The aim of the present paper is to show Novalis’ complete belonging to the history of transcendental philosophy by bringing out the connection between his conception of poetry and the issue of transcendental imagination in Kant and Fichte. Given that solving this problem is the main issue around which Novalisian thought is structured, an attempt is made to consider the writing style adopted by the author as necessary to fulfill this task, and not as an arbitrary rhetorical choice. The connection (...) between poetry and philosophy is then explored in the practical role it has to play among human beings, namely, that of revealing the meaning of the whole reality as a manifestation of the absolute. Thus, life itself is properly displayed by the singular existences as absolute creativity, such as that of poetical creations. (shrink)

I am deeply grateful to Robin Mills and to the History of European Ideas for hosting a debate on my book, Prophetic Times: Visions of Emancipation in the History of Italy. I must also extend my ear...

The article focuses on Leibniz’s theory of dual access to the innate practical truths developed in the _New Essays_, on the background of the reconciliation between egoism and altruism he pursues – since his early writings on natural law – through the categories of disinterested love and charity, and the onto-aesthetic implication between harmony and pleasure as well. After reconstructing the meaning and the functions of the argument on the community of brigands that Leibniz addresses against Locke’s conventionalism, the article (...) dwells on the structure of social instincts in human and non-human animals and emphasises the role of the “prick of conscience”, conceived of as a first, affective and pre-rational step in the construction of otherness. (shrink)

BackgroundThis study aimed at standardizing and providing preliminary evidence on the clinical usability of the Italian telephone-based Verbal Fluency Battery, which includes phonemic, semantic and alternate verbal fluency tasks.MethodsThree-hundred and thirty-five Italian healthy participants and 27 individuals with neurodegenerative or cerebrovascular diseases were administered the t-VFB. Switch number and cluster size were computed via latent semantic analyses. HPs underwent the telephone-based Mental State Examination and Backward Digit Span. Construct validity, factorial structure, internal consistency, test-retest and inter-rater reliability and equivalence with (...) the in-person Verbal Fluency tasks were assessed. Norms were derived via Equivalent Scores. Diagnostic accuracy against clinical populations was assessed.ResultsThe majority of t-VFB scores correlated among each other and with the BDS, but not with the MMSE. Switch number correlated with t-PVF, t-SVF, t-AVF scores, whilst cluster size with the t-SVF and t-AVF scores only. The t-VFB was underpinned by a mono-component structure and was internally consistent. Test-retest and inter-rater reliability were optimal. Each t-VFB test was statistically equivalent to its in-person version. Education predicted all t-VFB scores, whereas age t-SVF and t-AVF scores and sex only some t-SVF scores. Diagnostic accuracy against clinical samples was optimal.DiscussionThe t-VFB is a valid, reliable and normed telephone-based assessment tool for language and executive functioning, equivalent to the in-person version; results show promising evidence of its diagnostic accuracy in neurological populations. (shrink)

Nationalism and patriotism are two of the most powerful forces shaping world history. In this paperback edition of a highly successful, wide-ranging study, Maurizio Viroli shows exactly why patriotism is a political virtue and nationalism a political vice.

