This article examines Jacobi's two novels, Allwill and Woldemar indirectly showing how much Allwill prefigures Kierkegaard's Seduce in Either/Or and the plot of Woldemar Hegel's final scene of Section VI of his Phenomenology of Spirit.

This paper documents a dispute involving the freedom of the press that captivated the attention of the Berlin intelligentsia in the 1780s. The dispute provides the socio-historical background for the section in Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit entitled “The Struggle of the Enlightenment with Superstition.” (GW, VI.B.II.488-522) The section can also be read as Hegel’s critique of Jacobi. The latter’s presence in the Phenomenology, although not pervasive, is at least conspicuous.

Some of the manuscripts once part of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola’s collection transmit autograph notes, which have been useful to reconstruct his library. A peculiar case is represented by the notes transmitted in a codex containing the Latin translation of Moses Maimonides’ Guide of the Perplexed. These notes are actual corrections to the translation made mostly on the basis of a comparison with the Hebrew text, while in some other cases they derive from a specific interpretation. The aim of (...) this paper is to present some characteristics of the textual revisions, in particular with reference to the Hebrew source. The palaeographic data demonstrate Pico’s direct involvement, which leads to the question of the authorship of these notes, namely if they were the result of an autonomous work or of a collaboration with some other scholar. (shrink)

In this contribution, an analysis of the term pestilentia in Augustine’s works is developed. First, all the textual places where the term recurs are listed, specifying the type of meaning it has. A distinction is made between a proper sense, of a medical kind, and a metaphorical sense, of a moral kind. Secondly, the passages where the word pestilentia is used in a clearly medical sense are examined in detail.

Lady Gaga’s celebrity DNA revolves around the notion of monstrosity, an extensively researched concept in postmodern cultural studies. The analysis that is offered in this paper is largely informed by Deleuze and Guattari’s notion of monstrosity, as well as by their approach to the study of sign-systems that was deployed in A Thousand Plateaus. By drawing on biographical and archival visual data, with a focus on the relatively underexplored live show, an elucidation is afforded of what is really monstrous about (...) Lady Gaga. The main argument put forward is that monstrosity as sign seeks to appropriate the horizon of unlimited semiosis as radical alterity and openness to signifying possibilities. In this context it is held that Gaga effectively delimits her unique semioscape; however, any claims to monstrosity are undercut by the inherent limits of a representationalist approach in sufficiently engulfing this concept. Gaga is monstrous for her community insofar as she demands of her fans to project their semiosic horizon onto her as a simulacrum of infinite semiosis. However, this simulacrum may only be evinced in a feigned manner as a (dis)simulacrum. The analysis of imagery from seminal live shows during 2011–2012 shows that Gaga’s presumed monstrosity is more akin to hyperdifferentiation as simultaneous employment of heterogeneous and potentially dissonant inter pares cultural representations. The article concludes with a problematisation of audience effects in the light of Gaga’s adoption of a schematic and post-representationalist strategy in the event of her strategy’s emulation by competitive artists. (shrink)

Tommaso Giannini was a prominent professor at the ferrarese Studium between sixteenth and seventeenth century. Probably influenced by Platonic sympathies nurtured by the Court and partly by the University milieu, in 1587 he published his first work titled De providentia ad sententiam Platonis et Platonicorum liber unus, which was a catalyst for his academic career. A compilative work in essence, the De providentia displays a large amount of sources always tacitly used: Marsilio Ficino, Jacques Charpentier, Giulio Serina, Stefano Tiepolo, Teofilo (...) Zimara, Bessarion, Agostino Steuco and amid the ancients Plotinus, Plutarcus, Sirianus, Proclus, Giamblicus, Apuleius, Calcidius, Ammonius, Psellus. A small place is reserved to Giovanni Pico della Mirandola and precisely to his Disputationes adversus astrologiam divinatricem. The aim of the paper is to provide a supplement of analysis of Giannini’s interest in Pico’s works considering his later writings, each one commonly identified as Disputationes Aristotelicae. (shrink)

“La vita non è altro che chimica” e “la vita non è riducibile a chimica” sono due idee opposte dello storico problema di identificare la specificità del vivente. Sebbene siano due posizioni opposte, per entrambe la chimica è un punto di riferimento per “leggere” il vivente, è la prospettiva privilegiata in cui “interpretare” il vivente. La prospettiva di questo libro non è quella riduzionista, ma quella sistemica delle relazioni. La vita, come le altre proprietà emergenti, non si esaurisce nelle relazioni (...) con l’interno (le sostanze chimiche costituenti) e con l’esterno (l’ambiente), ma senza di esse non è studiabile scientificamente. Il linguaggio chimico, infatti, è il linguaggio universale della materia, sia di quella che costituisce le rocce sia di quella degli organismi viventi e, parafrasando Galileo, la materia dell’universo è scritta in linguaggio chimico e i suoi caratteri sono atomi, molecole e macromolecole; senza queste conoscenze è un aggirarsi vanamente per un oscuro labirinto. (shrink)

Predictive processing theories are increasingly popular in philosophy of mind; such process theories often gain support from the Free Energy Principle (FEP)—a nor- mative principle for adaptive self-organized systems. Yet there is a current and much discussed debate about conflicting philosophical interpretations of FEP, e.g., repre- sentational versus non-representational. Here we argue that these different interpre- tations depend on implicit assumptions about what qualifies (or fails to qualify) as representational. We deploy the Free Energy Principle (FEP) instrumentally to dis- tinguish (...) four main notions of representation, which focus on organizational, struc- tural, content-related and functional aspects, respectively. The various ways that these different aspects matter in arriving at representational or non-representational interpretations of the Free Energy Principle are discussed. We also discuss how the Free Energy Principle may be seen as a unified view where terms that tradition- ally belong to different ontologies—e.g., notions of model and expectation versus notions of autopoiesis and synchronization—can be harmonized. However, rather than attempting to settle the representationalist versus non-representationalist debate and reveal something about what representations are simpliciter, this paper demon- strates how the Free Energy Principle may be used to reveal something about those partaking in the debate; namely, what our hidden assumptions about what represen- tations are—assumptions that act as sometimes antithetical starting points in this persistent philosophical debate. (shrink)

