RESUMO: No presente artigo, o tema da política será pensado a partir das críticas às constituições morais valorativas delineadas por Nietzsche. Nesse sentido, pretende-se elucidar que o posicionamento deste autor, por um lado, indica uma leitura crítica da política a partir da sua formação democrática, por esta considerar o homem de maneira universal e rebaixar seus valores ligado a sua singularidade. E, por outro lado, possibilitar uma distinta percepção da organização política. Isto devido ao fato de se observar uma nova (...) perspectiva para a questão política, cujo interesse seja de afirmar a vida, estimular novos valores, vontades e desejos que levem o homem a outras formulações de existência. Palavras-chave: Nietzsche, política, valores, afirmação da vida. (shrink)

This study examines the theology of the fourth-century bishop, Hilary of Poitiers, concentrating particularly on two commentaries written at different times in his life. The main focus of the study is on Hilary's anthropological theology.

Lektüre Platons aus orthodoxer Sicht - Byzantinische Spiritualität und christlich-orthodoxe Religionsphilosophie - Neugriechische Literatur und Sprache aus gesellschaftlicher Sicht - Problematik der Modernisierung Griechenlands und seiner Positionierung in Europa.

Globalization is forcing us to rethink some of the categories -- such as "the people" -- that traditionally have been associated with the now eroding state. Italian political thinker Paolo Virno argues that the category of "multitude," elaborated by Spinoza and for the most part left fallow since the seventeenth century, is a far better tool to analyze contemporary issues than the Hobbesian concept of "people," favored by classical political philosophy. Hobbes, who detested the notion of multitude, defined it as (...) shunning political unity, resisting authority, and never entering into lasting agreements. "When they rebel against the state," Hobbes wrote, "the citizens are the multitude against the people." But the multitude isn't just a negative notion, it is a rich concept that allows us to examine anew plural experiences and forms of nonrepresentative democracy. Drawing from philosophy of language, political economics, and ethics, Virno shows that being foreign, "not-feeling-at-home-anywhere," is a condition that forces the multitude to place its trust in the intellect. In conclusion, Virno suggests that the metamorphosis of the social systems in the West during the last twenty years is leading to a paradoxical "Communism of the Capital.". (shrink)

The intuitive notion of a binary relation on information-bearers, comparingthem with respect to their closeness to the available information, is oftenconstrued in terms of comparing their symmetric difference with, orcompositional similarity to, the available information. This happens forinstance in some treatments of verisimilitude. We expound an abstractmathematical rendering of the relevant data-dependent relation in theframework of Boolean algebras. For every element t of a Boolean algebra B we construct the t-modulated Boolean algebra Btin which the order relation represents `is at (...) most as compatible with t as'' or `is at best as similar to t as''. In the case of Lindenbaum-Tarskialgebras, t expresses the available information, and the compatibilityrelation turns out to be an entwinement of inferential and conjecturalrelations. It is just classical entailment when no information is available(i.e., when t is logically true) and becomes more boldly abductive themore information is available. The rich algebraic structures of a Boolean algebra –- including its Boolean group structures –- play a significant role in this combination of deduction and abduction and also induce cautious anddaring variants of the compatibility relation. Links with the literature onverisimilitude, abduction, and related topics are indicated. (shrink)

In logic, including the designer logics of artificial intelligence, and in the philosophy of science, one is often concerned with qualitative, comparative orderings on the states of a system, or on theories expressing information about the system. States may be compared with respect to normality, or some preference criterium, or similarity to some given (set of) state(s). Theories may be compared with respect to logical power, or to truthlikeness, or to how well they capture certain information. We explain a number (...) of these relations, study their properties, and unravel some of their interrelationships. (shrink)

IRBs often face dueling values in research: their historically grounded mission to protect research participants from harm conflicts with more recent attention to the importance of including underr...