The debtor-creditor relation, which is at the heart of this book, sharpens mechanisms of exploitation and domination indiscriminately, since, in it, there is no distinction between workers and the unemployed, consumers and producers, working and non-working populations, between retirees and welfare recipients. They are all "debtors," guilty and responsible in the eyes of capital, which has become the Great, the Universal, Creditor.--from The Making of the Indebted Man Debt -- both public debt and private debt Has become a major concern (...) of economic and political leaders. In The Making of the Indebted Man, Maurizio Lazzarato shows that, far from being a threat to the capitalist economy, debt lies at the very core of the neoliberal project. Through a reading of Karl Marx's lesser-known youthful writings on John Mill, and a rereading of writings by Friedrich Nietzsche, Gilles Deleuze, Felix Guattari, and Michel Foucault, Lazzarato demonstrates that debt is above all a political construction, and that the creditor/debtor relation is the fundamental social relation of Western societies.Debt cannot be reduced to a simple economic mechanism, for it is also a technique of "public safety" through which individual and collective subjectivities are governed and controlled. Its aim is to minimize the uncertainty of the time and behavior of the governed. We are forever sinking further into debt to the State, to private insurance, and, on a more general level, to corporations. To insure that we honor our debts, we are at once encouraged and compelled to become the "entrepreneurs" of our lives, of our "human capital." In this way, our entire material, psychological, and affective horizon is upended and reconfigured. How do we extricate ourselves from this impossible situation? How do we escape the neoliberal condition of the indebted man? Lazzarato argues that we will have to recognize that there is no simple technical, economic, or financial solution. We must instead radically challenge the fundamental social relation structuring capitalism: the system of debt. (shrink)

_Riassunto_: Questo lavoro intende offrire una prospettiva sulla filosofia della mente implicita nell’opera di Pierre Bourdieu. Propongo di organizzare e analizzare le questioni psicologiche che si dipanano nella teoria della pratica di Bourdieu su due diversi piani descrittivi della sfera del mentale: quello ontologico e quello architettonico. Nella prima parte del lavoro chiarirò il concetto di habitus sulla base della sua costituzione schematica. Poi, definito l’habitus come “super-schema psicosociale”, esplorerò il suo funzionamento incarnato alla luce della teoria cognitiva della metafora. (...) Nella seconda parte del lavoro, intendo chiarire l’architettura del mentale che emerge dalla relazione che Bourdieu teorizza tra conoscenza pratica e conoscenza riflessiva. Qui, vorrei prima sottolineare come Bourdieu faccia uso di un’architettura duale della mente, segnata da una particolare doppia-opacità riflessiva, per sostenere poi che le affermazioni metacognitive di Bourdieu ben si adattano agli approcci contemporanei della parità sé-altro della conoscenza di sé. Infine sosterrò come il funzionamento inconscio dell’habitus sia coerente con una visione cognitiva dell’inconscio. _Parole chiave_: La filosofia della mente di Bourdieu; Habitus; Schema; Dualità della mente; Parità Sé-Altro; Inconscio cognitivo _The ontology and architecture of the mind in Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of practice_ _Abstract_: This article provides an outline of Bourdieu’s hidden philosophy of mind. I propose to organize and analyse the psychological themes that flow trough Bourdieu’s theory of practice using two different levels of description of the mental, the ontological and architectonic. In the first part of the article, I clarify the concept of habitus on the ground of its schematical constitution. Conceptualising habitus as a “psychosocial super-schema”, I explore its embodied functioning in the light of cognitive metaphor theory. In the second part, I clarify the architecture of the mental as it emerges from the relationship Bourdieu theorizes between practical and reflexive knowledge. Here, I first stress that Bourdieu employs a dual architecture of mind marked by a peculiar reflexive double-opacity, and then I argue that Bourdieu’s metacognitive claims fit the contemporary self-other parity accounts of self-knowledge. Finally, I claim that the unconscious functioning of habitus is consistent with a cognitivist theory of the unconscious. _Keywords_: Bourdieu’s Philosophy of Mind; Habitus; Schema; Duality of Mind; Self-Other Parity; Cognitive Unconscious. (shrink)

In this paper, we present a design tool, the positioning cards that we have developed, validated, and used in different projects. These cards are built to allow CI4CG and Participatory Design researchers to discuss the political alignment of design projects, in iterative processes of design involving people in the definition of the technological features to be implemented. The background of the cards is the conceptualization of contemporary participatory design as public design, engaging with societally relevant phenomena outside the traditional environment (...) of the workplace. To engage with such an extended dimension of participatory design, we frame our contribution in the contemporary form of capitalism, stressing how contemporary capitalism dispossess the wealth created by social production. In this context, we argue, CI4CG designers need to engage deeply with the theoretical implications of their work. To support this effort, we built the cards combining a political perspective oriented toward nourishing the common—the ensemble of the material and symbolic elements tieing together human beings—with the “affect turn” in the social sciences—therefore including affective dimensions like joy, sadness, and desire in the design of CI4CG technologies. In the final part of the article we discuss how we have used the cards in four different projects. (shrink)