Das deutsche Gesundheitswesen steht durch die schnell steigende Anzahl an CO- VID-19-Erkrankten vor erheblichen Herausforderungen. In dieser Krisensituation sind alle Beteiligten mit ethischen Fragen konfrontiert, beispielsweise nach gerech- ten Verteilungskriterien bei begrenzten Ressourcen und dem gesundheitlichen Schutz des Personals angesichts einer bisher nicht therapierbaren Erkrankung. Daher werden schon jetzt klinische und ambulante Ethikberatungsangebote verstärkt mit Anfragen nach Unterstützung konfrontiert. Wie können Ethikberater*innen Entscheidungen in der Krankenversorgung im Rahmen der COVID-19-Pandemie unterstützen? Welche Grenzen von Ethikberatung sind zu beachten? Bislang liegen hierzu (...) noch wenige praktische Erfahrungen vor. Angesichts der dynamischen Entwicklung erscheint es der Akademie für Ethik in der Medizin (AEM) wichtig, einen Diskurs über die angemessene Rolle der Ethikberatung bei der Bewältigung der vielfachen Heraus- forderungen durch die COVID-19-Pandemie zu führen und professionelle Hinweise zu geben. Mit dem vorliegenden Diskussionspapier möchte die AEM einen Beitrag zur Beantwortung wesentlicher Fragen leisten, die sich für die Ethikberatung in den verschiedenen Bereichen des Gesundheitswesens stellen. Sie regt an, diesen Dis- kurs weiter zu führen und hat ein Online-Forum (s. unten) eingerichtet, in dem Ethikberater*innen ihre Erfahrungen teilen und die professionelle Selbstreflexion der Ethikberatung in Pandemiezeiten mit Anregungen fördern können. (shrink)

The article argues for the variant ‘tractabimus’ in Book 8, ch. 1 of Augustine’s De Trinitate as opposed to the reading ‘tractavimus’ adopted in the Corpus Christianorum edition, and explains the implications of this variant for the understanding of the overall structure of the work.

The discussion on the 900 Conclusiones projected and sponsored by Giovanni Pico della Mirandola in Rome was cut short by the condemnation of 13 of them by the papal commission in 1487. Princeps Concordiae’s counter-arguments presented in his Apologia, published in the same year, can not be certainly considered a disputatio as Pico had called for; the papal intervention removed in this way the possibility to have a better acquaintance with a work which is still a very difficult one, (...) just for its “unfinished” form. Pedro Garsia’s Determinationes magistrales against Pico’s Apologia are a very poor reply to Pico. In this paper Pico’s arguments against some of the condemned Conclusiones are considered as well as Pedro Garsia’s counter-arguments. Giovanni Pico della Mirandola displays a deep familiarity with medieval logical and semantical doctrines, while Pedro Garsia’s arguments betray a solid ignorance. (shrink)

On the verge of the 1917 October revolution, Lenin reads and elaborates on the Hegel's Science of Logic, as if he were attempting to outline, from it, specific effects. Theoretical effects, because human activity is never uncoupled from the logic objective, through which the real matter unfolds and to whom each individual indissolubly belongs. Practical effects, because if Hegelian philosophy is good for the Church, for the bourgeoisie, for the capital, by changing the order of some of its factors it (...) may as well turn out good for guiding the practical-cognitive development of an urgent proletarian revolution. (shrink)

Amidst the constantly augmenting gastronomic capital of celebrity chefs, this study scrutinizes from a critical discourse analytic angle how Jamie Oliver has managed to carve a global brand identity through a process that is termed (dis)placed branding. A roadmap is furnished as to how Italy as place brand and Italianness are discursively articulated, (dis)placed and appropriated in Jamie Oliver’s travelogues which are reflected in his global brand identity. By enriching the CDA methodological toolbox with a deconstructive reading strategy, it is (...) shown that Oliver’s celebrity equity ultimately boils down to supplementing the localized meaning of place of origin with a simulacral, hyperreal place of origin. In this manner, the celebrity’s recipes become more original than the original or doubly original. The (dis)placed branding process that is outlined in the face of Oliver’s global branding strategy is critically discussed with reference to the employed discursive strategies, lexicogrammatical and multimodal choices. (shrink)

Giovanni Pico della Mirandola was (probably) poisoned by his secretary, Cristoforo da Casalmaggiore, as Marin Sanudo testifies in his Diarii. After Pico’s remains exhumation, some years ago, it was also supposed that the main responsible of the poisoning was Marsilio Ficino. The purpose of this paper is to trace the ‘romance’ sources of this strange supposition.

