L'échec des printemps arabes et l'instauration d'un nouveau Califat de la terreur en Syrie et en Irak nous contraignent à repenser la place du religieux dans le monde contemporain. Rivés sur les questions sécuritaires, nous manquons encore néanmoins d'outils philosophiques pour comprendre la montée d'un nouveau totalitarisme millénariste et apocalyptique. Le présent ouvrage s'appuie sur les travaux d'Eric Voegelin (1901-1985), un philosophe américain d'origine allemande encore trop peu connu en France et dont toute l'oeuvre vise à mettre en lumière les (...) racines religieuses des totalitarismes qui ont ensanglanté le 20e siècle. Voegelin et l'Orient propose une relecture iconoclaste de ses écrits, souvent à rebours de la réception néoconservatrice dont ils ont fait l'objet outre-Atlantique. Renaud Fabbri nous fournit ainsi des clefs pour mieux comprendre les origines idéologiques de l'islamisme radical mais aussi du nationalisme hindou. Il montre aussi qu'une redécouverte des grandes traditions de la philosophie mystique peut nous aider à conjurer le spectre des "religions politiques" qui menacent aujourd'hui aussi bien les non-croyants que les croyants de toutes les confessions. (shrink)

The 2003 SARS pandemic heralded the return of quarantine as a vital part of twenty-first century public health practice. Over the last two decades, MERS, Ebola, and other emerging infectious diseases each posed unique challenges for applying quarantine ethics lessons learned from the 2003 SARS-CoV-1 outbreak. In an increasingly interdependent and connected global world, the use of quarantine to contain the spread of SARS-CoV-2, or COVID-19, similarly poses new and unexpected ethical challenges. In this essay, we look beyond standard debates (...) about the ethics of quarantine and state power to explore a key quarantine principle, Reciprocity, and how it is being negotiated by healthcare workers, volunteers, and citizens in the context of the Wuhan, China, quarantine. We analyze Reciprocity through the lens of two Wuhan case studies: healthcare workers, particularly nurses, who are simultaneously essential workers and quarantined citizens, asked by their hospital administration to shave their heads because adequate PPE was not available, and citizen-to-citizen mutual aid societies attempting to fill gaps in essential supplies left unfilled by the state. We analyze social media and video-blogs from Wuhan, on the platforms of Douyin and Sina Weibo, to understand how people define and respond to ethical and legal obligations in the wake of COVID-19. It is no surprise that quarantine principles from the 2003 SARS outbreak are inadequate for COVID-19 and that both infectious disease outbreak responses and ethics must adapt to the virtual age. We offer ideas to strengthen and clarify Reciprocal obligations for the state, hospital administrators, and citizens as the globe prepares for the next wave of COVID-19 circulating now. (shrink)

V. Fabbri, Danse et philosophie. Une pensée en construction, Paris, L'Harmattan, 2007, 244 p. « La construction ne relève pas nécessairement de l'architecture : elle n'est pas architectonique mais rhapsodique, procédant par ajustement et montage de matériaux. » « En tant qu'elles construisent des formes d'expériences, les pratiques artistiques sont toutes traversées par une pratique du langage, y compris et surtout la danse. Ce qui est à construire en relation au langage lui reste au moins (...) - En librairie.

"Williams's masterful translation satisfies (at last!) a long-standing need. There are lots of good translations of Augustine's great work, but until now we have been forced to choose between those that strive to replicate in English something of the majesty and beauty of Augustine's Latin style and those that opt instead to convey the careful precision of his philosophical terminology and argumentation. Finally, Williams has succeeded in capturing both sides of Augustine's mind in a richly evocative, impeccably reliable, elegantly readable (...) presentation of one of the most impressive achievements in Western thought--Augustine's Confessions." --Scott MacDonald, Professor of Philosophy and Norma K. Regan Professor in Christian Studies, Cornell University. (shrink)

We present the theory of Dirac spinors in the formulation given by Bohm on the idea of de Broglie: the quantum relativistic matter field is equivalently re-written as a special type of classical fluid and in this formulation it is shown how a relativistic environment can host the non-local aspects of the above-mentioned hidden-variables theory. Sketches for extensions are given at last.

The Moral Nexus develops and defends a new interpretation of morality—namely, as a set of requirements that connect agents normatively to other persons in a nexus of moral relations. According to this relational interpretation, moral demands are directed to other individuals, who have claims that the agent comply with these demands. Interpersonal morality, so conceived, is the domain of what we owe to each other, insofar as we are each persons with equal moral standing. The book offers an interpretative argument (...) for the relational approach. Specifically, it highlights neglected advantages of this way of understanding the moral domain; explores important theoretical and practical presuppositions of relational moral duties; and considers the normative implications of understanding morality in relational terms. The book features a novel defense of the relational approach to morality, which emphasizes the special significance that moral requirements have, both for agents who are deliberating about what to do and for those who stand to be affected by their actions. The book argues that relational moral requirements can be understood to link us to all individuals whose interests render them vulnerable to our agency, regardless of whether they stand in any prior relationship to us. It also offers fresh accounts of some of the moral phenomena that have seemed to resist treatment in relational terms, showing that the relational interpretation is a viable framework for understanding our specific moral obligations to other people. (shrink)

The spatial-temporal association indicates that time is represented spatially along a left-to-right line. It is unclear whether the spatial-temporal association is mainly related to a perceptual or a motor component. In addition, the spatial-temporal association is not consistently found using a time reproduction task. Our rationale for this finding is that, classically, a non-lateralized button for performing the task has been used. Using two lateralized response buttons, the aim of the study was to find a spatial-temporal association in a time (...) reproduction task. To account for the perceptual component, reference and target stimuli were presented in different spaces through four experiments. In all experiments, a Spatial-Temporal Association of Response Codes (STEARC) effect was found and this effect was not modulated by the spatial position of both reference and target stimuli. The results suggested that the spatial-temporal association was mainly derived from the spatial information provided by response buttons, reflecting a motor but not visuospatial influence. (shrink)