The theme of human extinction is increasingly at the center of the current debate on moral philosophy and bioethics. We look at space missions and station construction projects capable of accommodating a large population and at the colonization of other planets with great hope. However, solutions are not excluded either, which for now certainly appear to be much more original. One of the most original projects involves launching a spacecraft containing cryopreserved human embryos, which, once they arrive at destination on (...) another planet, must be thawed and birthed by intelligent machines through artificial wombs (ectogenesis). In this paper, I do not intend to analyze whether the embryo space colonization project is indeed feasible. Instead, I will focus on examining the primary moral questions raised by the embryo space colonization project to determine whether, at least prima facie, it can be deemed morally acceptable. I will begin by discussing the objection advanced by Konrad Szocik (2021), according to which any embryo space colonization project is doomed to failure because it cannot offer the hoped-for solution to the problem of the extinction of the human species (second paragraph). In the third paragraph, then, I will ask whether embryo space colonization is able to ensure the people it brings into the world an adequate or at least the morally appropriate quality of life. Finally, in the fourth and last paragraph, I will examine the question of the morality of human reproduction that passes through the guidance and choice of intelligent machines. I will argue that to evaluate the morality of this project we should consider not only the interests and quality of life of the first people who could be born but also the interests of all possible subsequent generations. (shrink)

An analysis of how capitalism today produces subjectivity like any other “good,” and what would allow us to escape its hold. “Capital is a semiotic operator”: this assertion by Félix Guattari is at the heart of Maurizio Lazzarato's Signs and Machines, which asks us to leave behind the logocentrism that still informs so many critical theories. Lazzarato calls instead for a new theory capable of explaining how signs function in the economy, in power apparatuses, and in the production of (...) subjectivity. Moving beyond the dualism of signifier and signified, Signs and Machines shows how signs act as “sign-operators” that enter directly into material flows and into the functioning of machines. Money, the stock market, price differentials, algorithms, and scientific equations and formulas constitute semiotic “motors” that make capitalism's social and technical machines run, bypassing representation and consciousness to produce social subjections and semiotic enslavements. Lazzarato contrasts Deleuze and Guattari's complex semiotics with the political theories of Jacques Rancière, Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt, Paolo Virno, and Judith Butler, for whom language and the public space it opens still play a fundamental role. Lazzarato asks: What are the conditions necessary for political and existential rupture at a time when the production of subjectivity represents the primary and perhaps most important work of capitalism? What are the specific tools required to undo the industrial mass production of subjectivity undertaken by business and the state? What types of organization must we construct for a process of subjectivation that would allow us to escape the hold of social subjection and machinic enslavement? In addressing these questions, Signs and Machines takes on a task that is today more urgent than ever. (shrink)

BackgroundThe aim of this study was to explore the construct validity and diagnostic properties of the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test in non-demented patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.MaterialsA total of 61 consecutive patients and 50 healthy controls were administered the 36-item RMET. Additionally, patients underwent a comprehensive assessment of social cognition via the Story-Based Empathy Task, which encompasses three subtests targeting Causal Inference, Emotion Attribution, and Intention Attribution, as well as global cognitive [the Edinburgh Cognitive and Behavioral ALS (...) Screen ] and behavioral screening [the Frontal Behavioral Inventory ; the Dimensional Apathy Scale ; the Beck Depression Inventory ; and the State and Trait Anxiety Inventory-Y]. The construct validity of the RMET was tested by regressing it within a stepwise model that encompassed as predictors the abovementioned cognitive and behavioral measures, covarying for demographic and motor confounders. Receiver-operating characteristics analyses allowed exploring intrinsic and post-test properties of the RMET both in discriminating patients from HCs and in identifying patients with a defective SET-EA performance.ResultsThe RMET was solely predicted by the SET-EA and SET-IA. RMET scores showed high accuracy both in discriminating patients from HCs and in identifying patients with a defective SET-EA score, with adequate-to-optimal both intrinsic and post-test properties.DiscussionThe RMET is a convergently and divergently valid measure of affective social cognition in non-demented ALS patients, also featuring optimal intrinsic and post-test diagnostic properties in both case-control and case-finding scenarios. (shrink)

