Obiettivo del presente contributo è un esame dei riferimenti al tema del silenzio in alcuni “luoghi” della letteratura socratica. Più particolarmente, l’analisi si concentra sull’importanza riconosciuta alla virtù del σιωπᾶν in due specifici ambiti: 1) l’educazione dei giovani e 2) lo scambio dialogico. Il primo aspetto è indagato soprattutto a partire dal Milziade di Eschine di Sfetto, che presenta positivamente la capacità di tacere nei giovani e che permette di istituire, a questo riguardo, alcuni paralleli con opere non socratiche. Il (...) secondo aspetto, non privo di connessioni con il primo, è invece approfondito soprattutto a partire da un riferimento al ruolo del silenzio nel Protagora platonico, che consente di indagarne la funzione più specificamente anti-sofistica. (shrink)

In the context of climate change, the adoption of pro-environment behaviour is favoured by the understanding of causal passages within climate science. The understanding of the causes of climate change is necessary in order to be able to take mitigation actions (the subject needs to be aware of its role as a causalagent). Conversely, the understanding of the consequences of climate change is essential for rationally managing the risks, especially in cases where adaptation is needed rather than simple mitigation. The (...) case of ozone depletion confirms this view: the understanding of its causal dynamics played a major role in people’sbehavioural response.Para afrontar el cambio climático, la adopción de un comportamiento en favor del medio ambiente se verá favorecida por la comprensión de los argumentos causales de la climatología. La comprensión de las causas del cambio climático es necesario para que seamos capaces de mitigarlo (cada individuo debe ser consciente de su papel como agente causal). La comprensión de las consecuencias del cambio climático es esencial para gestionar racionalmente los riesgos, especialmente en casos en los que más que mitigarlo, debemos intentar adaptarnos. El caso del agujero de la capa de ozono confirma este punto de vista: la comprensión de la dinámica causal desempeñó un papel principal en el cambio de conductas de la gente. (shrink)

Prosocial organizations represent key actors in the quest to promote positive change, foster social impact, and revitalize cities. Notwithstanding their importance in tackling the increasing challenges threatening our society (e.g., pollution, socio-economic inequalities), these actors may not be perceived as salient in the eyes of different stakeholders, and thus their work may be jeopardized by multiple forms of resistance. Scant attention in research has been devoted to understand how prosocial organizations may acquire saliency and navigate these forms of resistance while (...) pursuing urban revitalization. We address this gap by engaging in a qualitative investigation of a Sicilian cultural center. We found that the prosocial organization in our study could navigate different occurrences of resistance and acquire saliency by enacting mechanisms that leveraged the engagement of supporting stakeholders and the idiosyncratic characteristics of place. Our study contributes to the literature about urban revitalization, prosocial organizations, and stakeholder theory—while also complementing research investigating the role of place in management. (shrink)

The global age has confronted human beings with new and numerous challenges, from global poverty, to labour exploitation, to climate change. Many individuals, aware of such challenges, wish to act in solidarity, and give their contribution to countering them. Acting in solidarity in such contexts can be challenging, however, as which actions are most effective for reaching the desired goal is not obvious. Furthermore, an action that is intended in solidarity at times not only fails to promote the desired objective (...) but proves detrimental to it. In this article, I wish to propose a reflection on a prior duty of solidarity action: the epistemic duty to acquire information about the correct way to promote a cause. By analyzing the anti-sweatshop movement and climate action, I will show how acting in solidarity has significant epistemic requirements that should be considered as part of the solidarity action itself. (shrink)

Gendered socialization has prompted numerous attempts to redefine what counts as an autonomous choice. However, there is strong disagreement among feminist theorists over the criteria to identify cases of autonomy impairment _vis-à-vis_ the embeddedness of individuals in patriarchal cultures. I argue that this focus on choice and autonomy has often neglected the costs of non-compliance to social norms and the trade-offs that women make to flourish within their community. Even if we were to find an effective way to determine whether (...) a self-regarding choice calls for state interference because of its socialized nature, we would still lack a sufficient justification for interfering with women’s choices. To justify political action, my claim is that we should also look at the effects that preference interference would have on women within their societal context. Consequently, I develop a non-ideal feminist account aimed chiefly at analysing the costs of proposed feminist change. I shall focus in particular on women’s engagement with practices of body modification for the sake of conforming to gendered standards of appearance, such as cosmetic surgery and hymen restoration. In both cases, I argue that blanket bans risk backfiring into a form of double-jeopardy for those who are already the most vulnerable to gendered oppression, hence they are not justified. However, this does not imply passively accepting the status quo but urges us to reconsider new ways to offset transition costs, making resistance to social norms a collectively shared endeavour rather than a burden that exclusively befalls the most vulnerable. (shrink)

This paper studies the constellations of attitudes––sentimental, moral, epistemological, and social––that three leading psychologists active in turn-of-the-twentieth-century America took to be essential to the production of scientific knowledge. William James, G. Stanley Hall, and Edward Titchener located the virtues and traits proper to the scientific frame of mind, and combined them into normative images of the man of science, or, ‘scientific personae’ as I use the term here. I argue that their competing formulations of the scientific ethos informed their psychological (...) practice and epistemological commitments. James, Hall, and Titchener mobilized their representations of the man of science in order to reconfigure the field of psychology and redefine its boundaries, as well as to promote forms of sociability and define the proper role of scientists both within the academy and in the wider polity. (shrink)

