ABSTRACTThe present study examined the effects of emotions on eye movements, head motion, and iPad motion during reading. Thirty-one participants read neutral, emotionally negative texts and emotio...

This book explores how the design, construction, and use of robotics technology may affect today's legal systems and, more particularly, matters of responsibility and agency in criminal law, contractual obligations, and torts. By distinguishing between the behaviour of robots as tools of human interaction, and robots as proper agents in the legal arena, jurists will have to address a new generation of "hard cases." General disagreement may concern immunity in criminal law (e.g., the employment of robot soldiers in battle), personal (...) accountability for certain robots in contracts (e.g., robo-traders), much as clauses of strict liability and negligence-based responsibility in extra-contractual obligations (e.g., service robots in tort law). Since robots are here to stay, the aim of the law should be to wisely govern our mutual relationships. (shrink)

The Cyrenaic school of philosophy (named after its founder Aristippus’ native city of Cyrene in North Africa) flourished in the fifth and fourth centuries BCE. Ugo Zilioli’s book provides the first book-length introduction to the school in English. The book begins by introducing the main figures of the Cyrenaic school beginning with Aristippus and by setting them into their historical context. Once the reader is familiar with those figures and with the genealogy of the school, the book offers an overview (...) of ancient and modern interpretations of the Cyrenaics, to provide readers with alternative accounts of the doctrines they endorsed and of the role they played in the context of ancient thought. Finally, the book offers a reconstruction of Cyrenaic philosophy and shows how the ethical side of their speculation connected with the epistemology and ontology they endorsed and that, as a result, the Cyrenaics were able to offer a quite sophisticated philosophy. Indeed, Zilioli demonstrates that they represented, in ancient philosophy, an important and original metaphysical position and alternative to the kind of realism endorsed by Plato and Aristotle. (shrink)

The nature of matter and the idea of indivisible parts has fascinated philosophers, historians, scientists and physicists from antiquity to the present day. This collection covers the richness of its history, starting with how the Ancient Greeks came to assume the existence of atoms and concluding with contemporary metaphysical debates about structure, time and reality. Focusing on important moments in the history of human thought when the debate about atomism was particularly flourishing and transformative for the scientific and philosophical spirit (...) of the time, this collection covers: - The discovery of atomism in ancient philosophy - Ancient non-Western, Arabic and late Medieval thought - The Renaissance, when along with the re-discovery of ancient thought, atomism became once again an important doctrine to be fully debated - Logical atomism in early analytic philosophy, with Russell and Wittgenstein - Atomism in Liberalism and Marxism - Atomism and the philosophy of time - Atomism in contemporary metaphysics - Atomism and the sciences Featuring 28 chapters by leading and younger scholars, this valuable collection reveals the development of one of philosophy's central doctrines across 2,500 years and within a broad range of philosophical traditions. (shrink)

En 1819, Arthur Schopenhauer fait paraître son grand ouvrage, Le Monde comme volonté et représentation, et s’attend à rencontrer un vif succès. Très vite, ses espoirs se dissipent devant l’indifférence qui entoure la réception de ce qui reste néanmoins à ses yeux un chef-d’œuvre. Il n’hésite pas d’ailleurs à voir derrière ce silence pesant le signe d’une cabale menée par les plus médiocres philosophes, c’est-à-dire ceux qui ne vivent pas, comme lui, pour la philosophie mais de la philosophie....

The contribution describes the legal phenomenon as a playing field characterized by a progressive regression of the law, understood as a sovereign will from top to bottom, both in the vision of formalist legal positivisms in continental Europe and in realist terms, in the United States. Soft law represents the main strategy to subordinate the law to the interests of the economy, elasticizing environmental law, making it favorable to the market, reducing ecology to the simplistic metric of CO2 emissions. The (...) consequence is a retreat of the statist vertical normativity of law which is not replaced by a de facto power granted to those who control the technology, built by design to close spaces for pluralism and democratic action, in the interest of surveillance and concentrated power in private and government oligopolies. The author concludes by advocating the urgency for genuinely innovative categories, particularly in the legal education, such as the commons, capable of including sustainability into a “new ecological jurisprudence committed to inclusion and solidarity rather than exclusion and struggle”. (shrink)

