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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’.

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.

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.

This paper investigates civility from an Aristotelian perspective and has two objectives. The first is to offer a novel account of this virtue based on Aristotle’s remarks about civic friendship. The proposed account distinguishes two main components of civility—civic benevolence and civil deliberation—and shows how Aristotle’s insights can speak to the needs of our communities today. The notion of civil deliberation is then unpacked into three main dimensions: motivational, inquiry-related, and ethical. The second objective is to illustrate how the post-truth condition—in particular, the spread of misinformation typical of the digital environments we inhabit—obstructs our capacity to cultivate the virtue of civility by impairing every component of civil deliberation. The paper hopes to direct virtue theorists’ attention to the need to foster civic virtues as a means of counteracting the negative aspects of the post-truth age.

In this paper, I aim to address a specific issue underpinning Cartesian metaphysics since its first public appearance in the Discourse right up until the Meditations, but which definitely came to the surface in the Second and Fifth Replies. It involves the possibility that to be thinking and to be extended do not actually contrast as two entirely different properties; hence, these two essences cannot serve as the basis for a disjunctive, real distinction between two corresponding substances, the mind and the body. I dub this problem the ‘thinking matter issue.’ I suggest that Descartes’s concerns about the ‘thinking matter issue’ characterizes and structures the entirety of Meditation Two and its connection with Meditation Six, especially in the attempt to covertly implement what I refer to as Descartes’s ‘prejudice strategy.’ The core of the ‘prejudice strategy’ lies in the idea that the ‘thinking matter issue’ is just a false problem, one raised by the inadequate notions of the mind and the body that we apply to this problem. In section 1, I set out the way in which the ‘thinking matter issue’ emerged in Descartes’s philosophy after the first exposition of his metaphysics in the Discourse. Section 2 deals with the new argumentative path Descartes draws for the Meditations and with the new role that he assigns to the inference about the mind’s non-physical nature after the cogito. In section 3, I contend that the ‘prejudice strategy’ structures Meditation Two and, partially, Six. Section 4 shows that Descartes himself reveals this in his Replies to the Second and the Fifth Set of Objections. In section 5, I delve into Descartes’s foundational theory of the ‘prejudice strategy,’ i.e. his theory of infancy as set out especially in the Replies to the Sixth Set of Objections.

The 17th century is the century that records the greatest number of meanings attributed to prima philosophia, a sign that this is evidently one of the notions for which a reformulation is needed. It is possible to find at least five definitions of prima philosophia, in addition to the more widespread one according to which philosophy is said to be ‘prima’ both by virtue of the universality (being qua being) and the eminence (God and separate intelligences) of its object, and which derives from a reading of Aristotle’s Metaphysics. This paper intends to reconstruct, without any claim to exhaustiveness, some of the main definitions of prima philosophia that occurred in the 17th century, starting with the most innovative one due to Descartes, which certainly had the most influence on subsequent history, surpassing, in fact, the other definitions, including the one that arose within the reformed scholasticism and of which Clauberg represents, at least at first, a spokesman. On the other hand, I will include in this review a brief survey of some theses that are more or less eccentric to Descartes’ position, namely those of Thomas Hobbes, Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus and Francis Bacon.

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.

The paper presents an overview of three Italian takes on the queer rural-to-urban flight, by analysing Generations of Love (1999) by Matteo B. Bianchi, La Generazione (‘Generations,’ 2015) by Flavia Biondi, and Febbre (‘Fever,’ 2019) by Jonathan Bazzi. In most LGBTQ+ narratives moving to a big city is central, as it is associated with finding an accepting ‘chosen’ family. However, the move has recently acquired homonormative connotations: it is embedded into narratives of economic success and the individuals moving are usually white, cisgender, non-disabled, gay men. In the texts, the main characters correspond to the type. However, by analysing their relationships to their hometowns and their biological families, this paper argues that the characters find ways of challenging the homonormative paradigm through a spatial in-betweenness and non-conjugal bonds not reflected by laws. The main theoretical frameworks are the homonormativity definition by Lisa Duggan, the work on Italian queerness by Antonia Anna Ferrante, and the study on queer orientations by Sara Ahmed. This paper is inscribed into a larger trend of studies around the rural-to-urban move but sheds light on the Italian landscape.