Following the COVID-19 pandemic, many countries worldwide have put lockdowns in place to prevent the virus from spreading. Evidence shows that lockdown measures can affect mental health; it is, therefore, important to identify the psychological characteristics making individuals more vulnerable. The present study aimed, first, to identify, through a cluster analysis, the psychological attributes that characterize individuals with similar psychological responses to the COVID-19 home confinement; second, to investigate whether different psychological characteristics, such as personality traits, alexithymia, and resilience, specifically (...) influence anxiety, stress, and depression, depending on the scope of the confinement. We analyzed data from 393 participants who completed an online survey on their experiences during two different phases of the Italian lockdown, characterized by more or less strict measures of confinement. Two clusters were identified which included participants reporting a better and worse emotional response to the lockdown, respectively. Individuals in the −ER group showed lower emotional stability, resilience, and higher alexithymia. Moreover, even if lifting part of the restrictions decreased psychological distress among all participants, a reduction in perceived stress was observed only among individuals with high resilience. Finally, personality traits, alexithymia, and resilience differently affected depression, anxiety, and stress. Our results suggest that different psychological interventions should be planned depending on the context: mental health professionals should focus on enhancing the individuals’ coping strategies to alleviate stress in emergencies, while long-term intervention aiming at alleviating anxiety and depressive symptoms should focus on alexithymic tendencies and personality constructs. (shrink)

This paper aims to argue for the thesis that it is not a priori morally justified that the first phase of space colonisation is based on sexual reproduction. We ground this position on the argument that, at least in the first colonisation settlements, those born in space may not have a good chance of having a good life. This problem does not depend on the fact that life on another planet would have to deal with issues such as solar radiation (...) or with the decrease or entire absence of the force of gravity. These issues could plausibly be addressed given that the planets or settlements we will feasibly colonise could be completely transformed through geoengineering processes. Likewise, the ability of humans to live in space could be enhanced through genetic modification interventions. Even if, however, the problems concerning survival in space were solved, we think that, at least in the first period of colonisation of space or other planets, giving birth to children in space could be a morally irresponsible choice since we argue, the life we ​​could give them might not be good enough. We contend that this is the case since when we decide to have a baby. We argue that it is not morally right to be content that our children have a minimally sufficient life worth living; before we give birth to children in space, we should make sure we can give them a reasonable chance of having a good life. This principle applies both on Earth - at least where you can choose - and for space travel. (shrink)

As space travel and intentions to colonise other planets are becoming the norm in public debate and scholarship, we must also confront the technical and survival challenges that emerge from these hostile environments. This paper aims to evaluate the various arguments proposed to meet the challenges of human space travel and extraterrestrial planetary colonisation. In particular, two primary solutions have been present in the literature as the most straightforward solutions to the rigours of extraterrestrial survival and flourishing: (1) geoengineering, where (...) the environment is modified to become hospitable to its inhabitants, and (2) human (bio)enhancement where the genetic heritage of humans is modified to make them more resilient to the difficulties they may encounter as well as to permit them to thrive in non-terrestrial environments. Both positions have strong arguments supporting them but also severe philosophical and practical drawbacks when exposed to different circumstances. This paper aims to show that a principled stance where one position is accepted wholesale necessarily comes at the opportunity cost of the other where the other might be better suited, practically and morally. This paper concludes that case-by-case evaluations of the solutions to space travel and extraterrestrial colonisation are necessary to ensure moral congruency and the survival and flourishing of astronauts now and into the future. (shrink)

