ObjectiveThis study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of the MotivAir program—a phone-based intervention based on Motivational Interviewing principles and techniques—in enhancing adherence to Continuous Positive Airway Pressure therapy among patients with Obstructive Sleep Apnea Syndrome.MethodsA multicenter randomized controlled trial design with random allocation at the level of the individual will be conducted to compare the impact of the experimental program with a control group receiving usual care only in improving selected clinical and psychological parameters in the patients. A minimum sample (...) of 80 participants will be recruited in each center according to the inclusion criteria. After the initial screening, participants will be randomly assigned to either the experimental group or the control condition. The program will last 180 days and will be delivered by a trained nurse. The impact of the MotivAir program on selected primary and secondary outcomes will be measured at baseline, and after 1-, 3-, and 6-month from CPAP initiation.DiscussionParticipants are expected to show an increased level of adherence to CPAP and to acquire the skills and self-confidence necessary to deal with the psychological consequences of their chronic condition. (shrink)

Suppose you’re certain that a claim—say, ‘Frida is tall’—does not have a determinate truth value. What attitude should you take towards it? This is the question of the cognitive role of indeterminacy. This paper presents a puzzle for theories of cognitive role. Many of these theories vindicate a seemingly plausible principle: if you are fully certain that A, you are rationally required to be fully certain that A is determinate. Call this principle ‘Certainty’. We show that Certainty, in combination with (...) some minimal side premises, entails a very implausible claim: whenever you’re certain that it’s indeterminate whether A, it is rationally required that you reject A. This is a surprising result, which requires abandoning at least some intuitive views about indeterminacy and cognitive role. (shrink)

This paper explores the death of God narrative through the lens of kenosis, drawing insights from thinkers such as Marcel, Heidegger, Vattimo, and Girard. It investigates the implications of kenotic thought for contemporary religious and philosophical discourse, exploring various interpretations of kenosis, ranging from Altizer and Žižek’s apocalyptic views to Vattimo’s more hopeful perspective. Through critical engagement with these viewpoints, this paper advocates for a nuanced understanding of kenosis inspired by Hegel, one that bypasses both radical theology and excessive optimism. (...) Methodologically, this study adopts a hermeneutic approach, analyzing key texts and engaging in philosophical dialogue. This paper concludes that rethinking kenotic thought could provide a robust framework for grappling with the death of God in the contemporary context, offering avenues for ethical reflection, social critique, and speculative renewal. (shrink)

Current research has documented how cases of irresponsible corporate behavior generate negative reactions from consumers and other stakeholders. Existing research, however, has not examined empirically whether the characteristics of the victims of corporate malfeasance contribute to shaping individual reactions. This study examines, through four experimental surveys, the role played by the national identity of the people affected on consumers’ intentions to spread negative word of mouth. It is shown that national identity influences individual reactions indirectly; mediated by perceived similarity and (...) sympathy. Consumers perceive foreign victims as different from the self and this reduces the sympathy experienced towards them. Sympathy is an emotion that shapes consumer reactions and regulates WOM. The study identifies two moderating processes of this effect. Individuals who score high on collective narcissism are most likely to be strongly biased against foreign victims. In-group bias is also moderated by the perceived severity of the crisis. When a case is perceived as very serious, perceived similarity plays a less important role in generating sympathy because consumers focus on the perceived suffering of the victims. Hence, in-group bias is stronger in cases perceived as having minor consequences. The paper contributes to the literature on corporate social irresponsibility and offers implications for both scholars and managers. (shrink)

In his monograph Semantic Relationism, Kit Fine proposes two characterizations of coordination between proper names: an intuitive test; and a technical definition. The intuitive characterization is grounded in a notion of understanding distinct from the familiar notion of linguistic competence. Three prima facie appealing proposals to characterize this notion of understanding will be examined in the present paper and then dismissed as intrinsically implausible or as incompatible with Fine’s semantics. Not even his technical characterization of coordination, involving the notion of (...) semantic requirement, will enable us to escape the impasse. Ultimately, the question of what exactly coordination between names is will remain open. (shrink)

