The spread and publicity given to questionable practices in the corporate world during the last two decades has fostered an increasing interest about the importance of ethical work for organizations, practitioners, scholars and, last but not least, the wider public. Relying on the Social Identity Approach, we suggest that the effects of different ethical climates on employee behaviors are driven by affective identification with the organization and, in parallel, by cognitive moral (dis)engagement. We compared the effects of two particular ethical (...) climates derived from the literature: An ethical organizational climate of self-interest, and an ethical organizational climate of friendship. Three hundred seventy-six workers completed measures of Ethical Climate, Organizational Identification, Moral Disengagement, Organizational Citizenship Behaviors, and Counterproductive Work Behaviors. Structural equation modelling confirmed that the two ethical climates considered were independently related to organizational identification and moral disengagement. These, in turn, mediated the effects of ethical climates on Organizational Citizenship Behaviors and Counterproductive Work Behaviors. We discuss results in light of the social identity approach, and present some practical implications of our findings. (shrink)

Forms of collective leadership, such as Distributed Leadership, have become increasingly important. The need for measurement of the variables involved in the delegation processes, represents a new challenge for organizations that want to ensure high-level working. The present research aimed to validate the Italian version of the Distributed Leadership Agency (DLA) and verify its applicability in different contexts. The study involved all the employees of an Italian public Hospital, which were selected to complete a survey on organizational perceptions. The sample (...) comprised 704 employees (doctors, nurses, clerks, staff workers, healthcare assistants, consultants, management). Multiple Confirmatory Factor Analyses (Maximum Likelihood) have been computed to explore the factorial structure of the DLA, along with associations with other work outcomes. Results clarified that the Italian DLA respects the tri-factorial structure of the construct, suggested by Yukl (2002), with good fit indexes and reliability; moreover, in line with the literature, DLA was strongly related to satisfaction, commitment, and trust. Results contribute to underline the robustness of the construct of distributed leadership agency in different cultural sectors, and provide a useful tool to be adopted in the Italian context. (shrink)

Organizational identification has increasingly attracted scholarly attention as a key factor in understanding organizational processes and in fostering efficient human resource management. Available evidence shows that organizational ethical climate crucially predicts OI, a key determinant of both employees’ attitudes and behaviors. In the present paper, we examined the relationship between two specific ethical climates, distributed leadership, and employees’ attitudes and behaviors, incorporating OI as a core underlying mechanism driving these relationships. Three hundred and forty-two employees filled out questionnaires to examine (...) ethical climate, DL, OI, and a series of measures concerning attitudes and behaviors toward the organization. Structural equation modeling confirmed that a perception of an ethical climate of friendship fostered OI, which elicited higher commitment, perceived trust and recommendation, and lower turnover intention. Perception of DL further contributed to increasing OI. Our findings suggest that HR practices should carefully consider employee perceptions of a collectivistic ethical climate, together with perceptions of DL, as key determinants of positive organizational outcomes. We discuss results in light of the social identity approach and present practical implications for HR management. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: SATS Jahrgang: 18 Heft: 1 Seiten: 55-77.

In this paper I explore how early modern Italian Aristotelians understood Aristotle’s De memoria by focusing on three key-points of Aristotle’s theory of memory and recollection: the localization of memory in the perceptual part of the soul; the characterisation of phantasia and its association with the notions of koinē aisthēsis and prōton aisthētikon; the definition of recollection as “a kind of syllogism” and its account as an activity that implies the faculty of deliberating and is therefore restricted to humans. My (...) aim is to show the interactions as well as the tensions between natural philosophical and medical theories in reading and interpreting Aristotle’s Parva naturalia in the Italian milieu. (shrink)

