Authentic human life is the open-ended dialogue. Life by its very nature is dialogic. To live means to participate in dialogue: to ask questions, to head, to respond, to agree, and so forth. In this dialogue a person participates wholly and throughout his whole life: with his eyes, lips, hands, soul, spirit, with his whole body and deeds. He invests his entire self in discourse, and this discourse enters into the dialogic fabric of human life, into the world symposium. (Bahktin, (...) 1984, p. 283)... (shrink)

Guided by a phenomenological perspective, this paper aims to account for the existence of a corporeal consciousness—something that clinicians should take into account, not merely in the case of physical pathologies but especially in the case of mental disorders. Firstly, I will highlight three cases: schizophrenia, depression, and autism spectrum disorder. Then, I will show how these cases correspond to three different kinds of bodily existence: disembodiment (in the case of schizophrenia), chrematization (in melancholic depression), and dyssynchrony (in the autism (...) spectrum disorder). Finally, I will argue for the importance of an “expressive common environment” between the patient and the clinician, who are two distinct, embodied conscious subjects resonating with one another. In this view, the primary goal of the therapeutic process seems to develop a shared understanding of the patient’s life-world, which finds its main expression through the disrupted body. (shrink)

In this paper we aim to show that motor intentionality, as the underlying ground for social cognition, can be explained through the predictive engagement model. Sensorimotor processes seem to play central roles in social interaction, cognition and language. We question the phenomenological role of the body in social cognition and further investigate a causal neural explanation. We will adopt a different perspective by linking the role of the body and intercorporeality with recent findings in philosophy of neuroscience under the predictive (...) brain hypothesis. In fact, the living body seems to entertain a dialogical and enactive relationship with the surrounding context, as well as with neural circuits actively responding to external stimuli. The body is thus configured as a living organism, and not as a mere biological substratum, offering to phenomenology and empirical sciences further confirmations of the possibility-and need-for a cooperation. (shrink)

Who is the human being? A powerful, enhanceable biological organism, which techniques and artifacts can augment or a disembodied spirit damned to be influenced by its fragile body? In Defense of the Human Being accounts for both perspectives existing in the contemporary debate on the human and provides us with an answer: we should conceive of “ … the human person as a physical or embodied being, as a free, self- determining being, and ultimately as an essentially social being connected (...) with others.” (p. 2). Temporality, embodiment, relationality, vulnerability: we need to take into account these features and embrace them, even though this means to accept that we cannot live forever, we cannot rely on machines only, but we have to fulfil our existence. (shrink)

The mind-body relationship is a fundamental issue that has interested philosophers from very different schools of thought. Nowadays we can observe several positions being taken on this topic — my aim is to emphasize the phenomenological perspective on the mind-body relationship and, in particular, the role of Aristotelian thought in the contributions of philosophers such as Husserl and Merleau-Ponty. This paper consists of three different parts: in the first part, I will briefly sketch out a phenomenological account of the living (...) body in Husserl and Merleau-Ponty; in the second part, I will try to find parallels between phenomenology and Aristotle’s philosophy. Finally, I will argue for an Aristotelian reading of schizophrenia, a pathology that seems to be caused by a disruption of the corporeal Self. (shrink)

What does it mean “playing music together”? Is this action guided by cognitive or pre-inferential skills? The aim of this paper is to unveil the different components that are implied in a collective action such as “playing music together”. The idea which will be supported is that embodiment and temporality are the main important structures that guide the subject. In the first part, we will emphasize the centrality of corporeality in the development of self-awareness and intercorporeal understanding. In particular, drawing (...) on Merleau-Ponty’s work, we will argue that the cognitive layer of our consciousness and the pre-inferential one are simply the product of our being embodied. Another central structure for the development of selfhood and intersubjectivity is temporality: as we will show, our selfhood and our attunement with the world can be also described in terms of rhythm, whereby implicit body memory allows for the sedimentation of habits, and synchrony, when my bodily and temporalized self is able to automatically tune in with others. In the second part, we will show how these components are at stake in an action like “playing music together”: attending music therapy sessions with patients who suffer indeed from an (inter)corporeal detachment allowed us to observe the centrality of those components described in the first part of our work, that is, to show how pre-reflective features (such as implicit body memory, intercorporeality, rhythm and synchrony) are necessary for the development of higher social (and cognitive) abilities.In fact, first person reports collected through a qualitative interview applied to patients allow to support the priority of the pre-reflective, affective and (inter)bodily components over the reflective ones. (shrink)

