This paper problematizes the precision medicine approach embraced by the All of Us Research Program (US) and by Genomics England (UK) in terms of benefits distribution, by arguing that current “diversity and inclusion” efforts do not prevent exclusiveness, unless the framing and scope of the projects are revisited in public health terms. Grounded on document analysis and fieldwork interviews, this paper analyzes efforts to address potential patterns of exclusion upstream (from participating in precision medicine research) and downstream (from benefitting from (...) precision medicine outputs). It argues that efforts for inclusion upstream are not corresponded downstream, and this unbalance jeopardizes the equitable capacities of the projects. It concludes that enhanced focus on socio-environmental determinants of health and aligned public health interventions as precision medicine outputs would be to the benefit of all and especially of those who are most at risk of (upstream as well as downstream) exclusion. (shrink)

This book presents a novel analysis of concealed-question constructions, reports of a mental attitude in which part of a sentence looks like a nominal complement, but is interpreted as an indirect question. Such constructions are puzzling in that they raise the question of how their meaning derives from their constituent parts. In particular, how a nominal complement, normally used to refer to an entity ends up with a question-like meaning. In this book, Ilaria Frana adopts a theory according to (...) which noun phrases with concealed question meanings are analysed as individual concepts. The traditional individual concept theory is modified and applied to the phenomena discussed in the recent literature and some new problematic data. The end result is a fully compositional account of a wide range of concealed-question constructions. The exploration of concealed questions offered in the book provides insights into both issues in semantic theory, such as the nature of quantification in natural languages and the use of type shifter in the grammar, and issues surrounding the syntax-semantics interface, such as the interpretation of copy traces and the effects on semantic interpretation of different syntactic analyses of relative clauses. The book will interest scholars and graduate students in linguistics, especially those interested in semantics and the syntax-semantics interface, as well as philosophers of language working on the topic of intensionality. (shrink)

Some realists in political theory deny that the notion of feasibility has any place in realist theory, while others claim that feasibility constraints are essential elements of realist normative theorising. But none have so far clarified what exactly they are referring to when thinking of feasibility and political realism together. In this article, we develop a conception of the realist feasibility frontier based on an appraisal of how political realism should be distinguished from non-ideal theories. In this realist framework, political (...) standards are feasible if they meet three requirements: they are politically intelligible, contextually recognisable as authoritative, and contestable. We conclude by suggesting that our conception of realist feasibility might be compatible with utopian demands, thereby possibly finding favour with realists who otherwise refuse to resort to the notion of feasibility. (shrink)

