Despite the growth of philosophy for/with children over the last five decades, its legitimacy remains contested. Key themes within the P4C literature are the potential learning outcomes for children as well as possible personal and professional development benefits for those that teach it. The literature on the former, while extensive, presents a mixed picture and highlights the challenges inherent in determining the impact of P4C on learning outcomes. The literature on the latter, while little explored, may provide valuable insights for (...) teacher professional development. Unlike much of the literature, this paper examines the impact of P4C from the P4C educators’ perspective. The paper presents the findings from a pilot study of volunteer teachers with the Primary Ethics program in Sydney, Australia. Two key findings emerged. First, ethics teachers felt they were making a material and positive difference to the children they taught, which included: the development of critical thinking and reasoning skills; increased confidence to express themselves; and enjoyment derived from class discussions. Second, teachers that use a philosophical and a community of inquiry approach with their students may themselves become more reflective and engage in critical thinking and ethical reasoning. (shrink)

Gianni Vattimo reexamines the roots of modernism and postmodernism in Nietzsche, Benjamin, and Heidegger. Exploring the links between concepts of nihilism and destiny in nineteenth-century humanism, Vattimo follows these trends in aesthetic and scientific theory from Benjamin to Bloch, Ricoeur, and Kuhn.

Clandestine philosophical manuscripts, made up of forbidden works including erotic texts, political pamphlets, satires of court life, forbidden religious texts, and books about the occult, had an avid readership in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, becoming objects of historical research by the twentieth century. The purveyors of the clandestine could be found in the Dutch Republic, Switzerland, Denmark, Spain, and not least in Paris or London. Despite the heavy risks, including prison, the circulation of these manuscripts was a prosperous venture. (...) After Ira Wade's pioneering contribution (1938), Clandestine Philosophy is the first work in English entirely focused on the philosophical clandestine manuscripts that preceded and accompanied the birth of the Enlightenment. Topics from philosophy, political and religious thought, and moral and sexual behaviour are addressed by contemporary authors working in both America and Europe. These manuscripts shed light on the birth of pornography and provide an important avenue for investigating philosophical, religious, political, and social critique. (shrink)

A daring marriage of philosophical theory and practical politics, this collection is the first of Gianni Vattimo's many books to combine his intellectual pursuits with his public and political life. Vattimo is a paradoxical figure, at once a believing Christian and a vociferous critic of the Catholic Church, an outspoken liberal but not a former communist, and a recognized authority on Nietzsche and Heidegger as well as a prominent public intellectual and member of the European parliament. Building on his (...) unique position as a philosopher and politician, Vattimo takes on some of the most pressing questions of our time: Is it still possible, long after Nietzsche proclaimed the death of God, to talk of moral imperatives, individual rights, or political freedom? Are these values still relevant in today's world? Tackling these crucial issues, Gianni Vattimo argues that nihilism is not the absence of meaning but a recognition of a plurality of meanings; it is not the end of civilization but the beginning of new social paradigms. Commonly associated with the pessimistic belief that all of existence is meaningless, nihilism, as a philosophical principle, is far less sensational--it is the ethical doctrine that there are no moral absolutes or infallible natural laws, that "truth" is inescapably subjective. Because the conditions for equality and liberty are not "naturally" given, society must actively create these ideals or it will inevitably fall prey to irrationality, prejudice, and oppression. Vattimo contends that the infighting, timidity, and confusion that have overtaken contemporary liberal thought and politics are the products a prolonged and indulgent mourning over the loss of the transcendental father figure--any institution or power structure that defines truth, knowledge, and reality. Until humanity overcomes its need for external authority--whether it be organized religion, the nation-state, or free-market capitalism--emancipation will remain unattainable. Collecting fourteen of Vattimo's most influential essays on ethics, politics, and law, _Nihilism and Emancipation_ is a provocative reevaluation of meaning, values, and the idea of freedom in Western culture. (shrink)

