. The subject of this paper is Georg Ernst Stahl's reflections on epilepsy. In the German physician's work, the concept of disease is stratified: it is the morbid idea which causes dysfunctions in the animal economy, as well as irregular motion, overabundance and ultimately an alteration of the corporeal humours. In particular, epilepsy is an affection deriving from an altered functioning of the bodily motions, caused by abnormal blood flow, intestinal worms, anatomical defects, foreign bodies, and the passions of the (...) soul. While a certain medical tradition attributed a nervous origin to epilepsy, Stahl, giving it a humoural genesis, openly shows the theoretical premises on which his physiology rests. So, Stahlian physiology appears to be a non-mechanistic, teleological-inspired, hydraulicism. (shrink)

ArgumentEusapia Palladino (1854-1918) is remembered as one of the most famous mediums in the history of spiritualism. Renowned scientists attended her séances in Europe and in the United States. They often had to admit to being unable to understand the origin of the phenomena produced. Cesare Lombroso, for example, after meeting Eusapia, was converted first to mediumism, then spiritualism. This article will retrace the early stages of her career as a medium and shed light on the way she managed to (...) gain the attention of scientists. It will also show why they chose her as an epistemic object. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:“It’s not true, but I believe it”: Discussions on jettatura in Naples between the End of the Eighteenth and Beginning of the Nineteenth CenturiesFrancesco Paolo de CegliaIntroduction: What is Jettatura?Non èvero...ma ci credo (“It’s not true... but I believe it”) is the title of a comedy by the Italian actor and playwright, Peppino De Filippo, younger brother of the more famous Eduardo, which was staged for the first (...) time in 1942. The narrated events take place in the twentieth century and concern Gervasio Savastano, a Neapolitan businessman who is tormented by the fear of jettatura. The character, victim of grotesque events, first sacks a worker, believing him to be a jettatore, and then hires another, who is a hunchback and so should bring him good luck. In the end, however, it is discovered that the presumed jettatore has never harmed anyone and that the hunchback is not what he seems: he has stuffed his jacket in order to enter into the good graces of the gullible businessman and marry his daughter, with whom he has planned a con trick. The “lucky” events ascribed to his presence can therefore be considered casual. The epilogue? In keeping with the logic of compromise, typical of the brothers De Filippo’s theater, even though the character is rationally convinced of the unfounded nature of his beliefs, he remains adamant: “It’s not true, but I believe it” in other words.1 [End Page 75]“Where I come from, jettatura rules,” wrote the journalist and scriptwriter Giuseppe Marotta in 1947. Indeed, it is still a part of popular Neapolitan culture today.2 Often confused with similar beliefs, such as fascination (fascino) and the evil eye (malocchio), jettatura assumed its present form between the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth century, at a time when a polite debate on its nature was taking shape in the city. In this period, the epistemological pluralism animating the discussions was translated into a variety of interpretative hypotheses and literary genres, in which grotesque atmospheres and spirited quips also found room, all perfectly in line with what could be considered the Weltanschauung of Savastano. It is the purpose of this article to examine these discussions, which even spread the term abroad and, with it, the “local color” of the concept.Nineteenth-century European writers on jettatura knew the Neapolitan authors well, and either quoted them explicitly or associated them with characters whose names were a deformation of real people’s: for example, Volitta for Valletta (Stendhal), don Jo (Stendhal) or Ojori (Dumas) for De Jorio. They explained that jettatura corresponded to the more familiar evil eye, but they left the term in Italian, as if to underline the fact that it was untranslatable.Is jettatura a mere anthropological issue, linked to a “primitive” culture, in the face of which official science would remain refractory? A belief that could not be exported or shared by those educated in more “highly developed” contexts? Well, in part, yes. Nevertheless, in the 1840s there was a visitor to Naples who expressed himself in the following terms: “When a foreigner arrives in Naples, at first he laughs at jettatura, then, little by little, he becomes troubled by it, and finally, after a stay of three months, you will see him covered in horns and with his right hand forever clenched [to ward off evil].”3 [End Page 76]So wrote the novelist Alexandre Dumas, père, one of the many travellers who, after having completed the Grand Tour of southern Italy, decided to describe its picturesque scenes and backward customs.4 Creating a veritable topos of travel literature, in the same period the philologist Karl August Mayer commented, “often foreigners let themselves be influenced” by local “superstitions.”5 Indeed many of them were captivated by these Neapolitan beliefs, despite their desire to remain objective and detached; and so they were “converted,” and driven to seek scientific explanations, often after meeting “a Real Jettatore,” whose image had nothing in common with the exotic fantasies of “a French Novelist’s Idea of Jettatore.”6Actually, Dumas and Mayer probably exaggerated somewhat in order to make their descriptions more... (shrink)

