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Copyright of Archivio di Storia della Cultura is the property of Liguori Editore srl and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Archivio di Storia della Cultura is the property of Liguori Editore srl and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The paper aims to reconstruct the final configuration of Schelling's philosophical system from the second half of the 1840s. Particular attention is given to the Darstellung der reinrationalen Philosophie, which, according to Schelling's intentions, was to replace the so-called Berliner Einleitung. By analyzing the different use of the notion of critique and the concept of positive philosophy in the two texts under examination, the paper shows how Schelling's philosophy undergoes significant changes in the very last years of his life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper aims at analysing the existence, from Classical era to Late Antiquity, of the same and rather stereotypical conception regarding Chaldean (or Babylonian) culture - especially in the so-called Neoplatonic philosophers - despite the figure of Berossus, a native of Babylon and the author of a history of the region in Greek, who could have offered a reconstruction faithful to Babylonian tradition. Through an analysis of the fragments based also on the hermeneutical approach of Interpretivism, the paper will try to show how Berossus spontaneously adhered to the conception (if not the stereotypes) with which the Greeks used to portray the Chaldeans, and thus how he legitimized them in some ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper sketches the figure of Wilhelm Griesinger (1817-1868) and briefly illustrates his idea of psychiatry by presenting the Italian translation of a famous speech he delivered at the Conference for the Inauguration of the Berlin Psychiatric Clinic. Griesinger's importance in defining the scientific status of psychiatric science is widely acknowledged, but his theoretical and clinical conception has been the subject of some misunderstandings, which have portrayed him as a simple materialist convinced that mental illness was essentially due to organic dysfunctions. However, this can be considered as a reductionist view, which is to some extent re-dimensioned in this inaugural speech, restoring the image of a psychiatrist attentive to physiopathological dynamics but also sensitive to the human dimension. Indeed, the author aims at a deeper understanding of the "sick soul". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Archivio di Storia della Cultura is the property of Liguori Editore srl and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper is a brief introduction to the new translation of the Prologue to the Course in Logic and Metaphysics, which Kant addressed to his students in 1765. It is a short but relevant text, a real "little classic": it establishes themes and motifs, some of which also testify to a peculiar intellectual moment in Kant's early phase. Indeed, the search for a new method in metaphysics and for ad hoc rules for the common intellect, which the Magister wants to address to his students, is accompanied by a reference to an anthropological-moral investigation dedicated to the rediscovery of principles and rules for civic life. Thus, in the eyes of the reader, an original programme for teaching philosophy emerges, one that focuses on experience and aims to contribute to that moral and social reform in which the early Kant still firmly believed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Archivio di Storia della Cultura is the property of Liguori Editore srl and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Archivio di Storia della Cultura is the property of Liguori Editore srl and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In this paper I aim at analyzing some moments of the Phanomenology of Spirit, in order to clarify the connection between recognition, intersubjectivity and absolute Spirit. Intersubjectivity, the plural dimension in which Selbstbewußtsein is immersed, is the necessary condition for the foundation of the Selfconsciousness itself. In this regard I use the term "renewed subjectivity" to refer to subjectivity not only intrinsically but also consciously intersubjective. In chapters on "Spirit" and "absolute knowledge", Hegel draws, as I attempt to show, a "decoding" of subjectivity in the intersubjective key. The figure that embodies the final moment of the phenomenological process - absolute knowledge - is the Subjectivity, renewed by the awareness of its intersubjective constitution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The subject of this paper is the influence of Emil Lask's Logik der Philosophie on the essay on Reification (History and class consciousness). Our main focus will be the concept of irrationalism. We propose the following hypothesis: while processing the concept of reification, Lukács avails of Lask's theory of irrationalism. First of all, we show the relationship be-tween irrationality and the modern conception of rationality, which is strictly connected to the reification. Afterwards, we use laskian concepts as "logical nudity", "logical impenetrability" and "alogicity" to study the lukácsian way to explore the problem of irrationality in Hegel. In the end, we show how Lukács faces up the categorial problem in Marx through the laskian concept of Gegeständlichgkeitsform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper traces the emergence of the anthropological question in the philosophy of Heinrich Rickert by examining the role played by anthropological philosophy in the latter developments of Rickert's system of thought. In