Recent controversies surrounding Michel Foucault suggest tensions and unresolved issues in his unfinished work. Here we interrogate Foucault’s legacy in relation to his claim that the welfare-state is a secularization of the Christian pastorate. We challenge Foucault’s binary narrative of the Christian flock versus the Graeco-Roman citizen and expand the focus to other ‘technologies of power’ in medieval Islam. Rather than an outburst of governmentality in modernity, we suggest a transregional and longue durée history of which the Christian pastorate was (...) merely one facet. This non-binary framework indicates that Foucault’s claim of a ‘demonic’ fusion of sovereign and pastoral power in modern politics requires significant revisitation. Finally, we claim that Foucault’s much-discussed fascination with neoliberalism may have roots in this one-sided narrative regarding the birth of the welfare-state. (shrink)

BackgroundThe present study aimed at assessing the diagnostic properties of the Montreal Cognitive Assessment in non-demented ALS patients and at exploring the MoCA administrability according to motor-functional status.MaterialsN = 348 patients were administered the MoCA and Edinburgh Cognitive and Behavioural ALS Screen. Administrability rates and prevalence of defective MoCA scores were compared across King’s and Milano-Torino clinical stages. Regression models were run to test whether the non-administrability of the MoCA and a defective score on it were predicted, net of the (...) ECAS-Total, by disease duration, ALS Functional Rating Scale-Revised and progression rate, computed as /disease duration. Intrinsic and post-test diagnostics were tested against a below-cut-off ECAS-total score.ResultsThe 79.9% of patients successfully underwent the MoCA, whose administrability rates decreased with advanced clinical stages, at variance with its defective score prevalence. The probability of the FAB not being administrable was predicted only by lower ALSFRS-R-bulbar and-upper-limb scores; no motor features, but the ECAS-Total, predicted a defective MoCA performance. The MoCA showed high accuracy and good intrinsic and post-test properties—being slightly more specific than sensitive.DiscussionIn non-demented ALS patients, the MoCA is featured by optimal diagnostics as a screener for cognitive impairment, especially for ruling-out its occurrence, as long as patients are in the early stages of the disease and have sufficiently spared bulbar and upper-limb functions. (shrink)

At what stage of development the object becomes a "design object"? The proliferation of everyday objects brought to light the problem of design, but through design we have been aware of the dense and inextricable presence of objects in our everyday experience. These objects, however, to be thought, must first be received, handled, exhausted, covered, used, consumed, handled in their technician structure, questioned, listened, sometimes rejected and sometimes invoked. The life path of the object is not reduced to a simple (...) linear sequence, the result of a mechanistic view of cultural processes, but it provides a multi-directional map, full of intersections and exchanges, very close to the image of the hypertext. (shrink)

The translation of this work has been funded by SEPS - Segretariato Europeo per le Pubblicazioni Scientifiche.

In this essay we take stock of the shortcomings, successes, and promises of ‘biopolitics' to understand and frame global health crises such as COVID-19. We claim that rather than thinking in terms of a special relationship between Western modernity and biopolitics, it is better to look at a longer and more global histories of populations’ politics of life and health to situate present and future responses to ecological crises. Normatively, we argue for an affirmative biopolitics, that at once de-securitizes our (...) approach to our biosocial condition and expands the politics of the human estate to other molar and molecular dimensions. (shrink)

A spatial logic is a formal language interpreted over any class of structures featuring geometrical entities and relations, broadly construed. In the past decade, spatial logics have attracted much attention in response to developments in such diverse fields as Artificial Intelligence, Database Theory, Physics, and Philosophy. The aim of this handbook is to create, for the first time, a systematic account of the field of spatial logic. The book comprises a general introduction, followed by fourteen chapters by invited authors. Each (...) chapter provides a self-contained overview of its topic, describing the principal results obtained to date, explaining the methods used to obtain them, and listing the most important open problems. Jointly, these contributions constitute a comprehensive survey of this rapidly expanding subject. (shrink)