L’opera affronta sul piano storico e teorico la complessa evoluzione delle forme seriali, individuando nel fenomeno una tra le basi portanti della moderna cultura occidentale. Dopo il primo volume (Dal canto omerico al cinema degli anni Trenta) e il secondo (Il Novecento: dalle narrazioni di massa alla svolta digitale), la terza raccolta di saggi esplora le forme seriali dell’abitare il presente. Tra pubblico e privato, in un ambiente multisensoriale e transmediale che ci vede continuamente oscillare tra presenza fisica e flussi (...) digitali, il volume riflette l’impianto storico e teorico dell’opera, concentrandosi sulla forma presente della serialità: dalla pubblicità all’arte contemporanea, dall’architettura alla moda, dal teatro alla musica, dal gusto al suono, dalle immagini virtuali all’algoritmo. (shrink)

Nella sua straordinaria opera scientifica, Franco Selleri si è sempre opposto alla rinuncia alla comprensione della struttura della realtà e della natura degli oggetti fisici, che egli considera come l’elemento caratterizzante delle principali teorie della fisica del Novecento e che è stata stigmatizzata da Karl Popper come tesi della “fine della strada in fisica”. Sin dalla fine degli anni ’60, egli ha sviluppato quella riflessione critica nei confronti delle teorie fondamentali della fisica moderna, in particolar modo della teoria delle particelle (...) elementari e della meccanica quantistica, e in un secondo tempo delle teorie relativistiche, che contraddistingue il suo programma di ricerca. Nel corso della sua intensa e infaticabile attività scientifica, Selleri è entrato in proficuo contatto con molti grandi fisici e filosofi della scienza, instaurando un intenso dialogo critico con Louis de Broglie, John Bell e Karl Popper. Le sue originali e non convenzionali ricerche lo hanno portato a risultati significativi non solo nell’ambito dei fondamenti della fisica, ma anche della storia e della filosofia della fisica. Per questo abbiamo voluto dedicare un numero speciale di Isonomia al nostro impareggiabile amico e collega, sia per la sua passione instancabile e la sua profonda conoscenza dei fondamenti formali, concettuali e filosofici delle teorie della fisica contemporanea, sia e forse ancor più come maestro di una prospettiva perennemente critica che egli ha sempre seguito e proposto con particolare rigore ed estrema determinazione. (shrink)

This book is an anthology with the following themes. Non-European Tradition: Bussanich interprets main themes of Hindu ethics, including its roots in ritual sacrifice, its relationship to religious duty, society, individual human well-being, and psychic liberation. To best assess the truth of Hindu ethics, he argues for dialogue with premodern Western thought. Pfister takes up the question of human nature as a case study in Chinese ethics. Is our nature inherently good (as Mengzi argued) or bad (Xunzi’s view)? Pfister ob- (...) serves their underlying agreement, that human beings are capable of becoming good, and makes precise the disagreement: whether we achieve goodness by cultivating autonomous feelings or by accepting external precepts. There are political consequences: whether government should aim to respect and em- power individual choices or to be a controlling authority. Early Greek Thinking: Collobert examines the bases of Homeric ethics in fame, prudence, and shame, and how these guide the deliberations of heroes. She observes how, by depending upon the poet’s words, the hero gains a quasi- immortality, although in truth there is no consolation for each person’s inevi- table death. Plato: Santas examines Socratic Method and ethics in Republic 1. There Socrates examines definitions of justice and tests them by comparison to the arts and sciences. Santas shows the similarities of Socrates’ method to John Rawls’ method of considered judgments in reflective equilibrium. McPherran interprets Plato’s religious dimension as like that of his teacher Socrates. McPherran shows how Plato appropriates, reshapes, and extends the religious conventions of his own time in the service of establishing the new enterprise of philosophy. Ac- cording to Taylor, Socrates believes that humans in general have the task of helping the gods by making their own souls as good as possible, and Socrates’ unique ability to cross-examine imposes on him the special task of helping others to become as good as possible. This conception of Socrates’ mission is Plato’s own, consisting in an extension of the traditional conception of piety as helping the gods. Brickhouse and Smith propose a new understanding of Socratic moral psychology—one that retains the standard view of Socrates as an intellectualist, but also recognizes roles in human agency for appetites and passions. They compare and contrast the Socratic view to the picture of moral psychology we get in other dialogues of Plato. Hardy also proposes a new, non-reductive understanding of Socratic eudaimonism—he argues that Socrates invokes a very rich and complex notion of the “Knowledge of the Good and Bad”, which is associated with the motivating forces of the virtues. Rudebusch defends Socrates’ argument that knowledge can never be impotent in the face of psychic passions. He considers the standard objections: that knowledge cannot weigh incom- mensurable human values, and that brute desire, all by itself, is capable of moving the soul to action. Aristotle: Anagnostopoulos interprets Aristotle on the nature and acquisition of virtue. Though virtue of character, aiming at human happiness, requires a complex awareness of multiple dimensions of one’s experience, it is not properly a cognitive capacity. Thus it requires habituation, not education, according to Aristotle, in order to align the unruly elements of the soul with reason’s knowledge of what promotes happiness. Shields explains Aristotle’s doctrine that goodness is meant in many ways as the doctrine that there are different analyses of goodness for different types of circumstance, just as for being. He finds Aristotle to argue for this conclusion, against Plato’s doctrine of the unity of the Good, by applying the tests for homonymy and as an immediate cons- equence of the doctrine of categories. Shields evaluates the issue as unresolved at present. Russell discusses Aristotle’s account of practical deliberation and its virtue, intelligence (phronesis). He relates the account to contemporary philo- sophical controversies surrounding Aristotle’s view that intelligence is neces- sary for moral virtue, including the objections that in some cases it is unnecessary or even impedes human goodness. Frede examines the advantages and disadvantages of Aristotle’s virtue ethics. She explains the general Greek con- ceptions of happiness and virtue, Aristotle’s conception of phronesis and compares the Aristotle’s ethics with modern accounts. Liske discusses the question of whether the Aristotelian account of virtue entails an ethical-psy- chological determinism. He argues that Aristotle’s understanding of hexis allows for free action and ethical responsibility : By making decisions for good actions we are able to stabilize our character (hexis). Hellenistic and Roman: Annas defends an account of stoic ethics, according to which the three parts of Stoicism—logic, physics, and ethics—are integrated as the parts of an egg, not as the parts of a building. Since by this analogy no one part is a foundation for the rest, pedagogical decisions may govern the choice of numerous, equally valid, presentations of Stoic ethics. Piering interprets the Cynic way of life as a distinctive philosophy. In their ethics, Cynics value neither pleasure nor tradition but personal liberty, which they achieve by self-suffi- ciency and display in speech that is frank to the point of insult. Plotinus and Neoplatonism: Gerson outlines the place of ordinary civic virtue as well as philosophically contemplative excellence in Neoplatonism. In doing so he attempts to show how one and the same good can be both action-guiding in human life and be the absolute simple One that grounds the explanation of everything in the universe. Delcomminette follows Plotinus’s path to the Good as the foundation of free will, first in the freedom of Intellect and then in the “more than freedom” of the One. Plotinus postulates these divinities as not outside but within each self, saving him from the contradiction of an external foundation for a truly free will. General Topics: Halbig discusses the thesis on the unity of virtues. He dis- tinguishes the thesis of the identity of virtues and the thesis of a reciprocity of virtues and argues that the various virtues form a unity (in terms of reciprocity) since virtues cannot bring about any bad action. Detel examines Plato’s and Aristotle’s conceptions of normativity : Plato and Aristotle (i) entertained hybrid theories of normativity by distinguishing functional, semantic and ethical normativity, (ii) located the ultimate source of normativity in standards of a good life, and thus (iii) took semantic normativity to be a derived form of normativity. Detel argues that hybrid theories of normativity are—from a mo- dern point of view—still promising. Ho ̈ffe defends the Ancient conception of an art of living against Modern objections. Whereas many Modern philosophers think that we have to replace Ancient eudaimonism by the idea of moral obligation (Pflicht), Ho ̈ffe argues that Eudaimonism and autonomy-based ethics can be reconciled and integrated into a comprehensive and promising theory of a good life, if we enrich the idea of autonomy by the central elements of Ancient eudaimonism. Some common themes: The topics in Chinese and Hindu ethics are perhaps more familiar to modern western sensibilities than Homeric and even Socratic. Anagnostopoulos, Brickhouse and Smith, Frede, Liske, Rudebusch, and Russell all consider in contrasting ways the role of moral character, apart from intellect, in ethics. Brickhouse / Smith, Hardy, and Rudebusch discuss the Socratic con- ception of moral knowledge. Brickhouse / Smith and Hardy retain the standard view of the so called Socratic Intellectualism. Shields and Gerson both consider the question whether there is a single genus of goodness, or if the term is a homonym. Bussanich, McPherran, Taylor, and Delcomminette all consider the relation between religion and ethics. Pfister, Piering, Delcomminette, and Liske all consider what sort of freedom is appropriate to human well-being. Halbig, Detel, and Ho ̈ffe propose interpretations of main themes of Ancient ethics. (shrink)

