Surnames were obtained for the second half of the 20th century from civil and religious marriage registers on fifteen Provençal-Italian and five Italian villages of Cuneo Province, Italy. To insert in the analysis an outward comparison, surnames from two Italian villages of Turin Province, one parish of Turin, one village of Alessandria Province and one village of Asti Province were also collected. Ethnicity does not seem to be the main factor affecting the present genetic structure of the Provençal-Italians. They are (...) an open community, and evidence the end of the genetic isolation of the alpine populations. (shrink)

The population of Campobasso Province shows a level of inbreeding that is distinct from most Italian rural populations, regardless of their geographic location (Fr=0·0040; Fn=0·0102; Ft=0·0142). The genetic structure of the ItalianGreeks of Reggio Calabria Province is similar to other Italians of Campobasso Province (Fr=0·0041; Fn=0·0127; Ft=0·0168). The Italian–Greeks of Lecce Province show random mating, and their inbreeding is in fact very low (Fr=0·0038; Fn=0·0024; Ft=0·0062).

The Italo-Greek ethnolinguistic minority, living in thirteen villages of southern Italy, marry largely amongst themselves but there are some intermarriages with native Italians. The majority of marriages are within the villages, but there is some marriage movement from one Italo-Greek village to another. Data on marriage and birthplace of parents and grandparents obtained by questionnaires to families of primary school children are analysed, to show the trends in breakdown of isolation over the last two generations.

Surnames of grandparents were collected from children in the primary schools of the AlbanianItalian and Greek–Italian villages of southern Italy and Sicily. The coefficients of relationships by isonymy show almost no relationship with ethnicity. Ethnolinguistic minorities of southern Italy and Sicily are geographically subdivided into two main clusters: the first cluster comprises the Albanian, Croat and Greek communities of the Adriatic area; and the second cluster comprises the Albanian and Greek communities of the Ionian, Thirrenian and Sicilian areas.

Revision of the author's thesis (Ph. D.)--Laval University, 1999.

One of the difficulties nurses experience in clinical practice in relation to ethical issues in connection with young oncology patients is moral distress. In this descriptive correlational study, the Moral Distress Scale-Paediatric Version (MDS-PV) was translated from the original language and tested on a conventional sample of nurses working in paediatric oncology and haematology wards, in six north paediatric hospitals of Italy. 13.7% of the total respondents claimed that they had changed unit or hospital due to moral distress. The items (...) with the highest mean intensity in the sample were almost all connected with medical and nursing competence and have considerably higher values than frequency. The instrument was found to be reliable. The results confirmed the validity of the MDS-PV (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.959). This study represents the first small-scale attempt to validate MDS-PV for use in paediatric oncology-ematology nurses in Italy. (shrink)

This is the first complete, one-volume English translation of the ancient Chinese text Xunzi, one of the most extensive, sophisticated, and elegant works in the tradition of Confucian thought. Through essays, poetry, dialogues, and anecdotes, the Xunzi articulates a Confucian perspective on ethics, politics, warfare, language, psychology, human nature, ritual, and music, among other topics. Aimed at general readers and students of Chinese thought, Eric Hutton’s translation makes the full text of this important work more accessible in English than ever (...) before. Named for its purported author, the Xunzi has long been neglected compared to works such as the Analects of Confucius and the Mencius. Yet interest in the Xunzi has grown in recent decades, and the text presents a much more systematic vision of the Confucian ideal than the fragmented sayings of Confucius and Mencius. In one famous, explicit contrast to them, the Xunzi argues that human nature is bad. However, it also allows that people can become good through rituals and institutions established by earlier sages. Indeed, the main purpose of the Xunzi is to urge people to become as good as possible, both for their own sakes and for the sake of peace and order in the world. In this edition, key terms are consistently translated to aid understanding and line numbers are provided for easy reference. Other features include a concise introduction, a timeline of early Chinese history, a list of important names and terms, cross-references, brief explanatory notes, a bibliography, and an index. (shrink)

The first-ever multivolume treatment of the issues in legal philosophy and general jurisprudence, from both a theoretical and a historical perspective. The work is aimed at jurists as well as legal and practical philosophers. Edited by the renowned theorist Enrico Pattaro and his team, this book is a classical reference work that would be of great interest to legal and practical philosophers as well as to jurists and legal scholar at all levels. The work is divided in two parts. The (...) theoretical part, consisting of five volumes, covers the main topics of the contemporary debate; the historical part, consisting of six volumes, accounts for the development of legal thought from ancient Greek times through the twentieth century. The entire set will be completed with an index. Volume 6: A History of the Philosophy of Law from the Ancient Greeks to the Scholastics 2nd revised edition, edited by Fred D. Miller, Jr. and Carrie-Ann Biondi Volume 6 is the first of the Treatise’s historical volumes and is dedicated to the philosophers’ philosophy of law from ancient Greece to the 16th century. The volume thus begins with the dawning of legal philosophy in Greek and Roman philosophical thought and then covers the birth and development of European medieval legal philosophy, the influence of Judaism and the Islamic philosophers, the revival of Roman and Christian canon law, and the rise of scholastic philosophy in the late Middle Ages, which paved the way for early-modern Western legal philosophy. This second, revised edition comes with an entirely new chapter devoted to the later Scholastics and an epilogue on the legacy of ancient and medieval thought for modern legal philosophy, as well as with updated references and indexes. (shrink)

