Nel 1919, Alfred North Whitehead interviene nel corso di un convegno interdisciplinare dedicato ai dati scientifici ultimi, mostrando come né il tempo né lo spazio né alcun tipo di materiale siano in grado ricoprire questo ruolo. La natura, ai suoi occhi, è invece un insieme in continua crescita di eventi ed oggetti che si intersecano e si sovrappongono tra loro, totalmente irriducibile a ogni visione materialistica e atomistica. Il testo, finora inedito in lingua italiana, si presenta come un’efficace panoramica (...) intorno ad alcuni concetti-chiave della filosofia di Whitehead ed è corredato da una breve introduzione, utile a contestualizzarlo. (shrink)

Dans le cadre de la Convention internationale des droits de l’enfance, à la fin des années 1980, les Nations unies ont encouragé de nombreux pays à créer des lieux de rencontres médiatisées pour assurer la continuité des liens parentaux lorsque les mineurs sont physiquement éloignés d’un ou de deux parents. En Italie, un service appelé « Spazio neutro » (espace neutre) a ainsi vu le jour. Il représente un espace à la fois physique et psychique voué au soutien, au (...) maintien ou à la refondation des liens parentaux en souffrance. À l’aide d’un suivi familial issu de l’expérience clinique d’un des auteurs de l’article dans une commune de l’Italie centrale, les caractéristiques et les spécificités d’un tel service seront illustrées ici. (shrink)

L’espace esthétiqueLe « renversement du cartésianisme » chez Deleuze et Merleau-PontyCet essai se propose de développer le rapport entre Deleuze et Merleau-Ponty à partir de la tentative des deux philosophes français d’aller au-delà du courantde pensée qu’on pourrait qualifi er, comme le fait Merleau-Ponty lui-même, de « cartésianisme ».Nous commençons notre itinéraire avec la critique que les deux philosophes adressent à la notion cartésienne de « ligne » – passage obligé pour penser, à travers Leibniz et sa notion de « (...) point », la ligne en tant qu’« ensemble de points ». On cherche ensuite à penser une ligne qui ne serait plus tracée dans un espace objectif présupposé, mais plutôt qui « se trace » dans un « espace expressif ».Un tel renversement de la « ligne cartésienne » produit, comme on le verra, des effets qui intéressent également la représentation de la ligne du temps. Émanciper cette dernière du modèle cartésien signifi e la penser par-delà toute référence chronologique, toute dépendance du temps de Kronos. On peut lire dans ce sens la tentative des deux philosophes pour penser le temps de l’événement, le temps de l’Aion. On verra enfin comment, d’un espace et d’un temps anticartésiens, doit naître, pour Merleau-Ponty et Deleuze, une nouvelle grammaire porteuse d’une nouvelle compréhension de la métaphore. Ni l’idée de métaphore proposée par Merleau-Ponty, ni le concept de devenir créé par Deleuze ne concernent une ressemblance fondée sur une identité donnée. Si la métaphore merleau-pontienne et le devenir deleuzien doivent être en mesure de restituer l’essence d’une chose, une telle essence se trouve, ou mieux se crée,à partir d’un mouvement vers « ce que la chose n’est pas ». C’est précisément dans ce sens que Merleau-Ponty lit la métaphore proustienne et que Deleuze cherche à rendre compte des ressemblances créées dans l’oeuvre de Gombrowicz.The Aesthetic SpaceThe “Reversal of Cartesianism” in Deleuze and Merleau-PontyThe present essay proposes to explore the relationship between Deleuze and Merleau-Ponty from the attempt they make to go beyond the current of thought thatwe may qualify, like Merleau-Ponty does it himself, as Cartesianism. We begin our itinerary with the critique that both philosophers direct at the Cartesian notion of the line. The passage through the Cartesian notion of the line is “obligated” in order to think – by means of Leibniz and his notion of point -- the line as a “set of points.” The Cartesian passage is obligated moreover in order to think a line which could no longer be drawn in a presupposed objective space but, rather, which would be “drawn” in an “expressive space.” Such a reversal of the Cartesian line, as we shall see, produces effects that concern also the representation of the line of time. To emancipate the line of time from the Cartesian model means we must think beyond all chronological references, beyond all dependence on the time of Chronos. We are able to read, in this way, both philosophers’ attempt to think the time of the event, the time of Aion. Finally we shall see how, for Merleau-Ponty and Deleuze, a new grammar carrying a new understanding of the metaphor must be born from an anti-Cartesian space and time. Neither the idea of metaphor proposed by Merleau-Ponty nor the concept of becoming created by Deleuze speaks of a resemblance founded upon an identity that is given ahead of time. If Merleau-Ponty’s idea of metaphor and Deleuze’s concept of becoming must be able to produce the essence of a thing, such an essence finds, or better, it iscreated on the basis of a movement toward “what the thing is not.” It is precisely in this sense that Merleau-Ponty reads Proust’s metaphors and that Deleuze will seek to give an account of created resemblances in the work of Gombrowicz. (shrink)

