The focus of the study is (§ 1) the analysis of an inscribed bronze spherule discovered in the temenos on the Piano di Imera. The document belongs to a small group of similar inscriptions, consisting of three bronze spherules inscribed with a sample formulaic structure: the divinity’s name. Firstly, the article aims at providing a new framework of interpretation for the word ἐπιλυσαμέ‹ν›ας as Eileithyia’s epithet, the Greek deity of birth to whom literary evidence attributes the power of ‘losing up’, (...) ‘freeing’. Secondly we analyze other bronze spherules from the Piano di Imera (§ 2). This method allows to examine and compare various kind of evidence in order to get a full understanding of the particular use of these little objects, i.e. their role in cleromancy rituals (§ 3). (shrink)

The Pseudo-Plutarchan De musica provides us with the oldest history of Greek lyric poetry from the pre-Homeric epic poetry to the lyric poetry of the fourth century B.C. Importantly, the work contains also an evaluation of the role of music in the process of educating and training the citizens. Ps. Plutarch considers the καλόν in the aesthetic and ethical sense, which makes it incompatible with the καινόν dictated by the new poetic and musical season.

In the context of research 2LAPRE 2 we observed sessions of Philosophically Orientated Discussion (POD)provided by the permanent teachers of the ordinary elementary and secondary school classes. In a formation context we are interested in the itinerary of three elementary school’s teachers of three different levels (1st Cycle, 2nd Cycle and 3rd Cycle). By the observation of actual practices at three moments during the scholar year, what can we spot of the POD norm’s construction? The analysis of the linguistic exchanges, (...) will identify what is played out for the teacher from its organizer’s point of view (beliefs, conceptions, values and what they judge as important). We will proceed with a systematic analysis: - of the communication networks through Flament’s theoretical framework (1965) to approach the linguistic productions distribution on the participants and the animation from that results; - and Geneva’s model (Roulet et al., 1985) where the communications are constructs that articulate components of different levels to study them in their structure-functional dimension. The analysis will permit to chart the variability of the activity for each of these three teachers, or not, around the conception of what is the POD. We will use the results already published in the article Saint-Dizier, Specogna, Luxembourger (2016) that we look at from the point of view of the question we want to deal with this article whether: POD norm, variability, invariability of the activity. (shrink)

This article discusses the removal of voting rights from those convicted of crimes. I focus on two recent defences of penal disenfranchisement: firstly, I question one justification of the view that voting rights are conditional on the fulfilment of certain responsibilities that offenders fail to meet. Secondly, I criticise an expressivist justification of disenfranchisement based on the idea that it is uniquely suited to express dissociation from serious wrongdoing. While embracing the expressivist perspective of the latter line of argument, I (...) argue that disenfranchisement also expresses attitudes that are incompatible with the commitment to equality. Disenfranchisement conveys the judgment that offenders are not fit to participate in the democratic process. In doing so, it violates the duty of the state to treat all its citizens with equal respect and undermines offenders’ equal status. Moreover, this policy fosters objectionable inequalities of esteem: other members of the community are very likely to internalise the judgment that offenders are second‐class citizens and to regard them as inferior, which in turn undermines their status in society. (shrink)

The development of ideas in Thomas Aquinas's philosophical thinking has been the subject of numerous smaller studies, but no contemporary work in the English-speaking world covers his every single work in chronological order in terms of philosophical development, influences, manuscript evidence, and historical setting. In Thomas Aquinas: A Historical and Philosophical Profile, Pasquale Porro has provided a complete landscape of Thomas's corpus that will give Thomistic scholars and students an invaluable reference point for research, discussion, and debate.

This volume provides a comprehensive historico-doctrinal analysis of the transformation of the concept of time in the transition from the medieval debate to ...