Gendered socialization has prompted numerous attempts to redefine what counts as an autonomous choice. However, there is strong disagreement among feminist theorists over the criteria to identify cases of autonomy impairment _vis-à-vis_ the embeddedness of individuals in patriarchal cultures. I argue that this focus on choice and autonomy has often neglected the costs of non-compliance to social norms and the trade-offs that women make to flourish within their community. Even if we were to find an effective way to determine whether (...) a self-regarding choice calls for state interference because of its socialized nature, we would still lack a sufficient justification for interfering with women’s choices. To justify political action, my claim is that we should also look at the effects that preference interference would have on women within their societal context. Consequently, I develop a non-ideal feminist account aimed chiefly at analysing the costs of proposed feminist change. I shall focus in particular on women’s engagement with practices of body modification for the sake of conforming to gendered standards of appearance, such as cosmetic surgery and hymen restoration. In both cases, I argue that blanket bans risk backfiring into a form of double-jeopardy for those who are already the most vulnerable to gendered oppression, hence they are not justified. However, this does not imply passively accepting the status quo but urges us to reconsider new ways to offset transition costs, making resistance to social norms a collectively shared endeavour rather than a burden that exclusively befalls the most vulnerable. (shrink)

Conversational negation often behaves differently from negation as a logical operator: when rejecting a state of affairs, it does not present all members of the complement set as equally plausible alternatives, but it rather suggests some of them as more plausible than others (e.g., “This is not a dog, it is a wolf/*screwdriver”). Entities that are semantically similar to a negated entity tend to be judged as better alternatives (Kruszewski et al., 2016). In fact, Kruszewski et al. (2016) show that (...) the cosine similarity scores between the distributional semantics representations of a negated noun and its potential alternatives are highly correlated with the negated noun-alternatives human plausibility ratings. In a series of cloze tasks, we show that negation likewise restricts the production of plausible alternatives to similar entities. Furthermore, completions to negative sentences appear to be even more restricted than completions to an affirmative conjunctive context, hinting at a peculiarity of negation. (shrink)

Impact investing is progressively losing focus in ensuring investments really do make a difference; therefore, the growth of the market may not make real social and environmental change. We propose three ways to put the “impact” back into the heart of impact investment.

Il tema della violenza sembra essere la chiave per definire e interpretare la tormentata storia della Colombia. Ciò si riflette anche nell'ampia produzione scientifica sulle cause, la cronologia e i metodi con cui tale una simile violenza è stata perpetuata. Nel 2016, il governo colombiano e le Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) hanno firmato un accordo di pace dopo decenni di conflitto armato, ma la violenza e la questione della terra continuano a rappresentare una sfida per una reale implementazione (...) dell'accordo. Uno dei capitoli più drammatici della storia della violenza in Colombia è quello che riguarda lo sterminio della Unión Patriótica, il partito nato nel 1984 dopo l'accordo di pace firmato dall’allora governo di Belisario Betancur con le FARC. Dal suo debutto nell'arena politica colombiana fino agli anni duemila, ma soprattutto durante gli anni Ottanta, il partito è stato oggetto di una feroce campagna di stigmatizzazione e di un piano di sterminio che ha prodotto più di seimila vittime. Recentemente la Corte Interamericana ha emesso una sentenza in cui riconosce le responsabilità dello Stato colombiano nella trama di violenza, fisica e simbolica, contro il partito della Unión Patriótica. Il presente saggio intende ricostruire quella vicenda storica, partendo dalla ricostruzione del contesto dentro cui è maturato il piano di sterminio, un contesto di impunità e di terrore politico scatenato contro un «nemico interno» visto come qualcosa da estirpare. (shrink)

This book excavates the rhetorical devices that Nietzsche habitually uses and explains how they constitute a distinctive form of philosophical argumentation. Through a sustained analysis of Nietzsche’s rhetorical style, stratagems, and didactic aims in two of his early works (‘On Truth and Lies in a Non-Moral Sense’ and Daybreak) and two of his later works (Beyond Good and Evil and Twilight of the Idols), the book assesses the extent to which Nietzsche's substantial rhetorical arsenal undermines the philosophical claims he is (...) seeking to advance. The four case studies also bring to the fore some of the less palatable aspects of Nietzsche’s thought such as racial-stereotyping, the essentialising of a so-called slave mentality, and the ranking of human beings based on a highly idiosyncratic and prejudiced view of what qualifies as noble and ignoble. (shrink)

Introduction -- Nietzsche's ascetic morality -- The Kanitan rational will and the tyranny of self-overcoming -- Hegel's 'labour of the negative' and the Lacerations of self-negation -- The bitter cup of pur love : Feuerbach and Zarathustra -- Conclusion.

