IntroductionAnorexia nervosa promotes psychological distress in caregivers who adopt different coping strategies. Dysfunctional caregiving styles exacerbate further distress in the patient promoting the maintenance of the illness. We aimed to assess the possible contribution of personality traits of caregivers to the adoption of different coping strategies to deal with the affected relative.MethodsAbout 87 adolescents with AN were recruited. Their parents completed the Family Coping Questionnaire for Eating Disorders and the Temperament and Character Inventory-Revised. Differences between mothers and fathers were assessed (...) through the independent sample t-test. Multivariate regression analyses were run to assess if personality traits, the occurrence of psychiatry conditions in the parents, the marital status, and the duration of the illness predicted parental coping strategies.ResultsThe group of mothers showed higher levels of avoidance and seeking for information coping strategies than the sample of fathers. Lower illness duration predicted higher collusion with the illness in both parents. Harm avoidance, cooperativeness, and self-directedness positively predicted parental coercion, collusion, and seeking for information strategies with some differences between mothers and fathers.DiscussionIllness duration and personality traits of parents affect the type of parental coping strategies developed to face AN in adolescents. These variables should be considered in the assessment of families of adolescents with AN and may be addressed to promote more fine-tuned clinical interventions for caregivers. (shrink)

Graduate Papers from the 2022 Joint Session. It is often said that Aristotle takes geometrical objects to be absolutely unmovable and unchangeable. However, Greek geometrical practice does appeal to motion and change, and geometers seem to consider their objects apt to be manipulated. In this paper, I examine if and how Aristotle’s philosophy of geometry can account for the geometers’ practices and way of talking. First, I illustrate three different ways in which Greek geometry appeals to change. Second, I examine (...) Aristotle’s ontology of geometrical objects and argue that although the truth-makers of geometrical statements are in fact unmovable because they are properties of sensible objects, geometers ‘separate them in thought’ and treat them as substances apt to be modified. Finally, I examine whether allowing for the possibility of manipulating these semi-fictional geometrical individuals creates problems for the applicability of geometry. I find that it does not, insofar as one accepts that geometry is not meant to track physical change but merely to study the instantaneous geometrical configuration of sensible bodies, and is thus only applicable at the instant. (shrink)

This book offers a reflection on the central role that the ethics of informed consent plays in Rapid Tissue Donation. RTD is an advanced oncology procedure that involves the procurement, for research purposes, of “fresh” tissues within two to six hours of a cancer patient’s death. Since RTD involves the retrieval of tissues after death, and since the collected tissues are of great importance for medical research, the need for any form of informed consent to regulate this procedure has been (...) questioned. This book argues for the necessity of informed consent to govern RTD, and it provides the reader with a bespoke informed consent process applicable to cancer patients. The analysis unfolds at the intersection between applied ethics, public health ethics, and clinical ethics, and it is informed by philosophical theories of informed consent and by the social implications of individual choices. By viewing medical issues relating to informed consent in oncology from an ethical perspective, the book combines philosophical analysis with discussion of concrete cancer-related issues. As a result, the book is suitable for readers interested in ethical reasoning as well as for those with a medical background. It contributes to contemporary research by offering an original analysis that relies on a rigorous philosophical approach to address innovative issues at the cutting edge of medical research and policy making. (shrink)

Secondo il Ministero dell'Interno, i Centri di accoglienza per richiedenti asilo sono strutture nelle quali viene inviato e ospitato lo straniero richiedente asilo privo di documenti di riconoscimento o che si č sottratto al controllo di frontiera, per consentire l'identificazione o la definizione della procedura di riconoscimento dello status di rifugiato. I CARA ospitano richiedenti asilo, persone in fuga da guerre e persecuzioni, che hanno spesso il primo confronto con lo Stato italiano a cui chiedono protezione attraverso queste strutture dalle (...) enormi dimensioni, collocate per lo piů in zone isolate e lontane dai centri cittadini, all'interno di ex caserme o di aeroporti militari dismessi, per un tempo che supera quasi regolarmente i ventitrentacinque giorni previsti dalla legge. Come si concilia l'esigenza di dare pronta accoglienza a un alto numero di persone con la richiesta di protezione e di accoglienza qualificata dovuta a ogni essere umano e ancor piů a potenziali rifugiati con alta incidenza di casi vulnerabili? Qual č il rapporto fra assistenza e segregazione, efficienza e tutela, principi economici e di diritto, sicurezzarifugiati e sicurezzarifugiati? (shrink)

