Objetivo del presente artículo es poner de relieve las contradicciones de la relación entre bioética y bioderecho que, lejos de ser un problema meramente teórico, tiene un impacto real en las reglamentaciones de las innovaciones en el campo de la biomedicina. Con el ánimo de demostrar esa fuerte conexión de la cuestión aparentemente teórica con la praxis, el ensayo, dotado de una metodología inductiva, moverá sus primeros pasos a partir de las técnicas de edición genética germinal. En la primera parte (...) del trabajo se aclararán matices científicos de dichas técnicas y se presentarán los primeros avances de la reglamentación jurídica que tienen su origen en el Consejo de Europa. Finalmente, a través de los límites y contradicciones de la reglamentación supuestamente biojurídica de la edición genética germinal se pondrá en evidencia la asimetría que domina en la relación entre bioética y bioderecho. ---The goal of this article is to stand out contradictions in the relationship among bioethics and biolaw that, far from being merely a theoretical quandary, has a real impact in the regulations of innovations in the biomedical field. Aiming to show that strong connection between the apparently theoretical question with the praxis, the essay, with an inductive methodology, goes straight showing the first steps of regulation of the germ-line gene editing. In the first part of the article, after a summary about the scientific highlights of germ-line gene editing, we undertake an investigation on the juridical regulation of germline-gene editing, based on the Council of Europe’s provisions. Finally, showing the limitations and contradictions of these supposedly biojuridical regulations, we highlight the dominant asymmetry in the relationship among bioethics and biolaw. (shrink)

Intergenerational justice represents a crucial theme in the on-going debate in ethics, politics and law. In what follows, I would like to show that a determined phenomenological perspective drawing from the motive of alterity can shed new light on such a topic. Importantly, my concern will be to display how this approach can provide a thorough justificatory underpinning for a responsibility towards future generations, while denouncing the main shortcomings that mainstream approaches reveal when dealing with this issue.

Esta pesquisa avaliou o stress e as estratégias de coping em estudantes de uma universidade pública da região norte de Moçambique. Baseou-se na abordagem qualitativa e envolveu 28 estudantes de ambos os sexos, que cursavam o Curso de Licenciatura em Ensino de Filosofia, os quais responderam a uma entrevista semi-estruturada. A análise de conteúdo da informação coletada revelou a predominância de sintomas de stress de natureza psicológica e diversos estressores acadêmicos, nomeadamente: sobrecarga de matéria e de trabalhos acadêmicos, dificuldades financeiras (...) e econômicas, dificuldades na assimilação da matéria, más relações interpessoais, situações familiares, má atuação dos docentes e insucesso acadêmico. Para gerenciar o stress percebido os estudantes recorrem basicamente às estratégias paliativas. Os achados enfatizam a necessidade de delineamento e implementação de políticas institucionais de promoção de saúde mental dos estudantes, centradas na prevenção de stress e no aconselhamento psicológico. (shrink)

This work, in continuity with the article published by Ferdinando Casolaro and Giovanna Della Vecchia in Vol 5, 2017 of this series, in which we noted that in the centuries since the eight century B.C. at the 13th century A.D. the evolution of Astronomy and historical events have influenced the development of Mathematics, intends to demonstrate how the Architecture and Literature of the following centuries have further conditioned the development of the sciences in Italy and, in particular, of Mathematics, (...) identifying the affinities and, in some cases, the coincidences between the different forms of thought that invite us to make a serious reflection on the uniqueness of culture. (shrink)

This work presents a Decision Making Model riferring to the forecasts about Football World Cup in Brazil. The aim of this work is to demonstrate how it is possible to approach young students to the study of Mathematics through evoking themes that are congenial to them and able to arouse their interest.

