In _The School of Doubt_ Orazio Cappello presents a study of Cicero’s fragmentary philosophical treatise on sense-perception, the _Academica_, examining the dialogue’s literary, historiographical and theoretical texture.

The fact that the notion of ‘practice’ has achieved an ever-increasing relevance in the most various fields of knowledge must not overshadow that it can be interpreted in so many different ways as to orient fairly different historiographical paradigms and philosophical conceptions. Starting with the two main issues of Hadot’s criticism of Foucault (the lack of a distinction between joy and pleasure and the fact that his account does not underscore that the individual Self is ultimately transcended by universal Reason), (...) I have tried to show how the two scholars’ philosophical and historiographical approaches entail a different notion of ‘practice’. According to Hadot, the performativity of a practice (or spiritual exercise) is intimately tied to a universal which transcends the individual self, whereas Foucault maintains that it does not require the appeal to any universal, being exclusively grounded on the modes of exertion of the practices which constitute the individual Self. According to this address, pleasure is a fundamental notion in order to historicize the different ways in which the ethical subject structures itself. (shrink)

This article compares the strategies between nine museums in Ecuador, Spain and Peru to address the educommunication activities developed as a result of the 2020 pandemic. Focused on content analysis, the research takes into account the activity of their web pages and the interaction on their social networks. The results show that in Spain informative and informative actions prevailed, while Ecuador and Peru focused on cultural and educational ones. The most relevant contents were oriented to the teaching-learning of heritage, mainly (...) through the development of webinars and online conferences. (shrink)

The paper discusses the extent to which the availability of unprecedentedly rich data-sets and the need for new approaches – both epistemological and computational – is an emerging issue for Macroeconomics. By adopting an evolutionary approach, we describe the paradigm shifts experienced in the macroeconomic research field and emphasize that the types of data the macroeconomist has to deal with play an important role in the evolutionary process of the development of the discipline. After introducing the current debate over Big (...) Data in social sciences, the paper presents a detailed discussion of possible and existing interactions between Big Data and Computational Behavioral Macroeconomics. We argue that Big Data applied to economic questions can lead to new styles of thinking and research methods, namely to the development of a new research paradigm. (shrink)

In the framework of the issue of the observance of promises and agreements, Grotius discusses the question of whether Christians should be allowed to conclude treaties or alliances with those who were named infideles in the canonical and theological terminology. The question was ancient: since the early Middle Ages, alliances of Christians with infidels had been labeled as ‘impious’. Grotius’s solutions are based on the converging traditions of medieval canon law and theology: treaties and alliances with infidels are intrinsically lawful (...) according to natural and positive divine law, although they should be avoided in certain circumstances. Grotius’s concern, however, was not so much to affirm the theoretical lawfulness of the fedus cum infidelibus. The outcome of his argument consists in promoting the cohesion of Christians: he thinks that a joint action of the Christian nations is a moral and juridical obligation in the face of the aggressions caused by the enemies of Christendom. (shrink)

Orazio Irrera – On a l’habitude un peu hâtive de dire que lorsque Foucault critique l’idéologie, il s’adresse surtout à la conception althussérienne de l’idéologie. Mais en suivant votre argumentation, il semble plutôt que Foucault et Althusser ont tenté tous les deux d’échapper à une conception représentationnelle et seulement négative de l’idéologie. Pour cette raison, à votre avis, serait-il utile de distinguer parmi les critiques de Foucault entre celles qui sont adr...

A sound in a real space (e.g. a street or a room) is studied by acousticians as the relationship between an anechoic signal and the reverberant sound field. We define ‘anechoic signal’ a signal representing the pressure variation emitted by the sound source, while the ‘reverberant field’ is a field representing the sum of all the sound reflections of the environment in which the sound exists, delayed in time due to the positions of the sound source and the listener. The (...) auditory ability of detecting a sound and assigning it to a source depends both on the anechoic signal and the reverberant sound field. This relationship has been analysed in acoustic literature using the autocorrelation properties of the anechoic signals and objective metrics of the sound field, the last ones being the ‘room criteria’ described in ISO 3382. In this context, the ‘effective duration’ of the autocorrelation function (τe) has been proposed as key factor to ‘preferred’ values of several room criteria in relation to different kind of music signals. Relying on some similarities between the definition of ‘auditory objects’ and the sound detection in a reverberant space, this paper proposes the use of τe as a potential tool to study and catalogue auditory objects. (shrink)

L’une des questions majeures qui traverse le livre de Pierre Macherey, Le sujet des normes, est sans aucun doute celle de l’idéologie, dont il propose une refonte visant à rematérialiser ce concept ainsi que l’ensemble des pratiques auxquelles il renvoie. Cette refonte débouche sur ce que P. Macherey désigne finalement par le terme d’« infra-idéologie ». Loin de céder au refrain longtemps répété qu’à l’époque des démocraties néo-libérales avec leur pragmatisme et leurs technicismes, on assist..

