Recognition of the identity of familiar faces in conditions with poor visibility or over large changes in head angle, lighting and partial occlusion is far more accurate than recognition of unfamiliar faces in similar conditions. Here we used a visual search paradigm to test if one class of social cues transmitted by faces – direction of another’s attention as conveyed by gaze direction and head orientation – is perceived more rapidly in personally familiar faces than in unfamiliar faces. We found (...) a strong effect of familiarity on the detection of these social cues, suggesting that the times to process these signals in familiar faces are markedly faster than the corresponding processing times for unfamiliar faces. In the light of these new data, hypotheses on the organization of the visual system for processing faces are formulated and discussed. (shrink)

Promotreno iz etimološke perspektive, Petrićev Sretan grad, objavljen između Utopije T. Morea i La città del Sole T. Campanelle, crpi svoje polazište i ključno značenje upravo iz etimologije nazivka ‘sretan’. Taj nazivak sadržava dvojnost, koja je poslužila Petrićevoj zamisli: kao što se čovjek sastoji od duše i tijela, tako se dvojnost uočava i ponavlja u raznim strukturama grada-države. S jedne strane felice znači ‘produktivan’ i ‘uspješan’, a s druge strane pak ‘sretan’ te kod Petrića i ‘blažen’. Stupnjevanje u razumijevanju sreće (...) kod Petrića znači da je njegov grad-država uspješan i blažen, pa se sudjelovanje svih staleža društva sagledava u okviru praktičnog organiziranja društvenog života dvostruko sretnog grada.This paper deals with the etymology, and consequently with the meaning of Frane Petrić’s Happy Town : written after Thomas More’s Utopia and before Tomaso Campanella’s The City of the Sun, Petrić’s Happy Town has its datum-point and key meaning in the etymology of the term felice. This term contains the duality constantly pointed out in Petrić’s conception: since the human being consists of body and soul, the duality is noted and repeated through various structures of this town-state. The term felice means ‘productive’, ‘successful’, ‘happy’, and it has to do with Petrić’s concept of ‘blessedness’ as well. The gradation of the meaning of the term felice explains the fact that Petrić’s town is successful-happy and happy-blessed. All the social levels are part of the productiveness > blessedness process of Petrić’s twice Happy Town. (shrink)

During his multiannual reflection Sismondi seems reluctant to define his concept of city, while devoting most of his energy to the importance of cities self-government – starting with his famous Histoire des Républiques italiennes au Moyen Age. This essay tries to frame his reflection in the intersection between his economic and constitutional proposals. In the background stands a continuous dialogue with Adam Smith, revisited through the relationship that the canton of Geneva has had during the Restoration with its rural population.

L’autore ricostruisce l’impatto del saggio di Max Weber sulla città nella storiografia tedesca a partire dalla fine degli anni Ottanta. Esso indica altresì il significato politico della “scoperta” weberiana della città come nucleo genetico della politica occidentale, con il suo universalismo che Weber data addirittura all’incontro tra gli apostoli Pietro e Paolo ad Antiochia. La “città” è per Weber la sede della possibilità teorica e fattuale di creare un diritto autonomo e nuovo. Essa è certamente il luogo di origine della (...) predominanza politica della borghesia, ma nel paradigma weberiano basato sulla razionalizzazione come processo tipico della cultura occidentale, essa indica un percorso che prosegue ancora oggi nell’epoca delle migrazioni e della globalizzazione. (shrink)

"This book in the main consists of lectures that I first delivered in 2010 at the Collegium Phenomenologicum at Citta di Castello, Italy, and subsequently expanded for a three-day seminar at the Universidad Diego Portales at Santiago, Chile, in 2011. In spring 2012 my graduate lecture course in the Department of Comparative Literature at the State University of New York at Buffalo was devoted to the subject "geophilosophy." It was on this occasion that I expanded the earlier lectures (...) to the dimensions of the book in its present form.". (shrink)

The Collegium Phaenomenologicum has met in Umbria, Italy every summer since 1976; only COVID made it pause, and hopefully only temporarily. It has been a forum for deep and broad discussion of the phenomenological tradition; it has also been a place where that tradition has itself been broadened and deepened by generations of thinkers who came to study the classical texts and to do phenomenology. In 2019, over the course of three weeks in July, in three lecture courses, several talks (...) by visiting faculty, twelve text seminars sessions, art workshops, and very many informal talks over dinner, on the terrace, and on long walks through the town of Città di Castello and beyond, the Collegium worked on the question of critical phenomenology. (shrink)

As a master of Arts at the University of Bologna in the second half of XIVth Century, Simon of Castello decided to pour what he learned at the University of Paris into updating the university education and training. His project is clearly delineated in the opening words (a sort of prologue) to his two works : De proporcionibus velocitatum in motibus (edited by J. McCue in 1961) and the unpublished Questiuncule decem, introduced as a comment to De proportionibus. The (...) three last of these Questiuncule are edited here with a brief introduction. They have been selected for their referring to latitudines; explicit quotations from Burley’s works on latitudes (Tractatus primus and secundus) speaks to the early diffusion of the English master in the Italian university education. Simon expresses his gratitude toward Henry of Langenstein, his master in Paris. (shrink)