The aim of this paper lies in characterizing the explanations and models used in the field of evolutionary developmental biology throughout its history. While manipulative experiments in controlled conditions have been useful to set the bases of the discipline and are still routinely performed, this approach supposes a tension between the reliability and the representativity of the conclusions. Given the recent changes in the understanding of evolutionary phenomena, different authors currently emphasize the need of avoiding excessive simplifications in experimental approaches, (...) incorporating the complexity of the analyzed systems as a relevant trait in the study of biological diversity. On the other hand, the fragile and contingent nature of evolutionary processes and the impossibility of intervening some of these phenomena underscore the importance of non-manipulative models that allow the elucidation of how-possibly mechanisms. We argue that a pluralism characterized by the integration of different kinds of explanations, models and metaphors used in evo-devo allows to exploit their respective advantages, favours interdisciplinarity and can contribute to form a representative description of evolutionary processes without relinquishing the local and detailed study of actual mechanisms. (shrink)

"This book is of major importance to the debate on the postmodern question."--Jean François Lyotard. "This is Vattimo at his best--and at his best he is very, very good, which is to say, erudite, witty, engaging, and precise. I do not think anyone comes close to Vattimo in his ability to correlate complex philosophical issues and arguments, such as those of Heidegger or Benjamin on such topics as &.

This study provides a scoping review of the recent conceptual developments about the deviant work behavior and counterproductive work behavior constructs. It also examines the specific types of deviant work behavior that have been more consistently investigated in the last decade, and whether they cover the interpersonal or organizational type of deviant behavior. In addition, individual, group, and organizational predictors of deviant work behaviors are examined. A scoping review of reviews was conducted on Scopus and Web of Science databases and (...) 54 studies published from 2010 to June 2021 were taken into account. Results show that more recent conceptualizations are based on well established models in the literature and consider the hierarchical structure of these two constructs. Recent reviews examine the relationships of deviant work behavior with job performance and ethical behavior constructs, the multilevel nature of deviant work behavior, and the consequences for the actor of the deviance. The specific types of deviant work behavior more frequently reviewed in the last decade are workplace abuse, incivility, ostracism, bullying and sexual harassment, and abusive and destructive leadership; this evidence suggests a much greater attention to interpersonal, rather than organizational, forms of deviant work behavior. Regarding antecedents, results show the continuing prevalence of personality factors antecedents. Limitations of the study and theoretical and practical implications for the field are also provided. (shrink)

It is well known that interval orders are particularly interesting in decision theory, since they are reflexive, complete and nontransitive binary relations which may be fully represented by means of two real-valued functions. In this paper, we discuss the existence of a pair of nonnegative, positively homogeneous and semicontinuous real-valued functionals representing an interval order on a real cone in a topological vector space. We recover as a particular case a result concerning the existence of a nonnegative, positively homogeneous and (...) continuous utility functional for a complete preorder on a real cone in a topological vector space. (shrink)

What has been the fate of Christianity since Nietzsche's famous announcement of the "death of God"? What is the possibility of religion, specifically Christianity, thriving in our postmodern era? In this provocative new book, Gianni Vattimo, leading Italian philosopher, politician, and framer of the European constitution, addresses these critical questions. When Vattimo was asked by a former teacher if he still believed in God, his reply was, "Well, I believe that I believe." This paradoxical declaration of faith serves as (...) the foundation for a brilliant exposition on Christianity in the new millennium--an age characterized by a deep uncertainty of opinion--and a personal account of how Vattimo himself recovered his faith through Nietzsche and Heidegger. He first argues that secularization is in fact the fulfillment of the central Christian message, and prepares us for a new mode of Christianity. He then explains that Nietzsche's thesis concerns only the "moral god" and leaves room for the emergence of "new gods." Third, Vattimo claims that the postmodern condition of fragmentation, anti-Eurocentrism, and postcolonialism can be usefully understood in light of Joachim of Fiore's thesis concerning the "Spiritual Age" of history. Finally, Vattimo argues for the idea of "weak thought." Because philosophy in the postmetaphysical age can only acknowledge that "all is interpretation," that the "real" is always relative and not the hard and fast "truth" we once thought it to be, contemporary thought must recognize itself and its claims as "weak" as opposed to "strong" foundationalist claims of the metaphysical past. Vattimo concludes that these factors make it possible for religion and God to become a serious topic for philosophy again, and that philosophy should now formally engage religion. (shrink)

