Despite the postmodern image of a smooth and borderless world, physical barriers currently represent one of the most important instruments of political articulation of the statal space. However, several ethical and political problems arise from it. This paper presents a philosophical critique of teichopolitical rationalities, namely, the politics of walls. The first section analyses two ancient teichopolitical paradigms. The second section analyses the wall as an element that nullifies the image of a global borderless world. The third section deals with (...) the wall as a protective instrument of the statal body. The fourth section highlights the ethical and political problems produced by walls. In the fifth section we argue that walls represent a spectacularized form of sovereignty. In the conclusions I summarize the results and suggest that teichopolitical logics foment a feeling of paranoia on a global level. (shrink)

In questo articolo l’autore analizza il tema del muro statale a partire da una prospettiva interdisciplinare che connette ontologia, filosofia della tecnologia e filosofia politica. La tesi principale del saggio è che vi sia una differenza ontologica fra il muro e il confine su cui esso si inscrive. Dopo una breve discussione di alcune note teorie ontologiche, l’autore argomenta a favore della tesi per cui il muro non sia un oggetto sociale, bensì un artefatto. Più specificamente, il muro è un (...) “artefatto politico”, poiché è uno strumento che inscrive materialmente nello spazio una complessa relazione di potere. Al fine di concettualizzare l’emergente razionalità politica globale, gli studiosi francesi Florine Ballif e Stéphane Rosière hanno coniato un nuovo termine: teicopolitica. Il termine deriva dal greco teichos, che letteralmente significa “il muro della polis”. La teicopolitica, dunque, indica la politica di costruzione di muri, nella maggior parte dei casi per scopi securitari. Il saggio affronta alcuni aspetti della teicopolitica da un punto di vista filosofico. Nella prima parte del saggio, l’autore critica l’idea postmoderna di uno spazio globale fluido e virtuale, e la relativa idea di una consumazione storica e politica delle categorie moderne (Stato, sovranità, territorio); nella seconda parte, analizza approfonditamente la differenza ontologica fra muro e confini, nonché alcuni aspetti fenomenologici che vi si collegano; nella terza parte, mostra come e perché un muro studiato in quanto dispositivo implichi il riconoscimento di differenti forme di potere (sovrano, disciplinare, governamentale); nell’ultima parte, sostiene che il tema del muro statale debba essere affrontato attraverso quella che può essere definita una “ontologia politica degli artefatti”. (shrink)

The paper deals with the problem of the ontology of political artefacts. A political artefact is a material object that produces certain effects on the social and political environment. The philosophical question I would like to answer is if such an artefact is political because its materiality imposes a social or political norm, or because it simply describes and reproduces certain relations of power. Therefore, I discuss and criticize some of the most relevant theories (technological determinism, social constructivism, Actor-Network-Theory) that (...) deals with the problem of political artefacts and the relation between humans and things. After that, I defend an approach that I define “material contextualism”. In the conclusion, I show why a philosophical theory of the wall, namely a material object that inscribes on the space a relation of power, must be grounded on the material contextualism. (shrink)

In the present essay we analyse the role of philosophical investigation for the interdisciplinary research field of the Border Studies. The main thesis of the paper is that a border cannot be ontologically considered as an object, and neither metaphorically as a simple line. Indeed, these approaches tend to extremely simplify the very nature of borders and bordering processes. Here we argue that borders are complex social phenomena produced by the coherent combination of several different elements. Therefore, we suggest that (...) a fruitful way in order to conceptualize the nature of the border is the concept of dispositive, provided by Michel Foucault. The paper is structured as follows: in the first and second paragraph we show why the analysis of borders are increasingly a crucial topic both for scientific and public debate; in the third paragraph we criticize the approach provided by social ontology, focused on the conceptualization of the border as an object; in the fourth paragraph, starting from a Rousseau’s suggestion, we analyse the phenomenology of bordering practices, and we argue that a border should be understood as a complex articulation of material and immaterial elements; in the fifth paragraph we introduce the notion of dispositive in order to catch the complex nature of borders; in the conclusions we summarize the main results of the paper and we sketch possible further lines of research. (shrink)

In questo saggio analizzo l’idea del mondo come coesistenza di umani e cose, e sostengo che tale coesistenza debba essere considerate sotto la lente concettuale della responsabilità. Nei primi due paragrafi sostengo che l’esperienza umana è sempre mediata da un sistema di artefatti. Nel terzo e nel quarto paragrafo sintetizzo due differenti approcci filosofici, ossia la teoria degli artefatti e il metodo materialista, i quali condividono la tesi della performatività degli artefatti nella costituzione dell’esperienza umana. Nelle conclusioni mostro la rilevanza (...) etica e politica di questa possibile ermeneutica materiale del mondo. (shrink)

In this hugely influential book, Laclau and Mouffe examine the workings of hegemony and contemporary social struggles, and their significance for democratic theory. With the emergence of new social and political identities, and the frequent attacks on Left theory for its essentialist underpinnings, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy remains as relevant as ever, positing a much-needed antidote against ‘Third Way’ attempts to overcome the antagonism between Left and Right.

