Alexandre d’Aphrodise et Origène sont deux philosophes et professeurs de philosophie semi-contemporains qui composaient le même genre d’œuvres. Origène était un philosophe chrétien, ancien élève d’Ammonius Saccas, le maître de Plotin. Il est très probable qu’Origène connaissait les écrits d’Alexandre d’Aphrodise, qui étaient lus à l’école de Plotin, et fut inspiré par eux. Beaucoup d’éléments soutiennent ma thèse. Par exemple, le Traité des Principes d’Origène dans sa structure est probablement emprunté à l’œuvre homonyme d’Alexandre d’Aphrodise ; l’expression ἦν ποτε ὅτε (...) οὐκ ἦν est utilisée pour la pre­mière fois – ce qui est très intéressant – justement par Alexandre et par Origène, qui très probablement la transféra du débat philosophique sur l’éternité du cosmos à la théologie trinitaire chrétienne ; la notion d’hypostase comme « substance indi­viduelle », qui devient technique chez Origène et exercera une influence énorme sur la théologie trinitaire chrétienne, était présente dans le Moyen Platonisme, ainsi que chez des auteurs médicaux du Haut Empire qui très probablement inspi­rèrent Origène, et peut-être chez Alexandre aussi ; Origène modifie la doctrine stoïcienne de la mixtion dans un sens qui s’approche d’Alexandre et de sa critique de cette doctrine ; la conception de ὕλη/ὑποκείμενον et εἶδος chez Origène révèle des influences manifestes d’Aristote et peut-être d’Alexandre ; la présentation et la réfutation de la pensée déterministe stoïcienne sont les mêmes chez Alexandre et Origène ; la théorie de Dieu comme Intellect et toute la caractérisation de Dieu a des parallèles étonnants chez Alexandre et Origène ; la doctrine de l’âme et celle des Idées aussi ont des ressemblances impressionnantes chez les deux philosophes. La relation d’Origène à la philosophie (qui fait l’objet d’un débat critique) est éclaircie à la lumière des nouvelles contributions de la présente recherche. (shrink)

Les objets nous parlent et, par ce qu'ils disent, ils nous agressent ou nous réconfortent, ils nous soulagent ou ils nous attristent. Les objets peuvent quelque chose pour nous. Pourtant, nous le savons, les objets n'ont que les pouvoirs que nous voulons bien leur donner. Pourquoi donc les objets ne restent-ils pas muets? Pourquoi croyons-nous à ce qu'ils nous racontent? Cette croyance possède, pour ainsi dire, ses raisons. Nous croyons aux histoires que les objets semblent nous adresser si ces histoires (...) rencontrent nos aspirations, si elles font paraître ces objets comme des moyens en vue de leur réalisation. Du bâti à la nourriture, notre environnement n'est pas muet et nos projets qui lui donnent la parole ne lui permettront pas de se taire. (shrink)

La reprise des travaux aux « Magasins Dessenne » au cours des années 2012 et 2013 avait permis de réévaluer l’histoire de l’édifice à l’aune de nouvelles observations architecturales. Certaines des hypothèses émises par le fouilleur A. Dessenne et par différents chercheurs concernant le phasage de l’édifice avaient été revues. Nous proposions en effet de voir dans la ruine non pas deux édifices distincts de part et d’autre d’un corridor central, mais plutôt un noyau initial auquel se seraient...

This essay situates Gregory’s treatment of the soul—especially, but not exclusively, in his dialogue On the Soul and the Resurrection—within the philosophical tradition of treatises On the Soul (περὶ ψυχῆς, to which he significantly added the Christian component περὶ ἀναστάσεως) and in conversation with Origen’s complex psychology. While Origen never wrote a work On the Soul, for precise reasons, he did write one On the Resurrection. His older contemporary Tertullian composed both a work On the Soul and one On the (...) Resurrection. Gregory opted for a synthesis—not in two separate treatises, but in the same dialogue—of the philosophical genre On the Soul with the Christian (for him Origenian) genre On the Resurrection (which in his view, as in Origen’s, coincided with restoration-apokatastasis) within the framework of a remake of a Platonic dialogue—namely, the Platonic dialogue on the immortality of the soul par excellence, the Phaedo. An investigation into the meaning of restoration with respect to the soul will be conducted in the light of Gregory’s philosophical definition of the soul and of the Platonic ideal of harmony and unity that are paramount in Gregory’s doctrine of the soul and nous. I shall finally tease out the role of the soul in what I call Gregory’s ‘theology of freedom’, deeply rooted in Plato’s philosophy, and the influence that he seems to have exerted on Evagrius’s theories of the threefold resurrection (of body, soul, and nous) and of the subsumption of body into soul and soul into nous (the so-called ‘unified nous’): it will be argued that the Christian Neoplatonist Eriugena was right to trace the latter doctrine back to Gregory of Nyssa. -/- . (shrink)