The Μικρομεγάλη Ἰλιάς, the first work written by John Tzetzes, consists of 1.676 hexameters and numerous scholia. It narrates the events of the Trojan war from the conception of Paris to the fall of the city. This paper analyses the poem and its structure. In his later Exegesis to the Iliad, Tzetzes states that the Μικρομεγάλη Ἰλιάς allows to “learn thoroughly, in every detail” the history of the war. Following this evidence, the macro- and the microstructure of the poem are (...) analysed in order to understand how Tzetzes structured his literary work and to what end. The last paragraph deals with the title Μικρομεγάλη Ἰλιάς. (shrink)

Protagoras was an important Greek thinker of the fifth century BC, the most famous of the so called Sophists, though most of what we know of him and his thought comes to us mainly through the dialogues of his strenuous opponent Plato. In this book, Ugo Zilioli offers a sustained and philosophically sophisticated examination of what is, in philosophical terms, the most interesting feature of Protagoras' thought for modern readers: his role as the first Western thinker to argue for relativism. (...) Zilioli relates Protagoras' relativism with modern forms of relativism, in particular the 'robust relativism' of Joseph Margolis, gives an integrated account both of the perceptual relativism examined in Plato's Theaetetus and the ethical or social relativism presented in the first part of Plato's Protagoras and offers an integrated and positive analysis of Protagoras' thought, rather than focusing on ancient criticisms and responses to his thought. This is a deeply scholarly work which brings much argument to bear to the claim that Protagoras was and remains Plato's subtlest philosophical enemy. (shrink)

The study empirically investigates the relationship between corporate governance and the triple bottom line sustainability performance through the lens of agency theory and stakeholder theory. We claim, in fact, that no single theory fully accounts for all the hypothesised relationships. We measure sustainability performance through manual content analysis on sustainability reports of the US-based companies. The study extends the existing literature by investigating the impact of selected corporate governance mechanisms on each dimension of sustainability performance, as defined by the GRI (...) framework. Our approach allows to identify which governance mechanisms foster triple bottom line performance, also revealing that some mechanisms fit only specific dimension of sustainability. The fact-based findings provide support for a new beginning in the theorising process in which the theories must try not only to provide rationale for the impact of corporate governance on sustainability, but also to explain which dimension of sustainability might be more affected. The most important implication for practitioners is the support for sustainability practices, which may be gained through implementation of particular corporate governance mechanisms. The findings contribute also to the improvement of the ongoing standard setting process, in particular as it concerns the in-depth revision of the economic dimension of sustainability carried out under the new GRI framework. (shrink)

French Jesuit missionaries in China in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-4 DOI 10.1007/s11016-011-9530-8 Authors Ugo Baldini, Department of Historical and Political Studies, Faculty of Political Sciences, University of Padova, Via del Santo 28, 35123 Padova, Italy Journal Metascience Online ISSN 1467-9981 Print ISSN 0815-0796.

The paper focuses on concerns and legal challenges brought on by the use of algorithms. A particular class of algorithms that augment or replace analysis and decision-making by humans, i.e. data analytics and machine learning, is under scrutiny. Taking into account Balkin’s work on “the laws of an algorithmic society”, attention is drawn to obligations of transparency, matters of due process, and accountability. This US-centric analysis on drawbacks and loopholes of current legal systems is complemented with the analysis of norms (...) and principles of the EU data protection law, or “GDPR”. The aim is twofold. On the one hand, the intent is to shed light on some crucial differences between the US and EU law on the regulation of algorithmic operators, both public and private. Whereas, in the USA, scholars debate whether and to what extent new duties and responsibilities of algorithmic operators, e.g. information fiduciaries, have to amend the current framework of self-regulation and light government—as shown by the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy report from November 2016—in EU law much of the new duties and responsibilities of algorithmic operators have been passed upon them as data controllers. Whether such approaches will successfully tackle the normative challenges of the algorithmic society is, on the other hand, an open issue that will likely represent the main topic of debate over the next years. Disagreement may concern: the terms framing the legal question in e.g. statistical purposes of the data processing; how such terms are related to each other in legal reasoning ; and legal hard cases that will increasingly have to do with the principles that are at stake also but not only in data protection. By entrusting such legal hard cases to algorithms, or some sort of smart artificial agent, humans still bear full responsibility for the judgment of what is socially, ethically, and legally “plain” and “hard” in social affairs. The balance between delegation of decisions to algorithms and non-delegation will be the leitmotiv of the algorithmic society. Since the devil is in the detail, the current paper is devoted to some of them. (shrink)

