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Este artículo presenta los resultados obtenidos a través del uso de herramientas informáticas (Provalis Research), también conocidas como CAQDAS (Computer Assisted Qualitative Data Analysis Software), para el análisis de los escritos de Peirce, las bases estadísticas de una cronología para su último periodo intelectual y la justificación de una posible periodización del Pragmaticismo, además de la descripción de ciertos descubrimientos realizados en nuestro trabajo de archivo sobre los documentos y manuscritos originales de Peirce. Este trabajo es una parte de nuestra investigación en la Universidad de Quebec en Montreal (UQAM) y la Biblioteca Houghton de la Universidad de Harvard.

Abstract: Pereira’s “The projective theory of consciousness” is an experimental statement, drawing on many diverse sources, exploring how consciousness might be produced by a projective mechanism that results both in private selves and an experienced world. Unfortunately, pulling together so many unrelated sources and methods means none gets full attention. Furthermore, it seems to me that the uncomfortable breadth of this paper unnecessarily complicates his project; in fact it may hide what it seeks to reveal. If this conglomeration of diverse sources and methods were compared to trees, the reader may feel like the explorer who cannot see the forest for the trees. Then again, it may be the author who is so preoccupied with foreground figures that the everpresent background is ultimately obscured.

En primer término, se aborda la relación asimétrica de humanidades y ciencias en las instituciones contemporáneas de conocimiento sugiriendo la inconveniencia de acentuar la diferencia entre unas y otras, en la medida en que ambos órdenes epistémicos están sometidos hoy a los mismos condicionamientos estructurales. El efecto que estos tienen sobre las humanidades es analizado a través de dos aspectos críticos. En segundo término, se discute la significación epistémica de la ocurrencia como principio común de ciencias y humanidades apelando a la obra de Georg Christoph Lichtenberg a manera de caso ejemplar. En esta, experimentalismo y ensayo, singularidades, ficción y variación dan cuenta de un mismo brote epistémico en humanidades (y literatura) y ciencias.

This paper discusses the 17th-century Latin translation of Proclus’ Commentary on the First Book of Euclid’s Elements, preserved in Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional de España, MS 9871, produced by the Spaniard Vicente Mariner. The author examines the historical context, sources, and motivations behind Mariner’s translation, his intellectual profile, and the potential reasons for translating a mathematical text given his background in literature. Via a comparison of Mariner’s text with the original Greek, this paper delves into Mariner’s translation choices and linguistic nuances to highlight the challenges he faced while translating it. Transcriptions of the collated passage both from Grynaeus’ 1533 editio princeps of Proclus’ text and Mariner’s manuscript are provided in the Appendix. Overall, this paper attempts to shed light on Mariner’s contribution to the Latin reception of Proclus’ work in the early modern period.

Until now, the mass spread of fake news and its negative consequences have implied mainly textual content towards a loss of citizens' trust in institutions. Recently, a new type of machine learning framework has arisen, Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) – a class of deep neural network models capable of creating multimedia content (photos, videos, audio) that simulate accurate content with extreme precision. While there are several areas of worthwhile application of GANs – e.g., in the field of audio-visual production, human-computer interactions, satire, and artistic creativity – their deceptive uses, at least as currently foreseeable, are just as numerous and worrying. The main concern is linked to the so-called “deepfakes”, fake images or videos that simulate real events with extreme precision. When trained on a human face, GANs can make the face assume hyper-realistic movements, expressions and (verbal and non-verbal) communication abilities. This technology poses an urgent threat to the governance of democratic processes concerning the production of public opinions and political discourses, with significant potential for reality-altering and disinformation. After a short introduction of their current technical state-of-the-art, in this paper we want to enquire the GANs` socio-technical system alongside different and intertwined philosophical accounts. Firstly, we will argue about the conditions that make perceived a GANs-generated content as trustworthy, arguing also about the general effects GANs might have on the perceived trustworthiness of individuals. Thereafter, we will discuss about the inadequacy to approach GANs only as perception-altering technology. Against this backdrop, we will propose a theoretical turn that considers the human-machine relationships of trustworthiness as elements of a broader hybrid socio-technical systems. This turn come up with political repercussions that we will discuss in the last part of the paper.

This paper examines the transformative potential of performativity in reimagining the concept of dwelling and of domestic spaces. Drawing from enactivist and embodied cognition perspectives, we delve into the dynamic relationship between individuals, their bodies, and the architectural environment. Emphasising the role of bodily engagement, sensorimotor experiences, and interoceptive awareness, we explore how individuals actively participate in and shape their architectural surroundings. Moving beyond individual interactions, we also highlight the social and collective dynamics influenced by the built environment, underscoring the impact of cultural conventions and societal norms. This paper investigates some contributions that advocate for a reappropriation of institutionalised domestic spaces through imaginative interventions that challenge conventional norms and envision future-oriented dwelling practices. Within the context of institutionalised domestic spaces, we investigate the role of the fantastical and the monstrous as disordered qualities that challenge traditional boundaries and offer opportunities for transformation. Through case studies, we examine projects that blur the lines between public and private realms, enabling participatory practices and urban influences to reshape functional space utilisation. In conclusion, this paper underscores the importance of a dialogue between embodied performativity and the concept of dwelling. It proposes a re-evaluation of our relationship with space that is not just functional but enactive, and it champions the transformative potential of the arts in conceiving our future homes. With a renewed focus on sustainability, participation, and the interplay between the human body and space, we can begin to imagine a future of dwelling that is as dynamic, inclusive, and vibrant as the lives we wish to live within these spaces.