In this paper, drawing on phenomenological and clinical literature, we will describe shame as a resonant emotion where the subjects involved are intertwined with one another thanks to two pre-reflective features of selfhood: embodiment and common sense. Furthermore, we will pay particular attention to the notion of intercorporeality, as it reflects the fact that our self, since birth, is essentially relational and embodied. In doing so, we will use the case of autism spectrum disorder as a paradigmatic situation and we (...) will claim that the difficulties experienced by autistic subjects in feeling shame (and other complex emotions) are primarily due to the lack or the impairments in the domains of intercorporeality and common sense. In this view, shame reveals its complex nature and it is synonymous with a bodily and essentially relational emotion. (shrink)

_Abstract_: The overarching aim of this paper is to provide a comprehensive account of melancholic depression from the perspective of hermeneutic phenomenology. More specifically, we propose that this condition should be interpreted as an alteration in the intentional arc that affects corporeality, temporality, and spatiality, rather than as a mood disorder. In fact, classifying melancholic depression as a mood disorder seems a particularly poor choice; the mood disorder is not a cause but a consequence of a primary disturbance in operative (...) intentionality. Our paper comprises four sections: (1) We provide a methodological and conceptual framework for our theoretical work, adopting a hermeneutic phenomenological perspective on melancholic depression, and underlining the main differences between melancholia and depression. (2) We offer a detailed reconstruction of the different interpretations of melancholic depression and their relationships to the issue of temporality. (3) We analyze the disruption of intentionality in melancholic depression and how it affects corporeality and directionality. (4) We focus on the disruption of moods and affects in melancholic depression, observing how they shape subjective experience. The goal of this theoretical contribution is to underscore the role of operative intentionality and its disruptions in melancholic depression. We argue that taking elements such as intentionality, embodiment, and spatiality into consideration could help to direct therapies along more promising paths. _Keywords_: Melancholic Depression; Operative Intentionality; Corporeality; Directionality; Temporality; Mood Disorders _La depressione melancolica. Un’interpretazione fenomenologico-ermeneutica_ _Riassunto_: L’intento generale di questo contributo è di fornire un’interpretazione della depressione melancolica attraverso la fenomenologia ermeneutica. Più specificatamente, la nostra ipotesi è che questa condizione potrebbe essere interpretata come un’alterazione dell’arco intenzionale la quale impatta la corporeità, la temporalità e la spazialità, e non come un disordine dell’umore. Infatti, classificare la depressione melancolica come un disordine dell’umore ci sembra una scelta particolarmente limitata; il disordine dell’umore non è la causa ma la conseguenza di un disturbo a livello primario dell’intenzionalità operativa. Il nostro contributo si articola in quattro sezioni: nella prima, forniamo una cornice metodologica e concettuale finalizzata a chiarificare le fondamenta teoretiche del nostro lavoro, ad illustrare l’utilizzo della fenomenologia ermeneutica in riferimento alla depressione melancolica, e a sottolineare le differenze principali tra melancolia e depressione. Nella seconda sezione, ricostruiamo in modo dettagliato le diverse interpretazioni della depressione melancolica e la loro relazione con la temporalità. Nella terza sezione, analizziamo l’alterazione dell’intenzionalità nella depressione melancolica e come essa impatti sia la corporeità che la direzionalità. Infine, nell’ultima sezione ci concentriamo sull’alterazione degli stati umorali e della componente affettiva, osservando come questi elementi vadano a caratterizzare l’esperienza soggettiva. Il fine di questo contributo teoretico è di evidenziare il ruolo dell’intenzionalità operativa e delle sue alterazioni nella depressione melancolica. La nostra tesi è che prendere in considerazione alcuni elementi, come l’intenzionalità, l’embodiment e la spazialità, possa contribuire a delineare interventi terapeutici in modo più promettente. _Parole chiave_: Depressione melancolica; Intenzionalità operativa; Corporeità; Direzionalità; Temporalità; Disturbi dell’umore. (shrink)

