In this introduction, we cover some ways in which the topic of noise is discussed today, and then point to some important open questions about noise and its experience. We then provide a synopsis of the papers collected in the volume.

The constructive reformulation of the semantic theory suggests two basic principles to be assumed: first, the distinction between proper knowledge, expressed in judgemental form, and the assertion conditions for such knowledge; second, ...

Antonio Signorini’s contribution to the constitutive theory of non-linear elasticity is reconstructed and analyzed. Some uninformed opinions suggesting he had a minor role, lacking of significant results, are discussed and refuted. It is shown that Signorini should be rightly credited for being among the first scholars aware of the central problem of non-linear elasticity: the determination of the general form of the elastic potential.

This paper examines the contribution of Gabrio Piola to continuum mechanics.Though he was undoubtably a skilled mathematician and a good mechanician, little is commonly known about his papers within the international scientific community, principally because a large part of the Italian school of mechanics was isolated in the first half of the XIXth century.We examine and comment on Piola’s most important papers, and compare them with those of his contemporaries Cauchy, Poisson and Kirchhoff.

This volume’s aim is to stimulate philosophical interest in the experience of noise. There are at least three important open questions about noise. First, how should the relationship between noise as a scientific phenomenon and as a type of experience be understood? Is the one to be understood in terms of the other, and what implications may be drawn from this? Second, are experiences of noise strictly limited to perceptual states or to one type of perceptual state – for instance, (...) to acoustic experiences? E.g. is there noise that is visual or tactile? Is there noise that is cognitive, affective, or evaluative? Third, how can philosophy make sense of noise in the first place? Should noise simply be relegated to the hither side of the explananda of philosophy, as the mere leftover of whatever philosophy sets out to account for; meaning, being, totality, etc.? Or may noise be understood as a positive phenomenon in its own right, which has its own distinctive features and content, difficult though they might be to pin down? This volume will contribute to the burgeoning philosophy of noise by highlighting how contemporary philosophical perspectives with a phenomenological or experiential bent – the latter under both broad and narrow construals – can make inroads to these questions about a fascinating yet little understood quarter of human experience. (shrink)

By means of a critical reinterpretation of the famous short story by Herman Melville titled “Bartleby, the Scrivener,” I propose a psycho-anthropological explanation of work behaviors, relationships in work environments, and their psychopathological repercussions. The article notably examines behaviors and work relationships connecting them as outcomes of single individuals' efforts to mentalize ideological–cultural models determining them in a given historical moment. A reductively individualistic interpretation is criticized, which is typically present in clinical and work psychology and ascribes to the single (...) person presumed psychical deficits and exclusively looks in his/her personal history for causes of disadaptive behaviors and antecedents of psychopathological formations. (shrink)

This article explains the apparent tension between Hobbes' late work A Dialogue between A Philosopher and A Student of the Common Laws of England and his avowed goal of a deductive philosophy which eschews rhetoric and history, by analysing the difference between Hobbes' civil and natural philosophy. A Dialogue's simultaneous use of deduction, rhetoric, and historical citation is congruent with the method applied by Hobbes in Leviathan in order to construct his "civil philosophy". This highlights Hobbes' awareness increasing with the (...) years of the difference between the teachings of "natural philosophy" which are understood by demonstration, and once this is done are evident per se, and those of politics and jurisprudence which in order to make the people obey the sovereign maintaining peace and security, may require employing the language of persuasion before and after being demonstrated. However, I have argued that the awareness of this difference does not undermine the general unity of his philosophical system and in particular of his notion of science. (shrink)

The reflections about dialectic in Croce and the relationship with the hegelian thought extend immediately to a reframing of all the crocean philosophy. In the work of Croce, there is an intercross that, on the one hand, recognises the importance of the dialectic like novel philosophical method a..