_Treating Dissociative and Personality Disorders_ draws on major theorists and the very latest research to help formulate and introduce the Relational/Multi-Motivational Therapeutic Approach, a new model for treating such patients within a clinical psychoanalytic setting. Supported by her fellow contributors, Antonella Ivaldi provides an overview of existing theories and evidence for their effectiveness in practice, sets out her own theory in detail and provides rich clinical detail to demonstrate the advantages of the REMOTA model as applied in a clinical (...) setting. The narratives in this book show how it is possible to integrate different contributions within a multidimensional aetiopathogenic treatment model, which considers the mind as a manifestation of the relationship between body and world. From a conceptual perspective, according to which consciousness emerges and develops in the interpersonal dimension, this book shows how it becomes possible to understand, in the therapeutic space, what stands in the way of sound personal functioning, and how to create the conditions for improving this. Treating Dissociative and Personality Disorders will be highly useful in addressing the particular clusters of symptoms presented by patients, stimulating therapists of different backgrounds to explore the complexity of human nature. On reading this book, it will become clear that theories can truly become useful instruments, if approached with a critical mind and with humbleness, in order to venture into what we do not know and will never know completely: the relationship with the other, unique and irreplaceable. Treating Dissociative and Personality Disorders provides an integrative and comparative new approach that will be indispensable for combining relational clinical knowing and motivational theories. It_ _will appeal to psychoanalysts and psychotherapists, especially those in training, clinicians of different backgrounds interested in comparative psychotherapy, as well as social workers and graduate and postgraduate students. (shrink)

Nicholas Kaldor was one of this century's most original thinkers on economics, his influence on British economic policy second only to that of Keynes. This book traces the development of Kaldor's thought as it underwent a remarkable evolution from his membership of the Austrian neoclassical school to his embracing of radical Keynesianism. He was also extremely quick to grasp essential changes in economic reality and to forge analytical tools to explain them. Although he was innovative from 1938 onwards, much of (...) his seminal work belongs to a coherent project of research which made him, together with Joan Robinson and Micha/l Kalecki, a leading representative of the post-Keynesian school, an outstanding critic of the neoclassical theory of equilibrium, growth, and distribution, and a convinced opponent of the monetarist school. The book also seeks to show how economic policy and political economy were closely connected in Kaldor's work. It was this that made Kaldor one of the most lucid and radical champions of the economic policies which, by blending political freedom with social justice, have been the outstanding feature of the great European tradition of social democracy. (shrink)

This study intended to test whether attachment to one’s own residential place at neighborhood level could represent a coping response for the elderly (consistently with the “docility hypothesis;” Lawton, 1982), when dealing with the demands of unfamiliar environments, in order to balance their reduction of spatial abilities. Specifically, a sequential path was tested, in which neighborhood attachment was expected to play a buffer role between lowered spatial competence and neighborhood satisfaction. The participants (N = 264), senior citizens (over 65-year-old), responded (...) to a questionnaire including the measures of spatial self-efficacy, spatial anxiety, attitude toward wayfinding, residential attachment and residential satisfaction. Results from the mediation analysis showed that a lower perceived spatial self-efficacy is associated to a higher spatial anxiety, and both promote a more negative attitude toward wayfinding tasks in non-familiar places. This leads to a higher attachment to one’s own neighborhood, which in turn predicts a higher residential satisfaction. Thus, the “closure” response of becoming more attached to their residential place may be an adaptive strategy of the elderly for compensating the Person-Environment (P-E) mis-fit (Lawton and Nahemow, 1973) when they feel unable (or less able) to cope with the demands of unfamiliar environments. (shrink)

The landscape of seventeenth-century chemistry is complex, and it is impossible to find in it either a clear-cut distinction between alchemy and chemistry or a sort of simple identification of the two. The seventeenth-century cultural context contained a rich variety of "chemical" discourses with arguments ranging from specific experiments to the justification of the validity of chemistry and its novelty in terms of its extraordinary antiquity. On the basis of an analysis of the works by O. Borch, J.J. Glauber, and (...) J. J. Becher, this paper tries to demonstrate that a historical reconstruction of "chemistry" must consider these different levels of the chemical debate. Only then will it be possible to appreciate the outstanding role played by G.E. Stahl in founding modern chemistry. The paper argues in favor of a contextualization of the historical research on seventeenth-century chemistry. (shrink)