This groundbreaking monograph on Bardaisan, his relation to Origen, and his Middle Platonic framework has argued, through a painstaking analysis of all evidence, that Bardaisan was a Christian Middle Platonist, a philosophical theologian who built a Logos Christology, possibly the first supporter of apokatastasis, and there is a close relation between Origen, Bardaisan, their thought, and their traditions [further proofs in an edition with essays: Mohr Siebeck, forthcoming]. This monograph (and a related HTR essay) was received far beyond the field (...) of patristics, among others by P. Crone (Princeton IAS). * Dedication Page (page 5) * Table of Contents (page 7) * Preface (page 11) * 1 By way of Introductory Essay: Methodological Guidelines (page 17) * 2 Critical and Comparative Analysis of the Sources (page 45) o 1 The Very First Possible Witness: Clement (page 45) o 2 Two Early Witnesses Close to Origen and Very Appreciative of Bardaisan: Africanus and Didymus (page 46) + 2.1 Julius Africanus’ Acquaintance with both Bardaisan and Origen (page 46) + 2.2 The Origenian Didymus the Blind: The Most Appreciative Source on Bardaisan (page 56) o 3 Hippolytus (page 62) o 4 The Liber Legum Regionum (page 70) o 5 Porphyry and the Utmost Importance of His Fragments from Bardaisan: The Cosmic Christ, Middle Platonism, and a Christian Reading of the Timaeus (page 107) + 5.1 The Fragments from Bardaisan’s De India in Porphyry’s De Styge (page 107) + 5.2 Bardaisan’s Work in Porphyry’s De Abstinentia (page 124) o 6 Achilles Tatius and the Knowledge of Bardaisan in Late-Second-Century Alexandria (page 126) o 7 The Acts of Thomas (page 127) o 8 A Very Positive Witness: the Origenian Eusebius (page 131) o 9 The Origenian Gregory of Nyssa and His Own Work Against Fate (page 138) o 10 Diodore of Tarsus and His Closeness to Origens Eschatology and Refutation of Fate (page 142) o 11 Bardaisan’s Fight Against Marcionism (page 161) o 12 Jerome’s Parallel Turn: From Admirer to Criticizer of both Origen and Bardaisan (page 164) o 13 The Dialogue of Adamantius and the Portrait of a Bardaisanite (page 168) o 14 Ephrem between Documentation and Misunderstandings (page 172) o 15 Transition: The Transformation and Worsening of Bardaisan’s Image (page 254) o 16 Epiphanius’ Information: A ‘Mixed Bag’ (page 255) o 17 Two Heresiological Accounts Deriving from Epiphanius’ (page 261) o 18 Sozomen (page 262) o 19 Theodoret’s Account (page 266) o 20 Interesting Clues in a Very Appreciative Armenian Witness: Moses of Chorene (page 269) o 21 Philoxenus of Mabbug, an Anonymous, Isho’dad, and the Assimilation of Bardaisan to Valentinus or Mani (page 303) o 22 Rabbula and Theodoret (page 307) o 23 Appreciation of Bardaisan in a Local Source: the Chronicon of Edessa (page 312) o 24 The So-Called Cosmological Traditions: Importance and Methodological Guidelines. Barhadbshabba ‘Arbaya, Plus Comparisons with (Ps.) Maruta and Jacob of Edessa (page 314) o 25 Theodore Bar Konai (page 328) o 26 Theodore Abû Qurra (page 338) o 27 Moses Bar Kepha (page 339) o 28 (Ps.) John of Dara (page 347) o 29 Agapius and the So-Called Third Cosmological Tradition (page 352) o 30 Michael the Syrian’s Cosmological Testimony (page 353) o 31 Barhebraeus’ Cosmological Account (page 354) o 32 Mutaman ad-Dawla (page 355) o 33 From the “Cosmological Traditions'' to Other Doxographies and the Biographical Accounts. Masudi’s Biographical Information (page 355) o 34 The Fihrist and Arabic Sources on Bardaisan’s Anti-Dualism (page 358) o 35 Michael the Syrian’s Biographical Account (page 366) o 36 Barhebraeus (page 374) o 3 Conclusions and Contribution to Research (page 379) o Essential Bibliographical References on Bardaisan (page 381) o Index (page 389) . (shrink)

Constellations, Volume 29, Issue 1, Page 93-106, March 2022.

Social Justice and the Legitimacy of Slavery shows that there were definitive condemnations of slavery and social injustice as iniquitous and even impious, in antiquity and late antiquity. Ilaria L. E. Ramelli highlights that these came especially from ascetics, both in Judaism and in Christianity, and occasionally also in Greco-Roman philosophy. Ramelli argues that this depends on a link not only between asceticism and renunciation, but also between asceticism and justice, at least in ancient and late antique philosophical asceticism. (...) This volume provides a careful investigation through all of Ancient, Ancient to Rabbinic Judaism, Hellenistic Jewish ascetic groups, all of the New Testament, and Greek, Latin, and Syriac Patristic. Particular attention is given to Gregory of Nyssa and the interrelation between theory and practice in all of ancient and patristic philosophers, as well as to the parallels that emerge in their arguments against slavery and against social injustice. (shrink)

European Journal of Philosophy, EarlyView.

Political realists argue that the concept of political legitimacy should be linked to subjects’ beliefs, while still offering normative guidance. In this article, I suggest doing so by referring to the concepts of acceptance and acceptability. I argue that a regime is legitimate if its power is accepted by subjects, provided that such acceptance meets the requirements of acceptability: subjects’ beliefs about the regime’s legitimacy need to successfully satisfy three requirements—coherence, fact-sensitivity, and politics-sensitivity—via entering public debate. I rely on pragmatism (...) to investigate the link between subjects’ beliefs and their experience of facing political authority. (shrink)

This article has an analytical and a constructive aim. The former consists in providing a taxonomy of the different ways progress can be defined, according to two variables: whether progress is conceived of in either a teleological or a processual way, and whether it relies on either a realist or a moralist approach to political normativity. After laying out the four resulting combinations, I proceed with the critical aim. This consists in proposing an argument for how political progress should be (...) conceived of. To do so, I first show that some teleological accounts of progress paradoxically risk being conservative, while processual ones are politically progressive and should therefore be privileged over the former. Second, and relatedly, I shed light on which are the standards for a genuinely progressive notion of political progress. Finally, I argue that a processual realist notion of political progress is more able than the rival conceptions to comply with these standards. (shrink)

We exhibit several counterexamples showing that the famous Serrin's symmetry result for semilinear elliptic overdetermined problems may not hold for partially overdetermined problems, that is when both Dirichlet and Neumann boundary conditions are prescribed only on part of the boundary. Our counterexamples enlighten subsequent positive symmetry results obtained by the first two authors for such partially overdetermined systems and justify their assumptions as well.