A 120 anni dalla sua nascita, la filosofia politica di Popper continua a stimolare sia gli studiosi che per primi ne divulgarono le opere sia coloro che s'interrogano sull’attualità del suo insegnamento. Il mondo nel quale Popper ha concepito le sue opere era segnato dallo scontro ideologico, quello di oggi è attraversato da conflitti di natura diversa, riconducibili alle tensioni nelle società multiculturali. Se scegliere i valori della società aperta pare un obiettivo inderogabile, rimangono aperte le sfide della sua traduzione (...) in una realtà sociale complessa. Sfide che Armando editore è, ancora una volta, in linea con la sua storia, pronto a raccogliere e tradurre in studi e ricerche. (shrink)

This volume is a detailed study of the concept of the nutritive capacity of the soul and its actual manifestation in living bodies in Aristotle and Aristotelianism. Aristotle’s innovative analysis of the nutritive faculty has laid the intellectual foundation for the increasing appreciation of nutrition as a prerequisite for the maintenance of life and health that can be observed in the history of Greek thought. According to Aristotle, apart from nutrition, the nutritive part of the soul is also responsible for (...) or interacts with many other bodily functions or mechanisms, such as digestion, growth, reproduction, sleep, and the innate heat. After Aristotle, these concepts were used and further developed by a great number of Peripatetic philosophers, commentators on Aristotle and Arabic thinkers until early modern times. This volume is the first of its kind to provide an in-depth survey of the development of this rather philosophical concept from Aristotle to early modern thinkers. It is of key interest to scholars working on classical, medieval and early modern psycho-physiological accounts of living things, historians and philosophers of science, biologists with interests in the history of science, and, generally, students of the history of philosophy and science. (shrink)

In this paper, I consider points of intersection between the Aristotelian and the Galenic notions of ‘ power of the seed’ and some of the key issues and key concepts developed within the power -structuralism paradigm and try to understand whether, and to what extent, the conceptual lens provided by the power -structuralism hypothesis may help us to shed fresh light on aspects of both the Aristotelian and the Galenic theory of the seed, which are still unclear or highly controversial, (...) like the role played by the female in the generative process; to better understand how much the Aristotelian and the Galenic theories of the seed have in common and, on the other hand, to what extent and in what regard they differ when it comes to considering the metaphysics of powers, which both theories are grounded upon. Specifically, I explore how far Marmodoro's theory of ‘ power -structuralism ontology’ can help us to make better sense of this metaphysics. I suggest that this theory helps us to recognize, below the s. (shrink)

This is a contribution to the controversy which of individual or collective intentionality is more fundamental. I call it the fundamentality-question. In a first step, I argue that it is really two questions. One is about sense and one about reference. The first is: Can one grasp or understand the concept individual intentionality and, correspondingly, individuality, on the one hand, without grasping or understanding the concept collective intentionality and, correspondingly, collectivity, on the other? The second is: Can the concept individual (...) intentionality and corresponding concept of individuality, on the one hand, refer to something without the concept of collective intentionality and corresponding concept of collectivity referring to something, on the other? Simplifying somewhat, this elaborated fundamentality-question admits of nine answers. In a second step, I pursue a tentative answer to the elaborated fundamentality-question. Given a disambiguation of individuality and, correspondingly, individual intentionality, the answer is the combination of claims that individuality and individual intentionality in one sense is fundamental in reference-dependence but that collectivity and collective intentionality is fundamental in reference-dependence in the other sense of individuality, while collectivity and collective intentionality is in both cases fundamental in sense-dependence. (shrink)

The prepositional ‘in’ and possessive pronouns, e.g., ‘my’ and ‘mine,’ in the context of attributions of mental states, such as “in my mind” or “in your mind,” threaten to confuse attempts to account for knowledge of other minds. This paper distinguishes proper from improper uses of such expressions. I will argue that proper use of the prepositional ‘in’ and possessive pronouns in the context of mental state attributions presupposes capacities to properly track and attribute what are really, in a sense (...) to be specified, intersubjectively articulated and inferentially interrelated normative statuses. What we call “mental states” or “minds,” in as far as primarily cognitive states such as beliefs are concerned, are intersubjectively constituted. As opposed to being inner and private, something we must learn to intersubjectively discover, minds and mental states are intersubjectively articulated and we learn to attribute them as inner and private. A scorekeeping-model is used to illustrate how the privacy of mind presupposes intersubjectivity. Using that model, I argue that the traditional problem of knowing other minds can be re-framed as a problem of learning how to pursue intersubjective practices of acknowledging, attributing and undertaking mental states. (shrink)