Questo articolo cerca di esplorare il rapporto tra parrēsia ed exemplum negli ultimi Corsi al Collège de France di Michel Foucault. A partire da L’ermeneutica del soggetto , viene analizzato il campo semantico e pratico relativo alla direzione di coscienza stoica ed epicurea, in cui Foucault oppone la parrēsia all’adulazione e alla retorica per collocarla invece all’interno di un’importante serie di concetti: la paradosis (la trasmissione dei discorsi di verità), il kairos (il momento giusto, la circostanza opportuna) e l’exemplum definito (...) come «il cuore della parrēsia » poiché esso assicura l’ adæquatio tra il soggetto di enunciazione e il soggetto di comportamento che si conforma alla verità espressa dal primo. Successivamente, viene posta l’attenzione sul legame tra parrēsia ed exemplum nell’ultimo Corso, Il coraggio della verità , per mettere in evidenza un’importante riconfigurazione all’interno della parrēsia cinica, in cui l’esempio appare come una categoria etica basata sulla permanenza e sull’identità a sé. Pertanto, esso si rivela inadeguato per questo regime aleturgico della parrēsia cinica, che invece consiste in un atteggiamento etico sperimentale, una mise à l’épreuve cui sottomettere la vita per arrivare a una trasformazione politica del mondo attraverso una continua e scandalosa provocazione degli altri, in grado di mettere in discussione la percezione di norme culturali e di abitudini consolidate. (shrink)

Resumo: O presente artigo tem por objetivo refletir sobre a concepção de democracia, apresentada por Bergson, em As duas fontes da moral e da religião, enquanto movimento humano e social de resistência e de aspiração, no contexto de uma teoria da vida concebida, ela própria, como um movimento que se dá em dois sentidos, o da determinação e o da criação.: This article reflects on the conception of democracy presented by Bergson in The Two Sources of Morality and Religion. Democracy (...) is there conceived as a human and social movement of resistance and aspiration in the context of a theory of life; and life is itself conceived as a movement that takes place in two senses, that of determination and that of creation. (shrink)

O presente texto tem por objetivo examinar as relações existentes entre a crítica às idéias abstratas, apresentada por Berkeley na “Introdução” ao Tratado sobre os princípios do entendimento humano, e a argumentação desenvolvida nos primeiros parágrafos da Parte I do mesmo texto, em que o autor propõe seu imaterialismo. A hipótese levantada a partir de tal exame defende uma relação direta entre o nominalismo de Berkeley e o caráter inaceitável, para o autor, da distinção entre o ser e o aparecer (...) da matéria postulada pelas teorias da representação. Critique of abstration and representation in Berkeley’s immaterialismThe objective of this essay is to examine the relations that exist between the critique of abstract ideas, presented by Berkeley in the “Introduction” to the A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge and the arguments developed in the first paragraphs of its Part I, in which Berkeley proposes his immaterialism. The hypothesis advanced, based on our analysis, is that there is a direct relation between Berkeley’s nominalism and the unacceptable character, according to Berkeley, of the distinction between the appearance and the matter postulated by the theories of representation. (shrink)

Neste artigo, proponho interpretar a redução berkelianista das coisas às ideias levando em conta uma aproximação entre a crítica à dupla existência dos objetos, subjacente a essa redução, e a crítica às teorias clássicas da representação, desenvolvida por Bergson no âmbito de sua teoria da percepção.

O objetivo do artigo é examinar as noções de espontaneidade, criação e auto-engendramento na obra de Bergson, com ênfase na maneira como elas se articulam em Os dados imediatos da consciência e A evolução criadora, destacando as articulações e diferenças entre as duas obras a esse respeito.

Humans naturally perceive visual patterns in a global manner and are remarkably capable of extracting object shapes based on properties such as proximity, closure, symmetry, and good continuation. Notwithstanding the role of these properties in perceptual grouping, studies highlighted differences in disembedding performance across individuals, which are summarized by the field dependence dimension. Evidence suggests that age and educational attainment explain part of this variability, whereas the role of sex is still highly debated. Also, which stimulus features primarily influence inter-individual (...) variations in perceptual grouping has still to be fully determined. Building upon these premises, we assessed the role of age, education level, and sex on performance at the Leuven Embedded Figure Test—a proxy of disembedding abilities—in 391 cisgender individuals. We also investigated to what extent shape symmetry, closure, complexity, and continuation relate to task accuracy. Overall, target asymmetry, closure, and good continuation with the embedding context increase task difficulty. Simpler shapes are more difficult to detect than those with more lines, yet context complexity impairs the recognition of complex targets to a greater extent. Concerning demographic data, we confirm that age and educational attainment are significantly associated with disembedding abilities and reveal a perceptual advantage in males. In summary, our study further highlights the role of shape properties in disembedding performance and unveils sex differences not reported so far. (shrink)

Explores a Foucaultian understanding of the subject in relation to truth and power.