This paper analyses the argumentative strategy of the ninth chapter of the treatise De Interpretatione in the light of Aristotle's Rhetoric. The subject of the ‘future events’ developed in chapter IX brings up themes that are proper not only to philosophical thought, but also to political practice, forensic rhetoric, deliberative rhetoric and even tragic poetry. In this paper, it is argued that Aristotle uses the dialectical method and certain rhetorical techniques to touch the various discussions related to the subject addressed. He erects a hypothetical adversary and a thesis to refute, condensing some positions that were probably scattered in the most diverse textual and oratory sources of his time. Moreover, he builds the thesis of his hypothetical opponent from premises established in previous chapters of his own treatise. With this, he can simulate the defense of his opponent's thesis before demolishing it. Thus, according to the hypothesis defended here, the philosopher does not in fact commit himself to the arguments presented between 18a35 and 18b25, but only simulates the defense of the reasoning which he will soon refute. In addition, it is also concluded that chapter IX is part of the argumentative chain of the treatise, having as a peculiar characteristic, not the theme or nature of the arguments exposed, but the rhetorical method it employs.

The following paper aims to contribute to the Italian literature on non-monogamy with a psychosocial interpretation towards the future of the political and legal recognition requests of non-monogamous and queer relationships, as well as of their families. Starting with a reflection on how normativities position those who are outside the binaries as noises to be ignored or cancelled, the paper then provides a critique of the concept of evaluation as a tool for acquiring rights (as it does not find a counterpart in the different-gender relationships). Psychosocial studies on the relationship quality of non-monogamous people should be used to strenghten the demands for the legal recognitions of non-monogamous relationships, families and multi-parenting. In fact, the available international literature has given voice and confirmed what the many polyfamilies experience in everyday life: that these families (non-monogamous, open, poly, extended, childless * or not) are a social reality with their positive charachteristics and criticalities. Starting from examples on the erasure of bisexualities and ame-gender families recognition – the paper discuss how including these types of psychosocial research can improve our struggle for the recognition and legal rights of non-monogamous agreements and relationships.

This paper is not intended as either a survey of performance and perversity nor as an argumentation for any particularly new theory of performance. Rather it is me offering my methodologies, influences and thoughts as a trans mestizXXX perverse performance artist living and working in an actively postcolonial moment. It is, in part, an act of resistance toward the move to commodify performance’s important ephemerality and ineffability into institutionally digestible historicity and study-ability within academic institutional contexts. This paper will focus on some of my performance work which plays with ideas of power, bondage, land, colony, body and institution. I will also discuss the work of a few contemporary artists whom I identify not as important to notions of “the canon” but to my canon, artists whose queer and/or “of colour” perversities have influenced my work and self-formation. A work which combines personal narrative with critical analysis, this paper hopes to contextualize my performance practice from an intersectional and interdisciplinary perspective.

We have a continuous chance to experience peculiar qualities of the space, either the private space of our houses or the public space of our cities. More than critics, these qualities make us decide whether a building is an architecture or a simple construction: thus, the architecture is indeed a very performative art. But these experiences hardly can be designed: chance plays a major role in the development of a project, to the point that we could say that it is an ontological part of the project. The paper inestigates how to change chance from an enemy, to an opportunity, by defining the “fields of validity”: or the distinction of inter-related systems, which give chance a space of action, including it since the very beginning. Thus, the form is defined by excluding what cannot be accepted, more than defining the perfect shape: in this way, also guaranteeing the freedom of its performativity. Furthermore, the approach to fields of validity will be related to the conceptual tools of systems theory in Niklas Luhmann’s version. This analysis leads us to Luhmann’s reflections on the nature of the artistic experience, intended as a peculiar form of communication and the genesis of meaning through the production of contingent forms – the artworks – conceived as islands of stability, halfway between chance and necessity. The paper proposes a side-by-side reading: on the left, an architectural glance toward the topic; on the right, a philosophical one. The reader will have the chance, and the power, to build bridges between the two parts, so that the punctual inspiration of one part could serve also for the other: and in the belief that, in those thresholds, the theory may change in practices.

Lucian’s Hermotimus, despite its first appearances of being a merely skeptical, even sophistical discrediting of philosophy, is better read as a powerful protreptic defense of the endeavor, whose key ancient intertext is Plato's Republic. To make this case, the paper involves three parts. In part i, we examine the metaphilosophical framing of the Hermotimus’s exchange between the eponymous hero, aged about 60 (§48) and Lucian’s favored interlocutor, Lycinus. We show that Lucian accepts that philosophy is intended to be an elevated way of life cultivating wisdom and virtue, at the same time as he is concerned at how readily this pursuit can devolve into a hybristic, sectarian endeavor, in which pupils identify uncritically with instructors who do not match their words with their deeds. In part ii., we address the central elenchus and the action of the Hermotimus, the patient work by Lycinus to undermine Hermotimus’ dogmatic self-conceit, by refuting the different solutions he offers to the paradox involved in his having chosen a particular philosophical orientation, Stoicism, as a novice without philosophical training. Part iii. excavates the positive vision of philosophy that the action of the dialogue shows, highlighting the five key places in Hermotimus wherein Lycinus offers us entirely unironic visions of what philosophy at it best could be, in contrast to what it has become in Hermotimus or his teachers: or, as Lycinus heralds it, a kind of Ariadne’s thread out of the maze of Hermotimus’ paradox (§68).

