The term “modernity” is used to refer to the cultural component of modernization, which encompasses also the political component (state formation) and economic component (capitalism). Historical analysis shows that in the phases of merchant and Dutch capitalism the dominant culture provided a religious justification and stimulus to capitalism, the Scottish philosophers provided an ethical framework based on human sentiments, especially empathy. With the secularization and turbulence of the 19th century a series of cultural critiques of the capitalist system emerged in (...) the form of “modernism”, “postmodernism” and finally “global civil society”. Presently, we experience a hiatus between certain counter-cultural movements and the capitalist system as well as an ideological divide and a political impasse between social policy concerns and capitalist priorities. A human-centered cultural framework is proposed to serve as a tool for “civil society” to formulate societally agreed guidelines of political economy. (shrink)

In the literature, the pragmatic dimension of metaphors has been clearly acknowledged. Metaphors are regarded as having different possible uses, especially pursuing persuasion. However, an analysis of the specific conversational purposes that they can be aimed at achieving in a dialogue and their adequacy thereto is still missing. In this chapter, we will address this issue focusing on the classical distinction between the explanatory and persuasive uses of metaphors, which is, however, complex to draw at an analytical level and often (...) blurred and controversial also from a theoretical point of view. Building on the analysis of explanation in different theories and fields of study, we show how it can be conceived as characterized by a cognitive and a pragmatic dimension, where the transference of understanding is used pragmatically for different dialogical goals - such as informing, making a joint decision, and most importantly persuading. In this sense, the cognitive effects of understanding are not incompatible with a persuasive dialogical purpose. This theoretical proposal will be applied to examples drawn from the medical context, to show how a pragmatic approach to explanation can account for the complexity of the cases that can be found in actual dialogical contexts. (shrink)

Les sceaux des archives de Paphos datent d'entre le milieu du ne et la fin du Ier s. av. J.-C. La présence, sur certains sceaux, d'inscriptions en syllabaire chypriote ou de simples signes syllabiques apporte la preuve que l'écriture syllabique était employée à Chypre — certes de façon sporadique — au cours de ces siècles. C'est là une donnée nouvelle, puisque, d'après les documents connus jusque-là (inscriptions du sanctuaire rural de Kafi- zin), l'utilisation de cette écriture avait cessé à la (...) fin du me s. av. J.-C. (shrink)

While the world rushed to develop treatments for COVID-19, some turned hopefully to drug repurposing. However, little study has addressed issues of drug repurposing in emergency situations from a broader perspective, taking into account the social and ethical ramifications. When drug repurposing is employed in emergency situations, the fairness of resource distribution becomes an issue that requires careful ethical consideration.This paper examines the drug repurposing in emergency situations focusing on the fairness using Japanese cases. Ethical issues under these circumstances addressed (...) by the authors include: maintaining the evidence level, integrity of clinical research ethics, and voluntary consent by original indication patients. In order to address these issues, they argue that rapid accumulation of ethically and scientifically valid evidence is required, as is obtaining information on resource quantity. (shrink)

This is a response to Erman and Moller's response to our reply to their 'Political Legitimacy in the Real Normative World', both also in this journal.

Negli anni che intercorrono fra la prima e l'ultima stesura della Scienza nuova vedono la luce in Europa le opere di Montesquieu e di Voltaire, di Lamettrie e di Hume, di Tindal e di Berkeley, di Morelly e di D'Alembert, Nell'Europa del suo tempo Vico fu senza dubbio un pensatore 'isolato'. Tale isolamento è stato di volta in volta interpretato come arretratezza e come capacità di divinazione - le pagine della Scienza nuova sono State interpretate come l'espressione tipica di una (...) rinnovata visione cristiana della storia o come un'anticipata polemica antilluministica e un precorrimento dei temi della cultura romantica e della filosofia di Hegel. 'Da un angoletto morto della storia', lavorando sui testi del secolo precedente, Vico affrontava comunque alcuni grandi problemi che resteranno al centro della cultura romantica, di quella positivistica, delle discussioni sullo storicismo. (shrink)

Is there more to the recent surge in political realism than just a debate on how best to continue doing what political theorists are already doing? I use two recent books, by Michael Freeden and Matt Sleat, as a testing ground for realism’s claims about its import on the discipline. I argue that both book take realism beyond the Methodenstreit, though each in a different direction: Freeden’s takes us in the realm of meta-metatheory, Sleat’s is a genuine exercise in grounding (...) liberal normative theory in a non-moralistic way. I conclude with wider methodological observations. I argue that unlike communitarianism (the previous contender for the discipline’s renewal), realism has the potential to open new vistas, though their novelty is to a large extent relative to the last forty years or so: realism is best thought of as a return to a more traditional way of doing political philosophy. (shrink)

