The concepts of molecular structure and molecular shape are ubiquitous in the chemical literature, where they are often taken as synonyms, with unavoidable drawbacks in chemistry teaching. A third concept, molecular topology, is less frequent but it is a reference term in molecular research domains such as Quantitative Structure–Activity Relationships. The present paper proposes an epistemological analysis of these three notions, aimed at clarifying the nature of their relationship, as well as the contiguities and differences between them. At first, we (...) discuss the various acceptations of the terms molecular structure and molecular shape. Then, we examine some crucial milestones in the history of these concepts and we analyse the relationship between structure, shape and topology from an epistemological viewpoint. We point out the distinguishing features of each concept and we show that their semantic openness, that may be fruitful in a specialized context, turns into a source of incoherence and inaccuracy in the teaching context, fostered by the misleading use of these terms made by textbooks. Eventually, we propose a criterion fit to discriminate between the conceptual domains of molecular shape, molecular structure and molecular topology. (shrink)

This paper discusses the genesis of human DNA patents and the legal confusion and ramifications that ensued. Beginning in the mid-1970s with policymakers and lawmakers in the United States, confronted with an economy impacted by an oil crisis, inflation, growing and persistent unemployment and the fledgling biotechnology industry, this paper tracks the development of the practice until its banning in the US Supreme Court in June 2013. The paper raises serious questions regarding the relevance of a patent system—a system that, (...) as the patenting of naturally occurring biological materials demonstrates, is so easily manipulated through the use of legal contrivances. The paper outlines that potential future manipulation poses as a significant threat to the national economy and security of the United States if history is allowed to repeat itself in the context of biological materials. (shrink)

Sezione 1. Sullo sviluppo del concetto di creazione. L'idealismo magico. Creation, idealism and a new aestheicism.--sezione 2. Estetismo assoluto-una teoria della scienza. Coscienza ed energia-sul problema del rapporti tra psicologia e fiscia. Le monde n'est-il qu' un rêve? Vie et esthéticité. Aestetismus und der Ernst des Lebens (aus zwei Briefen).

1. Critica de capire e altri scritti. 2. Scritti kantiani. 3. L'analitica trascendentale. 4. Il problema della scienza e il giudizio storico.

When not ignored by scholars, Lotze’s logic is understood as an example of either psychologism or Platonism. As a matter of fact, despite his allowance for the topic of the origin of concepts, Lotze manages to avoid logical psychologism. At the same time, concepts cannot be said to have validity in the same way as propositions in themselves do: were this the case, one could actually ascribe Lotze a form of Platonism. Avoiding the crass dichotomy between realism and nominalism, Lotze (...) works out a meticulous analysis of the relation between general concepts and our knowledge of reality, which is perfectly compliant with his teleological worldview. (shrink)

This article is a discussion of the critical remarks raised by Kristian Bankov in a notion called Bankov’s razor, about some foundational elements of the biosemiotic paradigm. The elaborated form of the “razor” includes three main questions on biosemiotic ideas, namely: 1) the philosophical grounds of the biosemiotic discourse, 2) the scientific output of biosemiotics, and 3) the ethical consequences of some biosemiotic presumptions (this latter, given its scopes and extension, is left for a future occasion). Such questions are commented (...) and challenged by Dario Martinelli, from a point of view that is primarily that of the zoosemiotician, therefore an insider of biosemiotics. In order to set the readers’ expectations in the right direction, it shall perhaps be fair to inform them that the style of the article is rather sui generis, and can hardly be classified within the genre of academic essays. Tones and terminology are more reminiscent of a philosophical pamphlet written in dialogical form. Hopefully, this choice will not compromise the scientific content of the article. (shrink)