Alessandro Capone Franco Lo Piparo Marco Carapezza Editors Perspectives on Pragmatics and Philosophy Perspectives in Pragmatics, Philosophy & Psychology Volume 1 Editor-in-Cheif Alessandro. Perspectives in Pragmatics, Philosophy ...

This paper argues that rules and norms are conceptually distinct: what is norm is not thereby rule, and vice versa. Versions of conflating the two are discussed and an argument for distinction given. Two objections to the argument are responded to. It is accepted that rules and norms are often intimately related. They are so causally, not conceptually: what norms we live by can make a difference to what rules we accept and what rules we accept can make a difference (...) to what norms we live by. This is a social, dynamic and continuous causal process of development of the social practices of community. (shrink)

Mental episodes are typically associated with subjective ownership and first-person authority. My belief that an apple is red is had by me; it is mine and I’m in a privileged position to know it. Your experience of red is had by you; it is yours and you are in a privileged position to know it. The two assumptions are that mental events are had by individuals to whom they occur, and that owners are in a privileged epistemic position to fallibly (...) report their own. This paper asks how to understand ownership and first-person authority. It argues that the two assumptions should not be accepted by default. A normative pragmatism is specified, on which mental episodes are not owned, but owed to practices of reason articulation. Finally, a positive account of ownership and first-person authority is considered. (shrink)

This research aims to examine access to medical treatment during the COVID-19 pandemic for people living with disabilities. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the practical and ethical problems of allocating limited medical resources such as intensive care unit beds and ventilators became critical. Although different countries have proposed different guidelines to manage this emergency, these proposed criteria do not sufficiently consider people living with disabilities. People living with disabilities are therefore at a higher risk of exclusion from medical treatments as physicians (...) tend to assume they have poor quality of life, whereas access to medical treatment should be based on several parameters, including clinical data and prognosis. However, the COVID-19 pandemic shifts the medical paradigm from person-centred medicine to community-centred medicine, challenging the main ethical theories. We reviewed the main guidelines and recommendations for resources allocation and examined their position toward persons with disabilities. Based on our findings, we propose criteria for not discriminating against people with disabilities in allocating resources. The shift from person-centred to community-centred medicine offers opportunities but also risks sacrificing the most vulnerable people. The principle of reasonable accommodation must always be considered to guarantee the rights of persons with disabilities. (shrink)

The paper argues that contexts of interaction are structured in a way that coordinates part actions into normatively guided joint action without agents having common knowledge or mutual beliefs about intentions, beliefs, or commitments to part actions. The argument shows earlier analyses of joint action to be fundamentally flawed because they have not taken contextual influences on joint action properly into account. Specific completion of earlier analyses is proposed. It is concluded that attention to features distributed in context of interaction (...) that signal expected part actions is sufficient for a set of part actions to qualify as a joint action. (shrink)

This volume offers the reader a singular overview of current thinking on indirect reports. The contributors are eminent researchers from the fields of philosophy of language, theoretical linguistics and communication theory, who answer questions on this important issue. This exciting area of controversy has until now mostly been treated from the viewpoint of philosophy. This volume adds the views from semantics, conversation analysis and sociolinguistics. Authors address matters such as the issue of semantic minimalism vs. radical contextualism, the attribution of (...) responsibility for the modes of presentation associated with Noun Phrases and how to distinguish the indirect reporter’s responsibility from the original speaker’s responsibility. They also explore the connection between indirect reporting and direct quoting. Clearly indirect reporting has some bearing on the semantics/pragmatics debate, however, there is much controversy on “what is said”, whether this is a minimal semantic logical form or a much richer and fully contextualized logical form. This issue will be discussed from several angles. Many of the authors are contextualists and the discussion brings out the need to take context into account when one deals with indirect reports, both the context of the original utterance and the context of the report. It is interesting to see how rich cues and clues can radically transform the reported message, assigning illocutionary force and how they can be mobilized to distinguish several voices in the utterance. Decoupling the voice of the reporting speaker from that of the reported speaker on the basis of rich contextual clues is an important issue that pragmatic theory has to tackle. Articles on the issue of slurs will bring new light to the issue of decoupling responsibility in indirect reporting, while others are theoretically oriented and deal with deep problems in philosophy and epistemology. (shrink)