1. Sae sidae rŭl yŏrŏ gan saramdŭl -- 2. Ŏdum ŭi sidae.

A number of thinkers have been wondering about the moral obligations humans have, or will have, to intelligent technologies. An underlying assumption is that “moral machines” are decades in the offing, and thus we have no pressing obligations now. But, in the context of technology, we are yet to consider that we might owe moral consideration to something that is not a member of the moral community but eventually will be as an outcome of human action. Do we have current (...) actual obligations to technologies that do not currently exist? If there are obligations to currently non-existing technologies, we must confront what might be called the Non-Identical Machines Problem. Can we harm or benefit an entity by making it one way rather than another? This paper presents the problem and argues that it is more challenging than the standard Non-Identity Problem. (shrink)

As various forms of nonmonogamy have grown in social visibility, the subject has received academic treatment across a range of literatures, including philosophy. To aid in philosophical treatment, the paper addresses the narrow but fundamental topic of the meaning of nonmonogamy. By engaging with recent literature, it examines nonmonogamy as the rejection of or opposition to monogamy. After exploring the nature of opposition in this case, the paper develops the beginnings of a more detailed theory of nonmonogamy. How do monogamy (...) and nonmonogamy relate? If nonmonogamy is a rejection, what content does the concept of nonmonogamy have? The paper does not criticize monogamy or defend nonmonogamy, but it aims to take part in building the conceptual foundations for nonmonogamy as a political project. (shrink)

Information can be public among a group. Whether or not information is public matters, for example, for accounts of interdependent rational choice, of communication, and of joint intention. A standard analysis of public information identifies it with (some variant of) common belief. The latter notion is stipulatively defined as an infinite conjunction: for p to be commonly believed is for it to believed by all members of a group, for all members to believe that all members believe it, and so (...) forth. This analysis is often presupposed without much argument in philosophy. Theoretical entrenchment or intuitions about cases might give some traction on the question, but give little insight about why the identification holds, if it does. The strategy of this paper is to characterize a practical-normative role for information being public, and show that the only things that play that role are (variants of) common belief as stipulatively characterized. In more detail: a functional role for “taking a proposition for granted” in non-isolated decision making is characterized. I then present some minimal conditions under which such an attitude is correctly held. The key assumption links this attitude to beliefs about what is public. From minimal a priori principles, we can argue that a proposition being public among a group entails common commitment to believe among that group. Later sections explore partial converses to this result, the factivity of publicity and publicity from the perspective of outsiders to the group, and objections to the aprioricity of the result deriving from a posteriori existential presuppositions. (shrink)

Contemporary political discourse is marked with the language of democracy, and Western countries in particular seek to promote democracy at home and abroad. However, there is a sublimated conflict in general political discourse between a desire to rely on alleged political experts and a desire to assert the supposed common sense of all men. Can the struggle between the democratic and aristocratic values embodied in this conflict be reconciled? The question is perennial, and raises issues that are central to constitutional (...) design. Aristotle, developing in significant ways insights made by his teacher Plato, grapples with it in his Politics. Aristotle's views on these matters are relevant—by way of the American Founders'—to contemporary American politics and modern democracies generally. During the eighteenth century, the Founders, some of whom explicitly reached back to Aristotle's work, also struggled—especially in The Federalist Papers—with these thorny issues of constitutional design. They created the U.S. Constitution in part to address these very same problems and issues. We are living in some ways, then, in the shadow of Aristotle's political theorizing, albeit as transposed by the American Founders. Both Aristotle and some of the American Founders theoretically favor aristocracy over democracy, but concede that in practice a blend of the two has to be integrated into the fundamental structure of political society. We need to reconnect with these important political discussions in order to come to terms with aristocratic and democratic values in our current circumstances. Footnotesa I am grateful to Fred Miller and David Keyt for many helpful suggestions and thoughtful questions throughout the editing process. I would also like to thank Irfan Khawaja for valuable feedback on an earlier version of this essay. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The current article is inserted in the domain of legal theory, having as objective to discuss the concept and the centrality of authority in contemporaneous debate around legal positivism, just as offer an alternative position, sustained by Pashukanis and based on legal subject (a nearly forgotten category, overshadowed by the horizon of legal norm and its authority). The study proceeds with a comparative analysis of the notion of authority in legal positivism’s classical authors (Austin, Kelsen e Hart), pointing out (...) how this perspective is still hegemonic in contemporaneous legal thinking, even in the contemporaneous versions of legal positivism. The next step is the contrast of authority-based conception with Evgeni Pashukanis’ conception, whose core is legal subjectivity. By comparing the main theoretical propositions with the Pashukanian perspective of legal form, it is noted that authority is a void concept, unable to define the historical specificity of law. Understood as state repressive power, as socially recognized power or as (self proclaimed) legitimate reason to act, authority can not provide legal phenomenon’s conceptual boundaries. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Klio Jahrgang: 98 Heft: 1 Seiten: 139-157.