Considering the case of the recent creation of the Schneiberg Foundation in Turin, an antique Chinese artworks installation in an historical building, this paper tries to produce a philosophical interpretation of both the artworks and the installation, underlines and investigate the attempt of this project to overcome the distinction between the spectator and his object, involving the viewer in a non- dualistic experience through which he is able to produce his own performance and in that way to create an immersive experience that, like an alchemical process, transforms both his perception and the object of his perception. This text intends also to highlight how this experience is strictly and symmetrically connected to the nature, the meaning and the aim of the objects, i.e. antique imperial Chinese carpets provided of alchemical and philosophical meaning for a performative transformation of their spectator. The paper tries to create, in the end, a performative meaningful experience of a visit to that space and collection.

This paper inquires what kind of art best enhances what Jacques Rancière means by "politics". It argues that performance (theatre) and other types of artistic manifestations that include a performative component achieve what Rancière considers political equality. The paper argues on two fronts. First, it argues that artistic manifestations should not be understood as a special event, as understood in the traditional form of "ritual". Secondly, the paper takes this discussion to the question of the use of space in artistic manifestations. It is argued that performances should make a differential use of space, constituting spaces of categorical confusion, called thresholds, in order to better enhance Rancière's politics.

In a paper published in 1998, Ricardo Salles argues that the Stoic theory of action cannot account for practical knowledge, i.e., knowledge about what action is appropriate to be carried out in certain circumstances. The aim of this paper is to propose a solution to this problem. For this aim, I argue that the Stoics developed a perceptual theory of moral knowledge. According to this theory, the moral properties instantiated in objects, people, and actions are known through perception. After explaining this theory, I argue that it allows us to show that the Stoics deemed perception as a source of practical knowledge.

This paper analyses the reception of Norbert Wiener’s cybernetics in France with particular attention to the perspective proposed by Gilbert Simondon. The debate that has emerged since the 1950s among the philosophers of the so-called French Theory opens up the possibility of speaking of a revised cybernetics on the basis of the need to go beyond the structural analogy between living being and machine. The present paper investigates the relationship between Simondon and cybernetics by considering his 1953 manuscript, his two doctoral theses and his speech at the Royaumont conference in 1962. It also focuses on the concept of ecceità that Simondon uses in order to speak from the qualitative side of information and to propose an ontological perspective in which it is that which goes beyond the limits of Aristotelian hylomorphism.

This paper provides an account of the evolution of the notion of comparatio in the main dialectical works of Valla, Agricola, and Vives. It highlights the elements of continuity and discontinuity and sheds light on the original contributions of Vives’s treatment. In Valla, Agricola and Vives, the notion of comparatio characterizes: a) the locus of the relation to another in the inventio method; b) the cognitive act through which one can grasp the relationships of similarity and difference between concepts; c) the epistemic method for weighing the degree of plausibility of probable arguments. The paper also shows how Vives enhances the role of comparatio within dialectical art. Firstly, he attributes a pre-eminent position to the locus of the comparatio by virtue of the transversality of its application to all the other loci. Secondly, he identifies the explanation of the key concept of syllogism in the act of compering two sentences with a third. Finally, he finds the essence of the disputatio in the method of comparing equally probable contradictory arguments. This can rightly be considered an innovative element of the Vivesian dialectical treatment with respect to the most advanced European humanist movement of the first decades of the sixteenth century.

This paper analyzes Paul of Venice’s theory of measurement of natural properties and changes. The main sections of the paper correspond to Paul’s analysis of the three types of accidental changes (local motion: section II; augmentation: section III; alteration and qualities: section IV), for which the Augustinian philosopher sought to provide rules of measurement. It appears that Paul achieved an original synthesis borrowing from both Parisian (Albert of Saxony in particular) and Oxfordian sources (especially Richard Swineshead). It is also argued that, on top of this theoretical synthesis, Paul managed to elaborate a quite original theory of intensive properties that marks him out not only from the nominalist framework of his Parisian sources but also from the usual realist treatments of the problem. Finally, it is shown that, to a certain extent, Paul undertook to apply the mathematical and logical tools inherited from the Calculatores tradition to empirical problems of natural philosophy, leading to reevaluate his role in the evolution of scientific thought in early 15th-century Italy (section V).

This paper provides a philosophical analysis and a new edition of an anonymous Epitome (Compendium) of John Dumbleton’s solution to the semantic paradoxes (insolubilia). The first part of this paper briefly presents Dumbleton’s cassationist solution to the semantic paradoxes, which the English philosopher proposes in his Summa Logicae, written in the 1330s–40s. The second part investigates the solution to various types of insolubles proposed by the anonymous author of the Epitome. The third part provides a new critical edition of the Latin text – a first edition was edited by Bottin in 1978 – and an English translation.

