A fronte del quotidiano rincorrersi di nuovi interrogativi che esigono una risposta dalla bioetica, si assiste alla difficoltà di trovare un solido fondamento al giudizio etico in bioetica. Si confrontano e si scontrano, infatti, teorie etiche tra di loro non sovrapponibili né conciliabili, che portano a soluzioni pratiche tra di loro divergenti e spesso, troppo spesso, dimentiche della centralità della persona umana. Edè proprio la riflessione sulla persona umana, con i suoi diritti, ma anche con i suoi doveri, secondo la (...) lettura del personalismo ontologicamente fondato, il filo conduttore dei contributi contenuti in questo volume...(Dalla quarta di copertina)- In sommario: La nuova genetica - La clonazione umana: aspetti tecnici e considerazioni - Le basi biologiche della sessualità - Natura e interpretazione dei disordini sessuali: l'omosessualità - I disorientamenti sessuali: il ruolo dell'educatore - La sindrome da immunodeficienza acquisita - Orientamenti metodologici nell'educazione sessuale. (shrink)

This book is a systematic analysis of John R. Searle’s philosophy of mind. Searle’s view of mind, as a set of subjective _and_ biologically embodied processes, can account for our being part of nature _qua_ mindful beings. This model finds support in neuroscience and offers reliable solutions to the problems of consciousness, mental causation, and the self.

We here report the findings of our investigation into the validity of the conjunction fallacy (Tversky & Kahneman, 1983), bearing in mind the role of conversational rules. Our first experiment showed that subjects found a logically correct answer unacceptable when it implied a violation of the conversational rules. We argue that tautological questions, such as those which concern the relationship of inclusion between a class and its sub-class, violate conversational rules because they are not informative. In this sense, it is (...) not understood that the question in a Linda-type problem involves a comparison between an inclusive and included class, but presumed that a different type of comparison is intended. Tautological questions (and, consequently, also their answers) do not become a matter of discussion except under certain specific conditions. Our second experiment showed that, providing the context was adequately marked (such as in the case of a rhetorical question), the conjunction fallacy disappears. In two further experiments, the implications of our view were compared with those of the other critical approaches to the heuristic programme: the classical pragmatic view (which we call logical complementarity) and the frequentist view. (shrink)

The brain constructs within itself an understanding of its surround which constitutes its own world. This is described as its Double in the frame of the dissipative quantum model of brain, where the perception-action arc in the Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of perception finds its formal description. In the dialog with the Double, the continuous attempt to reach the equilibrium shows that the real goal pursued by the brain activity is the aesthetical experience, the most harmonious “to-be-in-the-world” reached through reciprocal actions, the (...) aesthetical dimension characterized by the “pleasure” of the perception. Aesthetical pleasure unavoidably implies disclosure, to manifest “signs”, artistic communication. An interpersonal, collective level of consciousness then arises, a larger stage where the actors are mutually dependent. The coherent structure of the brain background state manifests itself in the auto-similarity properties of fractal structures. These are observed to occur also in a large number of natural phenomena and systems. The conception of Nature divided in separated domains is replaced by the vision of Nature unified by laws of form implied by the underlying quantum dynamics of the coherent vacuum, an integrated ecological vision. (shrink)

We analyze the results from three different risk attitude elicitation methods. First, the broadly used test by Holt and Laury, HL, second, the lottery-panel task by Sabater-Grande and Georgantzis, SG, and third, responses to a survey question on self-assessment of general attitude towards risk. The first and the second task are implemented with real monetary incentives, while the third concerns all domains in life in general. Like in previous studies, the correlation of decisions across tasks is low and usually statistically (...) non-significant. However, when we consider only subjects whose behavior across the panels of the SG task is compatible with constant relative risk aversion, the correlation between HL and self-assessed risk attitude becomes significant. Furthermore, the correlation between HL and SG also increases for CRRA-compatible subjects, although it remains statistically non-significant. (shrink)

The author proposes an analysis on a key issue in 20th-century thought: the struggle against disciplinary specialism. This problem is stressed by the reflections of philosophers and scientists such as Ortega y Gasset, Erwin Chargaff, Werner Heisenberg, Konrad Lorenz, Karl Popper, Paul Feyerabend, and Edgar Morin.