What is life, and where does it come from? The question is very old, but it reemerged in the seventeenth century with the crisis of the Aristotelian-Galenic paradigm. Matter was now stripped of any impulse and capacity for self-organization; therefore, it was necessary to find something that would take into account the strength and information that it seemed to hold, especially in what were considered vital phenomena. Georg Ernst Stahl and Friedrich Hoffmann, both professors in Halle and responsible for two (...) of the most famous medical systems of the first half of the eighteenth century, offered solutions to the problem that only appear to be very different. The first invoked the soul as an ideal place of production of the energy that allowed the human body to fight the putrefactive forces in the natural world; the second referred to the concept of ether, to which he attributed modes of action basically similar to those that tradition attributed to vegetative and sensitive souls. This paper highlights the positions of the two physicians, setting them in the climate of the revisitation of ancient certainties that characterized natural philosophy in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. (shrink)

Esiste un confine certo tra vita e morte? Il volume ripercorre, con un approccio transculturale, la storia della definizione di morte e le vicende connesse alle tecniche di accertamento del decesso dall'antichità ai giorni nostri. Da sempre, infatti, medici, filosofi e teologi si sono sforzati di individuare il momento preciso dell'exitus, l'istante in cui, secondo la tradizione, l'anima avrebbe lasciato il corpo. Nondimeno, soglie e parametri stabiliti da una generazione furono spesso posti in discussione e ridisegnati dalla successiva. Alimentato dai (...) successi conseguiti nelle tecniche rianimative e nella trapiantologia, il dibattito ha conosciuto una fase di grande vivacità proprio negli ultimi decenni, tanto che, pur avendo in genere abbandonato - o, perlomeno, ridimensionato - considerazioni su principi metafisici, la definizione di morte appare ancor oggi come un oggetto di negoziazione scientifica e bioetica. (shrink)

: This article analyses some of the anatomical waxes in the Museo della Specola in Florence. Executed in at least two different periods in the history of Florentine wax modelling (in the late 17th century and between the 18th and 19th centuries), they project culturally determined images of the body which are analysed from a historico-semiotic perspective. "Rotten corpses," a "disembowelled woman" and a "flayed man" emerge as salient figures in the collection and reveal the close tie between anatomical representations (...) and aesthetics, social relations and religious scruples, in other words, the culture tout court which produced them. (shrink)

1. Un petit ouvrage qui donne à penser Dans cette contribution, je me propose essentiellement d’envisager d’une façon critique un petit ouvrage de Rosenzweig. L’ouvrage en question a été rédigé en 1917, donc, pendant la phase conclusive de la Première Guerre mondiale, lorsque son auteur faisait son service militaire sur le front des Balkans. Il s’intitule « Globus. Studien zur weltgeschichtlichen Raumlehre », c’est-à-dire « Le globe. Études sur la doctrine historico-universelle de l’espace »....

La contribution s’articule en trois sections. Dans la première on esquisse une reconstruction panoramique du profil global de la « pensée nouvelle » rosenzweigienne. Cette dernière s’avère être marquée par l’intrigue indénouable de deux éléments constitutifs, c’est‑à-dire, l’élément spéculatif et l’élément événementiel. Dans la deuxième section on montre comme Rosenzweig pense cette intrigue selon le chiffre emblématique de la compréhension biblique du miracle, qui articule ce dernier dans les deux moments synergiques de la prophétie et de l’ accomplissement. La « (...) pensée nouvelle » se déploie en effet en une sorte de prophétie purement spéculative, qui trouve toutefois son accomplissement dans l’ événement d’une révélation, qui tranche décidément sur la spéculation, tout en y trouvant son incontournable ancrage rationnel. Dans la troisième section on montre que cet événement de révélation connaît sa figure primordiale, selon le penseur, dans la langue parlée quotidiennement par les hommes, comprise comme le cadeau matinal que le Créateur fait à ses créatures. (shrink)

Antoine Arnauld, dit le Grand Arnauld, théologien janséniste, grammairien et logicien, a bien servi la philosophie : interlocuteur de Descartes ; correspondant de Leibniz, éditeur des Pensées de Pascal, il est l'un de ceux qui ont le plus contribué à légitimer le cartésianisme. Foucault et Chomsky se sont intéressés à sa Logique ou art de penser et à sa Grammaire générale et raisonnée de Port Royal, nées de la controverse qui a opposé Jansénistes, jésuites et Curie romaine au XVIIe siècle. (...) Sa théorie des idées, construite en opposition à celle de Malebranche, constitue une étape importante dans la constitution du problème de l'idéalité - qui trouvera son aboutissement chez Kant. Plusieurs raisons, par conséquent, de revenir sur une œuvre méconnue. On commence par rappeler le contexte dans lequel le jansénisme est né ; on situe ensuite Arnauld relativement à Descartes, au cartésianisme et à la philosophie en général ; on précise sa doctrine, principalement sa conception de l'homme déchu ; on détaille également sa morale. Après quoi, on restitue les grands thèmes de sa Logique et de sa Grammaire. On examine enfin la théorie des idées d'Arnauld et on fait le point sur son retour dans le champ des sciences cognitives. (shrink)