This paper investigates the status that the genre of fable acquires when it is employed in literature. In particular, it surveys Horace's treatment of fables in the Satires and Epistles and the carefully controlled circumstances in which zoomorphic language is allowed to emerge during the banquet at Trimalchio's in Petronius' Satyrica. The analysis of the distribution of fables in Horace shows that for the Roman literary public the act of speaking through fables bore in itself a negative connotation, so much (...) that the moral discourse of the satirist needed at first to provide additional justification in order to incorporate them: from vindication of ingenuitas and shifts in narrative voice, to use of rhetorical misnomers and eventually of philosophical frankness. Petronius' text, in turn, suggests that what is wrong with fable is precisely its being reminiscent of a servile past. During the dinner at Trimalchio's allusions to recognizable fable plots and zoomorphic language are allowed to surface only during a momentary absence of the host. This circumstance suggests that fable is not just another literary genre among the many genres abused in Trimalchio's house: for both the host and his freedmen guests fables are an uncomfortable reminder of an enduring past inscribed in their language. (shrink)

El presente artículo es una traducción comentada de la Causa de la fundación de las escuelas, una particular “historia de la filosofía”, obra de Bahadbeshabba, intelectual nestoriano de la Escuela de Nisibi, del siglo VI-VII. Ésta es la continuación del artículo aparecido en el número anterior de ‘Ilu, que contiene la introducción y la bibliografía. Palabras clave: Bahadbeshabba (cArbayâ / de Halwan), Escuela de Nisibi, Cristianismo siro-nestoriano, filosofía siríaca, recepción de la filosofía griega en la cultura siríaca.

We study imagination as reality-oriented mental simulation (ROMS): the activity of simulating nonactual scenarios in one’s mind, to investigate what would happen if they were realized. Three connected questions concerning ROMS are: What is the logic, if there is one, of such an activity? How can we gain new knowledge via it? What is voluntary in it and what is not? We address them by building a list of core features of imagination as ROMS, drawing on research in cognitive psychology (...) and the philosophy of mind. We then provide a logic of imagination as ROMS which models such features, combining techniques from epistemic logic, action logic, and subject matter semantics. Our logic comprises a modal propositional language with non-monotonic imagination operators, a formal semantics, and an axiomatization. (shrink)

Most studies of research integrity in the general media focus on the coverage of specific cases of misconduct. This paper tries to provide a more general, long-term perspective by analysing media discourse about research integrity and related themes in the Italian and United Kingdom daily press from 2000 to 2016. The results, based on a corpus of 853 articles, show that media coverage largely mirrors debates about integrity and misconduct. In fact, salient themes in the news include the importance to (...) overcome the so-called “rotten apple” paradigm; the key role of public trust in science; and the need to address flaws in the peer-review system. (shrink)

As part of the laboratory activities designed for the students of the second year of the Mathematical High School by the research group in Mathematics Education of the Department of Mathematics of the University of Salerno, the theme “From Archimedes and the oxen problem to Pell’s equation” has been designed. The course has not yet been delivered to students and in this paper the didactic path to be developed in the classroom will be described. The students initially will retrace the (...) various solution approaches proposed over the centuries. Subsequently, with a heuristic approach, they will tackle the resolution of the proposed problem by exploiting properties related to the theory of numbers. With the help of some schedules, provided by the teachers-tutors, they will conjecture and argue by answering questions aimed at stimulating didactic reflection. This workshop path involves processes such as exploring and conjecturing through the articulation of different ways of working (individual and in groups), manual and digital. (shrink)