This article challenges the idea that Hobbes presents a negative anthropology and shows, to the contrary, that there is a thick web of social relations in his state of nature and laws of nature. It considers the contradiction between human natural equality claimed by Hobbes, and female subjection that de facto characterizes most of his passages on gender relations. The key to this puzzle is found in comparison of the notions of conquest and consent, and of acquisition and institution, comparisons (...) that establish a similarity between paternal authority and despotic dominion. A step towards the solution is provided by the hypothesis that the divide between “vainglorious” and “moderate” is gendered, with women more disposed to moderation than men. This can be explained by the idea that, “for society’s sake,” women in the state of nature appreciate more the advantages of long-term cooperation, even at the price of some subordination. (shrink)

What has been the fate of Christianity since Nietzsche's famous announcement of the "death of God"? What is the possibility of religion, specifically Christianity, thriving in our postmodern era? In this provocative new book, Gianni Vattimo, leading Italian philosopher, politician, and framer of the European constitution, addresses these critical questions. When Vattimo was asked by a former teacher if he still believed in God, his reply was, "Well, I believe that I believe." This paradoxical declaration of faith serves as (...) the foundation for a brilliant exposition on Christianity in the new millennium -- an age characterized by a deep uncertainty of opinion -- and a personal account of how Vattimo himself recovered his faith through Nietzsche and Heidegger. He first argues that secularization is in fact the fulfillment of the central Christian message, and prepares us for a new mode of Christianity. He then explains that Nietzsche's thesis concerns only the "moral god" and leaves room for the emergence of "new gods." Third, Vattimo claims that the postmodern condition of fragmentation, anti-Eurocentrism, and postcolonialism can be usefully understood in light of Joachim of Fiore's thesis concerning the "Spiritual Age" of history. Finally, Vattimo argues for the idea of "weak thought." Because philosophy in the postmetaphysical age can only acknowledge that "all is interpretation," that the "real" is always relative and not the hard and fast "truth" we once thought it to be, contemporary thought must recognize itself and its claims as "weak" as opposed to "strong" foundationalist claims of the metaphysical past. Vattimo concludes that these factors make it possible for religion and God to become a serious topic for philosophy again, and that philosophy should now formally engage religion. (shrink)

In the 17th century not all manuscripts were clandestine because there also existed manuscripts written for public circulation (first and foremost the correspondences that were semi-public, or certain collections of poems that circulated first in manuscript and then in printed form), but it is undeniable that most of the resolutely “heterodox” authors found it useful to entrust their ideas to manuscripts both to protect themselves against the retaliation of the authorities and to circumvent the censorship to which printed books were (...) subject. These philosophical manuscripts were messengers of “full heterodoxy” which we could call “global” and not “local”. The exclusion did not regard one or another context but all (or almost) of the contexts of the Ancien Régime, as they expressed a radical dissent in contrast with all of the orthodoxies of modern Europe. Bodin’s Colloquium, like Theophrastus redivivus and Meslier’s Mémoire, could not have been published either in a Catholic country or in a Protestant one, either in an absolute monarchy or in a republic. The clandestine authors were aware that it would be impossible to spread their ideas outside a circle protected by the manuscript form and most often by anonymity. (shrink)