pursuing this goal, we point to a set of works written in the 1930s as the turning point in Rickert's inquiry, where the inner articulation of his philosophical system was redefined by designating a broad space for the anthropological issues. By focusing on such issues this paper also wishes to lay out a thorough introduction to the first Italian translation of Rickert's essay Thesen zum System der Philosophie and to a part of the unpublished notes the philosopher used in delivering the 1932 lectures on Sozialphilosophie. According to the herein hermeneutic thesis, these works -- together -- are indeed the locus where we should recognise the earliest emergence of the anthropological question in Rickert's philosophy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper aims at outlining the conceptual frame in which nineteenth-century German philosophy inherits and pursues the British debate on induction. It investigates this debate as a case study for a broader inquiry about the German reception of late British empiricism. The Mill-Whewell controversy on induction is central to the late British empiricism's project of a logic of natural sciences. It becomes significant in Germany during the second half of the nineteenth century, as a means of defining a theory of science that supports the rising anti-idealist endeavour. The paper first defines what is at stake in the Mill-Whewell controversy, then considers how the same issue is handled in Apelt's Die theorie der Induction (1854) and in Sigwart's Logik (1873-1878). It concludes that, within the German context, the understanding of this issue cannot be disconnected from a Kantian focus on the transcendental foundation of scientific knowledge, and that this characteristic perspective on induction also implies some innovative developments for induction as a scientific method, mainly concerning the relevance and use of probability and statistics in inductive methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper takes stock of the relationship between Naples and Düsseldorf on the occasion of the International Congress "Group and Identity in Space and Time" held in Düsseldorf in September 2022. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines some aspects of the relationship that the Fourth Book of Filangieri's La Scienza della Legislazione (1785) has with the pedagogical theory proposed by Rousseau in his Émile (1762). While distancing himself from Rousseau and preferring public education to private education, Filangieri often refers to Émile and quotes it extensively. This is the case of the pages dedicated by Filangieri to the fear of the dark, its causes and means to prevent it through the experience of darkness that children can achieve if they are accustomed to play at night. Exemplifying the problem through reference to a narrative sequence extracted from the report of Cook's third voyage, Filangieri integrates Rousseau's thought with Buffon's ideas and discusses the link between nocturnal optical illusions, imagination, and polytheist superstition. Filangieri thus builds a focused synthesis of the debates and contributions of eighteenth-century culture, in view of renewal of social reform projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents the translation of one of the few letters found of a correspondence probably much larger between Weber and Kistyakovsky. The Ukrainian jurist was in fact chosen by Weber as a privileged point of reference for his keen interest in the events of the Russian revolution of 1905, in whose principles the German scholar shows such a sympathy that he places in them, at least initially, the hope of a "rebirth" of liberal ideals also for the European West. The text of the letter presents itself as a sort of catalog in which Kistjakovsky indicates specific works for each question raised by Weber: it thus allows us to focus so much on the completeness and intensity with which the German scholar undertook his studies on Russia, as well as the key themes around which the revolutionary process and, at the same time, the Weberian "interpretive experiment" revolved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Throughout history, the faculty of reason has been conceived and conceptualized in many ways. In particular, by the beginning of the modern age the meanings of reason connected to the acts of computing, measuring, and arguing, collected in the word ratio, have become outstanding and imposed upon the ancient tradition stemming from the Greek word logos. From that moment, the reason has been pluralized, typified, classified and many functions have been ascribed to it. The history of modernity can be described through the history of the many theories and meanings of reason which have been developed and worked out time after time and thinker after thinker. In this history, the concepts of rationalization, rationality, "déraison"/"Unvernunft" or irrationality also have a place. Moving from recent miscellaneous work, the present paper gives an account of such an astonishing history. What is finally delivered is a plural reflection on the history of European culture pointing up its richness and specificity and questioning both its bright and dark sides. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper contains the talks given by the authors on the occasion of the presentation of Domenico Conte's book Viandante nel Novecento. Thomas Mann e la storia (Roma, Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 2019) hosted by Goethe-Institut in Naples on February 24, 2021. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the paper is to provide a critical review of the new edition of the Die deutsche Katastrophe, edited by Bernd Sösemann (2018). In this new edition Meinecke's work is enriched by broad sections, in which Sösemann collects the historian's writings and letters from the period 1930-1950. In addition, numerous accounts of the work's international reception, from 1946 to the present, are collected there. After analyzing the main themes of the Katastrophe, the article will review the material proposed by Sösemann, highlighting the perspectives it opens on the interpretation of Meinecke's work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper analyzes the book Kant and the Metaphysics of Force, which deals with the early scientific production of the philosopher and in particular his re-elaboration of the concept of "living force". The early emancipation from the Cartesian and Leibnizian legacy is supposedly favored by the prevailing metaphysical interest of young Kant, as emerges in his discussion with scientists adhering to the two aformentioned points of views first, and with Newton and his followers later. In Nova Dilucidatio Kant engages in a theoretical discussion with Wolff, Leibniz, Crusius, and Baumgarten, even though the metaphysical character always remains present, as showed by his investigation of the principle of determining reason, which has the same tone of Kant's distancing from Knutzen's doctrine on the relationship between soul and body. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper reconstructs the idea of Europe in Benedetto Croce, Thomas Mann, Ernst Jünger, Carl Schmitt, Ernesto De Martino starting from their positions towards Der Untergang des Abendlandes by Oswald Spengler. This approach allows the Author to focus on themes that are central to the issue of European civilization, from the development of technology to the humanistic tradition, framed within historical and universal coordinates (Asia and Europe, Europe and the West). The role of Europe in the history of the world emerges into the foreground as a theme with deep historical roots and, at the same time, a very topical subject. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims at exploring the most long-debated issues regarding the Las Casas-Sepúlveda controversy at Valladolid (1550-1551). Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda and Bartolomé de Las Casas have two different approaches to the same Revelation and the same concept of "humanity". On the one side, Las Casas is an apostle of Christian softness. His ethic of responsibility brings about tolerance towards rituals involving cannibalism. But on the other side, Sepúlveda treats cannibalism rituals as mass atrocities; according to his ethics of conviction, as a matter of fact, he is a human rights defender. Those issues concern the responsibility-to-protect (R2P): it is the result of the Terentian humanism or the imperialistic attitude? The great debate of Valladolid proves to be a very current topic because, once again, we cannot detach one thing from another. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ongoing philosophical debate on categories needs a history of the problem as a methodological premise. Such a history needs a method as well, which can be found in the recent volume edited by Giuseppe D'Anna and Lorenzo Fossati, Categories. Histories and Perspectives (Georg Olms Verlag, 2017). Accordingly, the paper shows a possible fil rouge shared by all the papers of the volume. In so doing, the paper highlights the prominence of Aristotelian and Kantian paradigms in the discussions on the categorial problem. However, the volume also draws attention to the most recent developments of the debate that go beyond the traditional horizon. The possibility of a comparison between past and future of the categorial problem demonstrates the vitality of this issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper intends to explore the topics of Ioan Culianu's Iocari serio, which can be considered as a preamble to his more renowned Eros and magic. The author aims at depicting the Renaissance culture as deeply grounded in the art of mastering mental images, where the "serious game" of magic plays a paramount role. Starting with a consideration on Culianu's view of the Orphic myth of creation and on the playful attitude of Renaissance culture, the paper analyses the philosophical context that legitimised the art of magic, thus pointing out the reasons that brought Culianu to define Renaissance as a «culture of the imaginary». The paper also highlights the premises of his theory, which will play an important role in Eros and magic, according to which Reformation and Counterreformation would have led to a «censorship of the phantasmic ». [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper deals chiefly with the quranic studies of Theodor Nöldeke, which are represented above all by his Geschichte des Qorans. The first part introduces the Quran as a revealed text, deeply connected with the culture of the kuhhān. Then, the author of the article describes briefly the history of the German Arabic studies from their first secular beginnings (Reiske) up to Nöldeke. The paper deals further with the life of Nöldeke and finally with his contribution to the knowledge of the Book, as well as with the influence of these studies on the achievements of the following Arabic studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Starting from the case study of Futurism, the paper focuses on the controversial relationship between Croce and the contemporary avant-garde art. Croce's "passatism" is actually his historicism, a perspective from which futurists seem to be affected by a severe illness: anti-historicism. The paper analyses this ideological opposition (historicism/anti-historicism; thought and action/ activism; futurism/passatism; unique/typical; bourgeois and liberal world/revolution and youth), touching upon its political implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper focuses on the interpretativetrends which have recently placed Vico in the front of the anti-Christian radical Enlightenmentr, on the contrary, in a Catholic Enlightenment front. By reconsidering the historiographicalcategories of Enlightenment and/or Enlightenments, the paper aims to interpretVico as a thinker engaged in the "humanologic" field, in a work of original renovationof the Christian philosophy, in connection with some coeval innovatory currents of thoughtand maintaining positions that, sometimes, place him on the ambiguous border of orthodoxy:as in the reformulation of the idea of divinity, according to which divine providencemanifests itself in conformity with a principle of simplicity. If Vico certainly cannot beconsidered an adherent of Enlightenment, some elements of his thought can be prudentlyanalyzed in the key of the affinity with some problematic interests and universalist ideasof Pre-Enlightenment or Early Enlightenment stage of the long Age of Enlightenment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the early years of the personal, intellectual and political relationship between the Italian philosopher Antonio Banfi and the Russian-Italian activist Andrea Caffi, through the investigation of their correspondence, both the published and the unpublished. The paper reconstructs the cultural context of Berlin in 1910, where the two young men met and became pupils of Georg Simmel. Then, it analyses the Italian cultural milieu of the 1910s, highlighting Banfi and Caffi's relationship with intellectuals like Giuseppe Prezzolini and Umberto Zanotti Bianco. Furthermore, a historical reconstruction of the intellectual- political project of the " Jeune Europe" which Banfi and Caffi developed during the years of the First World War is outlined. Finally, the article highlights how - through Caffi, Banfi and their common friend Confucio Cotti - the name and the philosophy of Edmund Husserl found their earliest Italian echo. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper aims at identifying a historical-philosophical path of interpretation of Gabriel Marcel's theory of corporeality and incarnation. After sketching the author's historical and biographical context, the paper tries to retrace the same path constructed by Marcel from the early writings of the 1920s onwards. The biographical traces in Marcel's themes are stressed; furthermore, different themes are examined, from the criticism of Cartesian dualism to the definition of «body» and «incarnation» by highlighting the role of concepts such as «fidelity», «hope», «love». These are regarded as aptitudes of the incarnate existence which are meant to gain the supremacy of being over having. Hence it comes that the relationship with «the other» is, in its essence, a coexistence based on the same subjective experience. In the light of these arguments, the paper remarks the importance of death and the unavailability of body in relation to suicide, in a perspective which appears to be rooted in the epistemological distinction between problem and mystery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the role of Gianfrancesco Pico della Mirandola as editor of Giovanni Pico's works. Eminent scholars, such as Eugenio Garin, Cesare Vasoli, Stephen A. Farmer, wrote that Gianfrancesco, who, after Giovanni Pico's death, came into possession of most of the papers left unpublished by his uncle, could have changed or rewritten some texts (especially, the unfinished Disputationes adversus astrologiam divinatricem) in order to present Giovanni as a disciple of Girolamo Savonarola. This study explores this possibility by examining Gianfrancesco Pico's epistolary, to establish how he describes his relationship with his uncle and the editorial work he was engaged in, and by comparing the Disputationes and the fifth book of Gianfrancesco's De rerum praenotione, both devoted to a confutation of magic and astrology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The debate in the last decades on empathy has been long characterized by the idea of a close correlation between empathy and goodness. Only recently such a correlation was questioned, stressing an alleged irrationality of empathic feelings, which would make them a misleading and dangerous guide in the moral field. On the occasion of the recent publication of Anna Donise's book Critica della ragione empatica. Fenomenologia dell'altruismo e della crudeltà, the paper analyses and discusses the layered theory of empathy through which the author investigates the limits and the conditions of possibility of the connection reason-empathy, while highlighting the fundamental cognitive relevance and the substantial ethical ambivalence of empathic experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The experience of the First World War led Omodeo to rethink the historical and philosophical canons exposed in his 1913 essay on the «Res gestae» and the «Historia rerum gestarum», through a critical comparison with the philosophy of Gentile and Croce. Indeed, in some papers published between 1923 and 1934, Omodeo redefines his historicism which, though inspired by Gentile and influenced by Croce, is so far from the absolutizing claims of the two fathers of the Italian idealism, that it can be defined as a «philosophy of the limit». This, however, is not a declaration of impotence, but a declaration of the possibility of humanity in history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper takes into consideration Elena Alessiato's volume Lo spirito e la maschera. La