This article presents a dialogue between Roland Barthes and Paolo Fabbri, which took place on 18 December 1965 in Florence, Italy. Barthes offers an engaging account of his structuralist approach to narrative, as was later published in essay form, ‘Introduction to the Structural Analysis of Narrative’, included in a special issue of Communications (Issue 8, 1966). In a cordial exchange with Fabbri, Barthes provides a more candid presentation of method than found in print, along with critical reflection of (...) the underlying importance of the structuralist approach, as perceived at the time. The interview took place as part of a small conference on narrativity. Participants included Algirdas Julien Greimas, Claude Bremond, Umberto Eco, Jules Gritti, Violette Morin, Christian Metz, and Tzvetan Todorov. Subsequently, a number of these participants contributed articles to the same issue of Communications, on the structural analysis of narrative. (shrink)

We consider quantum mechanics written in hydrodynamic formulation for the case of relativistic spinor fields to study their velocity: within such a hydrodynamic formulation it is possible to see that the velocity as is usually defined can not actually represent the tangent vector to the trajectories of particles. We propose an alternative definition for this tangent vector and hence for the trajectories of particles, which we believe to be new and the only one possible. We discuss how these results are (...) a necessary step to take in order to face further problems, like the definition of trajectories for multi-particle systems or ensembles, as they happen to be useful in many applications and interpretations of quantum mechanics. (shrink)

Le moment le plus remarquable dans l'œuvre de Goodman, Langages de l'art, c'est sans doute sa théorie de la notation ; c'est aussi une théorie de l'œuvre, une approche critique de l'ontologie – la construction de ce que j'appellerai une ontologie du singulier. La danse joue un rôle décisif dans l'élaboration de ces deux aspects de la pensée de Goodman : « La possibilité d'une notation pour la danse a été l'une des questions initiales qui m'ont conduit à étudier les (...) systèmes notationnels. » Si cette question (...) - Danse, théâtre et spectacle vivant – GALERIE. (shrink)

L’articolo si propone di indagare le implicazioni ecologiche di due differenti tendenze sistemiche: La General Systems Theory di Ludwig von Bertalanffy, che fa da cornice alla Systems Ecology di Eugene Odum; La Second-Order Cybernetics elaborata da Heinz von Foerster, Humberto Maturana e Niklas Luhmann, che costituisce la matrice di un nuovo paradigma ecologico denominato General Ecology. Nell’articolo verranno comparate la GST e la SOC in relazione ai loro differenti modi di intendere il sistema e la sua genesi; il ruolo dell’osservatore (...) nella definizione dei confini di un sistema; e la relazione tra sistema e ambiente. Verrà mostrato come la SOC, mettendo in causa il principio del controllo gerarchico della GST, conduce alla nozione di differenze ecologiche, con la quale si indica una pluralità di diadi sistema-ambiente, problematizzando così la nozione di ambiente come riferimento fisico e oggettivo. (shrink)

E' un'antologia di scritti ideati in un contesto di complessità, non solo teorica, ma anche veramente vissuta nella pratica della formazione e della ricerca, in cui i formatori, educatori, consulenti, persone d'azienda ritroveranno le loro esigenze e i loro riferimenti culturali e operativi.

Name der Zeitschrift: Semiotica Heft: Ahead of print.

The expression “ecological threat” refers to a dynamic of double intrusion: the intrusion of geological history in human history (the intrusion of Gaia) and the intrusion of human history in geological history (the Anthropocene). This double intrusion is founded on a series of major partitions (culture/nature; society/environment) that do not allow for the possibility of communication between the terms of these dichotomies unless it is in the form of reciprocal violation. In the article, the ontology of the flesh is used (...) in order to think the intrusion in a different way compared to the great partitions. Within a chiasmatic logic, the terms of each dichotomy are understood as inseparable moments of the same flesh which institutes a difference – inside/outside – through an infinite movement of folding and torsion. By thinking this common element, Merleau-Ponty’s ontology of the flesh enters in dialogue with Amerindian mythocosmologies of the “first Anthropocene.” In these mythocosmologies, a humanity-flesh – understood as a transformative, pre-individual, and metastable potential – gives birth, through differentiation, to the multiple points of view that populate the cosmos. This dialogue allows us to think about the socialization of Gaia and to trace the contours of a general ecology understood as a thought that operates between – or beyond – major partitions. (shrink)

In the contemporary digital age, recommender systems (RSs) play a fundamental role in managing information on online platforms: from social media to e-commerce, from travels to cultural consumptions, automated recommendations influence the everyday choices of users at an unprecedented scale. RSs are trained on users’ data to make targeted suggestions to individuals according to their expected preference, but their ultimate impact concerns all the multiple stakeholders involved in the recommendation process. Therefore, whilst RSs are useful to reduce information overload, their (...) deployment comes with significant ethical challenges, which are still largely unaddressed because of proprietary constraints and regulatory gaps that limit the effects of standard approaches to explainability and transparency. In this context, I address the ethical and social implications of automated recommendations by proposing a pro-ethical design framework aimed at reorienting the influence of RSs towards societal interest. In particular, after highlighting the problem of explanation for RSs, I discuss the application of beneficent informational nudging to the case of conversational recommender systems (CRSs), which rely on user-system dialogic interactions. Subsequently, through a comparison with standard recommendations, I outline the incentives for platforms and providers in adopting this approach and its benefits for both individual users and society. (shrink)