This article explores a promising theoretical approach for reassessing the relationship between inequality and economic growth. The article draws some insights from the influential inverted U-curve hypothesis originally advanced by Simon Kuznets, but drastically recasts the original arguments by shifting two fundamental premises. First, retaining Kuznets’s emphasis on the importance of economic growth in generating demographic transitions between existing and new distributional arrays, we argue that a “constant drive toward inequality” results after replacing a Schumpeterian notion of “creative destruction” for (...) the dualistic assumptions in Kuznets’s model. Second, while Kuznets devoted considerable attention to the impact of institutions on distributional outcomes, we argue that institutions should be understood as relational and global mechanisms of regulation, operating within countries while simultaneously shaping interactions and flows between nations. The article argues that economic growth, unfolding through institutions embedded in time and space, produces a constant drive towards inequality that results in a multiple and overlapping matrix of distributional arrays, an overall income distribution (e.g., within and between countries) that is both systemic and historical. (shrink)

The article studies the tradicional locus of madhouse present in 2666 by Roberto Bolaño, but taking into consideration also the desert and the church as spaces where the enunciation of madness is expands: the madman’s truth. To this end, three aspects that configure the heuristic notion of lettered madhouse are analyzed: the digressive diagrams, the phobic philology, and enlightened hospice. In short, it shows how Bolaño elaborates in his novel a critical and ironic vision of Latin American literary intelligentsia (...) or the remnants of The lettered City of Angel Rama. (shrink)

The year 1968 is universally considered a watershed in history, as the world was experiencing an accelerated growth of anti-establishment protests that would have long-lasting impacts on the cultural, social, and political spheres of human life. On September 26, amid social and political unrest across the globe, 62 physicists gathered in Geneva to found the European Physical Society. Among these were the official representatives of the national physical societies of 18 countries in both Eastern and Western Europe, who signed the (...) constitution in spite of the political divides of the Cold War. According to the main proponent of the society, Italian physicist Gilberto Bernardini, the success of the initiative was the realization of a dream: the institutional formation of a single community of European physicists, a representation of a culturally unified Europe that he described as a “single highly civilized nation.” The analysis of as yet unexplored archival materials of Bernardini and other protagonists in the establishment of the society has enabled an investigation of the historical development of science diplomacy in two interconnected ways: first, by elucidating how the actors involved, especially those in Western Europe, interpreted their role as diplomats amid particularly turbulent reconfigurations of international political relations; second, by interpreting the attempt to institutionalize transnational scientific networks with the establishment of a non-governmental organization as a tool to influence world political affairs. It will first be shown that the political ideal of a culturally unified Europe was deeply intertwined with the socio-professional interests of a specific community, mostly involved with CERN. I will argue that, in the process of establishing the society, the invasion of Czechoslovakia by Warsaw Pact armed forces led many of the Western physicists involved in this process to reframe the role of the European Physical Society as a tool to diffuse liberal-democratic values and to support political dissidents in Eastern Europe. (shrink)

A brief introduction to the main philosophical problems and theories about the nature of holes and such-like nothingnesses.

Philosophical questions about events lie at the crossing of several disciplines, from metaphysics and logic to philosophy of language, action theory, the philosophy of space and time.

The article deals with the lines along which manifold senses of horizonedness emerge and their reference to potentiality as a starting-point. The first section examines Gurwitsch's analyses of field-potentialities and margin-potentialities in the light of distinctions drawn by Husserl in terms of latency and patency. It is contended that Husserl's concept of latency encompasses both modes of potentiality. The second section shows how the world- horizon functions as a background- horizon and alternation- horizon conceived of as the two fundamental modes (...) of non-thematic consciousness. In this respect, an attempt is made to link this theme with Gurwitsch's description of the acquisition of the character of positional index as a worldly existent. The third section is concerned with how potentiality develops into an all-encompassing domain that can be anticipated as an ideal totality and into a pregiven ground, and outlines an approach to the complementarity of this threefold characterization. This development falls out of Gurwitsch's framework for the analysis of horizonedness. The article concludes with a characterization of the encasement-of-one-in-another of horizons. Reasons are suggested for the application of some ideas of Gurwitsch on thematic transformation to this sequence of levels. (shrink)

