Aphasia is a complex disorder, frequent after stroke (with an incidence of 38%), with a detailed pathophysiological characterization. Effective approaches are crucial for devising an efficient rehabilitative strategy, in order to address the everyday life and professional disability. Several rehabilitative procedures are based on psycholinguistic, cognitive, psychosocial or pragmatic approaches, including amongst those with a neurobehavioral approach the Melodic Intonation Therapy (MIT). Van Eeckhout’s adaptation of MIT to French language (Melodic-Rhythmic Therapy: MRT) has implemented the training strategy by adding a (...) rhythmic structure reproducing French prosody. The purpose of this study was to adapt MRT rehabilitation procedures to Italian language and to verify its efficacy in a group of six chronic patients (five males) with severe non-fluent aphasia and without specific aphasic treatments during the previous 9 months. The patients were treated 4 days a week for 16 weeks, with sessions of 30–40 min. They were assessed 6 months after the end of the treatment (follow-up). The patients showed a significant improvement at the Aachener Aphasie Test (AAT) in different fields of spontaneous speech, with superimposable results at the follow-up. Albeit preliminary, these findings support the use of MRT in the rehabilitation after stroke. Specifically, MRT seems to benefit from its stronger structure than the available stimulation-facilitation procedures and allows a better quantification of the rehabilitation efficacy. (shrink)

Towards biodeconstruction -- Between life and death: différance -- The absolute programme -- The text and the living -- Between life and death: the bond -- Beyond life death: autoimmunity -- Living on: the arche-performative.

This book deals with some Peripatetic philosophers of the Hellenistic age who were direct and indirect pupils of Aristotle. The main focus of the book is Aristotle's school in the Hellenistic period, a subject not particularly explored by the scholars. Three main issues are addressed in the chapters of the book: the problem of knowledge, the question of time, and the doctrine of the soul. More specifically the topics addressed are: the problem of sense-perception and the method of multiple explanations (...) in the field of meteorology in Aristotle, Theophrastus and Epicurus, the epistemology of Strato, the notion of time in Eudemus and Strato, the conception of sleep in Clearchus, the doctrine of divination in Cratippus. Finally, the Appendix examines the probable influence of the physics of Strato on the medicine of Asclepiades of Bithynia. These themes are investigated by comparing the positions of the Peripatetics with Aristotle's philosophy, but above all by contextualising the doctrines of the Peripatetics within the broader framework of Hellenistic philosophies. (shrink)

Objective correlates—behavioral, functional, and neural—provide essential tools for the scientific study of consciousness. But reliance on these correlates should not lead to the ‘fallacy of misplaced objectivity’: the assumption that only objective properties should and can be accounted for objectively through science. Instead, what needs to be explained scientifically is what experience is intrinsically— its subjective properties—not just what we can do with it extrinsically. And it must be explained; otherwise the way experience feels would turn out to be magical (...) rather than physical. We argue that it is possible to account for subjective properties objectively once we move beyond cognitive functions and realize what experience is and how it is structured. Drawing on integrated information theory, we show how an objective science of the subjective can account, in strictly physical terms, for both the essential properties of every experience and the specific properties that make particular experiences feel the way they do. (shrink)

In this article, we show how the phenomenon of self-deception when adequately analyzed, can be incorporated into a predictive processing framework. We describe four strategies by which a subject may become self-deceived to account for typical cases of self-deception. We then argue that the four strategies can be modeled within this framework, under the assumption that a satisfying account of motivation is possible within predictive processing. Finally, we outline how we can ground this assumption by discussing how such a systematic (...) model of motivation may be developed using the distinction between a world-model and a self-model. (shrink)

The explanatory objection against the fitting attitude account of value states that if the properties of attitudes explain fittingness facts, but do not always explain value facts, then value facts cannot be identical with or reduced to fittingness facts. One reply to this objection is to claim that the constitutive properties of attitudes also explain value facts, for they are enablers for the value possessed by an object. In this paper we argue that the enabling maneuver exposes FA to a (...) new explanatory objection, to the extent that the explanatory role played by the constitutive properties of attitudes in value facts is assumed to be different from the explanatory role they play in fittingness facts. (shrink)

Some philosophers and cognitive scientists think that a naturalised philosophy of the (self-) conscious mind should lead us to reject the very existence of the self. The paper focuses on two case-studies which are representative of this kind of attitude. In particular we examine, and criticise, Thomas Metzinger's 'no-self alternative' and Daniel Dennett's narrative elimination of the self. Our aim is not to prove that any elimination of the self from the inventory of the world based on the empirical study (...) of the mind is doomed to failure. Instead, we would like to introduce a note of caution: it is far from clear that cognitive science and naturalistic philosophies of mind force upon us, or even suggest, a picture of the world without persons and selves. (shrink)

Sullo sfondo della Guerra dei Trent’anni si staglia la biografia di Tommaso Campanella, il precursore delle Rivoluzioni moderne, il frate ribelle dalla vita strana e camaleontica, con i processi per violenza sessuale, per eresia e per rivolta armata insieme ai pirati musulmani, la trentennale prigionia nei castelli del viceré di Spagna, la pazzia simulata e la fuga a Parigi alla Corte di Richelieu. Un vivido quadro storico di un’Europa tra Inquisizione e Controriforma.

