Psychoanalysis in Italy is a particularly diverse and vibrant profession, embracing a number of influences and schools of thought, connecting together new thinking, and producing theorists and clinicians of global renown. _Reading Italian Psychoanalysis_ provides a comprehensive guide to the most important Italian psychoanalytic thinking of recent years, including work by major names such as Weiss, E.Gaddini, Matte Blanco, Nissim Momigliano, Canestri, Amati Mehler, and Ferro. It covers the most important theoretical developments and clinical advances, with special emphasis on contemporary (...) topics such as transference, trauma and primitive states of mind where Italian work has been particular influential. In this volume, _Franco Borgogno, Alberto Luchetti_ and _Luisa Marino Coe_ of the Italian Psychoanalytical Society provide an overview of how Italian psychoanalysis has developed from the 1920’s to the present day, tracing its early influences and highlighting contemporary developments. Forty-six seminal and representative papers of psychoanalysts belonging to the two Italian psychoanalytical societies have been chosen to illuminate what is special about Italian theoretical and clinical thinking, and what is demonstrative of the specificity of its psychoanalytic discourse. The selected papers are preceded by a first introductory section about the history of psychoanalysis in Italy and followed by a "swift glance at Italian psychoanalysis from abroad". They are grouped into sections which represent the areas particularly explored by Italian psychoanalysis. Each section is accompanied by introductory comments which summarize the main ideas and concepts and also their historical and cultural background, so as to offer to the reader either an orientation and stimulus for the debate and to indicate their connections to other papers included in the present volume and to the international psychoanalytic world. The book is divided into six parts including: History of psychoanalysis in Italy Metapsychology Clinical practice, theory of technique, therapeutic factors The person of the analyst, countertransference and the analytic relationship/field Trauma, psychic pain, mourning and working-through Preverbal, precocious, fusional, primitive states of the mind This volume offers an excellent and detailed "fresco" of Italian psychoanalytic debate, shining a light on thinking that has evolved differently in France, England, North and Latin America. It is an ideal book for beginners and advanced students of clinical theory as well as experienced psychoanalysts wanting to know more about Italian psychoanalytic theory and technique, and how they have developed. (shrink)

This paper traces the ancestry of a familiar historiographical narrative, according to which early modern philosophy was marked by the development of empiricism, rationalism, and their synthesis by Immanuel Kant. It is often claimed that this narrative became standard in the nineteenth century, due to the influence of Thomas Reid, Kant and his disciples, or German Hegelians and British Idealists. The paper argues that the narrative became standard only at the turn of the twentieth century. This was not due to (...) the influence of Reid, German Hegelians, or British Idealists as they did not endorse the narrative, although Thomas Hill Green may have facilitated its uptake. The narrative is based on Kant’s historiographical sketches, as corrected and integrated by Karl Leonhard Reinhold. It was first fleshed out into full-fledged histories by two Kantians, Wilhelm Gottlieb Tennemann and Johann Gottlieb Buhle. Numerous historians, several of whom were not Kantians, spread it in the English-speaking world. They include Kuno Fischer, Friedrich Ueberweg, Richard Falckenberg, and Wilhelm Windelband. However, the wide availability of their works did not suffice to make the narrative standard because, until the 1890s, the Hegelian account was at least as popular as theirs. Among the factors that allowed the narrative to become standard are its aptness to be adopted by philosophers of the most diverse persuasions, its simplicity and suitability for teaching. (shrink)

Johannes Müller von Königsberg (1436-1476), better known as Regiomontanus, is widely considered as the most influential astronomer and mathematician of 15th-century Europe. He was active as an astrologer and deemed astrology to be the queen of mathematical sciences. Despite this, Regiomontanus's astrological activity has yet to be fully explored. A brief examination of Regiomontanus's manuscripts shows that his astrological interests were accompanied by interests in the arts and in methods of prognostication. This article studies an unconventional astrological-chiromantical text, whose relevance (...) is threefold: a) it sheds new light on Regiomontanus's astrological interests; b) it enriches our knowledge of Regiomontanus's efforts to learn and understand Greek-Regiomontanus transcribed it into his own manuscript during his sojourn in Italy from 1460-1467; and c) it is the sole extant text in the Greek tradition that provides a system for prognostication from the study of a person's hand, the parts of which are considered as being under the domain of planets. The article provides an English translation of Regiomontanus's transcription, alongside a brief commentary, and studies the intellectual and historical context of that production through manuscript analysis. (shrink)