In the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic, we created and implemented from November 2020 to February 2021 a monthly educational pilot program of philosophical management of stress based on Science, Humanism and Epicurean Pragmatism, which was offered to employees of 26 municipalities in the Prefecture of Attica, Greece. The program named “Philosophical Distress Management Operation System” (Philo.Di.M.O.S.) is novel and unique in its kind, as it combines a certain Greek philosophical tradition (Epicurean) that concurs with modern scientific knowledge. The (...) program was designed to be implemented in a period of crisis; therefore, it used a fast-paced, easy to learn and practice philosophical approach to stress management, based on cognitive psychotherapy. The philosophical approach to stress management has the advantage that it can be offered to most people, regardless of age and educational level. The pilot program was effective in achieving its objectives, shown by statistical comparisons of the trainees’ responses to anonymous questionnaires before and after the month-long training. The successful Philo.Di.M.O.S. program, thus, based on a solid scientific and philosophical basis, offers a paradigm of stress management during crises and could be useful in Greece and internationally. (shrink)

This work is about the philosophical aspects of Giovanni Urbani‟s thought, that is those reflections which constantly refer to Martin Heidegger‟s philosophy. The interest in these theoretical aspects doesn‟t stem from the necessity to determine whether Urbani has correctly understood the heideggerian lectio, but rather from a necessity of thought; the necessity to explain, in an originary way, how that particular kind of knowledge that develops through the experience of conservation is able to enrich and make speculative activity more (...) fruitful. Urbani‟s research, indeed, seems to find answers where the philosopher‟s thought stops, drifting toward mysticism. Thus the present work underlines the peculiar and original way Urbani understands Heidegger‟s lesson, starting just from the point where the theoretical aspects of their reflections start to diverge, and the idea that the conditions to build a new man and a new model of rationality are to be found within science substitutes the heideggerian waiting for the new coming of the Sacred, which is to happen in poetry: the knowledge and experience of conservation become the testing ground of this research, to which the duty to produce an «advance in civilization» has been entrusted. (shrink)

