This paper discusses Freud’s notion of subject is his writings concerning culture (mainly Civilisation and its discontents ) as a means of understanding contemporary problems concerning subjectivity. But given that our own society differs widely from Freud’s in many relevant respects, there arises the question of which elements of his theory retain their pertinence and which should be adapted or rejected. The answer to this question lies in a careful genetic reconstruction of Freud’s conception of the conflict between subjectivity and (...) culture so as to be contrasted with our own present situation. (shrink)

We present an experimental test of the validity of the Pauli Exclusion Principle for electrons based on the concept put forward a few years ago by Ramberg and Snow. In this experiment we perform a very accurate search of X-rays from the Pauli-forbidden atomic transitions of electrons in the already filled 1S shells of copper atoms. Although the experiment has a simple structure, it poses deep conceptual and interpretational problems. Here we describe the experimental method and recent experimental results, which (...) we interpret as an upper limit for the probability to violate the Pauli Exclusion Principle. We present also future plans to upgrade the experimental apparatus using Silicon Drift Detectors. (shrink)

In this paper we describe an experimental test of the validity of the Pauli Exclusion Principle (for electrons) which is based on a straightforward idea put forward a few years ago by Ramberg and Snow (Phys. Lett. B 238:438, 1990). We perform a very accurate search of X-rays from the Pauli-forbidden atomic transitions of electrons in the already filled 1S shells of copper atoms. Although the experiment has a very simple structure, it poses deep conceptual and interpretational problems. Here we (...) describe the experimental method and recent experimental results, which we interpret in the framework of quon theory. We also present future plans to upgrade the experimental apparatus using Silicon Drift Detectors. (shrink)

We present the idea of searching for X-rays as a signature of the mechanism inducing the spontaneous collapse of the wave function. Such a signal is predicted by the continuous spontaneous localization theories, which are solving the “measurement problem” by modifying the Schrödinger equation. We will show some encouraging preliminary results and discuss future plans and strategy.

Recognition of the identity of familiar faces in conditions with poor visibility or over large changes in head angle, lighting and partial occlusion is far more accurate than recognition of unfamiliar faces in similar conditions. Here we used a visual search paradigm to test if one class of social cues transmitted by faces – direction of another’s attention as conveyed by gaze direction and head orientation – is perceived more rapidly in personally familiar faces than in unfamiliar faces. We found (...) a strong effect of familiarity on the detection of these social cues, suggesting that the times to process these signals in familiar faces are markedly faster than the corresponding processing times for unfamiliar faces. In the light of these new data, hypotheses on the organization of the visual system for processing faces are formulated and discussed. (shrink)

Previous studies consistently showed age-related differences in temporal judgment and temporal memory. Importantly, emotional valence plays a crucial role in older adults’ information processing. In this study, we examined the effects of emotions at the intersection between time and memory, analysing age-related differences in a temporal source memory task. Twenty-five younger adults (age range 18–35), 25 old adults (age range 65–74), and 25 old–old adults (age range 75–84) saw a series of emotional pictures in three sessions separated by a one-day (...) rest period. In the fourth session, participants were asked to indicate in which session (1, 2, or 3) they saw each picture. Results showed that old–old adults tended to collocate negative pictures distant in time, while positive stimuli were remembered as more recent than real, compared to neutral pictures. To a lower extent, people over 65 showed the same pattern of results. In contrast, emotional valence did not affect younger adults’ temporal positioning of stimuli. Current findings fit well with the Socio-Emotional Selectivity Theory’s assumptions and extended the literature on the positivity effect to temporal source memory. (shrink)

This paper investigates some core aspects of Guy de La Brosse’s botanical work. In the first section, the focus is on the epistemological principles of La Brosse’s botany by analyzing the first and second book of the treatise De la nature, vertu et utilité des plantes. In the second section, the author discusses the role of Paracelsus’s chemistry in La Brosse’s work, with a particular attention to the third book of the De la nature. The final section deals with La (...) Brosse’s interest in the visualization of plants. Here, the author provides the transcription and first Italian translation of a short manuscript related to Abraham Bosse’s engravings for La Brosse’s unfinished book Icones posthumae. (shrink)

