Some arguments against the assumption that ordinary people may share common knowledge are sound. The apparent cost of such arguments is the rejection of scientific theories that appeal to common knowledge. My proposal is to accept the arguments without rejecting the theories. On my proposal, common knowledge is shared by ideally rational people, who are not just mathematically simple versions of ordinary people. They are qualitatively different from us, and theorizing about them does not lead to predictions about our behavior. (...) Nevertheless, models of action that assume common knowledge have a role to play in our understanding of collective rationality. (shrink)

For various reasons, that will be recalled and analysed throughout this paper, interdisciplinarity has become the keyword for any debate on legal education reform. However, what is meant by interdisciplinarity and how it should be achieved is open for discussion. Paradigms of “scientificity” of the law vary dramatically among legal cultures. Whereas in the US the advent of a more ‘substantial’ legal thought after the New Deal went hand in hand with the rise of the interdisciplinary paradigm, in Europe the (...) traditional assumption of law’s autonomy has repeatedly been challenged, eroded and adapted, but it still represents the bulwark of the orthodox approach to law and legal scholarship. In the Continent, mainstream legal scholarship does not take as its object the social reality, but only the gamut of rules recognized as binding norms. Coherent with this approach is a model of legal education built around certain axioms, such as the statist and nationalist attitude, the extreme compartmentalization among the various branches of law, and the blindness to its surroundings. Comparative law is one of the few disciplines that provide a different role model for a legal scholar who is apt to confront the challenges of complex societies. Keeping at a reasonable distance the authority paradigm, embodying the spirit of enquiry and cherishing the values of pluralism (both in terms of legal pluralism and cognitive openness), comparativists may give specific content to the paradigm of the jurist as a social engineer. Comparative law may therefore offer an invaluable contribution to the debate on legal education reform. (shrink)

The Latin text and the translation of The Conspiracy of the Prince of Macchia -- The making of the narration -- Authorities and documents of the narrative.

“Questo libro era indispensabile per esplorare che cosa è ‘il male’… come opera, da chi è agito, da che cosa origina, come si impianta e si sviluppa, dove, perché. Il male, a differenza del bene, cerca, vuole, esige e usa senza scrupoli il potere. Il male.

From the 2021 Nobel Prize winner in Physics, an enlightening and personal journey into the practice of groundbreaking science In In a Flight of Starlings, already a #1 bestseller in his native Italy, celebrated physicist Giorgio Parisi guides us through his unorthodox yet exhilarating work: investigating the principles of physics by observing the flight of flocks of birds. Studying the movements of these communities, he has realized, proves an illuminating way into understanding complex systems of all kinds-collections of everything (...) from atoms and planets to other animals like ourselves. Along the way, he reflects on the lessons he's taken from a life in pursuit of scientific truth: the importance of serendipity to the discovery of new ideas, the surprising kinship between physics and other disciplines, and the value of science to a thriving society. In so doing, he removes the practice of science from the confines of the laboratory and into the real world. Part elegant scientific treatise, part thrilling journey of discovery, In a Flight of Starlings is an invitation to find wonder in the world around us. (shrink)

John Duns Scotus is commonly recognized as one of the most original thinkers of medieval philosophy. His influence on subsequent philosophers and theologians is enormous and extends well beyond the limits of the Middle Ages. His thought, however, might be intimidating for the non-initiated, because of the sheer number of topics he touched on and the difficulty of his style. The eleven essays collected here, especially written for this volume by some of the leading scholars in the field, take the (...) reader through various topics, including Duns Scotus's intellectual environment, his argument for the existence of God, and his conceptions of modality, order, causality, freedom, and human nature. This volume provides a reliable point of entrance to the thought of Duns Scotus while giving a snapshot of some of the best research that is now being done on this difficult but intellectually rewarding thinker. (shrink)