A New Italian translation of Principia Ethica coming almost 60 years after the 1964 translation by Gianni Vattimo with Nicola Abbagnano’s preface. The new edition makes room for the English text alongside the Italian translation; it includes the 1922 Preface, a bibliography of Moore’s ethical writings with critical literature, a chronology of Moore’s life and works, and an Index. The Introduction by Sergio Cremaschi reconstructs the background of ideas, concerns and intentions from which Moore’s Principia Ethica originated. It stresses the (...) role of religious concerns, as well as that of the Idealist legacy. I argue that PE is more a patchwork of incompatible lines of argument than a consistent work. It compares PE with Rashdall’s almost contemporary ethical work, suggesting that the latter defends the same general claims in a different and more plausible way, which manages to answer decisive objections. It ends with the suggestion that the emergence of Analytic Ethics was a more multi-faceted phenomenon than the received view would make us believe and the analytic tradition's wheat, that is, what logic can do for philosophy, has to be separated from the chaff, that is, the confused, and besides mutually incompatible, legacies of Utilitarianism and Idealism. (shrink)

q. 16 of John of Naples’ Quodlibet III – Utrum dolor vel passio damnatae animae separatae sit, sicut in subiecto immediato, in eius essentia vel potentia – evokes one of the most delicate debates, both from a theological and philosophical point of view, of scholastic eschatology between the end of the 13th century and the first decades of the 14th: that relating to the action of hellfire (considered, due to the auctoritas of Gregory the Great, corporeal and identical in essence (...) to sublunar fire) on an immaterial reality such as the soul in its state of separation (i.e. in the period between the individual death and the final judgement). The article retraces the way in which (in the well-known q. 2 of Quodlibet VI) John of Naples defends Thomas Aquinas from the suspicion of incurring, with his position, the condemnations of Tempier in 1270 and 1277, and how Aquinas himself tries to explain (especially in q. 26 of his Quaestiones disputatae de veritate) the passio or pain of the soul (both in the state of separation and in that of conjunction), through the double distinction between passio corporalis and passio animalis, and, within the former, between laesio and experimentalis perceptio laesionis. It then analyses q. 16 of Quodlibet III, in which John of Naples identifies the rational appetite – i.e. the will – as the immediate subject of the separate soul’s pain. In the appendix, an edition of John’s question is provided on the basis of the manuscripts Napoli, Biblioteca Nazionale, VII.B. 28 (= N) and Tortosa, Biblioteca de la Catedral, 244 (= T). (shrink)

This essay critically reconstructs the concept of ‘democratic dictatorship’ which Georg Lukács’s outlines in Blum Theses of 1928. The essay tackles the birth of the Communist Party of Hungary, particularly focusing on its factional struggles during the 1920s. Secondly, the main contents of the Blum Theses, compared with the debate on the ‘Republican Assembly’ in the Italian Communist Party will be discussed. Finally, the essay examines the two most rooted interpretive prejudices concerning the Blum Theses, i.e. their alleged forecasting character (...) towards ‘Popular Front’ strategy and their purported distance from ‘Socialfascism’. (shrink)

The current image of Georg Lukács (1885-1971) is widely swayed by an interpretative standard grounded on a deep partition between his young (1910-1918),intermediate (1918-1930) and mature (1930-1971) intellectual production. Despite rejecting an undeniable discontinuity in Lukács’ philosophical evolution,especially between his pre-Marxist works (The Soul and the Forms and Theory of Romance) and the post-1918 Marxist production, I aim for a global reconsideration of Lukács’ philosophy, evaluating a greater unity in his thought. A reflection on ethical problems, specifically on the matter (...) of responsibility, emerges – and not by chance – during different turning points of Lukács’ personal life. On the poverty of Spirit (1913), Tactic and Ethic (1918) and The social responsibility of the philosopher (1960 ca.) are the three essays in which Lukács attempts in different ways to give a philosophical legitimation of some decisive biographical choices, such as his separation from Irma Seidler (1911), his adhesion to the Communist Party (1918) and his acceptance of Socialism, even after the dramatic events of Budapest in 1956. A more unitary consideration of Lukács’ thought could be reached only through a deeper reflection on the content of the ethical problem of responsibility in his thinking. Despite their differences, the essays mentioned above are united in terms of the meaning of a true responsibility,which Lukács conceives always in a direct connection – maybe in an excessively binding way ‒ between individual choice and the course of history. (shrink)

The paper explores the original reception of Nietzsche's philosophy provided by the Italian pragmatists Giovanni Vailati and Giovanni Papini.

This paper examines how Descartes’ philosophy was presented and discussed in articles and reviews published in Mind from 1900 to 1947, a period in which this most prestigious British philosophical journal was edited by George F. Stout (until 1920) and then by George E. Moore (from 1921 to 1947). The survey deals with various aspects of the reception of Cartesian philosophy in the journal: articles devoted to several topics of Cartesian thought, critical notices and reviews of the secondary (...) literature, discussions of twentieth-century English translations of Cartesian works. In line with the theoretical character of Mind, most of the interpreters discussed Cartesian philosophy with the aim either of checking its internal consistency or of proving how the Cartesian system might be rendered consistent with its own premises. In this respect, all the themes revolving around the problem of the Cartesian circle attracted the attention of commentators, and the intuitionist foundation of Cartesian theory was analyzed. Descartes’ metaphysics and natural philosophy were often evaluated from the perspective of contemporary philosophical debates, while their original historical context was neglected. Of particular relevance were issues like the mind-body problem, discussed at the beginning of the century in relation to developments in psychology, and the question of the existence of the external world, which was examined from various standpoints, metaphysically, epistemologically and from the point of view of linguistic analysis. Interest in Descartes was shown by many authors from major philosophers (such as Ward, Schiller, Taylor, Broad, Ryle) to lesser known scholars whose profiles and contributions are outlined. Through the angle of the Cartesian presence a sketch emerges of the rich and variegated philosophical scene of British culture in the first half of the twentieth century. (shrink)

