Security in International Relations has undergone profound changes since the end of the Cold War. After the end of bipolarism the system of International Relations has experienced three main variations concerning structure, provision and perception of security. First of all, the international arena must deal with the consequences of the progressive decline of sovereignty and the shifting from a statocetric to a multicentric model of global relations; secondly, non-state actors are emerging as brand-new providers of security in many parts of (...) the world; finally, new representations of security are shaping the social perception of “safety” pointing out the needs to give certainty and protection to single, weak persons as the real target for collective international security produced by responsible states. (shrink)

Artefacts do not always do what they are supposed to, due to a variety of reasons, including manufacturing problems, poor maintenance, and normal wear-and-tear. Since software is an artefact, it should be subject to malfunctioning in the same sense in which other artefacts can malfunction. Yet, whether software is on a par with other artefacts when it comes to malfunctioning crucially depends on the abstraction used in the analysis. We distinguish between “negative” and “positive” notions of malfunction. A negative malfunction, (...) or dysfunction, occurs when an artefact token either does not or cannot do what it is supposed to. A positive malfunction, or misfunction, occurs when an artefact token may do what is supposed to but, at least occasionally, it also yields some unintended and undesirable effects. We argue that software, understood as type, may misfunction in some limited sense, but cannot dysfunction. Accordingly, one should distinguish software from other technical artefacts, in view of their design that makes dysfunction impossible for the former, while possible for the latter. (shrink)

For many years, psychological–clinical research has been aiming at studying the Mafia from different viewpoints: the man of honor's inner world, relational and psychopathological structures of his family matrices, connections between inner and social worlds, interiorized and social rules. Today, however, a complex phenomenon has come to light, which concerns the great connection between the Mafia and financial crime, and for us as researchers it is very interesting and complicated to analyze, because it involves the study of psychological peculiarities that (...) can be specifically found in the numerous illegalities. The crossbreeding of the various criminalities, which are always more interacting and merging and less isolated, makes this picture even more complex. (shrink)

v. 1. Il pensiero antico e medievale.--v. 2. Dal Rinascimento a Immanuel Kant.--v. 3. Dal Romanticismo allo strutturalismo.

Sezione 1. Sullo sviluppo del concetto di creazione. L'idealismo magico. Creation, idealism and a new aestheicism.--sezione 2. Estetismo assoluto-una teoria della scienza. Coscienza ed energia-sul problema del rapporti tra psicologia e fiscia. Le monde n'est-il qu' un rêve? Vie et esthéticité. Aestetismus und der Ernst des Lebens (aus zwei Briefen).

The human being can be divided into body and mind, two inextricably linked aspects influencing each other. From birth, the body is the site of emotional experiences thanks to cellular memory. The t...

A interpretação da filosofia de Nāgārjuna como um niilismo metafísico radical é comum tanto entre os autores antigos quanto nos estudos budológicos contemporâneos. Uma primeira leitura da doutrina da vacuidade proposta por esse autor, com efeito, parece levar à conclusão de que nada existe em última análise e, portanto, a realidade em si seria equivalente a um puro não-ser. Uma tal metafísica do nada, entretanto, seria duplamente problemática: primeiramente, ela parece sofrer de graves incovenientes lógico-conceituais; em segundo lugar, ela colocaria (...) Nāgārjuna fora da ortodoxia budista, por ser o niilismo uma doutrina explicitamente reprovada pelo Buda histórico. Uma leitura mais atenta e completa dos textos a nossa disposição, entretanto, nos leva a concluir que a filosofia do fundador da escola Madhyamaka não pode ser considerado como um niilismo metafísico, mas sim, ao invés disso, como uma tentativa de evitar e de eliminar qualquer metafísica, tanto afirmativa quanto negativa, em total acordo com o programa filosófico – já presente no ensinamento do Buda – do “caminho do meio”, equidistante das categorias do ser e do não-ser. (shrink)

With regards the crucial issue of the existence of the self, within canonical texts of the Buddhist Abhidharma schools we find passages that are frequently at odds with one another. Sometimes the Buddha defends or respects the belief in the self and in personal continuity; at other times he seems to deny that beyond the psycho-physical factors to which our existential experience can be reduced there is an ātman that contains, owns or controls these same factors; in further cases still, (...) he states that the use of the metaphysical categories of “being” and “non-being” must be avoided – thus, about the self (or everything else), it is inappropriate to say that it exists or that it does not exist. Faced with these divergences (or contradictions) within contemporary Buddhist studies, we can detect two main tendencies. Some scholars start from the assumption that the Buddha’s teaching is or should be coherent and univocal, and, therefore, propose readings of his original message that are supposed to iron out or conciliate any inconsistencies. Others believe that the inconsistencies are actually irreconcilable and, therefore, maintain that the Abhidharma canons are a composite and stratified redaction in which the opposite views of different writers overlap and intersect. Against these historiographical approaches, the purpose of the present paper is to show that the three aforementioned modes of the Buddha’s teaching are, in fact, both alternative and irreconcilable. This, however, far from presenting a puzzle to be solved or explained (by resorting to suppositions of which, in the canons, we have no explicit confirmation), is nothing more than a feature of the Buddha’s Dharma, which appears to be a teaching that develops different pedagogical/soteriological modes for different purposes, and which is conceived for the spiritual growth of followers with different intellectual and psychological profiles. (shrink)

On the philosophical dimensions of researches by Benoy Kumar Sarkar, 1887-1949, former professor of economics, University of Calcutta.

This paper considers the practical question of why people do not behave in the way they ought to behave. This question is a practical one, reaching both into the normative and descriptive domains of morality. That is, it concerns moral norms as well as empirical facts. We argue that two main problems usually keep us form acting and judging in a morally decent way: firstly, we make mistakes in moral reasoning. Secondly, even when we know how to act and judge, (...) we still fail to meet the requirements due to personal weaknesses. This discussion naturally leads us to another question: can we narrow the gap between what people are morally required to do and what they actually do? We discuss findings from neuroscience, economics, and psychology, considering how we might bring our moral behavior better in line with moral theory. Potentially fruitful means include nudging, training, pharmacological enhancement, and brain stimulation. We conclude by raising the question of whether such methods could and should be implemented. (shrink)

Pensar Europa filosóficamente hoy no constituye un intento de definición y representación de una identidad cultural con carácter unívoco y, menos aún, de una identidad política que, por siglos, ha sido siempre parcial y ha estado entretejida con imágenes y prácticas diferentes y plurales. Lo que hay que replantear y recolocar en el centro es su carácter dialéctico, su continuo saltar (la aptitud acrobática de la que hablaba Ortega) y oscilar entre razón y pasiones, lógica e instinto, progreso y decadencia, (...) libertad y totalitarismo, entre el reconocimiento del otro y del diverso como voluntad de apertura a lo nuevo y la reivindicación de una civilización eurocéntrica que objetivamente ha sentado las bases de la modernidad. (shrink)