Name der Zeitschrift: Paragrana Jahrgang: 26 Heft: 1 Seiten: 46-56.

A quasi un secolo da L’Opera d’arte all’epoca della sua riproducibilità tecnica di Walter Benjamin e mentre si svolge il dibattito sull’agency degli oggetti, il tema di questo articolo è la potenza del «classico» nella cultura contemporanea, per la quale l’ordine cronologico secondo cui gli artefatti vengono prodotti non è più dirimente per comprenderne la valenza storica e la qualità estetica. Se classica è per noi la Cnosso minoica inventata a Creta dall’archeologo Arthur Evans con ampio uso di cemento all’inizio (...) del Novecento, che cosa resta del classico una volta orfano della sua natura di passato? Seguendo l’indicazione dataci da Michel Foucault, per il quale la nostra epoca si organizza secondo criteri spaziali e non temporali, originali e copie dell’arte greco-romana vengono qui pensati come corpi naturali – variamente distribuiti su scala locale e globale –, e i loro rapporti sono descritti mettendo in luce le relazioni topologiche che essi intrattengono, piuttosto di quelle genetiche. Reperti e fossili. Il metodo di riferimento utilizzato è la cladistica: un sistema di visualizzazione in uso nella biologia evolutiva che concepisce la struttura della storia della vita in base a una serie di diagrammi ramificati che rappresentano l’ordine di parentela tra gli organismi, mostrando la via che li collega con maggior probabilità. Invece di spiegare i processi evolutivi come una serie di cause e successivi effetti il cui nesso produce eventi puntuali, la cladistica prevede un ventaglio di possibilità da visualizzare in un punto di congiunzione che rappresenta l’insieme delle caratteristiche condivise che ci aspetteremmo presenti in un ipotetico antenato comune a due o più specie, per differenza da altre. Questo approccio suffraga il paradigma indiziario con cui presenta più di qualche analogia. La storia dei prestiti tra scienze naturali e umane si trova così ulteriormente arricchita. Il fatto di inserire il possibile nel passato, come già suggeriva Henri Bergson, permette di ripensare il processo di imitazione in termini di metamorfosi, e in particolare di «pseudomorfosi». Oswald Spengler si valse di questo termine mineralogico per spiegare come nuove culture penetrino in culture loro aliene di cui assumono la forma pervertendone il contenuto, e venendone a loro volta pervertite, così da dar vita a uno straordinario processo di finzione: questo articolo termina suggerendo che il «classico» è, nelle sue varie incarnazioni, un processo squisitamente pseudomorfico e che proprio questo gli permette di partecipare a quella dialettica tra cultura alta e mondo profano che, secondo lo studioso dei media Boris Groys, è ciò che produce il nuovo. (shrink)

A Giovanna si chiede di dare corpo alle rappresentazioni di cui parla, di riprodurre in forma di figura quelle che per lei sono solo intuizioni mistiche o intellettuali.Si ripropone la medesima illusione del cinema che tenta di tradurre in figura l'immagine mentale di un periodo storico e dei suoi protagonisti.

La precisione di dettagli con cui l’elaborazione delle immagini interviene sempre di più nello sviluppo della ricerca scientifica - si pensi solo all’uso fattone dalle neuroscienze - sollecita il dibattito filosofico a occuparsi di nuovo e da punti di vista diversi dell’antica disputa sul rapporto tra arte e natura. Se oggi si tratta prevalentemente di immagini ottenute al computer, regolamentate fino all’obbligo di dichiarare il programma informatico utilizzato, la questione della Bildlichke...

From November 5 to November 22, 2019, the University of Milan hosts an exhibition in which philosophy and its problems are staged in playful and interactive forms. Like any catalog, this volume also intends to document the objects and themes proposed to the visitor. But it also has a more ambitious goal: to imagine and design the spaces of that Museum of Philosophy which, we are sure, will be created here in Milan, starting from the experience of this exhibition--Translated, via (...) Google, from page 2 of cover. (shrink)

Images are not neutral conveyors of messages shipped around the globe to achieve globalized spectatorship. They are powerful forces that elicit very diverse responses and can resist new visual hegemonies of our global world. Bringing together case studies from the field of media, art, politics, religion, anthropology and science, this volume breaks new ground by reflecting on the very power of images beyond their medial exploitation. The contributions by Hans Belting, Susan Buck-Morss, Georges Didi-Huberman, W.J.T. Mitchell, and Ticio Escobar among (...) others testify that globalization does not necessarily equal homogenization, and that images can open up alternative ways of picturing what is to come. (shrink)

Drawing on philosophy, law and political science, and on a wealth of practical experience delivering emergency medical services in conflict-ridden settings, Lepora and Goodin untangle the complexities surrounding compromise and complicity.

