This essay analyses Hegel’s use of the metaphor of «the cross and the rose», not only in the Preface to the Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts, which all major interpretations refer to, but also in two other texts: Wer denkt abstrakt? of 1807 and the 1829 review of Schubart's and Garganico’s Über Philosophie überhaupt... In Wer denkt abstrakt? Hegel criticizes a sentimental, as equivalent to a «non concrete», interpretation of the figure; in the Preface he claims that «reason is the (...) rose in the cross of the present», assimilating the image to a platonic idea of State; in the review of 1829 he criticizes a naïve interpretation of the figure. In the light of these observations, it is possible to conclude that Hegel sees the figure as the specific image of the relation of the platonic and the critical element, typical of dialectical rationality. The Hegelian use of the figure thus results, in this perspective, by far more subtle than the one envisaged by its “political” interpretations. (shrink)

Since March 2020, many countries throughout the world have been in lockdown in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In Italy, the quarantine began on March 9, 2020, and containment measures were partially reduced only on May 4, 2020. The quarantine experience has a significant psychological impact at all ages but can have it above all on adolescents who cannot go to school, play sports, and meet friends. In this scenario, this study aimed to provide a general overview of the perceived (...) risk related to COVID-19 and the psychological experience of quarantine in a large sample of Italian adolescents. 978 adolescents (males = 339; females = 639) living in 13 Italian regions and attending upper secondary school (age range: 13–20, M = 16.57, SD = 1.20), responded to an internet-based questionnaire about perceived health risk related to COVID-19, knowledge and information on measures to control the pandemic, beliefs and opinions on stage two of the quarantine, and psychological experiences related to quarantine. 31.1% of the participants lived in "red zones," which are places where the government has imposed stricter measures of containment due to exponential and uncontrolled growth in contagion cases compared to other areas in Italy. According to our results, Italian adolescents had a low perception of risk of COVID-19. Perceived comparative susceptibility and perceived seriousness were also very low. However, they were aware of the restriction measures necessary to contain the spread of the virus, and they agreed with the limitations imposed by the government. Females and adolescents living in a “red zone” showed more significant psychological negative feelings about the quarantine experience. However, no significant differences were found about the regions where the teenagers of our sample live and the other variables related to the COVID-19 experience. This is very interesting data, leading us to hypothesize that the participants' negative feelings may be more related to the adolescent period than to the pandemic itself. (shrink)

Peirce on Habits explores the principle of habit, its mode of being, and its implications for defining humans as "creatures of habit." Drawing on the perspective of American philosopher Charles S. Peirce, it addresses issues in current habit theory, from general ontological concerns to their impact on cognition and subjectivity.

In 2014, Morten Tønnessen and the editors of Biosemiotics initiated the “Biosemiotic Glossary Project” with the scope to clarify the terminology used in biosemiotics. This initiative was designed to actively involve the biosemiotic community, fostering dialogue that would contribute to the theoretical evolution of the field. In this paper, we explore how the term “habit” is defined and applied within biosemiotics, and how it relates to general semiotics and philosophy. In biosemiotics, “habit” refers to the regular, recurring behaviors or patterns (...) that emerge from an organism’s interactions with its environment. This concept, deeply rooted in Charles Sanders Peirce’s philosophy, is understood as an adaptive mechanism where repeated actions lead to the stabilization of organisms or systems. Over time, these repeated actions form patterns that guide future behaviors. Peirce extended this concept beyond organisms, suggesting that habits also structure biological and non-biological phenomena by turning random events into predictable regularities. In biosemiotic theory, habits play a central role in semiosis, the process by which living systems generate and interpret meaning, as they regulate interactions and responses in both evolutionary and adaptive contexts. This notion bridges biological development and semiotic processes, offering a deeper understanding of how organisms establish semiotic relationships with their environments. This paper aims to clarify the role of ‘habit’ in biosemiotic discourse and encourage further discussion within the community to refine its use and implications. (shrink)