The evidence of the phenomenon for which, in galaxies, the gravitating mass is distributed differently than the luminous mass, increases as new data become available. Furthermore, this discrepancy is well structured and it depends on the magnitude and the compactness of the galaxy and on the radius, in units of its luminous size \, where the measure is performed. For the disk systems with \ all this leads to an amazing scenario, revealed by the investigation of individual and coadded rotation (...) curves, according to which, the circular velocity follows, from their centers out to their virial radii, an universal profile \\) function only of the properties of the luminous mass component. Moreover, from the Universal Rotation Curve, so as from many individual high quality RCs, we discover that, in the innermost regions of galaxies, the DM halo density profiles are very shallow. Finally, the disk mass, the central halo density and its core radius, come out all related to each other and to two properties of the distribution of light in galaxies: the luminosity and the compactness. This phenomenology, being absent in the simplest \ Cosmology scenario, poses serious challenges to the latter or, alternatively, it requires a substantial and tuned involvement of baryons in the formation of the galactic halos. On the other side, the URC helps to explain the two-accelerations relationship found by McGaugh et al., in terms of only well known astrophysical processes, acting in a standard DM halos + luminous disks scenario. (shrink)

In this article I suggest that in the Soviet period Central Asians cultivated and conceptualized Islam as an episteme. They did this by reaching beyond alienating categories offered to them by the state. I argue that the constitution of an Islamic culture was made possible, among other things, by Central Asians’ encounters with the past, most notably with what they perceived as an Islamic past. We observe the curious phenomenon of Central Asians’ continuous interaction with the Islamic historical sites that (...) escaped the bulldozers of the Soviet campaigns of religious repression. For some, encounters with the past might be accidental. For many others, the exploration of the past represented a purposive, self-conscious, and reiterated emotional act. I show that Central Asians in the Soviet period—even if at school they were taught little about, and were usually offered a distorted vision of, the Islamic history of their region—were still able to access their past through the surviving architectural presence of Islam. Monumental sites, however, were not enough for Muslims to understand the past and use it to construct their own identity. Such artifacts acquired meaning through an interpretive framework provided by Sufi narratives about saints and their miracles. Therefore, shrines represented for Central Asia a collective memory space, i.e., a place in which the past was preserved for mobilization in the present through narrative. (shrink)

Ridare vita alle ombre esangui del passato”, che torna a vivere nel presente facendosinuovamente “carne e sangue”. Le citazioni di Dilthey e von Wartenburg delimitano ilcampo in cui, per l’Heidegger di Sein und Zeit, si gioca la partita decisiva della storicità delDasein. Per affondare il colpo, egli trova la stoccata vincente nelle frecciate che Nietzschescaglia contro lo storicismo nella seconda delle Considerazioni inattuali – Vom Nutzen undNachtheil der Historie für das Leben –. In lui, Heidegger intravede un autorevole alleato perinstaurare (...) un rapporto autentico con la storia. Essa non dovrà più essere confinata in unpassato museale, tanto grazioso quanto improduttivo per la vita: uscire dalla paralisi dellatradizione vuol dire scrollarsi di dosso il peso del passato e sbloccare il presente e ilfuturo. Solo così l’uomo sarà libero e la storicità recupererà il suo senso più elevato, alservizio della vita. Al di là delle differenze d’intento e di registro ermeneutico-stilistico, laricostruzione di un dialogo a distanza tra i passi di Sein und Zeit e le considerazioninietzscheane offrirà spunti interessanti per pensare alla storia e al suo rapporto, semprein bilico tra il vitale e il patologico, con l’esistenza umana. (shrink)

"The fact is, man is an etymologizing animal."Etymologizing—the practice of connecting one word with one or more other similar-sounding words that are believed to elucidate its meaning1—is a complex and putatively universal phenomenon.2 Thus, to take two representative examples far apart in time and space, etymologizing practices figure prominently in some episodes of the Hebrew Bible,3 but also provide some modern influential thinkers with an important mode of argument.4 Perhaps etymologizing is so pervasive because it offers a pliable and powerful (...) tool for addressing a key question, namely, why is something called what it is?While this question has universal appeal, only a few cultures seem to have addressed it... (shrink)

The decision of some provinces of the Anglican communion to extend to women the threefold ordained ministry has compromised the possibility of the recognition of Anglican orders by the Catholic church: they were declared invalid by pope Leo XIII in the bull Apostolicae Curae of 1896. The refusal to recognise as valid the sacrament of Order , administered in the Anglican church, does not signify, however, denial of efficacy on account of the grace present in the ordained minister of the (...) Anglicans. By taking up the formal distinction, introduced by Vatican II, between the church of Christ and the Catholic church , it is possible to reinterpret the question of the relationship between grace and order in the light of the ecclesiological implications of sacrum commercium - which occurs in baptism, ministry and eucharist - between the Catholic church and other ecclesial communities. (shrink)