In his book, which is a sort of summa of his philosophy, Ferraris outlines a general and comprehensive ontology. To distinguish the three major regions within which everything can be classified, Ferraris makes use of the concepts of space and time specifying its distance from Kant and referring instead to Leibniz; but, trying to develop his thinking on this point, some problems arise. The article also summarizes the position of Mauro Dorato, that unlike Ferraris built his interpretation of space and (...) time in a profound confrontation with science. (shrink)

In his book, which is a sort of summa of his philosophy, Ferraris outlines a general and comprehensive ontology. To distinguish the three major regions within which everything can be classified, Ferraris makes use of the concepts of space and time specifying its distance from Kant and referring instead to Leibniz; but, trying to develop his thinking on this point, some problems arise. The article also summarizes the position of Mauro Dorato, that unlike Ferraris built his interpretation of space and (...) time in a profound confrontation with science. (shrink)

L’articolo qui riproposto e apparso originariamente nel 1988 anticipa alcune questioni fondamentali trattate nel presente numero, in riferimento alla collaborazione tra il video-artista Paolo Rosa e il suo gruppo Studio Azzurro e il regista teatrale Giorgio Barberio Corsetti. L’articolo sottolinea come l’incontro tra video-arte e teatro, tra arti tecnologiche e arti performative, rinnovi uno dei tratti caratteristici della pratica artistica moderna, dalla letteratura alle arti visive e performative: lo statuto del soggetto, in cui è in gioco l’interazione tra l’interno e (...) l’esterno della vita, della coscienza e dell’esperienza individuale. La collaborazione di Rosa e Studio Azzurro con Barberio Corsetti si collega così alla tradizione artistica moderna, sottolineata in modo particolare dall’opera letteraria di Rainer Maria Rilke. (shrink)

Emanuele Maffi argues that the Theaetetus, one of the most difficult dialogues of Plato, demonstrates the unbridgeable distance between philosophy and sophia, confirmed by the aporetic outcome of the dialogue. The purpose of this work is to demonstrate that this distance is not necessarily an evil, because in the impossibility of reaching sophia lies the very condition of the existence of philosophy. While all other Platonic works attempt to explain the best ways to inhabit the space of philosophy, the Theaetetus (...) sets the conditions for what constitutes the space of philosophy. (shrink)

The more recent interpretations of Kant’s 1768 essay Concerning the Ultimate Ground of the Differentiation of Directions in Space stressed the important role of the human body in determining the spatial feature of directionality. For that reason it seems to provide great support to an alternative account of Kant’s official doctrine of space in the Trascendental Aesthetic, namely a reading grounded on a «phenomenological» approach to the text. The present article firstly explains why a revision in translation allowed to discover (...) in the 1768 essay the new topic of the body. Then it shows how Kant’s remarks have been connected with his mature views by ascribing to him a constant phenomenological attitude. Finally it argues that a similar hypothesis is not much consistent with Kant’s aims, because of the methodological rules of philosophizing he was following in 1768. (shrink)