Translators’ Abstract: In this introduction to his Italian translation of Reiner Schürmann’s, Gianni Carchia offers a short yet incisive interpretation of the compelling originality of Schürmann’s reading of Heidegger. Carchia points out that, contrary to much Heidegger literature, Schürmann insists on a three-tiered temporal difference rather than on a simple dichotomy between beings and being as the driver of the deconstruction of metaphysics, and it is only through this distinction that the an-archic as the evental and ahistorical origin of (...) being comes into view. What this displacement affords is a certain historicization of Heideggerian philosophy that brings out the anarchic, polymorphous, and protean nature of being and restores to acting its spontaneity and innocence. Observing that this anti-humanist naturalization of an-archy may indeed be closer to Eugen Fink’s cosmology, which grants autonomy to the extra-human, than to Heidegger’s history of Dasein, which confines us to “the prison of the human,” Carchia locates the contribution of Schürmann’s work in its deconstruction of the Idealist remnant in Heidegger. (shrink)

In these original essays and interviews, leading hermeneutical philosophers and postmodern theorists John D. Caputo and Gianni Vattimo engage with each other's past and present work on the subject and reflect on our transition from ...

Conversazioni di Gianni Vattimo con Francesco Barone, Remo Bodei, Italo Mancini, Vittorio Mathieu, Mario Perniola, Pier Aldo Rovatti, Emanuele Severino e Carlo Sini.

We show that modal logics characterized by a class of frames satisfying the insertion property are suitable for Reiter's default logic. We refine the canonical fix point construction defined by Marek, Schwarz and Truszczyński for Reiter's default logic and thus we addrress a new paradigm for nonmonotonic logic. In fact, differently from the construction defined by these authors. we show that suitable modal logics for such a construction must indeed contain K D4. When reflexivity is added to the modal logic (...) used for the fix point construction then we come to the Marek Schwarz and Truszczyński framework for Reiter's default logic. Our framework, in fact, is appropriate also to the family of modal logics in between S4 and S4f. If, instead, reflexivity is dropped, then we show that a new family of modal logics is gained, namely the modal logics in between KD4 and KD4Z. The upper bound can be extended to the modal logic KD4LZ whenever the propositional language taken into account is finite. (shrink)

En este trabajo, en base a análisis realizados en población adulta argentina que vinculan patrones de salud a nivel poblacional con una hipótesis de la biología evolutiva, buscamos poner en evidencia las limitaciones y problematizar algunos de los supuestos y enfoques de la epidemiología “clásica” para explicar condiciones complejas no transmisibles como, en este caso, la diabetes tipo 2. Asimismo, a través de este análisis cuestionamos la adopción acrítica y descontextualizada de criterios diagnósticos y categorías desarrolladas de acuerdo a intereses (...) particulares e impuestas través de relaciones desiguales de poder. (shrink)

La théorie politique de Condillac est contenue dans sa conception de l’histoire, et toutes deux se distinguent de la philosophie de Rousseau. On ne devrait pas croire, pour autant, que la position caractéristique de Condillac soit celle d’un « modéré » pur et simple. On peut douter que Condillac ait jamais envisagé une révolution complète de la société et de la politique françaises. Il est certain, en revanche, qu’il a jugé possible et même souhaitable une réforme assez radicale des principes (...) politiques de l’Ancien Régime, suggérant rien de moins que la démolition de son principal pilier, l’absolutisme de droit divin. Il se démarqua aussi de la théorie du contrat social soutenue par Rousseau. Invoquée par celui‑ci afin d’établir l’« égalité morale et légitime » à la place des inégalités physiques ou de talents, la théorie du contrat social se propose chez Condillac plutôt comme une doctrine « libérale », au sens classique de ce mot à l’âge des Lumières, que « démocratique » dans le sens du philosophe de Genève. (shrink)

The rapid advancement of information technology in modern societies affects the way we live, communicate, work, and entertain. Computers and computer networks formulate an information age in which traditional ethical questions are re-examined and new questions arise concerning moral standards for human behavior. Computer Ethics: A Global Perspective presents a clear and concise introduction to the ethical and social issues sparked by our ever-growing information society at the local and global level. Designed for use as a main text in undergraduate (...) and graduate courses that focus on computer, business, and applied ethics, the text is also ideal for the Information Technology in a Global Society course for the International Baccalaureate diploma. The text considers the impact of digitized information on individuals and societies and includes discussions on privacy, reliability, security, intellectual property, control, equality of access, and authenticity, with insights from the scientists and philosophers who have attempted to evaluate, explain, and resolve these issues. The text also discusses the social impact of information technology in different areas of human life such as business, health, education, entertainment and politics. (shrink)