Le présent volume vient s’ajouter à la bibliographie déjà très abondante d’Ilaria Ramelli ; elle y aborde une nouvelle fois ses auteurs de prédilection, en particulier Origène et les Cappadociens, qu’elle rassemble sous l’étiquette d’ascétisme philosophique chrétien. L’auteur reprend ici sa méthode habituelle, qui procède par amalgames et répétitions, afin de faire à la fin admettre sa thèse, sans pour autant l’avoir proprement démontrée. L’ouvrage aborde cette fois la question de l’esclavage...

Monographic essay, Greek texts and fragments, translation, full commentary, and bibliography. Introductory essay -- Hierocles, Elements of ethics -- Stobaeus's extracts from Hierocles, On appropriate acts -- Fragments of Hierocles in the Studa.

This book presents a novel analysis of concealed-question constructions, reports of a mental attitude in which part of a sentence looks like a nominal complement, but is interpreted as an indirect question. Such constructions are puzzling in that they raise the question of how their meaning derives from their constituent parts. In particular, how a nominal complement, normally used to refer to an entity ends up with a question-like meaning. In this book, Ilaria Frana adopts a theory according to (...) which noun phrases with concealed question meanings are analysed as individual concepts. The traditional individual concept theory is modified and applied to the phenomena discussed in the recent literature and some new problematic data. The end result is a fully compositional account of a wide range of concealed-question constructions. The exploration of concealed questions offered in the book provides insights into both issues in semantic theory, such as the nature of quantification in natural languages and the use of type shifter in the grammar, and issues surrounding the syntax-semantics interface, such as the interpretation of copy traces and the effects on semantic interpretation of different syntactic analyses of relative clauses. The book will interest scholars and graduate students in linguistics, especially those interested in semantics and the syntax-semantics interface, as well as philosophers of language working on the topic of intensionality. (shrink)

Journal Name: Apeiron Issue: Ahead of print.

We study imagination as reality-oriented mental simulation : the activity of simulating nonactual scenarios in one’s mind, to investigate what would happen if they were realized. Three connected questions concerning ROMS are: What is the logic, if there is one, of such an activity? How can we gain new knowledge via it? What is voluntary in it and what is not? We address them by building a list of core features of imagination as ROMS, drawing on research in cognitive psychology (...) and the philosophy of mind. We then provide a logic of imagination as ROMS which models such features, combining techniques from epistemic logic, action logic, and subject matter semantics. Our logic comprises a modal propositional language with non-monotonic imagination operators, a formal semantics, and an axiomatization. (shrink)

European Journal of Philosophy, EarlyView.

Some realists in political theory deny that the notion of feasibility has any place in realist theory, while others claim that feasibility constraints are essential elements of realist normative theorising. But none have so far clarified what exactly they are referring to when thinking of feasibility and political realism together. In this article, we develop a conception of the realist feasibility frontier based on an appraisal of how political realism should be distinguished from non-ideal theories. In this realist framework, political (...) standards are feasible if they meet three requirements: they are politically intelligible, contextually recognisable as authoritative, and contestable. We conclude by suggesting that our conception of realist feasibility might be compatible with utopian demands, thereby possibly finding favour with realists who otherwise refuse to resort to the notion of feasibility. (shrink)

In 2016, the Five Stars Movement (5SM), one of the parties currently in power in Italy, launched the ‘Rousseau platform’. This is a platform meant to enhance direct democracy, transparency and the real participation of the people in the making of laws, policies and political proposals. Although ennobled with the name of Rousseau, the 5SM’s redemptive promise has been strongly criticised in the public sphere for being irresponsible and ideological. Political realism, I will argue, can perform both a diagnostic and (...) a corrective task, by providing some tools to unveil populist distortions and by offering more solid grounds for political opponents’ critique. Three aspects of realism, in particular, will be pointed out as remedies against populist drifts. First, anti-moralism, complemented by anti-utopianism and contextualism, criticises the populists’ moralistic picture of politics, its anti-pluralistic attitude and its rejection of the role of experts in politics. Second, the Weberian ethic of responsibility offers standards to assess politicians’ actions, instead of embracing the populist aversion towards any professional politician; besides, it contrasts the populist image of politics as a derogatory activity. Finally, realism as ideology critique unveils the distorting narratives underlying populist propaganda and fostering uncritical support. (shrink)