Ernesto Laclau has blazed a unique trail in political theory and philosophy since the early 1970s. In so doing, he has articulated a range of philosophical and theoretical currents into a coherent alternative to mainstream models and practices of conducting social and political science.

MATHEMATICAL RESOLUTIONS OF ZENO’s PARADOXES of motion have been offered on a regular basis since the paradoxes were first formulated. In this paper I will argue that such mathematical “solutions” miss, and always will miss, the point of Zeno’s arguments. I do not think that any mathematical solution can provide the much sought after answers to any of the paradoxes of Zeno. In fact all mathematical attempts to resolve these paradoxes share a common feature, a feature that makes them consistently (...) miss the fundamental point which is Zeno’s concern for the one-many relation, or it would be better to say, lack of relation. This takes us back to the ancient dispute between the Eleatic school and the Pluralists. The first, following Parmenide’s teaching, claimed that only the One or identical can be thought and is therefore real, the second held that the Many of becoming is rational and real.1 I will show that these mathematical “solutions” do not actually touch Zeno’s argument and make no metaphysical contribution to the problem of understanding what is motion against immobility, or multiplicity against identity, which was Zeno’s challenge. I would like to point out at this stage that my contention. (shrink)

Time and Reality sets out to explore the dichotomy of unity (identity) and plurality in human thought and to show in the light of this duality what are the limits of human knowledge as far as understanding 'reality' is concerned.

Increasing global competition has intensified the use of informal sector workforce worldwide. This phenomenon is true with regard to India, where 92% of the workers hold precarious jobs. Our study examines the dynamics of workplace dignity in the context of Indian security guards deployed as contract labour by private suppliers, recognising that security guards’ jobs were marked by easy access, low status, disrespect and precariousness. The experiences of guards serving bank ATMs were compared with those working in large reputed organisations. (...) The former reported loss of dignity though their inherent self-worth remained partially intact, whereas the latter reclaimed dignity despite the precarious working conditions and the absence of unions. Guards from large reputed organisations evolved strategies by which they took advantage of the client’s vulnerabilities, developed ‘thick’ relationships at work and immersed themselves in 'doing dignity work' to ensure that they are not disposable. ‘Doing dignity work’ was a visible device which involved actions that met or went beyond the norms laid down by the client and was used by security guards to limit the extent of their precariousness. Since the opportunity to reclaim dignity was facilitated by large reputed clients’ adherence to legal regulations, we see implications of the study for the moral economy. (shrink)

Outdoor education is a pedagogical orientation that has been present for years in the educational institutions of the municipality of Modena; the latter, through research, monitors the trend in order to identify and resolve problems. Examining the professionalism of the staff in the outdoor education field and the limitations in implementing the practice, this contribution highlights how various factors constitute an obstacle to carrying out the activities, even in the presence of adequate training; the constraints that emerged concern relationships with (...) colleagues and parents, bureaucracy and the physical structure of the service itself. The study therefore offers ideas to take into consideration for the updating and training of educational personnel on outdoor education practices. (shrink)

