The psychopathological analysis of hysteria is a victim of narrow conceptualizations. Among these is the inscription of hysteria in the feminine sphere, about body and sexuality, which incentivized conceptual reductionism. Hysteria has been mainly considered a gendered pathology, almost exclusively female, and it has been associated with cultural and/or religious features over time rather than treated as a psychopathological world. Further, hysteria has been dominated by conceptual inaccuracies and indecision, not only in terms of clinical features but also in terms (...) of its definition. For this reason, it seems necessary to “undress” hysteria from this feminization, sexualization, and corporealization with which it has been abundantly clothed over the years. “Undressing” hysteria will make possible a reconfiguring and deconstructing of the explanatory-causal model of Charcot and Freud. However, if we take out this cultural heritage, the stigma accompanying this diagnosis, and the weight of the enormous historical tradition that hysteria carries, the world of hysteria continues to constitute a domain full of complexity and nosographic challenges. Hysteria has been considered a sum of psychological behaviors and states illustrated by drama, mystery, or falsity. The difficulty in understanding the multiple somatic manifestations which characterize this clinical condition created several controversies and much confusion. In the current nosography, the personological component of hysteria has been separated from its symptomatic manifestation, in the Histrionic Personality Disorder and Conversion Disorder categories, respectively. This segmentation by descriptive nosography does contribute to a unitary understanding of the phenomenon and, consequently, of daily clinical practice. Clinical complexity can be grasped and deciphered only if the symptom is inscribed in the patient’s lifeworld and his/her subjective life history. Clinical practice is thus thought of in terms of a structural aggregation of a homogeneous set of phenomena, together constituting a specific way of being in the world. The starting point of this article is the evident modalities characterizing this life-world, taking care not to confuse the point of origin with the point of expression. (shrink)

Logical abductivism is the epistemic view about logic according to which logical theories are justified by abduction (or Inference to the Best Explanation), that is on how well they explain the relevant evidence, so that the correct logical theory turns out to be the one that explains it best. Arguably, this view should be equally applied to both deductive and non-deductive logics, abduction included. But while there seems to be nothing wrong in principle in using abduction to determine the correct (...) logical theories of deduction and induction, things might be more complicated regarding logical theories of abduction. We may wonder whether allowing for an abductive justification of a theory of abduction is an epistemically legitimate move, since here circularity casts its shadow and makes the situation darker. This is the issue to which this work is devoted. I will defend that, to be effective, an abductive justification for a theory of abduction calls for a justification of abduction in advance, which we do not yet have. (shrink)

The received view says that possibility is the dual of necessity: a proposition is (metaphysically, logically, epistemically etc.) possible iff it is not the case that its negation is (metaphysically, logically, epistemically etc., respectively) necessary. This reading is usually taken for granted by modal logicians and indeed seems plausible when dealing with logical or metaphysical possibility. But what about epistemic possibility? We argue that the dual definition of epistemic possibility in terms of epistemic necessity generates tension when reasoning about non-idealized (...) agents and is a problem of concern for most hyperintensional epistemic logics that alleviate the problem of logical omniscience. The tension is particularly evident when knowledge is taken as a primitive to define other epistemic concepts, such as justification and belief, as done in the knowledge-first tradition. We propose a non-dual interpretation of epistemic possibility, employing a hyperintensionality filter similar to the one that makes the corresponding epistemic necessity operator hyperintensional. We employ the proposed semantics to model Stalnaker's belief as epistemic possibility of knowledge and provide a sound and complete axiomatization for a hyperintensional version of his bimodal logic of knowledge and belief. (shrink)

"This is an excellent, readable and vigorous translation of _The Prince_, but it is much more than simply a translation. The map, notes and guide to further reading are crisp, to-the-point and yet nicely comprehensive. The inclusion of the letter to Vettori is most welcome. But, above all, the Introduction is so gripping and lively that it has convinced me to include _The Prince_ in my syllabus for History of Western Civilization the next time that I teach it.... Great price, (...) too! And lovely printing and layout." --Rachel Fulton, _University of Chicago_. (shrink)