This paper argues that the account of friendship (philia) present in Plato's dialogue the Lysis is rife with the disruptive and maddening force of eros. By its end it is no longer clear whether the familiar sorts of personal relationships that we typically count as friendships, and which Aristotle discusses with great sensitivity and appreciation in the Nicomachean Ethics, can be meaningfully sustained. To support this thesis, the paper analyzes each of the seven, relatively self-contained arguments Socrates offers. In addition, it shows how the dramatic context in which these arguments are embedded foreshadows the dialogue's principal objective: to blur the distinction between philia and eros by allowing the latter to infect the former.

Many scholars consider that Socrates in the Lysis holds that friendship and love are egoistic and utility-based. In this paper, I will argue against those readings of Plato’s Lysis. I will analyze how Socrates treats utility and egoism in the many different kinds of friendship he discusses in the dialogue, from parental love, like-to-like, and unlike-to-unlike relationships, to the accounts of friendship rooted in the human relation to the good and the ways in which we can belong with some other human beings. The upshot of my paper is twofold. I endeavor to prove that some of these relationships, as Plato’s Socrates discusses them, are not egoistic and that Plato represents and valorizes a particular type of friendship having to do with philosophy and philosophical way of life, which is for the sake of another.

Machine ethics is concerned with ensuring that artificially intelligent machines (AIs) act morally. One famous issue in the field, the control problem, concerns how to ensure human control over AI, as out-of-control AIs might pose existential risks, such as exterminating or enslaving us (Yampolskiy, 2020). A second, related issue — the alignment problem — is concerned more broadly with ensuring that AI goals are suitably aligned with our values (Gabriel, 2020). This paper presents a new trilemma with respect to resolving these problems. Section 1 outlines three possible types of artificial moral agents (AMAs): Inhuman AMAs: AIs programmed to learn or execute moral rules or principles without understanding them in anything like the way that we do. Better-Human AMAs: AIs programmed to learn, execute, and understand moral rules or principles somewhat like we do, but correcting for various sources of human moral error. Human-Like AMAs: AIs programmed to understand and apply moral values in broadly the same way that we do, with a human-like moral psychology. Sections 2-4 then argue that each type of AMA generates unique control and alignment problems that have not been fully appreciated. Section 2 argues that Inhuman AMAs are likely to behave in inhumane ways that pose serious existential risks. Section 3 then contends that Better-Human AMAs run a serious risk of magnifying some sources of human moral error by reducing or eliminating others. Section 4 then argues that Human-Like AMAs would not only likely reproduce human moral failures, but also plausibly be highly intelligent, conscious beings with interests and wills of their own who should therefore be entitled to similar moral rights and freedoms as us (Schwitzgebel & Garza, 2020). This generates what I call the New Control Problem: ensuring that humans and Human-Like AMAs exert a morally appropriate amount of control over each other. Finally, Section 5 argues that resolving the New Control Problem would, at a minimum, plausibly require ensuring what Hume and Rawls term “circumstances of justice” between humans and Human-Like AMAs. But, I argue, there are grounds for thinking this will be profoundly difficult to achieve — indeed, far more difficult than the already-formidable problem of ensuring justice between humans —given the vast capability differences we can expect to exist between humans and Human-Like AMAs. I thus conclude on a skeptical note. Different approaches to developing “safe, ethical AI” generate subtly different control and alignment problems that we do not currently know how to adequately resolve, and which may or may not be surmountable. To determine whether they are, and if so how, AI ethicists and developers must pursue more careful bodies of work on the problems this paper presents.

The aim of this paper is to assess the evidence on Cyrenaic solipsism and show how and why some views endorsed by the Cyrenaics appear to be committing them to solipsism. After evaluating the fascinating case for Cyrenaic solipsism, the paper shall deal with an (often) underestimated argument on language attributed to the Cyrenaics, whose logic – if I reconstruct it well – implies that after all the Cyrenaics cannot have endorsed a radical solipsism. Yet, by drawing an illuminating parallel with Wittgenstein’s argument on private language and inner sensations, a case is to be made for the Cyrenaics to have subscribed to a sort of ‘residual solipsism’, which in turn helps us to understand the notion of Cyrenaic privacy at a fuller extent.

The pregnant female body and, more generally, the generative process tout court have been linked with metaphors since the dawn of Western philosophy, though this history has only recently been taken up and critically discussed (Rigotti 2010; Cavarero 1995). The research hypothesis I test in this paper is that pregnancy and childbirth ought to be considered as absolute metaphors, as per their “indissoluble alogicality” (Blumenberg 2010). Following the analyses presented in Paradigms for a Metaphorology, the goal of the article is to enhance dialogue between Blumenberg’s conception of the metaphor and those philosophical reflections that focus on the pervasiveness of metaphors concerning pregnancy and childbirth. This paper is therefore an investigation on the link between female reproductive functions and philosophical knowledge.