Public deliberation has been defended as a rational and noncoercive way to overcome paradoxical results from democratic voting, by promoting consensus on the available alternatives on the political agenda. Some critics have argued that full consensus is too demanding and inimical to pluralism and have pointed out that single-peakedness, a much less stringent condition, is sufficient to overcome voting paradoxes. According to these accounts, deliberation can induce single-peakedness through the creation of a ‘meta-agreement’, that is, agreement on the dimension according (...) to which the issues at stake are ‘conceptualized’. We argue here that once all the conditions needed for deliberation to bring about single-peakedness through meta-agreement are unpacked and made explicit, meta-agreement turns out to be a highly demanding condition, and one that is very inhospitable to pluralism. (shrink)

En 2014 et en 2015, deux campagnes se sont déroulées pour la continuation de l’étude des vases en métal et des instruments apparentés de Delphes, de 600 av. J.‑C. à l’époque romaine. La recherche, qui a pour but la publication systématique de ce corpus, porte sur des centaines d’objets, dont la plupart inédits. La majorité provient évidemment des sanctuaires d’Apollon et d’Athéna à Marmaria, mais des attestations relèvent aussi des contextes funéraires et domestiques du site. L’activité au mu...

The following paper explores the categorisation of groups. Indeed, there are different ways to distinguish human groups from one another: on the one hand, sociological analyses focus their attention on the distinction between being inside and outside of groups; on the other hand, collective action theories mainly focus on the distinction between collectives and aggregates, based on the kind of action that groups can perform, i.e., joint or not. In this paper, we offer an alternative view by adopting the agent’s (...) perspective and creating a scale based on the importance the agent attributes to his or her membership to different groups. While this perspective seems to lose objectivity as it does not allow the formulation of an unambiguous scale that applies to all individuals, it does allow us to understand the process of identification and the consequent phenomenon whereby very often we act in accordance with other people’s actions, in a collective way, without prior coordination. A practical example based on the so-called “acting white” will be explored in order to test the paper’s proposal. The analysis intends to offer a common ground on the basis of which it would be possible to have further inquiries on the social dimension of self-experience. (shrink)

O advento da sociedade em rede promoveu mudanças significativas na experiência-com-o-mundo. Observa-se nos últimos anos a crescente toxidade no ambiente informacional, marcado tanto pela vivência tóxica da informação que circula legalmente nas redes sociais como por informações que intoxicam os indivíduos e grupos. O objetivo é discutir, em tempos de pós-verdade e da sociedade non-stop, o aspecto tóxico da informação, que ao tornar o ambiente informacional tóxico, adoece indivíduos e também as sociedades democráticas, ao esmaecer a empatia para com os (...) demais e de pôr em risco a própria ideia de democracia e de vida partilhada de modo democrático. A proposta é discutir a intoxicação pela informação não pelo excesso (infoxicação), mas pelo que nomeio informação tóxica, i.e., o aspecto tóxico da informação e de ambiente informacional tóxico tendo como referência os discursos de ódio. Para tanto serão consideradas a desconstrução de experiências de estados democráticos mediante o crescimento da circulação de discursos de ódio e de discursos de ódio fascistas; o crescimento da desinformação; o crescimento da circulação de notícias fraudulentas (Fake news) e de notícias falsas (por exemplo, as não endossadas pelos saberes científicos, como o terraplanismo, a ideia da supremacia branca); os robots e os algoritmos. (shrink)

Le laboratoire scientifique est ici appréhendé dans sa spécificité propre. Il est bien situé en tant qu'objet anthropologique. Le lecteur trouvera dans ce livre la problématique du pouvoir dans le laboratoire, il découvrira une manière spécifique de traiter la dialectique entre production identitaire individuelle et collective.

This article describes the methods involved in building a diachronic multilingual corpus devoted to Fine Arts, beginning with G. Vasari's Lives of the most excellent Italian architects, sculptors and painters (1568) as the fundamental source text in the field of Art History. Attention is given to automatic pre-alignment, the special proofreading protocol and segmentation rules developed to allow multilingual and/or diachronic alignment of multiple texts, and the difficulties inherent in annotating a multilingual database. A case study is offered, comparing the (...) term “tondo” and its variants (e.g. “mezzo tondo”, “di tondo rilievo”) in Italian with their translations in English (De Vere 1912-15) and French (Leclanché 1839, Chastel 1981, Luciani 2002, Powell 2007). These later translations contain a greater variety of both lexicalized counterparts such as “medallion” or “lunette” as well as paraphrases, used to disambiguate and distinguish the various meanings of “tondo”, thus demonstrating how artistic vocabulary, which was still developing in 16th c. Italian, through its transmission to other languages, became more diversified and stable over time. (shrink)