In Berkeley’s writings the topic of light is discussed in two different ways, within a theory of perception and within a metaphysics of nature of a Platonic stamp. In his first work, the original Essay for a New Theory of Vision, light and colours are regarded as condition and object of vision; they are examined as contents of visual perception distinct from tangible perception. Light will be dealt with in a completely different manner in Berkeley’s last work, Siris, in which (...) a spiritualistic reading of the natural world is superimposed on modern science in general and on Newtonian physics in particular. In Siris, light is the instrument by which the causal activity of divine Intellect orders and permeates the natural world. A detailed analysis of the topic of light in the two aforementioned contexts shows inconsistencies and strained interpretations which derive from the apologetic use of the theory of vision in Berkeley’s early immaterialism and from the multi-layered and confused speculations of his late Siris. On the whole, Berkeley conceives light within the idealistic frame inherited from Platonic metaphysics of light; however, the specific themes examined in the Essay for a New Theory of Vision and in Siris derive from acquisitions of modern science, and are recast within a spiritualistic interpretation which intended both to neutralize scientific ideas through their phenomenistic reading and to exploit them for apologetic ends. (shrink)

The aim of this work is to focus on the most unusual application of the Lateran bull Apostolici regiminis, the founding document of the inquisitorial legislation which regulated the teaching activity of philosophy professors by forcing them to refute any heterodox theory and to teach the doctrine of faith. In 1519, the inquisitor of Bologna Giovanni de’ Torfanni censored the book Defensorium, in which the secular Aristotelian philosopher Pietro Pomponazzi developed against his colleague Agostino Nifo a long series of (...) arguments in favor of the mortality of the human soul without match them with their respective Christian refutations, as prescribed by the papal bull. Nevertheless, as a result of a not well documented negotiation with the competent authorities, Pomponazzi was relieved of all obligations, provided that he submitted his book to the emendations of the Dominican theologian Crisostomo Javelli. Pomponazzi accepted the agreement and Javelli drew up a list of forty-two solutions to as many mortalistic arguments found in Defensorium. Javelli’s list – titled Solutiones rationum animi mortalitatem probantium quae in Defensorio contra Niphum excellentissimi Petri Pomponatii formantur – was then attached to Defensorium and in this way Pomponazzi gained permission to print and sell his book. After a short reconstruction of the key steps of this affair, the present work provides a critical edition of Javelli’s Solutiones, based upon both the sixteenth-century editions of the text, the first one contained in Defensorium, the other included in Pomponazzi’s Tractatus acutissimi, utillimi, et mere peripatetici. (shrink)

Paolo Barbò da Soncino conosciuto anche come il „Soncinas" (Soncinate) fu un domenicano italiano, filosofo e teologo tomista. Visse durante il periodo del rinascimento italiano nel XV secolo tra Bologna e Milano, morto a Cremona nel 1495. La suo apiù importante opera è proprio il commento alla Metafisica di Aristotele (Acutissimae quaestiones metaphysicales, 1 ed. Venezia 1498) che rappresenta una particolare sintesi del commentatore arabo Averrè, Tommaso d'Aquino, Erveo Natale († 1323) e Giovanni Capreolo († 1444). L'opera filosofica del (...) Soncinate era spesso discusso tra il XVI e XVII secolo. Il libro offre la prima biografia scientifica dell'autore in italiano, e l'edizione critica del suo commento al IV libro della Metafica di Aristotele in latino. -/- Paolo Barbò da Soncino called "Soncinas" was an Italian Dominican, Thomist philosopher and theologian. His life and work fall within the ambit of Italian Renaissance Thomism of the fifteenth century, between Bologna and Milano, died in 1495 in Cremona. His principal work, the exposition of Aristotle's Metaphysics, (Acutissimae quaestiones metaphysicales 1 ed. Venice 1498) proceeds from a particular synthesis of the Arabic commentator Averroes, Thomas Aquinas, Hervaeus Natalis (d. 1323), and John Capreolus (d. 1444). Soncinas' work and position were frequently discussed from the sixteenth to the seventeenth century. This study offers the first scientific biography, description and analysis of the method, sources and doctrine of Soncinas, in particular the critical Latin edition of the 4th book of his Acutissimae Quaestiones Metaphysicales (the exposition of Aristotle's Metaphysics). (shrink)

Many of Marco Aurelio Severino’s works were published in Germany, thanks to the intercession of his pupils. The prestigious Nürnberg physician Johann Georg Volkamer was Severino’s closest pupil. A relevant manuscript letter of Severino to Volkamer sheds new light on the context of the edition of Severino’s Zootomia democritaea. The correspondence between Severino and Volkamer was firstly studied by Luigi Amabile in the Ninteenth-century, and it was fully exploited by Maurizio Torrini about a century later.

En este trabajo realizo un examen crítico del reciente libro de Silvana Gabriela Di Camillo sobre la crítica de Aristóteles a la teoría platónica de las Ideas. El libro de Di Camillo es un trabajo muy serio cuya lectura recomiendo ampliamente. Sin embargo, considero que cuatro de las principales tesis que la autora defiende tienen varias dificultades y mi objetivo aquí es presentar argumentos detallados en contra de ellas: la interpretación de la distinción entre argumentos más y menos rigurosos del (...) tratado Sobre las Ideas; la tesis de que la separación es el blanco esencial de las críticas aristotélicas a las Ideas; la interpretación de las opciones que Platón tiene para responder al argumento del tercer hombre, y la tesis de que la separación de las Ideas debe entenderse como homonimia. In this paper I examine Silvana Gabriela Di Camillo's recent book on Aristotle's criticisms of Plato's theory of Ideas. Di Camillo's book is a very serious work that I highly recommend. Nevertheless, I consider that four of the main theses that the author defends face several difficulties and my aim here is to offer detailed arguments against them: the interpretation of the distinction between more and less accurate arguments of the treatise On Ideas; the thesis that separation is the essential target of Aristotle's criticisms against Plato's Ideas; the interpretation of the options available to Plato to reply to the third man argument; and the thesis that the separation of Ideas should be understood as homonymy. (shrink)

The 26 essays collected in this volume explore some crucial aspects of the philosophical and scientific traditions of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Using a historical-philological approach, the volume brings to light unpublished documents and offers new reconstructions of the intellectual paths of authors such as Meister Eckhart, Nicole Oresme, John Buridan, Siger of Brabant, William of Ockham, Peter Pomponazzi, and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola.