In this paper, I aim to explore the structure of the exercise in the second part of the Parmenides. In analyzing the transitional section, I claim that in addition to diairesis, there is another method of division, namely, cross-division, which Porphyry terms chiasmus. On this basis, I explain how Plato uses chiasmus to divide the exercise into eight hypotheses, in which the subjects of the paired hypotheses (I–VI, II–V, III–VII, and IV–VIII) are the same and those of the nonpaired hypotheses differ. In closing, I reconstruct the universal scheme of the exercise on the basis of Plato’s use of chiasmus.

The aim of this paper is to explain why Thrasymachus, upon first appearing in Republic I, prohibits Socrates from defining justice as what is good. I argue that Thrasymachus views such definitions as equivocal, since he conceives of the good as relative: what is good must be good for someone. This relative conception of the good makes Thrasymachus similar to the sight-lovers, who believe in good things, which are relatively good, but deny the existence of the good itself, which is absolutely good. Understanding Thrasymachus as a sight-lover permits an illuminating reframing of his outlook and his significance for the larger project of the Republic.

In this paper I argue that dispositionalism is the metaphysical theory that can best contribute to the construction of a metaphysical model for Molecular Gastronomy. Molecular Gastronomy is better explained if physical and chemical theories, which lie at the heart of Molecular Gastronomy, and cooking phenomena in general are described in terms of dispositions. This is the reason why trying to construct a metaphysical model for Molecular Gastronomy by using a dispositional metaphysics is a challenge worth taking on. I will thus explore what happens when we bring dispositions in the kitchen, and so the intersection between food, science and metaphysics. The main aim of the paper is then to pave the way toward the development of a metaphysical model for the physical and the chemical aspects behind Molecular Gastronomy. In the first section, I will briefly reconstruct the history of Molecular Gastronomy, give a definition of it and outline its program. In the second section, I will describe the version of dispositionalism that I adopt in this paper. In the third section, I will sketch a dispositional model for Molecular Gastronomy by relying on two case studies. In the fourth and final section I will draw my conclusions and raise some issues deserving further investigation.

When investigating the nature of culinary works, it is easy to take for granted that they all share the same ontology. This paper argues that, on the contrary, the ontology of culinary works is really threefold. Some culinary works are edible concrete particulars, or dishes, as many of us may first assume. But others are types, or multiply realisable abstract entities. And, while some of these types are determined by one recipe, others are rather chased after by their indefinitely many recipes. So, there are really three kinds of culinary works; only those belonging to one of the three are edible per se; and, each kind has a very different relationship to recipes. Indeed, it is very doubtful that culinary works consisting in edible concrete particulars are suitable to have one or more recipes: by exploring what are the requirements for being a recipe, the paper also examines under what necessary conditions there is a recipe for preparing a culinary work qua concrete particular.

This paper examines some key aspects of Kant’s critique of Wolffian mathematical method in the Deutlichkeit (1764). The aim is to show how the ontological question of principles underlies this critique. To do so, I will first show that Wolff identifies the mathematical method with a universal model of inquiry, which is based on the principles of rationalist ontology. I will therefore focus on a key element of this model, namely that of definition. In doing so, I will be able to show that it is precisely by looking at the process of definition that Kant makes his distinction between the synthetic model of mathematics and the analytic one of philosophy. Finally, I will show that for Kant, albeit differently, both these models are not reducible to the formal principles of rationalist ontology.

This paper aims at shedding light on a thesis, which appears not to be fully and systematically developed in Reinhardt’s book: the thesis that Kant stands in the way of the main streams of contemporary philosophical-political debate, insofar as his legal-political philosophy allows for a fundamental questioning of the nexus between private property, sovereignty and the right of exclusion. To this end, one will firstly show how Reinhardt interprets the articulation between the three terms - land ownership, sovereignty, and the right of exclusion - by collecting the references to this subject scattered throughout her book (§1). On the basis of this reconstruction, the essay will critically focus on two points: on the one hand, the nexus between private land ownership and "public space" (§ 2); on the other hand, the status of "provisional possession" in Kantian legal philosophy (§ 3). In conclusion, one will summon up the results of the analysis in order to put forward the distinctive features of Kant’s deduction of property rights which allows to critically rethink the triad ownership/ sovereignty and exclusion.

