In these brief remarks I propose a reading of the “Fragment on Machines” in Marx's Grundrisse. This reading recognizes in the “Fragment” the central problematic of the Grundrisse's fundamental analyses of the relation between objectified labor and living labor, the meaning of this relationship within a comprehensive interpretation of the theory and, finally, the meaning of the contradiction within the relation itself which is essential for the comprehension and critique of the entire capitalist mode of production. Here this “Fragment” will (...) be analyzed from the viewpoint of the criticism of fetishism, thus indicating some of the Fragment's ambiguous elements. (shrink)

Conversazioni di Gianni Vattimo con Francesco Barone, Remo Bodei, Italo Mancini, Vittorio Mathieu, Mario Perniola, Pier Aldo Rovatti, Emanuele Severino e Carlo Sini.

Torino, 2 ottobre 2007 1. La prima volta in cui ho sentito parlare di Arthur C. Danto è stato, come sovente mi è capitato, dal mio maestro Gianni Vattimo. Me ne parlava come di uno studioso di Nietzsche, riferendosi al suo Nietzsche come filosofo, di cui mi raccomandava la lettura per la mia tesi. correva dunque l’anno 1976. Poi, anni dopo, nel 1984, avevo appena incominciato a insegnare a Trieste, me ne riparlò il mio collega Pier Aldo (...) class='Hi'>Rovatti, che aveva tradotto qualche tempo prima la sua... (shrink)

Torino, 2 ottobre 2007 1. La prima volta in cui ho sentito parlare di Arthur C. Danto è stato, come sovente mi è capitato, dal mio maestro Gianni Vattimo. Me ne parlava come di uno studioso di Nietzsche, riferendosi al suo Nietzsche come filosofo, di cui mi raccomandava la lettura per la mia tesi. correva dunque l’anno 1976. Poi, anni dopo, nel 1984, avevo appena incominciato a insegnare a Trieste, me ne riparlò il mio collega Pier Aldo (...) class='Hi'>Rovatti, che aveva tradotto qualche tempo prima la sua... (shrink)

Aldo Leopold once declared that there were two “spiritual dangers” in not owning a farm, with one being “the danger of supposing that breakfast comes from the grocery, and the other that heat comes from the furnace”. The dangers that Leopold was signaling were various, of course, but in that essay they primarily gathered around the problems caused by human distance from nature’s operations, the manners in which we can become divorced from the roots of life by a failure (...) to recognize the processes from which food and heat derive. However, Leopold did not repudiate the technologies involved in running a farm-house, and he clearly recognized that significant paradoxes are involved in the use of... (shrink)

Aureli advances a fresh, spirited and combative account of the idea of ‘autonomy’, connecting Italian architectural debates from the 1960s with the politics of class-autonomy that was being developed and advanced by workerist theorists such as Raniero Panzieri, Mario Tronti and Toni Negri. Aureli’s account focuses on Aldo Rossi’s architectural ideas and the project of the No-Stop City proposed by the young avant-garde group Archizoom. The Project of Autonomy is not simply envisaged as an historical exploration of the 1960s; (...) primarily, it is conceived as an intervention in current architectural theory, drawing on the author’s interest in Tronti’s politics to challenge the contemporary popularity of a broadly post-Negrian ‘autonomism’. This review questions aspects of Aureli’s reading of Rossi and Manfredo Tafuri. Furthermore, although Aureli’s discussion of Red Vienna opens up onto vital questions of strategies for social change, which remain pertinent to contemporary arguments over ‘enclaves’ or ‘zones’ of resistance, his antagonism towards Tafuri prevents his argument from either exploring or advancing the debate which he has initiated. (shrink)

Reshaping our methodological research tools for adequately capturing injustice and domination has been a central aspiration of feminist philosophy and social epistemology in recent years. There has been an increasingly empirical turn in recent feminist and political theorization, engaging with case studies and the challenges arising from conducting research in solidarity with unequal partners. I argue that these challenges cannot be resolved by merely adopting a norm and stance of deference to those in the struggle for justice. To conduct philosophical (...) research in an engaged and solidaristic manner, I suggest that deference be supplemented by three methodological and normative principles: 1) epistemic humility, 2) accountability, and 3) co-producing knowledge. I situate these principles within contemporary philosophical work on solidarity, and show how they might help confront power imbalances and other methodological hazards that arise when conducting research in solidarity with others. I arrive at these principles in part by critically reflecting on my own attempt to conduct research in solidarity with women’s rights activists in Senegal. (shrink)