ABSTRACT We can often find in the literature (both popular and academic) ascriptions of complex collective duties to extensive unstructured collections of individuals. By ‘complex collective duties’, I mean collective duties that, plausibly, require that the individual members of an extensive unstructured collection should enact different contributory act-types to achieve an end jointly - for example, the alleged universal collective duty to end global poverty. In this paper, I argue that these duties are not action-guiding. The reason is that they do not pass what I call the ‘test of action-guidance’. This test assumes the intuitive belief that a moral duty is action-guiding only if it is clear to the duty-bearer the act-type that she should enact after the ascription of the duty. Complex collective duties ascribed to extensive unstructured collections fail to pass this test because, even though each duty-bearer (that is, each member of the collection) receives guidance on the end that they should achieve jointly, it is not clear to these agents the act-type that each of them should put into practice.

ABSTRACT This paper examines the role that the notion of political obligation has in the thought of the Italian philosopher of politics and law Alessandro Passerin d’Entrèves (1902 - 1985), especially in its relationship with the democratic regime and forms of resistance on the part of citizens. By analyzing the author’s main arguments in this regard, it seeks to demonstrate the flexibility of the author’s concept of State, and the importance of philosophy as a point of intersection between morality and law, constituting itself as an instrument of phenomenological approach to the forms of human association.

This paper studies the meaning of the term species in Justinian’s Digest. It considers the uniqueness to the jurisprudential meaning of this concept in the works of the classical Roman jurists and how this meaning rivals that of the theory of forms derived from dialectical and classificatory methods found in Greek philosophy. The paper, offering a reading of fragments of the Digest, argues that the word species refers there to the product of a casuistic approach to jurisprudence, interested in the ‘juridical morphology’ of cases as well as objects. Such species are shown to ‘repeal’ rather than reproduce the taxonomy of general laws and generic classes, pursuing a thought that is at odds with the aim of a ‘general’ jurisprudence. It is hoped that this paper may help point to new approaches to studying the relationship between legal institution and the life sciences, drawing attention to the limitation for legal thought in a dominant biological understanding of the species-concept.

This paper examines the relationship between Merleau-Ponty's lectures on institution and his lectures on passivity. I argue that the relationship depends on Merleau-Ponty's internal critique of institution as outlined in Husserl's ouevre. That is, institution is not only human institution, which rests on temporality and time-consciousness (and so concerns memory, history, culture, etc), but also animal, biological and even virological, which rests on a certain, non-euclidian space of the body. Merleau-Ponty's focus in the course is animal institution: animal morphology, menstruation, puberty, etc. These are what tie institution and passivity together, and especially the passivity that Merleau-Ponty calls the "symbolic matrix," the touchstone of which is the "implex." While the paper discusses, Merleau-Ponty's critique of Husserl and the consequent understanding of a passivity in institution, it opens the possibility that the virological may be yet another kind of passivity that has instituted a new trajectory in human institution. This is highlighted in the very word "pandemic."

This paper discusses the empirical findings concerning the visual aesthetic experience in a neurological context. Accordingly, the aim of this paper is to shed light on the common ground across neuroscience, psychology, and philosophy to pave new roads for empirical research. Cognitive models posit that the brain employs neural networks mediating bottom-up and top- down processes, and in effect, engenders emotion and reward throughout the visual aesthetic experience. Likewise, empathy and its corresponding recruitment of bodily processes may facilitate the understanding of a visual artwork’s depicted emotion, which may allow the viewer to engage with the visual artwork from a psychological distance and, consequently, to experience pleasure regardless of the visual artwork’s emotional content. In conclusion, empathetic processes may be central to the visual aesthetic experience and should be considered by future empirical research investigating the visual aesthetic experience.

While refutation is usually related to Plato's early, Socratic, dialogues, this paper is aimed at exploring the link between refutation and dialectic in some of his middle and late dialogues. First, it argues that refutation assumes a constructive role in the Phaedo, where the best logos is the least refutable, and also in the Republic, where the philosopher is invited to fight his way through all elenchoi. Then, it tries to show that the gymnasia of Prm. 130a ff. is aimed at training young Socrates to come to the aid of the theory he embraces preventing it from being refuted. He should travel and explore all the paths, by assuming a hypothesis as well as the opposite one. This methodology paves the way on which Plato advances in the Sophist, where the antinomic structure of the gymnasia gives way to a “constructive” dialectic in which the aporia is solved and a thesis is established by refutation. The last section of this paper is devoted to analysing Sph. 251c-252e, where the positive and constructive function of the elenchus is especially clear. Plato argues for the symploke eidon by exploring all the hypotheses that are open to the search and refuting those that ultimately represent obstacles to his position. The symploke is the truth which remains when all the hypotheses that contradict it have been refuted. The conclusion is that the elenchus does not disappear but is put at the service of the truth, as an essential part of the method for attaining a positive doctrine.