- In questo articolo si interroga il nesso tra democrazia, cittadinanza e fenomeno migratorio indagando quali effetti puň avere la presenza di milioni di persone prive della cittadinanza del paese in cui risiedono. In particolare, il saggio approfondisce il tema della cittadinanza concentrandosi sui processi di cittadinanza sostanziale, sulle pratiche condivise che costruiscono identitÀ, sentimento di appartenenza e sistemi di solidarietÀ. Si rileva quindi che molti stranieri residenti si ‘comportano' da cittadini anche quando non lo sono sulla carta e talvolta (...) le stesse istituzioni si relazionano ad essi riconoscendo loro "frammenti" di cittadinanza. D'altra parte, non sempre a un riconoscimento formale corrisponde un riconoscimento sostanziale. La combinazione di questi fattori non puň che allargare le fila di chi č - o si sente - escluso dalla democrazia. (shrink)

An l-hemi-implicative semilattice is an algebra \\) such that \\) is a semilattice with a greatest element 1 and satisfies: for every \, \ implies \ and \. An l-hemi-implicative semilattice is commutative if if it satisfies that \ for every \. It is shown that the class of l-hemi-implicative semilattices is a variety. These algebras provide a general framework for the study of different algebras of interest in algebraic logic. In any l-hemi-implicative semilattice it is possible to define an (...) derived operation by \ \wedge \). Endowing \\) with the binary operation \ the algebra \\) results an l-hemi-implicative semilattice, which also satisfies the identity \. In this article, we characterize the commutative l-hemi-implicative semilattices. We also provide many new examples of l-hemi-implicative semilattice on any semillatice with greatest element. Finally, we characterize congruences on the classes of l-hemi-implicative semilattices introduced earlier and we characterize the principal congruences of l-hemi-implicative semilattices. (shrink)

Motivated by an old construction due to J. Kalman that relates distributive lattices and centered Kleene algebras we define the functor K • relating integral residuated lattices with 0 with certain involutive residuated lattices. Our work is also based on the results obtained by Cignoli about an adjunction between Heyting and Nelson algebras, which is an enrichment of the basic adjunction between lattices and Kleene algebras. The lifting of the functor to the category of residuated lattices leads us to study (...) other adjunctions and equivalences. For example, we treat the functor C whose domain is cuRL, the category of involutive residuated lattices M whose unit is fixed by the involution and has a Boolean complement c. If we restrict to the full subcategory NRL of cuRL of those objects that have a nilpotent c, then C is an equivalence. In fact, C M is isomorphic to C e M, and C e is adjoint to, where assigns to an object A of IRL0 the product A × A 0 which is an object of NRL. (shrink)

Si no es posible comprender el desarrollo de El Capital sin conocer la Ciencia de la lógica, se busca trazar los lineamientos generales para alcanzar dicha comprensión. En seis tesis se ponen de relieve algunos aspectos importantes del pensamiento de Marx que han sido poco tratados, y se dialoga con la tradición marxista para señalar ciertos equívocos y resaltar algunas interpretaciones. Esto permite ofrecer un nuevo cuadro para entender la actitud crítica que adopta el "último" Marx frente a la dialéctica (...) de su maestro. Because it is not possible to comprehend Capital without knowing the Science of Logic, this article aims to chart some general guidelines to reach such an understanding. In six thesis, I highlight some important aspects of Marx's thought that have been little treated and dialog with the Marxist tradition to indicate certain equivocations and highlight some interpretations. This offers a new framework to understand the critical attitude that the "mature" Marx adopted regarding his teacher's dialect. (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...

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.

Why government outsourcing of public powers is making us less free Many governmental functions today—from the management of prisons and welfare offices to warfare and financial regulation—are outsourced to private entities. Education and health care are funded in part through private philanthropy rather than taxation. Can a privatized government rule legitimately? The Privatized State argues that it cannot. In this boldly provocative book, Chiara Cordelli argues that privatization constitutes a regression to a precivil condition—what philosophers centuries ago called "a (...) state of nature." Developing a compelling case for the democratic state and its administrative apparatus, she shows how privatization reproduces the very same defects that Enlightenment thinkers attributed to the precivil condition, and which only properly constituted political institutions can overcome—defects such as provisional justice, undue dependence, and unfreedom. Cordelli advocates for constitutional limits on privatization and a more democratic system of public administration, and lays out the central responsibilities of private actors in contexts where governance is already extensively privatized. Charting a way forward, she presents a new conceptual account of political representation and novel philosophical theories of democratic authority and legitimate lawmaking. The Privatized State shows how privatization undermines the very reason political institutions exist in the first place, and advocates for a new way of administering public affairs that is more democratic and just. (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)