The single day conference “Ontology, Mind and Free Will. A Workshop in Memory of E.J. Lowe (1950-2014)” took place at the Department of Humanities of the University of Macerata on March, 3 rd 2014. It included as speakers Sophie Gibb (Durham University), Mario De Caro (Roma Tre University) and Michele Paolini Paoletti (University of Macerata). This event was thought by the organizers in order to honor the British philosopher Ethan Jonathan Lowe, who suddenly passed away last January with infinite regret (...) of the scientific community. The discussion of some of his major research topics, such as mental causation, free will and essence, was therefore meant as the right homage to one of the most influential philosophers who animated and deepened the debate of the last thirty years. Regarding the singular reviews of this report, Matteo Grasso took care of Sophie Gibb’s and Mario De Caro’s talks, while Mattia Sorgon reviewed Michele Paolini Paoletti’s. (shrink)

This paper deals with Walter Jaeschke’s Hegels Philosophie. It begins with Hegel’s early writings, focusing on the relationship between logic and metaphysics. It goes on to explore central moments of Hegel’s philosophy: the relationship with Kant, the nature of categories, the philosophy of history, and the concept of the State. Jaeschke’s interpretation of Hegel’s thought is that of a paradigmatic thinker, whose fundamental philosophical breakthrough lies in the concept of Geist.

Clement of Alexandria’s Quis dives salvetur is the first text of Christian literature expressly devoted to the problem of the relationship between wealth and poverty. Clement’s discourse clarifies how he considers the Scriptures as the basis of all pedagogy, inasmuch as they are normative in themselves and esteemed for the absolute value in them that transcends any contingency related to temporal, cultural, historical or sociological situations. This article offers a study of the reception of the Old Testament and New Testament (...) in Clement’s work, focusing on a particular scriptural text, Mk 10:17-31, that is primary and foundational for all of his thought. (shrink)

This paper examines Lukács’ interpretation of Lenin, with particular focus on his Lenin: A Study on the Unity of his Thought (1924), and the Postscript which was added to the book in January 1967. From 1924 onward, Lukács mainly focuses on the methodological basis of Lenin’s political thought, which vital point lays in applying the category of totality in order to grasp the complexity of the socio-historical conjuncture. In addition, Lukács deals with some ethical aspects of Lenin’s personality, i.e. his (...) human attitude. The ethical aspects are but the weakest point in Lukács’ interpretation. Diametrically opposed to any form of decisionism, Lenin embodies for Lukács both a politician and a political scientist. (shrink)

ANTONIO LABRIOLA’S THEORY OF HISTORICAL MATERIALISM. The author examines Antonio Labriola’s interpretation of historical materialism in the Saggi intorno alla concezione materialistica della storia (Essays on the Materialistic Conception of History). The author identifies the key element to grasp the relevance of Labriola’s reading of Marxism in the concept of the theory developed in the Saggi. After reviewing the main interpretations of the Saggi, the author focuses on the relationship between history and theory showing up in Labriola’s reading. Firstly, the (...) sense of the theory as an expression of the self-consciousness of a real process is examined by the author in connection with the meaning of dialectics as a self-criticism of historical development. Secondly, the author deals with the method of historical materialism and its impact on the historiographical research. Finally, the author discusses the link between the genesis of historical materialism and its scientific validity, focusing on the problems of class consciousness and ideology for this purpose. (shrink)

Summary The reception process of Aristotle's Mechanical Questions during the early modern period began with the publication of the corpus aristotelicum between 1495 and 1498. Between 1581 and 1627, two of the thirty-five arguments discussed in the text, namely Question XIV concerning the resistance to fracture and Question XVI concerning the deformation of objects such as timbers, became central to the work of the commentators. The commentaries of Bernardino Baldi (1581–1582), Giovanni de Benedetti (1585), Giuseppe Biancani (1615) and Giovanni di (...) Guevara (1627) gradually approached the doctrine of proportions of the Renaissance architects, some aspects of which deal with the strength of materials according to the Vitruvian conception of scalar building. These aspects of the doctrine of proportions were integrated into the Aristotelian arguments so that a theory of linear proportionality concerned with the strength of materials could be formulated. This very first theory of strength of materials is the theory to which Galileo critically referred in his Discorsi where he published his own theory of strength of materials. Economic and military constraints are determined as the fundamental reasons for the commentators’ commitment to developing a theory of strength of materials that later linked Galileo's work to the practical knowledge of the architects and machine-builders of his time. (shrink)