The logic of discovering and that of justifying have been a permanent source of debate in mathematics, because of their different and apparently contradictory features within the processes of production of mathematical sentences. In fact, a fundamental unity appears as soon as one investigates deeply the phenomenology of conjecturing and proving using concrete examples. In this paper it is shown that abduction, in the sense of Peirce, is an essential unifying activity, ruling such phenomena. Abduction is the major ingredient in (...) a theoretical model suitable for describing the tran-sition from the conjecturing to the proving phase. In the paper such a model is introduced and worked out to test Lakatos' machinery of proofs and refutations from a new point of view. Abduction and its categorical counter-part, adjunction, allow to explain within a unifying framework most of the phenomenology of conjectures and proofs, encompassing also the method of Greek analysis-synthesis. (shrink)

In light of the recent revival of the debate on radical democracy, this paper seeks to show how a critical reappropriation of Chantal Mouffe’s theory of agonistic politics can explain the structure of a conflict-based understanding of democratic orders. In explicit convergence with Mouffe, I argue that a radical democratic project by no means needs to abandon—as many absolute democracy and multitude theorists claim—the modern political paradigm. I also show, diverging from her account, that Mouffe’s defence of a radical democratic (...) project based on pluralism and agonism would have been better served by a critical reception of Arendt’s thinking rather than that of Schmitt. The relevance of this alternative strategy—so I will argue—lies in the fact that it delivers an apt design for a politico-legal order which permits true and proper conflicts, on the one hand, while simultaneously allowing that they be dealt with democratically, on the other. (shrink)

The paper addresses the epistemological and theoretical assumptions that underpin the concept of Work and Organizational Psychology as idiographic, situated, and transformative social science. Positioning the connection between uniqueness and generalization inside the debate around organization studies as applied approaches, the contribution highlights the ontological, gnoseological, and methodological implications at stake. The use of practical instead of scientific rationality is explored, through the perspective of a hermeneutic lens, underlining the main features connected to the adoption of an epistemology of practice. (...) Specifically, the contribution depicts the configuration of the applied research as a relational practice, embedded in the unfolding process of generating knowledge dealing with concrete social contexts and particular social objects. The discussion of a case study regarding a field research project allows one to point out challenges and constraints connected to the enactment of the research process as a social accomplishment. (shrink)

This article focuses on the concrete and symbolic process of construction, self-identification and self-presentation of U.S.-America as a “material” nation, a self-identification elaborated, albeit seldom by using this term, through the emphasis on its “exceptional” system of production, distribution, and consumption between the turn of the century and the immediate aftermath of WWI. It weaves together three, so far separate, streams of research such as the one on the American system of manufacturing, that on the emergence of modern patterns of (...) distribution and consumption, and the literature on the sustained efforts at “exporting” abroad the “American dream”. It charts the evolution of the business practices and of the rhetoric used to forge the notion of “material nation,” the actors involved, the implications this had for the process of real and imagined nation-making and for the different social and cultural segments comprising the nation. (shrink)

The digital revolution has generated huge changes in the world of work, with relevant implications for the Human Resources Management function. New challenges arise in facing digital work, digital employees, and digital management, such that the connection between new technologies and HRM is now described as electronic HRM. Challenges and connection entail the possibility to review the notion of HRM itself, examining new research perspectives and lines of interpretation following a Critical Management Studies approach, thus developing a more contextualized view (...) in conceiving HRM, a more expansive consideration of stakeholders, and a longer-term perspective in approaching the results of digital transformation and HRM outcomes. The article analyzes a specific organizational case, involving a multinational enterprise, and explores how the case study enhances the understanding of HRM as a social practice embedded in specific situated contexts. Such a conception enables the engagement of multiple rationalities, related to both internal and external stakeholders, overcoming a “mere antiperformance stance” and achieving forms of reconstructive reflexivity concerning the interconnection between the digital age, HRM, and the innovative generation of social value through an authentic corporate responsibility. (shrink)