In his highly regarded history of the rise of clinical trials in America, HarryMarks describes how their widespread adoption resulted largely fromthe efforts of ‘therapeutic reformers’ who sought to replace the individualexpertise of clinicians with the ‘science of controlled experiment’. Thetransition described by Marks resembles in many respects the transition fromthe ‘truth-to-nature’ objectivity of individual experts to a ‘mechanical’ formof objectivity portrayed by Daston and Galison. In particular,Marks details the passage from a regime of trust in expertise and experts to (...) aregime based on the mechanical generation of data, the elimination ofhuman judgement and the adoption of a ‘view from nowhere’ where individual and group idiosyncrasies are systematically suppressedthrough recourse to quantitative methods.[...]. (shrink)

I argue that appeals to conscience do not constitute reasons for granting healthcare professionals exemptions from providing services they consider immoral (e.g. abortion). My argument is based on a comparison between a type of objection that many people think should be granted, i.e. to abortion, and one that most people think should not be granted, i.e. to antibiotics. I argue that there is no principled reason in favour of conscientious objection qua conscientious that allows to treat these two cases differently. (...) Therefore, I conclude that there is no principled reason for granting conscientious objection qua conscientious in healthcare. What matters for the purpose of justifying exemptions is not whether an objection is ‘conscientious’, but whether it is based on the principles and values informing the profession. I provide examples of acceptable forms of objection in healthcare. (shrink)

Reliance on intuitive and emotive responses is widespread across many areas of bioethics, and the current debate on biotechnological human enhancement is particularly interesting in this respect. A strand of “bioconservatives” that has explicitly drawn connections to the modern conservative tradition, dating back to Edmund Burke, appeals explicitly to the alleged wisdom of our intuitions and emotions to ground opposition to some biotechnologies or their uses. So-called bioliberals, those who in principle do not oppose human bioenhancement, tend to rely on (...) rational arguments and to see intuitions and emotions mostly as sources of biases. This approach often translates into shifting the burden of proof onto bioconservatives and challenging them to provide arguments against the proposed enhancement to back what bioliberals perceive as merely intuitive, emotive, and irrational reactions. -/- In this article, I am going to show that the methodological divide between bioliberals and bioconservatives is less significant than at first glance it appears to be and less significant than it is often taken to be. I will do so by defending two theses. The first is that reliance on intuitions and emotions is not a prerogative of bioconservatives: bioliberals have their typical intuitions and emotive responses and are for this reason exposed to potential biases in the same way as bioconservatives are. The second thesis is that reliance on intuitions and emotions is not necessarily antithetic to reason and rationality. This latter thesis has been philosophically defended with particular reference to the debate on biotechnologies, while the former is perhaps more controversial and more difficult to accept—at least for bioliberals. In both cases, I will support the claims by drawing on resources from the field of moral psychology and the sciences of the mind and, particularly, by applying to some positions in the enhancement debate recent findings about the role of intuitions and emotions in human moral assessment. This new empirically informed perspective holds promises for solving the methodological controversy between bioconservatives and bioliberals, thus enabling proper dialogue and debate between the two sides. (shrink)

