The aim of this paper is to highlight the decisive contribution of Simplicius and Philoponus to the resolution of the problem of evil in Neoplatonism. A correct and faithful interpretation of the problem, which also had to agree with Plato’s texts, became particularly needed after Plotinus had identified evil with matter, threatening, thus, the dualistic position, which was absent in Plato. The first rectification was made by Proclus with the notion of parhypostasis, i.e., “parasitic” or “collateral” existence, which de-hypostasized evil, (...) while at the same time challenging the Plotinian theory that turned evil into a principle that was ontologically opposed to good. In light of this, the last Neoplatonic exegetes, Simplicius and Philoponus, definitely clarified the “privative” role of kakon, finally relieving matter from the negative meaning given to it by Plotinus and restoring metaphysical monism. (shrink)

The most important modes of film practice, in my view, are art-house cinema and the avant-garde, both of which contrast with the classical Hollywood mode of film practice. While the latter is characterized by its commercial imperative, corporate hierarchies, and a high degree of specialization as well as a division of labor, the avant-garde is an “artisanal” or “personal” mode. Avant-garde films tend to be made by individuals or very small groups of collaborators, financed either by the filmmakers alone or (...) in combination with private patronage and grants from arts institutions. Such films are usually distributed through film cooperatives and exhibited by film societies, museums, and universities. (Consequently .. (shrink)

. This article examines seven American films from the perspective of the first time the author saw them versus the perspective of today. What I discover is that I do not feel, or think, the same way about the films in question. In the process of making this discovery—of gaining, as it were, a cinematic education—I explore not only the subjectivity of memory but also the subjectivity of criticism; the changes that have occurred in movie viewing over the years, which (...) themselves have affected perception; and the place of the cinema in one’s life—past, present, and beyond. (shrink)

The paper presents my first findings and reflections on how ordinary people may opportunistically and unpredictably respond to Internet censorship and tracking. I try to capture this process with the concept of ‘hacking multitude'. Working on a case study of the Turkish government's block of the social media platform Twitter, I argue that during systemic data choke-points, a multitude of users might acquire a certain degree of reflexivity over ubiquitous software of advanced techno-capitalism. Resisting naïve parallels between urban streets and (...) virtual global streets, the article draws on Fuller's ‘media ecologies' to make sense of complex and dynamic interactions between processes and materialities, strategies of communication and mundane practices. Such a dense space is mostly invisible to network and traffic analysis, although it comes alive under the magnifying lens of digital ethnography. As the Turkish government tried to stop protesters on both the urban and the Twitter spheres, alternative material configurations and new hybrid formations and practices emerged. I try to bring this process alive following the traces – that is, a combination of digital data and materialities – of a social space between the protest for Twitter access, the ‘digital coup' and the interactions that this situation determined. In the final section, I briefly explore two research trajectories which can further develop my initial formulation of a ‘hacking multitude'. I argue that a generalisation of hacking/multitude is problematic for the political, cultural or economic processes more directly associated with Big Data. (shrink)

One of the main difficulties that Neoplatonic commentators of Aristotle face is the different treatment that the Categories and the Metaphysics offer to the question of the substance. After describing briefly the status quaestionis ousiae in Aristotle, and after tracing the main Neoplatonic interpretations of this doctrine, this article attempts to demonstrate that the Neoplatonists of Athens and Alexandria, Syrianus and Ammonius, inaugurate a new interpretation of the Aristotelian doctrine. With regard to the category of substance in general and to (...) the question of substantiality of “immanent form” in particular, this new interpretation goes beyond the positions of Plotinus and Porphyry and returns the ontological value to the Aristotelian substances. Unlike Plotinus, who recognized as ousia only that one intelligible, that is five genres of the Platonic Sophist, and unlike Porphyry, who defused the anti–Platonic fuse of the Categories, giving to this treaty a mainly semantic skopos, these philosophers, through their original study of the theory of the three states of katholou, already shed in the Porphyrian Eisagôgê, fit the immanent forms of Aristotle, recognized as substances and as a reflection of the transcendental universal, into the late antique Neoplatonic metaphysical triadic structure. (shrink)

R. Loredana Cardullo, Il libro Alpha della Metafisica di Aristotele tra storiografia e teoria, Catania 2009, pp. 294. R. Loredana Cardullo, A sclepio di Tralle. Commentario al libro Alpha Meizon della Metafisica di Aristotele. Intoduzione, testo greco, traduzione e note di commento, Acireale-Roma 2012, pp. 512. Paris 2012, pp. 164.

Translated by Bert Cardullo University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Missouri, USA This essay first appeared in French in Écran Français in 1946, then was included in Volume 1 ('Ontologie et langage') of Qu'est-ce que le cinéma? (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1958-1962), pp. 22-30. Translated here, for the first time, with the permission of Madame Janine Bazin.

Translated by Bert Cardullo University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Missouri, USA This article first appeared in French in Esprit , vol. 21 no. 207-208, October-November 1953, pp. 672-683. Translated here, for the first time, with the permission of Madame Janine Bazin.

Andre Bazin _Bazin at Work: Major Essays and Reviews from the Forties and Fifties_ Translated by Alain Piette and Bert Cardullo Edited by Bert Cardullo New York and London: Routledge, 1997 ISBN: 0415900182 256 pp.

The administrative reform of the datafied public administration places great emphasis on the classification, control, and prediction of citizen behavior and therefore has the potential to significantly impact citizen–state relations. There is a growing body of literature on data-oriented activism which aims to resist and counteract existing harmful data practices. However, little is known about the processes, policies, and political-economic structures that make datafication possible. There is a distinct research gap on situated and context-specific empirical research, which critically interrogates the (...) premises, interests, and agendas of data-driven public administration and how stakeholders can impact them. This paper therefore studies the conditions of participation in public administration datafication. It asks the overall research question of how citizens are problematized and included in policy and practitioner discourse in the datafication of public administration. The paper takes Norway as its case and applies Cardullo and Kitchin’s scaffold of smart citizen participation at the system level. It makes use of a unique empirical insight into the field, consisting of a survey, interviews, and an extensive document analysis. Unexpectedly, we find that citizens and civil society are rarely engaged in this administrative reform. Instead, we identify a paternalistic, top-down, technocratic approach where the context, values, and agendas of datafication are obscured from the citizen. (shrink)

La notion de mesure traverse les traités du corpus d'Aristote en connexion des problèmes qui sont d'une importance centrale. Le recueil est composé d'une série d'études de: Tomàs Calvo, R.Loredana Cardullo, Laura Castelli, Lambros Couloubaritsis, Paolo Crivelli, Sylvain Delcomminette, Giovanna R.Giardina, David Lefebvre, Antonio P.Mesquita, Pierre-Marie Morel, Marco Panza, Fernando Rey Puente. -- Provided by publisher.