: In this article we analyze the key concept of Hilbert's axiomatic method, namely that of axiom. We will find two different concepts: the first one from the period of Hilbert's foundation of geometry and the second one at the time of the development of his proof theory. Both conceptions are linked to two different notions of intuition and show how Hilbert's ideas are far from a purely formalist conception of mathematics. The principal thesis of this article is that one (...) of the main problems that Hilbert encountered in his foundational studies consisted in securing a link between formalization and intuition. We will also analyze a related problem, that we will call "Frege's Problem", form the time of the foundation of geometry and investigate the role of the Axiom of Completeness in its solution. (shrink)

The work of Giorgio Agamben, one of Italy's most important and original philosophers, has been based on an uncommon erudition in classical traditions of philosophy and rhetoric, the grammarians of late antiquity, Christian theology, and modern philosophy. Recently, Agamben has begun to direct his thinking to the constitution of the social and to some concrete, ethico-political conclusions concerning the state of society today, and the place of the individual within it. In Homo Sacer, Agamben aims to connect the problem (...) of pure possibility, potentiality, and power with the problem of political and social ethics in a context where the latter has lost its previous religious, metaphysical, and cultural grounding. Taking his cue from Foucault's fragmentary analysis of biopolitics, Agamben probes with great breadth, intensity, and acuteness the covert or implicit presence of an idea of biopolitics in the history of traditional political theory. He argues that from the earliest treatises of political theory, notably in Aristotle's notion of man as a political animal, and throughout the history of Western thinking about sovereignty, a notion of sovereignty as power over "life" is implicit. The reason it remains merely implicit has to do, according to Agamben, with the way the sacred, or the idea of sacrality, becomes indissociable from the idea of sovereignty. Drawing upon Carl Schmitt's idea of the sovereign's status as the exception to the rules he safeguards, and on anthropological research that reveals the close interlinking of the sacred and the taboo, Agamben defines the sacred person as one who can be killed and yet not sacrificed—a paradox he sees as operative in the status of the modern individual living in a system that exerts control over the collective "naked life" of all individuals. (shrink)

Nell'attuale societA globale, dominata dalla massimizzazione dell'agire funzionale e dal conseguente paradosso antropologico dell'autofinalizzazione dei media (tecnica, denaro, informazione, consenso, successo, potere), la risorsa sempre piU scarsa E diventata il senso con la conseguente e inevitabile riduzione delle persone a funzioni di un apparato tecno-plutocratico al servizio di pochissimi potentati finanziari, industriali, mediatici e militari. Pertanto, la motivazione a essere-vivere, non solo a sopravvivere, e l'omogeneo fine umano di pienezza, inteso come orizzonte piU ampio e ricco dell'azione umana, costituiscono oggi (...) il punto di massima emergenza per lo sviluppo della societA e la contestuale promozione della comunitA. Il rischio sempre piU forte dell'affermazione della societA totalitaria, dove in nome della sicurezza le persone sono disposte a rinunciare alla libertA, sancisce l'urgenza del passaggio dal principio di separazione a quello di integrazione, che promuove il primato dell'essere sull'avere-apparire. CiO favorisce la scoperta e la scelta consapevole del proprio essere e del corrispondente fine umano di pienezza quale prerogativa fondamentale per vivere la libertA personale e comune nella storia. Alla luce di questo giudizio storico, a cinquant'anni dalla morte, avvenuta prematuramente a Roma il 3 febbraio 1964, la Fondazione Gramsci, in collaborazione con il Dipartimento di Filosofia dell'UniversitA "La Sapienza" di Roma, ha organizzato un seminario di studi sulla persona e il pensiero del filosofo torinese Felice Balbo. Il suo ricco itinerario e i suoi molteplici rapporti con la storia e la realtA del proprio tempo lo hanno portato all'elaborazione di una originale e piU che mai attuale filosofia dell'essere indispensabile per affrontare e risolvere i principali nodi storici del nostro tempo. Saggi di Marcello MustE, Vittorio Possenti, Giorgio Rivolta, Giulia Boringhieri, Giovanni Turbanti, Ferruccio Ricciardi e Mario Fadda. (shrink)