Praise for First Edition: `This book is highly recommended to a wide range of people as a clear and systematic introduction to phenomenological psychology... the book has set the stage for possible new colloquia between the phenomenological and other approaches in psychology' - Changes `As a trainee interested in matters existential, I have been put off in the past by the long-winded and confusing texts usually available in academic libraries. Thankfully, here is a text that remedies that situation... [it] provides (...) a readable and insightful account' - Clinical Psychology Forum 'Spinelli’s classic introduction to phenomenology should be essential reading on all person-centred, existential and humanistic trainings, and any other counselling or psychotherapy course which aims to help students develop an in-depth understanding of human lived-experience. This book is sure to remain a key text for many years to come' - Mick Cooper, Senior Lecturer in Counselling, University of Strathclyde 'This is by far the most monumental, erudite, comprehensive, authoritative case that Existentialism and Phenomenology (a) have a rightful place in the academy; (b) are tough-minded bodies of thought; (c) have rigorous scientific foundations; (d) bequeath a distinctive school of psychotherapy and counselling; and (e) are just as good as the more established systems of psychology' - Alvin R. Mahrer, Ph.D. University of Ottawa, Canada, Author of The Complete Guide To Experiential Psychotherapy 'This book’s rich insight into the lacunae of modern psychological thinking illustrates the contribution that existential phenomenology can make to founding a coherently mature Psychology that is both fully human(e) and responsibly ‘scientific’ in the best sense of that term' - Richard House, Ph.D., Magdalen Medical Practice, Norwich; Steiner Waldorf teacher. The Interpreted World, Second Edition, is a welcome introduction to phenomenological psychology, an area of psychology which has its roots in notoriously difficult philosophical literature. Writing in a highly accessible, jargon-free style, Ernesto Spinelli traces the philosophical origins of phenomenological theory and presents phenomenological perspectives on central topics in psychology - perception, social cognition and the self. He compares the phenomenological approach with other major contemporary psychological approaches, pointing up areas of divergence and convergence with these systems. He also examines implications of phenomenology for the precepts and process of psychotherapy. For the Second Edition, a new chapter on phenomenological research has been added in which the author focuses on the contribution of phenomenology in relation to contemporary scientific enquiry. He describes the methodology used in phenomenological research and illustrates the approach through an actual research study. The Interpreted World, Second Edition demystifies an exciting branch of psychology, making its insights available to all students of psychology, psychotherapy and counselling. (shrink)

The argument is developed by drawing on the thought of Søren Kierkegaard, Eric Voegelin, and Bernard Lonergan. Contemplation is possible because the self is constituted by self-presence in its engagement with being. Self-presence does not precede one’s engagement with being and is not an alternative to this engagement, but is the unique mode of human participation in being. Immersed in the frenetic give and take of the world, one is present to oneself. Self-presence also includes the unique quality of human (...) existence in tension between the immanent and transcendent. The contemplative experience is characterized by awe, humility, joy, and mystery. In contemplation, one cedes for a time the practical preoccupations evoked by the pull of immanence and gives way to the questing disposition—what the Greeks called wonder—toward transcendence. Contemplation is the questing disposition of self-presence toward being. (shrink)

Recent literature emphasizes an altered perception of the body in subjects practicing sport to pursue an ideal body image. Sometimes such bodily misperception is associated with the inability to re...

The conceptualisation of movement has always been problematical for Western thought, ever since Parmenides declared our incapacity to conceptualise the plurality of change because our self-identical thought can only know an identical being. Exploiting this peculiar feature and constraint on our thought, Zeno of Elea devised his famous paradoxes of movement in which he shows that the passage from a position to movement cannot be conceptualised. In this paper, I argue that this same constraint is at the root of our (...) incapacity to conceptualise the unseen movement at the micro-level and that the aporetic idea of super-position far from opening the gate on a deeper reality is a symptomatic word for this lack of understanding. (shrink)

This study concentrates on two kinds of video games, Massive Online Battle Arena and Massive Multiplayer Online Role Play Game, and examines the scores obtained by the subjects in the sample. Score...