In this paper, I want to address once more the venerable problem of intentional identity, the problem of how different thoughts can be about the same thing even if this thing does not exist. First, I will try to show that antirealist approaches to this problem are doomed to fail. For they ultimately share a problematic assumption, namely that thinking about something involves identifying it. Second, I will claim that once one rejects this assumption and holds instead that thoughts are (...) constituted either by what they are about, their intentional objects, or by what determines their proposition-like intentional contents, one can address the problem of intentional identity in a different way. One can indeed provide a new solution to it that basically relies on two factors: a) what sort of metaphysical nature intentional objects effectively possess, once they are conceived as schematic objects à la Crane (2001, 2013); b) whether such objects really belong to the overall ontological inventory of what there is. According to this solution, two thoughts are about the same nonexistent intentional object iff i) that object satisfies the identity criterion for objects of that metaphysical kind and ii) objects of that kind belong to the overall ontological inventory of what there is, independently of whether they exist (in a suitable first-order sense of existence). As such, this solution is neither realist nor antirealist: only if condition ii) is satisfied, different thoughts can be about the same nonexistent intentionale; otherwise, they are simply constituted by the same intentional content (provided that this content is not equated with that intentionale). Third, armed with this solution, I will hold that one can find a suitable treatment of the specific and related problem of whether different people may mock-think about the same thing, even if there really is no such thing. Finally, I will try to show that this treatment can be also applied to the case in which different thoughts are, according to phenomenology, about the same intentionale and yet this intentionale is of a kind such that there really are no things of that kind. For in this case, such thoughts are about the same intentionale only fictionally. (shrink)

We investigate the uniform computational content of the open and clopen Ramsey theorems in the Weihrauch lattice. While they are known to be equivalent to $\mathrm {ATR_0}$ from the point of view of reverse mathematics, there is not a canonical way to phrase them as multivalued functions. We identify eight different multivalued functions and study their degree from the point of view of Weihrauch, strong Weihrauch, and arithmetic Weihrauch reducibility. In particular one of our functions turns out to be strictly (...) stronger than any previously studied multivalued functions arising from statements around $\mathrm {ATR}_0$. (shrink)

The debate around lockdowns as a response to the recent pandemic is typically framed in terms of a tension between freedom and health. However, on some views, protection of health or reduction of virus‐related risks can also contribute to freedom. Therefore, there might be no tension between freedom and health in public health restrictions. I argue that such views fail to appreciate the different understandings of freedom that are involved in the trade‐off between freedom and health. Grasping these distinctions would (...) allow to appreciate why different people give more weight to different aspects of limitations of freedom, including whether certain options are made simply risky or impossible, whether limitations of freedom are posed intentionally or happen accidentally, whether risks are beyond a threshold of acceptability, and who gets to decide that. I provide a conceptual analysis of the relationship between different types of freedom, public health policies, viruses and diseases. As I argue, identifying what freedom‐based reasons count for and against different types of public health restrictions requires distinguishing between viruses and diseases, between lockdowns and other types of restrictive policies, and between risks posed by viruses and threats of penalties involved by restrictive policies. (shrink)

All over Europe, the provision of healthcare services is widely considered a primary duty of the government. Universal access to medical care can be considered a basic ingredient of the so-called “European social model.” But if universal access to medical care is seldom questioned, European governments—faced with expanding costs caused by an increasing demand driven by an aging population and technology-driven improvements—are contemplating the possibility of “rationing”1 treatments, or the possibility of allowing a greater role for private suppliers. If a (...) “multi-tier” healthcare system has long been anathema to the European leadership, guaranteeing a uniform access to state-of-the-art care seems to be well beyond the means of states suffering from persisting debt crisis. Was the failure of state-controlled “adequate” healthcare totally unpredictable? Far-sighted criticisms had been offered by two eminent thinkers in the classical liberal tradition, Herbert Spencer and Friedrich A. von Hayek . Neither author is usually recognized as a forerunner of contemporary critics of the welfare state, and both investigated the issue of the state financing and providing health services well before or right after the establishment of national health services. With the benefit of hindsight, reading Spencer and Hayek helps us to understand how the crisis of state-supplied healthcare is not rooted in the mere progress of clinical technology, but is rather the logical consequence of the theoretical basis of the model itself. Whereas modern theorists of the welfare state tend to offer theories that are impervious to a critical appraisal of their unintended consequences—insofar as they are framed in a language of “rights”—both Hayek and Spencer understood that human systems are complex, and that unwanted effects of public policy should be taken into account. Although Spencer emphasized the moral hazards accruing from the paternalism involved in governmental provision of health services, Hayek explained how modern healthcare systems differ from real, private insurance designed to offer proper coverage against risks. These authors appreciated that the politicization of healthcare was bound to result in both standardization of care and disregard for the responsibility that comes with personal freedom. These two “diagnoses before the illness” can help us in defining the challenges and the potential solutions that healthcare systems face today. Understanding the fatal conceits inherent in the very architecture of national health services can be the first step toward healing our healthcare systems. (shrink)