Among the various questions on different subjects attributed to Albert the Great, and presumably disputed in Paris around the middle of the 13th century, we find one – handed down mainly under the title De quiditate et esse – dedicated to the presentation of some fundamental notions of metaphysics. This particular question deserves attention insofar as it represents a significant moment in the geneaology of the distinction between the notions of res a ratitudine and res a reor reris. A final (...) remark concerns the possible connection between Albert the Great and Henry of Ghent with respect to the transcendental primacy of res and the attempt not to reduce the consideration of metaphysics to actual being alone. (shrink)

Lex necessitatis vel contingentiae Cet article se propose de reconsidérer de manière critique deux présupposés spécifiques à l’interprétation gilsonienne de Thomas d’Aquin : (i) le fait que, dans l’univers thomasien, tous les étants différents de Dieu soient marqués par une « contingence radicale » ; (ii) l’idée qu’en dernière analyse cette contingence est fondée sur la distinction entre être et essence – et, plus généralement, (iii) la conviction que la conception thomiste de la providence se présente comme une alternative radicale (...) au déterminisme et au nécessitarisme de la tradition gréco-arabe. À cette fin, nous examinerons successivement les points suivants : les significations les plus communes que Thomas confère aux notions de nécessité et de contingence ; le rapport entre fortune, sort et providence ; la réfutation conditionnée du déterminisme astral ; le mode sur lequel la providence dispose les événements nécessaires aussi bien que les événements contingents ; les réactions opposées de Siger de Brabant et de Jean Duns Scot au modèle par lequel Thomas tente de sauver la contingence au sein de l’ordre providentiel ; l’affirmation par Thomas de l’existence de créatures formellement nécessaires. En conclusion, on suggère que Thomas affaiblit certains présupposés fondamentaux de la stratégie anti-déterministe mise en œuvre par Aristote dans le livre VI de la Métaphysique, que l’alternative entre nécessité et contingence ne représente pas chez Thomas le véritable départ entre le créateur et la créature, et que, pour cette raison, la distinction entre être et essence n’a pas pour premier et principal objectif de rendre compte de la contingence de tous les étants créés. (shrink)

This article discusses the removal of voting rights from those convicted of crimes. I focus on two recent defences of penal disenfranchisement: firstly, I question one justification of the view that voting rights are conditional on the fulfilment of certain responsibilities that offenders fail to meet. Secondly, I criticise an expressivist justification of disenfranchisement based on the idea that it is uniquely suited to express dissociation from serious wrongdoing. While embracing the expressivist perspective of the latter line of argument, I (...) argue that disenfranchisement also expresses attitudes that are incompatible with the commitment to equality. Disenfranchisement conveys the judgment that offenders are not fit to participate in the democratic process. In doing so, it violates the duty of the state to treat all its citizens with equal respect and undermines offenders’ equal status. Moreover, this policy fosters objectionable inequalities of esteem: other members of the community are very likely to internalise the judgment that offenders are second‐class citizens and to regard them as inferior, which in turn undermines their status in society. (shrink)

When we appraise others as talented or virtuous, we esteem them: we register admiration of their traits and virtues. It is generally believed that, unless they involve a violation of respect, distributions of esteem are not a concern from the point of view of justice. In this paper, I want to dispute this commonly-held view. I will argue that attributions of esteem can become problematic when a particular trait becomes such a uniquely relevant source of social esteem in a community (...) that its absence becomes a reason to regard others as less than full members of the community. For instance, in contemporary capitalist societies those perceived as lacking certain socially valued traits and unable or unwilling to make certain kinds of contribution to the community, such as those who are unemployed or have committed criminal offences, are widely disesteemed and also regarded as inferior qua members of the community by others. From the fact that they fail to possess particular qualities a broader negative judgment of their ability to contribute to the community is inferred. Moreover, their failure to gain esteem in these pervasive domains eclipses their possession of other esteem-worthy traits as well as other positive contributions they might have made to society. This perception of inferiority renders it impossible for them to live on equal terms with other citizens. I argue that as egalitarians we should oppose these distributions of esteem. (shrink)

In recent decades, it has often been argued by environmental ethicists that human beings and the natural world ought to be considered as equals in some basic sense. The aim of this paper is to make sense of this view by examining what role, if any, the idea of equality ought to play in environmental ethics. Specifically, we have two aims: the first aim is to identify those environmental claims that are distinctively egalitarian. The second aim is to show these (...) claims do not rest on a principled and convincing justification. Our main contention is therefore that equality has no place in environmental ethics. There are other promising ways to argue that our relationship with the natural environment must be fundamentally revised. By bringing clarity to this debate and dispelling the possibility of equality-based arguments, we hope to contribute to this endeavor. (shrink)

J. Dudley, Aristotle’s Concept of Chance. Accidents, Cause, Necessity, and Determinism, State University of New York Press, Albany 2012.