In Democratic Authority and the Separation of Church and State, Robert Audi addresses disagreements among equally rational persons on political matters of coercion by analysing the features of discussions between epistemic peers, and supporting a normative principle of toleration. It is possible to question the extent to which Audi’s views are consistent with the possibility of religious citizens being properly defined as epistemic peers with their non-religious counterparts, insofar as he also argues for some significant constraints on religious reasons in (...) public debates, and he advocates secular reasons being considered as equivalent to natural reasons. I shall also consider Jürgen Habermas’s criticism of Audi’s stance. One of Habermas’ main points focused on Audi’s strong division between religious and non-religious arguments that requires religious citizens to artificially split their reasons, while non-religiously affiliated citizens are not met with any similar requirement. Also, analysing the concept of epistemic parity, we can as well grasp some of the main features of the Habermasian idea of postsecularism. The difference between secular and postsecular views can be framed as hinging on what it means to be epistemic peers, thus bearing consequences on the understanding of the relationship between church and state—particularly regarding the nature of state neutrality and the different status of churches and organised secular groups. (shrink)

In this paper it will be argued that any realist interpretation of quantum mechanics intending to preserve the objectivity of the set of the definite-valued observables should require such a set to be invariant under the symmetry group of the theory. In particular, it will be shown that the natural way to reach this goal is to appeal to the Casimir operators of the Galilean group. Additionally, this idea will be generalized in two ways: by selecting the definite-valued observables of (...) a system in quantum field theory as those represented by the Casimir operators of the Poincaré group, and by extending the strategy to gauge symmetries. (shrink)

The Context Comparison Model provides a promising avenue to guide persuasive communication development by highlighting the features of the communication context that require consideration, including source, target, and task variables. The model was tested in a study of global climate change. American participants read a text outlining scientific evidence for global climate change and a policy proposal to mitigate future climate change. Prior to reading the text, participants’ completed measures of their political affiliation to render their group memberships salient. They (...) were randomly assigned to one of four source conditions: ingroup minority; ingroup majority; outgroup minority; or outgroup minority. Participants completed pre- and post-measures of attitudes and the plausibility of climate change. Pretest scores revealed that global climate change attitudes were held less strongly by Republicans than Democrats. In line with expectations, participants’ subjective attitudes were more influenced by ingroup sources, and larger persuasive effects were obtained for ingroup minorities. For the plausibility of climate change, participants were more persuaded by an outgroup source, and larger effects were evident for outgroup majorities. Results were precisely predicted by the CCM. Their implications for science communication were discussed. (shrink)