The main aim of this paper is to explain and analyze the debate between W. K. Clifford ("The Ethics of Belief", 1877) and William James ("The Will to Believe", 1896). Given that the main assumption shared by Clifford and James in this debate is doxastic voluntarism –i.e., the claim that we can, at least in some occasions, willingly decide what to believe–, I will explain the arguments offered by Bernard Williams in his “Deciding to Believe” (1973) against doxastic voluntarism. Finally, (...) I will explain what happens with the debate between Clifford and James once we accept Bernard Williams’s arguments and refuse to accept doxastic voluntarism. (shrink)

En su Sentimiento Trágico de la Vida, Miguel de Unamuno argumenta que necesitamos creer en Dios y que esta necesidad es suficiente para justificar la adopción de la creencia religiosa. El objetivo de este artículo es reconstruir y analizar el argumento de Miguel de Unamuno, el cual constituye, sin lugar a dudas, el eje vertebrador del Sentimiento Trágico de la Vida. En este artículo, defenderé: primero, que el argumento no puede usarse para justificar la adopción de la creencia religiosa; segundo, (...) que el argumento parece ser más convincente si se entiende en términos de deseo y no de necesidad; tercero, que ya sea en términos de deseo o necesidad, lo que realmente demuestra el argumento es el conflicto entre nuestro desear, o necesitar, creer en Dios, por un lado, y nuestra falta de licitud epistémica para adoptar dicha creencia, por otro lado. (shrink)

En este artículo expondré un análisis de la valoración negativa de las consecuencias que suelen atribuirse al fenómeno de la medicalización y, partiendo de aquí, mi objetivo básico será mostrar que la medicalización no es en sí mismo un fenómeno negativo. Sólo lo será cuando se obtenga un valor negativo del cálculo entre, por un lado, la efectividad de la propuesta médica para solucionar el problema y, por otro lado, el balance entre los beneficios de dicha propuesta médica y sus (...) posibles efectos secundarios; o bien, cuando se dé un contexto en el que el individuo, ya sea por desinformación o por una restricción externa (paternalismo médico), no tiene la libertad suficiente de escoger entre una propuesta médica y una propuesta no-médica. (shrink)

RESUMO O objetivo deste artigo é analisar a concepção de liberdade encontrada em "Discourses concerning government" de Algernon Sidney. Mantendo a perspectiva republicana, a liberdade é definida pela ausência de dominação, ou seja, pela não submissão, sujeição ou exposição à vontade arbitrária de outra pessoa; e assumindo a perspectiva jusnaturalista, a liberdade é considerada um direito natural, inerente à condição humana, que deve ser preservado e assegurado pela autoridade política. Pretende-se discutir como Sidney articula essas duas perspectivas em sua teoria (...) política, projetando a concepção republicana de liberdade na modernidade.ABSTRACT The objective of this paper is to analyze the concept of freedom found in Algernon Sidney’s "Discourses Concerning government". Keeping the republican thought, freedom is defined by the absence of domination, i.e., the denial of submission, bondage or exposure to the arbitrary will of another person; and taking the jusnaturalist thought, freedom is considered a natural right inherent to the human condition, which must be preserved and guaranteed by the political authority. I intend to discuss how Sidney articulates these two perspectives in his political theory, outlining the republican conception of freedom in modernity. (shrink)

Volume 20, Issue 9, September 2020, Page 62-65.