Between the radical, creative capacity of our imagination and the social imaginary we are immersed in is an intermediate space philosophers have termed the imaginal, populated by images or (re)presentations that are presences in themselves. Offering a new, systematic understanding of the imaginal and its nexus with the political, Chiara Bottici brings fresh perspective to the formation of political and power relationships and the paradox of a world rich in imagery yet seemingly devoid of imagination. Bottici begins by defining (...) the difference between the imaginal and the imaginary, locating the imaginal's root meaning in the image and its ability to both characterize a public and establish a set of activities within that public. She identifies the imaginal's critical role in powering representative democracies and its amplification through globalization. She then addresses the troublesome increase in images now mediating politics and the transformation of politics into empty spectacle. The spectacularization of politics has led to its virtualization, Bottici observes, transforming images into processes with an uncertain relationship to reality, and, while new media has democratized the image in a global society of the spectacle, the cloned image no longer mediates politics but does the act for us. Bottici concludes with politics' current search for legitimacy through an invented ideal of tradition, a turn to religion, and the incorporation of human rights language. (shrink)

There is a vast class of things that science has so far almost entirely neglected. They are central to the understanding of physical reality both at an everyday level and at the level of the most fundamental phenomena in physics, yet have traditionally been assumed to be impossible to incorporate into fundamental scientific explanations. They are facts not about what is--the actual--but about what could be: counterfactuals. According to physicist Chiara Marletto, laws about things being possible or impossible may (...) generate an alternative way of providing explanations. This fascinating, far-reaching approach holds promise for revolutionizing the way fundamental physics is formulated, but also for providing essential tools to face existing technological challenges, from delivering the next generation of information-processing devices, beyond the universal quantum computer, to designing AIs. Each chapter in the book delineates how an existing vexed open problem in science can be solved by this radically different approach; and it is augmented by short fictional stories that explicate the main point of the chapter. As Marletto demonstrates, contemplating what is possible can give us a more complete and hopeful picture of the physical world. (shrink)

The current situation around COVID-19 portrays a threat to us in several ways: It imposes uncertainty, a lack of control and reminds us of our own mortality. People around the world have reacted to these threats in seemingly unrelated ways: From stockpiling yeast and toilet paper to favoring nationalist ideas or endorsing conspiratorial beliefs. According to the General Process Model of Threat and Defense the confrontation with a threat - a discrepant experience - makes humans react with both proximal and (...) distal threat responses. While the proximal response manifests in behavioral inhibition that leads to heightened anxious arousal and vigilance, distal responses seek to lower behavioral inhibition and the associated state of anxiety and vigilance through engaging in distal defenses. In the present research, we propose that the reactions to COVID-19 may represent distal defense strategies to the pandemic (in the form of environmental or group related worldview defenses) and therefore can be explained and forecasted by the model. Thus we hypothesized increased perceived COVID-19 threat perception to lead to a proximal threat response in the form of heightened behavioral inhibition. This, in return, should enhance the use of distal defenses (i.e.: several ingroup biases, system justification and conspiratorial beliefs) overlapping with the reactions observed as a response to COVID-19. This hypothesized mediated effect of increased perceived COVID-19 threat on distal defenses was tested in two pre-registered studies: In Study 1 (N = 358) results showed perceived COVID-19 threat to be related to behavioral inhibition and in turn to be associated with increased distal defenses (i.e., higher entitativity, control restoration motivation, passive party support). In Study 2 (N = 348) we manipulated COVID-19 threat salience and found results suggesting the distal defenses of system justification and conspiratorial beliefs to be mediated by the proximal threat response. The results of the present research hint towards a common mechanism through which the seemingly unrelated reactions to COVID-19 can be explained. The results might help to predict future behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic and design measures to counteract detrimental effects of the pandemic. (shrink)

Boredom, in cinema as well as in our everyday experience, is usually associated with a generalised loss of meaning or interest. Accordingly, boredom is often perceived as that which ought to be avo...