ABSTRACT This paper aims to map the different theoretical options related to the Precautionary Principle (PP). Great part of the literature on it can be systematized by answering to three different questions: is there a basic structure in the PP? If so, in which interpretation of the PP does this structure express itself? Finally, are its damage or knowledge conditions fixed or adjustable? The first question separates realist from non-realist approaches. The second question allows us to discriminate monist, dualist, or pluralist positions in relation to the three interpretations of the PP: decision rule, procedural requirement, or epistemic rule. Finally, the third question distinguishes rigid from non-rigid formulations of the principle. Based on this mapping, one can not only navigate through the different formulations of the PP present both in official documents and in specialized literature, but also deflect some of its common objections, and understand Hans Jonas’ eventual connection with PP. Notwithstanding, this mapping does not capture other important themes attached to PP, which motivates a final distinction between narrow and broader forms of PP.

This paper looks at the theoretical practice of “critique” in the work of Michel Serres and Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, focusing especially on the notion of parasitism and femininity. The co-reading shines a light on the crossings of their approaches, like a critique of “laboratory” - like conditions and a masculinist understanding of rationalism. Furthermore, it brings attention to some productive divergences. With Tsing’s approach, this paper reflects critically on Serres’s understanding of femininity and extents his philosophical elaboration of parasites and fungi with a feminist, ecological and anthropological perspective. Serres, on the other hand, contributes with his multi-faceted figure of the “third” crucially to structural reflections on the relation between fungi and femininity, as well as to an understanding of “critique” from the “middle”, beyond the “battle of the two”.

The recent philosophical debate about the nature of time is peculiarly focused on the divide between presentism and eternalism. As a matter of fact, after Einstein’s General Relativity theory most theoretical physicists opted for eternalism, also known as “block-universe theory”. This view finds support in Minkowski’s famous paper Space and Time (1908). Even if theoretical physicists commonly accept nowadays the concept of spacetime as a mathematical tool, the situation is much more complex for what concerns the consensus about its very nature. For instance, for Rovelli’s Quantum Gravity (QG) theory our perception of space and time as continua reveals itself as an illusion, that is, a blurry sight of elementary processes. My aim in this paper is to demonstrate that a) the opposition between eternalism/spacetime theory and QG theory is rooted in their underestimation of subjective experience; b) such a divide could be fruitfully overcome by transcendental phenomenology, based on the idea that the very experience of time is intuitively given as a continuum; c) the formalization of spacetime is possible only under this basic subjective experience.

There are many problems with temporal continuity, but there is a hard one for those philosophers who believe that the world is existentially dynamical. In particular, this holds for those who take seriously the requirement that in such a world must vary what exists unrestrictedly. As a paradigmatic case study, the paper discusses the Growing Block Theory (GBT) of time, as recently presented by Correia and Rosenkranz who consider temporal passage in the strong existential sense of the term. Then, it will be shown that their account fails to do justice to the continuity-requirement: nothing comes next. Without the time continuum, however, the genuinely temporal character of the dynamics gets lost: the objection of spatial analogue turns back. Finally, the paper suggests that Kantian consciousness-dependence is what one needs in order to get a genuinely temporal dynamics that really makes it distinguishable from mere variation across space.

This paper suggests an answer to a rarely approached question on the model known as the Moving Spotlight Theory (MST). Its advantage lies in that it adds to the debate a clear view of the kind of nature that might correspond to the ‘moving spotlight’ responsible for the passage of time. More specifically, our theory indicates clearly what kind of thing about which the model’s spotlight can tell us. The paper’s main goal is not the defense of the moving spotlight as a theory itself, but an approach for understanding the metaphor at the core of this theory. To achieve our purpose, we bring to the main thesis and promote the union of two components: a) the present is the awareness of our mental states and b) the flow of our awareness or our mental states should correspond to the passage of time and to the spotlight itself. We hope to indicate what is required to correspond to the “spotlight” in an illuminating way and address anticipated difficulties.

The main aim of this paper is to discuss the presence, in colonization, of a parasitic ontology taking place in the fields of imaginary and corporeity. On one side, some postcolonial scholars highlight a crystallisation of the colonial imaginary affected by the European gaze, as well as by several European cultural categories such as the notion of individual or of national state. On the other side, a research about corporeity -and especially about the influence of colonization and of an atmosphere of violence inherent in colonialism as described by Frantz Fanon -shows a parasitized “body schema”, unable to open up to the world or to constitute his own ontology. In this phenomenological and existential sense, it is possible to talk about a parasitic ontology, which always implies parasitized ontologies. The parasitic ontology is the one of colonization, while the parasitized ontologies are those of the subalterns, prevented from providing their own vision of the world and so unable to deploy themselves in the existence. Moving from these phenomenological and ontological reflections, this paper suggests some further researching paths in order to re-think our global present in the light of this parasitic ontology. To this purpose it is kept into account what Achille Mbembe calls “Le devenir-nègre du monde”, a generalisation of the“fantomal paradigm”, the violent and deadly condition that colonization was for colonized people. These paths go towards a re-thinking of economy in the light of colonial dynamics, but also towards a politic based on emotions and a relational ontology which is able to take into account the social, political, ecological questions of our global time.