Le problème du temps chez Michel Henry n’a pas encore fait l’objet d’une étude séparée. Le rejet abrupt de cette question chez l’auteur n’a certainement pas favorisé l’intérêt des critiques pour ce sujet. Dans un premier temps, en 1963 dans L’Essence de la manifestation , Michel Henry considère le problème du temps (à travers le filtre du Kantbuch de Heidegger) comme étant le « même » que celui de la récepti­vité, soit en le renvoyant à l’auto-affection. Celle-ci étant comprise comme (...) opposée ou, mieux encore, comme « étrangère » au kantisme, en tant qu’elle est affection pathétique de soi à soi. Puis, en 2000, dans Incarnation , Michel Henry conteste au « flux temporel » des Leçons pour une conscience intime du temps de Husserl la volonté néantisante du moment présent, tout en l’utilisant subrepticement dans des moments clés de son argumentation ; il lui oppose le sens de l’ « apparaître » s’auto-fondant. Enfin, nous proposons de reprendre les concepts henryens d’ « effort » et de « pouvoir-toucher », présents dans la deuxième partie d’ Incarnation , pour penser une « origine de l’espacement » préalable à la pensée de la tempora­lité ek-statique comme à celle de l’espace. (shrink)

I. Sens du monisme Généalogie du terme et disparition ultérieure du « monisme ontologique » La critique formulée contre le monisme ontologique apparaît comme l’un des points majeurs constituant la grande originalité de L’essence de la manifestation, originalité qui se retrouve déjà dans la formation de l’expression en question (le syntagme « monisme ontologique »). Celle-ci semble ne pas avoir d’équivalent dans la tradition philosophique. Christian Wolff avait en premier élaboré ce terme (« m...

. This article analyses some of the anatomical waxes in the Museo della Specola in Florence. Executed in at least two different periods in the history of Florentine wax modelling, they project culturally determined images of the body which are analysed from a historico-semiotic perspective. “Rotten corpses,” a “disembowelled woman” and a “flayed man” emerge as salient figures in the collection and reveal the close tie between anatomical representations and aesthetics, social relations and religious scruples, in other words, the culture (...) tout court which produced them. (shrink)

Der Band verzeichnet erstmals sämtliche Werke und Noten aus Nietzsches persönlicher Bibliothek (BN) bis Anfang Januar 1889. Er listet sowohl die Bestände der Herzogin Anna Amalia Bibliothek als auch die des Goethe- und Schiller-Archivs in Weimar auf. Die kritische Analyse anderer Bestandslisten ermittelte zudem zahlreiche heute nicht mehr vorhandene Titel. Ferner wurden sämtliche Bücherrechnungen und -quittungen von Buchhändlern und Buchbindern ausgewertet, die im Goethe- und Schiller-Archiv aufbewahrt werden. Neben den ca. 2.200 Titeln aus Nietzsches rekonstruierter Bibliothek enthält der Band auch (...) ein Verzeichnis sämtlicher 'Lesespuren' Nietzsches (ca. 20.000), z.B. Anmerkungen, Unterstreichungen und Eselsohren. Ergänzt durch zahlreiche Faksimile-Reproduktionen sowie durch philosophische, historische und bibliographische Einführungen, stellt der Band ein unverzichtbares Arbeitsinstrument jeder zukünftigen Nietzsche-Forschung dar. (shrink)

Tomo 1. Studi vaniniani -- Tomo 2. Saggi storico-filosofici.

The subject of this paper is Georg Ernst Stahl's reflections on epilepsy. In the German physician's work, the concept of disease is stratified: it is the morbid idea which causes dysfunctions in the animal economy, as well as irregular motion, overabundance and ultimately an alteration of the corporeal humours. In particular, epilepsy is an affection deriving from an altered functioning of the bodily motions, caused by abnormal blood flow, intestinal worms, anatomical defects, foreign bodies, and the passions of the soul. (...) While a certain medical tradition attributed a nervous origin to epilepsy, Stahl, giving it a humoural genesis, openly shows the theoretical premises on which his physiology rests. So, Stahlian physiology appears to be a non-mechanistic, teleological-inspired, hydraulicism. (shrink)

We present some results related to Zilber’s Exponential-Algebraic Closedness Conjecture, showing that various systems of equations involving algebraic operations and certain analytic functions admit solutions in the complex numbers. These results are inspired by Zilber’s theorems on raising to powers.We show that algebraic varieties which split as a product of a linear subspace of an additive group and an algebraic subvariety of a multiplicative group intersect the graph of the exponential function, provided that they satisfy Zilber’s freeness and rotundity conditions, (...) using techniques from tropical geometry.We then move on to prove a similar theorem, establishing that varieties which split as a product of a linear subspace and a subvariety of an abelian variety A intersect the graph of the exponential map of A (again under the analogues of the freeness and rotundity conditions). The proof uses homology and cohomology of manifolds.Finally, we show that the graph of the modular j-function intersects varieties which satisfy freeness and broadness and split as a product of a Möbius subvariety of a power of the upper-half plane and a complex algebraic variety, using Ratner’s orbit closure theorem to study the images under j of Möbius varieties.Abstract prepared by Francesco Paolo GallinaroE-mail: francesco[email protected]: https://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/31077/. (shrink)