Luigi Giussani, a high school religion teacher throughout the 1950s and 1960s, grounded his teachings in the vast body of experience to be found in Christianity's two-thousand-year history. He told his students, “I'm not here to make you adopt the ideas I will give you as your own, but to teach you a method for judging the things I will say.” Throughout his life, education was one of Giussani's primary intellectual interests. He believed that effective education required an adequate (...) background in the Christian tradition, presented within a lived experience that underscored the capacity of the faith to answer universal questions. What he proposed was a process that allowed one to sift through tradition, critically examining it and comparing it against the ultimate criteria for judgment: the desires of the heart. In Giussani's view, the primary concern was to “educate the human heart as God made it.” In The Risk of Education he states that fear leads students to associate this process of criticism with negativity or doubt. Yet, without an education in criticism, students cannot develop conviction. At a time when young people are abandoning the church and questioning the value of faith, Giussani's method of judging and verifying Christianity as an experience seems a necessary intervention. In The Risk of Education he argues that, ultimately, education and the Christian message reveal themselves through human freedom. (shrink)

Dario Martinelli’s compact and enjoyable treatise on zoömusicology, _Of Birds, Whales and Other Musicians_ introduces musicologists, biologists, social scientists, and philosophers to a new theoretical model for studying how animal behavioral patterns relate to sound communication. Organized by musical trait rather than animal species, and drawing upon the work of such esteemed philosophers as Umberto Eco, Charles Sanders Peirce, and Thomas Sebeok, Martinelli’s analyses redefine the boundaries surrounding music and help readers—scholars and amateurs alike—to appreciate the relationship between (...) animals and musicological exchanges. (shrink)

To fight against the spread of the coronavirus disease, more than 3 billion people in the world have been confined indoors. Although lockdown is an efficient solution, it has had various psychological consequences that have not yet been fully measured. During the lockdown period in France, we conducted two surveys on two large panels of participants to examine how the lockdown disrupted their relationship with time and what this change in their experiences of time means. Numerous questions were asked about (...) the experience of time but also the nature of life during the lockdown: the emotions felt, boredom, the activities performed, sleep quality, and the daily rhythm. The participants also completed a series of self-reported scales used to assess depression, anxiety, and impulsivity. The results showed that time seemed to pass more slowly during the lockdown compared to before. This feeling of a slowing down of time has little to do with living conditions during the lockdown and individual psychological characteristics. The main predictor of this time experience was boredom and partly mediated by the lack of activity. The feeling of being less happy and the presence of sleep disturbance also explained this specific experience of time albeit to a lesser extent. (shrink)

Ranging from Antiquity to contemporary analytic philosophy, this book provides a concise but thorough analysis of the arguments developed by some of the most outstanding philosophers of all times. Besides the aesthetics of music proper, the volume touches upon metaphysics, ethics, philosophy of language, psychology, anthropology, and scientific developments that have influenced the philosophical explanations of music. Starting from the very origins of philosophy in Western thought (Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle) the book talks about what music is according to Augustine, Descartes, (...) Leibniz, Rousseau, Kant, Hegel, the Romantics, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, Susanne Langer, Bloch, Adorno, and many others. Recent developments within the analytic tradition are illustrated with particular attention to the ontology of the musical artwork and to the problem of music and emotions. (shrink)

Meditation comprises a series of practices mainly developed in eastern cultures aiming at controlling emotions and enhancing attentional processes. Several authors proposed to divide meditation techniques in focused attention and open monitoring techniques. Previous studies have reported differences in brain networks underlying FA and OM. On the other hand common activations across different meditative practices have been reported. Despite differences between forms of meditation and their underlying cognitive processes, we propose that all meditative techniques could share a central process that (...) would be supported by a core network for meditation since their general common goal is to induce relaxation, regulating attention and developing an attitude of detachment from one’s own thoughts. To test this hypothesis, we conducted a quantitative meta-analysis based on activation likelihood estimation of 10 neuroimaging studies on different meditative techniques to evidence the core cortical network subserving meditation. We showed activation of basal ganglia , limbic system and medial prefrontal cortex . We discuss the functional role of these structures in meditation and we tentatively propose a neurocognitive model of meditation that could guide future research. (shrink)

1. Teoria del diritto -- 2. Teoria della democrazia -- 3. La sintassi del diritto.

This article aims to provide a semiotic analysis of environmental law and youth protests. More precisely, drawing on speech act theory this article regards both as types of communication and teases out the inherent voice and message, specifically with regard to the interests of future generations. The argument unfolds in three steps. First, the article looks into speaker and speech of environmental law and argues that it speaks, as legislation does, in the first-person plural voice of a ‘we’. Second, the (...) article examines a speech of Greta Thunberg through the lens of Stanley Cavell’s theory of passionate utterances. This interpretation will unlock the political stakes of Thunberg’s speech as she claims standing with those responsible for enacting environmental law. Finally, the consequences of this reading will be analysed by relating message and voice of environmental law. As youth protests question ordinary forms of political representation, new ways of safeguarding the interests of future generations are called upon. (shrink)