Recent accounts support the existence of two distinct feelings of guilt: altruistic guilt (AG), arising from the appraisal of not having been altruistic toward a victim and deontological guilt (DG), emerging from the appraisal of having violated an intuitive moral rule. Neuroimaging data has shown that the two guilt feelings trigger different neural networks, with DG selectively activating the insula, a brain area involved in the processing of disgust and self-reproach. Thus, insula activation could reflect the major involvement of self-reproach (...) in DG rather than in AG. However, only a few studies have empirically tested whether and how DG and AG differently affect decision making and none have compared enhanced self-worth. Here we asked three groups of participants, respectively, induced with either pride, DG or AG, to participate in a third-party version of the ultimatum game in which they were asked to decide on behalf of others to accept or reject economic offers with several degrees of fairness. Results revealed that only deontological participants had higher median acceptances of Moderately Unfair offers as compared to proud participants. However fairness judgments were not different between groups, suggesting that deontological participants’ moral standards had not decreased. Crucially, a higher increase in DG was associated with an increase in the odds of accepting 30:70 offers. The opposite effects that DG and pride exert on self-worth can account for these results. Specifically, proud participants felt entitled enough to take action in order to restore equity, while deontological participants followed the “Do not play God” principle, which limited their decisional autonomy, not allowing them to decide on behalf of others. (shrink)

Rosenkranz (2021) devised two bimodal epistemic logics: an idealized one and a realistic one. The former is shown to be sound with respect to a class of neighborhood frames called i-frames. Rosenkranz designed a specific i-frame able to invalidate a series of undesired formulas, proving that these are not theorems of the idealized logic. Nonetheless, an unwanted formula and an unwanted rule of inference are not invalidated. Invalidating the former guarantees the distinction between the two modal operators characteristic of the (...) logic, while invalidating the latter is crucial in order to deal with the problem of logical omniscience. In this paper, I present an i-frame able to invalidate all the undesired formulas already invalidated by Rosenkranz, together with the missing formula and rule of inference. (shrink)

Assessing the scientific status of theories of consciousness is often a difficult task. In this paper, I explore the dialectic between the Integrated Information Theory, e1003588, 2014; Tononi et al. Nat Rev Neurosci, 17, 450-61, 2016) and a recently proposed criticism of that theory: the ‘unfolding argument’. I show that the phenomenology-first approach in consciousness research can lead to valid scientific theories of consciousness. I do this by highlighting the two reasons why the unfolding argument fails: first, phenomenology-first theories are (...) grounded, not circular. Second, falsificationism does not provide an adequate demarcation criterion in philosophy of science. I conclude that this specific debate has significance for how, in general, consciousness researchers test and criticize theories of consciousness, and how dismissing the phenomenology-first methodology in favour of a third person-based methodology means endorsing a position in philosophy of mind that has already been challenged. (shrink)

With a scene-setting historical introduction, this newly translated and illustrated edition of a classic work is an essential addition to any home library. Written in 1512, The Prince is the masterpiece by Florentine political philosopher, poet, and playwright Niccolò Machiavelli. Although Machiavelli’s book has been frequently misunderstood as a manual for unprincipled manipulators and tyrants, careful reading reveals that it actually identifies freedom as an essential characteristic of a good society. In fact, much of Machiavelli’s republican thought can be identified (...) in the American constitution, and many of his ideas — such as the belief that life is subject to change and that the winners will be those flexible enough to adapt—remain as applicable today as they were half a millennium ago. (shrink)

v. 1. 1819-1826. (It 68-Jan)--v. 2. 1827-1855. (It 68-Mar).