Le Quaestiones 2 («Se l’oggetto adeguato della conoscenza divina sia l’essenza di Dio o l’ente universale») e 3 («Se le creature secondo le loro proprie nature e le loro essenze siano vita in Dio e nel Verbo») della Distinctio 35 dello Scriptum di Pietro Aureoli sono importanti per la ricostruzione sia del pensiero del loro autore che della storia della dottrina delle idee divine nel Medioevo. Aureoli rifiuta il modello tradizionale di causalità esemplare, secondo cui Dio avrebbe creato il mondo (...) sulla base di modelli archetipi esistenti dall’eternità nella sua mente. Ricorrendo al concetto di aequivocatio, stabilisce che l’essenza di Dio è in maniera equivoca l’unico esemplare per tutte le creature ed elabora, così, la teoria della causalità esemplare equivoca. (shrink)

In this paper we expand previous results obtained in [2] about the study of categorical equivalence between the category IRL 0 of integral residuated lattices with bottom, which generalize MV-algebras and a category whose objects are called c-differential residuated lattices. The equivalence is given by a functor ${{\mathsf{K}^\bullet}}$ , motivated by an old construction due to J. Kalman, which was studied by Cignoli in [3] in the context of Heyting and Nelson algebras. These results are then specialized to the case (...) of MV-algebras and the corresponding category ${MV^{\bullet}}$ of monadic MV-algebras induced by “Kalman’s functor” ${\mathsf{K}^\bullet}$ . Moreover, we extend the construction to ℓ-groups introducing the new category of monadic ℓ-groups together with a functor ${\Gamma ^\sharp}$ , that is “parallel” to the well known functor ${\Gamma}$ between ℓ and MV-algebras. (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)

We develop an account of how mutually inconsistent models of the same target system can provide coherent information about the system. Our account makes use of ideas from the debate surrounding rob...

Clinical Ethics Committees (CECs), as distinct from Research Ethics Committees, were originally established with the aim of supporting healthcare professionals in managing controversial clinical ethical issues. However, it is still unclear whether they manage to accomplish this task and what is their impact on clinical practice. This systematic review aims to collect available assessments of CECs’ performance as reported in literature, in order to evaluate CECs’ effectiveness. We retrieved all literature published up to November 2019 in six databases (PubMed, Ovid (...) MEDLINE, Scopus, Philosopher’s Index, Embase and Web of Science), following PRISMA guidelines. We included only articles specifically addressing CECs and providing any form of CECs performance assessment. Twenty-nine articles were included. Ethics consultation was the most evaluated of CECs’ functions. We did not find standardized tools for measuring CECs’ efficacy, but 33% of studies considered “user satisfaction” as an indicator, with 94% of them reporting an average positive perception of CECs’ impact. Changes in patient treatment and a decrease of moral distress in health personnel were reported as additional outcomes of ethics consultation. The highly diverse ways by which CECs carry out their activities make CECs’ evaluation difficult. The adoption of shared criteria would be desirable to provide a reliable answer to the question about their effectiveness. Nonetheless, in general both users and providers consider CECs as helpful, relevant to their work, able to improve the quality of care. Their main function is ethics consultation, while less attention seems to be devoted to bioethics education and policy formation. (shrink)

This paper is an attempt to think through paranoia’s epistemic and affective features, which pervade both the worldview presented in Senecan tragedy and the inner life of many of its protagonists. Drawing upon recent literary-critical work, I argue that paranoia is temporally and epistemically ambivalent: subjects simultaneously attempt to “get ahead” of a looming cataclysm—looking to the future in an attempt to avert disaster—while inevitably “falling behind,” failing to predict or preempt the future in time to protect themselves. Much of (...) Senecan tragedy plays out paranoia’s future-oriented vigilance on the formal level. Foreshadowing, allusions, and meta-literary flourishes serve to render both readers and characters hyperaware of the earth-shattering horrors to come; however, in doing so, they also reveal that this forward-oriented bracing only serves to dredge up negative affect in advance. By contrast, I argue that Seneca’s Phoenissae thematizes in the character of Oedipus not only paranoia’s future-looking vigilance but also its inherent lagging, the failure to know and act in advance. These elements of slowness, stuckness, and delay open a space for stillness, relief, and intimacy, even within a narrative which hurtles toward cataclysm. (shrink)