In this paper, I introduce a new species of elusive reason–reasons that it is impossible for an agent to act, or be motivated to act, for–and I show how this kind of elusive reason undermines a plausible claim about normative reasons, the Motivational Constraint. To defend the existence of this new kind of elusive reason, I respond to the objection that our intuitions are tracking another normative or evaluative phenomenon, such as reasons to have certain affective responses or reasons for (...) others to act. In addition, because accepting the new kind of elusive reason requires affirming the claim that S acts for a reason p only if S regards p as a reason to A, I develop an account of what it is for S to regard p as a reason to A. Finally, as part of arguing for the former claim, I argue that the idea of being moved to A for a reason p entails the idea of being moved to A in light of p, which itself entails the idea of regarding p as a reason. (shrink)

In *How Propaganda Works* Jason Stanley argues that democratic societies require substantial material equality because inequality causes ideologically flawed belief, which, in turn, make demagogic propaganda more effective. And that is problematic for the quality of democracy. In this brief paper I unpack that argument, in order to make two points: (a) the non-moral argument for equality is promising, but weakened by its reliance on a heavily moralised conception of democracy; (b) that problem may be remedied by whole-heartedly embracing a (...) more realistic conception of democracy. That conception is at least compatible with Stanley’s argument, if not implicit in parts of it. (shrink)

Il primo volume di Figure del pensiero medievale, come recita il titolo, presenta “i fondamenti” e gli “inizi” della figura della teologia che verrà elaborata nella riflessione occidentale fino alla “Via moderna”, ossia fino al XIV e agli inizi del XV secolo. Né si tratta soltanto degli inizi cronologici: i vari saggi editi nel volume delineano, infatti, gli inizi metodologici, in certo modo esemplari, che avviano e determinano la forma della teologia, quale verrà in seguito elaborata. Il capitolo introduttivo offre (...) una sintesi della teologia medievale, con le sue fonti e i suoi riferimenti e processi fondamentali. Seguono poi i grandi modelli: Agostino, con la fede che genera l'"intelletto teologico"; Boezio, con le sue esemplari attuazioni o i suoi "opuscoli" della teologia risultante dall'investimento razionale della stessa fede; Gregorio, che resterà il geniale ispiratore della teologia come “intelligenza spirituale”, come lettura di tutte le risorse dei significati biblici, destinati ad avverarsi come esperienza; lo Pseudo-Dionigi, il maestro della teologia come inesausta ricerca e desiderio di Dio come di inarrivabile trascendenza, e impossibilità di "possesso", di là da ogni rappresentatività e simbolo; Isidoro di Siviglia, con il suo enciclopedismo, mirante alla visione il più possibile comprensiva della realtà della natura e della storia. (shrink)

Στό Μουσεῖο Λευκωσίας ἕνα πήλινο εἰδώλιο παριστάνει μιά γυναίκα μέ χιτώνα καί ἱμάτιο νά σηκώνει ἀριστερά στήν ἀγκαλιά της ἕνα παιδί (κουροτρόφος). Μέ τό δεξί της χέρι κρατάει ἀπό τά πισινά πόδια ἕνα κουνέλι ἤ λαγό : πρόκειται μᾶλλον γιά σκηνή παρμένη ἀπό τήν καθημερινή ζωή παρά ή θεά 'Αφροδίτη, ὅπως ἔχει ταυτιστῆ τό εἰδώλιο αὐτό μέ ἀφορμή περισσότερο τήν ἐπιγραφή ποὖναι χαραγμένη στό πίσω μέρος : « Έπαφρᾶς θειοποιός ἐποί[ει ἤ -ησε] ». Παρόλο πού ή κοροπλαστική ἔχει μεγάλη παράδοση (...) στή Κύπρο κατέχομε λιγοστά ὀνόματα κοροπλαστῶν. (shrink)