Key to precision medicine is the development of expert database projects that gather data, integrate them in the pre-existing database, and publish the product of their processing for others to make use of. Increasingly, it is required that data infrastructure managers and curators pursue and lead research projects on the data so as to learn about new ways data could be used or information that could be potentially generated from them. I call these efforts “data curation-research” and use the case (...) study of COSMIC, the Catalogue of Somatic Mutations in Cancer, to analyze the contextual factors shaping the science of data curation-research. I build on March’s organizational learning categories of exploitation and exploration to place these factors within a theory of organizational change and innovation, and contribute to a richer picture of the social drivers of cancer genomics. (shrink)

"Con uno stile piano, e nello stesso tempo acceso, Italo Mancini presenta una sintesi che potrebbe raccogliersi attorno al quesito sul "che fare, adesso?", soprattutto da parte di un credente, di fronte a forme sempre più avvertite di appesantimento e di invecchiamento della Terra.

The aim of this paper is to show how the invention of imaginary logic by Nikolaj A. Vasil’ev, forerunner of various logical and metaphysical theories appeared in the 20th century, is grounded on a revaluation of Aristotelian ontology. I shall introduce the reason why Aristotle believes that the study of the principle of contradiction is part of ontology (§ 2); I shall explain why Vasil’ev considers the law of contradiction an empirical law, and not a logical one (§ 3.1). I (...) will show his conception of contradiction (§ 3.2) and I will discuss how he believes that it’s possible to renounce this law; (§ 3.3). I shall then explain the fundamental features of imaginary logic (§ 4.1 and § 4.2); and, finally I shall claim how, in spite of a convergence from the logical point of view (§ 5.1), the incompatibility of the two authors takes place on an ontological level (§ 5.2). In order to do so, I shall implement the analysis of the Aristotelian syllogistic conducted by the Polish logician and philosopher Jan Łukasiewicz, together with a crucial distinction between two concepts: the one of ‘law’ and the one of ‘principle’. -/- . (shrink)

Ancient Egyptian Wisdom for the Internet demonstrates that the legal philosophy and knowledge of ancient civilizations are of great value in helping us deal with the Internet. Through a challenging exploration of ancient legal knowledge this book offers new perspective on how to deal with, and best profit from the Internet.

Currently, anomalous lived temporality is not included in the main diagnostic criteria or standard symptom checklists. In this article, we present the Transdiagnostic Assessment of Temporal Experience, a structured interview that can be used by researchers and clinicians without a comprehensive phenomenological background to explore abnormal time experiences in persons with abnormal mental conditions regardless of their diagnosis. When extensive data gathered by this scale are available, it will be possible to delineate well-defined anomalous lived temporality profiles for each psychopathological (...) disorder. This instrument may also prove useful for clinicians by providing a more refined assessment of relevant psychopathological symptoms and an in-depth understanding of the patient’s abnormal behaviour as related to specific types of time experience. In the first part of the article, we provide a brief overview of the phenomenological concept of temporality, including pre-phenomenal and phenomenal time, synthesis, conation and synchronization, and of abnormal time experiences in persons affected by psychopathological conditions. In the following part, we describe the basic structure of the interview that comprises seven categories corresponding to the abnormal features of lived temporality: anomalies of synchrony, of time structure, of implicit time flow, of explicit time flow, and anomalous experiences of the past, the present and the future. The paper also includes a section on administration and scoring of the TATE scale, the complete interview and a Likert table for quantifying the frequency, intensity and interference with daily life of the phenomena explored. (shrink)