According to IOM, there have been 20.000 dead or missing migrants in the Mediterranean since 2014. According to the NGO United, there have been 44.000 dead people on the European borders since the beginning of 1990s. more than the 75% of these people goes missing in the sea. In Italy only a small part of retrieved bodies can be identified and sometimes repatriated. In most cases, the bodies are buried with no names in coastal cemeteries. In the face of the (...) expeditious disposal of the bodies, linked to public health issues and to the working of the devices that connotate the border regime, those communities that accommodate these corpses face the need to “integrate” someone else’s death in their own universe of sense thanks to specific practices of “hospitality” dedicated to the defunct. Through a project that maps buried migrants in the cemetery of Catania and in collaboration with the local committee of Red Cross and the municipality of Catania, since 2017 we have started, with the program Mecmi, an ethnography of the practices of body disposal and of burial rituals dedicated to more than 260 corpses. (shrink)

Presume-se que pensadores tenham começado a ser considerados como filósofos nos últimos decênios do séc. V a.C. Se for assim, nenhum dos intelectuais das épocas posteriores, de Tales a Empédocles, que fomos educados a honrar como filósofos, o foram considerados em vida. Teriam recebido o nome de “filósofos” como honra a posteriori, a partir de 330 e 345 a.C. No presente artigo, o autor analisa o modo como Tales era honrado como um dos sophoi em Atenas.

D. Compaeetti, Leggi antiche delta città di Gortyna, Firenze, 1885 F. Bücheler and E. Zitelmann, Rheinisches Museum N. F. Bd. 40 J. and T. Baunack, Die Inschrift von Gortyn, Stuttgart, 1886H. Lewy, Stadtrecht von Gortyn, Berlin, 1885Museo Italiano di Antickità classiche, edited by D. Comparetti, Florence, 1885 sqq. Vols. i, ii.

L’articolo riconosce nella città lo spazio privilegiato per comprendere e interpretare l’attuale ristrutturazione materiale e simbolica del mondo. Nel contesto delle trasformazioni che stanno modificando le sue forme, il suo ruolo, le sue geografie nell’età della globalizzazione, la città viene in prima battuta inquadrata all’interno delle transizioni in atto che ne modificano il paesaggio rispetto alla metropoli moderna. Flussi globali, ridefinizione scalare, modello a rete, politiche neoliberali e innovazioni tecnologiche ed economiche compongono uno scenario urbano disordinato. A partire da queste (...) trasformazioni si individua nella città contemporanea la matrice e il crocevia di nuove esperienze politiche. Queste vengono discusse inquadrandole in due cornici: nella ridefinizione e nelle potenzialità del concetto di cittadinanza urbana; guardando alla città quale spazio privilegiato per pratiche di democrazia. (shrink)

Le Corbusier's visionary or realistic urban plans are accompanied by various experimental ways of presentation, all designed to involve the public and political authorities through spectacular installations that play on the dimension of illusionism. In his quest to present his urbanistic ideas, Le Corbusier uses dioramas, photographs and film projections. The aim of his staging is to modify the conventional vision of reality with a systematic bombardment of spectacular images.

Il saggio intende indagare le radici di ermeneutica politica del termine orexis così come Aristotele lo utilizza a partire dall’argomento biologico e antropologico, fino a quello sociologico e narrativo nei confronti del rapporto individuo-Città. Una teoria del desiderio come perfezione antropologica a partire da una concezione di Città democratica e dinamica, nei termini contestuali della polis greca. In quest’ambito lo scritto sviluppa il confronto con la concezione di eros di origine platonica inteso come mancanza, e la dimensione di socialità individuale (...) in Aristotele come pienezza. (shrink)

We present here the original translation of an article published in 1989 by Henri Lefebvre on Le Monde Diplomatique. A short but extremely dense piece, where Lefebvre's vision finds a synthesis and the premises for its overcoming at the same time. The introduction to the article historically frames Lefebvre's work, showing the genesis of this article and discussing some of its main topics. Furthermore, the introduction critically analizes the contemporary Lefebvre's reinassance and proposes some interpretations for a contemporary translation of (...) the most important topics addressed by Quand la ville se perd dans la métamorphose planétaire. (shrink)

La vita e le opere -- Un pensiero rivolto all'eterno -- Il confronto con la storia della filosofia -- Il ritorno della metafisica oltre il problematicismo -- La svolta di Ritornare a Parmenide e l'inizio di un nuovo cammino -- Il "destino" e il senso della vita e della morte -- Il dialogo mai interrotto con la fede cristiana -- La fine della metafisica e la distruzione della cultura occidentale -- Il nichilismo contemporaneo e la risoluzione della metafisica e dell'etica (...) nella tecnica -- L'angioscia del divenire, i "rimedi" del mortale e la Gioia. (shrink)