1 In un tentativo d’autodifesa che all’epoca apparve ai più come disperato. Bill Clinton ebbe a dire che l’esistenza o meno del suo affaire con Monica Lewinsky dipendeva da quale significato si sarebbe dovuto attribuire alla semplice parola «è» Che il legame tra le parole e la realtà non sia esattamente come quello immaginato (o, meglio, sperato) da Clinton dovrebbe essere evidente a tutti: sappiamo con ragionevole certezza che l’esistenza di un gran numero di cose non dipende dal significato...

1 In un tentativo d’autodifesa che all’epoca apparve ai più come disperato. Bill Clinton ebbe a dire che l’esistenza o meno del suo affaire con Monica Lewinsky dipendeva da quale significato si sarebbe dovuto attribuire alla semplice parola «è» Che il legame tra le parole e la realtà non sia esattamente come quello immaginato (o, meglio, sperato) da Clinton dovrebbe essere evidente a tutti: sappiamo con ragionevole certezza che l’esistenza di un gran numero di cose non dipende dal significato...

Secondo Levinson (1985) ci sono delle forti disanalogie tra nomi di persona e titoli di opere. In primo luogo «per quel che riguarda i loro rispettivi ruoli nella comprensione e nella interpretazione degli oggetti che denotano». Inoltre, nomi e titoli sarebbero diversi dal momento che la funzione di «facilitare il riferimento è davvero centrale nei nomi di persona, laddove nei titoli tale funzione è tipicamente alla pari o addirittura secondaria rispetto ad altre funzioni». In ciò che segue c...

The essay aims to outline an epistemology of photography through the critical issues that arise from the encounter between photography and sculpture. In particular, it investigates the aesthetic and semiotic constraints that define the specificity of the photographic look with respect to a sculptural three-dimensional vision. The relationship between documentary and art photographs is the main area of research; specifically, the essay tries to highlight the interpretative value that can also be attributed to documentary photography, underlining the boundaries of a (...) complex distinction. A specific section is devoted to Medardo Rosso’s photographs of his own sculptures. Rosso’s work solicits a reflection on the status of photography and on some theoretical problems such as reproducibility, the relationship between original and copy, and the creative gap produced by variation in a series. The artist suggests a peculiar “grammar” of photography by virtue of his relationship with another art – sculpture. (shrink)

Research on emotional labor has consistently shown that women’s jobs require the suppression of anger. But in the debt settlement firms we studied, the women who negotiated with creditors were expected to express anger. We show that what made their anger acceptable was that its expression was preceded and followed by positive emotions. Women were praised for their ability to rapidly shift from anger to warmth and back to anger again. But this ability to shift emotional registers was also seen (...) by employers and coworkers as a function of women’s natural emotional plasticity, and was contrasted unfavorably with men’s emotional consistency. What was gendered was not an emotion but an emotional pattern, with the consequence that women’s emotional labor was simultaneously valued and devalued. (shrink)

This article investigates the origin of the lack of motivation for adopting significant pro-environmental behavior . I identify three main barriers to motivation: the feeling that there is a need for broad collective action that has not yet materialized, the lack of practical knowledge about what an individual can do in his/her daily life to address environmental problems, and insufficient feedback and approval mechanisms. Subsequently, I argue that an individual's social context may contribute in addressing all three. The motivation for (...) the adoption of PEB behavior is connected to social interaction, which at times seems to shape individual behavior to a greater degree than other factors such as direct risk perception. (shrink)

The notion of superstition has a long history of being understood in terms of epistemic and psychological features, although many discussions include its problematic political consequences. I argue that Spinoza’s discussion of superstition in Theological-Political Treatise is an exception. Spinoza connects superstition and piety with the problem of political stability via the notion of obedience, and uses the term “superstitious” to label religious attitudes and practices that undermine civil obedience by establishing demands of allegiance, on the part of the religious (...) authority, that compete with those of the government. Contrary to existing interpretations, I will show that, for Spinoza, “superstition” is not intrinsically characterized by features such as intolerance and anti-intellectualism. In Theological-Political Treatise, practices that clearly shows these traits are labeled as pious, rather than superstitious, precisely because, within certain societies, they foster obedience and therefore stability. One of Spinoza’s goals in TTP is to show that what counts as pious among the ancient Jews or in the Ottoman Empire should be considered superstitious in a more modern, diverse society such as the seventeenth century Dutch Republic, and that libertas philosophandi is the best way to inoculate a society against superstition. (shrink)

The tenth volume of the Frontiers of Japanese Philosophy focuses on the theme of “transition,” dealing with transitory and intermediary phenomena and practices such as translation, transmission, and transformation. Written in English, German and Japanese, the contributions explore a wide range of topics, crossing disciplinary borders between phenomenology, linguistics, feminism, epistemology, aesthetics, political history, martial arts, spiritual practice and anthropology, and bringing Japanese philosophy into cross-cultural dialogue with other philosophical traditions. As exercises in “thinking in transition,” the essays reveal novel (...) modes of doing philosophy as a way of boundary crossing that takes transition not only as an object of inquiry, but also as a method of philosophical practice itself. (shrink)

Review of The Oxford Handbook of Japanese Philosophy by Bret W. Davis (ed.), Oxford University Press, 2022.