The idea that the phenomenon of morality and, consequently, our ability to distinguish between vice and virtue can be explained by sympathy has been challenged as a highly controversial hypothesis, since sympathy appears to be easily influenced by proximity and selective, and would therefore seem incompatible with the possibility of taking an impartial, objective point of view. We intend to show that even a sentimentalist moral perspective such as the ‘Humean’ one, which places empathy (or ‘sympathy’, as Hume calls it) (...) at the core of morality, is capable of accounting for and justifying moral responsibility to future generations. Moreover, if we consider things from a Humean perspective, it is immoral not only to harm future generations, but also not to care at all about the extinction of the human species. For in the former case, we perform actions that cause misery, pain and suffering, whilst in the latter, we are not at all concerned about the welfare (i.e., happiness) of possible people who may, in the near future, come into the world and have a life worth or very much worth living. That is, in both cases, we show no ability to empathize with the possible people who will or may be born tomorrow. (shrink)

Chapter 1st of the book. This chapter explores the fundamental ambiguity of the concept of plasticity – between openness and determination, change and stabilization of forms. This pluralism of meanings is used to unpack different instantiations of corporeal plasticity across various epochs, starting from ancient and early modern medicine, particularly humouralism. A genealogical approach displaces the notion that plasticity is a unitary phenomenon, coming in the abstract, and illuminates the unequal distribution of different forms of plasticities across social, gender, and (...) ethnic groups. Taking a longer view of the plastic body as a ubiquitous belief in traditions predating and coexisting with modern medicine will help contextualize the seeming radicalism of today’s turn to permeability and the exceptionalism of Western findings. By highlighting the complex biopolitical usages of plasticity in the past, the chapter warns against simplistic appropriations of the term in contemporary body/world configurations driven by findings in neuroscience, epigenetics and microbiomics. (shrink)

This book studies a central but hitherto neglected aspect of Rousseau's political thought: the concept of social order and its implications for the ideal society which he envisages. The antithesis between order and disorder is a fundamental theme in Rousseau's work, and the author takes it as the basis for this study. In contrast with a widely held interpretation of Rousseau's philosophy, Professor Viroli argues that natural and political order are by no means the same for Rousseau. He explores the (...) differences and interrelations between the different types of order which Rousseau describes, and shows how the philosopher constructed his final doctrine of the just society, which can be based only on every citizen's voluntary and knowing acceptance of the social contract and on the promotion of virtue above ambition. The author also shows the extent of Rousseau's debt to the republican tradition, and above all to Machiavelli, and revises the image of Rousseau as a disciple of the natural-law school. (shrink)

O objetivo deste artigo é examinar o conceito agostiniano de futuro tal como aparece em "Confissões", XI. Buscaremos mostrar que a noção de futuro é tanto uma parte constitutiva quanto uma expressão própria do conceito agostiniano de tempo. Vamos analisar inicialmente a reflexão agostiniana concernente à criação do mundo e à pergunta acerca do ser do tempo. Em seguida, vamos examinar o conceito de instante e sua natureza cinética. A terceira parte tratará da reflexão agostiniana sobre a medida do tempo, (...) isto é, sobre o tempo como objeto de quantificação. Finalmente, voltaremos à noção agostiniana de futuro e sua ligação com o conceito de movimento. The aim of this paper is to examine the emergence of the Augustinian concept of future in "Confessions" XI. We will argue that the notion of future is both an essential element and a specific expression of Augustine's concept of time. Firstly, we will focus on the Augustinian reflections about the creation of the world and the question whether time is a being or not. The notion of instant and its kinetic nature will be the center of our concerns in the second part of the paper. In the third part, we will examine Augustine's reflections about the measurement of time, that is, about time as object of quantification. Finally, we will be back to the notion of future and its connection with the concept of movement. (shrink)