The last decade has witnessed the mass distribution and adoption of smart home systems and devices powered by artificial intelligence systems ranging from household appliances like fridges and toasters to more background systems such as air and water quality controllers. The pervasiveness of these sociotechnical systems makes analyzing their ethical implications necessary during the design phases of these devices to ensure not only sociotechnical resilience, but to design them for human values in mind and thus preserve meaningful human control over them. This paper engages in a conceptual investigations of how meaningful human control over smart home devices can be attained through design. The value sensitive design (VSD) approach is proposed as a way of attaining this level of control. In the proposed framework, values are identified and defined, stakeholder groups are investigated and brought into the design process and the technical constraints of the technologies in question are considered. The paper concludes with some initial examples that illustrate a more adoptable way forward for both ethicists and engineers of smart home devices.

The aim of this paper is to study a set of three issues related to the understanding of partial justice and partial injustice as character dispositions, namely the distinctive circumstance of action, the emotion involved therein and the pleasure or pain following it. Those points are treated in a relatively obscure way by Aristotle, especially in comparison with their treatment in the expositions of other character virtues in the Nicomachean Ethics. Building on the expression ‘capacity towards the other’ (δύναμις ἐν τῷ πρὸς ἕτερον), the paper highlights the interpersonal nature of the circumstances of just and unjust actions, and points how such nature is directly related to notions such as ‘profit’ (κέρδος) or ‘getting more’(πλεονεκτεῖν) as well as to the unusual conception of excess, defect and intermediacy in Nicomachean Ethics Book V. The interpersonal nature of just and unjust actions works also as the starting-point for the interpretation both of the pleasure briefly mentioned in 1130b4 as characterizing the greedy person and of the emotion involved in acting justly or greedy, which is mentioned in an extremely elliptical way in 1130b1-2: the paper argues, on the one hand, that the pleasure felt in acting justly or unjustly concerns not only the goods that are the object of just or unjust interactions, but also the way such interactions affect the people involved; on the other hand, it argues that the emotion actuated in just or unjust interactions relates to the agent’s concern or lack of concern with the good of those people.

In this paper we focus on the psychiatric approach of Open Dialogue (OD) and seek to explain why the intersubjective process of dialogue, one of OD’s core clinical principles, is effective in schizophrenia treatment. We address this question from an interdisciplinary viewpoint, by linking the OD approach with a theoretical account of the self as endorsed by enactive cognitive science. The paper is structured as follows: first, we introduce the OD approach and focus in particular on the principles that are characteristic of the dialogical therapeutic attitude. Second, we clarify our stance on the concept of schizophrenia by relying on insights from phenomenological psychiatry. Third, we introduce an enactive perspective on mental disorders, which elaborates on phenomenological psychiatry and conceives of the self as a self-organizing system, brought forth through interactional processes. Based on this enactive approach, we draw clinical implications for schizophrenia. In the fourth and final part, we propose conceptual bridges between the OD and the enactive approach by bringing to attention the intersubjective nature of the human self and the inherent vulnerability entailed in both the self’s maintenance and in the practice of dialogue. We then propose that the dialogical stance adopted by OD is effective in supporting the recovery of a balanced sense of self precisely because it provides an intersubjective space in which clients can safely experience and maintain the basic structures underlying the socially constituted self. Since our analysis touches upon fundamental structures of the therapeutic relationship, we hope that it will also be useful to inform general psychiatric practice and help advancing a more integrative understanding of psychotherapy for schizophrenia.