This essay critically reconstructs the concept of ‘democratic dictatorship’ which Georg Lukács’s outlines in Blum Theses of 1928. The essay tackles the birth of the Communist Party of Hungary, particularly focusing on its factional struggles during the 1920s. Secondly, the main contents of the Blum Theses, compared with the debate on the ‘Republican Assembly’ in the Italian Communist Party will be discussed. Finally, the essay examines the two most rooted interpretive prejudices concerning the Blum Theses, i.e. their alleged forecasting character (...) towards ‘Popular Front’ strategy and their purported distance from ‘Socialfascism’. (shrink)

In Lenin’s works, Dialectics means a) scientific method and b) historical process. Diverging from the metaphysical method and from the reactionary doctrinarianism of non-dialectical Socialists, Marxist materialist Dialectics is a critical and historical-concrete analysis of the living contradictions animating conflicts between social classes: an omnilateral reason, opposed to the eclectic unilaterality of formal logic. Dialectics as Marxist theory of knowledge identifies the causes of historical process in the conflicting unity of elements contradicting each others. Social evolution is not a gradual (...) transformation from simple to complex: quite the contrary, the historical development of social life is dialectic, because it is driven by objective contradictions between classes, revolutionary leaps, and laws conditioning the individual way of being. (shrink)

Hanno ancora qualcosa da dirci Sartre e Merleau-Ponty oggi? Sessant’anni dopo i loro “contraccolpi” – consumatisi nella redazione di una rivista come “Les Temps Modernes” – vale ancora la pena di ripercorrere quella storia? È questa la domanda che apre l’ultimo numero di “aut aut” curato da Enrica Lisciani-Petrini e Raoul Kirchmayr. Si tratta di una domanda a cui è difficile rispondere e che ha a che fare con che cos’è la filosofia e – soprattutto – che cos’è un filosofo. (...) È una domanda che, nel caso di Sartre e di Merleau-Ponty, non chiama in causa soltanto due differenti scuole di pensiero, ma anche due modi differenti di intendere il mondo, la politica, gli altri e le relazioni con essi. Ma si tratta, in fondo, di una domanda che – con le parole di Sartre – ci porta a riflettere sul fatto che “si è filosofi quando si è morti”, poiché – in fondo – “fino a quando viviamo, siamo uomini che, tra l’altro, scrivono opere di filosofia”. E allora la risposta a quella domanda non può che essere affermativa: il loro “dissidio produttivo” è un atto vitale, un incontro-scontro necessario fra persone che fanno vivere la filosofia.Sartre et Merleau-Ponty ont-ils encore quelque chose à nous dire aujourd’hui? Soixante années après leurs « contrecoups » – qui ont eu lieu dans la rédaction de la revue Les Temps Modernes – vaut-il encore la peine de reparcourir cette histoire? Voilà la question qui ouvre le dernier numéro de la revue « aut aut », sous la direction d’Enrica Lisciani-Petrini et Raoul Kirchmayr. Il s’agit d’une question à laquelle il est difficile de répondre et qui est en rapport avec ce qu’est la philosophie et – surtout – avec ce qu’est un philosophe. Il s’agit d’une question qui, chez Sartre et Merleau-Ponty, ne met pas seulement en cause deux courants de pensée différents, mais aussi deux différentes manières de concevoir le monde, la politique, les autres et les relations qu’on entretient avec eux. Mais il s’agit, au fond, d’une question qui – en employant les mots de Sartre – nous conduit à réfléchir sur le fait que « l’on est philosophes quand on est morts », parce que – après tout – « jusqu’à ce que nous vivons, nous sommes des hommes qui, entre autre, écrivent des oeuvres de philosophie ». Alors la réponse à cette question ne peut être qu’affirmative : leur « différend productif » est un acte vital, en même temps une rencontre et un affrontement nécessaires entre des personnes qui font vivre la philosophie.Do Sartre and Merleau-Ponty still have something to say to us today? Sixty years after their “breakup” – which took place in editing the journal Les Temps Modernes – is it still worthwhile to go over this history? This is the question that opens the last issue of the journal “aut aut,” under the direction of Enrica Lisciani-Petrini and Raoul Kirchmayr. It is a question to which it is difficult to respond and bears on what philosophy is – and especially with what a philosopher is today. It is a matter which, according to Sartre and Merleau-Ponty, does not only call into question two different currents of thought, but also two different ways of conceiving the world, politics, others and the relations between them. But it is a matter, at its core, which – employing the words of Sartre – leads us to reflect on the fact that “we are philosophers when we are dead,” because – after all – “while we are alive, we are men who, among other things, write works of philosophy.” Thus, the response to this question can only be affirmative: their “productive difference” is a vital act, at the same time an encounter and necessary confrontation between persons who breathe life into philosophy. (shrink)