Nella prima parte l'A. individua la presenza dell'Etica Nicomachea nel De regimine principum di Egidio. Nella seconda parte esamina le possibili mediazioni nella ricezione egidiana dell'Etica. Nella terza parte offre alcuni esempi dell'influenza dottrinale dell'Aquinate nella classificazione delle virtù, nella loro connessione e nel rapporto tra magnanimità e umiltà. Nell'ultima sezione esamina il modo in cui Egidio, pur avendo presenti le proposte dell'Aquinate, segua una linea di pensiero originale, in particolare nel modo in cui inserisce nel suo specchio della virtù (...) del principe, ispirato ad Aristotele, la virtù dell'umiltà. (shrink)

Writing his Moralis philosophia, Roger Bacon discussed issues relevant to medieval political discourse. He felt the need to appeal to the authority of Aristotle, but having no access to Aristotle’s Politica, he tried to reconstruct its main tenets through the writings of other thinkers, such as Avicenna and Alfarabi. The result of this attempt is a sketch of a political theory that goes mainly under the name of Aristotle but has little to do with the actual contents of the Politica. (...) In the following years, Bacon remained faithful to his first reconstruction. The author suggests that, with all probability, Bacon, never read the actual text of the Politica. the result is that Bacon’s contribution in this field was not influenced by Aristotle’s political masterpiece, but by other texts, in particular by Avicenna’s Philosophia prima. Such an assessment should not imply a negative judgement on Bacon. Rather, we should consider him among those authors who contributed to the rich diversity of medieval political thought independent of Aristotle’s Politica. (shrink)

The problem of universals is one of the main philosophical issues. In this book the author reconstructs the history of the problem from Boethius to John of Salisbury, considering a selection of medieval representative texts.

Husserl sostiene que la metafísica es una ciencia de hechos y vincula el problema de Dios con el análisis de la racionalidad teleológica inherente a la facticidad. El artículo analiza cuatro interpretaciones que ponen énfasis en la relación entre contingencia y la necesidad en el proceso de constitución (J. G. Hart), la significación de la hylética (A. Ales Bello), la cuestión de la fenomenalidad de Dios y su relación con el acrecentamiento axiológico (E. Housset) y los problemas relativos a la (...) idea de Dios como garantía para el logro de una armonía en la comunidad de mónadas (K. Held). El propósito es subrayar la complementariedad entre un camino filosófico-argumentativo y un camino religioso-experiencial en el acceso a Dios, y hacer frente a la objeción de que la teoría de Husserl implica una idealización que encubriría el mundo de la vida. (shrink)

This paper deals with recent work on the role of objects in cognition and the methodological problems created by findings and theories in various strands of the cognitive sciences. The term ‘object’ is here mean to refer to spatially extended items that persist over time. The main theses of this paper are as follows. First, we should ideally consider the various notions and representations of objects and objecthood that emerge from the literature as components of something akin to the notion (...) of internalized language that is at the core of mainstream linguistics. There appear to be as many different I-representations of objects as there are fields of investigation, and this creates some interesting methodological problems. Second, it is important to assess whether these different notions may be traced back to a common ground of underlying principles. Existing unification attempts either underestimate the differences between the I-representations or pave the way to an eliminative position that would dispose of the variety of I-notions altogether. The paper builds on these previous attempts and proposes to use again an analogy from linguistics in order to show how commonalities and differences between the various I-notions can be accounted for. Third, this framework can allow us to make sense of some so far piecemeal analyses of the commonsense notion of an object. (shrink)

The experience of “coming out” to parents is often a crucial event in the lives of lesbian and bisexual women, associated with lower internalized sexual stigma and higher positive LB identity. Few studies have compared the experiences of LB women in the CO process. Rather, most prior research has either: not addressed bisexuality or eliminated bisexual individuals from the analysis; combined bisexual women and bisexual men in the same sexual orientation group; or examined bisexual participants alongside lesbian women and gay (...) men, using a single monolithic measure. Thus, the present research aimed at investigating the role of ISS and positive LB identity in inhibiting or encouraging CO to parents in a sample of 241 lesbian women and 186 bisexual women, aged 18–40 years. Most participants reported that they had already revealed their sexual orientation to their mother and their father. More lesbian women had CO to both their mother and their father than had bisexual women. These lesbian women reported lower levels of ISS and higher levels of LB positive identity relative to bisexual women. On average, CO to mothers occurred at age 20, while CO to fathers occurred at age 22. LB women did not differ in the average age of CO to mothers or fathers, or in parental reactions to CO. Finally, ISS was found to affect the process of CO to both parents via positive identity, whereas sexual orientation was not found to moderate the path from ISS to CO to both parents. The present study contributes to our understanding of the differences between LB women when developing their sexual orientation, highlighting the relevance of a positive LB identity for CO to parents. Research and clinical implications and directions for future research are discussed. (shrink)

