion; 13.7. Kierkegaard on faith beyond ethics. -/- XIV Followers of the Enlightenment: intuitionists and utilitarian 14.1 Whewell‘s criticism of utilitarianism; 14.2 Whewell on morality and the philosophy of morality; 14.3 Whewell on the Supreme Norm; 14.4 Whewell on the conflict between duties; 14.5 Mill and the proof of the principle of utility; 14.6 Mill’s eudemonistic utilitarianism; 14.7 Mill on rules -/- XV Followers of the Enlightenment: neo-Kantians and positivists 15.1. French spiritualism; 15.2. Neo-Kantians: the Marburg school; 15.3. Neo-Kantians: the Marburg school; 15.4. Comte’s positivism and the invention of altruism; 15.5. Social Darwinism; 15.6. Wundt and an ethic of humankind -/- XVI Post-enlighteners: Sidgwick 16.1. Criticism of intuitionism; 16.2. On ethical egoism; 16.3. Criticism of utilitarianism -/- XVII Post-enlighteners: Durkheim 17.1. Sociology as physics of customs; 17.2. Morality as physics of customs and as practical science; 17.3. On Kantian ethics and utilitarianism; 17.4. The variability of moralities;17.5. Social solidarity as end and justification of morality; 17.6. Secular morality as “sociodicy”; XVIII Post-enlighteners: Nietzsche 18.1. On the Dionysian; 18.2. On the deconstruction of the world of values 18.3 On the twofold genealogy of moralities; 18.4. On ascetics and nihilism; 18.5. Normative ethics of self-fulfilment -/- Bibliography / Index of names / Index of concepts -/- . (shrink)

Se recoge una serie de trabajos que, desde el año 1990 hasta la actualidad, ha dedicado el autor a la reflexión sobre los aspectos ontológicos y políticos en la obra de Espinosa, investigación que se enmarca en el contexto del renacimiento de la reflexión sobre Espinosa en nuestro país impulsada de forma entusiasta y eficaz por Atilano Domínguez. La recuperación de la obra de Espinosa, así como de su talante, puede ser muy importante hoy en día, ya que en su (...) época este autor se resistió a aceptar la cultura de crisis impuesta por el Barroco como pantalla ideológica para ocultar el despliegue del Estado absolutista. (shrink)

Recherche sur la réception de Descartes outre-Atlantique, qui examine comment les concepts fondateurs de la pensée cartésienne s'articulent aux réflexions contemporaines sur la réduction mentale ou l'intelligence artificielle.

This dissertation provides an analysis of both the text and the context of the philosophy of love developed by Judah Abravanel, also known as Leone Ebreo . As a member of one of the most prestigious Jewish families of the Renaissance, Leone Ebreo was born and raised in Portugal, found temporary refuge in Spain and, after the exodus of 1492, lived most of his life in Renaissance Italy as a man-in-exile. His Dialoghi d'amore, which were first published in Rome in (...) 1535, are a conversation of and about love between a man and a woman, i.e., Filone and Sofia . We defend that the work was intended as a parable or diagram about the very nature of Philo-Sophy, and, at the same time, as a profound elaboration of the cosmic or transcendental nature of love itself. The Dialoghi d'amore are, thus, both a dramatic representation of a particular philosophy of love and a demonstration of how philosophy as such constitutes a form of love. ;A detailed analysis of Leone Ebreo's thought, both a major example of Renaissance Philosophy and a model of interpretation, will here be the way toward progress in our own philosophical treatment of love and of the ontological condition it manifests. Since they constitute a paradigmatic example of philosophical eclecticism in the Renaissance, the Dialoghi d'amore will be read as the representative encyclopedia about the culture of sixteenth-century Europe that they in fact are. ;Through a con-textual reading of Leone Ebreo's work we try to illustrate both the philosophical importance and the existential relevance of a text that, located as it is at a crucial moment of transition between the Middle Ages and the Modern Age, is clearly centered upon the Idea of Love and, as such, came to play a significant role in the development of European thought and letters. (shrink)

