Quaestio, Volume 20, Issue, Page 538-546, January 2020.

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)

Questo articolo cerca di avvicinare le questioni che possono nascere da una lettura ermeneutica dell’opera di Peirce. In particolare si tratterà di individuare quei temi portanti dove la Semiotica, proprio in quanto esperienza filosofica ancor prima che disciplina scientifica, è capace di offrire un contributo per la discussione intorno alle istanze transdisciplinari, necessitate dal bisogno di una reciproca discussione fra le pratiche che ciascuno di noi frequenta autonomamente. Questo significherà sviluppare l’indagine non tanto nella direzione di garantire la permanenza in (...) un orizzonte di senso, sufficiente a spiegare e mettere ordine nei momenti in cui ci troviamo preda delle nostre mancanze. Proveremo, invece, a mostrare che anche qualora ritenessimo costitutiva la parzialità delle nostre singole prospettive, così da poterci dedicare alla trasformazione condivisa dei nostri saperi senza preoccuparci di scadere in una ripetizione omologante, spetterà a un’Ermeneutica genuinamente filosofica dedicarsi al compito che Peirce affidava al suo Pragmaticismo, ovvero una presa in carico critica di quelle difficili parole, radicate a fondo nella tradizione cui siamo individualmente rimessi, mai in modo manchevole ma secondo differenze compiute. (shrink)

Psychology has always defined itself as a science and yet it has lacked the theoretical and methodological unity regarded as characteristic of the natural sciences. Nicolò Gaj explores the topical question of unification in psychology, setting out a conceptual framework for considerations of unity and disunity, and exploring the evidence of its fragmentation. He takes a critical look at the history of the most prominent attempts at unification, and at the desirability and feasibility of the whole project. The book (...) represents a unique and valuable attempt to address the issue of unification from a philosophical perspective, and via a combination of theoretical and empirical research. (shrink)

v. 1. Genealogia, forme storiche e criticità dell'autodescrizione della società moderna.

Epistemic structuralism, the idea that social structures have an immense influence on our inquiries and epistemic behavior, presents a unique challenge to the emerging field of vice epistemology. The most extreme application of this challenge results in the rejection of vice explanations in favor of structural explanations for epistemic behavior. Some vice epistemologists have expressed the intuitive idea that vice explanations and structural explanations may be synthesized, but the exact details of such a synthesis have yet to be adequately examined. (...) This paper starts by trying to gain clarity about structuralism and structuralist explanations in epistemology, then it discusses how a well-developed vice-structural explanation can be done. I end this paper by briefly noting a few crucial issues that demand further investigation. (shrink)

Deep brain stimulation of the subthalamic nucleus or the globus pallidus is an established treatment for Parkinson’s disease that yields a marked and lasting improvement of motor symptoms. Yet, DBS benefit on gait disturbances in PD is still debated and can be a source of dissatisfaction and poor quality of life. Gait disturbances in PD encompass a variety of clinical manifestations and rely on different pathophysiological bases. While gait disturbances arising years after DBS surgery can be related to disease progression, (...) early impairment of gait may be secondary to treatable causes and benefits from DBS reprogramming. In this review, we tackle the issue of gait disturbances in PD patients with DBS by discussing their neurophysiological basis, providing a detailed clinical characterization, and proposing a pragmatic programming approach to support their management. (shrink)

Spontaneous collapse models are modifications of standard quantum mechanics in which a physical mechanism is responsible for the collapse of the wavefunction, thus providing a way to solve the so-called “measurement problem”. The two most famous of these models are the Ghirardi–Rimini–Weber (GRW) model and the Continuous Spontaneous Localisation (CSL) models. Here, we propose a new kind of non-relativistic spontaneous collapse model based on the idea of collapse points situated at fixed spacetime coordinates. This model shares properties of both GRW (...) and CSL models, while starting from different assumptions. We show that it can lead to a dynamics quite similar to that of the GRW model while also naturally solving the problem of indistinguishable particles. On the other hand, we can also obtain the same master equation of the CSL models. Then, we show how our proposed model solves the measurement problem in a manner conceptually similar to the GRW model. Finally, we show how the proposed model can also accommodate for Newtonian gravity by treating the collapses as gravitational sources. (shrink)