In the aftermath of the publication of the Black Notebooks, the debate on "Heidegger and Politics" seems, more than ever, to be colonized by the sole question regarding the connection between his thought and his involvement with Nazism and its anti-Semitic ideology. Far from relativizing the importance of such a debate, the book opens up a different approach to the political implications of Heidegger's philosophy: his early work devoted to a phenomenology of life in all its facticity. This early work (...) has a genuine, although implicit, political character, which - as Ferdinando Menga argues - can be made explicit and developed in a way that yields inspiring material for a true and proper theory of democracy. Lässt sich mit Heidegger noch politische Philosophie betreiben? Seit der Veröffentlichung der Schwarzen Hefte scheint dies unmöglich oder zumindest sehr kontrovers. Ohne die Relevanz der um die Hefte entstandenen Debatte in Frage zu stellen, wird hier ein anderer Weg eingeschlagen, um, diese politische Dimension zu erkunden. Dieser alternative Zugang thematisiert die frühen phänomenologischen Schriften (1919-1923) des Autors, die um die fundamentale Frage nach einem Denken des Ursprungs kreisen. Es handelt sich um ein Denken, das für sich in Anspruch nimmt, einen genuinen und adäquaten Zugang zur ursprünglichen Struktur der faktischen Lebenserfahrung gefunden zu haben. Die zentrale These Mengas lautet nun, dass die Vorrangigkeit des Politischen gerade in dieser phänomenologischen Dimension entdeckt, weiter entfaltet und kritisch erörtert werden kann - bis hin zu Spuren einer Demokratietheorie in Heideggers früher Philosophie. (shrink)

While in the realm of scholarly debate on intergenerational justice the mechanism of a transgenerational intertwinement has been often adopted as a chief conceptual device in view of overcoming ethical short-termism and legitimizing duties towards future generations, this paper aims at showing that there are good reasons for considering the opposite outcome. Drawing on three paradigmatic examples taken from three mainstream approaches in the debate—Rawls’s contractualism, Gauthier’s contractarianism, and indirect reciprocity—I will show how the grammar of presentism is still largely (...) operative under the surface of theories explicitly recurring to such a device and thereby advocating a chain of duties capable to reach the remote future. A short closing section will be devoted to endorsing a radical reorientation in ethics, such that a direct link to future invocations will be considered as a promising strategy for genuinely justifying intergenerational obligations. (shrink)

Several attempts, which have recently tried to empower again the philosophical crossing between phenomenology and hermeneutics, call for a re-examination of the main topics and themes at stake in such a project, which has dominated in many ways part of the 20th Century Continental Philosophy. However, given such a perspective, what I would like to show in the following essay is that, far from insisting again on the primacy of the thought of an author like Hans-Georg Gadamer, it could be (...) of higher suitability to address the thought of another philosopher: Paul Ricoeur. Particularly, by reconsidering the main steps of his phenomenological- hermeneutical project, I would like to stress how Ricoeur’s philosophy, in comparison to Gadamer’s approach, is not only able to display a larger spectrum of confrontations, but also a stronger theoretical structure, which has its pivotal point in the notion of an interpretative deconstruction of the titanic subject through the appropriative mediation of the narrative text. (shrink)

In questo testo desidero discutere da un’ottica strutturale il punto di consistenza della differenza tra paradigma del multiculturalismo e paradigma dell’interculturalità. Il primo esprime se stesso come differenziazione tra ordini culturali, che prevede comunque la presenza di un ordine o di un meta-ordine globale, il quale governa, in qualità di fondamento universale, lo svolgersi della coesistenza. Il secondo nega proprio questa possibilità, prevedendo come unica strada percorribile il lavoro contingente e situazionale di “traduzione” da un ordine culturale a un altro. (...) Questo testo si propone di valutare proprio le ragioni in base alle quali del paradigma dell’interculturalità possa essere un candidato migliore per illuminare, ma anche per sottoporre a critica, la struttura titanica della globalizzazione. (shrink)

In this article I intend to trace and discuss a contradiction, which – I believe – lies in Arendt’s thought: the one between her concept of plurality and her concept of power. In a more specific way, I will argue that Arendt, by admitting only an intransitive understanding of power, betrays her vision of plurality, as this one cannot exclude a transitive conception of power. Furthermore, I will try to detect how this same contradiction reflects itself in another topical place (...) of Arendt’s thought, i.e. her critical opposition to political representation. Here the direction of my arguing can be expressed by a simple question: isn’t maybe representation a much more adequate way to correspond plurality than Arendt’s tendency to acclaim an aggregative and quasi-organic collective participation? (shrink)