This paper investigates Philomela's metamorphosis into a swallow as inferred from Sophocles’ fragmentary Tereus. The first part focusses on the association between the swallow and barbaric language, casting new light on Philomela's characterization in the play. The second investigates the shuttle, the weaving tool which prompts the recognition of Philomela, arguing that the mention of its ‘voice’ in fr. 595 Radt refers not only to the tapestry which it created, but also to the actual sound of the shuttle, which ancient (...) Greeks associated with the swallow, and thus anticipates Philomela's metamorphosis. The representation of Philomela as a speech-impeded and yet vocal character supports the Dionysiac background of the act of vengeance which she and her sister commit. (shrink)

This book offers a multidisciplinary look at the much-debated concept of “personalized medicine”. By combining a humanistic and a scientific approach, the book builds up a multidimensional way to understand the limits and potentialities of a personalized approach in medicine and healthcare. The book reflects on personalized medicine and complex diseases, the relationship between personalized medicine and the new bio-technologies, personalized medicine and personalized nutrition, and on some ethical, political, economic, and social implications of personalized medicine. This volume is of (...) interest to researchers from several disciplines including philosophy, bio-medicine, and the social sciences. (shrink)

In this chapter, I will present an empirical conjecture to the effect that some bodily actions are categorically perceived. These are bodily actions such as grasping or reaching for something, which I am going to call motor actions. My conjecture builds on one recently put forward about how the categorical perception of facial expressions of some emotions works. I shall motivate my own conjecture on the basis of both theoretical and empirical considerations, describe how it could be operationalised and what (...) explanatory gain could be obtained from it. (shrink)

Il presente contributo mira a gettare luce sulla figura ebraica dello Schlemihl, per come questa è venuta ad assumere, nei discorsi di Rahel Varnhagen, Hannah Arendt e Lea Ritter Santini, la funzione extra-letteraria di dispositivo di riconoscimento e schema esistenziale. È nella triangolazione dei discorsi e delle vite di queste tre intellettuali appartenenti, ognuna a suo modo, alla cultura tedesca, che la figura dello Schlemihl ha esemplarmente dispiegato la sua forza genetica, come metafora di un destino in cui, fin dal (...) momento del suo apparire letterario nella società dei salotti berlinesi di primo Ottocento grazie ad Adelbert von Chamisso, hanno riconosciuto se stesse coloro che hanno dovuto ritagliare la propria vita sul fondamento dello sradicamento e di una esclusione primigenia. In quella che potrebbe essere compresa come una vera e propria genealogia, il riferirsi allo Schlemihl di Rahel Varnhagen, Hannah Arendt e Lea Ritter Santini restituisce il senso comune di uno sfaccettato subire e agire lo sradicamento, entro la cornice di un discorso prismatico – sotto forma di lettere, saggi e poesie – che nel nutrirsi di vita e pensiero ha saputo raccontare la marginalità nelle sue forme differenti e contigue. (shrink)

In this book, originally published in 2007, Chiara Bottici argues for a philosophical understanding of political myth. Bottici demonstrates that myth is a process, one of continuous work on a basic narrative pattern that responds to a need for significance. Human beings need meaning in order to master the world they live in, but they also need significance in order to live in a world that is less indifferent to them. This is particularly true in the realm of politics. (...) Political myths are narratives through which we orient ourselves, and act and feel about our political world. Bottici shows that in order to come to terms with contemporary phenomena, such as the clash between civilizations, we need a Copernican revolution in political philosophy. If we want to save reason, we need to look at it from the standpoint of myth. (shrink)

Whereas “professional vision” has been mostly analyzed in apprenticeship and other settings where knowledge is made explicit or reflected upon, I focus on how expertise tacitly plays out in task-oriented interaction among practitioners. The paper considers orientation both to the coworker’s and one’s own expertise in the collaborative accomplishment of airport security work. I show how screeners recruit action from colleagues in largely underspecified ways, based on shared access to the visibility field and expected professional vision. Requesting is tacitly accomplished (...) via “highlighting,” which also accounts for one’s request. Accepting is silently achieved via locomotion, which also serves as a display of understanding. Embodied action is systematically preferred to verbal one. Talk is employed in larger proportions when the domain of scrutiny is not equally accessible to interactants, and when “face-work” is required. (shrink)

After initially emerging in China, the coronavirus outbreak has advanced rapidly. The World Health Organization has recently declared it a pandemic, with Europe becoming its new epicentre. Italy has so far been the most severely hit European country and demand for critical care in the northern region currently exceeds its supply. This raises significant ethical concerns, among which is the allocation of scarce resources. Professionals are considering the prioritisation of patients most likely to survive over those with remote chances, and (...) this news has triggered an intense debate about the right of every individual to access healthcare. The proposed analysis suggests that the national emergency framework in which prioritisation criteria are currently enforced should not lead us to perceive scarce resources allocation as something new. From an ethical perspective, the novelty of the current emergency is not grounded in the devastating effects of scarce resources allocation, which is rife in recent and present clinical practice. Rather, it has to do with the extraordinarily high number of people who find themselves personally affected by the implications of scarce resources allocation and who suddenly realise that the principle of ‘equals should be treated equally’ may no longer be applicable. Along with the need to allocate appropriate additional financial resources to support the healthcare system, and thus to mitigate the scarcity of resources, the analysis insists on the relevance of a medical ethics perspective that does not place the burden of care and choice solely on physicians. (shrink)