La conférence que Georges Canguilhem donna au Collège philosophique de Jean Wahl en 1956, « Qu’est-ce que la psychologie? », fut saluée par Jacques Lacan comme une défense de la psychanalyse contre les prétentions hégémoniques de la psychologie. La psychanalyse, dont la naissance est malgré tout comprise dans la généalogie esquissée par Canguilhem, est-elle toutefois vraiment à l’abri des critiques que celui-ci adresse à la psychologie? Cette contribution analyse le rapport de la psychanalyse à l’instrumentalisme foncier de la psychologie sous (...) trois aspects : la relation entre science et vérité, la réduction par Gassendi et la tradition aristotélique du niveau originaire et spéculatif du cogito cartésien à celui spéculaire de la connaissance physique de l’âme par soi-même, et le choix freudien et lacanien d’un être-pour-la-mort contre toute philosophie de la vie. À la lumière du scientisme de la psychanalyse et de son rapport constitutif au mythe et au sacré, que Lacan pas plus que Freud n’arrive à dépasser, un lien est enfin établi avec, d’une part, l’archéologie de la psychanalyse développée dans Naissance de la clinique et La volonté de savoir et, de l’autre, le privilège que Foucault accorde à la psychanalyse et à l’ethnologie parmi les sciences humaines dans Les mots et les choses. (shrink)

The present study examined whether emotional text content influences cognitive engagement and transportation during listening (Experiment 1) and reading (Experiment 2) of neutral, horror and erotic stories. In Experiment 1, fluctuation in arousal and cognitive engagement were measured by continuous arousal judgments and head movement recordings during story listening. Participants rated experienced transportation and emotional valence after each story. The results showed that emotional texts were more arousing and induced more transportation than neutral stories. There was less head motion overall (...) and a steeper decrease in head motion across time for erotic than neutral or horror stories. In Experiment 2, participants’ head movements and reading times were recorded during reading, and participants rated experienced transportation, arousal, and valence after each text. The results showed that emotional texts were more arousing and induced higher transportation than neutral stories. There was less head motion during reading of erotic than neutral or horror texts. Horror texts were read slower and recalled better than neutral or erotic texts. The present results show that emotional text content impacts cognitive engagement during listening and reading of literary texts and demonstrates the importance of methodological triangulation when examining cognitive engagement. (shrink)

Often perceived by its contradictors as the main fragility of its system, analogy constitutes however a driving element of the development of Schopenhauerian metaphysics, and makes it possible to avoid the pitfall of theoretical egoism in which any idealistic philosophy can sink. We will try to show, in accordance with the indications of paragraph 19 of The World as Will and Representation, how Schopenhauer understands the totality of the phenomena "by analogy with our body" and establishes the structure of his (...) masterpiece from this analogical dynamic that puts in motion the primitive intuition of his thought. (shrink)

Sono certo sarebbe stato più prudente iniziare e concludere questa mia lectio prestando fede – e mettendo in pratica – quanto scrive Ludwig Wittgenstein nel 1932 in Pensieri diversi, quando dice: «In arte è difficile dire qualcosa che sia altrettanto buono del non dire niente». Ma tant’è: nelle cose del mondo, quando non si può negare una certa vanità, ci si inerpica spesso per sentieri difficili e impervi. M’incammino quindi, con qualche titubanza, nel tentativo di indicare il mio modo di (...) e... (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Internationales Jahrbuch für philosophische Anthropologie Jahrgang: 7 Heft: 1 Seiten: 293-308.