In her recent book The Limits of Blame, Erin Kelly argues that we should rethink the nature of punishment because delivering blame is, contrary to the widely held view, not among the justifiable aims of a criminal justice system. In this paper, firstly, I discuss her case against criminal blame. Kelly argues that the emphasis on blame in the criminal justice system and in public discourse is one of the main causes of the stigma and exclusion faced by those convicted (...) for a crime. This claim might appear puzzling and, while she provides other convincing arguments against criminal blame, Kelly does not extensively defend this particular argument. To offer support for this view, I reflect on the often overlooked distinction between moral blame and criminal blame to show how the latter, unlike the former, is exclusionary and stigmatising. Secondly, I address the claim put forth by Kelly that blame should play no role in the criminal justice system at all. In light of her argument about the optional nature of moral blame, I explore the possibility that the state should leave open to victims the option to blame criminal wrongdoers in restorative justice conferences. I argue that in such contexts blame would not have the same exclusionary features of criminal blame in traditional settings and that it could serve some valuable aims articulated by communicative theories of punishment, such as the restoration of moral relationships. (shrink)

Taking its cue from the famous articles in which the Jesuit Marcel Chossat, in the early decades of the last century, was the first to suggest that the doctrine of the real distinction between being and essence should be attributed to Giles of Rome, and not to Thomas Aquinas, the article proposes to consider the Neoplatonic matrix of Giles’ distinction, and to re-examine in more detail the doctrine of participation, which is the real trigger of the controversy between Giles and (...) Henry of Ghent. It suggests that Thomas Aquinas, Henry and Giles all three draw on the Proclean tradition, but each choosing different elements, as attested especially by the different readings of the fourth and ninth proposition of the De causis. Finally, it points out that the purpose of the distinction between being and essence is not at all, in Aquinas, to account for the contingency of creation, but to highlight the superiority of God not only with respect to all that possesses matter, but also to all that possesses only a form, even if intrinsically necessary. The distance between Giles and Aquinas could not be greater in this respect: the Dominican Master is not at all interested in showing the radical contingency of all creatures, including separate substances. On the contrary, insofar as he defends the idea that separate substances, as pure forms, are inseparable from their being, it remains true that one could legitimately speak, with regard to this aspect, of “St Thomas’ Averroism”, as Chossat wanted. (shrink)

Taking its cue from the famous articles in which the Jesuit Marcel Chossat, in the early decades of the last century, was the first to suggest that the doctrine of the real distinction between being and essence should be attributed to Giles of Rome, and not to Thomas Aquinas, the article proposes to consider the Neoplatonic matrix of Giles’ distinction, and to re-examine in more detail the doctrine of participation, which is the real trigger of the controversy between Giles and (...) Henry of Ghent. It suggests that Thomas Aquinas, Henry and Giles all three draw on the Proclean tradition, but each choosing different elements, as attested especially by the different readings of the fourth and ninth proposition of the De causis. Finally, it points out that the purpose of the distinction between being and essence is not at all, in Aquinas, to account for the contingency of creation, but to highlight the superiority of God not only with respect to all that possesses matter, but also to all that possesses only a form, even if intrinsically necessary. The distance between Giles and Aquinas could not be greater in this respect: the Dominican Master is not at all interested in showing the radical contingency of all creatures, including separate substances. On the contrary, insofar as he defends the idea that separate substances, as pure forms, are inseparable from their being, it remains true that one could legitimately speak, with regard to this aspect, of “St Thomas’ Averroism”, as Chossat wanted. (shrink)

Against a background of anxious evocation of Dionysiac rites, Euripides'Heraclesstages the extreme degradation of the tragic hero who, as a consequence of the hatred of a divinity, loses his heroic traits and above all his human ones in the exercise of brutal violence. By comparing Heracles in the grip of madness to a furious bull assailing its prey, the tragedian clearly shows the inexorability of the divine will and its arbitrariness, and emphasizes madness itself through images traditionally associated with the (...) bull. However, the reference to monstrosity and animals does not only involve Heracles, but also concerns the representation of Lyssa, the demon of madness sent by Hera to induce Heracles to slaughter his own family. This representation of Lyssa includes the monstrous and disturbing Gorgon and the dog, set alongside the metaphor of hunting, which in turn highlight the link between the demon and the Erinyes, those other bringers of madness. (shrink)