It is now generally accepted that the motor system is not purely dedicated to the control of behavior, but also has cognitive functions. Mirror neurons have provided a new perspective on how sensory information regarding others’ actions and gestures is coupled with the internal cortical motor representation of them. This coupling allows an individual to enrich his interpretation of the social world through the activation of his own motor representations. Such mechanisms have been highly preserved in evolution as they are (...) present in humans, apes and monkeys. Recent neuroanatomical data showed that there are two different connectivity patterns in mirror neuron networks in the macaque: one is concerned with sensorimotor transformation in relation to reaching and hand grasping within the traditional parietal-premotor circuits; the second one is linked to the mouth/face motor control and the new data show that it is connected with limbic structures. The mouth mirror sector seems to be wired not only for ingestive behaviors but also for orofacial communicative gestures and vocalizations. Notably, the hand and mouth mirror networks partially overlap, suggesting the importance of hand-mouth synergies not only for sensorimotor transformation, but also for communicative purposes in order to better convey and control social signals. (shrink)

We begin with an analysis of the persuasiveness of assertibles and arguments in the texts and fragments of Ancient Stoicism, with a particular focus on those in which Stoic logic is presented as the tool to avoid the persuasiveness of sophisms and the Stoic sage as the one who can efface this persuasiveness by his expertise in dialectics. We then critically assess the contemporary consensus on the interpretation of these texts (notably in Chiaradona, Sedley and Tieleman), according to which Chrysippus (...) is interested in extra-logical forms of discourse. Tieleman further argues that Chrysippus uses persuasive premises for constructive purposes. We reject the thesis concerning Chrysippus' recognition of extra-logical truths, on the basis of the Stoic ideal of the sage, concluding instead that in Stoicism, (1) pithanon refers primarily to false assertibles, arguments and presentations and (2) the Stoic sage cannot be persuaded, but he can persuade his students in order to prepare their souls to receive the Stoic doctrines. (shrink)

Na primeira parte, fazemos um levantamento das ocorrências de pithanon (‘persuasivo’) e termos afins em textos e fragmentos do estoicismo antigo referentes à persuasão de asseríveis e argumentos e em textos e fragmentos em que a lógica estoica se apresenta como ferramenta para evitar a persuasão dos sofismas e o sábio estoico como aquele que capaz de vencer essa persuasão por sua perícia em dialética. Feito isso, consideramos criticamente as teses de Chiaradona, Sedley e Tieleman, para quem Crisipo está interessado (...) em formas extralógicas de discurso. Avaliaremos também a tese de Tieleman segundo a qual Crisipo usa premissas persuasivas para fins construtivos. Em nossas conclusões, descartamos a tese sobre o reconhecimento de verdades extralógicas por Crisipo com base no ideal do sábio estoico. Concluímos que, no estoicismo, (1) pithanon refere-se principalmente a falsas afirmações, argumentos e representações e (2) que o sábio estoico não pode ser persuadido, mas pode persuadir seus ouvintes a fim de preparar suas almas para receber as doutrinas estoicas. (shrink)

Es gibt eine enge Verbindung zwischen Wittgensteins ethischer Einstellung und seiner Ablehnung des philosophischen Theoretisierens. Wittgenstein betrachtet es als Aufgabe des Menschen, in sich selbst mit Mut hinunterzusteigen, um durch eine sprachliche Analyse seine innere Natur zu enthüllen. Wittgenstein arbeitet den Unterschied zwischen oberflächlichen und tiefergehenden ethischen Einstellungen als sprachphilosophischen Unterschied zwischen Oberflächengrammatik und Tiefengrammatik heraus. Die von Wittgenstein so bezeichnete Oberflächengrammatik ruft die grammatischen Täuschungen hervor, die für die Sublimierung und Idealisierung der philosophischen Theorien verantwortlich sind.