Every order lies on the claim or pretension to give itself as an accomplished realm, i.e. as a closed scene which is capable to give shape, orientation and sense to the totality of elements embraced by it. Yet, from the same operation of ordering, a paradox soon arises, in that no order can avoid its contingent genealogy, that means: it cannot avoid the fact that, in enclosing and including something, it must simultaneously exclude something else, which, therefore, can always challenge (...) and threaten its stability or total “delimitation”. In this sense, that which is excluded can be seen as an alien element, which structurally prevents order from a definite closure and thus keeps it in a permanent movement. Now, what I would like to convey in my following reflections is that this dynamics of impossible closure of order, given to a non-appropriable alienness, is exactly the one operative in the realms of translation and tragedy, so that, once we carefully investigate these realms, we may dare to affirm that saying that orders are unclosed scenes is as much true as to say that they are constantly “in translation”, always “in tragedy”. (shrink)

Le défi des antinomies joue un rôle décisif dans l'élaboration même de la pensée kantienne ; cela devient particulièrement significatif par rapport à l'Être absolument nécessaire, qui devrait dépasser le niveau des phénomènes même lorsque, comme l'on dit dans la thèse de la quatrième antinomie, l'on l'entend comme quelque chose du monde. Dans la structure même des antinomies nous sommes forcés à aller au-delà de l'expérience, à un Être qui dépasse radicalement le monde ; en ce sens, même à l'intérieur (...) de la pensée kantienne, l'analogie classique reste la structure spécifique de la métaphysique, surtout par la possibilité de dire la transcendance sans la réduire jamais au niveau des phénomènes. The challenge of the antinomies plays a decisive role in the development of Kantian thought. This becomes particularly significant with reference to the absolutely necessary Being, which should exceed the phenomenal domain even when, as Kant says in the fourth antinomy, it is considered as a part of the world. In the structure of the antinomies we are pushed beyond experience towards a Being which radically transcends the world; in this sense, even within Kantian thought, the classical analogy remains the specific structure of metaphysics, especially by virtue of the possibility of expressing transcendence without reducing it to the phenomenal level. (shrink)

A lesion to the brain is not necessary for a successful neural transplantation. Embryonic Purkinje cells placed on the surface of an uninjured adult cerebellum can develop and migrate into the host molecular layer. Both the Purkinje cells that migrated into the host cerebellum and those that remained in the graft were innervated by collateral sprouting of adult intact climbing fibers.

The dramatic increase of meat production in the last decades has proven to be one of the most impacting causes of negative environmental outcomes (e.g., increase of greenhouse emissions, pollution of land and water, and biodiversity loss). In two studies, we aimed to verify the role of key socio-psychological dimensions on meat intake. Study 1 (N= 198) tested the predictive power of an extended version of the Value-Belief-Norm (VBN) model on individual food choices in an online supermarket simulation. In an (...) online survey, participants were directed to a virtual shop and asked to buy food within a set amount of money. Subsequently, they completed measures of behavioral intention, the VBN constructs (values, general pro-environmental beliefs, awareness of consequences, ascription of responsibility, and personal norm), and social norms (injunctive and descriptive). The outcome variable was operationalized in terms of percentage of expenses dedicated to meat and processed meat items, which provided a more robust behavioral measure than the common self-reported ones. Results confirmed the VBN sequential path, showing direct effects of biospheric values and descriptive norm on personal norm. Furthermore, a proof of validity for the new behavioral measure was provided (medium-sized correlation with behavioral intention). Study 2 (N= 218) aimed at verifying whether the meat consumption could be also motivated by a health concern, reflecting individual (cost/benefit) considerations, besides pro-environmental drivers. Results showed the direct impact of health concern and confirmed the indirect role of biospheric values and descriptive norm (viapersonal norm) on meat intake. This evidence would suggest the use of multiple-frame messages, highlighting both pro-environmental and health consequences, for meat consumption reduction. Nevertheless, the different implications of moral (e.g., environmental concern) vs. non-moral motivators (e.g., health concern) for reducing meat intake need to be stressed: indeed, the first drivers are more central for self-identity and for engaging in environmental citizenship behaviors. (shrink)

