On December 29, 1918, the Spartakus League, a Marxist revolutionary movement, rose up in Germany calling for an end to class rule by the bourgeoisie. Massive demonstrations followed and more than 500,000 Berliners took to the streets in January--only to be crushed by police and anticommunist paramilitary troops. Several leaders of the League were killed and the revolt was quashed. Through a detailed reconstruction of the events of that bloody winter, historian and critic Furio Jesi recasts our understanding (...) of a foundational political difference--revolt or revolution? Drawing on a deep reserve of literary sources like Brecht, Eliade, Dostoyevsky, and Mann, Jesi outlines a uniquely incisive phenomenology of revolt that distinguishes between the purposeful historical temporality of revolution and the suspension of time that marks a revolt. And with the addition of an essay on the politics of time and revolution by Rosa Luxemburg, a founding leader of the Spartakus League, this volume becomes a crucial text at the intersection of history and philosophy. (shrink)

Furio Jesi to Max Brod (Turin, le 15 Janvier 1965) - L'esploratore della Kabbalah. Scholem e i mistici - Furio Jesi in «La Stampa», 7 Marzo 1980 - Furio Jesi to Gershom Scholem (Turin, le 26 Novembre 1966) - Gershom Scholem to Furio Jesi (Jerusalem, 1.4.1973) - Furio Jesi to Gershom Scholem (Novara, 28.5.1973).

In 1980, Furio Jesi admitted that he agreed with Swift's Gulliver, who regarded himself almost like a "houyhnhnm", one of the intelligent horses he met during his travels. Cavalletti's essay introduces this Dossierabout Jesi by tracing the secret symmetry between the mythologist, the Jew, the passionate reader of Kafka. These multiple personification of Jesi allows to reach a level of writing which is not only characterized by a historical and learned research, but also involves a personal, (...) intimate and biographical dimension. Thus, the subject matter of Jesi's research provides the opportunity for a narrative which is also a research of the self. (shrink)

El presente artículo estudia el desarrollo y el sentido teórico de la posición epistemológica de Furio Jesi respecto al problema del mito y de la ciencia del mito. La comprensión de esta posición epistemológica requerirá un análisis breve de su relación con la ciencia del mito precedente y de la configuración del modelo gnoseológico de la “máquina mitológica”, así como de su potencia crítica y política. Finalmente, el artículo analizará la aplicación que Jesi diese a su modelo (...) teórico para el estudio de los neofascismos en Cultura di destra. (shrink)

En el siguiente artículo se propone una lectura de L’aperto: l’uomo e l’animale de Giorgio Agamben a partir de aspectos que han sido dejados de lado, como su vínculo con el resto de la obra agambeniana, la singular teorización de un mesianismo ni animal ni humano y antiespecista, su aporte a los estudios críticos animales, pero sobre todo, se trata de prestar atención al detalle, pues como señalaba Aby Warburg, el buen Dios se esconde en el detalle. El detalle que (...) ha pasado desapercibido es el último epígrafe del libro adjudicado a Furio Jesi en el que se lee: «Esoterismo significa: articulaciones de modos de no-conocimiento». En el artículo se expone el esoterismo de Rainer Maria Rilke según Furio Jesi y cómo él resulta determinante en la filosofía agambeniana para pensar una vía de salida a la máquina antropológica. (shrink)

Through a comment of the correspondence between Furio Jesi and Gershom Sholem, the author explores the tension between atheism and Judaism that, according to the same Jesi, characterized his own research. His studies on the myth and the mystique and the mediation of Scholem did not only allow Jesi to get on top of his own biography of "half Jew". Being nameless and hidden, the God of the Jews seems also to legitimize and justify Jesi's (...) attempt to develop his research on religious beliefs without assuming the existence of a god. (shrink)

Politics is hugely complex. Some try to reduce its complexity by examining it through an ideological worldview, a one-size-fits-all prescriptive formula or a quantitative examination of as many 'facts' as possible. Yet politics cannot be adequately handled as if it were made of cells and particles: ideological views are oversimplifying and sometimes dangerous. Politics is not simply a moral matter, nor political philosophy a subdivision of moral philosophy. This book is devised as a basic conceptual lexicon for all those who (...) want to understand what politics is, how it works and how it changes or fails to change. Key concepts such as power, conflict, legitimacy and order are clearly defined and their interplay in the state, interstate and global level explored. Principles such as liberty, equality, justice and solidarity are discussed in the context of the political choices confronting us. This compact and systematic introduction to the categories needed to grasp the fundamentals of politics will appeal to readers who want to gain a firmer grasp on the workings of politics, as well as to scholars and students of philosophy, political science and history. (shrink)