Political realists claim that politics should be regulated by a distinctive political normativity, one that does not rely on external, pre-political moral standards. It is in this sense that they distinguish political realism from ‘political moralism’, regarded as an approach that understands political theory as applied ethics. Importantly, realists’ anti-moralism is not motivated by the conviction that moral considerations do not play any role in the political realm. Rather, the target is the externalism of the normative resources on which moralist (...) theories typically ground their conceptions of legitimacy. In contrast to moralists, some realists have argued for the need to elaborate internal theories of legitimacy, ones that develop normativity internally – that is, from within the political context under evaluation. This commitment entails the effort to reconnect legitimacy to the beliefs and attitudes of people subjected to the political power. In these accounts of legitimacy, critique is typically exercised internally, by means of self-reflection and ideology critique. Contra some realists, I argue that some forms of externalism are desirable and compatible with internalist accounts of legitimacy, and I show how to accommodate them within internalist theories of legitimacy. They are desirable because they strengthen the emancipatory potential of internal reflection and, in some cases, even stimulate it, as when, because of political circumstances, internal critique cannot be exercised. In addition, they prevent internalist approaches from falling into descriptive accounts of de facto acceptance of power. These forms of external critique can be compatible with internalist accounts of legitimacy, provided that they do not contrast with what I call methodological and substantive internalism. Accordingly, in the article, I discuss which stances of external critique can and should be accommodated within internalist accounts of legitimacy, without renouncing to the realist character of the approach. (shrink)

In 2016, the Five Stars Movement (5SM), one of the parties currently in power in Italy, launched the ‘Rousseau platform’. This is a platform meant to enhance direct democracy, transparency and the real participation of the people in the making of laws, policies and political proposals. Although ennobled with the name of Rousseau, the 5SM’s redemptive promise has been strongly criticised in the public sphere for being irresponsible and ideological. Political realism, I will argue, can perform both a diagnostic and (...) a corrective task, by providing some tools to unveil populist distortions and by offering more solid grounds for political opponents’ critique. Three aspects of realism, in particular, will be pointed out as remedies against populist drifts. First, anti-moralism, complemented by anti-utopianism and contextualism, criticises the populists’ moralistic picture of politics, its anti-pluralistic attitude and its rejection of the role of experts in politics. Second, the Weberian ethic of responsibility offers standards to assess politicians’ actions, instead of embracing the populist aversion towards any professional politician; besides, it contrasts the populist image of politics as a derogatory activity. Finally, realism as ideology critique unveils the distorting narratives underlying populist propaganda and fostering uncritical support. (shrink)

In a society marked by transnational migration and religious globalization, spatial factors are assuming a central role in the understanding of social relations. This is most prominent in urban areas, where the coexistence of culturally and religiously diverse subjects imposes a forced sharing of territory. Starting from a study of the semiotic concept of the city, the contribution aims first of all to explore the claimed right of the other to use public space through the creation of _aedes sacrae_. It (...) will show how the construction of a place of worship of a ‘minority’ religion can alter the pre-existing urban geography, leaving its imprint on space. Through a brief examination of the Italian constitutional jurisprudence on the so-called “anti-mosque” legislation, the paper will also outline a semantically relational conception of the religious building, offering a starting point for a rethinking of spatial organisation. An intercultural application of law is then needed insofar as the aim is towards a non-hegemonic polyphonic rewriting of urban territory. (shrink)

Computational models of legal precedent-based reasoning developed in AI and Law are typically based on the simplifying assumption that the background set of precedent cases is consistent. Besides being unrealistic in the legal domain, this assumption is problematic for recent promising applications of these models to the development of explainable AI methods. In this paper I explore a model of legal precedent-based reasoning that, unlike existing models, does not rely on the assumption that the background set of precedent cases is (...) consistent. The model is a generalization of the reason model of precedential constraint. I first show that the model supports an interesting deontic logic, where consistent obligations can be derived from inconsistent case bases. I then provide an explanation of this surprising result by proposing a reformulation of the model in terms of cases that support a new potential decision and cases that conflict with it. Finally, I show that the reformulation of the model allows us to verify that inconsistent case bases do not make verification that a decision is permissible substantially more complex than consistent case bases and to introduce intuitive criteria to compare different permissible decisions. (shrink)

This book analyses Eriugena’s Christian Platonic ideas on theology, cosmology, anthropology, epistemology, and ethics, and their sources in Patristic philosophical theology and ancient philosophy. The first part is devoted to Eriugena’s theology: thus, it focusses on God from a variety of perspectives, some of them also comparative in their nature. The second part consists in research into Eriugena's cosmology, anthropology, and ethics, including virtue ethics. The two large sections are interrelated by an exploration of Eriugena's concepts of apokatastasis and epistrophé, (...) in his great theory of the movement of all "from God to God". (shrink)