Nella sua straordinaria opera scientifica, Franco Selleri si è sempre opposto alla rinuncia alla comprensione della struttura della realtà e della natura degli oggetti fisici, che egli considera come l’elemento caratterizzante delle principali teorie della fisica del Novecento e che è stata stigmatizzata da Karl Popper come tesi della “fine della strada in fisica”. Sin dalla fine degli anni ’60, egli ha sviluppato quella riflessione critica nei confronti delle teorie fondamentali della fisica moderna, in particolar modo della teoria delle particelle (...) elementari e della meccanica quantistica, e in un secondo tempo delle teorie relativistiche, che contraddistingue il suo programma di ricerca. Nel corso della sua intensa e infaticabile attività scientifica, Selleri è entrato in proficuo contatto con molti grandi fisici e filosofi della scienza, instaurando un intenso dialogo critico con Louis de Broglie, John Bell e Karl Popper. Le sue originali e non convenzionali ricerche lo hanno portato a risultati significativi non solo nell’ambito dei fondamenti della fisica, ma anche della storia e della filosofia della fisica. Per questo abbiamo voluto dedicare un numero speciale di Isonomia al nostro impareggiabile amico e collega, sia per la sua passione instancabile e la sua profonda conoscenza dei fondamenti formali, concettuali e filosofici delle teorie della fisica contemporanea, sia e forse ancor più come maestro di una prospettiva perennemente critica che egli ha sempre seguito e proposto con particolare rigore ed estrema determinazione. (shrink)

Journal of Political Philosophy, EarlyView.

Summary The paper discusses the political thought of Cesare Balbo (1789?1853), a leading Risorgimento moderate liberal and politician, in the context of the efforts by the Piedmontese political elite to support and legitimise the constitutional regime introduced by King Charles Albert in 1848. Revising current interpretations of Risorgimento moderate liberalism as backward and provincial, it seeks to locate the political thought of Balbo and his colleagues at the heart of contemporary European, and particularly French, debates regarding liberty and aristocracy. In (...) particular, it argues that the views of Balbo and more broadly Piedmontese moderate liberals on centralisation, the importance of a social elite to defend freedom, and equalisation, were conversant with the ideas of Guizot, Chateaubriand, Burke and Tocqueville. Their harsh condemnation of republican virtue, on the other hand, rendered their liberalism peculiar in the Italian context, where Tuscan moderate liberals continued to resort to the language of civic humanism after 1848 to defend their political and social model. (shrink)

Science-fiction (SF) has become a reference point in the discourse on the ethics and risks surrounding artificial intelligence (AI). Thus, AI in SF—science-fictional AI—is considered part of a larger corpus of ‘AI narratives’ that are analysed as shaping the fears and hopes of the technology. SF, however, is not a foresight or technology assessment, but tells dramas for a human audience. To make the drama work, AI is often portrayed as human-like or autonomous, regardless of the actual technological limitations. Taking (...) science-fictional AI too literally, and even applying it to science communication, paints a distorted image of the technology's current potential and distracts from the real-world implications and risks of AI. These risks are not about humanoid robots or conscious machines, but about the scoring, nudging, discrimination, exploitation, and surveillance of humans by AI technologies through governments and corporations. AI in SF, on the other hand, is a trope as part of a genre-specific mega-text that is better understood as a dramatic means and metaphor to reflect on the human condition and socio-political issues beyond technology. (shrink)

The article explores the construction of boundaries, alterity and otherness in modern science-fiction films. Boundaries, understood as real state borders, territoriality and sovereignty, as well as the construction of the other beyond an imagined border and delimited space, have a significant meaning in the dystopian settings of SF. Even though SF topics are not bound to the contemporary environment, be it of a historical, technical or ethical nature, they do relate to the present-day world and transcend our well-known problems. Therefore, (...) SF offers a pronounced discourse about current social challenges under extreme conditions such as future technological leaps, encounters with the alien other or the end of the world. At the same time the genre enables us to play through future challenges that might really happen. Films like Equilibrium, Code 46, Children of Men and District 9 show that in freely constructed cinematic settings we are not only unable to escape from our border conflicts, but quite the contrary, we take them everywhere with us, even to an alternative present or into the future, where new precarious situations of otherness are constructed. (shrink)

I show that it is not possible to uniquely characterize classical logic when working within classical set theory. By building on recent work by Eduardo Barrio, Federico Pailos, and Damian Szmuc, I show that for every inferential level (finite and transfinite), either classical logic is not unique at that level or there exist intuitively valid inferences of that level that are not definable in modern classical set theory. The classical logician is thereby faced with a three-horned dilemma: Give up uniqueness (...) but preserve characterizability, give up characterizability and preserve uniqueness, or (potentially) preserve both but give up modern classical set theory. After proving the main result, I briefly explore this third option by developing an account of classical logic within a paraconsistent set theory. This account of classical logic ensures unique characterizability in some sense, but the non-classical set theory also produces highly non-classical meta-results about classical logic. (shrink)

