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)

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)

Journal Name: Philologus Issue: Ahead of print.

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)

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 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.

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...

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)

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..

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

The author presents and defends three theses: (1) "the first is that it is not profitable for us at present to do moral philosophy; that should be laid aside at any rate until we have an adequate philosophy of psychology." (2) "the second is that the concepts of obligation, And duty... And of what is morally right and wrong, And of the moral sense of 'ought', Ought to be jettisoned if this is psychologically possible...." (3) "the third thesis is that (...) the differences between the well-Known english writers on moral philosophy from sidgwick to the present day are of little importance." (staff). (shrink)

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)

Derek Parfit’s view of personal identity raises questions about whether advance decisions refusing life-saving treatment should be honored in cases where a patient loses psychological continuity; it implies that these advance decisions would not be self-determining at all. However, rather than accepting that an unknown metaphysical ‘further fact’ underpins agential unity, one can accept Parfit’s view but offer a different account of what it implies morally. Part II of this article argues that contractual obligations provide a moral basis for honoring (...) advance decisions refusing life-saving and/or life-sustaining medical treatment; advance decisions have similarities to contracts, such as life insurance policies and will-contracts, that come into effect when the psychological discontinuity is through death. (shrink)

It is a commonly accepted view that men think to live, and do not live to think, that conation, and not cognition, is the primary object of living. Impression, affect, and expression constitute the complete psychic process. The term philosophy, the love of wisdom, also suggests that man's thought has a practical and not a theoretical objective. In this connection, however, two errors must be avoided: on the one hand an exaltation of the intellect as in rationalism, and on the (...) other hand a depreciation of the intellect as in pragmatism. (shrink)