Let L be a commutative residuated lattice and let f : Lk → L a function. We give a necessary and sufficient condition for f to be compatible with respect to every congruence on L. We use this characterization of compatible functions in order to prove that the variety of commutative residuated lattices is locally affine complete. Then, we find conditions on a not necessarily polynomial function P(x, y) in L that imply that the function x ↦ min{y є L (...) | P(x, y) ⪯ y} is compatible when defined. In particular, Pn(x, y) = yn → x, for natural number n, defines a family, Sn, of compatible functions on some commutative residuated lattices. We show through examples that S1> and S2, defined respectively from P1 and P2, are independent as operations over this variety; i.e. neither S1 is definable as a polynomial in the language of L enriched with S2 nor S2 in that enriched with S1. (shrink)

In the philosophy of science and epistemology literature, robustness analysis has become an umbrella term that refers to a variety of strategies. One of the main purposes of this paper is to argue that different strategies rely on different criteria for justifications. More specifically, I will claim that: i) robustness analysis differs from de-idealization even though the two concepts have often been conflated in the literature; ii) the comparison of different model frameworks requires different justifications than the comparison of models (...) that differ only for the assumption under test; iii) the replacement of specific assumptions with different ones can encounter specific difficulties in scientific practice. These claims will be supported by a case study in population ecology and a case study in geographical economics. (shrink)

The COVID-19 outbreak has seen people in many countries asked to radically modify their way of life in compliance with sweeping safety measures. During the current crisis, technology is turning out to be key, in that it allows practitioners to deliver psychological services to people who would otherwise be unreachable. However, professionals cannot solely rely on their traditional modes of practice, in that different methods are required to bring to light the needs of those affected by the emergency. People are (...) being overwhelmed by a cascade of unusual and unexpected events that are putting a strain on their everyday routines and usual meaning-making systems; ongoing challenges to their employment and financial status will likely divert personal resources away from psychological well-being. We therefore argue that psychologists should also consider the needs of the general population. Among those who may require help – aside from the main targets of psychological intervention, such as healthcare personnel and COVID-19 patients and their relatives – specific attention should be paid to those who are not at the center of the crisis. We suggest that this large segment of potential users may benefit from a non-medical approach focused on the promotion of meaning-making processes. Indeed, the disruptive nature of the current situation hinders sense-making and threatens to undermine psychological balance and well-being, at an individual as well as at a societal level. The present article proposes a methodological perspective based on the reconstruction of meaning-making processes (sense of coherence, predictability, metaphors, narratives). Specifically, psychological interventions should promote personal and collective resources with a view to: “normalizing” current distressful experiences (i.e., acknowledging that such reactions are normal in light of the present situation); widening the observational field, taking relational contexts into account, and promoting an understanding of distressful experiences as coping strategies; fostering meaning-making/reconstruction processes through the use of appropriate metaphors and narratives; promoting a sense of coherence. We present two clinical vignettes to illustrate how these principles might be applied in practice. In conclusion, the exceptional psychological challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic require practitioners to adopt a broad and flexible perspective on clinical intervention. (shrink)

This work extend to residuated lattices the results of [ 7 ]. It also provides a possible generalization to this context of frontal operators in the sense of [ 9 ]. Let L be a residuated lattice, and f : L k → L a function. We give a necessary and sufficient condition for f to be compatible with respect to every congruence on L . We use this characterization of compatible functions in order to prove that the variety of (...) residuated lattices is locally affine complete. We study some compatible functions on residuated lattices which are a generalization of frontal operators. We also give conditions for two operations P ( x , y ) and Q ( x , y ) on a residuated lattice L which imply that the function $${x \mapsto min\{y \in L : P(x, y) \leq Q(x, y)\}}$$ when defined, is equational and compatible. Finally we discuss the affine completeness of residuated lattices equipped with some additional operators. (shrink)

Friedrich Albert Lange is usually regarded as a representative of physiological neo-Kantianism or as a forerunner of the Marburg school of neo-Kantianism. In this paper I try to reconstruct Lange’s theory of values to argue that his philosophy is better framed as an intermediate point in the development of the two-world theory (facts/values) between Hermann Lotze and Southwestern neo-Kantianism.