The development of the statistical theory of turbulence mainly take places between 1920 and 1940, in a context where emerging theories in fluid mechanics are striving to provide results closer to experimentation and applicable to practical fluid problems. The secondary literature on the history of fluid mechanics has often emphasized the importance of the contributions of Prandtl, Taylor, and von Kármán to the closure problem of Reynolds equations for a turbulent fluid confined by walls and to the statistical description of (...) an isotropic and homogeneous turbulent flow. During the same period, a new theory of turbulence also surfaces in France. This theory is formulated by a group of researchers led by Philippe Wehrlé (1890–1965), the director of the French National Meteorological Office (Office national météorologique, ONM), and Georges Dedebant (1902–1965), the head of ONM’s Scientific Service. Their objective is to mathematically formalize the turbulence, taking into account the atmospheric turbulence and using a theory of random functions defined from experimental concepts. However, this French theory of turbulence gradually loses international recognition after World War II. After introducing the key figures and the fundamental components of their theory, the article explores various scientific factors why their contribution was increasingly forgotten after the Second World War. (shrink)

The subject of bullying has received widespread academic attention, going back to pioneering studies in the 1970s. However, work in this area has tended to take a gender-neutral/male perspective that does not distinguish between male and female bullying. While retaining a dialogue with generalist literature on the subject, this article seeks to highlight the theoretical and political-social relevance of gender-specific and intersectional approaches when exploring the question of bullying between adolescent girls. Based on the study _Il bullismo femminile a scuola. (...) Un’indagine intersezionale mixed-method_ (Female bullying at school, an intersectional, mixed-method study) – conducted in medium-sized and large cities in northern, central and southern Italy – it proposes a theoretical-analytical framework in which to consider the phenomenon of female bullying in Italian schools. (shrink)

Spectroscopy is a scientific topic at the interface between Chemistry and Physics, which is taught at high school level in relation with its fundamental applications in Analytical Chemistry. In the first part of the paper, the topic of spectroscopy is analyzed having in mind the well-known Johnstone’s triangle of chemistry education, putting in evidence the way spectroscopy is usually taught at the three levels of chemical knowledge: macroscopic/phenomenological, sub-microscopic/molecular and symbolic ones. Among these three levels, following Johnstone’s recommendations the macroscopic (...) one is the most useful for high school students who learn spectroscopy for the first time. Starting from these premises, in the second part of the paper, we propose a didactic sequence which is inspired by the historical evolution of spectroscopic instruments from the first spectroscopes invented by Gustav Kirchhoff and Robert Bunsen in 1860 to the UV–vis spectrophotometers which became common since the 1960s. The idea behind our research is to analyze the conceptual advancements through the history of spectroscopy and to identify the key episodes/experiments and spectroscopic instruments. For each of them, a didactic activity, typically an experiment, is then proposed underlining the relevant aspects from the chemistry education point of view. The present paper is the occasion to reflect on the potentialities of an historical approach combined with a laboratorial one, and to discuss the role of historical instruments and related technological improvements to teach spectroscopy. (shrink)

The official documents of the Parisian Faculty of Arts (starting from the Statute of March 1255) show a close identification between the philosophical sciences and the corresponding textbooks: to learn a particular science means essentially to read certain, prescribed books. The case of theology seems to be different, however. In spite of the fact that the Bible served as a paradigm for the ‘textualization’ of all kinds of knowledge, and even of the whole world, it did not fit perfectly the (...) epistemological criteria which Aristotle’s Posterior analytics established as necessary for every science. Already in the second half of the 13thcentury, both Thomas Aquinas and Henry of Ghent tried to construct theology as a science, in the Aristotelean sense, by appealing respectively to the theory of the subalternation of the sciences and to the doctrine of the lumen medium. The different reactions to these two models by Godfrey of Fontaines, Durandus of Saint-Pourçain and Peter Auriol seem to indicate a process in which theology can constitute itself as a true science only through a broadening of its textual basis, outside the scope of Sacred Scripture. (shrink)