In the age of Anthropocene, can aesthetics propose a not prevaricating behavioural model towards nature, leading to a new conception of humanity based on our being moved by nature? In this article, we will try to answer this question, exploring how some exponents of contemporary Environmental Aesthetics have examined the significance of human emotional responses to nature. Starting from the assumption that Kant defines the sublime as a motion of the soul, we wonder how aesthetics can reinterpret this concept to (...) affirm not human superiority over nature but his being part of it. To do so, we will turn our attention not only to some exponents of Environmental Aesthetics but also to Schopenhauer's concept of the sublime and the thought of Arne Næss, the father of the Deep Ecology movement. (shrink)

En este artículo realizamos un relevamiento exhaustivo de las publicaciones de Médicos por la Verdad, uno de los principales grupos antivacunas de Latinoamérica, en la red social Twitter durante la pandemia de COVID-19. Clasificamos sus tipos de razonamiento y el contenido de sus mensajes y mostramos que las propuestas existentes de análisis de discursos anticientíficos no pueden aplicarse a este caso particular. Proponemos, en consecuencia, una nueva categorización y su aplicación focalizada en las herramientas disponibles para comunicadores de la ciencia, (...) por un lado, y público no especializado, por el otro. (shrink)

En este trabajo, se propone una clasificación epistemológica teórica para el discurso astrológico a partir de evidencia empírica a fin de abordar el problema de cómo determinar específicamente qué es lo que lo hace ilegítimo. A partir de esta clasificación, se diseñó una intervención didáctica, enmarcada en el enfoque de Enseñanza de las Ciencias Naturales en Contexto (ECNC), con el objetivo de fomentar, en estudiantes de nivel secundario, la capacidad de distinguir enunciados cognoscitivamente ilegítimos -por infalsables o por falsos- respecto (...) de aquellos que pueden constituir genuino conocimiento científico. La secuencia didáctica se implementó con un grupo de 51 estudiantes de 14 a 17 años. Se evaluó su impacto por comparación entre un pretest y un postest. Los resultados mostraron que su capacidad de discernimiento entre enunciados falsables y no falsables se incrementó apreciablemente. (shrink)

This article reflects on the relationships between hegemonic masculinity, technologies and masturbation. It is established that this sexual practice has been determined by a series of powers and "myth loops" that, especially affecting cis-hetero men, have limited the emancipatory possibilities of self-pleasure. The text provides a general historical overview to review relevant gender differences regarding to masturbation, and focuses specifically on the Chilean case, their traditions, norms, evaluations and stereotypes to review the emergence of hegemonic male masturbatory practices. These and (...) their performativities will reveal a series of incongruities that take the body back to mandates associated with a control paradigm, which hinder an optimal development of both autoerotics and shared sexuality. (shrink)

There have been recurrent reports of fragilities in the Brazilian health system, especially in public institutions. In this commentary, I argue that moral distress in nursing in Brazil can still be considered an innovative and important subject of study. I also highlight the relevance of engaging educational institutions in the development of policies about environmental sustainability. It is relevant to continue studying moral distress in nursing and in health care generally in order to contribute to the transformation of reality by (...) confronting the multiple common situations in the work environment that are recognized by many as morally problematic because they infringe upon the rights of people, patients, and health care professionals and are an affront to environmental health. (shrink)

Interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) is an idiographic approach to qualitative research. It is widely used in psychologically-informed studies which aim to understand the meaning and context of specific experiences. In this paper, we provide some background and introduction to the principles and processes underpinning IPA research. We extend this via a practical example, reporting on selected analyses from a study which explores the phenomenology and meaning of loneliness, through interviews conducted with a group of religious women. Through our observations on (...) the complex role of absence for loneliness, we show that IPA can be a powerful tool for exploring and understanding the meaning of salient experiences. We reflect on the significance of the results for advancing theories of loneliness; and on the capacity of the IPA approach to provide researchers with an important and useful phenomenological perspective, through its emphasis on context, and its commitment to integrating convergent and divergent claims. (shrink)