In this paper we propose a narrative account for the origin of language. Such a proposal is based on two assumptions. The first is conceptual and concerns the idea that the distinctive feature of human language (what sets it apart from other forms of animal communication) has to be traced to its inherently narrative character. The second assumption is methodological and connected to the idea that the study of language origin is closely related to the analysis of the cognitive systems (...) at the base of narrative. Research on narrative abilities of subjects with Autism Spectrum Disorder has shown that storytelling requires the capability to link events causally connected to one another, and especially events which are remote from one another on the temporal axis of a story. Based on this research, we hypothesize that an important cognitive device involved in narrative is Mental Time Travel (MTT), that is, the system that allows humans to project themselves into the past and future. We show that such a system is present (to a greater or lesser extent) even in non-human animals. By virtue of this, we argue that MTT is independent of language and that it may be considered a cognitive precursor for the origin of language. Specifically, we propose that MTT allowed our ancestors to develop a form of pantomimic communication that might be considered as the foundation of the narrative origin of language. (shrink)

This paper aims to investigate the dialogue between some postmodern thinkers (mostly Lyotard, Rorty and Vattimo) and Habermas’ criticism in light of a different conception of dialogue itself. Therefore, we shall first give an account of how Habermas establishes his neomodern discourse (1985) in a very close dialogue with the key concepts of postmodernism: the subject and its social role, language and the concept of philosophical truth and the postmodernist view of history (Lyotard, 1979, Vattimo, 1974, 1985, 2009; Rorty, 1989; (...) Bauman, 1993). Secondly, dialogue will be addressed as a structural difference between Habermas’ universal normative ethic of discourse (together with Karl-Otto Apel, 1983) and the postmodern local and linguistic pluralism, emancipated from any metaphysical ratio. In the end, it will be argued that philosophy ought to be dialogical in line with Habermas’ view, within the foundation and normativity of dialogue. Postmodernist dialogue in philosophy and in society displays instead many shortcomings if understood as a pluralist linguistic game of interpretation. (shrink)

The governmental restriction due to COVID-19 pandemic led to Italian Universities moving teaching from face-to-face, to online. This represented an unexpected transition from traditional learning to what can be considered “e-learning.” This, together with the psychological distress that may be associated with the experience of lockdown, might have affected students' performance. It was hypothesised that grit may be a protective factor in such situations. Indeed, compared to their less “gritty” peers, individuals with higher levels of grit are expected to exhibit (...) greater persistence in the pursuit of goals despite setbacks. Within educational contexts, grit is portrayed as a potentially important influence on outcomes such as achievement level, retention and probability of graduation. A longitudinal study was conducted using an online survey in order to assess the moderated mediation effect of grit on students' achievement. One hundred seventy-six undergraduate students from two universities in the north of Italy participated in the survey. The results showed that grit affects students' grades in final exams; perceived self-efficacy in the management of complex problems had a mediation effect on grades, while psychological distress moderated the first part of the mediation process. These novel findings extended our knowledge regarding the role of grit in academic performance investigating for the first time the role of self-efficacy and psychological distress in a learning carried out entirely online. (shrink)

In Biodeconstruction (2018) I argued that Derrida, in the Life Death seminar (1975–76), would have anticipated the most recent developments in epigenetics, a field in which the dogma of genetic determinism is radically challenged by noting the influence of the environment in the production of mutations in the genetic program, particularly when a genetic population is faced with a radical change in its environmental conditions, which I propose to call an ‘ecological event’. I explore a comparison between the Derridean deconstruction (...) of genetic determinism and the theoretical elaborations of epigenesis, referring to the work of Eva Jablonka and Marion J. Lamb, Evolution in Four Dimensions (2005). Jablonka and Lamb propose a theory of genetic variation in which mutations would be the result of the interpretation of unpredictable environmental events by the individual whose survival would be in danger. Through this comparison, I show that the study of ‘interpretive Mutations’ as reactions to unpredictable environmental events can be helpful in understanding the Derridean theme of the ‘event’, rearticulating it in relation to the radical environmental changes that humanity will sooner or later face. (shrink)

De Lubac did not fully condemn modernity as neotomism did, but he appreciated some positive aspects (such as the value of subject and of justice), even if he condemned atheism (in Comte and Marx).

In “Toward an Ethic of Discussion,” Jacques Derrida returns to the controversy with Jonathan Searle to clarify his position but above all because he “would have wished to make legible the (philosophical, ethical, political) axiomatics hidden beneath the code of academic discussion.” I intend, in turn, to return to this text in order to find in it not only the conditions of an ethics of academic discussion but also of interpretation in a deconstructive perspective. In “Toward an Ethic of Discussion,” (...) in fact, it is possible to point out the necessity of a certain ethical treatment of the texts. In particular, how can we determine the conditions of an ethical use of quotation against the always possible manipulation of the text that quotation makes possible? I attempt to answer this question claiming that the reading protocol of deconstruction meets these conditions showing us at the same time the ethical conditions of scientific discourse in general, beyond any scientific claim of objectivity. (shrink)

In questo saggio traccio un profilo del pensiero di Bernard Williams, concentrandomi su temi relativi alla filosofia morale e, più nello specifico, ricostruendo la sua disamina dell’idea di oggettività in questa disciplina. Dopo aver esaminato le sue critiche all’idea di teoria etica normativa, offro un inquadramento metaetico della sua posizione e concludo mostrando le sue affinità con la riflessione etica degli antichi Greci e, in particolar modo, di Aristotele.

Conoscere non riguarda solo l'intelligenza, ma anche l'affettività e un insieme di fattori extra-teoretici (=non meramente conoscitivi o intellettuali). In particolare una certezza esistenzialmente forte sui problemi filosofici decisivi non può essere raggiunta senza un coinvolgimento della libertà, in una “esperienza integrale”.