Due to their acceptance of the verifiability principle, the only way left for logical positivists to argue for the meaningfulness of religious language was to accept some sort of emotivistic conception of it or to reduce it to the description of religious attitude. The verifiability principle, however, suffers from some severe limitations that make it inadequate as a criterion for cognitive meaning. To resolve these problems, logical positivists gave up the requirement of conclusive verifiability and defended a sort of ‘liberalization’ (...) of the verifiability principle. Carnap’s confirmability criterion for cognitive meaning, which is a liberalized form of the verifiability principle, is compatible with an orthodox conception of religious language since, from a theistic perspective, the existence of God can be confirmed through our observational statements. (shrink)

El objetivo del presente trabajo es explicar la relación entre las nociones de discurso y acción en un marco pragmático trascendental. El trabajo comienza con una presentación de la primera noción y de la idea de pretensión de validez. Luego son examinadas algunas objeciones a la justificación última de la ética, formulada por Apel. La conclusión es que es posible una respuesta a esas objeciones mediante la diferenciación entre dos niveles de la relación entre discurso y acción: un nivel fáctico (...) y uno trascendental. The aim of this paper is to explain the relation between the notions of discourse and action in a transcendental-pragmatic frame. The paper begins with a presentation of the first notion and the idea of validity claim. After that, some objections to Apel's ultimate justifications of ethic are examined. The conclusion is that an answer to these objections is possible throw the difference between two levels of the relation between discourse and action: a real level and a transcendental one. (shrink)

In this paper I comment on the debate between W. K. Clifford ("The Ethics of Belief", 1877) and William James ("The Will to Believe", 1896). I argue that both authors assume doxastic voluntarism -i.e., the claim that we can, at least in some occasions, willingly decide what to believe- and I argue that doxastic voluntarism is unacceptable.

The author presents his views on the factors that led the Church to dialogue with Jews, after a history marked by Catholic rule and persecution of the Jewish people. Also exposes some biblical Jewish contribution to the topic such as technic of discussion / study called pilpul and the content of extensive discussions found in the Talmud, that demonstrate the central role that dialogue and philosophical inquiry have in Judaism. It also adds the contemporary Jewish contributions to the universal thought (...) made by the philosophy developed by the Jewish thinker Martin Buber, corroborating the central and uninterrupted place of dialogue in Judaism since its birth. Throughout the presentation connections are made with the Nostra Aetate Declaration, showing the Church key position in the theme of dialogue with the Jews and the 10 points of Seelisberg and the “12 points of Berlin”, result of the interaction between Christians and Jews after the Holocaust. (shrink)

Antonio Rosmini-Serbati was one of the first natural law scholars to bring natural law thinking into a conversation with the market economic order that was beginning to emerge in Europe in the 19th century. His reflections on matters such as the origin, nature, and limits of private property, the role of the state, and the nature of human reason show him to be a unique, innovative thinker who nonetheless was determined to work within the parameters of Catholic doctrine. Many of (...) these ideas are concretized in his seminal work The Constitution Under Social Justice, a text that has profound instights to offer those today seeking to integrate theology, philosophy, and economics into their conceptions of a social order that aspires to be both free and just. (shrink)

Introduzione.--La filosofia dei fisici.--I condannati a morte e le esperienze sull'uomo.--La psicologia e le sue applicazioni.--L'economia e le uniformità storiche.--Scienze della natura e scienze dell'uomo.--Conclusione.

El presente trabajo busca exponer las premisas y la fundamentación teológica que subyace a la moral de Pedro Abelardo, con el fin de mostrar cómo en el sistema filosófico de dicho autor, conocido por su racionalismo, hay una justificación que extralimita dicho sistema. Para ello, se expondrá la terminología clave de su moral, la aplicación práctica de dichos conceptos, y una serie de objeciones tanto teológicas como filosóficas.