Italian Abstract: Per giustificare l’autorità e la validità della scienza economica, gli economisti sono spesso ricorsi all’argomento che le leggi e i postulati di questo sapere sono verità scientifiche, nel senso di verità empiriche, logiche o autoevidenti. Tuttavia, questo discorso, in quanto discorso legittimante o discorso sull 'importanza' della scienza economica, sembra contraddire una siffatta argomentazione giacché non statuisce né verità empiriche né verità logiche, e tanto meno verità autoevidenti. A quale tipo di verità, allora, fa riferimento la predica della (...) scienza economica? Perché la scienza economica, in quanto sapere, viene predicata come una ‘legge’ a cui bisognerebbe obbedire? Esiste un legame storico e teoretico tra la struttura giuridico-politica della legittimità e la predica, la retorica e/o il discorso della scienza economia nella sfera pubblica? In che senso un sapere è un 'istituzione'? -/- In questo articolo esamino il ‘caso Einaudi’ come exemplum dei discorsi sulla scienza economica fatti dagli economisti nella sfera pubblica. Analizzando la predicazione e la riflessione epistemologica di Einaudi e confrontandola con quella di Pareto, Robbins, Weber e Schumpeter, vedremo come sullo sfondo di note dicotomie quali positivo/normativo, fatti/valori, essere/dover essere, analisi/visione, si stagli la contrapposizione epistemologico-antropologica tra Ragione e passioni, spesso assimilata a un’altra perdurante antitesi: Ragione e fede. Muovendo dalla prospettiva dell’«antropologia dogmatica» di Pierre Legendre, e attraverso un rovesciamento solo apparentemente paradossale delle categorie giuridiche e teologiche presenti nel discorso einaudiano, cercherò di formulare una nozione di normatività della scienza economica, estendibile anche ad altri saperi, in vista di un superamento della (falsa) contrapposizione tra Ragione e passioni. -/- English Abstract: To legitimate the authority and the validity of the economic science, economists have often claimed that the laws and the postulates of this savoir are scientific truths, in the sense of empirical, logical or self-evident truths. However, this discourse, as a legitimating discourse, or as a discourse on the ‘significance’ of the economic science, seems to contradict such a claim since it does not assert either empirical, logical or self-evident truths. To what type of truth, then, does the preaching of the economic science refer? Why is the economic science, as a savoir, preached as a ‘law’ to which one should obey? Is there an historical and theoretical nexus between the legal-political structure of the legitimacy and the preaching, rhetoric or discourse of the economic science? What does it mean that a savoir is an ‘institution’? -/- In this article I examine the ‘Einaudi case’ as an exemplum of the discourses on the economic science done by economists in the public sphere. Analysing Einaudi’s preaching and epistemological speculation and comparing it with that of Pareto, Robbins, Weber and Schumpeter, I will show how from the background of well known dichotomies – such as positive/normative, fact/values, to be/ought to be, analysis/vision – the epistemological-anthropological opposition between Reason and passions emerges. This opposition is often assimilated to another long-lasting antithesis: that between Reason and faith. Moving from the perspective of Pierre Legendre’s «dogmatic anthropology», and by an apparently paradoxical reversal of the juridical and theological concepts of Einaudi’s discourse, I will try to formulate a notion of normativity of economic science, which is also applicable to other sciences, in view of an overcoming of the (false) opposition between Reason and passions. (shrink)

Si tratta di una raccolta di saggi scritti tra il '65 e il '69 e pubblicati una prima volta nel 1971. Rivisti e parzialmente aggiornati vengono riproposti con la vecchia introduzione nella quale l'autore polemizza con le critiche della ragione scientifica che caratterizzarono alcuni aspetti della cultura del '68. Il primo saggio è dedicato al declino della astrologia all'inizio dell'età moderna; sottolineando il divario tra la concezione magica che caratterizza la visione astrologica del mondo e le posizione di quella che (...) sarebbe diventata la scienza, Paolo Rossi rivaluta gli scritti contro l'astrologia di Pico della Mirandola. Dopo un breve scritto su Leonardo, l'autore analizza i rapporti tra pensiero baconiano e cristianesimo. Segue un saggio che riesamina alcuni problemi di interpretazione delle lettere di Galileo a Piero Dini e a Cristina di Lorena. Nei capitoli successivi vengono affrontate varie questioni quali, il passaggio dalla concezione aristotelica a quella moderna, il peso di alcune ipotesi astronomiche e in particolare la crisi dell'antropocentrismo. Gli ultimi due capitoli dedicati a dispute di linguistica e di geologia sono particolarmente interessanti; infatti queste due discipline occupano una posizione anomala nella cultura del seicento. Se a quel tempo esistevano matematici, astronomi, medici, non si può certo parlare di linguisti o geologi propriamente detti, questo fatto rende particolarmente difficile e interessante ricostruire lo sviluppo di concetti appartenenti a branche della scienza che non erano ancora consce della loro autonomia. (shrink)

In my paper, I set The Language Animal against a broader picture of Taylor’s intellectual trajectory. Sources of the Self (1989) left three major questions open in its wake: (a) the viability of religious moral sources in a ‘secular’ age; (b) the compatibility between a robust moral realism and a genealogical account of modern identity; (c) the meaning and destiny of the so-called ‘linguistic turn’. This is the framing topic of his last book. Although Taylor’s variety of hermeneutics is unquestionably (...) a product of the linguistic turn, he has operated with a broad notion of the linguistic capacity from the start. Language is, for him, a shared activity and the acknowledgment of its animal embeddedness functions in his work as an antidote against any too idealized a view of the kind of creatures that humans are. In his earlier writings, however, a structural tension lurked below the surface between a Gadamerian notion of Sprache and a more phenomenological, Merleau-Pontyan, embodied outlook that was less modeled on articulate speech. My claim is that his new book marks a shift from a more speech-oriented to a more body-oriented understanding of language. (shrink)