This paper explores the intertwinement of ontology and history that happened after the idealist turn of Kantian transcendentalism, particularly in classic German idealism and later in American pragmatism. The paper focuses on the less remarked-upon consequence of this intertwinement, namely the possibility of a new reading of history based on changes in concepts and habitual mentality. The paper proposes a new take on historiography that vindicates Hegel’s insight but changes his approach to a pragmatist one, more apt to face historical (...) changes in a technical way and less easily twistable into ideological frameworks. The paper argues that the notion of habit, as phenomenologically and semiotically described by Peirce, is the fundamental cellule of the pragmatist take on the entanglement of history and ontology. The paper elaborates on the notion of habit, singling out a special form of it called “gesture” that can be a useful tool for reading the history of the human spirit without incorporating Hegel’s dialectic and Absolute. The paper compares the notion of gesture as it originated in the pragmatist tradition with the parallel use of the term in the early studies of Michel Foucault and argues that the notion of gesture is better equipped to tackle a theoretical reading of history. (shrink)

Nota crítica sobre el libro de María Luisa Femenías (2022). _Los disidentes : filósofos feministas excluidos de la memoria, _Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires : Galerna, 446 páginas.

Questo contributo teorico propone una prospettiva innovativa nel dibattito sul concetto di “bullshit”. L’ipotesi principale è che la vaghezza sia un elemento fondamentale delle bullshit, che si focalizza sull’attività. In questo modo si supera il dibattito in letteratura che mette al centro o l’intenzionalità dell’enunciatore o la struttura e il contenuto degli enunciati. Si sostiene inoltre che la vaghezza non debba essere considerata come un limite, ma come un’opportunità per comprendere situazioni comunicative complesse. Questo differente approccio, basato sulla tradizione pragmatista, (...) supera alcuni limiti evidenziati in letteratura, aprendo la strada a una comprensione più approfondita del fenomeno delle bullshit. Offre inoltre una risposta esaustiva ad alcuni quesiti di Frankfurt e riconosce il lato “produttivo” delle bullshit, adattandosi meglio a molteplici circostanze quotidiane. Un approccio pragmatista al fenomeno-bullshit basato sulla vaghezza offre una maggiore comprensione di fenomeni complessi di comunicazione senza cadere nel “paradigma della sincerità” evidenziato da Frankfurt. (shrink)

Non sempre il pensiero politico di Karl Jaspers ha ricevuto l’attenzione che merita.

Martin Heidegger never devoted a self-standing volume to translation. Nevertheless, his occasional brief remarks on translation contain an implicit resemantization of the concept. Translation is an activity that helps us to think – a jump over a ditch, a crossing of the translating subjectivity to another shore. The effort of the translator is an attempt to say what has thus far remained unthought but in the custody of the inherited word, especially the Greek word. While Heidegger focuses on translation as (...) the way in which our philosophical tradition proceeds and has built itself up, he does not seem to be completely aware of the fact that his own move, his own strategy for dismantling that same tradition, cannot be but another translation. (shrink)

The present research examines whether individuation and categorization processes influence trust decisions about strangers at first and across repeated interactions. In a partial replication of the study reported by Cañadas et al. (2015), participants played an adaptation of the multi-round trust game paradigm and had to decide whether or not to cooperate with unknown partners. Gender (Study 1a) and ethnicity (Studies 1b, 2, and 3) served to create distinct social categories among the game partners, whose reciprocation rates were manipulated at (...) group and individual levels. At the group level, two social groups (i.e., ingroup vs. outgroup) were associated with opposite reciprocation rates (i.e., high vs. low reciprocation rate). At the individual level, consistency was manipulated by altering the reciprocation rate of one out of four members of each social group. That is, there was one inconsistent individual in each group showing a pattern of reciprocation opposite to the group reciprocation rate. Our data, contrary to Cañadas et al.’s (2015) findings, suggested that ingroup partners were individuated given that participants made their decisions to cooperate with the trustees according to their individual reciprocation rate and independently of the group reciprocation rate. In contrast, decisions about outgroup partners (i.e., men in Study 1a and Blacks in Studies 1b, 2, and 3) were affected by category-based thinking. At the same time, in comparison with ingroup, greater cooperation was observed with ethnic outgroups but not with gender outgroups. The consistency of our results with the previous literature on social categorization and across the three experiments seems to indicate they are reliable, supporting the hypothesis that categorization and individuation processes guide trust decision-making, promoting individuation mainly for ingroup and categorization among outgroup members. (shrink)