Even more than for other treatments, great importance must be given to informed consent in the case of electroconvulsive therapy. In a percentage of cases, the symbolic connotation of the treatment, even if mostly and intrinsically negative, may actually be a determining factor in the patient’s motives for giving consent. On an ethical and medicolegal level, the most critical point is that concerning consent to the treatment by a psychotic subject with a severely compromised ability to comprehend the nature and (...) objective of the proposed therapy, but who nonetheless expresses his consent, for reasons derived from delusional thoughts. In fact, this situation necessarily brings to light the contradiction between an explicit expression of consent, a necessary formality for the commencement of therapy, and the validity of this consent, which may be severely compromised due to the patient’s inability to comprehend reality and therefore to accept the proposal of treatment, which is intrinsic to this reality. With the use of an electric current, the symbolic experience associated with anaesthesia, and the connection to convulsions, ECT enters the collective consciousness. In relation to this, ECT is symbolic of these three factors and hooks on to the thoughts, fears, feelings and expectations of delusional patients. These are often exemplified in the violent intervention of the persecutor in the patient with schizophrenia, the expected punishment for the ’error’ committed for which the depressed patient blames himself and the social repression of the maniacal patient’s affirmation of his inflated self-esteem. (shrink)

Das Buch enthält die Einführung in die Lektüre sowie den Textkommentar zu den der Analyse der Grundsätze der Modalität gewidmeten "Postulaten des empirischen Denkens überhaupt". Untersucht wird Kants gesamte Theorie der Modalbegriffe (Möglichkeit - Unmöglichkeit, Dasein - Nichtsein, Notwendigkeit - Zufälligkeit) seit Mitte der 1750er Jahre bis zur Kritik der reinen Vernunft. Die Postulate sind nach Kant nicht objektiv, sondern subjektiv-synthetisch: Der Gegenstand der Erfahrung, welcher zunächst anhand der objektiv-synthetischen Funktionen der Quantität, Qualität und Relation bestimmt wird, lässt sich nun (...) in seinem Verhältnis zum setzenden Subjekt betrachten. Die Postulate thematisieren jedoch nicht - hier liegt die konstitutive Charakteristik dieser synthetischen Urteile a priori - das Subjekt selbst, sondern das Objekt als solches und die Objektivität überhaupt. Wie diese Untersuchung zeigt, antwortet Kant erst hier - nicht in den viel diskutierten Deduktionskapiteln oder in den anderen Grundsatzkapiteln - auf die Frage "Was ist ein Objekt?" und bezieht zugleich Stellung gegenüber anderen philosophischen Theorien der Objektivität des 18. Jahrhunderts: Rationalismus, Empirismus, Idealismus, Skeptizismus. (shrink)

What is 'rebirth' in Buddhism? The contribution of hypnotic regression.

The character of Paris in the Ilias Latina maintains the ambiguity that characterises him in the Greek Iliad, where he does not lack military attitudes, but chafes against his duties to his country, being committed instead to satisfying his taste for luxury. This ambiguity is even reinforced in the epitome. The ‘heroic’ aspect of Paris’ personality emerges in a clearer light, expressed in a more mature awareness of his obligations to his family and country, but the other aspect, his indolence, (...) is also accentuated: the character becomes a true elegiac lover, immersed in the experience of an exalted passion that partly distinguishes him from the cliché of the libertine of the Homeric tradition. It might therefore seem legitimate to interpret the Paris of the Ilias Latina in a more positive key than the Homeric character. However, this exegesis is opposed by the judgement expressed by the authorial voice at many significant points of the story: by his dissolute and unscrupulous behaviour, Paris has started a war that will lead to the ruin of his country; he himself is thus his own funesta ruina (234), the funesta... flamma (253) that will burn down Troy and his own fate. (shrink)

Central figures in the phenomenological tradition, such as Aron Gurwitsch, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, drew extensively on gestalt psychology in their writings. The dialogue between phenomenology and psychology they began continues today in the field of embodied cognitive science. We take up this conversation starting from Aron Gurwitsch’s rich phenomenological analysis of the perception of the cultural world. Gurwitsch’s phenomenological descriptions of the perception of the cultural world bear a striking resemblance to work in embodied cognitive science that takes (...) its inspiration from Gibson’s ecological psychology. Gibson coined the term “affordance” to refer to the possibilities for action that can be directly perceived by persons [Gibson 1979]. However, Gibson from his earliest writings made a distinction between a universal, strictly individual and nonsocial form of perception and a perception of the world that was subject to social and cultural influences. We use Gurwitsch to argue against Gibson’s individualist understanding of direct perception. Each affordance that can be selected as an object of perception refers to a wider sociocultural context, which Gurwitsch called an “order of existence”. We end our paper by taking up the question of the relation of phenomenological description of the perceptual world and explanations of perceptual experience provided by embodied cognitive science. (shrink)