By framing Aristotle’s dialectic in the broader context of scientific inquiry and demonstration, this paper is aimed at showing of what use the “reputable opinions” can be for grasping the principles of sciences, as declared in Topics I.2. It argues that such a use cannot imply ‒ at any stage of inquiry ‒ a replacement of the logic and intrinsic goals of demonstration by those proper to dialectic. However, it also defends a substantive (but still modest) contribution of dialectic ‒ beyond its well-attested methodological role in discarding contradictory opinions and its (possible though not germane to the context of Topics I.2) application to proving the principle of non-contradiction by means of refutation. This contribution consists in providing the preliminary accounts of facts in order to have scientific inquiry started, as required in Posterior Analytics II.8. To better appreciate how the proposed location of dialectic in a pre-demonstrative stage of inquiry is operational, the paper finally examines Physics IV.1-5.

The aim of the present paper is to show the results of one chapter of my Doctorate thesis about Thasian black-figure pottery as archaeologically contextualized documents, being part of the votive objects offered at female sanctuaries, especially the Artemision of Thassos. This paper is centered on Thassos, an island situated in the Northern Aegean, settled by Greeks from Paros. We focus on the Archaic Period, more specifically on the sixth century BC, the peak of local production. Departing from the archaeological contexts through excavation reports, we analyze significant social and religious connections among votive materials associated with the Thasian black-figure pottery. These connections brought us elements that allowed us to interpret the multiculturalism imbricated within the objects, the mimicry and the innovations in the decoration of this black-figure pottery, as well as the particular demand in quantitative terms of a type of vessel called lekane, an object that was loaded with information and religious and apotropaic meaning. In addition, those same elements also showed us traits that reveal votive practices, judging by the way the pottery was exhibited, and its decorative features, which to date are only attested in Thassos. The research revealed intrinsic relationships linked to the diverse facets of Artemis, from a goddess protecting the rites of passage to the protection of women in childbirth, as seen in the black-figure pottery, amulets and other apotropaic objects. Moreover, it demonstrated that the multiple facets of Artemis, as protector of women, act in many spheres, such the civic-religious space in connection with the oíkos and social order, the possibility of a good childbirth and the social position of women in Thassos from the Archaic period.

This paper sets out to analyze Proclus’ exegesis of Socrates’ suggestion in Parmenides 132d1-3 that Forms stand fixed as patterns (παραδείγματα), as it were, in the nature, with the other things being images and likenesses of them. Proclus’ analysis of the notion of being pattern reveals the impact of the Aristotelian conception of the form as paradigm on his views, as we can infer from Alexander of Aphrodisias’ and Simplicius’ explanation of the paradigmatic character of the Aristotelian form. Whereas Aristotle and Alexander of Aphrodisias refute the efficient causality of the Platonic Forms and support that μέθεξις is just a metaphor, Syrianus, Proclus and Asclepius defend the Platonic theory, and specifically Proclus, who brings to the fore the multilateral role of the Forms as patterns with regard to the secondary things of this realm.[1] [1] An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Symposium Platonicum XII: Plato’s Parmenides, organized by the International Plato Society, Paris, 15-19 July 2019.

This paper presents a reflection on depth as the dimension in which the experience of love takes place. Because depth is co-instituited with the motor ability of a subject who is capable of going through space, it is the necessary condition for two subjects to approach each other. Referring to François Jullien’s notion of de-coincidence, in its various forms, this paper attempts to value distance and the “écart”, as the two main aspects of the relation with the other.

The introduction summarizes the six new papers collected in Volume 1, Tome 5: Eleatic Ontology and Aristotle. The papers take a fresh look at virtually every aspect of Aristotle’s engagement with Eleaticism. They are particularly concerned with Aristotle’s responses to Parmenidean monism, the Eleatic rejection of change, and Zeno’s paradoxes. The contributions also focus on the ways in which Aristotle developed several of his own theories in metaphysics and natural science partly in reaction to Eleatic puzzles and arguments.

At the time of writing, an infectious disease, named COVID-19, has spread globally, resulting in the on-going pandemic. For this reason, more than ever it is fundamentally important to address the issue on how to allow government sufficient discretion, flexibility, and powers to deal with emergencies, such as COVID-19, while respecting the rule of law. Notably, there are some exceptional situations where States can restrict or derogate from certain human rights. Yet, what are the moral principles that should guide democracies when dealing with the limitation or suspension of rights in times of public emergencies? Through the lenses of utilitarianism and liberalism, this paper aimed at providing both a legal and a philosophical overview of the limitation, or suspension, of human rights in emergency situations – such as the COVID-19 pandemic. The legal-philosophical approach of this paper is, therefore, fundamental in order to understand the current situation. In other words, the legal-philosophical approach of this paper will help to understand the current challenges for human rights during times of crisis. To understand why we are where we are.

This paper presents, defends and applies a conception of public health ethics as focused on liberty-limiting public health action. This approach has been persistently criticised, but the criticism is ambiguous between two challenges: that the focus on liberty makes an objectionable presumption in favour of liberal values and that the focus on liberty fails to address institutionalised social injustice. Part One of the paper addresses both challenges to show they can be met by a nuanced account of a liberty-oriented public health ethics. Part Two establishes that debates about policy responses to the current Covid-19 pandemic illustrate and vindicate this conception of public health ethics as focused on liberty-limiting public health action. The discussion then turns to the methodological question as to how public health policies are to be evaluated, focusing particular on the role of normative theory in such evaluations. The methodology of ‘wide reflective equilibrium’ is described and endorsed; the paper ends with a case study to illustrate this evaluative methodology, focused on the ethics of COVID-19 immunity passports.