What constitutes enjoyment of life? Optimal Experience: Psychological Studies of Flow in Consciousness offers a comprehensive survey of theoretical and empirical investigations of the "flow" experience, a desirable or optimal state of consciousness that enhances a person's psychic state. "Flow" can be said to occur when people are able to meet the challenges of their environment with appropriate skills, and accordingly feel a sense of well-being, a sense of mastery, and a heightened sense of self-esteem. The authors show the diverse (...) contexts and circumstances in which flow is reported in different cultures (e.g. Japan, Korea, Australia, Italy), and describe its positive emotional impacts. They reflect on the concept of flow vis-à-vis modern social structures, historical phenomena, and evolutionary biocultural selection. The ways in which the ability to experience flow affects work satisfaction, academic success, and the overall quality of life are suggested; and the childrearing practices that result in the ability to derive enjoyment from life, considered. (shrink)

Genomic screening at population scale generates many ethical considerations. One is the normative role that people’s preferences should play in determining access to genomic information in screening contexts, particularly information that falls beyond the scope of screening. We expect both that people will express a preference to receive such results and that there will be interest from the professional community in providing them. In this paper, we consider this issue in relation to the just and equitable design of population screening (...) programs like reproductive genetic carrier screening (RGCS). Drawing on a pluralistic public health ethics perspective, we claim that generating and reporting information about genetic variants beyond the scope of the screening program usually lacks clinical, and perhaps personal, utility. There are both pragmatic and ethical reasons to restrict information provision to that which fits the stated purpose of the program. (shrink)

O presente trabalho visa analisar de forma circunscrita a relação entre os conceitos de autonomia da vontade (Autonomie des Willens) e autocracia do arbítrio (Autokratie der Willkür) na filosofia prática de Kant. Já que o filósofo Immanuel Kant foi responsável pela inovação no campo da moral ao apresentar uma concepção para “autonomia da vontade”, a qual é a faculdade da autodeterminação legislativa obrigante da razão prática pura. O problema desse conceito se encontra na sua aplicação para ações específicas. Para resolver (...) tal querela, utilizaremos o conceito também forjado por Kant como "autocracia". A autocracia se refere a aplicação efetiva da moralidade via faculdade do arbítrio. A autocracia é, em suma, o governo de si necessário para que a moralidade seja realmente executada como disciplina do arbítrio. (shrink)

Stimulated by development of reproductive technologies, many current bioethical accounts of parenthood focus on defining parenthood at or around birth. They tend to exclude from their scope some parent-child relationships that develop later in a child’s life. In reality, a parent-child relationship can emerge or dissolve over time: the parents of person A as an adolescent or adult may be different to her parents when she is a young child. To address this aspect of parenthood, we propose a new ‘mutuality (...) account’ of parenthood, grounded in the concept of ontological security. We argue that in most cases a parent-child relationship exists if there is mutual ontological security between the parent and child. We suggest that this mutual ontological security is constituted and sustained by shared frameworks of reality and cohesive personal narratives. Our intention is to broaden the conceptual understanding of parenthood, to include parent-child relationships that do not fall neatly into current bioethical accounts, and to argue against the notion that objective physiological, causal, or social ties are necessary to ‘make’ a parent. (shrink)

The study aims to investigate visual attention and perceived attractiveness to known versus unknown products above and beyond self-report applying physiological methods. A cross-cultural exploratory approach allows for comparing results gathered in the United States and China. We collected field data on physiological parameters accompanied by behavioral data. Mobile eye-tracking was employed to capture attention by measuring gaze parameters and electrodermal activity serves as indicator for arousal at an unconscious level. A traditional scale approach measuring perceived attractiveness of known versus (...) novel products provide insights at a conscious level. US-American and Chinese consumers in our sample indeed process novel products differently. This can be observed at an unconscious and conscious level. Different gaze movements and arousal levels are observed at an unconscious level. Regarding behavioral data, the level of vertical orientation shapes the perceived attractiveness of novel products at a conscious level. The study showcases how physiological methods complement behavioral ones when investigating visual attention to products. It underlines varying conscious as well as unconscious visual attention and attractiveness ratings comparing known versus novel products, driven by cultural differences. Data from a field setting further enrich the implications derived for new product development and applied marketing. (shrink)