La fascinante vida intelectual y espiritual de Gastón Soublette Asmussen lo ha vuelto un renombrado filósofo en Chile, quien fue galardonado recientemente con el Premio Nacional de Humanidades y Ciencias Sociales año 2023. Hoy, con sus 97 años, este musicólogo, esteta y experto en filosofía oriental y teología cristiana es uno de los referentes más importantes en el acontecer intelectual chileno. En esta entrevista se exploraron las diversas facetas de su vida, desde el inicio de su actividad docente y académica, (...) hasta las motivaciones existenciales que lo llevaron a explorar los temas de su investigación –como la cultura tradicional indígena, el folclore, la música, la teología y las espiritualidades orientales–. Con más de una docena de libros publicados, Soublette ha dejado una profunda huella en centenares de alumnos y alumnas. En esta ocasión, Soublette compartió sus experiencias y aprendizajes a lo largo de los años, y destacó la importancia de la cultura tradicional indígena y su valor para la sociedad contemporánea. Nos explicó cómo estas culturas ancestrales pueden ofrecer una visión profunda y significativa de la existencia humana, alentando un mayor respeto por la naturaleza y una conexión más profunda con nuestra diversidad espiritual humana. El papel de la espiritualidad ocupó un lugar destacado en la conversación, y Soublette resaltó la importancia de preservar estas expresiones espirituales como una forma de mantener viva la identidad y la historia de un pueblo. Además, señaló cómo la búsqueda espiritual puede ser una herramienta poderosa para la transformación personal y el despertar de saberes, más allá del academicismo dominante. En cuanto a la filosofía oriental, Soublette compartió su profundo conocimiento sobre estas tradiciones. Habló sobre conceptos como el zen, el taoísmo y el budismo, y cómo pueden brindar una perspectiva única sobre la existencia humana y el propósito de la vida. En resumen, la entrevista con Gastón Soublette fue un viaje fascinante a través de su vida y su amplio conocimiento sobre filosofía oriental, cultura tradicional indígena, folclore, música, teología cristiana y espiritualidades orientales. Sus palabras ofrecieron una valiosa perspectiva sobre la importancia de estas disciplinas y cómo pueden enriquecer nuestras vidas, fomentando una conexión más profunda con nosotros mismos, los demás y el mundo que nos rodea. (shrink)

What do we do when we say ‘We’? This paper pursues a response from analytic pragmatism. The guiding idea of analytic pragmatism is to look to what one must implicitly know how do to be able to use expressions to say something, including how to make that implicit know-how explicit. Accordingly, the question we are tasked to answer is what one must know how to do to say ‘We’ – that is, what practical know-how saying ‘We’ requires and can be (...) employed to make explicit. The concept normative ascent is introduced in developing an answer. On this approach, the know-how in question turns out to be a distinctively normative capacity. Both being and saying ‘We’ turns out to involve being able to do and say something normative. (shrink)

Este artículo reseña: Byung-Chul, HAN, Infocracia, la digitalización y la crisis de la democracia., Editorial Taurus, Santiago de Chile, 2022. 91 pp.