Abstract: the paper considers the creative restoration of an early Christian basilica in Siponto, Apulia, realized by Italian artist Edoardo Tresoldi. Tresoldi resorts to the wire mesh as an artistic material: the restored basilica thus results in a monumental but evanescent building. After an introduction describing the public artwork, the paper will unfold in two main sections. In the first one, the focus will be on the concept of genius loci as a distinctive character of Tresoldi’s poetics. Through an Heideggerian lens, the stress will be put on the existential value of dwelling, which is highlighted by the restored church. The second section will focus on the ghostly and uncanny (unheimlich) appearance of the basilica. Thanks to authors such as Derrida and Didi-Huberman, it will be shown that a genius deloci is at work in the site as well, calling into question the different temporalities that animate the basilica. Genius loci and genius deloci will prove as a conceptual couple capable of providing us with an access to the artwork; nevertheless, they will not be understood as a dichotomy, i.e. as mutually exclusive concepts, but as opposite notions that “haunt” each other and that cannot but be used together, in the postmodernist fashion of double-coding.

Assuming that a nihilist reading of Gorgias’ thought is to be ruled out, the issue of ‘not being’ remains one of the thorniest in his philosophy; indeed, it is fair to conclude that Gorgias is deeply concerned with ‘not being’. But what, after all, is Gorgias’ ‘not being’? This paper aims to answer this crucial question, by taking into consideration Gorgias’ main texts (i.e. the Treatise, the Apology of Palamedes and the Encomium of Helen). Each of them provides a serious – although not always explicit – account of ‘not being’. Overall, the aim is to show that Gorgias’ account of ‘not being’ is not concerned with ‘non-existence’ at all. It is deeply concerned, however, with falsehood and language. The paper will, therefore, be structured as follows: in part 1, the Treatise and specifically the the first section of the Particular Proof will be addressed and its ‘linguistic’ conception of ‘not-being’ fully exploited; in part 2, the Apology of Palamedes will be taken into account, in order to enucleate its ‘not-being-as-falsehood’ argument; the results from part 1 and part 2 will allow us, in part 3, to provide an analysis of the Encomium of Helen which points at its underlying conception of ‘not-being’.

Sadomasochism played an important role in Foucault’s reflection on power and sexuality; according to this perspective, some theorists highlighted the queer potential of BDSM: the ability to create a space for the experimentation of new relationalities. This vision certainly depicts some subversive aspects of BDSM culture, such as the figure of the dominatrix or the practice of gender reversal, but it sounds too anarchistic and one-sided since in the BDSM prevails a fascination for totalizing and coherent roles. This paper will argue that the queer nature of the master and slave relationship lies in its performative and ritual character: in its exaggerating scenes and costumes in a specific setting, and in its presenting power as a consensual game, based on empathy and mirroring effects. After this theoretical discussion, which will cover Lacan’s concept of masquerade as re-used by Linda Williams, the paper will analyze some of the few literary and artistic representations of BDSM devoid of stereotypes: especially some recurrent scenes in Robbe-Grillet’s production, which can be read in parallelism with his wife’s Catherine Robbe-Grillet’s activity as dominatrix.

In a work entitled On the Generation of Animals, Aristotle remarks that “intellect (nous) alone enters from outside (thurathen)”. Interpretations of this passage as dualistic dominate the history of ideas and allow for a joining together of Platonic and Aristotelian doctrine on the soul. This, however, pulls against the well-known Aristotelian position that soul and body are intertwined and interdependent. The most influential interpretations thereby misrepresent Aristotle’s view on soul and lack any real engagement with his embryology. This paper seeks to extract the account of intellect (nous) in Aristotelian embryology from this interpretative background and place it within the context of his mature biological thought. A clear account of the actual import of this statement in its relevant context is given before explaining how it has been misunderstood by various interpretative traditions. The paper finishes by touching on how early commentary by Christian writers, freed as it was from the imperative to synthesise Greek philosophy, differed from those that came after. While realising that Aristotle’s position would not aid them in their explanations of the soul’s survival after death, their engagement with Aristotle’s science allowed for other aspects of theology concerning the fittingness of soul to body.

In a seminal essay from 1967, historian Lynn White, Jr., argues that the profound cause of today’s environmental crisis is the anthropocentric perspective, embedded in the Christian “roots” of Western tradition, which assigns an intrinsic value to human beings solely. Though White’s thesis relies on a specific tradition – the so-called “dominant anthropocentric reading” of Genesis – the idea that anthropocentrism provides the ideological basis for the exploitation of nature has proven tenacious, and even today is the ground assumption of the historical and philosophical debate on environmental issues. This paper investigates the possible impact on this debate of a different kind of anthropocentrism: Aristotle’s philosophy of biology. The topic is controversial, since it involves opposing traditions of interpretations; for the purpose of the present paper, the dominant anthropocentric reading of Gen. 1.28 will be analyzed, and the relevant passages from Aristotle’s De Partibus Animalium, showing his commitment to a more sophisticated anthropocentric perspective, will be reviewed.