relative to the actual world) of a propositional theory are defined. A theory is ‘closer to the truth’ the logically stronger its positive content and the logically weaker its negative content. This proposal delivers the same verisimilar preordering of theories that has been defined by Brink and Heidema as a ‘power ordering’. The preordering may be collapsed to a partial ordering and then embedded into a complete distributive lattice. The preordering may also be refined to a partial ordering by employing (...) the ‘convex content’ and the ‘non-convex content’ of each theory. Philosophical implications and historical relations are discussed. (shrink)

Il saggio discute il regime temporale algoritmico a partire da un inquadramento, esito di un con la teoria di Bruno Latour e di alcuni suoi critici, della tecnologia come costrutto non solo operativo, ma anche ideologico. Il saggio ricostruisce la storia concettuale del calcolo algoritmico riconoscendone le radici nella cibernetica e in una più risalente storia della quantificazione sociale che permette di misurare il modo in cui gli algoritmi ridefiniscono la logica e la direzione dell’intervento amministrativo. Attraverso gli algoritmi, l’amministrazione (...) si struttura a partire da un “design retroattivo”, in cui il futuro viene presentificato per automatizzare la ripetizione dei comportamenti passati. La disciplina algoritmica si salda così con i processi di individualizzazione neoliberali disegnando i tratti di una _moral economy_ automatizzata. (shrink)

ObjectiveTertiary education can be stressful for many young people, who consistently report high levels of distress. The issue has major implications for campus health services and mental health policymaking more widely. The present study proposes to map student counseling services in Europe.MethodsThe sample of institutions was sourced, using standardized data extraction, from the European Tertiary Education Register. Then, each institution’s website was analyzed for information about the availability of student counseling centers and the services provided. Data extracted from the ETER (...) database were: ETER ID, national identifier, institution name, English institution name, number of students, legal status, institution category, and institutional website. Data extracted from institutions’ websites concerned the availability of students’ psychological centers and the services provided. Analyses were carried out using the SPSS Statistics software package, version 26.ResultsOverall, it was found that most institutions do not provide mental health counseling services for their students. Institutions of medium dimensions showed a higher probability of reporting students’ psychological centers than small institutions. Moreover, private institutions and public institutions were more likely to report having such centers, while private government-dependent institutions were less likely. Universities of applied sciences and universities were more likely to report having them, while other institutions were less likely. Regarding provision according to geographic area, compared to Northern Europe, every other European region was less likely to report featuring such centers. Most institutions reported offering counseling, career counseling, or not otherwise specified psychological services, but only a small number reported providing services such as psychotherapy, psychiatric services, or counseling for learning-specific disabilities.ConclusionIt is critically important to catalog European data on student counseling centers and services, to encourage tertiary education institutions to invest in such services as key sites for mental health promotion. Indeed, professionally trained staff and the possibility of long-term treatment options would go a long way in supporting students who might not otherwise have access to treatment. (shrink)

While seeking novel food sources to feed the increasing population of the globe, several alternatives have been discussed, including algae, fungi or in vitro meat. The increasingly propagated usage of farmed insects for human nutrition raises issues regarding food safety, consumer information and animal protection. In line with law, insects like any other animals must not be reared or manipulated in a way that inflicts unnecessary pain, distress or harm on them. Currently, there is a great need for research in (...) the area of insect welfare, especially regarding species-specific needs, health, farming systems and humane methods of killing. Recent results from neurophysiological, neuroanatomical and behavioral sciences prompt caution when denying consciousness and therefore the likelihood of presence of pain and suffering or something closely related to it to insects. From an animal protection point of view, these issues should be satisfyingly solved before propagating and establishing intensive husbandry systems for insects as a new type of mini-livestock factory farming. (shrink)