This book presents a critical examination of Machiavelli's thought, combining an accessible, historically-informed account of his work with a reassessment of his central ideas and arguments. Viroli challenges the accepted interpretations of Machiavelli's work, insisting that his republicanism was based not on a commitment to virtue, greatness, and expansion, but to the ideal of civic life protected by the shield of fair laws. His detailed study of how Machiavelli composed The Prince offers a number of new interpretations and he further (...) contends that the most challenging--and underestimated--aspect of Machiavelli's thought is his philosophy of life, in particular his conceptions of love, women, irony, God, and the human condition. (shrink)

Sex robots are already a reality: in this provocative text, Maurizio Balistreri explores the fascinating world of future sex, exploring the ethical questions raised by the existence of a sex robot industry.

We investigate the major mathematical theories of space from a modal standpoint: topology, affine geometry, metric geometry, and vector algebra. This allows us to see new fine-structure in spatial patterns which suggests analogies across these mathematical theories in terms of modal, temporal, and conditional logics. Throughout the modal walk through space, expressive power is analyzed in terms of language design, bisimulations, and correspondence phenomena. The result is both unification across the areas visited, and the uncovering of interesting new questions.

There is a growing body of scholarship that is addressing the ethics, in particular, the bioethics of space travel and colonisation. Naturally, a variety of perspectives concerning the ethical issues and moral permissibility of different technological strategies for confronting the rigours of space travel and colonisation have emerged in the debate. Approaches ranging from genetically enhancing human astronauts to modifying the environments of planets to make them hospitable have been proposed as methods. This paper takes a look at a critique (...) of human bioenhancement proposed by Mirko Garasic who argues that the bioenhancement of human astronauts is not only functional but necessary and thus morally permissible. However, he further claims that the bioethical arguments proposed for the context of space do not apply to the context of Earth. This paper forwards three arguments for how Garasic’s views are philosophically dubious: (1) when he examines our responsibility towards future generations he refers to a moral principle (which we will call the principle of mere survival) which, besides being vague, is not morally acceptable; (2) the idea that human bioenhancement is not natural is not only debatable but morally irrelevant; and (3) it is not true that the situations that may arise in space travel cannot occur on Earth. We conclude that not only is the (bio)enhancement of humans on Earth permissible but perhaps even necessary in certain circumstances. (shrink)

The article illustrates the different meanings of the term “logic” in Weber's work and then proceeds to discuss his approach to the explanation of historical events and in particular to counterfactual analysis. Weber's epistemology is first situated within the neo-Kantian debates of his time as well as legal positivism and historical jurisprudence. The article then focuses on this author's conception of science as a value sphere, on the aims and methods of explanation in the social and historical sciences and on (...) the key concepts of possibility judgements and adequate causation. The central role played by counterfactuals and modal logic is illustrated through the example of the battle of Marathon, which Weber himself saw as the starting point of a causal chain leading to the rise of Western rationalism. The article concludes by highlighting the pioneering role of Weber's counterfactualism for the subsequent development of possible worlds theory and its use in the causal analysis of singular historical events. (shrink)

In ancient Chinese culture, landscape constituted a fundamental element in religious, literary and artistic expressions. This contribution is intended as an imperfect and concise attempt to trace the “guidelines” – influenced above all by Daoist doctrine – of Chinese thought on landscape within the literature and pictorial art of traditional China.