From the second half of the 16th century the question about Platonis Aristotelisque Concordia is no more a merely doctrinal problem, but it involves a discussion about methodus and ordo, according to the importance given to them in the coeval philosophical debate. In many cases underscoring Plato’s scientific merits, not only about inventio but also about the transmission of knowledge, meant promoting Platonism as a philosophy suitable for University. In this context the need for Platonic handbooks is perceived as compelling, (...) due to the recognised didactic superiority of Aristotle’s writings. The Compendio and the Vere Conclusioni are the specific contribution of Francesco Verino secondo, who gave holiday lectures on Plato at the Florentine Studium from 1576 to 1579. The present study focuses on the platonism of Francesco Verino, covering nearly all his works, printed and manuscript, in a constant comparison with his noble predecessors Marsilio Ficino, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola and Francesco Cattani da Diacceto. In order to give light to Verino’s lectureship, particular attention is paid to glosses in his working and teaching copy of Platonis Opera. (shrink)

The Modern concept of truth, which subjects truth to certainty, broke the harmonious relation between reality and truth, that prevailed in Ancient and Medieval Philosophy. Hans-Georg Gadamer thinks that the main task of contemporary Philosophy is to recover the original harmony of being and knowledge. To shed light on the nature of this problem, we expound the metaphysical-theological foundation of truth, which is at the roots of Aristotelian and Thomistic Philosophies. Specifically, we analyze here the relation between being, truth and (...) logos in the Aristotelian treatise Perì Hermeneías, and in its Thomistic commentary. (shrink)

For wise men and academics, the order of the world had been an implicit truth for a long time. Nobody had doubted it. The purpose of philosophy and theological discourse has always been to record and contemplate the mundane and celestial world. Because it has a Creator, the universe (and the human being) are in complete order (id est they are in orderliness), in a rigorous hierarchy and, at the same time, they have a meaning, a purpose, they are part (...) of a meaningful whole. In an orderly world, life instantly acquires meaning. This venerable certainty has become, in time, a simple hypothesis. Philosophers are no longer sure that the world is orderly. The following essays comment on the decay of a certainty and, in the end, on its loss. Borges and Georges Perec dared to record (with bitter irony) this loss. And this tripartite essay will speak about them. (shrink)

Tommaso Giannini (1556-1638) was a prominent professor at the Ferrara Studium between the sixteenth and the seventeenth century. Probably influenced by Platonic sympathies nurtured by the Court and partly by the University milieu, in 1587 he published his first work titled De providentia ad sententiam Platonis et Platonicorum liber unus, which was a catalyst for his academic career. His De providentia displays a large amount of sources always tacitly used: Marsilio Ficino, Jacques Charpentier, Giulio Serina, Stefano Tiepolo, Teofilo Zimara, Bessarion, (...) Agostino Steuco, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola and amid the ancients Plotinus, Plutarch, Sirianus, Proclus (read through Teofilo Zimara and Leonico Tomeo), Iamblichus, Apuleius, Calcidius, Ammonius, Psellus. Though a compilative work, the De providentia retains nonetheless a great importance insofar as it contributes to focus the bibliotheca platonica of the time, furthermore in the same years and place of Francesco Patrizi da Cherso’s teaching. (shrink)

My paper moves from Kant's taxonomy for the arguments for the existence of God. After providing a brief survey of Kant's account, I claim that contemporary arguments from design fit Kant's characterization of the physico-theological argument. Then, in the second section, I deal with the logical frame of the argument from design. In the third section I introduce Berkeley's divine language argument (DLA), in order to demonstrate that DLA is an argument from design. Consequently, in the fourth section, I give (...) a refutation of Hooker's and Kline's reading of DLA. Finally, in the last section, I take Berkeley's DLA as a paradigmatic case of the argument from design, showing a fundamental difficulty the argument endorses. (shrink)

The controversy that between 1908 and 1912 saw Benedetto Croce and Giovanni Gentile opposed, on one side, and Federigo Enriques, on the other, did not actually have a conclusive episode, but its end was perceived, for its results on culture, on society and teaching in Italy, as a "defeat" of Enriques. A more careful examination of the events and of the historical context in which it took place seems, however, to clearly demonstrate that we can speak not of a (...) personal defeat of the great mathematician from Livorno, but rather of a defeat of the commendable attempts at cultural and social modernization of Italy in an international perspective, of which Enriques was not the only actor but certainly the most exposed. Such intentions were crushed by the myopic provincial conservatism of the Italian neo-idealism, favored by the fascist regime, concerned only with affirming in the world an alleged autarkic national cultural superiority, based on the traditional literary-humanistic culture, ignoring the progress of the new technical-scientific thought, placed in an international context. Sunto_ La polemica che dal 1908 al 1912 vide contrapposti da una parte Benedetto Croce e Giovanni Gentile e dall’altra Federigo Enriques non ebbe, in realtà, un episodio conclusivo, ma la sua fine è stata percepita, per i suoi esiti sulla cultura, sulla società e sull’insegnamento in Italia, come una “sconfitta” dell’Enriques. Un esame più attento delle vicende e del contesto storico nel quale si svolse sembra, invece, dimostrare chiaramente di poter parlare non di una sconfitta personale del grande matematico livornese, quanto piuttosto di una sconfitta dei lodevoli tentativi di ammodernamento culturale e sociale dell’Italia in una prospettiva internazionale, di cui Enriques non fu l’unico attore ma sicuramente quello più esposto. Tali propositi furono schiacciati dal miope conservatorismo provinciale del neoidealismo italiano, favorito dal regime fascista, preoccupato unicamente di affermare nel mondo una pretesa superiorità culturale nazionale autarchica, basata sulla tradizionale cultura letterario-umanistica, ignorando il progresso del nuovo pensiero tecnico-scientifico, per sua natura, invece, inserito in un contesto internazionale. (shrink)