ricezione politica di Fichte in Germania al tempo della prima guerra mondiale (2018). This political reception of Fichte's thought has two main interpretations: an interpretation in a national and conservative sense, and a socialist interpretation. The former underlines the image of Fichte as the philosopher and educator of Germany. The latter sees in Fichte's thought an anticipation of socialist theories, in particular as regards the relationship between economics and politics. In a situation of spiritual and political crisis, Fichte's "philosophy of man" offers a solid point of reference and a significant impulse, thanks to the moral faith in the ideal, which stands at the center of the German philosopher's moral and political vision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present article is the first comprehensive study of the works of the historian of philosophy Gabriele Giannantoni (1932-1998) on the Epicurean philosophy. In this paper I try to investigate the likely sources/roots of Giannantoni's deep interest in Epicurean ism. They could be identified chiefly, on the one hand, with his attention to the historical reconstruction of the Cyrenaic ethics and theory of knowledge and, on the other, with his philosophical and political proximity to the Italian Marxism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The question investigated in this paper is whether Spengler's Heraclitus is an apollinian or a faustian philospher. By means of a detailed analysis the author tries to show that Spengler describes Heraclitus' philosophical and cosmological view through some concepts (principally taken from energetic physics) which are subsequently used to describe the faustian Kultur in Der Untergang des Abendlandes. In Spengler's Heraklit, Heraclitus appears, therefore, as a faustian «guest» (Gast) in the apollinian Kultur. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the end of the Nineteenth century, during the Second International, the debate on socialism and on the Marxist theory in Italy involved several thinkers and economists of different leanings. It is remarkable that the liberal economist Vilfredo Pareto considered Benedetto Croce as a «socialist» thinker. In order to analyse the meaning of this statement, this paper investigates: what socialism was a few years after the birth of the Socialist Italian Party; the peculiar historical-cultural period in Italy; and whether Croce can actually be defined as a socialist. All these issues are discussed in the light of Croce's early essays on Marx (1896-1897). As a result, the special character of the Italian socialism emerges: the opposition Labriola-Turati and Engels-Loria; the dispute on Marx's labour-theory of value; and the curious disposition of the official organs of the Italian socialism towards the third volume of Das Kapital edited by Engels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper argues that Francesco De Sanctis should not be considered just a literary critic, since his thought had also a broader philosophical value. De Sanctis was familiar with the philosophical milieu of the XIX century. By stressing the importance of the critique, he distanced himself both from the Idealistic and from the Positivistic systematic approaches. De Sanctis described the role of art and science in their complex relationship with the past and the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Authority is a term widely used by scholars from various fields of studies, including the history of philosophy, but its actual meaning often remains obscure. This paper aims to show how an analysis of the structure of epistemic authority as a relation can shed light on this phenomenon and facilitate a better understanding of its meaning in the history of philosophy. It presents an analytical model that serves as a tool to get a better grasp on authority relations, in particular in textual traditions. The benefit of the model will be demonstrated by a case study from ancient and late ancient philosophy: the creation and the reception of Pythagorean authority in the history of Platonism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the development of Antonio Banfi's thought during his early years. Furthermore, it highlights the pedagogical relationship between Banfi and one of his pupils, the poet Antonia Pozzi. The paper analyses the cultural contexts of Milan and Berlin at the beginning of the Twentieth century, where Banfi had his philosophical education. It then examines the relationship between Banfi and his masters Georg Simmel, Ernst Cassirer and Edmund Husserl, which led him to develop a dynamic idea of philosophy. The paper stresses that the influence of these masters led Banfi to conceive philosophy as an open system of ideas: his philosophy can be described as an attitude to critically consider the different ways in which thought is structured from experience. Lastly, the paper suggests that Banfi's pedagogical attitude towards his pupil Pozzi is a necessary outcome of his philosophy's theoretical premises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on a significant philosophical work of the Italian classical philologist Carlo Diano (1902-1974), Form and Event, published in 1952. The main goal of this work is to show that the ancient Greek world can be reduced to a couple of historical principles, the form (which is the stable, bright, and eternal category of universality corresponding to the figure of Achilles), and the event (which means the mere happening for somebody, and this is the category of Ulysses). Form and Event are the exegetical principles of the Greek world as Achilles and Ulysses are the double soul of the Greek culture. In this paper other works by Diano on similar topics will be examined in order to make clear the development of these two notions. The purpose of this article is, on the one hand, to explain the contents of Form and Event, and on the other hand, to produce some short critical annotations on the topicality of this remarkable book, specifically on the general notion of "Graecism". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the main historiographical issues explained by Arthur Alfaix Assis in his book on the historical and political thought of Johann Gustav Droysen. Particularly the author dwells on the historical-political analysis contained in the Assis' book, showing the centrality of the concept of crisis as a decisive divide in Droysen's thought after the failure of the Frankfurt constitutional project. In addition, this paper intends to connect the reflection of Droysen to a monarchical-liberal perspective, away from any democratic- or republic-inspired political idea. Lastly, the author identifies the main contribution of the Assis' monograph in recognition of unsurpassable tension in Droysen between an epistemology of history, as an alternative model of any exemplary theory of history, and a historical-political thought that recognized valid motives for the present and the future in the examples of the past. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The essay examines the fifth chapter of Fechner's Elements of psychophysics, analyzing its attempt to reconcile the latest achievements in modern science - such as the formulation of the principle of conservation of energy by Helmholtz - with the spiritual sphere of mind, will, and freedom. In so doing, the paper highlights the "non-reductionistic" approach adopted by Fechner, who defends a radical form of materialistic mechanism on the one hand, but also unties it from its usual deterministic consequences on the other hand. Finally, the essay evaluates Fechner's use of the principle of conservation of energy against the wider background of his conception about the relationship between science and metaphysics, showing how this scientific principle becomes an argument in favor of Fechner's theory of the world-soul. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a possible reading path through the more than one thousand six hundred pages which compose the work Lutero. Un cristiano e la sua eredità. 1517-2017, edited by Alberto Melloni. In fact, the eight essays of the volume are examined which mention, illustrate and/or critically discuss Max Weber's renowned thesis on the connection between the protestant ethics and the spirit of modern capitalism, together with its complex theoretical and philosophical premises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper deals with Vico's reception in German Historism, moving from the distinction between two main chronological phases. In XIX Century Historism, in authors like Hamann, and especially Herder, Goethe and Friedrich August Wolf, the still sporadic circulation and knowledge of Vico's works leads to still vague and unsystematic insights in the consonance of some specific aspects of his philosophy. The second, XX Century Vico's reception revolves around the two main tenets of the so-called "critical" Historism, development and individuality. Although converging on an immanentistic interpretation of Vico's Providence, the systematic readings by Meinecke, Troeltsch, Auerbach and Löwith differ precisely in ascribing to Vico either the developmental or the individualizing aspect of the historicist conceptual framework. Vico's interpretation becomes the litmus test for Historism's endeavor of merging the continuity of history and the appearance of novelty. However, an analysis of Vico's own understanding of historical continuity highlights a deeper layer of divergence, common to the earlier and later historicist reception, and brings rather to the fore the original topos of a divide between Catholic and Protestant mindsets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The so-called demonology of the Epinomis is an abridged account of gods, demons, and heroes of traditional tales. Owing to its brevity, the obscurity of some expressions, and the various inconsistencies, it was taken at face value and assigned a role of secondary importance, compared to the broader analysis on the divine nature of the stars - the new gods - whose worship should allegedly spread in every city. Nonetheless, the marginal and perfunctory façade might cover a hidden purpose: supplying future lawmakers with a guideline for a reform of public religion. It encourages them to reorganize the numerous (and often contradictory) traditions and merge them with the "astral religion", avoiding, therefore, a stark conflict between the two cults. The aim of this paper is to offer a detailed analysis of each statement in the demonology and to highlight its relationship with the other sections of the Epinomis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper gathers eight contributions on the theme of cultural history. In Homage to Salvatore Tommasi the author offers an interpretation of some Salvatore Tommasi's ideas about the scientific method and the meaning of modern medicine, in the context of the debate on Naturwissenschaften and Geisteswissenschaften. In Croce and the Neapolitan academies the author describes the significance of Neapolitan academies with regards to the ethical, political and cultural itinerary of one of the main Neapolitan intellectuals of the 20th century. In Croce, Naples and the Pontaniana the tradition of the Neapolitan academies is examined. The author describes the role performed by Benedetto Croce in those academies, and the importance of these latter ones for the