L’introduzione alla sezione monografica _Politica dell’algoritmo: tecnologie, poteri, teorie_, prende in esame il nesso tra tecnologia e politica a partire dal modo in cui la prima, e in particolare le tecnologie guidate dagli algoritmi, ha investito irreversibilmente le coordinate istituzionali e sociali entro le quali si è costituito il canone politico moderno, attivando una soglia storica nella quale mutano le forme dei rapporti sociali di dominio, si determinano le possibilità della loro contestazione da parte di uomini e donne che sono (...) collocati in posizioni diverse nei rapporti societari, e si ridefinisce complessivamente la semantica del potere. La «politica dell’algoritmo» riguarda il modo in cui i rapporti sociali sono incorporati nella tecnologia e, di conseguenza, sono riprodotti, legittimati e istituzionalizzati dalla tecnologia. Il suo studio va quindi collocato nell’ambito della storia costituzionale che, nel punto di connessione tra storia sociale e dei concetti, apre il campo di una storia concettuale della tecnologia. (shrink)

Multitude between Innovation and NegationPaolo Virnotranslated by James CascaitoThe publication of Paolo Virno's first book in English, Grammar of the Multitude, by Semiotext in 2004 was an event within the field of radical political thought and introduced post-'68 currents in Italy to American readers. Multitude between Innovation and Negation, written several years later, offers three essays that take the reader on a journey through the political philosophy of language."Wit and Innovative Action" explores the ambivalence inevitably arising when the semiotic and (...) the semantic, grammar and experience, rule and regularity, and right and fact intersect. Virno unravels the infinite potential and wonders of everyday linguistic praxis and ambiguity. Wit, he argues, is a public performance, and its modus operandi characterizes human action in a state of emergency; it is a reaction, an articulate response, and a possible solution to a state of crisis. "Mirror Neurons, Linguistic Negation, and Mutual Recognition" examines the relationship of language and intersubjective empathy: without language, would human beings be able to recognize other members of their species? And finally, in "Multitude and Evil," Virno challenges the distinction between the state of nature and civil society and argues for a political institution that resembles language in its ability to be at once nature and history.Few thinkers take the risks required by innovation. Like a philosophical entrepreneur, Virno is engaged in no less than rewriting the dictionary of political theory, an urgent and ambitious project when language, caught in a permanent state of emergency impossible to sustain, desperately needs to articulate and enact new practices of freedom for the multitude.Paolo Virno is the author of several books, including A Grammar of the Multitude, 2004). (shrink)

The essay analyzes Marx’s articles on India, focusing on the problem of the colonial government in its relation to the world market. While the contested passages where Marx ascribes to English colonialism a ‘revolutionary’ function are considered in the context of his polemic against Henry Carey, the essay maintains that Marx’s inquiries do not reveal a progressive and unilinear conception of history, but rather the recognition of an historical rift that requires a global understanding of political forms and of the (...) subjects that oppose capital’s domination. (shrink)

The Strategic Choice Approach (SCA) is a method meant to deal with operational decision in a strategic way and to manage different sources of uncertainty in decision-making processes. The paper describes how SCA can deal with the future in the specific realm of urban planning in current cities, which represents a typical example of Wicked Problem, taking into account the three different levels of uncertainties that the method aims to manage (Uncertainties about the working Environment, UE; Uncertainties about Related decisions, (...) UR; Uncertainties about guiding Values, UV). We argue that these three types of uncertainties are referred to the ‘ordinary’ problems of modern and contemporary cities. The project of an architectural/urban transformation has to do with this kind uncertainties and implications – in overcoming a series of approvals of different institutional order – and, with this purpose, takes the form of a contract. Instead, this categorisation doesn’t conceive some new and uncertain challenges of future cities, around climate change, infrastructural disruption, insecurity, pandemics, at local and global scales, that are currently under debate in the cities. In this study we suggest that this character of uniqueness can imply the exploration of a new category of uncertainty in the SCA scheme, the ‘uncertainty about disruptive events (UD)’, a type of catastrophic or just unknown in their effects. First of all, we define the PSMs (Problem Structuring Methods) as methods of structuring the «wicked problems». Secondly, we examine the SCA as «a strategic choice process through time», taking into account the three different levels of uncertainty that the method intends to manage. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Semiotica Jahrgang: 2015 Heft: 206 Seiten: 63-87.