While a large body of research has provided quantitative data on children’s levels of happiness, positive emotions and life satisfaction, the literature reflects a dearth of studies that analyze these dimensions from a narrative and qualitative point of view. Folk and fairy tales may serve as ideal tools for this purpose, since they are concerned with several concepts scientifically investigated by research in the field of positive psychology, such as resilience, self-realization, personal growth and meaning in life. The aim of (...) the present study was to explore children’s well-being and positive emotions using an innovative narrative approach, which involved interviews and group discussions, as well as the analysis of fairy tales written and discussed in a group context. The sample included 95 school children who were asked to report and discuss in a group setting situations or experiences which triggered positive emotions and happiness in them. Guided by their teachers and a school psychologist, they were then asked to write their own original fairy tale drawing on the positive emotions that had previously emerged. Positive emotions were found to be triggered mainly by interpersonal relationships with peers as well as with family members. Hobbies and leisure time were also strongly associated with happiness and hedonic well-being, while personal fulfilment, self-esteem and goal achievement emerged as highly significant for children. In sum, the findings suggest that this school psycho-educative intervention based on narrative strategies provided useful information on children’s well-being and yielded positive feedback, the implications and possible further applications of which are discussed. (shrink)

What enables individuals to act together? Recent discoveries suggest that a variety of mechanisms are involved. But something fundamental is yet to be investigated. In joint action, agents represent a collective goal, or so it is often assumed. But how, if at all, are collective goals represented in joint action and how do such representations impact performance? To investigate this question we adapted a bimanual paradigm, the circle-line drawing paradigm, to contrast two agents acting in parallel with two agents performing (...) a joint action. Participants were required to draw lines or circles while observing circles or lines being drawn. The findings indicate that interpersonal motor coupling may occur in joint but not parallel action. This suggests that participants in joint actions can represent collective goals motorically. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to argue that, for Spinoza, causation is a more fundamental relation than conceptual connection, and that, in fact, it explains conceptual connection. I will firstly offer a criticism of Michael Della Rocca's 2008 claims that, for Spinoza, causal relations are identical to relations of conceptual dependence and that existence is identical to conceivability. Secondly, I will argue that, for Spinoza, causation is more fundamental than conceptual dependence, offering textual evidence from both Treatise on the (...) Emendation of the Intellect and Ethics. In particular, I will offer an interpretation of the attributes as first and foremost causal activities, or powers: this interpretation has the advantage to clarify the role of 1D6 as a “genetic definition.”. (shrink)

The development of vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) presented a unique set of challenges. There was a global need for safe, effective vaccines against a new virus. In response to the development of vaccines for COVID-19 (some of which used novel technologies), there was a proliferation of no-fault compensation schemes (NFCS) for COVID-19 vaccine injuries. We identified 28 national vaccine injury NFCS operating in December 2019. Just 2 years later, over 130 countries had some NFCS coverage for COVID-19 vaccines. This rapid (...) expansion was primarily driven by the creation of three multinational schemes. The COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access (COVAX) scheme covers vaccines given under the COVAX framework in 92 low and middle-income countries across the globe. The African Vaccines Acquisition Trust (AVAT) scheme covers vaccines administered under the AVAT framework in 36 African and Caribbean countries. The UNICEF scheme covers vaccines administered by UNICEF in 18 Asian countries.Because of the sudden expansion of no-fault compensation for vaccine injury, especially in developing economies, more research on the foundations, procedures and outcomes of NFCS is needed. In this article, we examine how these NFCS meet the needs of individual claimants and society more widely. To do so, we first review the rationales offered to support the creation of vaccine injury NFCS. We then argue that, in order to achieve their function as compensation mechanisms, NFCS should be accessible and offer substantive and procedural justice to claimants. Finally, we focus on transparency and accountability as necessary requirements to allow scrutiny over existing NFCS and their wider impacts. (shrink)

This essay discusses the ethical challenges and dilemmas in allocating scarce medical resources during the COVID-19 pandemic, using the German legislative process as a starting point. It is guided by the right to non-discrimination of people with disability and generally contrasts utilitarian and rights-based principles of allocation. Three approaches that were suggested in the German discussion, are presented, the lottery principle, the first come first served principle and the probability to survive principle. Arguments in favour and against each principle are (...) discussed. The focus is on the utilitarian probability to survive principle, which was adopted in German legislation in 2022, and its discriminatory potential against people with disability. The essay suggests ways to mitigate the concerns of discrimination related to the probability to survive principle. It concludes that resolving the triage dilemma requires a balanced approach between utilitarian and rights-based concerns, which promotes both maximising the number of patients surviving and the right not to be discriminated against and be treated equally. It calls for a further debate on how many ethical values such as equity, fairness and non-discrimination we are willing to sacrifice for a higher number of survivors and when we are willing to sacrifice survivors to secure ethical values. (shrink)