A hemi-implicative lattice is an algebra \((A,\wedge,\vee,\rightarrow,1)\) of type (2, 2, 2, 0) such that \((A,\wedge,\vee,1)\) is a lattice with top and for every \(a,b\in A\), \(a\rightarrow a = 1\) and \(a\wedge (a\rightarrow b) \le b\). A new variety of hemi-implicative lattices, here named sub-Hilbert lattices, containing both the variety generated by the \(\{\wedge,\vee,\rightarrow,1\}\) -reducts of subresiduated lattices and that of Hilbert lattices as proper subvarieties is defined. It is shown that any sub-Hilbert lattice is determined (up to isomorphism) by (...) a triple (_L_, _D_, _S_) which satisfies the following conditions: _L_ is a bounded distributive lattice, _D_ is a sublattice of _L_ containing 0, 1 such that for each \(a, b \in L\) there is an element \(c \in D\) with the property that for all \(d \in D\), \(a \wedge d \le b\) if and only if \(d \le c\) (we write \(a \rightarrow _D b\) for the element _c_), and _S_ is a non void subset of _L_ such that _S_ is closed under \(\rightarrow _D\) and _S_, with its inherited order, is itself a lattice. Finally, the congruences of sub-Hilbert lattices are studied. (shrink)

Medical complicity in torture is prohibited by international law and codes of professional ethics. But in the many countries in which torture is common, doctors frequently are expected to assist unethical acts that they are unable to prevent. Sometimes these doctors face a dilemma: they are asked to provide diagnoses or treatments that respond to genuine health needs but that also make further torture more likely or more effective. The duty to avoid complicity in torture then comes into conflict with (...) the doctor’s duty to care for patients. Sometimes the right thing for a doctor to do requires complicity in torture. Whether this is the case depends on: the expected consequences of the doctor’s actions; the wishes of the patient; and the extent of the doctor’s complicity with wrongdoing. Medical associations can support physicians who face this dilemma while maintaining a commitment to clear principles denouncing torture. (shrink)

Compromise arises in contexts where irreconcilable claims must nonetheless somehow be resolved. Ordinary people in everyday life, politicians and artists, doctors engaging in research, humanitarian workers providing aid in the midst of war – all of them will have faced situations where compromise appeared to be the only reasonable option, and yet will have felt that there was nevertheless something deeply wrong with it. The aim of this paper is to help make sense of that sentiment. The focus of this (...) paper will be on some aspects of the morality of compromise. Its lynchpin will be to construe compromise as a joint action, in particular, a joint wrongdoing – taking part in, and sharing responsibility for, the doing of things that are wrong from the point of view of those who are the parties to the compromise. The question of ‘what is wrong with compromise?’ is thus recast as a question of ‘what is my part in the wrongs being done as part of the compromise?’ It is tempting to suppose that a compromise serves to dilute personal responsibility, parsing it out among parties to the compromise. Viewing a compromise as a joint action, in contrast, will help us to see how a compromise actually increases responsibility among parties to it. They are now jointly collaborating in some action that each of them sees as wrong, at least in part (albeit in differing parts). Discussions of compromise traditionally prioritize the inter-personal aspect – compromise, in the transitive form of ‘compromising with’ someone. But I argue that the intransitive form – ‘compromise of’ – deserves pride of place. The reason for prioritizing the intransitive ‘compromise of’ is simple: that is what is involved in the intra-personal calculation that must, of necessity, go on inside one's own head in the process of deciding whether or not to agree to a 'compromise with' someone else. In this paper I shall concentrate specifically on compromises of principles, or (more precisely) on ‘matters of principled concern to the compromising parties’. Not only is that the most troubling and morally problematic sort of compromise, it is also logically the most central case. I demonstrate that that is so by shifting the focus from inter-personal compromise to the more fundamental intra-personal process underlying it – the compromise we are involved in when adjudicating among our own conflicting values, to decide whether or not to agree to a compromise of the inter-personal sort. This is the subject of the first section of the paper below. Compromise involves resolving conflicts of principles through mutual concessions that are accepted and undertaken by all parties. Doing so may be on-balance desirable, not only from some larger perspective (of social peace, or whatever) but also from each party's own perspective. Nevertheless, from each party's perspective, compromise necessarily involves interacting with, and sometimes contributing to, wrongdoing. Morally, something is lost, even if more is gained on balance. (shrink)