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Diacritics 31.4 (2001) 3-10 [Access article in PDF] Can Immanence Explain Social Struggles? Ernesto Laclau Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri. Empire. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 2000. In a recent interview 1 Jacques Rancière opposes his notion of "people" (peuple) 2 to the category of "multitude" as presented by the authors of Empire. As is well known, Rancière differentiates between police and politics, the first being the logic of (...) counting and assigning the population to differential places, and the second the subversion of that differentiating logic through the constitution of an egalitarian discourse which puts into question established identities. "The people" is the specific subject of politics, and this term presupposes a sharp division in the social body which cannot be led back to any kind of immanent unity. Empire, on the contrary, makes immanence its central category and the ultimate ground of the multitude's unity.The main lines of Rancière's critique provide a good starting point for what we have to say about the book. The immanentism of Hardt and Negri would be linked, according to Rancière, to their Nietzschean/Deleuzian ethics of affirmation, which does away with any reactive or negative dimension. Empire would belong, in that respect, to the whole tradition of modern political philosophy, which is profoundly metapolitical: "the kernel of metapolitics is to lead back the precarious artifices of the political scene to the truth of an immanent power which organizes beings in a community and identifies the true community with the grasped and sensible operation of this truth" ["Peuple ou multitudes" 96]. From Hardt and Negri's rejection of any inherent negativity in political subjects, it follows that the power inherent in the multitude has to be a disruptive power, "lodged in all states of domination as its ultimate content, a content destined to destroy all barriers. 'Multitudes' have to be a content whose continent is Empire" ["Peuple ou multitudes" 97]. Disruptive forces operating through a purely immanent movement are what Marxist theory called "productive forces," and there would be, according to Rancière, a strict homology between the place of productive forces and that in which multitudes, as described in Empire, act. Rancière points out that productive forces should not necessarily be understood in any narrow productivist sense: there has been a constant widening of the concept from the strict economism of classical Marxism, to the recent attempts to introduce in it the ensemble of scientific and intellectual abilities, passing through the Leninist attempt to supplement via political intervention a role that productive forces refused to fulfill.I think that Rancière has rightly stressed what I see as the main source of several weaknesses of Empire, including a central one: that within its theoretical framework politics become unthinkable. So I will start from a discussion of its notion of immanence and move later to various other theoretical and political aspects of the book. [End Page 3]Let us start with the authors' discussion of the origins of European modernity. While the usual insistence is on the secularization process, that process would be, "in our view... only a symptom of the primary event of modernity: the affirmation of the powers of this world, the discovery of the plane of immanence. 'Omne ens habet aliquod esse proprium'—every entity has a singular essence. Duns Scotus' affirmation subverts the medieval conception of being as an object of analogical, and thus dualistic predication—a being with one foot in this world and one in a transcendent realm" [Empire 71]. Duns Scotus's insistence on the singularity of being would have initiated an assertion of immanence that the authors describe as a process whose representative names would have been Nicholas of Cusa, Pico della Mirandola, and Bovillus—other names quoted are Bacon and Occam—and whose point of arrival is Spinoza. "By the time we arrive at Spinoza, in fact, the horizon of immanence and the horizon of the democratic political order coincide completely. The plane of immanence is the one on which the powers of singularity are realized and the one on which the truth of the new... (shrink)

This article aims at providing a critical review of the main studies about Mafia in a theoretical psychological and socio-anthropological framework, and investigating the perception of the phenomenon in relation to moral disengagement and values orientation in two groups of Sicilian teenagers, living in contexts with different Mafia density. Today Mafia is represented as a socio-psychological phenomenon, which has managed to make culture, community, family, and individuals coincide; it is founded on an individualistic social conception according to which violence is (...) the strongest form of self-achievement. (shrink)

This paper examines Aristotle’s treatment of friendship and self-love in Books VIII and IX of the Nicomachean Ethics. The purpose is to explore what Aristotle means by self, and his understanding of why selves become, engaged in benevolent relationships with others. Some discussion of Aristotle’s influence on Kierkegaard helps to bring out the significance of Aristotle’s insights about the self. Aristotle explains how the self’s movement toward actuality grounds friendship and benevolence. True friendship and all endeavors to “produce” good, derive (...) from love for one’s own being as mediated by one’s intelligence or nous. All such authentic endeavors constitute an effortto actualize one’s self, to act nobly, to be in one’s achievement and to panicipate in the community of being. (shrink)

This essay outlines a normative theory of reparations for transitional democracies. The article situates the theory within current critical‐theory debates on recognition and redistribution, and it argues that any model of reparations should aim to achieve what Nancy Fraser calls “status parity.” Such a model should be conceptualized according to a typology of acknowledgment along one axis (symbolic and material) and a typology of recipients (individual and collective) along the other. I conclude by identifying several key contributions that reparations can (...) make to transitional societies. (shrink)

A presente reflexão pretende partir da afirmação da “morte de Deus”, que constitui em Nietzsche uma das suas concepções fundamentais e, poder-se-ia dizer, também, a chave de leitura do seu filosofar. Deste ponto de partida, o estudo procura extrair e identificar, sem para tal ser exaustivo, as emergências antropológicas e éticas do pensar nietzschiano. Palavras-chave: Übermensch. Dever ser. Vontade de potência. Riqueza antropológica. Ética.

L'esperienza cristiana di Francesco d'Assisi ha ispirato non solo la letteratura religiosa del suo tempo, ma ha costituito un punto di riferimento anche per l'elaborazione filosofica e teologica dei maestri francescani, come si evince dall'analisi di una questione quodlibetale di Pietro Tommaso relativa al fenomeno delle stimmate del Poverello. Il testo del maestro catalano, in confronto anche con testi simili precedenti o coevi, si presenta come un testimone interessante della temperie culturale dei primi decenni del Trecento, dal momento che analizza (...) la stimmatizzazione di Francesco non tanto per uno scopo apologetico, quanto piuttosto come come locus philosophicus grazie al quale elaborare alcune riflessioni sul rapporto tra natura e soprannatura e in merito alla potentia Dei absoluta. The Christian experience of Francis of Assisi not only inspired the religious literature of his time but also constituted a reference point for the philosophical and theological elaboration of the Franciscan masters, as it can be deduced from the analysis of a quodlibetal question of Petrus Thomae about the phenomenon of the Poverello's stigmata. The text of the Catalan master, in comparison also with similar previous or coeval texts, arises as an interesting witness of the cultural age of the fourteenth century early decades, since it analyzes the stigmatization of Francis not so much for an apologetic purpose, but rather as locus philosophicus thanks to which it is possible to elaborate some reflections on the relationship between nature and supernature and on the potentia Dei absoluta. (shrink)