This paper provides a comprehensive survey of the literature on Analytical Marxism (AM) and analyses its relevance for social theory. AM is precisely defined and distinguished from Rational Choice Marxism (RCM). The different substantive implications of the two approaches are discussed: according to RCM, the role of Marxism in the social sciences is exhausted, whereas AM has reconstructed a set of propositions that aim to provide the foundations of a distinctive approach in social theory. The methodological debate around and within (...) AM is analysed and the shortcomings of methodological individualism and rational choice theory are stressed, raising doubts on the claim that RCM is the only scientific approach to Marx's theory. Yet, wholesale rejections on a priori methodological or exegetical grounds are questioned. A focused, immanent critique of RCM is developed, which emphasizes the lack of an adequate analysis of structural constraints and endogenous preferences in RCM models. It is argued that the analysis of endogenous preferences and structural constraints is consistent with an anti-reductionist AM approach and it may provide the outline of a fertile, distinctive research programme in explanatory social theory that builds on the core of Marxism identified by AM. (shrink)

Nicolai Hartmann was one of the most prolific and original, yet sober, clear and rigorous, 20th century German philosophers. Hartmann was brought up as a Neo-Kantian, but soon turned his back on Kantianism to become one of the most important proponents of ontological realism. He developed what he calls the “new ontology”, on which relies a systematic opus dealing with all the main areas of philosophy. His work had major influences both in philosophy and in various scientific disciplines. The contributions (...) collected in this volume from an international group of Hartmann scholars and philosophers explore subjects such as Hartmann's philosophical development from Neo-Kantianism to ontological realism, the difference between the way he and Heidegger overcame Neo-Kantianism, his Platonism concerning eternal objects and his interpretation of Plato, his Aristotelianism, his theoretical relation to Wolff's ontology and Meinong's theory of objects, his treatment and use of the aporematic method, his metaphysics, his ethics and theory of values, his philosophy of mind, his philosophy of mathematics, as well as the influence he had on 20th century philosophical anthropology and biology. (shrink)

I examine some accounts that articulate the content of perception that occurs by means of a mirror. The defended account entails that a right hand seen in the mirror does not "become" a left hand.

Male-to-female transsexualism manifests itself in the form of a discrepancy between the male sex assigned at birth and the subjective experience of belonging to the female gender, which in many cases also involves a somatic transition by cross-sex hormone treatment and genital surgery. Until now, no studies related to MtF transsexualism have been carried out within the framework of a phenomenological/existential approach. This paradigm would make it possible to better articulate the transsexual experience beyond the simplistic diagnostic criteria by which (...) it is currently defined. In this study, I will reread MtF transsexualism in the light of Ludwig Binswanger’s theories on Mannerism and Jean Paul Sartre’s remarks on the self and the body. I will do this largely by focusing on first-hand accounts of the MtF transsexual’s experience, in other words from a first-person viewpoint. Finally, I will present some considerations on the meaning of psychological intervention in this field. (shrink)

Solidarity is often invoked in our times. The challenges posed by a complex juncture in human history seem to impose a rethinking of the concept and of the social practices that respond to the need...