Kant is not typically considered a major figure in the just war tradition's canon, although his work has informed recent discussions about international justice and just war theory. More specifically, philosophers have suggested that Kant's work may provide a coherent, normatively practical just war theory, basing this claim, in the main, on his views on the goal of peace and its purpose of establishing a cosmopolitan civil society.1 Such discussions are mostly concerned with jus ad bellum and jus in bello (...) constraints on nations and how Kant's writings can guide deliberation and, perhaps, the considered policy and practices of governments. Yet, the fact remains that it is embodied men and women and not the metaphysical ?nation? who actually conduct war. Hence, this paper seeks to determine the extent to which Kant's thought might contribute to the moral deliberation of those individuals who a fortiori will be bound to jus in bello constraints. To this end, the idea of moral learning will be explored, emphasizing the Kantian idea of autonomy. The ultimate goal of this paper is to demonstrate how some aspects of Kant's thought would contribute to ethics education in a military academy. (shrink)

Nel mio articolo propongo una lettura dei §§ 79-84 della Critica del Giudizio, parte della sezione Metodologia del Giudizio teleologico. Dapprima mi interrogo sul significato di una Methodenlehre del Giudizio teleologico, che rintraccio in un’attività metariflessiva del Giudizio; procedo poi ad una lettura analitica del testo nelle sue varie articolazioni, nella quale passo in rassegna le questioni attinenti alla specificità dello statuto epistemologico della teleologia, alla possibile convivenza tra finalismo e meccanicismo nella scienza della natura, all’origine della vita, allo scopo (...) ultimo della natura e allo scopo finale della creazione; approdo, infine, ad un’interpretazione per cui l’intera teleologia rationis humanae, che si estende dalla teleologia naturale alla teleologia morale passando per l’antropologia e per la filosofia della storia, viene in questa sezione riarticolata intorno ad un nuovo fulcro concettuale di livello trascendentale, che può garantire l’effettivo collegamento tra queste diverse parti della filosofia proprio perché esso non si esercita in forma di dominio legislativo, ma in forma di riflessione sul molteplice empirico e sulla causalità teleologica propria dell’uomo. (shrink)

The paper focuses on Du Bos’ contribution to the birth of aesthetics. Du Bos elaborates – in an anticlassicistical tone – three central notions: 1) that of “artificial passion”, 2) of the taste of “the public” (which is in turn linked to a peculiar conception of “feeling”) and 3) of “artistic genius”. The main tenet will be that such an approach does lead to a “philosophy of fine arts” (or of “artistic beauty”), i.e. the discipline with which modern aesthetics ends (...) up identifying at the end of the xviii century. Hence the theoretical, and not just historical, interest for this author, especially when having an eye to neoaesthetics, viz. aesthetics as begotten by the crisis of the modern aesthetics around the middle of the xix century. (shrink)

Il saggio analizza l’Antropologia pragmatica di Kant alla luce degli altri scritti critici e precritici, delle Lezioni, delle fonti e del dibattito critico internazionale più recente. Viene chiarito anzitutto il rapporto tra antropologia e critica della ragione: gli esiti della Dialettica trascendentale impongono a Kant di individuare un nuovo assetto per la scienza empirica dell’uomo superando la prospettiva scolastica. Ciò si manifesta nell’adozione del termine «antropologia», che tuttavia Kant distingue dalle antropologie mediche del tempo, per lo più deterministiche, grazie all’impostazione (...) «pragmatica». La psicologia empirica viene inglobata ma riformata nel nuovo progetto: nella Didattica Kant sottolinea gli aspetti problematici o «negativi» nell’uso delle facoltà: si individuano così gli «elementi» di un’antropologia poi utilizzati nella Caratteristica per definire il senso della «destinazione» razionale dell’uomo nel senso del concetto cosmico della filosofia. (shrink)