Studies on the 1616 and 1633 actions brought against Galilei by the Index and the Inquisition generally presumed that part of the documentation was still to be unveiled. This assumption was frequently accompanied by the hypothesis that some available documents were forgeries, merely composed to justify the 1633 condemnation. New documents from the Archive of the Roman Inquisition, including a censure of Saggiatore, official acts concerning the public dissemination of the verdict, and applications for permission to read Galilei¹s works, show (...) that the 1984 edition of his trial was not exhaustive. It is argued, however, that these documents were not concealed intentionally by the Holy Office and their not being found so far has been mainly due to the poor organisation of the Archive. Gianfranco Catelli, Gouhier e la cosiddetta dottrina della terza nozione primitiva In questo studio non si condivide l’opinione, dominante per molti decenni, che il cosiddetto dualismo cartesiano sia dovuto ad un “malinteso”, che può chiamarsi originario, dato che a rimanerne coinvolti furono alcuni tra i primi seguaci della filosofia di Cartesio. Una presa di posizione, questa, che, già sviluppata in altri precedenti lavori, viene qui riproposta relativamente a H. Gouhier, lo studioso che più di ogni altro, con ricchezza di documenti e sottigliezza di analisi interpretative, ha sostenuto la tesi del “malinteso” e ha individuato nella dottrina della terza nozione primitiva la spiegazione autenticamente cartesiana del rapporto sussistente tra anima e corpo. Una interpretazione di cui nel presentge studio si mostra tutta la debolezza, soprattutto se la si considera alla luce dell’altra dottrina, anch’essa cartesiana, ma di gran lunga più articolata, che fa del rapporto tra anima e corpo un nesso da spiegarsi in analogia al rapporto che nel linguaggio intercorre tra il segno e il suo significato. (shrink)

A practical hermeneutics of time. The Possible Present unfolds from within a freely reinterpreted hermeneutic perspective and provides an original theoretical proposal on the topic of time. In dialogue especially with the philosophies of Husserl and Heidegger, but resorting also to suggestions coming from a theological background (Barth and Bonhoeffer), the work proposes a personal and original theory of time centered on a conception of the present that does not reduce temporality to a succession of mere instants. When one claims (...) that time is ungraspable, one refers neither to the past (which is rather irretrievable) nor to the future (which is rather uncertain) but to the present. The present in which we are is in fact what fades from our hands without break. The present is a decisive threshold for finite existence. It is the threshold where past and future meet and can give birth to a livable horizon of meaning. Dilating the present and giving it a meaningful chance to be is a task for philosophy. It is the attempt of giving time to time and also giving it shape, place, and space. To succeed at this task while rediscovering the sources of a narrative way of thinking that in truth it has never abandoned, philosophy must go back and turn time into the primary object of discourse, like in stories, which are precisely the attempt at disposing the temporal flow of events according to a meaning. Perone argues that in time, however, what passes is not simply decline, but rather something irreducible, an exteriority that must be said. (shrink)

No single moral theory can instruct us as to whether and to what extent we are confronted with legal loopholes, e.g. whether or not new legal rules should be added to the system in the criminal law field. This question on the primary rules of the law appears crucial for today’s debate on roboethics and still, goes beyond the expertise of robo-ethicists. On the other hand, attention should be drawn to the secondary rules of the law: The unpredictability of robotic (...) behaviour and the lack of data on the probability of events, their consequences and costs, make hard to determine the levels of risk and hence, the amount of insurance premiums and other mechanisms on which new forms of accountability for the behaviour of robots may hinge. By following Japanese thinking, the aim is to show why legally de-regulated, or special, zones for robotics, i.e. the secondary rules of the system, pave the way to understand what kind of primary rules we may want for our robots. (shrink)