This paper problematizes the precision medicine approach embraced by the All of Us Research Program (US) and by Genomics England (UK) in terms of benefits distribution, by arguing that current “diversity and inclusion” efforts do not prevent exclusiveness, unless the framing and scope of the projects are revisited in public health terms. Grounded on document analysis and fieldwork interviews, this paper analyzes efforts to address potential patterns of exclusion upstream (from participating in precision medicine research) and downstream (from benefitting from (...) precision medicine outputs). It argues that efforts for inclusion upstream are not corresponded downstream, and this unbalance jeopardizes the equitable capacities of the projects. It concludes that enhanced focus on socio-environmental determinants of health and aligned public health interventions as precision medicine outputs would be to the benefit of all and especially of those who are most at risk of (upstream as well as downstream) exclusion. (shrink)

Political realists claim that politics should be regulated by a distinctive political normativity, one that does not rely on external, pre-political moral standards. It is in this sense that they distinguish political realism from ‘political moralism’, regarded as an approach that understands political theory as applied ethics. Importantly, realists’ anti-moralism is not motivated by the conviction that moral considerations do not play any role in the political realm. Rather, the target is the externalism of the normative resources on which moralist (...) theories typically ground their conceptions of legitimacy. In contrast to moralists, some realists have argued for the need to elaborate internal theories of legitimacy, ones that develop normativity internally – that is, from within the political context under evaluation. This commitment entails the effort to reconnect legitimacy to the beliefs and attitudes of people subjected to the political power. In these accounts of legitimacy, critique is typically exercised internally, by means of self-reflection and ideology critique. Contra some realists, I argue that some forms of externalism are desirable and compatible with internalist accounts of legitimacy, and I show how to accommodate them within internalist theories of legitimacy. They are desirable because they strengthen the emancipatory potential of internal reflection and, in some cases, even stimulate it, as when, because of political circumstances, internal critique cannot be exercised. In addition, they prevent internalist approaches from falling into descriptive accounts of de facto acceptance of power. These forms of external critique can be compatible with internalist accounts of legitimacy, provided that they do not contrast with what I call methodological and substantive internalism. Accordingly, in the article, I discuss which stances of external critique can and should be accommodated within internalist accounts of legitimacy, without renouncing to the realist character of the approach. (shrink)

Nowadays, scientific knowledge seems to be increasingly generated using technological methods, but also governed by technological demands and conducted by new technical ways of learning. In this paper I will analyze an effective example of this new trend in biomedical research: the Avicenna project and its “roadmap for clinical trials”. My aim is to understand what philosophical issues it arises and whether and to what extent this document provides effective responses and solutions to make its innovative challenges a concrete reality.

The doctrine of friendship with God is one of the most classical in the Christian tradition. Building on the teachings of the Fathers of the Church and of the Middle Ages, the Theology of the Siglo de Oro explored its meaning in greater depth, stimulated also by the Decree on Justification of the Council of Trent, which places this theme in the context of its reflection on grace. Outstanding among the authors of that epoch was the Jesuit, F. Toledo , (...) Master of the Roman College; the well-articulated reflection, which he offers in his Commentary on St. John examines in depth the relationship between friendship with God and the doctrine of Grace, and includes many ideas which are still of great value and interest for contemporary theology. (shrink)

Political realists argue that the concept of political legitimacy should be linked to subjects’ beliefs, while still offering normative guidance. In this article, I suggest doing so by referring to the concepts of acceptance and acceptability. I argue that a regime is legitimate if its power is accepted by subjects, provided that such acceptance meets the requirements of acceptability: subjects’ beliefs about the regime’s legitimacy need to successfully satisfy three requirements—coherence, fact-sensitivity, and politics-sensitivity—via entering public debate. I rely on pragmatism (...) to investigate the link between subjects’ beliefs and their experience of facing political authority. (shrink)

In this paper, we present an extensional system of mereology suitable to account for the intuitive distinction between heaplike and non-heaplike entities. Since the need to capture this distinction has been a key motivation for non-extensional mereologies, we first assess the main non-extensional systems advanced in the last years and highlight some mereological and metaphysical difficulties they involve. We then advance a novel program, according to which the distinction between heaplike and non-heaplike entities can be accounted for by bringing together (...) the parthood relation characterized by classical extensional mereology and an Aristotelian extensional notion of potential parthood. Thus, while rejecting the thesis of mereological monism, our proposal is consistent with the thesis of mereological extensionalism. We show that within this framework it is possible to characterize the above-mentioned distinction, to define the relation of material constitution, and to capture three fundamental standpoints in metaphysics. (shrink)