In this paper I first offer a systematic outline of a series of conceptual novelties in the life-sciences that have favoured, over the last three decades, the emergence of a more social view of biology. I focus in particular on three areas of investigation: (1) technical changes in evolutionary literature that have provoked a rethinking of the possibility of altruism, morality and prosocial behaviours in evolution; (2) changes in neuroscience, from an understanding of the brain as an isolated data processor (...) to the ultrasocial and multiply connected social brain of contemporary neuroscience; and (3) changes in molecular biology, from the view of the gene as an autonomous master of development to the ‘reactive genome’ of the new emerging field of molecular epigenetics. In the second section I reflect on the possible implications for the social sciences of this novel biosocial terrain and argue that the postgenomic language of extended epigenetic inheritance and blurring of the nature/nurture boundaries will be as provocative for neo-Darwinism as it is for the social sciences as we have known them. Signs of a new biosocial language are emerging in several social-science disciplines and this may represent an exciting theoretical novelty for twenty-first social theory. (shrink)

1. Dialettica, metafisica e cosmologia -- Dall'anima alla prassi etica e politica.

In recent years, scholars have vividly debated over the definition and features of dogwhistles. As Jennifer Saul has widely argued in her works, political dogwhistles are powerful tools of manipulation. However, the current debate still lacks a convincing definition of dogwhistles, which sometimes are treated like spy codes while, at other times, they are labelled as instances of hate speech, as in Santana (2019). Instead, I propose a definition of dogwhistles that is based on the analysis of the audience design (...) of utterances. I claim that dogwhistles are speech acts designed to secretly change the conversational role of a subset of the audience. Furthermore, they qualify as forms of disguisement - and not concealment, as claimed by the received view - that violate two important conversational responsibilities of the speaker (Clark and Carlson 1992). (shrink)

En este artículo Maurizio Viroli muestra que aunque el patriotismo republicano tiene una dimensión cultural es, sobre todo, una pasión política basada en la experiencia de la ciudadanía. Patriotismo es el amor por una república libre y por su forma de vida: il vivere libero. En este sentido, el patriotismo es casi lo opuesto al nacionalismo. Para los nacionalistas el patriotismo es el amor por una libertad más modesta: la libertad de disfrutar a la sombra del trono, y en (...) paz, de la casita y el majuelo. Para los patriotas republicanos el amor por la patria es una pasión artificial, para los nacionalistas es natural. Como conclusión, Viroli sugiere que el patriotismo republicano es capaz de responder a los dilemas de la democracia moderna al ir más allá de la elección entre el mito del nacionalismo cívico y el horror del nacionalismo étnico. (shrink)

Mirko Garasic (2021) argued that space travel and, by extension, the colonization of other planets could morally justify using technologies and interventions capable of profoundly modifying the characteristics of astronauts and future Martian generations. According to Garasic, however, the fact that space interventions such as human (bio)enhancement or reproductive technologies such as artificial wombs may be morally justified does not mean that they are morally acceptable technologies to be used on Earth as well. Garasic’s thesis is that we should resist (...) the temptation to establish or reinforce a continuity between the ethical standards that apply to space travel and those that apply on Earth because what applies in space (or on other planets) does not necessarily apply to our planet. Garasic argues that in space, genetic enhancement interventions are morally acceptable, as they are essential for survival. On Earth, however, we can survive even without any form of (bio)enhancement. In a previous article (2022), we presented several arguments against Garasic’s thesis regarding the exceptional morality of what is morally acceptable in space. In this article, we examine and reply to Garasic (2022), showing that he fails to defend his thesis from the objections we previously advanced. Garasic’s mistakes are: (1) assuming nature (and consequently what is “natural”) as a normative point of reference which allows establishing what is moral and what is not moral; (2) defending the choices concerning reproduction as an insufficiently demanding and therefore unsatisfactory moral principle (according to Garasic we should not bring into the world people who can have a quality of life or a condition of well-being superior to mere survival); and finally (3) of not explaining clearly what it means to defend a principle of moral exceptionalism for space travel (Garasic does not explain whether this position applies to any behavior, for which what on Earth is a virtue, in space is a vice or is not a general principle, but he makes this case only for enhancement and reproductive technologies). Through our analysis, we not only refute Garasic’s position but also show that any attempt to address space travel issues as “special” moral issues faces several difficulties and, ultimately, is doomed to failure. (shrink)