This paper provides a critical overview of the realist current in contemporary political philosophy. We define political realism on the basis of its attempt to give varying degrees of autonomy to politics as a sphere of human activity, in large part through its exploration of the sources of normativity appropriate for the political and so distinguish sharply between political realism and non-ideal theory. We then identify and discuss four key arguments advanced by political realists: from ideology, from the relationship of (...) ethics to politics, from the priority of legitimacy over justice and from the nature of political judgement. Next, we ask to what extent realism is a methodological approach as opposed to a substantive political position and so discuss the relationship between realism and a few such positions. We close by pointing out the links between contemporary realism and the realist strand that runs through much of the history of Western political thought. (shrink)

Our brains readily decode facial movements and changes in social attention, reflected in earlier and larger N170 event-related potentials (ERPs) to viewing gaze aversions vs. direct gaze in real faces (Puce et al. 2000). In contrast, gaze aversions in line-drawn faces do not produce these N170 differences (Rossi et al., 2014), suggesting that physical stimulus properties or experimental context may drive these effects. Here we investigated the role of stimulus-induced context on neurophysiological responses to dynamic gaze. Sixteen healthy adults (...) viewed line-drawn and real faces, with dynamic eye aversion and direct gaze transitions, and control stimuli (scrambled arrays and checkerboards) while continuous electroencephalographic (EEG) activity was recorded. EEG data from 2 temporo-occipital clusters of 9 electrodes in each hemisphere where N170 activity is known to be maximal were selected for analysis. N170 peak amplitude and latency, and temporal dynamics from event-related spectral perturbations (ERSPs) were measured in 16 healthy subjects. Real faces generated larger N170s for averted vs. direct gaze motion, however, N170s to real and direct gaze were as large as those to respective controls. N170 amplitude did not differ across line-drawn gaze changes. Overall, bilateral mean gamma power changes for faces relative to control stimuli occurred between 150-350 ms, potentially reflecting signal detection of facial motion. Our data indicate that experimental context does not drive N170 differences to viewed gaze changes. Low-level stimulus properties, such as the high sclera/iris contrast change in real eyes likely drive the N170 changes to viewed aversive movements. (shrink)

This paper investigates the emotive (or expressive) meaning of words commonly referred to as “loaded” or “emotive,” which include slurs, derogative or pejorative words, and ethical terms. We claim that emotive meaning can be reinterpreted from a pragmatic and argumentative perspective, which can account for distinct aspects of ethical terms, including the possibility of being modified and its cancellability. Emotive meaning is explained as a defeasible and automatic or automatized evaluative and intended inference commonly associated with the use of specific (...) terms, which can be represented and assessed considering its logical structure and its defeasibility conditions. This automatic inference is conceived as part of the connotation of an ethical term, and is not necessarily stable. By means of quasi-definitions, it is possible to modify the emotive meaning while maintaining the descriptive one, automaticizing the inferences drawn from an ethical word. Through examples drawn from the recent US presidential campaign, we show how re-contextualization and emotive contexts can affect emotive meaning. (shrink)

Political realism is characterised by fidelity to the facts of politics and a refusal to derive political judgments from pre- political moral commitments. Even when they are not taken to make normative theorising impossible or futile, those characteristics are often thought to engender a conservative slant, or at least a tendency to prefer incremental reformism to radicalism. I resist those claims by distinguishing between three variants of realism—ordorealism, contextual realism, and radical realism—and contrasting them with both non-ideal theory and utopianism. (...) I then develop a version of radical realism as a form of debunking and vindicatory genealogy. Even though this new approach eschews both feasibility constraints (unlike non-ideal theory) and prescriptions about the ideal society (unlike utopianism), I show how it has more radical potential than morality-driven (and hence often ideological) political theory, and how it supports both open-ended, radical social critique and concrete forms of prefigurative political action. (shrink)

In this paper we show how a realistic normative democratic theory can work within the constraints set by the most pessimistic empirical results about voting behaviour and elite capture of the policy process. After setting out the empirical evidence and discussing some extant responses by political theorists, we argue that the evidence produces a two-pronged challenge for democracy: an epistemic challenge concerning the quality and focus of decision-making and an oligarchic challenge concerning power concentration. To address the challenges we then (...) put forward three main normative claims, each of which is compatible with the evidence. We start with a critique of the epistocratic position commonly thought to be supported by the evidence. We then introduce a qualified critique of referenda and other forms of plebiscite, and an outline of a tribune-based system of popular control over oligarchic influence on the policy process. Our discussion points towards a renewal of democracy in a plebeian but not plebiscitarian direction: Attention to the relative power of social classes matters more than formal dispersal of power through voting. We close with some methodological reflections about the compatibility between our normative claims and the realist program in political philosophy. (shrink)