The two sections of this volume present theoretical developments and practical applicative papers respectively. Theoretical papers cover topics such as intercultural pragmatics, evolutionism, argumentation theory, pragmatics and law, the semantics/pragmatics debate, slurs, and more. The applied papers focus on topics such as pragmatic disorders, mapping places of origin, stance-taking, societal pragmatics, and cultural linguistics. This is the second volume of invited papers that were presented at the inaugural Pragmasofia conference in Palermo in 2016, and like its predecessor presents papers by (...) well-known philosophers, linguists, and a semiotician. The papers present a wide variety of perspectives independent from any one school of thought. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to show that there is a reciprocal dependency relationship between social cognition and social ontology. It is argued that, on the one hand, the existence conditions of socially meaningful objects and of social groups are about subjects’ social cognitive processes and interactive patterns and, on the other hand, social cognitive processes and interactive patterns are modulated by socially meaningful objects and social groups. I proceed from a historically informed distinction between social ontologies – between (...) what might be called constructivist and emergentist theories of social reality. I then distinguish three theories of social cognition, theory-theory, simulation theory, and interaction theory, and argue that the first distinction and the latter map onto each other. Finally I argue that the reciprocal dependency between social ontology and social cognition can be justifiably though of as causal in Di Paolo et. al.’s (2010) sense of “downward” or “circular” causation. It is concluded that the dependency between social ontology and social cognition pertain to both a methodological and a phenomenal level. First, research on social ontology depends on research on social cognition; and, secondly, social phenomena, involving socially meaningful objects and groups, influence social cognitive processes and interaction, which in turn influence social phenomena. (shrink)

This book builds on the idea that pragmatics and philosophy are strictly interconnected and that advances in one area will generate consequential advantages in the other area. The first part of the book, entitled ‘Theoretical Approaches to Philosophy of Language’, contains contributions by philosophers of language on connectives, intensional contexts, demonstratives, subsententials, and implicit indirect reports. The second part, ‘Pragmatics in Discourse’, presents contributions that are more empirically based or of a more applicative nature and that deal with the pragmatics (...) of discourse, argumentation, pragmatics and law, and context. The book presents perspectives which, generally, make most of the Gricean idea of the centrality of a speaker’s intention in attribution of meaning to utterances, whether one is interested in the level of sentence-like units or larger chunks of discourse. (shrink)

The multiplication of actors on the global scene displays how economics and political interdependences are plural and rooted, and how far are the States bonded to new political and economics subjects. The national space has no longer the centrality it acquired during modernity. This loss is due to the emergence of plural spaces in which the State – globalized and discontent – is forced to operate. However, the external bonds represented by this new economics of interdependences, are sided by the (...) transformations in the principles orienting the choices and the behaviours of individuals, interpreted as economic agents. Those principles do represent the inner bond of politics and the internal limits to the agency of the States. The economic governance of politics constitutes a new economics of interdependences and behaviours expressing, at the same time, the promotion and the management of subjectivities. It operates as a new ratio societatis : a new “global economic civilization”. (shrink)

El presente ensayo pretende analizar algunas categorías políticas desarrolladas por Norberto Bobbio, tales como: democracia, derechos humanos, libertad y paz. Para este autor la democracia como sistema de reglas dirigidas a eliminar el uso de la violencia concilia la relación entre poder y derecho. La democracia no se funda sobre la primacía del poder sobre el derecho, ni viceversa, además, permite la proximidad más cercana de las necesidades morales a aquellas políticas. La democracia es la luz mientras que la autocracia (...) es la oscuridad: esta, la democracia, juega su rol en el inseparable trinomio libertad-paz-derechos humanos. La constante tensión, a través del conflicto, hacia la racionalidad y la libertad parece moverse en la dirección de una sociedad universalmente entendida que coordine las necesidades y garantice la paz entre todos los Estados. (shrink)