Lettura prospettica di un caposaldo del pensiero hobbesiano: il sorgere del rapporto tra l'uomo ed il potere, tra la naturale condizione umana e la nozione di civiltà, attraverso due frammenti particolarmente rappresentativi della concezione hobbesiana del passaggio dallo stato di natura alla civiltà: il tredicesimo capitolo del Leviathan, sulla condizione naturale dell'uomo, ed il quinto capitolo, sulle cause ed origini della civitas, del De cive, giacché la mera esistenza dell'uomo ed il suo riconoscimento di una legge naturale, a giudizio di (...) Hobbes, non implica affatto necessariamente una qualsiasi forma consolidata di organizzazione sociale. Sebbene il De cive (pubblicato in latino nel 1642 e, in inglese, nel 1651) preceda cronologicamente il Leviathan (pubblicato, viceversa, dapprima in inglese, nel 1651, poi in latino, nel 1668), nell'ordine logico dell'esposizione qui presentata, il brano del Leviathan può essere considerato propedeutico al quinto capitolo del De cive, delineandone i presupposti, segnatamente la condizione di continuo pericolo per tutti causata dallo stato generale di reciproca guerra, che costituisce forse l'aspetto più noto (e frainteso) del pensiero hobbesiano. Per una migliore comprensione dei testi e delle differenti (spesso opposte) interpretazioni cui hanno dato vita, si è ritenuto di proporre, per quanto concerne i brani di Hobbes, tanto la loro traduzione in lingua italiana quanto le stesure originali in latino e inglese, presentate con i testi a fronte; tale scelta fornisce l'opportunità di osservare l'accurata scelta di alcuni dei vocaboli chiave della filosofia di Hobbes, la cui trasposizione da una lingua all'altra è stata spesso causa di fraintendimenti o volgarizzazioni in tutto o in parte ingiustificate. Allo scopo di offrire una più completa prospettiva del pensiero hobbesiano delineato nei brani selezionati, si è ritenuto di affiancare ad essi dei frammenti di interpreti novecenteschi (con delle sintetiche schede bio-bibliografiche) di alcuni concetti formulati da Hobbes e, segnatamente, di F. Tönnies, M. Horkheimer, L. Strauss, C. Schmitt, T. Parsons, N. Bobbio, H. Warrender. (shrink)

non, si Cambysae redeant et flumina Croesi,dicat ‘De nostro surge, poeta, toro’. In these two lines Propertius is proud to say that his puella would not dismiss him for the fabulous treasures of some dives amator. The problem is caused by the interpretation of Cambysae as given in all the manuscripts; it is difficult to understand both as a genitive singular and as a nominative plural. This form of the genitive is not, in fact, recorded before Apul. Fl. 15.12, and (...) the concurrent form Cambysis is even less common. Moreover, the Persian king Cambyses was not an example of opulence in Antiquity like the Lydian king Croesus, but of cruelty. The only passages where he is linked with the idea of richness are Apul. Mun. 26.13–15: Cambyses et Xerxes et Darius potentissimi reges fuerunt. Horum praepotentiam, quam ex opibus collegerant, lenocinium vitae effecerat celsiorem, and Juv. 14.328–31: Si nondum implevi gremium, si panditur ultra, | nec Croesi fortuna umquam nec Persica regna | sufficient animo nec divitiae Narcissi, | indulsit Caesar cui Claudius omnia, cuius | paruit imperiis uxorem occidere iussus, where we find apparently the same connection between Persian royalty and Croesus' richness that we read in Propertius' line. (shrink)

SummaryThis contribution examines the circumstances of composition of the annotated edition of Newton's Principia that was printed in Geneva in 1739–1742, which ran to several editions and was still in print in Britain in the mid-nineteenth century. This edition was the work of the Genevan Professor of Mathematics, Jean Louis Calandrini, and of two Minim friars based in Rome, Thomas Le Seur and François Jacquier. The study of the context in which this edition was conceived sheds light on the early (...) reception of Newtonianism in Geneva and Rome. By taking into consideration the careers of Calandrini, Le Seur and Jacquier, as authors, lecturers and leading characters of Genevan and Roman cultural life, I will show that their involvement in the enterprise of annotating Newton's Principia answered specific needs of Genevan and Roman culture. The publication and reception of the Genevan annotated edition has also a broader European dimension. Both Calandrini and Jacquier were in touch with the French république des lettres, most notably with Clairaut and Du Châtelet, and with the Bernoulli family in Basel. Therefore, this study is also relevant for the understanding of the dissemination of Newton's ideas in Europe. (shrink)