Given the food challenges that society is facing, we draw upon recent developments in the study of how food reputation affects food preferences and food choices, providing here a starting standard point for measuring every aspect of food reputation in different cultural contexts across the world. Specifically, while previous attempts focused either on specific aspects of food or on measures of food features validated in one language only, the present research validates the Food Reputation Map (FRM) in Italian, English and (...) Chinese over 2250 participants worldwide. Here we successfully measure food reputation across twenty-three specific indicators, further grouped into six synthetic indicators of food reputation. Critically, results show that: a) the specific measurement tool of food reputation can vary across cultural contexts, and that b) people’s reputation of food products or categories changes significantly across different cultural contexts. Therefore, in order to understand people’s food preferences and consumption, it is important to take into account the repertoire of cultural differences that underlies the contexts of analysis: the three context-specific versions of the FRM presented here effectively deal with this issue and provide reliable context-specific insights on stakeholders’ interests, perspectives, attitudes and behaviors related to food perceptions, assessment and consumption, which can be effectively leveraged to foster food sustainability. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic played as a booster to the cultural, social, and economic transformations triggered by the 4.0 Industrial Revolution, increasing the diffusion and employment of technological devices and requiring to reconsider the traditional approach to work and organization. Dealing with an emblematic organizational case, the article highlights the main key capabilities requested to face the current scenario, suggesting transformed attitudes needed to cope with the unfolding complex, uncertain, changing digital and blended world. The findings, gathered through an extensive survey (...) involving 500 people who started working at a distance during the 2020 lockdown period, underline the main actionable skills to be achieved for enhancing agile work, hybrid professional roles and new work, and organizational and managerial cultures. (shrink)

Dysfunctionality in socialisation is undoubtedly the most crucial characteristic of autism. For a long time, social functioning and its improvement have been considered among the most important interventions in the literature. Individuals with autism are responsive to therapist-mediated and/or peer-mediated interventions that increase their social engagement. The present study examines the impact of outdoor integrated activities, such as music therapy, equine-assisted therapy, and art therapy, in autistic individuals (n=14). The analysis was carried out on the application of a questionnaire assessing (...) three social skill domains: Joint Attention (JA), Imitation (IMI), and Turn-Taking (T-T) mediated by the therapists and by peers. The development and acquisition of these social behaviours were examined in a structured outdoor context (ASO). Data were collected by two independent observers by White's Scale questionnaire. The results revealed that the proposed interventions facilitated and led to an increase in social-behavioural experience. (shrink)

Mirror neurons may play a role in representing not only signs but also their meaning. Because actions are the only aspect of behavior that are inter-individually accessible, interpreting meanings in terms of actions might explain how meanings can be shared. Behavioral evidence and artificial life simulations suggest that seeing objects or processing words referring to objects automatically activates motor actions.

Due to the environmental and health impact of the private transport sector, social scientists have largely focused on psychosocial and contextual factors associated with people's choice over transport means. This study aims to contribute to this line of research by applying a user-centered approach, with the objective of taking into account the specific environmental and social context of the metropolitan area of Cagliari city. To accomplish this aim, four groups of people were matched according to their shared starting point: car (...) users vs. public transport users, and light-rail users vs. non-light-rail users. Groups were interviewed using a focus group method. Participants were invited to discuss their everyday travel experiences and to exchange their ideas on different sustainable and less sustainable means of transport. Both consolidated drivers/barriers in the field of environmental psychology and public transportation design features have been investigated. Other than highlighting the importance of socio-psychological factors to promote more sustainable transport choices like in previous studies, the present research offers an insight into how these aspects and factors are shaped and experienced in the narratives of residents. (shrink)

Galiani discusses a subject much debated in the eighteenth century, namely, the nature of the currency. He also includes considerations of economic theory and political philosophy around the main motif. He supports the following theses of monetary theory: currency has the function of a sort of register of credits that every individual can have towards the warehouses of goods of which the society is supplied, and precisely in the measure of the contribution he has given to their supply; the metallic (...) currency has the merit, with respect to a hypothetical system of artificial accounting, to be safe from frauds and not to require a bureaucratic apparatus; the value of currency depends on the value of metals, not on legislative interventions. (shrink)