In this paper, I will argue that one’s participation in the experience of pregnancy is an essential part of the constitution of selves (maternal and fetal). Taking the radical notion of concrete essence as my point of departure in the first part of my paper, as well as the fundamental continuity between essences and facts proposed by Husserl (1913), I will briefly map out my proposal within the contemporary feminist debate. In particular, I will argue for re-framing the role of pregnancy, rejecting the idea of birth as an unattainable limit for human selfhood (Heinämaa, 2014), and defending two complementary theses: the experience of pregnancy essentially shape the self/other distinction; the continuity between our “pre” and “post” natal lives is primarily expressed through the embodied nature of the self. The core of my argument is this: everyone has taken part in the experience of pregnancy and, in doing so, their self-constitution and development have been shaped during this deeply transformative process. The implication is that the self has an essentially embodied origin which is closely connected to another self (the maternal subject); relationality, intersubjectivity, and affectivity turn out to be the grounding features in defining the self. Even though arguments about embodied aspect of the self have been widely discussed from several philosophical perspectives, there is a significant lack of phenomenological attention in this regard for the issue of pregnancy as the constitutive experience for self’s constitution. Conversely, the literature focused on maternal-fetal encounters, and on the process of pregnancy, tends to address unilaterally the experience of the maternal subject, and then to neglect the proper view of the fetus as pre-infant. When attention has been paid to the fetal perspective, the issues tackled are mostly bioethical. In this context, I offer an account of the complexity and non-linearity of fetal-maternal bodily encounters on a phenomenological level, putting forward a third alternative. In particular, I aim to show the intertwining of fetal and maternal perspectives, and to analyse and articulate philosophically the empirical fact that everyone has been a pre-infant. In the second part of my paper, I will take into account some essential structures that shape and constitute the process of pregnancy, as well as the actors involved – that is to say, the maternal subject and the fetal self. All in all, I aim, as a theoretical outcome of the paper, to build a phenomenology of pregnancy that contributes towards a rethinking of embodied selfhood from their origin. In this context, I offer a proposal of accounting for the complexity and non-linearity of fetal-maternal bodily encounters on a phenomenological level: my aim is to show the intertwining between fetal and maternal perspectives, as well as to eviscerate and articulate philosophically the empirical fact that everyone has been a pre-infant. In doing so, the theoretical outcome is to build a phenomenology of pregnancy that may actively contribute to the general movement of rethinking the embodied aspect of the self.In the second part of my paper, I will take into account some essential structures that shape and inform the experience of pregnancy, and also the actors involved, that is to say the maternal subject and the fetal self.

The main aim of this paper is to shed light on two somewhat underappreciated theories, which, by drawing attention to the embodied and relational nature of the self, both went beyond the disembodied and individualist paradigm long before most current leading approaches in the field. The paper first considers the routes out of the crisis of this paradigm proposed by care ethics. The first part focuses mainly on Carol Gilligan’s relational account of subjectivity, which served as an inspiration for the development of care ethics as a moral theory, and discusses the strengths and weaknesses of her account. In the next step, the paper sets out to compare the view of the self deployed by care ethics with Donald Winnicott’s account of the transitional area of play. The paper argues that both care ethics and Winnicott’s theory make it possible to understand human subjectivity as at the same time dependent and mature, ambivalent and integrated, vulnerable and responsible, relational and non-arbitrary. Winnicott and care ethicists jointly demonstrate that it is neither an absolute symbiosis with others, nor a total separation from them, that is decisive for the well-being of an individual and a social field. Rather, it is beneficial and morally desirable to cultivate concrete interpersonal relationships in the area of complex relationality. The paper concludes that the crisis of the disembodied and individualistic paradigm of the self cannot be overcome by an uncritical emphasis on the positive function of relational, embodied and supra-individual aspects of human existence. Though essential, these aspects are at the same time complex and developmentally conditioned.

ABSTRACT According to one influential argument against the existence of a priori knowledge, there is no a priori knowledge because (i) no belief is immune to revision, and (ii) if there were a priori knowledge, at least some beliefs would be unrevisable. A version of this argument was famously advocated by W. V. Quine, and is still popular among many naturalist philosophers. The aim of this paper is to examine and reject this argument against the a priori. The paper starts by discussing the thesis (i) and its role in Quine’s Web of Belief model. It is suggested that this thesis faces some important challenges that might jeopardize its use in the above argument against the a priori. Premise (ii) of the argument is then discussed. Philip Kitcher has famously defended a version of premise (ii). His arguments are assessed and rejected. The conclusion is that we have no good reason to accept (ii), and, with it, this argument against the a priori. The paper ends by proposing an account of the a priori that is perfectly compatible with (i).

ABSTRACT The aim of this paper is to show that "traditional" and "resolute" interpretations have not freed the "Tractatus" from the apparent paradoxical self-defeat. I argue that these readings only give it new clothing. Hacker's "traditional" reading ends up ascribing a metaphysical conspiracy to the "Tractatus", which is incompatible with the aims of the book. The "resolute" reading of Diamond and Conant ascribes an authorial conspiracy to Wittgenstein, which contradicts his views on authorship and method. Grounded in the difficulties found in both sides of the current debate, I conclude this paper by proposing several requirements that the correct interpretation of the "Tractatus" should fulfill.

This paper discusses the theoretical relationship between the views of Damascius and those of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. While Damascius’ De principiis is a bold treatise devoted to investigating the hypermetaphysics of apophatism, it anticipates various theoretical positions put forward by Dionysius the Areopagite. The present paper focuses on the following. First, Damascius is the only ancient philoso­pher who systematically demonstrates the first principle to be infinite (traditional Greek thought tended to regard the arkhē as finite). Second, Damascius modifies the concept and in several important passages shows the infinite to be superior and prior to the finite (previously this assumption was held only by Melissus and, sporadically, by Gregory of Nyssa and Plotinus). Third, Damascius’ theory of being (infinite, endless and ultrarational) is the strongest ancient articulation of the nature of the One which is a clear prefiguration of the negative theology developed by Dionysius the Areopagite.