I focus on empathy from an eidetic perspective, that provided by Edith Stein in her work On the Problem of Empathy and which I call eidetics of empathy. I suggest that the eidetics of empathy allows us to inquire efficaciously into the structure of empathy, and therefore into the relation between empathy on the one hand, and embodied personal identity and intersubjectivity on the other. I argue that the eidetics of empathy sheds light on the complexity, heterogeneity and also fragility (...) of the acts of empathy that we perform in our everyday life with respect to others, and provides us with the conceptual tools to address crucial questions such as: What is the specific and distinctive structure of empathy? What are the conditions of possibility of the performance of acts of empathy? Are there different fulfilment degrees of empathy? What role do living bodies play in the performance of acts of empathy? How is it possible to prevent and correct mistakes of empathy? I deal with these issues in making three points on the eidetics of empathy. My first point is that the eidetics of empathy allows us to understand empathy as one type of acts of perceiving others and their experiences directly and as a whole that is subject to variations of its parts – the limits of possible co-variations of its parts correspond to the essential structure of empathy. Secondly, I focus on the eidetic issue of the possible co-variations of parts of the empathy-type: the content and the degree of fulfilment and accomplishment of empathy acts, the layer of the person they address, the varieties of living beings with whom we can empathize. Thirdly, I argue that the eidetics of empathy exemplifies very well the ontologically qualitative issue of degrees of existence of any entity in relation to its eidetic paradigm, and it is a prime example of how phenomenological eidetics can be a qualitative ontology dealing with qualitative issues that are crucial in our everyday life. (shrink)

Background and aims. In pediatrics receiving a diagnosis of a chronic condition is a matter that involves caregivers at first. Beyond the basic issues of caring for the physical body of the ill child, caregivers’ manners of facing and making sense of the disease orient and co-construct their children’s sensemaking processes of the disease itself. The aim of this article is to explore the experience of a rare chronic illness, Hereditary Angioedema (HAE), in pediatrics, from the caregivers’ perspective. Hereditary Angioedema (...) is characterized by subcutaneous swellings that can involve the mucosal tissues of external as well as internal parts of the body, manifesting in a highly variable and unpredictable way in terms of localization, severity, and frequency. Materials and methods. Within a qualitatively-driven research design, we conducted a qualitative narrative semiotic analysis of n.28 mothers’ narratives on their children’s disease experience. Narratives were collected by an ad hoc interview on three domains of the disease experience: A. interpretation of the disease variability; B. dialogical processes; C. management of the disease. Subsequently, we executed a TwoStep cluster analysis for categorical data to detect cross-sectional profiles of the maternal sensemaking processes of the disease. Results. The coding grid was built analyzing the characteristic of the narrative links that orient the connection between the elements of the experience within each domain: A. the connection among events, for the domain of the interpretation of the disease variability; B. the connection between self and other, for the domain of the dialogue; C. the connection among sensemaking and actions, for the domain of the management of the disease. Results from cluster analysis show three narrative profiles: 1. adempitive; 2. reactive; 3. dynamic. Discussion. Profiles will be discussed in the light of the general conceptual framework of the Sense of Grip on the Disease (SoGoD) highlighting the importance of those sensemaking processes which, instead of relying on a coherent and close interpretation of the disease, are characterized by a degree of tolerance for the uncertainty and the unknowingly. (shrink)

Verbs are more difficult to produce than nouns. Thus, if executive resources are reduced as in Parkinson's disease (PD), verbs are penalized compared to nouns. However, in an experimental condition in which it is the noun that must be selected from a larger number of alternatives compared to the verb, it is the noun production that becomes slower and more prone to errors. Indeed, patients are slower and less accurate than normal subjects when required to produce nouns from verbs (VN) (...) in a morphology derivation tasks (e.g., “osservazione” from “osservare”) [“observation” from “observe”] than verbs from nouns in a morphology generation task, in which only a verb can be generated from the noun (NV) (e.g., “fallire” from “fallimento”) [“to fail” from “failure”]. In the Italian language morphology, in fact, generation and derivation tasks differ in the number of lexical entries among which the response must be selected. The left Inferior Frontal Gyrus (IFG) has been demonstrated to be involved in selection processes. In the present study, we explored if the ability to select words is related to the cortical thickness of the left IFG. Twelve right-sided PD with nigrostriatal hypofunctionality in the left hemisphere (RPD-LH), 9 left-sided PD with nigrostriatal hypofunctionality in the right hemisphere (LPD-RH) and 19 healthy controls (HC) took part in the study. NV and VN production tasks were administered; accuracy and reaction times (RTs) were collected. All 40 subjects received a structural MRI examination. Cortical thickness of the IFG and volumetric measurements for subcortical regions, thought to support selection processes, were computed using FreeSurfer. In VN derivation tasks RPD-LH patients were less accurate than LPD-RH patients (accuracy: 66% vs. 77%). No difference emerged among the three groups in RTs. Task accuracy/RTs and IFG thickness showed a significant correlation only in RPD-LH. Not only nouns (as expected) but also verbs were correlated with cortical thickness. This suggests that the linguistic nature of the stimuli along with executive resources are both relevant during word selection processes. Our data confirm that executive resources and language interact in the left IFG in word production tasks. (shrink)