This groundbreaking, open access volume analyses and compares data practices across several fields through the analysis of specific cases of data journeys. It brings together leading scholars in the philosophy, history and social studies of science to achieve two goals: tracking the travel of data across different spaces, times and domains of research practice; and documenting how such journeys affect the use of data as evidence and the knowledge being produced. The volume captures the opportunities, challenges and concerns involved in (...) making data move from the sites in which they are originally produced to sites where they can be integrated with other data, analysed and re-used for a variety of purposes. The in-depth study of data journeys provides the necessary ground to examine disciplinary, geographical and historical differences and similarities in data management, processing and interpretation, thus identifying the key conditions of possibility for the widespread data sharing associated with Big and Open Data. The chapters are ordered in sections that broadly correspond to different stages of the journeys of data, from their generation to the legitimisation of their use for specific purposes. Additionally, the preface to the volume provides a variety of alternative “roadmaps” aimed to serve the different interests and entry points of readers; and the introduction provides a substantive overview of what data journeys can teach about the methods and epistemology of research. (shrink)

In the spring of 1784 the Marquis of Puységur, a great landowner and colonel in an artillery regiment, was called to the bedside of Victor, the son of his steward, who was suffering from pneumonia. Puységur was a follower of the new holistic medicine taught in an atmosphere of intense enthusiasm and scandal by Franz-Anton Mesmer, an Austrian doctor who had been living in Paris for several years. As a disciple of Mesmer, he intended to direct his ‘vital fluid’ onto (...) the young patient, by means of ‘magnetic passes’, to provoke ‘spasms’ which would lead to a calm state and an improvement in health. But things did not go as anticipated. Instead of displaying the anticipated spasms, the young Victor sank into a strange state of unconsciousness which, at first sight, resembled a deep sleep. Then he revived once more and came to life with a new personality. Freed from his inhibitions, he no longer spoke his habitual dialect, but the French of aristocrats, and he had no hesitation in berating his school teacher, whose secret thoughts he appeared to be able to read. Finally, he forecast the stages by which he would be cured and the remedies which would be suitable for him. Puységur wrote down all these strange facts and the following year he published a report which caused a sensation. Soon, throughout France, somnambulists appeared and observations about their subjects gathered. From that time onwards, the incomprehensible facts apparently evident in ‘provoked’ or ‘artificial somnambulism’ and also in ‘magnetic sleep’ - such expressions were used by Puységur and his followers for the state that he had just discovered - were to give rise to huge controversy. The Marquis of Puységur triggered the development nineteenth century of a movement of reflections and practices which have generally been referred to by the expression ‘animal magnetism’, invented by Mesmer. On the eve of the Revolution and throughout the nineteenth century this movement held a real fascination for philosophers, writers, and scholars. But there has been a tendency to overlook this episode in European culture, which has ultimately become a “lost continent” in our own period. (shrink)

‘What is important is to understand that every fact is already a theory. The blue of the sky already demonstrates the fundamental laws of chromatics. We should not look for anything behind these phenomena; they themselves are the theory’ Goethe, Maximen und Reflexionen, n. 575Because of the density of the aphorism, the quotation above implies more than the words seem to say explicitly. It refers to an apprehension of reality in a poetic and conceptual mode, a vision of the world (...) and humanity opposed to the mechanistic one that emerged from eighteenth century rationalism. Indeed Goethe is a milestone in the history of the themes inherited from ancient traditions and the Renaissance that have in common the project of integrating ‘the science of humankind, the science of nature and a study of the destiny of humanity through the adventure of existence’. (shrink)