This study investigates the idea of harmony as a protological and eschatological principle in three outstanding Patristic philosophers, well steeped in the Platonic tradition: Origen, Gregory Nyssen, and Evagrius. All of them attached an extraordinary importance to harmony, homonoia, and unity in the arkhē and, even more, in the telos. This ideal is opposed to the disagreement/dispersion of rational creatures’ acts of volition after their fall and before the eventual apokatastasis. These Christian Platonists are among the strongest supporters of the (...) final universal restoration. Their reflection on the unity-multiplicity dialectic, which parallels that between harmony and disorder/discord/dissonance, is informed by the Platonic tradition. In Gregory, the idea of harmony assumes musical connotations, especially in relation to the telos. In this connection, I examine the relationship between their notion of harmony in the arkhē and telos and Plotinus’ concept of harmony. Plotinus was well known to Gregory, the author of a Christianized version of Plato’s Phaedo in which apokatastasis is prominent. Origen, whose readings included many Middle-Platonic and Neo-Pythagorean texts, in Alexandria attended the classes of the “proto-Neoplatonist” Ammonius, who was also Plotinus’ teacher. A wide-ranging methodical investigation of the relation between Origen’s and Plotinus’ philosophical thoughts is still a notable desideratum. Finally, I concentrate on the concept of harmony in astronomy as a metaphor for intellectual harmony and apokatastasis in Patristic Platonism, especially in Evagrius’ Kephalaia Gnōstika. The noun apokatastasis was used in an astronomical sense, and employed in Stoicism for the conclusion of a cosmic cycle. Evagrius, who loved astronomical metaphors, focussed a kephalaion on a wordplay—which escaped Guillaumont and all other scholars—concerning the astronomical meaning of apokatastasis, thus embedding his theory of the eventual restoration in an allegorical framework that rests on a notion of astronomical harmony. A strong case is made in this connection that Evagrius was elaborating on Plato’s pivotal link between cosmological and intellectual harmony, and was aware that the Stoic theory of cosmological apokatastasis drew on Plato. (shrink)

El artículo analiza un epígrafe griego cristiano de Edesa del III siglo que menciona el bautizo y la resurrección, e intenta ponerlo en su contexto histórico y religioso; particular atención va a los orígenes del Cristianismo en Osroene y a la antigua práctica del bautizo.

As many cultural historians of the sciences have recently indicated, eighteenth-century illustrations of natural historical works represent an important source that can be used to explore the ways in which nature and the study of nature were regarded in the period. Naturalistic illustrations, however, are not the only genre of images that may help the historian in this investigation. Another interesting source is represented by images of nature and natural objects connected with fictional literature. Yet, little attention has been devoted (...) so far to this genre of images. In this paper I analyse some of the engravings which illustrate Retif de la Bretonne's imaginary voyage La Decouverte australe par un homme volant. My aim is to show that these illustrations convey a well-defined image of the natural universe, and that their analysis may contribute to our understanding of the various significances and roles attached to Nature in the period-particularly bringing to the fore its moral and political uses. Further, by analysing the ways in which they connect and integrate a variety of artistic and discursive traditions related to fiction, travel, and natural history, I hope to suggest some of the ways in which this genre of images may be used to shed light on the eighteenth-century interplay between spheres of knowledge later assigned to such distinct disciplines as 'science', 'literature', or 'art'. (shrink)

Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.

Since antiquity, Empedocles has been considered as an example of both successful and unsuccessful communication. Aristotle credits him with vividness of images, but blames him for failure of clarity, and eventually compares his obscureness to that of oracles. Therefore, scholars in the past came to the conclusion that Empedocles deliberately employs an opaque style, like Heraclitus and his "studied ambiguity", as means for initiation. This paper challenges this assumption and asks whether and how ambiguity can work within a didactic poem. (...) By showing how Empedocles' and Heraclitus' communicative strategies differ from one another, I shall point to the poet's role as a charismatic and spiritual guide, displaying at times a Sibyl-like attitude. Being a mediator between two separate dimensions puts Empedocles in an ambiguous position, because he delivers what the Muse and the gods made available for him to share, and so his opaqueness does not come directly from him. Ultimately, this style analysis also says something about who the ideal audience must have been. (shrink)