development of Croce's works. In A few marginal notes about the "history of mercy" by G. De Luca, the author describes the connection, according to the "roman priest", between the concepts of "tradition" and "mercy". About Begriffsgeschichte and Historismus. A paper by Gennaro Imbriano about the letters between Carl Schmitt and Reinhart Koselleck provokes the author into retracing some key concepts of his theoretical and historical interpretation of the Begriffsgeschichte. A few notes on the "history of studies". About a recent work. A book by Mario Liverani offers the opportunity to discuss the importance of the "history of studies" and its critical function as a support for the history of historiography. Autobiographical note, almost a confession. An essay by Giovanni Morrone leads the author to reanalyse some cruxes of his own thought. It is briefly discussed the methodological setting of his historicism, and the distance between the latter and the idealistic and positivistic historicisms. The same distance is reiterated about the metaphorology and the narrativism. In Germany and the absolute the author offers an interpretation of the political crisis in Europe and the rise of the euroscepticism. According to that hypothesis, European political and cultural crisis is interwoven with German culture, entangled in the nostalgia for the absolute, and fluctuating between cyclical enthusiasm and depression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper tackles the problems of contingency, free will, compatibilism and fatalism in John Duns Scotus' Lectura I, 39. Fatalism is the thesis that human acts occur by necessity and hence are unfree. According to theological fatalism, the infallible foreknowledge of a human act makes this act necessary and hence unfree. If there is a being who knows the entire future infallibly, then no human act is free. This paper tries to argue on Scotus' theory of human knowledge, divine knowledge of individuals and future contingents as a way out from theological fatalism or providential determinism (such as Thomas Aquinas' theory of the action of the first cause). The paper begins by reviewing the concept of compatibilism and examines Scotus' theory of modality and necessity, considering absolute (simpliciter) contingency, the concept of instant of nature, synchronic and counterfactual necessity for the present and the future. Then it explains the "co-working", viewed in a synchronic way, between the so-called necessitas per accidens and the counterfactual necessity for the past. This analysis leads to establish the existence of an analogue relationship, for the present and the future, between a neutral and indeterminate divine foreknowledge of the propositions and the indeterminate, logical instant of choice of the acts of free will. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is the outcome of some considerations on Hegel's Philosophy of Religion and Philosophy of History. It investigates the relationship between the concept of God as spirit and time, and the connection between the temporal development of the divine history and the origin of the Christian community, also conceived temporally. It begins with a general question about the rise of Christianity into history. It is asked, also: in which way for Hegel the Christian religion is an "accomplished" or "final" one? In what sense does revelation of God as spirit "take place" into history and, therefore, does manifest itself only at a specific time? Does the "accomplishment" end at a precise moment of the divine history, or once God became incarnate into a singular human being (Christ) must he overcome such kind of exterior history in order to be not reduced to a simple "past" time? How is it possible to transform Christ's individual history into a collective history to be shared by everyone within the Christian community? Are they both part of the divine history? How can a mutual plurality raise, as the Christian community does, from a single human being who is historically determined as Christ? Those questions can also be formulated around the concept of time. How can be possible to reconcile the contradiction between the historicity of God as spirit, who became incarnate into an Other-than-self (Christ) at a certain time (which is now part of the past), and God's eternity? Finally, how is it possible to transform the tragic God's death into the living presence of spirit within the community? In which way is the community the universal self-consciousness of God? Finally, how does a Christian community ground itself and which is its nature, if it is so strictly linked to time in its various forms? In conclusion, the paper shows how time plays a mediating role in the different phases of the Christian community's development, but it generates some contradictions too. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The short contribution is a response to the paper by Fulvio Tessitore on Ursprung/Entstehung. In that previous work Tessitore analyses central issues related to historicism, also in relation to the studies on Thomas Mann by Domenico Conte. In response to Tessitore, as in his scientific production, Conte stresses the importance of the «well of the past» in Mann's thought. The «well» leads to the Ur regions, where Mann looks for the foundation, which is linked to myth. «For the myth is the foundation of life». [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper points out a literary source which Max Weber refers to in a writing dating back to 1913, in which he states that an excessive methodological reflection may have harmful and paralysing effects on the practice of scientific investigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]