Antonio Labriola in the crisis of Marxism. The article deals with the relationship between Marxism and science in Antonio Labriola’s philosophy in the years1898-­1899. In the first part, the Author looks at the content of the Postscript to Discorrendo di socialismo e di filosofia and critically analyzes Labriola’s objections to some of the central theses defended by Benedetto Croce on the theory of value and the economics of Karl Marx. In the second part, two important writings by Labriola linked to (...) the incipient debate on revisionism are examined: Polemiche sul socialismo and Sulla crisi del marxismo. In conclusion, the Author identifies in a specific conception of theory defended by Labriola the common trait between these two apparently distinct areas of inquiry. (shrink)

"Lukács 1933-1942. Irrationalism in the Age of Fascism". This essay reconstructs the philosophical and historiographical premises to Georg Lukács’ research on irrationalism conducted during the period of Nazi rule in Germany. To this end, the Author focuses chiefly on two posthumous works: How Did Fascist Philosophy Arise in Germany? (1933) and How Did Germany Become the Centre of reactionary Ideology? (1941-1942). After a brief historical contextualization, the Author illustrates the main purpose of these texts: to free German philosophy and culture (...) between the XIX and XX century from those irrationalistic elements asserted and nourished by Fascist philosophy. He then analyzes Lukács’ concept of reason in its three fundamental aspects, namely the methodological link with Marx’s historical image of the political development of Europe during the XIX century, the theoretical debt to Hegel’s critique of immediacy and the connection with some ethical points already discussed during the Goethezeit. (shrink)

The article firstly outlines the essential contents of Nicolai Hartmann's "Possibility and Actuality" (1938), on the occasion of its recent Italian translation ("Possibilità e realtà", Milano-Udine 2018). Secondly, it discusses the main contents of "Nicolai Hartmanns Neue Ontologie und die Philosophische Anthropologie" (Berlin-Boston 2019), the outcome of a conference devoted to Hartmann's philosophy, regarded in the context of twentieth-century philosophical anthropology (Max Scheler, Helmuth Plessner). -/- .

The “concept of labour” has no bearing on the methodological premises of Marx’s “Critique of political economy.” In The German Ideology there is an attempt to abandon the field of philosophy to become a “real science”, i.e., a science capable of overcoming all the hypostases of “concepts” of “ideology”. From History and Class Consciousness onwards, Lukács continuously tackles the “concept of labour”. The late Lukács interprets the latter as the “Urphänomen” of human praxis. In actual fact this is an element (...) that follows on from the interpretation of Marxism as Weltanschauung initiated by Friedrich Engels. More precisely, the latter [interpretation] is behind the “Materialistic Conception of History” – an expression not used by Marx – and is instead the key concept in Marxism during the Second and the Third International period. Individuo, lavoro e storia. Il concetto di lavoro in Lukács meticulously explores the role played by the “concept of labour” in all of Lukács’ works. During the last fifty years of his life Lukács tries to achieve a dual goal: on the one hand he wants to maintain the Marxian methodological centrality of the category of totality, on the other hand he wants to combine the former with the “concept of labour”, i.e., the traditional basis of the “Materialistic Conception of History”. (shrink)