Towards the end of the fourth century CE Nemesius, bishop of Emesa in Syria, composed his treatise On Human Nature (Περὶ φύσεως ἀνθρώπου). The nature of the soul and its relation to the body are central to Nemesius’ treatment. In developing his argument, he draws not only on Christian authors but on a variety of pagan philosophers such as Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics and the great physician-cum-philosopher Galen of Pergamum. This paper examines Nemesius’ references to Aristotle’s biology in particular, focusing on a few passages in the light of Aristotle’s Generation of Animals and History of Animals as well as the doxographic tradition. The themes in question are: the status of the intellect, the scale of nature and the respective roles of the male and female in reproduction. Central questions are: Exactly which impact did Aristotle make on his thinking? Was it mediated or direct? Why does Nemesius cite Aristotle and how? Long used as a source for earlier works now lost, Nemesius’ work may provide intriguing glimpses of the intellectual culture of his time. This paper is designed to contribute to this new approach to his work.

The paper argues that ecology should not be understood as a sectoral issue, i.e. as the object of specific scientific disciplines such as environmental sociology, geology or biology; on the contrary, it is by very nature that ecology should be regarded as a large-scale matter consisting first and foremost in philosophical and political questions. It is the paper’s main objective to claim that there is no way out from the ecological crisis without a critical reconsideration of the dominant socio-economic structures and of the cultural and philosophical background underpinning them. To this end, the present paper resorts to the concept of “social metabolism”. By applying it to various “immaterial elements”, and notably to philosophical systems, the essay investigates their ecological impact. As the paper aims to show, the metabolic analysis of the philosophical system implies adopting and advocating for a renewed transcendental approach.

The aim of the present paper is to introduce a philosophical critique of the concept of sustainability through the ecosophy outlined by F. Guattari. According to the ecosophical perspective, the idea of sustainability hides the transcoding processes of technological innovation. The first part of the paper develops a genealogy of transcoding processes by regarding them as an ecosophical object. The second one analyses the basic dualism of sustainability in detail: ecocentrism vs technocentrism.

This paper aims at conducting a queer analysis of the figures of children in Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw and of their role in the story’s effect, in order to suggest a new possible interpretation of the novella and to explore the theme of performativity during childhood. Following Carmen Dell’Aversano’s proposal for a method of queer hermeneutics of literary texts, the paper problematizes some aspects of childhood as a social category, as it is represented in James’s text; it focuses on the concept of innocence and its implications, by linking it to Michael Billig’s idea of repression as a discursive practice that is learned since childhood; and, through these considerations, it addresses a crucial critical issue of the novella – the protagonists’ ambiguous obsession with the ghosts’ influence on her pupils, so severe that it possibly leads one of them to his death.

With regards to the excesses of our current pandemic, many early philosophical contributions to an understanding of our situation have focused on an unsolvable dichotomy between continuity and discontinuity with regards to the possible novelty of the Covid-19-pandemic. This paper seeks to take the event-character of this global phenomenon as given, to focus instead on the question of what it means to philosophize it, and in turn, to think through our present. How can we write for or near the present without reducing it to a mere moment, without stifling it in concepts hastily cast upon it? Through a discussion of the symptomatic positions of Deleuze, Foucault, and Derrida on the concept of the event around 1968, this paper argues for a second order ethics of tending to the present as a repeated critical practice that does not renounce being affected by the world it emanates from.

This paper uncovers and explores the consequences of the restricted libidinal economy at the roots of Adam Smith’s image of thought. Focusing on Smith’s « History of Astronomy », the paper argues that the space in which the smithian system operates is grounded on Newton’s celestial mechanics. It shows how this epistemological framework strongly impacted Smith’s economic, libidinal, semiotic and cognitive views. More precisely, it underlines how this framework is unable to cope with unexpected events such as psychic and economic crisis, that are figured by comets, meteorites – and more broadly, any kind of not identified cosmological objects – in Smith’s text. Second, the paper sets up a dialogue between Smith’s image of thought, Kant’s first Critique and Freud’s meta-psychical apparatus, underlying some affinities between the three projects. Finally, the paper presents F. W. J. Schelling’s post-Kantian, general and meteoric cosmology as a relevant alternative to reconfigure the current globalized and yet restricted image of thought we inherited from classical liberalism and rationalism.

This paper investigates the influence of the mathematical problematic on the political function of Gilles Deleuze’s work (including his work with Guattari). Most prominent is an investigation into the Deleuzian problematic—signified by Deleuze as the (non)being or? being of being—which is traced through the work of French mathematics by way of Georges Bouligand, Salomon Maïmon and Albert Lautman. This mode of mathematical formalization is explored in relation to Kantian axiomatization (in terms of both extensive magnitudes and intensive magnitudes/distances, as well as the relationship between problems and ideas). This paper explores the way that Deleuze uses Lautman’s discussion of the mathematical real to bring mathematical concepts into other discourses (such as politics). The paper concludes by enacting this move, exploring the way that the concept of the problematic is used within the political register by putting it into conversation with the aleatory.