This introduction to the special issue ‘Foucault Before the Collège de France’ surveys Foucault’s work in the first part of his career. While there is a familiar chronology to the books he published in the 1960s – from History of Madness to The Archaeology of Knowledge – the story can be developed in relation to his articles, his translations, his early publications and manuscripts, and his teaching. Looking at the programme of posthumous publication of many of his courses and unfinished (...) manuscripts, this introduction discusses key themes, and introduces the papers of the special issue which analyse these texts in detail. It concludes with some general thoughts about what these hitherto neglected or hidden sources tell us about the work of Foucault. Although it adds some cautions about their use, we believe the texts and lectures analysed in this issue and others from the period before the Collège de France add valuable insights into our understanding of Foucault’s intellectual development, his interests and plans, and his enduring influence on a variety of fields in the humanities and social sciences. (shrink)

BackgroundThe measures taken to contain the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic, such as the lockdown in Italy, do impact psychological health; yet, less is known about their effect on cognitive functioning. The transactional theory of stress predicts reciprocal influences between perceived stress and cognitive performance. However, the effects of a period of stress due to social isolation on spatial cognition and exploration have been little examined. The aim of the present study was to investigate the possible effects and impact of the (...) COVID-19 pandemic on spatial cognition tasks, particularly those concerning spatial exploration, and the physiological leftward bias known as pseudoneglect. A right-hemisphere asymmetry for spatial attention processes crucially contributes to pseudoneglect. Other evidence indicates a predominantly right-hemisphere activity in stressful situations. We also analyzed the effects of lockdown on coping strategies, which typically show an opposite pattern of hemispheric asymmetry, favoring the left hemisphere. If so, then pseudoneglect should increase during the lockdown and be negatively correlated with the efficacy of coping strategies.MethodsOne week before the start of the lockdown due to COVID-19 in Italy, we had collected data from a battery of behavioral tests including tasks of peri-personal spatial cognition. During the quarantine period, from late April to early May 2020, we repeated the testing sessions with a subgroup of the same participants. At both testing sessions, participants performed digitized neuropsychological tests, including a Cancellation task, Radial Arm Maze task, and Raven’s Advanced Progressive Matrices. Participants also completed a newly developed COVID-19 Student Stress Scale, based on transactional models of stress, and the Coping Orientation to Problems Experienced—New Italian Version to assess coping orientation.ResultsThe tendency to start cancelation from a left-sided item, to explore first a left-sided arm of the maze, and to choose erroneous response items on the left side of the page on Raven’s matrices increased from T1 to T2. The degree of pseudoneglect increment positively correlated with perceived stress and negatively correlated with Positive Attitude and Problem-Solving COPE-NIV subscales.ConclusionLockdown-related stress may have contributed to increase leftward bias during quarantine through a greater activation of the right hemisphere. On the other hand, pseudoneglect was decreased for better coping participants, perhaps as a consequence of a more balanced hemispheric activity in these individuals. (shrink)

The Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) represents a set of life-long disorders. In particular, subjects with ASD can display momentary behaviors of acute agitation and aggressiveness called crisis behaviors. These events are problematic for the subject and care providers but little is known about their occurrence, namely, possible relations among intensity, frequency, and duration. A group of ASD subjects (n=33) has been observed for 12 months reporting data on each crisis ( n = 1137 crises). Statistical analysis did not find significant (...) results, while the relation between crisis duration and frequency showed a good fit to a “power law” curve, suggesting the application of Self-Organized Criticality (SOC) model. The SOC is used to describe natural phenomena as earthquakes, bank failures of rivers, mass extinctions, and other systems where a type of “catastrophic events” is necessary to maintain a critical equilibrium. In a sense, subjects at risk of crisis behavior seem to fit the same model as seismic zones at risk of earthquakes. The employment of the same strategies, as those successfully developed for known SOC systems, could lead to important insights for ASD management. Moreover, the SOC model offers possible interpretations of crisis behavior dynamics suggesting that they are unpredictable and, in a sense, necessary. (shrink)