This article contains the notes made by the Italian poetess Antonia Pozzi while attending the university courses held by Antonio Banfi during 1931-1932 and 1932-1933. They are useful for an understanding not only of her academic studies but also of Banfi’s thinking on aesthetics in the 1930s. In two appendices, the Author describes the content of the Italian philosopher’s courses on aesthetics between 1931-1932 and 1934-1935 and Antonia Pozzi’s university career. Unpublished until now, these notes by a student are the (...) only existing record of those courses since Banfi’s lecture notes never appeared in print. (shrink)

The problem of free will is deeply linked with the causal relevance of mental events. The causal exclusion argument claims that, in order to be causally relevant, mental events must be identical to physical events. However, Gibb has recently criticized it, suggesting that mental events are causally relevant as double preventers. For Gibb, mental events enable physical effects to take place by preventing other mental events from preventing a behaviour to take place. The role of mental double preventers is hence (...) similar to what Libet names free won’t, namely the ability to veto an action initiated unconsciously by the brain. In this paper I will propose an argument against Gibb’s account, the causal irrelevance argument, showing that Gibb’s proposal does not overcome the objection of systematic overdetermination of causal relevance, because mental double preventers systematically overdetermine physical double preventers, and therefore mental events are causally irrelevant. (shrink)

By endorsing that Bildung is a condition for thought, McDowell explicitly sets out to revive a theme in classical german philosophy. As long as the concept of Bildung is intended to play a role in McDowell’s theory of meaning and reasons, however, it is best understood in the light of its distinctive combination of neo-Fregeanism about content and Wittgensteinianism about rule-following. The Fregean part is there to warrant that reasons are objective, the Wittgensteinian move is to account for our grasping (...) of reasons. I argue that, as it stands, the project can hardly succeed. According to this reading, Bildung not only provides the epistemic resources to access reasons. It shapes them in a way that is in tension with the idea that reasons are objective. I conclude with a guess about the amendment needed to keep the project in the air. (shrink)

A research to point out the different notion of family that Rousseau delineates in the second Discours and in the Essai sur l’origine des langues. In the first case family is something acquired, it’s the result of a revolution, of a gap, and it presupposes technical development and psychological complexity; in the second case family is something natural, it’s primitive, extremely rough, and it implies a vision of the state of nature, and of the man, that we can not identify (...) with the vision delineated by Rousseau in his mains works. (shrink)

With reference to Schelling’s Philosophy of Mythology (PoM) in my paper I will address three points, namely: To what extent Schelling’s PoM provides us with arguments in favour of 1. Realism, 2. Emergentism and 3. Documentality (Ferraris 2009). Accordingly, in the first section, Reality, I will present Schelling’s PoM as realism, arguing that in mythology Schelling finds the traces of the developing of consciousness, regarded as a real fact. But, as this latter can only be real if having a history, (...) i.e. if emerging from a previous natural status, which is devoid of any consciousness, PoM should be regarded as strongly related with a sort of emergentism. This will thus be the object of the second section, where I will investigate the genetic interpretation of Schelling’s Weltalter proposed by Wolfram Hogrebe (Hogrebe 1989) and suggest that precisely this analysis of the Weltalter explains also why Schelling’s project couldn’t but fail. In fact, against its intention, the Weltalter, as it was trying to explain the rise of semantics together with it the true genesis of the our acknowledgment of the world, still remains affected by an idealistic stance and hence couldn’t succeed in becoming positive philosophy. Eventually, in the third section of this paper, Documentality, I argue, that a solution of the problems left open by Schelling’s Weltalter and positively addressed in the PoM is offered by the interpretation of this latter as a contribution to Documentality. Even if created before and apparently independently from the act writing, in fact mythology relies on the possibility of recording tales, hence it is made of and eventually ends up in a written corpus. This means that the consciousness mythology gives us an account of, is the one that for the first time is able to present itself in narrated tales. It is not the mere possibility of acknowledging something, but in fact the possibility of binding our will to a freely formulated law trough our memory, i.e. the birth of conscience upon consciousness, which is the real sense of religion. In this sense Ferraris’ concept of documentality provides us an important theoretical framework to understand the hidden presuppositions of Schelling’s PoM and to relate this latter to its realistic and emergentistic character. (shrink)