In this paper, I propose a new framework for the general internalism/externalism debate about reasons. My aim is to defend a novel account of internalism that at least allows for the possibility of a more "realist" conception of reasons- thus avoiding simply begging the question (as Williams himself seems to do) against many recent externalist thinkers like Hampton, Scanlon, McDowell, and Parfit - while still somehow retaining a deep connection between reasons to act and an agent's motivations. What is crucial (...) to observe here is that Williams' intemalism relies upon two logically independent premises: on the one hand, a negative "skeptical" thesis denying we have any reason to believe that values - and the reasons associated with them - exist in any realist way independent of individual agents; and on the other hand, a positive "subjectivist" thesis controversially maintaining that all reasons for action are instead in some sense necessarily related to each particular agent's subjective motivations. I think we should reject Williams' widely-disputed "subjectivist" thesis. Rather, by endorsing only Williams' former premise, we are able to formulate a more modest "skeptical" version of intemalism – or what I call ‘skeptical internalism’ – which, unlike Williams' explicitly "subjectivist intemalism", at least allows for the externalist view that values exist in a realist way totally independent of us. We suspend judgment, however, about whether any such values do exist - where significantly, an individual agent's motivations somehow play a constitutive role in terms of assessing what values she even has reason to affirm. Such so-called "skeptical internalism" has several advantages over Williams' own view. As we will see, it not only helps usto bypass the current terminological deadlock, but also allows us to better focus upon what may be the most crucial difference between internalism and extemalism, which rests not so much in how each camp chooses to define what a reason is, but rather in how they understand the nature of rational disagreement itself. This specific worry constitutes perhaps the main crux of the entire intemalist/extemalist debate, and I argue that, in the end, skeptical internalism provides a much more satisfying analysis of the underlying ethical import of such rational disagreement than either of its two main rivals, extemalism or Williams' own subjectivist accountof internalism. (shrink)

What place, if any, does love have in Kantian ethics? This chapter is divided into three parts. First, I discuss Kant’s own account of moral versus non-moral love as found throughout his various writings and show how this closely parallels his account of moral versus non-moral friendship. Second, I discuss contemporary Kantian accounts of both friendship and love, highlighting how they go beyond, and in some ways seem to significantly improve upon, Kant’s own views via their appeal to Kant’s Formula (...) of Humanity. Lastly, I discuss the overall merits of what I call ‘Kantian moral love’. I argue that while Kantian moral love might rightly identify, from the moral point of view, how we ought to act and think when loving other people, it fails to provide a complete account of love, crucially leaving out certain key elements from the wide range of loving relationships we find ourselves in, especially romantic love. That is, while Kantian moral love might successfully identify a morally ideal way to love other people, it falls short of capturing the full essence of love—mainly because love is not simply a moral affair but also a matter of the heart. (shrink)

On the traditional view, Butler maintains that forgiveness involves a kind of “conversion experience” in which we must forswear or let go of our resentment against wrongdoers. Against this reading, I argue that Butler never demands that we forswear resentment but only that we be resentful in the right kind of way. That is, he insists that we should be virtuously resentful, avoiding both too much resentment exhibited by the vices of malice and revenge and too little resentment where we (...) merely condone the wrongdoer and leave ourselves open to future injury. I argue that this Butlerian approach offers us a more attractive account of forgiveness as a “virtue” than many recent discussions. In the final section, I address Butler’s challenging thesis that forgiveness is an unconditional moral duty. I argue against those who claim that forgiveness is supererogatory (Kolnai/Calhoun) or else merely morally conditional and even morally blameworthy in some cases (Murphy/Hampton/Novitz/Richards). By contrast, I defend a context-sensitive account of forgiveness which recognizes that it takes place on many different levels. I conclude by taking up the difficult issue of whether anybody can be ultimately “unforgivable”, offering some Butlerian and Strawsonian reflections that might help mitigate our judgments about such matters. (shrink)