The aim of this paper is to analize both the side that points to a field of possibilities and the side that points to the moment of a particular action in Husserl's formulation of the categorical imperative: "Do at every moment the best that is attainable!" First, the author surveys the range of possibilities considered by Husserl in order to delineate the best course of action. This analysis leads to a twofold enlargement of the practical horizon. On the one hand (...) a personal life-horizon involves both a unified style or habituality and a decision endorsing a profession or vocation, on the other hand an intersubjective horizon entails the attainment of a community of love as the highest form of community. Second, the paper explores the development of the categorical imperative with the purpose of stressing its subordination to the values of love and its teleological orientation toward a more perfect accomplishment of what is only partially attained. It is argued that, whereas determinateness in the horizon of practical possibilities leads to a discussion of the best possible action within a limited sphere, indeterminateness motivates the best possible approximation to a teleological ideal. Finally, the paper examines the moment of a particular action in order to show how the notion of kairós plays a role in different stages in the development of the categorical imperative that involve a critical moment of opportunity.El propósito de este artículo es analizar tanto el lado que se orienta al campo de posibilidades como el lado que se dirige al momento de una acción particular en la formulación husserliana del imperativo categórico: "¡Haz en todo momento lo mejor entre lo alcanzable!" En primer lugar, el autor examina el alcance de las posibilidades que Husserl considera a fin de delinear el mejor curso de acción. Este análisis desemboca en una doble ampliación del horizonte práctico. Por un lado, un horizonte personal de vida implica tanto una habitualidad o estilo unitario como una decisión que elige una profesión o vocación; por el otro, un horizonte intersubjetivo implica el logro de una comunidad del amor como la más alta forma de comunidad. En segundo lugar, el artículo explora la evolución del imperativo categórico con el objeto de subrayar su subordinación a los valores del amor y su orientación teleológica hacia una realización más perfecta de lo que solo ha sido alcanzado parcialmente. Se sostiene que, mientras la determinación en el horizonte de posibilidades prácticas lleva al examen de la mejor acción posible dentro de una esfera limitada, la indeterminación motiva la mejor aproximación posible a un ideal teleológico. Por último, se analiza el momento de una acción particular a fin de mostrar cómo la noción de kairós desempeña un papel en diferentes estadios en el desenvolvimiento del imperativo categórico que encierran un momento crítico de oportunidad. (shrink)

This article argues that, to distinguish between “critical” and “uncritical” solidarity, the normative concept of solidarity must be grounded on the principle of respect for persons. I start analyzing the principle of respect for persons from a modified Kantian perspective, arguing that it must be interpreted as a normative relation of power in which each person must recognize the autonomy of the other as a source of power. In this perspective, the principle of respect offers a foundation for an ethical (...) assessment of situations in which ethical solidarity is required. By drawing on the distinction between passive and active respect, I argue that solidarity is grounded on the duty of active respect in the face of danger or oppression and that this foundation allows us to distinguish between critical (i.e. appropriate) and uncritical (i.e. inappropriate) solidarity. (shrink)

The essay concerns the relationship between the notion of aura and the notion of digital image. The digital image is not simply image-of, not only mimesis of an, identifiable or not, thing or image, and so it does not have a simulacral essence. On the other hand, it is not even an icon or an original image; it is rather a genetic relational form belonging to a multiple rendering system. The digital image is not exactly “image”, but rather body-image, because (...) it is made up of ordered sequences of binary units, or otherwise character strings developing on different levels of a syntax which builds the coincidence of these strings and the sensible appearances, at present mainly sound or visual, but generally perceptible. (shrink)

This book investigates the ontological state of relations in a unique way. Starting with the notion of system, it shows that the system can be understood as a relational structure, and that relations can be assessed within themselves, with no need to transform relations in elements. “Relations” are understood in contrast to “relational property”: without a relation there is no identity, therefore no existence. What allows us to do that without hypostatizing the relation, and without immediately taking it simply as (...) a causal relation, can be better grasped, possibly, in reference to a few entities that make best display of their systemic nature, for example images, works of art, and virtual bodies. This book shows how virtual bodies are ontological hybrids representing a type of entity that has never appeared in the world before. This entity becomes a phenomenon in interactivity and evades the dichotomy between “external” and “internal”; it is neither a cognitive product of the consciousness, nor an image of the mind. The user is well aware of experiencing anotherreality, also in the sense of a paradoxical reduplication of perceptual synthesis. The virtual body-environment is therefore simultaneously external and internal, with virtual bodies-environments to be seen as artificial windows to an intermediary world. In this intermediary world, the space itself is the result of interactivity; the world takes place in the sense or feeling of immersion experienced by the user; and the body, perceived as “other”, takes upon itself the sense of its reality, of its effectiveness, as an imaginary and pathic incision, as a production of desire and emotion, to the point that the feeling of reality conveyed by a virtual environment will rely significantly on how this environment produces emotions in the users. (shrink)

Through an analysis of some crucial passages from Giovanni Gentile’s Sistema di logica come teoria del conoscere, Filosofia dell’arte, Introduzione alla filosofia and Genesi e struttura della società, the paper discusses the role and significance of the notion of “feeling” in Gentile’s philosophy and offers some insights into the idea of “aesthetic logos”, synthesis of logical immediacy and phenomenological immediacy, exhibition of a radical negativity beyond any conceptual understanding.