This paper focuses on the concept of symbol and tries to out- line its function as a means of communication. In order to describe the communicative qualities of symbol, it is necessary to show its ethical nature. The paper analyses the role symbols play in intersubjective rela- tions, in the construction of the individual’s reality, and in the human ability to attribute meanings and assign functions.The conceptual frame- work for the understanding of what symbol is, how it works, and how it is made is a particular combination of phenomenology and pragma- tism, which lies on the theory of ‘appresentation’, as we can find it in Alfred Schütz’s viewpoint. The paper invites a reflection on the power of symbol, particularly on its power to communicate the incommunicable.

Este artigo discute a relação entre ética e estética na filosofia de Jean-François Lyotard. Influenciado por Wittgenstein, Lyotard argumenta que a cultura contemporânea é caracterizada por vários jogos de linguagem localmente legitimados, o que impossibilitaria o uso de uma linguagem universal e unificadora. De acordo com Lyotard, metanarrativas tais como a autonomia do sujeito oprimiriam a diversidade. Por causa disso, as metanarrativas deveriam ser substituídas pelos vários jogos. Assim, o artigo também pretende mostrar que essa caracterização de pós-modernidade abrange uma posição ética cética e relativista que torna impraticável uma análise crítica da cultura. Uma das consequências disso é a associação entre a filosofia pós-moderna e a defesa das sociedades capitalistas. [This paper discusses the relation between ethics and aesthetics in the philosophy of Jean-François Lyotard. Influenced by Wittgenstein, Lyotard argues that contemporary culture is characterized by several locally legitimated language games, which would precludes the use of a universal and unifying language. According to Lyotard, metanarratives such as the autonomous subject could oppress diversity. Because of this, the metanarratives should be replaced by several games. The paper also intends to show that this characterization of postmodernity embraces a skeptical and relativist ethic conception that makes impractical a critical analysis of culture. One consequence of this is the link between postmodern philosophy and defense of capitalist societies.]

This paper discusses Rudolf Carnap’s 1929 conferences at the Bauhaus school of art, design and architecture in the context of Otto Neurath’s utopianism. The conferences enable us to understand Carnap’s proposals of logical construction as part of some modernist cultural movements of Central Europe in early 20th Century. Utopias play a significant role in Neurath’s Philosophy of Social Science, as they can be compared to models of social technology. Carnap’s conferences aim at showing that the Bauhaus shared a world-conception with the Vienna Circle, group of which Carnap and Neurath were members. This paper argues that this common world-conception can be understood as a utopia, as a proposal of intervention in society, and that Carnap’s conferences were an invitation to join such utopia. This paper not only performs an exercise of historical reconstruction of Philosophy of Science, but it also shows reflexions on some problems of Social Science and technology. [Neste artigo se discutem as conferências de Rudolf Carnap, em 1929, na Bauhaus, escola de arte, design e arquitetura, no contexto do utopianismo de Otto Neurath. As conferências nos permitem compreender as propostas de Carnap relativas à construção lógica como parte de alguns movimentos culturais modernistas na Europa Central do início do século XX. Utopias desempenham um papel significativo na filosofia das ciências sociais de Neurath, sendo comparáveis a modelos de tecnologia social. As conferências de Carnap objetivam mostrar que a Bauhaus e o Círculo de Viena, grupo de que Carnap e Neurath eram membros, compartilhavam uma concepção de mundo. Argumenta-se neste artigo que essa compartilhada concepção de mundo pode ser entendida como uma utopia, como uma proposta de intervenção na sociedade, e que as conferências de Carnap foram um convite para integração a essa utopia. O artigo não realiza apenas um exercício de reconstrução histórica da filosofia da ciência, mas também apresenta reflexões acerca de alguns problemas de ciências e tecnologias sociais.]

In this paper, I reconstruct and analyze the Academic skeptics’ responses to the apraxia objection. This objection claims that the scepticism is a doctrine impossible to be put into practice because its theses lead to apraxia, that is, a state of lack or impossibility of action. The responses to the objection are divided into two kinds. The first one proves that assent is not a necessary condition to perform actions, so the skeptical advice to globally and wholly suspend assent does not lead to apraxia. The second one proves that it is possible to deliberate and rationally lead our actions without apprehensive impressions, so the skeptical thesis that apprehensive impressions do not exist does not lead to apraxia either. After some general considerations, in the first section of this paper I discuss Arcesilaus’ responses and in the second section Carneades’ responses.