A cura di Ignazio Licata, Ammar J. Sakaji Jeffrey A. Barrett, Enrico Celeghini, Leonardo Chiatti, Maurizio Consoli, Davide Fiscaletti, Ervin Goldfain, Annick Lesne, Maria Paola Lombardo, Mohammad Mehrafarin, Ronald Mirman, Ulrich Mohrhoff, Renato Nobili, Farrin Payandeh, Eliano Pessa, L.I Petrova, Erasmo Recami, Giovanni Salesi, Francesco Maria Scarpa, Mohammad Vahid Takook, Giuseppe Vitiello This volume comes out from an informal discussion between friends and colleagues on the answer:what topic do you think as fundamental in theoretical physics nowadays? Obviously wereceived different (...) answers according to the disposition and the different research areas, and answersin superposition state too. And yet some attractors have emerged pointing out the keys forthe Physicists conception of Nature, all of them converging towards a group of stronglyinterconnectedproblems. Let's see them one by one:. The concept of particle identity in Quantum Mechanics (QM) and Quantum Field Theory (QFT);. The relationship between QM and QFT, in particular the non -local aspects in Field Theory andthe problem of non-perturbative solutions;. The local/global problem in the relationship between particle physics and cosmology;. The role of Renormalization group in describing the meso and macroscopic emergent behaviour;. The possible extension of Poincaré symmetry group and Quantum cosmology;. Higgs "mechanism" and the origin of mass. (shrink)

Nell'alto medioevo vi erano tre possibilità per il filosofo che volesse difendere l'esistenza degli universali: in primo luogo ante rem, seguendo la linea platonico-agostiniana degli universali trascendenti e questa è la via teologica; in secondo luogo la via post rem, cioè la via del concettualismo, conosciuta oggi come astrattismo, per cui gli universali sono il prodotto dell'astrazione della mente e questa è una via logica; la terza via è quella in re e difende gli universali immanenti che esistono negli universali (...) ed è una risposta ontologica. La seconda via fu difesa da Boezio nel secondo commento a Porfirio. La prima teoria è stata generalmente accettata da tutti i filosofi dell'alto medioevo eccetto Abelardo, mentre la terza via, quella degli universali immanenti, che ha come fonti antiche l'Isagoge di Porfirio e le Categoriae di Aristotele, fu difesa principalmente da quattro autori: Giovanni Scoto Eriugena, Anselmo d'Aosta, Odone di Cambrai e Guglielmo di Champeaux. L'A. prende in esame e confronta le soluzioni di Anselmo di Canterbury e Odone di Cambrai. (shrink)

While this article aims to explore the connections between citizenship and ‘race’, it is the first study to use fictional tools as a sociological resource in exemplifying the deviation between citizenship in principle and practice in an Austrian context. The study involves interviews with 73 Austrians from three ethnic/racial groups, which were subjected to a directed approach to qualitative content analysis and coded based on sentences from George Orwell’s fictional book, ‘Animal Farm’. By using fiction as a conceptual and (...) analytical device, this article goes beyond the orthodox particulars of citizenship to expose the compressed entitlements of some racial/ethnic minorities. In particular, data analysis revealed two related and intertwined central themes: (a) “all animals are not equal or comrades”; and (b) “some animals are more equal than others”. All ‘animals’ may be equal in principle, whereas, in practice, their ‘race’ serves as a critical source of social (dis)advantage in the ‘animal kingdom’. Thus, since citizenship is a precondition for possessing certain rights that non-citizens are not granted, I argue that citizenship cannot only be judged by whom it, in theory, excludes (i.e., non-citizens), but also by how it treats the included (i.e., citizens) on the basis of their ‘race’. I conclude that skin colour is a specific aspect of the hierarchy of citizenship in Austria, which reinforces that ‘some animals are more equal than others’. (shrink)

Articolo divulgativo pubblicato in Club Theologicum il 22 settembre 2023. Si tratta di una risposta a diversi articoli del noto teologo Giovanni Cavalcoli, OP. Cavalcoli offre una semplice argomentazione a favore dell'idea che l'esistenza di vita extraterrestre sia incoerente con la dottrina della Chiesa Cattolica. Mostro come tale argomentazione parta da delle premesse errate. In primo luogo, mostro come i documenti a cui Cavalvoli si appella non sono coperti da infallibilità. In secondo luogo, mostro come la presupposizione della connessione (...) tra discendenza biologica e trasmissione della natura non sia necessaria e anzi sia un fraintendimento di tali concetti. In terzo luogo, elenco varie fonti della tradizione, dal medioevo al secolo presente, che difendono la coerenza teologica dell'esistenza di vita extraterrestre. Concludo proponendo una soteriologia che rende merito della possibile esistenza di vita extraterrestre. (shrink)

In margine a una raccolta di scritti di Lukács contro lo stalinismo, che prende nome da una importante intervista del 1971, inedita in italiano. Dal 1930 in poi è presente nella produzione del filosofo ungherese la lotta per la «democratizzazione». Il tema della «trasformazione del lavoro in lavoro socialista». La radicale alterità di Lukács allo stalinismo.