The poetic space, as I see it, is a space of resistance. Resistance against the media which do not need poetry. Communication among poets is a go-between, a web of messages, performances and presentations, the circulation of books and digital materials. These activities are political, functioning as politics in the Greek sense: discussion in a public arena, exchanges of opinion and criticism, interventions, concerted decisions, group projects, a net of relationships around the production of texts, articulating versions and diversions of (...) language. These activities and exchanges give the participants a sense of fulfillment. In this sense to pass is to think, to question a certain regime, to marvel that it is still there, to wonder what makes it possible, going into its enclaves, looking for traces of the movements which formed it and discovering in those stories apparently in ashes, how to think, how to live otherwise. (shrink)

L’articolo si concentra sull’analisi dell’estesa comparazione tra filosofia e amicizia proposta da Dante in Convivio III, xi, interpretandola come una consapevole analogia. A partire da un’attenta esegesi del capitolo, letto come un peculiare accessus ad philosophiam dantesco, l’articolo ripercorre le tappe dell’analogia evidenziandone i principali contenuti teorici. In questo modo, diventa possibile mostrare la rilevanza del tema dell’amicizia (in particolare di quella tra maestro e allievo) per una corretta comprensione di uno degli aspetti fondamentali (e anche più dibattuti) della pratica (...) filosofica così come concepita da Dante, ovvero il suo carattere intrinsecamente collettivo. Inoltre, l’articolo sottolinea come l’amicizia costituisca per Dante uno degli strumenti essenziali per l’allargamento del sapere filosofico al di fuori dei circoli universitari, obiettivo a cui il Convivio dichiaratamente mira. The article focuses on the analysis of the extended comparison between philosophy and friendship advanced by Dante in Convivio III, xi, interpreting it as a conscious analogy. Starting from a careful exegesis of the chapter, read as Dante’s peculiar accessus ad philosophiam, the article goes through the stages of the analogy, and it highlights its main theoretical contents. In this way, it becomes possible to show the relevance of the topic of friendship (especially that between master and student) for a correct understanding of one of the fundamental (and most debated) aspects of philosophical practice as conceived by Dante, i.e., its intrinsically collective character. Moreover, the article underlines that friendship constitutes for Dante one of the essential instruments in order to broaden philosophical knowledge outside of university circles, something that the Convivio explicitly purports to do. (shrink)

Quais os limites da contribuição da hermenêutica de Hans-Georg Gadamer aos estudos arqueológicos? Tal questão, aparentemente marginal e de somenos, pois suscitada pela sua aplicabilidade em outra área de conhecimento, toca, segundo nos parece, as esferas fundamentais da realização da linguisticidade (textualidade, escrita, oralidade, corporeidade e arte) e conduz a uma reflexão sobre o estatuto do vestígio (ou rastro), tema que parece mostrar certos entraves em sua proposta filosófica. Uma análise sobre a abordagem gadameriana de vestígio mostra que tal conceito (...) é submetido à ordem da textualidade, o que implica que a produtividade de sentido advinda da materialidade possua um caráter secundário. Em vista disso, o presente artigo aventa a hipótese de que a tese gadamariana sobre a linguisticidade não é imediatamente ajustável à arqueologia oriunda da cultura material e conclui sugerindo que o vestígio possui um caráter pré-reflexivo que ultrapassa os limites da textualidade. (shrink)

Management has tended to be established as science (Episteme) by using scientific methodologies and techniques. Although the era of Grand Theories has passed some time ago in social sciences, management has been still indicating the tendencies to develop ‘Grand Theories’. However, economic developments associated with globalization and the ‘Lehman brothers’ big bang in financial sector has shaken some assumptions about the nature of management as science and also about the methodologies by which management and entrepreneurship can or could be studied. (...) Specific shift to the future developments through Aristoteles’s intellectual virtue Phronesis has been traced in the work of theorists, such as Flyvbjerg, and others. They indicate new approach to organization studies, called phronetic organization research. In this paper, our exploration of research methodologies builds on Phronesis. Based on results of empirical study of business models in small and medium size companies in Slovenia, and extensive literature review we inductively build theoretical foundations for phronetic studies in the field of management and entrepreneurship and introduce the concept, called ‘phronetic bricolage’. It is based on understanding of management as ‘practical activity’ of ‘wise managers’ and bricolage—the research design (or approach) that builds knowledge from pieces of research from different fields, with different methods and various sources of data. We argue that phronetic bricolage is approach in management studies that links wisdom with complexity and variety of methods and sources of data. (shrink)