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)

This essay explores how hormone treatments were used to optimize and normalize individuals under Italian Fascism. It does so by taking the activities of the Biotypological Orthogenetic Institute − an Italian eugenics and endocrinological centre founded by Nicola Pende in 1926 − as the prime example of a version of eugenics, biotypology, which was based on hormone therapies. This essay first demonstrates that Italian Fascist biopolitics was not only concerned with increasing the size of the Italian population, but also with (...) improving its quality. It suggests that under the Italian Fascist regime hormone therapies became eugenic tools of intervention to improve the Italian race. Second, while Pende's institute purportedly enhanced men and women, its activities show the extent to which the ‘techniques of normalization’ pursued by the Fascist regime were both systematic and invasive. (shrink)

In Imagining Europe, Chiara Bottici and Benoît Challand explore the formation of modern European identity. Europe has not always been there, although we have been imagining it for quite some time. Even after the birth of a polity called the European Union, the meaning of Europe remained a very much contested topic. What is Europe? What are its boundaries? Is there a specific European identity or is the EU just the name for a group of institutions? This book answers (...) these questions, showing that in Europe's formation, myth and memory, although distinct, are often merged in a common attempt to construct an identity for its present and its future. In a time when Europe is facing an existential crisis, when its meaning is being questioned, Imagining Europe explores a vital and often unacknowledged aspect of the European project. (shrink)

In this paper we study the variety of order Hilbert algebras, which is the equivalent algebraic semantics of the order implicational calculus of Bull.

Friedrich Albert Lange was a neo-Kantian and a socialist. Scholars have questioned whether there is a connection between these two aspects of Lange’s work. The paper argues that such a connection is apparent once Lange’s philosophy is understood in light of Schiller’s Kantianism. According to Lange, Schiller’s aesthetic redemption consists of two tasks: to create the beautiful image of an ideal reality; and to realize this ideal model in the actual world. Accordingly, I show that Lange’s political analysis points to (...) three different types of social evolution: 1) one corresponding to the natural state of humanity, based on Darwin’s and Malthus’s concept of the struggle for survival; 2) one corresponding to ideal evolution, in which all human beings achieve full development of their talents (first task of the esthetic redemption); 3) one corresponding to the actual realization of this ideal, in which human beings advance step by step thanks to social experimentation and the resulting progress in knowledge (second task of esthetic redemption). (shrink)

Mathematics reinterpreted as political practice and not just as theory constitutes an extraordinary exercise in democracy: like democracy, it is based on a system of rules, creates groups, and works on relationships. Like democracy, mathematics widens but doesn't nullify things. By studying mathematics one can understand many things about truth. For instance, the fact that truths are shared and therefore the principles of authority do not exist; the fact that all truths are absolute but transient because they depend on the (...) set of definitions and on the surrounding conditions. Solving a mathematical problem is an exercise in democracy because those who do not accept error and do not strive to understand the world are not able to change or govern it. In her polemical pamphlet Chiara Valerio pieces together a parallel between mathematics and democracy, two fields that do not succumb to the dictatorship of urgency--Translated from back cover. (shrink)

Displacing the physiological model that had held sway in 19th-century medical thinking, early 20th-century hormone research promoted an understanding of the body and sexual desires in which variations in sex characteristics and non-reproductive sexual behaviours such as homosexuality were attributed to anomalies in the internal secretions produced by the testes or the ovaries. Biotypology, a new brand of medical science conceived and led by the Italian endocrinologist Nicola Pende, employed hormone research to study human types and hormone treatments to normalise (...) individuals who did not conform to accepted medical norms. Latin American medical doctors, eugenicists, and sexologists took up biotypology with enthusiasm. This article considers the case studies of Italy, Argentina, and Brazil, and analyses the work of medical doctors who adopted a biotypological mode of reasoning and employed to various extents hormone therapies in their practice. By focusing on hormone therapies that aimed to normalise secondary sexual characteristics and the sexual instinct, the article suggests that while the existence of normality was contested to the point that a number of medical scientists argued that no such thing existed, the pursuit of normality was carried out in very practical terms through the new medical technologies hormone research had introduced. (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)

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)

Journal of Political Philosophy, EarlyView.