-/- Did the US president who signed the order to use the atomic bomb stain his hands with blood or just ink? Are there cases in which a war is just? In such cases, is any war justifiable? Is ending the life of a terminally ill person different from murder? Do we need to agree on the definition of the embryo as a 'person' to know whether any action on the embryo is prohibited? Is the prohibition of contraception justified even (...) if it is perfectly legitimate to plan births? Anscombe, taking up Wittgenstein, Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, elaborates a theory of action that places "intention" at the centre, an alternative to the conception of action dominant since Descartes. On this basis, he conducts an indictment against the superficiality of modern moral philosophy, lumping together the Oxford philosophers, utilitarianism and Kantian ethics. And finally, she puts her virtue ethics to work on problems of applied ethics: in the field of public ethics, the just war; in the field of bioethics, questions of the end of life and the beginning of life. This book, edited by Sergio Cremaschi, brings together Anscombe's contributions on ethical issues, allowing for the first time a comprehensive overview of this decisive figure's contribution to twentieth-century philosophy. (shrink)

In today’s society of humans and machines, automation, animation, and ecosystems are terms of concern. Categories of life and technology have become mixed in governmental policies and drive economic exploitation and the pathologies of everyday life. This book both curiously and critically advances the term that underlies these new developments: machine.

In this article we approach a case of intersemiotic translation as a paradigmatic example of Boden’s ‘transformational creativity’ category. To develop our argument, we consider Boden’s fundamental notion of ‘conceptual space’ as a regular pattern of semiotic action, or ‘habit’ (sensu Peirce). We exemplify with Gertrude Stein’s intersemiotic translation of Cézanne and Picasso’s proto-cubist and cubist paintings. The results of Stein’s IT transform the conceptual space of modern literature, constraining it towards new patterns of semiosis. Our association of Boden’s framework (...) to describe a cognitive creative phenomenon with a philosophically robust theory of meaning results in a cognitive semiotic account of IT. (shrink)

The author underlines that Stirner makes a distinction between personal and private property. Die Einzige claims the property of person, not private property: this seems to sidestep Marx’s plethoric attack to him. To private property corresponds the private citizen, who is, first of all, de-prived of his person; he his an individual, not a person; he is “a phantom” – Individuum est ineffabile. Ju¨nger is not alien to such an outcome, provided that the proprietor may prevail on the egoist. The (...) egoist, in fact, is nothing else that the essence of the individual: the soul of a phantom. The politics of the integral proprietor match with the myth of kingship. The king is political body without individuality. (shrink)

Mary Midgley, Iris Murdoch, Gertrude Anscombe and Philippa Foot studied together in Oxford during the war, at a time when most of the men had left the university, leaving it to them for themselves. These unique circumstances where decisive for the fact that they all went on to become successful philosophers and were able to develop their own original philosophical theories, opposing the philosophical dogmas of their time, Midgley later wrote. This claim is the point of departure for this article. (...) It has three purposes: First I try to say something about the circumstances that made it possible to develop such alternatives, and second, I try to say something about what they consist in. Finally, I ask what this story can teach us about inclusion of women in philosophy today. (shrink)

En “The King´s two bodies” Kantorowicz explora la ficción legal de los dos cuerpos del Rey: cuerpo mortal y cuerpo político. Ficción en la cual el rey, constituido como persona ficta, trasciende la temporalidad de cualquier cuerpo individual sobre la idea de “dignitas non moritur”. El presente trabajo pretende abordar la lectura de esa dualidad corporal encarnada en el derecho a través de un doble registro: cuerpo textual y cuerpo imaginario, explorando asimismo cómo el discurso jurídico se construye en (...) el marco de dicha simbología y legitimidad. Instituir lo vivo del texto jurídico no puede hacerse más que sobre el rastro de la semiótica misma. Como señala Legendre, la normatividad produce un “Écrit vivant” en perpetua necesidad de interpretación. Es paradójicamente la batalla por la apertura del texto lo que permite la imagen misma de su continuidad. Una crítica de los montajes vividos, de la instancia de la censura que ata y moviliza el discurso jurídico, provee el fondo de una urgencia: el de la tarea iusfilosófica por venir. (shrink)

Schwarz pursues a primordial theme by Freudian means, extrapolating from the psychogenesis of a person to the psychogenesis of a nation. He thus associates monarchy with culture in its infancy, displaying infantile narcisism and meglomania. But as perhaps the best worst case, Pharaonic Egypt, demonstrates, meglomania and narcissism expresssed in colossi, grandiose claims of the king that would shame even the gods, are more likely a sign of weakness than strength. And classical republicanism continues to maintain a monarchical element, now (...) transferred to presidents. (shrink)

As Shakespeare is closer in time and spirit to medieval psychology than to popular modern explanations of psyche, this article presents a fourfold analysis of ecstasy from Aquinas' Summa Theologiae to examine the characters of the play. I also suggest performance choices which make a variety of these ecstasies of soul more visible.