Most studies of research integrity in the general media focus on the coverage of specific cases of misconduct. This paper tries to provide a more general, long-term perspective by analysing media discourse about research integrity and related themes in the Italian and United Kingdom daily press from 2000 to 2016. The results, based on a corpus of 853 articles, show that media coverage largely mirrors debates about integrity and misconduct. In fact, salient themes in the news include the importance to (...) overcome the so-called “rotten apple” paradigm; the key role of public trust in science; and the need to address flaws in the peer-review system. (shrink)

This study concerned the role of gestures that accompany discourse in deep learning processes. We assumed that co‐speech gestures favor the construction of a complete mental representation of the discourse content, and we tested the predictions that a discourse accompanied by gestures, as compared with a discourse not accompanied by gestures, should result in better recollection of conceptual information, a greater number of discourse‐based inferences drawn from the information explicitly stated in the discourse, and poorer recognition of verbatim of the (...) discourse. The results of three experiments confirmed these predictions. (shrink)

Non-perturbative quantum gravity prevents the formation of curvature singularities and may allow black holes to decay with a lifetime shorter than evaporation time. This, in connection with the existence of primordial black holes, could open a new window for quantum-gravity phenomenology. I discuss the possibility of observing astrophysical emissions from the explosion of old black holes in the radio and in the gamma wavelengths. These emissions can be discriminated from other astrophysical sources because of a peculiar way the emitted wavelength (...) scales with the distance. The spectrum of the diffuse radiation produced by those objects presents a peculiar distortion due to this scaling. (shrink)

Social Justice and the Legitimacy of Slavery shows that there were definitive condemnations of slavery and social injustice as iniquitous and even impious, in antiquity and late antiquity. Ilaria L. E. Ramelli highlights that these came especially from ascetics, both in Judaism and in Christianity, and occasionally also in Greco-Roman philosophy. Ramelli argues that this depends on a link not only between asceticism and renunciation, but also between asceticism and justice, at least in ancient and late antique philosophical asceticism. (...) This volume provides a careful investigation through all of Ancient, Ancient to Rabbinic Judaism, Hellenistic Jewish ascetic groups, all of the New Testament, and Greek, Latin, and Syriac Patristic. Particular attention is given to Gregory of Nyssa and the interrelation between theory and practice in all of ancient and patristic philosophers, as well as to the parallels that emerge in their arguments against slavery and against social injustice. (shrink)

Intentionality is traditionally defined as the property of a mental state to be directed at something presented in a particular way. The fact that we can think about objects which do not exist makes this definition problematic: what kind of things are those objects? The aim of this paper is to analyse the definition of intentionality as a relation in theories which do not admit non-existent special entities. In particular, I consider John R. Searle and Tim Crane’s theories of intentionality (...) and I argue that neither Searle’s notion of a non-ordinary relation between the intentional state and the intentional object nor Crane’s idea of a relation between the intentional state and the intentional content succeed in holding together the traditional definition of intentionality and the purpose to not be committed to some kind of special entities. This intent seems finally hardly compatible with the traditional definition of intentionality. (shrink)

This paper investigates the status that the genre of fable acquires when it is employed in literature. In particular, it surveys Horace's treatment of fables in the Satires and Epistles and the carefully controlled circumstances in which zoomorphic language is allowed to emerge during the banquet at Trimalchio's in Petronius' Satyrica. The analysis of the distribution of fables in Horace shows that for the Roman literary public the act of speaking through fables bore in itself a negative connotation, so much (...) that the moral discourse of the satirist needed at first to provide additional justification in order to incorporate them: from vindication of ingenuitas and shifts in narrative voice, to use of rhetorical misnomers and eventually of philosophical frankness. Petronius' text, in turn, suggests that what is wrong with fable is precisely its being reminiscent of a servile past. During the dinner at Trimalchio's allusions to recognizable fable plots and zoomorphic language are allowed to surface only during a momentary absence of the host. This circumstance suggests that fable is not just another literary genre among the many genres abused in Trimalchio's house: for both the host and his freedmen guests fables are an uncomfortable reminder of an enduring past inscribed in their language. (shrink)

ExcerptThe debate about persecutory Fascist legislation, in its anti-Jewish and racial-colonial1 articulation, has represented one of the most innovative branches of historical research in Italy in the last twenty years.2 In 1988, the celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the promulgation of anti-Jewish legislation marked the symbolic beginning of fruitful studies on the racial character of Fascism. It allowed the integration, development, and refinement of the research carried out for a long time only by Renzo De Felice and Meir Michaelis.3The (...) actual enforcement of persecutory legislation, especially against the Italian Jewish minority, has been an object of detailed study…. (shrink)

Constellations, Volume 29, Issue 1, Page 93-106, March 2022.