Socratic teaching is popularly understood as aggressively questioning randomly called-on students, but this is a model that many educators have moved away from. The focus has shifted to eliciting and facilitating critical dialogue among willing participants. I would argue that this helpful shift still misses an essential element of Socratic teaching that can be gleaned from some of Plato’s early dialogues. The most crucial dimension of Socrates’ pedagogy is the function of the educator as an exemplar. I develop an account (...) of what being an exemplar amounts to, discuss how examples of this activity are present in early Platonic dialogues, and then explain how the insights gleaned from such an examination can animate Socratic pedagogy in the classroom. (shrink)

Socratic teaching is popularly understood as aggressively questioning randomly called-on students, but this is a model that many educators have moved away from. The focus has shifted to eliciting and facilitating critical dialogue among willing participants. I would argue that this helpful shift still misses an essential element of Socratic teaching that can be gleaned from some of Plato’s early dialogues. The most crucial dimension of Socrates’ pedagogy is the function of the educator as an exemplar. I develop an account (...) of what being an exemplar amounts to, discuss how examples of this activity are present in early Platonic dialogues, and then explain how the insights gleaned from such an examination can animate Socratic pedagogy in the classroom. (shrink)

Contemporary neo-Aristotelians disagree about whether Aristotle’s work can contribute to rather than compete with or replace modern political theories, particularly theories that take individual rights seriously. In his Nature, Justice, and Rights in Aristotle’s Politics, Fred Miller says “yes.” In After Virtue, drawing on Aristotle to provide an alternative to what he sees as the moral bankruptcy on which modern political theories rest, Alasdair MacIntyre says “no.” However, I maintain—as does Miller (though on somewhat different grounds)—that MacIntyre is mistaken to (...) think that Aristotelianism and modern political theories are entirely at odds with one another. They are mostly reconcilable, a position I call the ‘compatibility thesis.’ An implication of this is that Aristotle’s thought, especially concerning the common advantage, can clarify and strengthen modern political theories that regard individuals (not the state or society) as morally primary and that advocate protecting them equally via rights under the rule of law. (shrink)

Traditionally, empathy is conceived of as a cognitive function that governs how people think during social interactions, and is considered as largely impervious to change. However, developments in psychology and neuroscience show that empathy is grounded in neural substrates of emotionally communicative behaviour and so is learned through imitation and other forms of cultural learning. This also means that abnormal patterns of empathic function can develop through adverse life experiences, or that empathy may fail to develop in young people with (...) neurodevelopmental disorders. Nevertheless, by focussing on empathy as a quality of social interaction and affective expression in the here and now, and by appreciating that it is as a special form of sensorimotor skill, pathways to training and fostering better development of empathy can be identified. (shrink)

Karl Marx took technological development to be the heart of capitalism’s drive and, ultimately, its undoing. Machines are initially engineered to perform functions that otherwise would be performed by human workers. The economic logic pushed to its limits leads to the prospect of full automation: a world in which all labor required to meet human needs is superseded and performed by machines. To explore the future of automation, the paper considers a specific point of resemblance between human beings and machines: (...) intelligence. Examining the development of machine intelligence through the Marxist concepts of alienation and reification reveals a tension between certain technophilic post-labor visions and the reality of capitalistic development oriented towards intelligent technology. If the prospect of a post-labor world depends on technologies that closely resemble humans, the world can no longer be described as post-labor. The tension has implications for the potential moral status of machines and the possibility of full automation. The paper considers these implications by outlining four possible futures of automation. (shrink)

This paper explores the significance of a landmark Italian judgement regarding end-of-life advance directives, emphasizing the legal and political context in which the decision was made. The analysis particularly focuses on the political majority's attempt to overturn the outcome of the courts' proceedings – thereby challenging the country's institutional order and jeopardizing constitutional rights.

This polemical note looks at the ethical issue of providing artificial nutrition and hydration to patients with advanced dementia from the perspective of an Aristotelian and naturalist ethics. I argue that this issue may be considered in terms of the Aristotelian notion of eudaimonia, well-being. I present a number of facts about the conditions of human life that contribute to eudaimonia. In addition, I present a number of facts about advanced dementia as well as clarify the goals of medicine. From (...) these facts, I argue that we are not ethically obligated to provide ANH to this class of patients. (shrink)

Ce texte examine l’affirmation d’Aristote qui se trouve dans les Seconds Analytiques II 19, que la perception porte sur l’universel. L’examen s’effectuera par le biais du De Anima II 6 et III 6-8 où Aristote décrit les objets de la perception et de l’intellect. L’auteur soutient que selon Aristote, la perception humaine porte toujours sur l’universel contenu dans le particulier parce que l’unité de la substance individuelle est garante de l’unité de l’acte de perception. Par conséquent, l’analyse en termes de (...) trois objets de perception n’est que le résultat de la méthode analytique qu’Aristote emploie afin d’étudier l’acte de perception. (shrink)