El artículo se estructura en torno de tres tópicos que se proponen como aportes a la agenda y los debates sobre extensión crítica. Por una parte, los movimientos populares, su papel en las nuevas realidades latinoamericanas, sus formas de construcción y su carácter de sujetos centrales para la extensión. En segundo lugar, se analizan las funciones sustantivas, a partir de lo que llamamos la densidad epistémica o los desafíos de conocimiento de los movimientos y se analiza la propuesta de diálogo (...) de saberes en relación con esa densidad epistémica. Por último, compartimos algunas reflexiones acerca del diálogo de saberes desde la perspectiva metodológica, retomando los aportes del Educación Popular. (shrink)

Neuroimaging and psychophysiological techniques have proved to be useful in comprehending the extent to which the visual modality is pervasive in mental imagery, and in comprehending the specificity of images generated through other sensory modalities. Although further research is needed to understand the nature of mental images, data attained by means of these techniques suggest that mental imagery requires at least two distinct processing components.

A partire dalla metà del Novecento, dopo una modernità dominata da prospettive di stampo deontologistico o utilitaristico, la filosofia pratica contemporanea ha visto il sorgere di una ripresa di interesse per un’etica “in prima persona”, in grado di offrire una prospettiva integrale sul soggetto e centrata sullo sviluppo del suo carattere e della sua personalità; in breve, si è assistito a un nuovo potente ingresso in scena dell’idea del bene, e, con essa, della virtù quale via maestra per conseguire il (...) fine adeguato della vita umana. Il volume si propone di rendere conto – anche in correlazione al ruolo delle emozioni, ma non solo – del percorso filosofico della virtù: dall’indagine delle sue fonti “classiche”, all’inizio del suo declino nella modernità, al risorgere della sua vitalità negli ultimi decenni nelle diverse aree linguistico-culturali, tenendo anche conto delle differenti discipline con cui si è interfacciata. Esso non pretende di esaurire i percorsi e le suggestioni che una tematica così vasta presenta, né di coprirne tutta la storia; piuttosto, vuole rappresentare uno stimolo alla ricerca, ponendo in connessione tagli disciplinari e metodologici differenti per offrire una riflessione a tutto campo, che metta in dialogo studiosi provenienti da ambiti diversi ed apra nuove prospettive.Saggi di: Francesco Camera, Angelo Campodonico, Elisabetta Cattanei, Michel Croce, Elisa Cuttini, Marco Damonte, Elisa Grimi, Simona Langella, Alberto Masala, Alma Massaro, Letterio Mauro, Giacomo Samek Lodovici, Maria Silvia Vaccarezza, Paolo Vignola, Lodovica Maria Zanet, Matteo Zoppi. (shrink)

This study uses a Corpus Assisted Discourse Studies methodology to provide the first systematic analysis of how trust is discursively constructed in crypto-drug markets. The data come from two purpose-built corpora. One comprises all the forum messages posted on the flag ship crypto-drug market Silk Road during the years in which it traded on the hidden net. The other corpus comprises all the reports published by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime during the same period. Our analysis of (...) trust focuses on the identities of those buying and selling drugs. The findings reveal that the Silk Road community members regularly discussed vendors’ identities alongside a continuum of trust–risk calculation, explicitly identifying both ‘good’ and ‘bad’ practices and hence engaging in self-regulatory discourses, and mainly constructed drug users’ identities in relation to values of expertise, integrity and benevolence. The findings also suggest that hard law enforcement activity, such as crypto-drug market closure, may encourage technological innovation within these markets. Moreover, our results show a disconnect between the discursive reality of the policy-making documents we examined and the very crypto-drug markets that they seek to legislate. (shrink)