This thesis addresses the surprising features of zero-temperature statics and dynamics of several spin glass models, including correlations between soft spins that arise spontaneously during avalanches, and the discovery of localized states that involve the presence of two-level systems. It also presents the only detailed historiographical research on the spin glass theory. Despite the extreme simplicity of their definition, spin glasses display a wide variety of non-trivial behaviors that are not yet fully understood. In this thesis the author sheds light (...) on some of these, focusing on both the search for phase transitions under perturbations of Hamiltonians and the zero-temperature properties and responses to external stimuli. After introducing spin glasses and useful concepts on phase transitions and numerics, the results of two massive Monte Carlo campaigns on three-dimensional systems are presented: The first of these examines the de Almeida-Thouless transition, and proposes a new finite-size scaling ansatz, which accelerates the convergence to the thermodynamic limit. The second reconstructs the phase diagram of the Heisenberg spin glass with random exchange anisotropy. (shrink)

L’article passe en revue le développement de l’histoire des femmes au Moyen Âge en Espagne depuis ses origines, la fin des années 1970, et discute l’influence que les thèses de Georges Duby ont exercée sur elle. Il relève que les regards venus de l’étranger ont contribué à discréditer et faire abandonner les préoccupations nationalistes qui avaient longtemps obsédé l’historiographie autochtone jusque dans la façon d’envisager et représenter les femmes. Le long et fécond parcours de l’histoire des femmes dans les vingt (...) dernières années est alors examiné, depuis l’orientation fondamentalement juridique et positiviste qui a marqué ses débuts jusqu’aux recherches récentes sur l’identité et la subjectivité féminines ou aux polémiques sur le pouvoir des femmes et leur participaton à la vie politique. La portée des thèses de G. Duby dans cette évolution ainsi que les critiques qu’elles se sont attirées sont finalement considérées. (shrink)

L’article passe en revue le développement de l’histoire des femmes au Moyen Âge en Espagne depuis ses origines, la fin des années 1970, et discute l’influence que les thèses de Georges Duby ont exercée sur elle. Il relève que les regards venus de l’étranger ont contribué à discréditer et faire abandonner les préoccupations nationalistes qui avaient longtemps obsédé l’historiographie autochtone jusque dans la façon d’envisager et représenter les femmes. Le long et fécond parcours de l’histoire des femmes dans les vingt (...) dernières années est alors examiné, depuis l’orientation fondamentalement juridique et positiviste qui a marqué ses débuts jusqu’aux recherches récentes sur l’identité et la subjectivité féminines ou aux polémiques sur le pouvoir des femmes et leur participaton à la vie politique. La portée des thèses de G. Duby dans cette évolution ainsi que les critiques qu’elles se sont attirées sont finalement considérées. (shrink)

This paper breaks with the sociological notion of ‘risk society’ and argues in favour of a philosophical view that sees the two planetary threats of late modernity, nuclear weapons and global warming, as ultimate challenges to morality and politics rather than risks that we can take and manage. The paper also raises the question of why we should feel responsible for the effects of these two global challenges on future generations and in this sense elaborates on the transgenerational chain of (...) parenthood rather than on considerations of justice. (shrink)

The peaceful and democratic integration of the European countries cannot be completed if the EU does not become a true, though not-federal, polity. Making the European institutions fully legitimate and accountable requires the development of political identity in a shape which is different from both national and cultural identity and is not merely opposite to diversity and change. Its contents can be seen in a specific set of constitutional values and principles, including a model of social relations, an international standing (...) and a peculiar and unprecedented system of governance. Identity-formation in the EU goes through several channels, but has still to generate a European public sphere, though the source of this difficulty does not lie in the lack of a European people or demos. (shrink)

We present and discuss various formalizations of Modal Logics in Logical Frameworks based on Type Theories. We consider both Hilbert- and Natural Deduction-style proof systems for representing both truth (local) and validity (global) consequence relations for various Modal Logics. We introduce several techniques for encoding the structural peculiarities of necessitation rules, in the typed -calculus metalanguage of the Logical Frameworks. These formalizations yield readily proof-editors for Modal Logics when implemented in Proof Development Environments, such as Coq or LEGO.