Psychopathy is a personality disorder frequently associated with immoral behaviors. Previous behavioral studies on the influence of psychopathy on moral decision have yielded contradictory results, possibly because they focused either on judgment (abstract evaluation) or on choice of hypothetical action, two processes that may rely on different mechanisms. In this study, we explored the influence of the level of psychopathic traits on judgment and choice of hypothetical action during moral dilemma evaluation. A population of 102 students completed a questionnaire with (...) ten moral dilemmas and nine non-moral dilemmas. The task included questions targeting both judgment (“Is it acceptable to … in order to …?”) and choice of hypothetical action (“Would you … in order to …?”). The level of psychopathic traits of each participant was evaluated with the Levenson Self-Report Psychopathy (LSRP) scale. Logistic regression fitted with the generalized estimating equations method analyses were conducted using responses to the judgment and choice tasks as the dependent variables and psychopathy scores as predictor. Results show that a high level of psychopathic traits, and more specifically those related to affective deficit, predicted a greater proportion of utilitarian responses for the choice but not for the judgment question. There was no first-order interaction between the level of psychopathic traits and other potential predictors. The relation between a high level of psychopathic traits and increased utilitarianism in choice of action but not in moral judgment may explain the contradictory results of previous studies where these two processes were not contrasted. It also gives further support to the hypothesis that choice of action endorsement and abstract judgment during moral dilemma evaluation are partially distinct neural and psychological processes. We propose that this distinction should be better taken into account in the evaluation of psychopathic behaviors. (shrink)

In a previous paper, we discussed a model that considers abnormal eating behaviour epiphenomena of a more profound disorder of lived corporeality and identity (Stanghellini and Mancini, this issue). The core idea is that persons with FEDs experience their own body first and foremost as an object being looked at by another, rather than coenaesthetically or from a first-person perspective. In this paper, alienation from one’s own emotions, disgust and shame for one’s body of persons with FED, will be (...) discussed in the light of the embodiment and identity model of FED. (shrink)

Treatise on political power, statecraft, and the qualities of the ideal ruler.

In consciousness science, theories often differ not only in the account of consciousness they arrive at, but also with respect to how they understand their starting point. Some approaches begin with experimentally gathered data, whereas others begin with phenomenologically gathered data. In this paper, I analyse how the most influential phenomenology-first approach, namely the Integrated Information Theory (IIT) of consciousness, fits its phenomenologically gathered data with explanatory hypotheses. First, I show that experimentally driven approaches hit an explanatory roadblock, since we (...) cannot tell, at the present stage, which model of consciousness is best. Then, I show that IIT’s phenomenology-first approach implies a self-evidencing explanation according to which consciousness can be explained by starting from consciousness itself. I claim that IIT can take advantage of the virtuous circularity of this reasoning, but it also faces a data-fitting issue that is somehow similar to that faced by experiment-driven approaches: we are not given enough information to decide whether the explanatory hypotheses IIT employs to explain its phenomenological data are in fact best. I call this problem “the self-evidencing problem” for IIT, and after introducing it, I propose a possible way for IIT to solve it. (shrink)

Il testo, recuperato nella sua autenticità da colui che è universalmente considerato il più autorevole studioso di Machiavelli, presenta una ricchissima Nota al testo ed è preceduto da un'ampia introduzione volta a ricostruire il quadro politico in cui il Principe nacque e crebbe. A cura di Nicoletta Marcelli l'apparato filologico, un'accurata descrizione delle testimonianze ed un vastissimo commento esegetico, linguistico, stilistico e storico.

Riassunto I Germanikeia sono tra le più importanti feste efebiche ateniesi; tuttavia, l’anno della loro fondazione rimane incerto. Paul Graindor ipotizzò che la festa fosse stata istituita nel 18 d.C., in onore di Germanico, e officiata per lui fino alla metà del III secolo d.C. Questa ipotesi, sebbene universalmente accettata, non è basata su elementi probanti e deve essere pertanto rivalutata. Su questi presupposti, la ricerca prende in considerazione la documentazione, le caratteristiche dei Germanikeia ed i legami tra la celebrazione (...) e gli esponenti della famiglia imperiale. (shrink)