Este artículo se centra en el concepto de marginación. Al hacerlo, cuestiona el paradigma dualista dominante en la filosofía política contemporánea, centrado sobre dicotomías como nacional/extranjero, ciudadano/migrante, a este lado de la frontera/del otro lado de la frontera, y adopta un paradigma global centrado en la dialéctica centro/periferia, retomando ideas centrales de las teorías de la dependencia y del sistema-mundo. Defiende que no son sólo las fronteras nacionales las que dividen a la población mundial según criterios arbitrarios y que las (...) fronteras de clase desempeñan el mismo papel dentro de las sociedades nacionales. En ambos casos, los individuos no son excluidos del ámbito económico, político y social, sino que son empujados a sus márgenes. La descripción de la vida a los márgenes nos debería ayudar a repensar la organización global de la economía capitalista y de las relaciones entre centro y periferia. (shrink)

Este ensayo se ocupa de discutir el renacimiento de la tradición republicana en los últimos años, particularmente gracias a pensadores como Quentin Skinner, Maurizio Viroli y Philip Pettit. Se aborda esta tradición en sus principales elementos constitutivos, a saber: 1) el concepto de república propiamente dicho; 2) el papel central de las virtudes cívicas; 3) la concepción republicana de libertad; y 4) el concepto de gobierno de las leyes. Se desarrolla, en primer lugar, un breve análisis de estos cuatros elementos, (...) al mismo tiempo que se ponen en evidencia algunos problemas históricos y teóricos. A continuación, se compara la posición de los teóricos republicanos, tanto clásicos como contemporáneos, con la propia de la tradición liberal-democrática, que, para aquéllos, constituye el principal blanco de esta polémica. Finalmente, se introduce una nueva corriente de pensamiento que los neo-republicanos dejan, curiosamente, de lado: el constitucionalismo. (shrink)

En los Estados constitucionales modernos, se encuentra un conspicuo set de derechos, principios y valores éticos. En el presente trabajo se insiste en la necesidad de tener muy presente las investigaciones relativas a la racionalidad, el conflicto y los valores. Precisamente, porque los derechos se ..

Quais considerações levaram Peirce a introduzir as ciências normativas de Ética e Estética para a arquitetônica de inquéritos filosóficos que ele delineou primeiramente, e realizou parcialmente em Minute Logic [Lógica Meticulosa] de 1902? No artigo em mão, nós endereçamos a primeira questão focando nas taxonomias dos fins últimos da ação produzidos por Peirce em 1900 e 1901. Enquanto em 1898 Peirce tinha excluído Ética do domínio de inquéritos filosóficos, Minute Logic refleti sobre uma revisão completa do conceito de Ética, que (...) diz que há três níveis de inquéritos éticos. O nível mais fundamental dos três é o anteriormente excluído “terceiro ramo [da filosofia], relativo aos fins” (R 435:10, 1898). Como Peirce repetidamente referenciou sua classificação dos fins últimos da ação apresentado na sua crítica de Grammar of Science [A gramática da Ciência], do Karl Pearson, em dezembro de 1900, essas taxonomias não são meras progenitoras da “ética pura”, mas sim representadoras da sua primeira conquista fundamental no domínio da ciência normativa pré-lógica. (shrink)

La ontología trinitaria indica el pasaje de un ser in se, que se auto-construye y se auto-realiza, a uno que es desde el momento en que se desplaza el propio baricentro existencial del in se al “para” y “en” el otro. Esta dinámica, reveladora del ser Dios de Dios, se manifiesta de un modo fundamental en el evento pascual e imprime una novedad decisiva, mediante la introducción de lo negativo, en las estructuras mismas de pensamiento.

L’articolo si propone di ricostruire criticamente il processo di crisi e trasformazione del concetto di impero a ridosso delle rivoluzioni settecentesche. A partire dalla Histoire des deux Indes di Raynal, e dalla critica illuminista ai differenti modelli imperiali, Pandolfi delinea il passaggio dal colonialismo classico – costruito attorno al rapporto tra coloni, selvaggi e schiavi – a una fase contraddistinta invece dallo sfruttamento indiretto della forza lavoro. La trattazione porta alla luce l’ambivalenza illuminista nei confronti della questione dell’impero, dimostrando come (...) l’opera di Raynal intersechi e restituisca al lettore le tensioni fondanti della seconda metà del Settecento. Così, ripercorrendo l’analisi di Diderot, l’autore dimostra come l’avanzamento morale dell’umanità sia il prodotto della costante interazione tra la retorica imperialista del commercio e le rivoluzioni che, in luoghi e momenti diversi, hanno attraversato lo spazio coloniale. (shrink)