Two recent tendencies in digital-cultural theory have attempted to critique a representational view of computation through an attention to the language that itemizes computational processes. This paper argues that that each of the thinkers aligned with these two broad camps tend to reduce this language to one of two kinds of structure. The first approach sees the structures of computation and digitality as chiefly social; the second sees these structures as an extension of mathematical and philosophical logic. This paper proposes that the task of thinking outside this schema necessitates a methodological approach to computational elaborations of language not in terms of a logic of structure but a logic of sense. Through the work of Gilles Deleuze—by way of linguist Louis Hjelmslev—I introduce a notion of sense suitable for the analysis of the logico-mathematical statements that comprise digitality. I then read two examples from machine learning and computational linguistics research that provide occasion to consider aspects of digitality traditionally elided by the dominant usages of computers in the natural and social sciences. Finally, I conclude with some proposals regarding how we might conceive of the ontogeny of a digital object from this perspective.

The concept of the assemblage is one with great interest for music studies. While a number of authors have previously considered the Deleuze-Guattarian assemblage in relation to a variety of musical repertoires and genres, this paper will focuses instead on a more fundamental theoretical question. Considering a musical or a mixed media work as a Deleuze-Guattarian assemblage entails recognising that its ‘interest’ or ‘success’ is in some way the product of its consistency in the sense that it constitutes a successful, viable, meeting place of elements from these milieu, of these heterogeneous forces. We might then ask – what exactly do we mean when we speak of the consistency of a musical or mixed media assemblage? Acknowledging that most of the work that has been done in this area has relied principally on the joint theorisations of Deleuze and Guattari, this paper for the most part traces the concept of consistency as it is formulated in multiple places in Guattari’s writings. This is undertaken in the conviction that Guattari’s various theorisations offer us interesting and productive ways of thinking the consistency of musical compositions and events. The paper concludes with some general remarks on the fluid nature of consistency in musical composition from the turn to atonality to the contemporary situation.

This paper explores the question of the relationship between art, rhythm, and life through a mobilisation of Giorgio Agamben’s discussion, first, of Nietzsche and the active nihilist’s relationship to art, and second, on his diagnosis of rhythm as pertaining to the “original structure” of the work of art in The Man Without Content. Agamben’s notion of the “rhythmic” and “poietic” encounter is one which situates the experience of rhythm as the experience of the originary dimension of temporality and of the human’s relationship to the world. Turning to Nietzsche, this paper seeks to complicate Agamben’s picture by discussing Nietzsche’s under-discussed explorations of rhythm and its connection to art (focusing primarily on his early works). Three distinct rhythms will be identified: Apollonian, Dionysian, and the tragic or joyful rhythms of the Apollo-Dionysus relation (discussed through Nietzsche’s reading of Heraclitus and of Deleuze’s reading of Nietzsche’s Heraclitus). Reading Agamben through Nietzsche, it will be discussed how Agamben’s notion of rhythm (1) blends Apollonian and Dionysian elements; (2) does not through this blending however offer a tragic or joyful notion of rhythm, which, for Nietzsche, follows from their double affirmative rhythmisation. Instead of a rhythmic-poietic encounter opening an originary and authentic experience of temporality and dwelling, Nietzsche offers an account of tragic and joyful rhythms which continually create new worlds.

This paper draws on artistic explorations of territorial and spatial forces through analysis of projects set in the natural landscape, in a specific indoor site or at the threshold between the two. Specific attention is given to the artistic processes at play in the transformation of materials created/collected in the natural environment when shaped for presentation in an indoor location. What is the relation between being and becoming in this liminal space? According to Erwin Straus, the impetus to this process is the pathic moment of sensation, a moment which evolves in two dimensions: as an unfolding of the world and of the self (Straus 1965). Louis Schreel argues that in Deleuze and Guattari, artistic practice activates a process in which «the work ‘captures’ forces at work in the world and renders these sensible. Its effects are above all real and not merely imaginary: the image is not a mental given but a concrete, existing reality» (Schreel 2014: 100). Here, Deleuze distinguishes between the percept – landscape in the absence of man – and affect, the non-human becomings contained in the artwork. This paper wishes to unpack these processes through a study of two concrete instances of artistic practice, aiming to create immediate interaction between musician and environment, in which either of the two authors took part.

The paper reconsiders the possibility of understanding the art of avant-garde in the light of the sublime, as argued by Jean-François Lyotard in his famous critical essay on Barnett Newman’s artwork Vir Heroicus Sublimis. According to the paper, the scope of a ‘sublime art’ of the avant-garde is larger than the reference to a single artist or movement, and entails the possibility of comprehending the reflective stance of modernism as a critique, performed by art, of the conditions of possibility of exposition as a gesture that is relevant not only to the art world but to experience at large. The sublime art brings this critique to its extreme consequences as far as it explores the boundaries of exposition with regard to the world image supplied by the media system. This sublime directory of the avant-garde was inaugurated by Marcel Duchamp as he introduced the practice of the ready-media in the art system. However, it enjoyed a long-lasting success thereafter.