In this article the claim of normative ethics to be the main philosophical access to the problems raised by climate change is contested and instead it is suggested that these problems be addressed from a different perspective: that of a political philosophy that escapes its own reduction to a theory of justice. Part I shows several incidences of how mainstream climate ethics fails with regard to its intention to shape an effective climate policy. Part II argues that ‘politics for the (...) future’ as required by man-made lethal challenges has to complement the adversarial politics-as-usual. Included here is a redefinition of what the relationship of politics and morality means in the new circumstances – not only with regard to climate change. (shrink)

This essay reconstructs the main lines of Ferdinand Tönnies’ critical approach to the thought of Hobbes and Spinoza. Specifically it shows the role played by the two philosophers in developing the categories of community and society. From the stand point of political thought, the essay reveals how Tönnies’ on going interpretation of Hobbes focuses more and more on the constitutive moment of the modern form of State. In this area it draws on Spinoza’s reflections on democracy as an absolutum omnino (...) imperium. Tönnies is thus able to distinguish conceptually between the Hobbesian State, as a “society” that absorbs all natural law, and its natural law origin, where we find a “common” element that can never be entirely neutralized by the State. (shrink)

Il saggio esamina il modo in cui nell’Antichità classica è stato pensato il conflitto politico a partire dalla riflessione su “fazioni” e “partiti”. L’analisi prende le mosse da Omero ed Esiodo, per i quali la Giustizia è lo strumento con cui dal caos originario si passa al cosmo ordinato. Si concentra quindi sulla nascita della polis come fattore di mediazione del conflitto fra le “parti” sociali, affrontando il pensiero di Tucidide, Platone e Aristotele, che condividono la stessa critica nei confronti (...) di “parti” interpretate come “fazioni” distruttive dell’ordine politico. Polibio, invece, valorizza le “parti” come elementi costitutivi del “tutto” politico, mentre per Sallustio le “fazioni” sono la causa della decadenza della Repubblica romana. Anche Cicerone rifiuta le “fazioni” in quanto distruttive della “concordia” dello Stato, mentre con l’Impero viene superato l’orizzonte particolaristico delle poleis; sarà Tacito, infine, a riflettere sulla contraddizione di un potere particolare che si legittima come universale. (shrink)

The essay identifies and analyses the main similarities between Weber’s and Foucault’s work. They concern the three main areas of their reflection: knowledge, power and the subject. These thematic axes are always firmly intertwined in their work. With regard to knowledge, both authors practice a form of historical knowledge in which both the “subject” of knowledge and the “object” known are radically called into question. Regarding power, they abandon the model of the state and sovereignty in order to analyse the (...) relations of power and domination that run through the entire social body and that “govern” the conduct of individuals. As for the subject, both elaborate ethical forms of subjectivity and “care of the self” that take on an ascetic significance. For Weber, however, it is a question of making objectivity itself a “vocation” for the subject, while Foucault proposes a resistance and a struggle for a new subjectivity. (shrink)

On the 100th anniversary of the death of Max Weber, we dedicate the monographic section of this issue to his political thought through a series of international contributions which investigate its multiple economic, religious, cultural and social perspectives.

Desde sus inicios, el cine estuvo fuertemente ligado con la literatura a partir de las adaptaciones de novelas, la divulgación del patrimonio literario, el análisis de la subjetividad, la teoría de los géneros, la aplicación de las categorías de la narratología para el estudio de las especificaciones fílmicas, entre muchos otros. Este estudio toma dos relatos literarios y los compara a través de orientaciones metodológicas y teóricas de la narratología con la versión animada de La Leyenda de la Llorona, para (...) determinar similitudes y diferencias. Asimismo, analiza ciertos elementos del lenguaje cinematográfico que tienen concordancia con las obras literarias para entender que los vuelve diferentes y específicos. (shrink)

It is well known that the validity of Choice Principles is problematic in non-standard Set Theories which do not abide by the Limitation of Size Principle. In this paper we discuss the consistency of various Choice Principles with respect to the Generalized Positive Comprehension Principle . The Principle GPC allows to take as sets those classes which can be specified by Generalized Positive Formulae, e.g. the universe. In particular we give a complete characterization of which choice principles hold in Hyperuniverses. (...) Hyperuniverses are structures which arose independently in Non-well-founded Set Theory and in Mathematical Semantics of Concurrent Programming Languages and are hitherto the only existing models of GPC. Hyperuniverses are naturally endowed with a κ-compact uniform κ-topology and are uniformly isomorphic to their exponential space, i.e. the space of their closed subsets endowed with the Exponential Uniformity. (shrink)

The proof of Lemma 5 in our paper “Choice Principles in Hyperuniverses” [3], contains an error. In the present note we show that the statement of that lemma is false and hence the Axiom of Choice fails in all κ-hyperuniverses, for uncountable κ. However, a weaker version of Lemma 5 can be proved, which implies that the Linear Ordering Principle holds in all κ-metric κ-hyperuniverses.