A lungo le passioni sono state condannate come fattori di turbamento o di perdita temporanea della ragione. Diverse strategie sono state cosi elaborate per estirparle, temperarle o addomesticarle. Ma, mentre dal punto di vista dell'individuo, si mira all'autocontrollo, dal punto di vista della società, si tende piuttosto a forgiare, per loro tramite, strumenti di dominio politico. In quanto relativamente fisse nei loro obiettivi e vischiose nella loro composizione, esse erano considerate nel passato suscettibili sia di una rigorosa sistemazione filosofica, sia (...) di un adeguato trattamento politico. Si direbbe invece che oggi siano non soltanto inclassificabili, ma anche soverchiate dai "desideri" (passioni orientate verso mete future). Attraverso un'analisi di ampio respiro teorico e storico, questo libro mostra come l'opposizione tra ragione e passioni indica il fallimento di ogni etica e di ogni politica che continuino a oscillare tra norme repressive e atteggiamenti lassistici. Nella sua struttura, il volume è concepito in termini "geometrici": in forma di un'ellisse disegnata secondo coppie di "fuochi". Paura e speranza, nella loro tensione complementare, ne compongono i nuclei generatori. Da esse si snoda il percorso di ricerca, che attraversa anche "valichi" del pensiero filosofico e alcuni luoghi esemplari della teoria politica. (shrink)

This is an Italian translation of Spinoza's Metaphysics: Substance and Thought (Oxford UP, 2013).

A l'entree de l'age classique, la definition traditionnelle des passions qui a encore largement cours dans les innombrables traites sur le sujet, est devenu intenable. La disparition de l'ame sensitive et la reconsideration du concept de mouvement interdisent desormais de penser les passions comme des mouvements de l'ame sensitive. Le Traite des passions de Descartes nait du projet de renouveler completement leur etude, porjet dont il faut etudier la genese, et notamment l'episode a cet egard decisif, de la correspondance avec (...) Elisabeth. Mais qu'en est-il de la realisation de ce projet? Pour apprecier la nouveaute introduite par Descartes dans le traitement de la question, il faut brosser a grands traits la toile de fond sur laquelle ce discours se detache, c'est-a-dire exposer la doxa sur les passions qui a cours a l'epoque, et qui est tissee d'un reseau complexe d'heritages, principalement thomiste, galenique, stoicien et augsutinien. L'analyse du Traite joint a cette mise en perspective, permet de voir que ce texte a la fois tres court et tres complexe, dont on a souvent souligne les incoherences, est constitue non pas d'un, mais de deux discours. L'un declare et appuye, issu d'un reve de la raison, et qui est celui des passions; l'autre plus discret et presque clandestin, beaucoup moins eloigne du discours de la doxa, et qui contredit les pretentions du premier d'avoir raison des passions en rendant raison. (shrink)

I argue that the difference between the 17th century new moral science and Scholastic Natural Law Theory derived primarily from the skeptical challenge the former had to face. Pufendorf's project of a 'scientia practica universalis' was the paramount expression of an anti-skeptical moral science, a «science» both explanatory and normative, but also anti-dogmatic in so far as it tried to base its laws on those basic phenomena of human life that supposedly were outside the scope of skeptical doubt. Of the (...) Scholastic legacy to the new moral science, a dichotomy between an «intellettualistic» and a «voluntaristic» view of natural law (or between lex immanens and lex imposita). Voluntarism lays at the root both of theological views such as those of Calvinism and of political views such as those of Hobbes and Locke. A need to counterbalance undesirable implications of estreme voluntarism may account for much of 17th and 18th centuries developments in ethics and politics. Scottish natural jurisprudence, an expression of such quest for a third way between scepticism and extreme voluntarism, is less secular and more empirical than received wisdom admits of. One of its side-effects, namely a systematic, self-contained, and empirical economic theory, results from the search for a normative theory of social life on an empirical basis. The main tool for building such a theory, namely a view of societal laws as embedded in trans-individual mechanisms, derives from the voluntarist view of natural law as «imposed» law. Subsequent discussions of social issues based on the opposition of economic and ethical reasons originated partly from gross misreading of the Scottish natural jurisprudential framework for economic theory. (shrink)

The paper discusses the role of the concepts of conatus, potentia, vis in Spinoza's project of a new science of the Galilean kind of the passions of the mind and of men’s way of living. I argue that he tries to work out a dynamic – as contrasted with kinematic – approach to psychology.