Workplaces are often described as places in which individuals are motivated by their self-interests and in which negative events like time pressure, anxiety, conflict with co-workers, miscomprehensions, difficulties in solving problems, not-transmitted or not-exchanged information that lead to mistakes, and in some cases to injuries, stress or control, are part of everyday life. Such situations are often the result of the limited comprehension of needs, skills, or information available to colleagues, supervisors, subordinates, clients or providers. However, workplaces are also places (...) in which employees take care of clients, support colleagues and subordinates, are enthusiastic about their job, are motivated by leaders that encourage employees to transcend their own self-interests for the good of the group or the organization and provide them with the confidence to perform beyond expectations. Thus positive relationships at work are becoming a new interdisciplinary domain of inquiry. Within this positive relationships framework, in this paper we focus on a positive component of workplaces, and particularly on an individual cognitive and emotional process that has an important role in the workplace because it facilitates interpersonal relations and communications: it is the perspective taking process. In order to describe perspective taking, we will refer to some empirical studies and particularly to the review published by Parker, Atkins and Axtell in 2008 on the International Review of Industrial and Organizational Psychology. Perspective taking is a well established psychological construct, investigated both in the field of human development, as an important component of reasoning and moral development, and also in social and clinical psychology, where it is considered a component of social behaviors and of the therapeutic process. It has also been conceptualized in different ways. Duan and Hill describe three approaches to explain reasons for perspective taking behavior: a dispositional approach, that considers empathy as a relatively stable trait or a general ability; a cognitive-affective experience influenced by situational conditions; and finally as a multiphased experiential process. However, although in modern organizations working cooperatively and taking into account customers’ needs and experiences are becoming even more important, very few studies have considered perspective taking process within organizations. This is interesting because taking into account the perspective of others may contribute to more collaborative workplaces, where it is pleasant to work, as also enlighted in the title of the Parker, Atkins and Axtell’s paper: “Building better workplaces” is one of the possible outcomes of perspective taking. This paper aims to make available to a large audience such studies and, in relation to the topic of the conference organized by “Psychology and Communion”, consider connections between this concept and ideas and writings by Chiara Lubich. (shrink)

Having lost much of its political clout and theoretical power, communism no longer represents an appealing alternative to capitalism. In its original Marxist formulation, communism promised an ideal of development, but only through a logic of war, and while a number of reformist governments still promote this ideology, their legitimacy has steadily declined since the fall of the Berlin wall. Separating communism from its metaphysical foundations, which include an abiding faith in the immutable laws of history and an almost holy (...) conception of the proletariat, Gianni Vattimo and Santiago Zabala recast Marx's theories at a time when capitalism's metaphysical moorings--in technology, empire, and industrialization--are buckling. While Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri call for a return of the revolutionary left, Vattimo and Zabala fear this would lead only to more violence and failed political policy. Instead, they adopt an antifoundationalist stance drawn from the hermeneutic thought of Martin Heidegger, Jacques Derrida, and Richard Rorty. Hermeneutic communism leaves aside the ideal of development and the general call for revolution; it relies on interpretation rather than truth and proves more flexible in different contexts. Hermeneutic communism motivates a resistance to capitalism's inequalities yet intervenes against violence and authoritarianism by emphasizing the interpretative nature of truth. Paralleling Vattimo and Zabala's well-known work on the weakening of religion, _Hermeneutic Communism_ realizes the fully transformational, politically effective potential of Marxist thought. (shrink)

The article argues that in European public debates the Muslim Question is performed by and linked to the issues of Muslims' integration and recognition as political subjects. I suggest that, in order to defuse the performative negative effects of the Muslim Question on Muslims' democratic agency, we should address it without rendering them invisible in the public sphere and in enhancing their political agency. Drawing from an analysis of the Swiss case I show that integration because adjustment entails a depoliticization (...) and a normalization of Muslims' political agency. In this way, integration as a process acts as an alternative and as a way to empower Muslim political subjectivity and therefore the fairest way to tackle the undemocratic impact of the Muslim Question. (shrink)

At the center of this book is the enigma of belief.