La concezione tradizionale che vede la sinistra e la critica sociale volte al rovesciamento del sistema economico-sociale si fonda su quattro presupposti: 1) la proprietÀ privata č la radice del dominio sociale; 2) č possibile pensare un regime di proprietÀ e di organizzazione economica diverso da quello capitalistico, accettabile in termini di equitÀ ed efficienza; 3) č possibile individuare nell'ordine sociale esistente le forze sociali che lo rovesceranno; 4) il cambiamento verso il nuovo ordine sociale puň essere realizzato con l'azione (...) politica. Il saggio prova a dimostrare perché queste quattro condizioni non si danno, e come, se la sinistra riesce ad accettarlo, possa pensare la sua azione come cambiamento reale dei rapporti sociali esistenti, e non come il loro rovesciamento. (shrink)

1. Dal mito delle facoltà alle reti neurali «Neurophysiologica sunt, non leguntur!» Rifacendo il verso a una celebre battuta fregeana, questa esortazione sembra condensare il fastidio di molti filosofi di fronte all’ingerenza dei neuroscienziati, i quali s’illuderebbero di risolvere i massimi problemi di filosofia della mente, soprattutto quelli legati al sorgere della coscienza e agli aspetti qualitativi delle sensazioni. Viceversa, forse per sentirsi legittimati a trattare quei problemi, g...

1. Dal mito delle facoltà alle reti neurali «Neurophysiologica sunt, non leguntur!» Rifacendo il verso a una celebre battuta fregeana, questa esortazione sembra condensare il fastidio di molti filosofi di fronte all’ingerenza dei neuroscienziati, i quali s’illuderebbero di risolvere i massimi problemi di filosofia della mente, soprattutto quelli legati al sorgere della coscienza e agli aspetti qualitativi delle sensazioni. Viceversa, forse per sentirsi legittimati a trattare quei problemi, g...

In this contribution I offer an analysis of some specific theses defended by Ceva and Ferretti (2021). First, I raise a question related to the theoretical work done by the sabotage of an institution’s raison d’être when both describing and morally evaluating political corruption. In particular, I will ask whether the ultimate moral reason why corruption is a moral wrong rests on the sabotage of the raison d’être that it entails and to which it could be con-substantially tied. Relatedly, I (...) will explore whether the sabotage of an institution’s raison d’être can be described without that particular cause-effect relationship which is the relationship between action and its consequences, and if the relation holds, whether we can still guarantee the constitutivist account of the moral agent that the authors favor. The second question I pose concerns the deficit of “office accountability” which according to the authors would be at the heart of the moral wrong of which political corruption consists. I will wonder whether this deficit is sufficient to capture political corruption, although it is certainly a necessary manifestation of it. Finally, I will argue that in order to grasp the phenomenon of political corruption not only should we look at intra-institutional relations, but also at the inter-institutional ones. A succinct appendix on the common sense semantics of the adjective “corrupt” completes my commentary. (shrink)

In this work I will evaluate the functions of rights within the moral discourse, and I will point out the benefits and the characteristics of a moral theory that takes rights seriously. In the first chapter I will sketch a definition of rights as a moral category that can be distinguished from categories such as the ones of juridical rights and natural rights. In the second chapter, I will propose a hohfeldian analysis of the normative syntax of rights, and I (...) will focus on the key problem of the relation between rights and duties. The issue I will deal with in the third chapter is the general function of specific rights. On this matter I will draw an hybrid solution between the orthodox proposals of the so-called interest and choice theories, and the more recent approaches provided by the past ten years literature. In the fourth and fifth chapters topics such as the conflict of rights, their violations and infringements will allow me to go deeper in the context and premises of the model of moral theory that I will take into account in the last section of this work. In the sixth chapter I will give an answer to the central questions of this research, and I will also provide a general model of abstract rights, by shading light on their original normative functions. I will use this model to investigate the possibility of justifying a moral theory on its ground, and I will compare this kind of theory with other theories structured upon different categories of normative objects – like duties and goals. (shrink)

On the Stumpf-Lotze debate on the theory of local signs.

In Paris, Capital of the 19th Century, Benjamin states that the goal of Haussmann’s renovation of Paris was to avert civil war. This essay aims to explore this insight and to investigate it also in relation to the transformations of Barcelona by Cerdá. Relying on observations made by Foucault and Schwarte, the article will show that architecture and urban planning can be understood both as political tools that are deployed to manage conflict, and as elements that shape conflict.