I quattro Studi qui raccolti trattano alcuni temi significativi della filosofia settecentesca: il rapporto anima-corpo in Swedenborg, la presenza o meno di un livello di ragione nell' Homme naturel di Rousseau, la convergenza o meno di radicalismo politico e dimensione religiosa in Mably e in Morelly, la fondazione della scienza economica in Genovesi. Sono saggi molto diversi che sottendono interessi differenziati e stili di pensiero non collimanti; essi, tuttavia, sono accomunati da un'ottica squisitamente storiografica, che, pur nella consapevolezza di una (...) tensione tra presente e passato, tende a cogliere l'autonomia di quest'ultimo, la sua resistenza ad ogni schematizzazione, il suo sfuggire ad ogni tentativo di irrigidimento in immagini definitive. Il quadro del Settecento che emerge da questo volume da un lato mette in luce le diverse articolazioni che la filosofia settecentesca assume nei diversi contesti "nazionali" europei, dall'altro ne sottolinea slanci ma anche ambiguità e incoerenze, confermando quella grande complessità culturale dell' "età dei lumi" delineata dalla storiografia più recente. (shrink)

The paper describes a highly specific Italian action research experience, connected with the trade unions, going through different phases from the 1970s to the present day. The journey is not only a journey through time but also through different approaches. It ranges from the initial experience focusing on health and safety problems at the workplace involving the workers as co-designers of new working environments to today’s search conference experience. For each phase there is a full description and comment on the (...) methods utilised by the research group. The main methodological shift described in the paper is the one from discussion groups, based on Bion’s thinking, to the search conferences, based on Emery’s line of thinking. Both are oriented to the subjectivity of the people involved, although in the discussion group experience the research groups considered the subjectivity of the people involved as the subject of the observation. The researchers’ aim of was to acquire a reliable knowledge of what was at stake and to pass it on to the union that organised the research in order to promote actions. Hence, the action-research circuit is based upon different actors and the process is integrated only from the point of view of the union. In the search conference experience the researchers are involved in a co-design process and so the action-research circuit is really integrated from the researchers’ perspective; there are, of course, multiple perspectives in this case and this opens up epistemological problems that are not discussed in the paper. (shrink)

Troppo spesso lo specialismo, pur indispensabile, impedisce una proficua collaborazione tra studiosi. È pensando a un territorio al cui centro si colloca il testo o, meglio, i testi, nella fattispecie di filosofi e scienziati, che è stata disegnata la geografia del convegno; per far incontrare editori di testi, storici della filosofia e della scienza, storici del libro, bibliografi e biblioteconomisti, informatici ed esperti di manoscritti.

Is it possible that children experience something we could judge as the sublime? Some pivotal conjectures have been elicited to positively answer these questions; however, this general topic still stands in need of fuller theoretical and empirical insights. Since taking up this challenge may have important implications in the ever-expanding field of aesthetic education, in this article I will give a philosophical account of the experience of the sublime in 8-10 children, identifying both its plau- sible components and its markers, (...) which opens up future empirical inquiries. (shrink)

We challenge the notion that differences in spatial ability are the best or only explanation for observed sex differences in mathematical word problems. We suggest two ideas from the study of autism: sex differences in theory of mind and in central coherence.

In questo articolo i doni di cui Gerolamo ringrazia Eustochio e Marcella (epist. 31 e 44) sono riletti alla luce della tradizione classica dello scambio di regali, collegata specialmente ai Saturnalia: infatti, da un lato, essi trovano riscontro negli Xenia e negli Apohoreta di Marziale; dall’altro, Gerolamo, quando ne fornisce un’interpretazione, si conforma a un tipo di ricezione attiva del dono – una sua “decifrazione” –, che talora è attestata nella tradizione antica, specialmente saturnalizia (cfr. e.g. Petron. 56). In termini (...) più generali, Gerolamo realizza un’appropriazione cristiana dello scambio dei regali, offrendo un saggio di come la nuova “aristocrazia della fede”, da lui propugnata, non disdegni di rivivere i “riti” e l’etichetta propri delle élites, con l’intenzione sia di esserne legittimata agli occhi del mondo, sia – forse – di restituirli al loro significato vero. (shrink)