Econophysics is a branch of economics that applies concepts and methods from physics to the financial markets. This article focuses on the approaches to quantum finance developed by Kirill Ilinski and Belal E. Baaquie to deal with the uncertainty characterizing financial time series. Allegedly, their models rest on a formal analogy between quantum mechanics and finance. In order to evaluate them, we raise the question what is really quantum in quantum econophysics. We then argue that the supposed analogy breaks in (...) an important manner, which is relevant to explain the empirical success of the proposed models. (shrink)

Therapist’s and client’s experience in the session are emerging from the field forc-es in play; these forces are the intrinsic tensions of the emerging field. We propose an understanding of the therapeutic process as a field phenomenon: the process of change is made by the forces already active in the field and the therapist has just to let them move on without interfering, or sometimes to support them. Psy-chopathology is then the emerging absence, and therapy becomes the art of presence.

In this book, Gianni Vattimo examines the notion of "difference" in scientific knowledge and contemporary mass society and illustrates the importance of Nietzsche and Heidegger in both formulating the concept and exploring its implications for current debates on the nature of modernity.

Over the course of his career, Gianni Vattimo has assumed a number of public and private identities and has pursued multiple intellectual paths.

A free linguistic writing in which lexemes unexpectedly means something, symbolically.

We think it is wise to accept reality, rather than fight for something that does not exist or might never be. But in Of Reality, Gianni Vattimo condemns this complacency, with its implicit support of the status quo. Instead he urges us to never stop questioning, contrasting, or overcoming reality, which is not natural, inevitable, or objective. Reality is a construct, reflecting, among other things, our greed, biases, and tendencies toward violence. It is no accident, Vattimo argues, that the (...) call to embrace reality has emerged at a time when the inequalities of liberal capitalism are at their most extreme. Developed from his popular Gifford Lectures, this book advances a critical approach that recovers our interpretive powers and native skepticism toward normative claims. Though he recognizes his ideas invite charges of relativism, the philosopher counters with a discussion of truth, highlighting its longstanding ties to history and social circumstance. Truth is always contingent and provisional, and reason and reasonableness are bound to historical context. Truth is therefore never objective, and resistance to reality is our best hope to defeat the indifference that threatens the scope of freedom and democracy. (shrink)

Questo volume raccoglie per la prima volta gli scritti filosofici e politici di Gianni Vattimo, presentati da Gaetano Chiurazzi con una introduzione di Antonio Gnoli, e ripercorre la traiettoria del suo pensiero, dalle riflessioni sui grandi maestri del Novecento alle nuove prospettive dell'ermeneutica filosofica e del pensiero debole--Front flap of jacket.

Though coming from distinct intellectual traditions, Richard Rorty and Gianni Vattimo are united in their criticism of the metaphysical tradition. The challenges they put forward extend beyond philosophy and entail a reconsideration of the foundations of belief in God and the religious life. They urge that the rejection of metaphysical truth does not necessitate the death of religion. Instead it opens new ways of imagining what it is to be religious. This unique collaboration fuses pragmatism and hermeneutics and recognizes (...) the limits of both traditional religious belief and modern secularism. Rorty discusses Vattimo's work Belief and argues that the end of metaphysics paves the way for an anti-essentialist religion. Vattimo explores the surprising congruence between Christianity and hermeneutics in light of the dissolution of metaphysical truth. In a concluding dialogue, both philosophers analyze the future of religion together with the political, social, and historical aspects that characterize our contemporary postmodern, postmetaphysical, and post-Christian world. (shrink)