El hecho de la creación extrasistemática de normas jurídicas obliga a revisar los procedimientos interpretativos con los que habitualmente trabaja el jurista. Y el hecho de que los sujetos destinatarios de la regla jurídica estén incluidos en el proceso de formación de ésta hace cada vez más difícil identificar el momento en que la regla nace y se constituye en posible objeto de conocimiento. La relación entre sistema de fuentes, formas de posición de las normas y nuevas figuras sociales crea (...) un proceso circular en el que el destinatario y el juez se remiten mutuamente la justificación de la "norma. Nos encontramos así ante un derecho que es negocial en los contenidos, pero legal en las formas. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Cynthia: A Companion to the Text of Propertius by S. J. HeyworthLuigi GalassoS. J. Heyworth. Cynthia: A Companion to the Text of Propertius. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007, first published in paperback 2009 (with corrections). xiii + 648 pp. Paper. £56.Cynthia represents the hypomnemata to the edition of Propertius by Stephen Heyworth. It is an indispensable tool for readers of the new Oxford Classical Text of Propertius and (...) for this reason the contemporary publication of both books has been extremely important. The text edited by Heyworth is so innovative that it was necessary to explain and discuss the editor’s choices. Cynthia is a long dialogue with the reader: Heyworth exposes reflections that are the fruits of decades of engagement with the text of Propertius, and one feels that he speaks with authority.The Preface is brief, but it summarizes the method followed in the book and places the critic in his appropriate setting, where he acknowledges his debts to scholars like J. L. Butrica and G. P. Goold. The true introduction is the one to the edition in the OCT: in fact it is one work in two volumes. The bulk of the book consists of a discussion of passages from the entire work of the Latin poet. [End Page 169] Before each elegy there is an essential bibliography. Then follows a quotation (in the vulgate form of the text) of the passage under discussion; in most cases it is accompanied by the critical apparatus of the OCT edition, with some modifications. All the passages examined are included because of textual problems, even if sometimes one gets the impression of being confronted with purely literary aspects of the text. There is no introduction to any elegy, and it is not in fact necessary: we grasp only what is problematic, and following Heyworth’s guidance we are taken through a stimulating experience. After 512 pages of Propertiana (D. R. Shackleton Bailey’s model is unquestionable), there is a complete translation of the text proposed by the editor, which is particularly useful. His policy is not to avoid any problem but to discuss it honestly without preconceptions. At the end there are rich indexes, which offer easy access to the wealth of linguistic and stylistic observations that are disseminated over the commentary. They also include the preface to the edition in the OCT.It is impossible to deal in a detailed manner with the hundreds of proposals and hypotheses. The editor offers us a completely different Propertius from the poet we have been accustomed to know from the more important editions of the twentieth century (deemed as conservative until the edition by Goold [Cambridge, Mass. 1990]). Following the wishes of Butrica, the elegies of Propertius are now consistent with the judgments of ancient critics, who valued in Propertius “a poet of finish, grace and charm” (M. Hubbard, Propertius [London 1974]:3). The text has undergone a massive restoration and it is readable and fluent: no more the work of an “expressionistic” poet (E. Pasoli) with his idiosyncratic language, but of a contemporary of Tibullus and an immediate predecessor of Ovid. The severe corruptions of the text are no longer visible in its linguistic texture, but in its fragmentation, which characterizes in particular the second book. In the others there are not so many ruins, but for lacunae and expunged distichs. The decision not only to bracket them, but to put them at the end of each elegy, is rhetorically astute: if one sees these couplets out of their context, one will certainly damn them, since they usually are a proverbial thought or an item of a catalogue.The text of the OCT exhibits a smooth surface that derives from a complex work of restoration. Butrica had told us that most editors of Propertius are like those who had loved the smoke deposited during the centuries onto the frescoes by Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel (“Editing Propertius.” CQ 47 [1997]:208). The Propertian frescoes have now been restored: parts which were severely damaged are even better than the original; others, whose authenticity we do not trust, have been detached and put aside. The result is a piece... (shrink)

In the twentieth century there were two great political and social paradigms, the liberal-democratic and the libertarian. The central idea of the first approach is isonomy: the exclusion of any discrimination on the basis that legal rights are afforded equally to all people. The central idea of the second approach is rather to acknowledge and address a broader spectrum of known inequalities. Such an approach, Bellanca argues, allows the pursuit of pluralism as well as a more realistic and complex view (...) of what equality is. Here he analyzes the main economic and political institutions of an isocratic society, and in so doing, effectively outlines how a utopian society can be structurally and anthropologically realized. This book is ideal reading for an audience interested in the critique of contemporary capitalism through a renewed perspective of democratic socialism and leftist libertarianism. Nicolò Bellanca is Associate Professor of Development Economics at the University of Florence, Italy. He is the author of a broad array of scholarly articles, books and textbooks about both the history of economic thought and development economics. His current research focuses on the theory of institutional change. (shrink)

In response to Caesar, who intends to reach Antonius in Italy, the boatman Amyclas sets out the celestial and terrestrial signs that foretell a storm and advises against putting out to sea. In this speech Lucan draws on the treatment of such phenomena in the didactic poems of Aratus and Vergil, but the allusions are remodelled in epic language and adapted to the narrative context of the episode. Further, in the story of Amyclas Lucan develops dramatic ideas mentioned in the (...) specific passages in which Aratus and Vergil reflect on the utility of their teachings. Thus the boatman’s meteorological doctrina is highlighted, though he is unable to gain any advantage from it. In fact, in contrast to Palinurus with Aeneas in Aen. 5 and to the rector ratis with Pompey in Luc. 8, Amyclas does not try to dissuade Caesar from the voyage and agrees to accompany him. His speech shows affinities with declamations on the theme of sailing and the presence of adverse omens; however, the speech of Amyclas sounds like a suasoria that has been interrupted. This aspect focuses the impossibility of communication between the two characters: Amyclas, powerlessly external to the civil wars, can only appeal to the force of nature, which Caesar impiously defies. (shrink)

In this paper we aim to develop an indispensability argument in support of the existence of virtual particles in scattering processes. In order to avoid the Paradox of Infinite Limits, which allegedly poses a challenge to scientific realism, one needs to de-idealize the fictitious systems introduced by the two limiting procedures employed in the perturbation scheme, namely the infinite expansion in Dyson series and the limits for negative and positive infinite times associated with the assumption of free particles. We show (...) that these limits do not introduce essential idealizations, in agreement with scientific realism. What is more, according to our argument, unobservable virtual particles arise as essential approximations and they should be interpreted as propagators of the interaction responsible for subatomic scattering. As such, their existence is based on the use of approximations that matter. (shrink)