I develop an account of scientific representations building on Charles S. Peirce's rich, and still underexplored, notion of iconicity. Iconic representations occupy a central place in Peirce's philosophy, in his innovative approach to logic and in his practice as a scientist. Starting from a discussion of Peirce's approach to diagrams, I claim that Peirce's own representations are in line with his formulation of iconicity, and that they are more broadly connected to the pragmatist philosophy he developed in parallel with his (...) scientific work. I then defend the contemporary relevance of Peirce's approach to iconic representations, and specifically argue that Peirce offers a useful ‘third way’ between what Mauricio Suárez has recently described as the ‘analytical’ and ‘practical’ inquiries into the concept of representation. As a philosophically minded scientist and an experimentally inclined philosopher, Peirce never divorced the practice of representing from questions about what counts as a representation... (shrink)

This study analyses for the first time whether and when moral distress may be related to work-family conflict and burnout. Additionally, this study examines whether resilience and positive refocusing might protect healthcare professionals from the negative effects of moral distress. A total of 153 Italian healthcare professionals completed self-report questionnaires. Simple and moderated mediation models revealed that moral distress was positively related to burnout, directly and indirectly, as mediated by work-family conflict. Highly resilient professionals experienced low work-family conflict, regardless of (...) moral distress levels. Moreover, professionals who frequently used positive refocusing were less vulnerable to burnout following moral distress. (shrink)

This study offers a new interpretation of the poem of the founder of Western philosophy: Parmenides. It shows that there is more in his poem than the description of Being by means of negative adjectives such as ingenerated and immobile. His words ask his audience to question their habits, to modify their goals, to engage in new enterprises and to look with a critical eye at their previous attempts to get knowledge. It operates as a travel guide that leads the (...) audience on a journey that will educate them and help them to gradually become philosophically mature, to become true themselves, which can also be described as the encouragement to become Being. (shrink)

The classification of the sciences is one of the most discussed and analysed aspects of Peirce’s corpus of work. I propose that Peirce’s attempt at systematising the sciences is characterised by a distinctive historicity, which I construe in two complementary senses. First, I investigate Peirce’s classification as part of a broader nineteenth-century move toward classifying the sciences, a move that was at the same time motivated by social and epistemological goals. I claim that this re-contextualisation adds an entirely new layer (...) to the otherwise distinctively internalist readings of Peirce’s classification. I then look at how Peirce’s scheme, especially in the form it displayed in the early 1890s, relates to his own historical writings, particularly his history of science. Looking at Peirce as a historical actor in his own right through the lens of his classification, I claim, is indispensable to understand the contemporary relevance of his contributions to the history and historiography of the sciences. (shrink)

How should we account for the planning and performance of a bodily action in terms of the agent’s intentions? An influential answer invokes two distinct kinds of intention: intentions for the future (also known as prior intentions or distal intentions), responsible for action planning, and intentions for the present (also known as intentions in action or proximal intentions), responsible for action performance. I argue that there is something wrong with this influential answer: the notion of intention for the present is (...) either superfluous (because intentions for the future can exercise functions associated both with action planning and with action performance) or ambiguous (because it conflates temporal, functional, and content-related aspects). Developing this criticism will lead to an alternative account of action planning and performance based on intentions of just one kind. (shrink)

In this chapter, we examine Iris Murdoch’s views about art. We highlight continuities and differences between her views on art and aesthetics, and those of Plato, Kant, and Freud. We argue that Murdoch’s views about art, though traditionally linked to Plato, are more compatible with Kant’s thought than has been acknowledged—though with his ethics rather than his aesthetics. Murdoch shows Plato’s influence in her idea that beauty is the good in a different guise. However, Murdoch shows a more Kantian than (...) Platonic influence in her suggestion that the experience of beauty can be conducive to virtue, and distances herself from Plato in her claim that the enjoyment, as well as the production, of certain kinds of art can be virtuous. We also argue that her view of bad art as self-consoling fantasy is consonant with Freudian thought. Lastly, we question her view of bad art, specifically concerning her identification of bad art as self-consoling fantasy or entertainment, and her separation of the latter and good art. (shrink)