Sin duda el ensayo escrito en forma epistolar no es una propuesta original en el escenario de la literatura contemporánea: fue difundido en época romana, se consolidó a inicios del siglo xx con Rainer María Rilke y más recientemente lo han vuelto a proponer Mario Vargas Llosa, Maurice Béjart, Edward O. Wilson. Sin embargo, Cartas a una joven ensayista de Efrén Giraldo, que se dirige específicamente a una ensayista inexperta, resulta pionero en su género.

Riassunto: La geomanzia, una disciplina divinatoria importata dal mondo arabo, prosperò nel medioevo latino. Di fronte a tale popolarità traduttori e autori di trattati geomantici, filosofi, teologi e letterati si interrogarono sulla sua validità, sulle sue implicazioni filosofiche e sulla visione del mondo che essa presupponeva. Il presente contributo esamina questo dibattito. In particolare, si ricostruisce lo statuto epistemologico della geomanzia nei suoi rapporti con l’astrologia. Il problema della scientificità della geomanzia viene discusso anche nel contesto dell’azione della causalità celeste (...) sul mondo sublunare. Sono esaminati i ruoli del geomante e dell’interrogante ed è analizzato il concetto di intentio, che rimanda ad un’analisi psicologica peculiare della geomanzia. Caratterizza la geomanzia anche una dimensione rituale fatta di prescrizioni preliminari e di invocazioni da rivolgere alla divinità. Quanto detto impedisce di ridurre la geomanzia ad una semplice tecnica divinatoria; essa appare piuttosto una forma di sapienza rivelata solo al geomante esperto e moralmente degno, che attinge così la conoscenza di eventi futuri e cose nascoste. Da questa breve ricostruzione emerge l’articolata natura della geomanzia, contraddistinta, nella sua originaria versione araba, da una marcata impronta religiosa e da uno stretto, benché ambiguo, nesso con la profezia Islamica.: Geomancy, a divinatory discipline imported from the Arab world, flourished in the Latin Middle Ages. In the attempt to explain the popularity of geomancy, translators and authors of geomantic writings, philosophers, theologians, and other scholars addressed such issues as its validity, its philosophical implications, and the worldview it presupposed. This paper explores this debate, delineating the epistemological status of geomancy in relation to astrology. The problem of the scientificity of geomacy will be discussed with regard to the celestial influences on the sublunary world. In addition, the different roles played by both the geomancer and the consultant are examined. Attention will be paid to the concept of intentio, which implies a psychological analysis peculiar to geomancy. Geomancy is also characterized by ritual elements such as both preliminary prescriptions and invocations of God, meaning that it is not an ordinary divinatory technique, but a form of wisdom revealed only to experienced and upright geomancers, who can thus obtain knowledge of future events and hidden things. From this analysis emerges the complex nature of geomancy, whose original Arabic version had a prominent religious character and a close, albeit ambiguous, link with Islamic prophecy. (shrink)