We use a controlled laboratory experiment to study firm’s protection against potential technological damages. The probability of a catastrophic event is known, and the firm’s costly investment in safety reduces it. The firm can also buy an insurance with full or partial refund against the consequences of the catastrophic event, which ultimately reduces the variance of the firm’s investment-in-safety lottery. The firm makes these two choices simultaneously, after observing the insurance contract proposed by an insurer who chooses this contract within (...) a set of premium–deductible combinations. We parametrize the insurer–firm game such that a risk-neutral insurer maximizes his expected profit by offering an actuarially fair contract with full insurance; a risk-neutral firm is indifferent between investing in safety and accepting a fair insurance contract. We aim at understanding whether investment in safety and insurance are substitutes or complements in the firm’s risk management of catastrophic events. In line with our predictions, the experimental results suggest that they are substitutes rather than complements: the firm’s investment in safety measures is affected by the insurer’s proposed contract, the latter usually involving only partial insurance. (shrink)

El cotejo de L. Zea con J. Ortega y Gasset es fundamental para com- prender cómo el circunstancialismo y el perspectivismo historicista del filósofo madrileño contribuyeron a que se constituyera la iden- tidad hispanoamericana. Zea, discípulo de J. Gaos, se inspira en la tradición filosófica mexicana de Caso, Vasconcelos, Ramos, y va madurando su propia toma de conciencia acerca de la condición hispanoamericana. Así, se abre dialécticamente a la filosofía euro- pea, supera el nacionalismo ideológico mexicano de principios de mil (...) novecientos y llega hasta la filosofía de la liberación. De esta manera, la filosofía de Zea se adueña de las ideas de un humanismo cosmopolita en cuyo interior los individuos, los pueblos y las naciones toman conciencia de sus peculiaridades y saben abrirse a un pensamiento universal. (shrink)

Le renouveau des études sur Canguilhem ces vingt dernières années est étroitement lié à la création d’un Fonds documentaire conservant ses archives à la bibliothèque du CAPHES ainsi qu’à la publication des Œuvres complètes. L’hétérogénéité de la production de Canguilhem pendant soixante ans de pratique de la philosophie peut gagner en intelligibilité si on l’aborde comme le résultat d’un métier, celui de philosophe, s’exerçant dans des contextes et des moments différents.

In the introduction to the Normal and the Pathological, Canguilhem’s doctoral dissertation in medicine, defended in 1943, he claimed, “philosophy is a reflection for which all unknown material [matière étrangère] is good.” In this case the “unknown material” was precisely medicine; “a technique or art at the crossroads of several sciences” which was supposed to provide “an introduction to concrete human problems.” Canguilhem had started studying medicine six years before, while he was a high-school professor in Toulouse. At the time (...) he was distancing himself from the philosophical framework that had marked his studies and writings during the previous decade. This framework implied an anti-vitalist, Kantian and Cartesian approach to man, strongly influenced by his mentor Emile Chartier, also known as Alain. In this chapter, I try to provide concrete explanations concerning his decision to study medicine. I will not rely on those proposed by the existent scholarship, which frequently relate his decision to his interest in technology and technique. On the contrary, by examining unpublished material, such as a series of lectures given between 1933 and 1935, I claim that the motivation of his turn has to be related to the readings of works in psychology and ethology undertaken during this period. (shrink)

Premessa p.9 Capitolo I: Identità ebraica e nuovo pensiero p.13 Capitolo II: Qohelet nel “nuovo pensiero” p.81 Capitolo III: Etica e politica: un dialogo tra religioni? p. 149 Capitolo IV: Dal trascendentalismo all’esteriorità: fondazione etica della maestria p.207 Capitolo V: Dal primato della politica al primato dell’etica p.245 Capitolo VI: Emmanuel Lévinas: per una trascendenza non idolatrica p.287 Capitolo VII: Dall’umanismo dei superbi all’umanismo dell’altro uomo p.231.

This collection offers close examinations of the global impact of Dewey’s philosophies, both in his time and our own.