In this paper we investigate ways to comply with justice in a liberal democracy. In order to do that, we sketch Rawls’s account of moral-consensus stability and discuss the alternative idea of stability reached through a modus vivendi. We defend modus vivendi as a way to achieve stability backed by a variety of reasons and even by ‘non-reasons’. By ‘non-reasons’ we mean alternative sources of motivation for compliance as a precondition of a stable coexistence. We focus on such sources, which (...) differ from reasons and beliefs, that are practices, shared values, and value experiences, in light of both a theoretical-political and a qualitative social-ontological perspective. We argue that individuals who experience the same values become collectives and even stable ones: the sharing of values creates social unity and makes collectives solid and resistant to individualistically centrifugal tendencies. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that Herrera’s discussion of the emanative process in his Gate of Heaven is a plausible source for Spinoza’s concept of the attributes as developed in Ethics. While Herrera’s influence on the development of Spinoza’s thought has been discussed, I argue that previous interpretations have not captured the nature of this influence. I will first offer an overview of Herrera’s discussion of the relationship between the One and the sefirot. I will then criticize a recent discussion (...) of Herrera’s influence on Spinoza by Giuseppa Saccaro Del Buffa, and offer a summary of my interpretation of the concept of attribute in Spinoza. Finally, I will show that Herrera’s discussion of the sefirot, the first emanations, as divine activities, rather than created things, inspired Spinoza’s concept of thedivine attributes. (shrink)

This paper aims to develop a better understanding of the influence of the social environment in which entrepreneurs reside on the success of the crowdfunding projects they propose. Specifically, this study investigates on the importance of local religiosity on the propensity to support cross-regional crowdfunding projects. We theoretically discuss and empirically document, using a dataset of 5841 contributions on three Swiss reward-based and donation-based platforms, that local religiosity affects cross-regional resource flows by creating social interactions and enhancing trust. Furthermore, we (...) find that cross-regional resource flows are more likely between regions sharing the same primary religion—whether Protestant or Catholic. (shrink)

However, as in other disciplines, academic recognition can in turn entrench static and powerful meta-theories and narratives about professional ethos and ...

A cavallo tra i due concili di Costanza e Basilea, che hanno fortemente influito sul giudizio della Chiesa in relazione alle donne visionarie, si staglia la figura di Francesca Bussa dei Ponziani. Le visioni politiche di Francesca rappresentano un fulgido esempio di come i modelli brigidini e cateriniani siano stati ripresi e rimodellati su un nuovo, mutato contesto storico. La sua consolidata autorità le consentì di ammonire a più riprese papa Eugenio IV riguardo alla sua partecipazione al concilio (...) di Basilea, intervenendo attivamente nello scenario religioso e politico romano. (shrink)

In Poggiolesi we have introduced a rigorous definition of the notion of complete and immediate formal grounding; in the present paper our aim is to construct a logic for the notion of complete and immediate formal grounding based on that definition. Our logic will have the form of a calculus of natural deduction, will be proved to be sound and complete and will allow us to have fine-grained grounding principles.

In three experiments we explored developmental changes in probabilistic reasoning, taking into account the effects of cognitive capacity, thinking styles, and instructions. Normative responding increased with grade levels and cognitive capacity in all experiments, and it showed a negative relationship with superstitious thinking. The effect of instructions (in Experiments 2 and 3) was moderated by level of education and cognitive capacity. Specifically, only higher-grade students with higher cognitive capacity benefited from instructions to reason on the basis of logic. The implications (...) of these findings for research on the development of probabilistic reasoning are also discussed. (shrink)

At Columbia University in 1906, William James gave a highly confrontational speech to the American Philosophical Association (APA). He ignored the technical philosophical questions the audience had gathered to discuss and instead addressed the topic of human energy. Tramping on the rules of academic decorum, James invoked the work of amateurs, read testimonials on the benefits of yoga and alcohol, and concluded by urging his listeners to take up this psychological and physiological problem. What was the goal of this unusual (...) speech? Rather than an oddity, Francesca Bordogna asserts that the APA address was emblematic—it was just one of many gestures that James employed as he plowed through the barriers between academic, popular, and pseudoscience, as well as the newly emergent borders between the study of philosophy, psychology, and the “science of man.” Bordogna reveals that James’s trespassing of boundaries was an essential element of a broader intellectual and social project. By crisscrossing divides, she argues, James imagined a new social configuration of knowledge, a better society, and a new vision of the human self. As the academy moves toward an increasingly interdisciplinary future, William James at the Boundaries reintroduces readers to a seminal influence on the way knowledge is pursued. (shrink)