Alessandro Portelli tiene una larga historia de amistad con la Universidad Nacional de La Plata y con la Maestría en Historia y Memoria en particular. Ha dictado dos seminarios de posgrado en el marco de la maestría en 2013 y 2018, así como también la revista Aletheia ha publicado una traducción de un texto de su autoría (Aletheia n°7) y una entrevista en el marco de sus visitas al país (Aletheia n°9). En 2013 fue distinguido con el título Miembro (...) Honorífico y en 2017 le fue otorgado el Doctorado Honoris Causa por la UNLP. Hoy volvemos a publicar un texto suyo, que transcribe la conferencia que nos ofreció en la Universidad Nacional de La Plata, el 16 y 17 de septiembre de 2019, durante una nueva visita, invitado por el Doctorado en Historia y la Maestría en Historia y Memoria de la FaHCE, para participar del Coloquio sobre Memorias Populares y realizando un encuentro con investigadores e investigadoras de nuestra casa de estudios. En la conferencia “Archivos Sonoros y cultura popular", el investigador italiano disertó sobre “Bob Dylan, migraciones y globalización” trazando un recorrido histórico y geográfico de la lírica popular de transmisión oral. En este viaje se registran las mutaciones de la canción y las transformaciones de los sujetos que la entonan a través del espacio y el tiempo, mientras permanecen las opresiones que dan lugar al canto. En la canción de Bob Dylan se concentran las versiones de sus precursores: desde el teatro del renacimiento italiano hasta el cercamiento de los campos en Escocia, desde el romanticismo europeo al folclore del Sur de Estados Unidos. Las postales musicales que reúne Portelli nos hablan también de una canción sin tiempo, una canción que se actualiza en el presente, en un mundo global que re-traza las fronteras y dictamina nuevas-viejas restricciones a la circulación de personas entre el Norte y el Sur. El canto popular del presente es entonces el de los migrantes, de las diásporas que dispersan familias y sociedades, y las “sísporas” que reúnen diferentes generaciones y culturas tan diversas en un mismo punto de llegada. En esa conjunción de lo universal y lo particular, el folklore nos trae una y mil veces los grandes temas de la humanidad: la pérdida de la inocencia, el temor de lo nuevo, la tragedia humana de la injusticia y la desigualdad. Si allá por los años ‘60 la canción de Bob Dylan nos alertaba sobre el peligro inminente de la modernidad, hoy el sentido premonitorio de esas imágenes futuristas se revierte. El paisaje sonoro que nos muestra Portelli trae la canción de los migrantes eritreos, libios, somalíes, nigerianos y senegaleses que trabajan como braseros en Italia, trae el grito de los refugiados en Veintimiglia que desafían el futuro proclamando “We're not going back”. Como explica Portelli, la música es inmaterial, tiene pies, y viaja. La música no conoce fronteras, por eso la canción de los migrantes del Sur global sigue escribiendo la historia de las resistencias y resiliencias, la historia de las luchas de los pueblos por conquistar nuevas libertades. (shrink)

Foucault y Benjamin aprovecharon distintos temas y categorías de El capital de Marx, en concordancia con sus temas de interés y opciones teóricas y políticas. Foucault se concentró en el análisis de las relaciones de producción en lo que atañía al disciplinamiento de la clase obrera por el capital. Benjamin, a partir del fetichismo de la mercancía, en la fascinación del consumo y de la mera exhibición consumista patente en los grandes almacenes. Ambas lecturas son tratadas en este artículo como (...) complementarias y convergentes. En efecto, a partir de los fundamentos marxianos, permiten trazar una genealogía bien equipada del sometimiento de los seres vivos a la relación moderna del capital: un sometimiento que continúa bajo nuevas formas en el capitalismo actual. Sobre esto el texto se cierra, abriendo un camino para explorar. (shrink)

Nel 1726 lo scozzese Walter Bowman intrattenne una corrispondenza con Samuel Clarke su «the power of self-motion», un argomento che Clarke aveva trattato nella sua Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God. Le due lettere inedite di Clarke, qui presentate, sono parte di quella vasta corrispondenza che il teologo ebbe con filosofi e uomini di lettere dopo la pubblicazione della Demonstration. In questo saggio si ricostruiscono gli argomenti di Clarke, in primo luogo quelli relativi alla dimostrazione dell’esistenza di Dio, (...) evidenziando le influenze di Cartesio, Locke e Newton. I commenti di Bowman, raccolti insieme alle lettere nella sua opera Fugitive Manuscripts, ci aiutano a vedere come Clarke elabori una teoria meccanicistica dell’azione e, come emerge dalle lettere, debba successivamente precisarla ricorrendo a due principi: «Pain is to be avoided and Novelties are to be attended with a sort of curiosity». (shrink)