This paper shows that in the philosophy of Sánchez Vázquez the basis for creative praxis is not innovation but the activity of practical consciousness, to which that Marxist philosopher describes as dialectical unity of the subjective and the objective. Furthermore, the paper argues that, in the sense of such unity and mutatis mutandi, creation has a place in non-practical human activity.

Critical and pancritical rationalism were mainly debated in the second half of the XXth century, however a new important paper on pancritical rationalism has been published recently, and hence a critical commentary of this recent publication is required, one is offered here.

A critical social theory for what and whom? This question is the key for this paper in order to problematize relationships and the dependence relating sociological theory, political praxis and strong institutionalism. The paper’s central argument is that the Western sociological tradition in the 20th century assumed a systemic understanding of society as epistemological-political basis of its constitution, legitimation and political influence, which led to strong institutionalism, that is, the correlation and self-justification between social sciences and political institutions, so that scientifical-political institutions become overlapped in relation to political praxis of social movements, as neutral and impartial regarding class struggle, depoliticizing social systems’ constitution, legitimation and evolution. The paper’s second central argument is that a critical social theory for the constitution and crisis of contemporary Western modernization must abandon the defense of and connection with strong institutionalism, supporting social movements in their epistemological-political criticism to social systems’ technicization and autonomization. [uma teoria social crítica para quê/para quem? Esta questão é a chave-de-leitura que o artigo usa com o objetivo de problematizar as relações e a dependência entre teoria sociológica, práxis política e institucionalismo forte. O argumento central do artigo consiste em que a tradição sociológica ocidental no século XX assumiu uma compreensão sistêmica de sociedade enquanto base epistemológico-política para sua constituição, legitimação e influência política, o que levou ao institucionalismo forte, isto é, à correlação e à autojustificação entre ciências sociais e instituições políticas, de modo que instituições científico-políticas tornam-se sobrepostas à práxis política dos movimentos sociais, bem como neutras e imparciais em relação às lutas de classe, despolitizando a constituição, a legitimação e a evolução dos sistemas sociais. Assim, o segundo argumento central do artigo consiste em que uma teoria social crítica para o estudo da constituição e da crise da modernização ocidental contemporânea deve abandonar sua defesa e sua conexão com o institucionalismo forte, auxiliando movimentos sociais em sua crítica epistemológico-política à tecnicização e à autonomização dos sistemas sociais]

In this paper, I put under scrutiny the arguments put forward by Aristotle in Nicomachean Ethics (NE) VI.9. The paper has two main parts. In the first, I examine the NE VI.9’s first part where Aristotle develops the concept of good deliberation, offering its definition in 1142b27-28. In the second, I examine the connection between good deliberation and phronesis, and, then, discuss the vexata quæstio about if the lines 1142b31-33 might be read as introducing the claim that phronesis provides moral ends. [Neste artigo, analiso pormenorizadamente os argumentos apresentados por Aristóteles em Ética a Nicômaco (EN) VI.9. O artigo é dividido em duas partes principais. Na primeira, abordo a primeira parte de EN VI.9 onde Aristóteles desenvolve a noção de boa deliberação, culminando com a apresentação da sua definição em 1142b27-28. Na segunda, abordo a conexão entre boa deliberação e phronesis e discuto a vexata quaestio de se as linhas 1142b31-33 podem ser lidas como introduzindo a tese de que a phronesis fornece os fins morais]

The paper engages with the Casuistic questions posed in the book on the Perfect Duties to Oneself, in the Metaphysical Principles of the Doctrine of Virtue of the Metaphysic of Morals. It investigates whether it is possible to identify Kant’s literal answers to the casuistic questions that Kant himself poses, concluding that it is not. Therefore, Kantian answers rather than Kant’s answers are discussed. The paper’s outcome supports a rigorist interpretation of Kant’s ethics.

In the Metaphysics of Morals Kant wrote that “it is impossible to will to be punished”. The main goal of the present paper is to challenge this idea. In contemporary literature, a similar challenge was attempted by assigning a pivotal role to the notion of ‘consent’. Therefore, focused on these antecedents, what I will try to do in this paper is to determine whether the notion of consent is capable of playing any role whatsoever in a justificatory theory of punishment.

The paper shortly summarizes the research on the philosophy of Kant in the Institute of Philosophy at the Nicolaus Copernicus University (Toruń, Poland). About 30 years ago professor Mirosław Żelazny with a group of collaborators started their research which focuses on three main topics: the reconstruction of Kant’s philosophical system against the background of eighteenth-century German philosophy, historical investigation into its reception in Poland, and the translation of Kant’s works. One of the greatest achievements are the source investigations and the discovery of some unknown manuscripts, the first Polish edition of the “Collected Works of Immanuel Kant” and several monographies on various aspects of Kant’s thought. The paper also stresses the importance of international collaboration with eminent Kant scholars from Germany and Eastern Europe for the projects carried out in Toruń.